Realm of the Wombat

Volgraf has come across some good words lately. Submitted for your approval is ablate:

verb (transitive)
To remove by erosion, melting, evaporation, or vaporization.
Medicine. To remove especially by cutting

Jim Dandy tipped me off to this one, and it’s impressive. You’re welcome to place a donation in the box on the hood to further improve it. There’s a lot of detail with beads on the bumpers and around the windows.

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Beaudry and I saw a couple pairs of shoes draped over the power lines while eating lunch last week. While we wondered what the significance was, we agreed that it looked funny. I asked Andy about it yesterday, and he didn’t know either, so I googled it. It turns out that nobody knows definitively, or at least there isn’t just one reason. These sites have collected some suggestions:

The Secret Language of Sneakers

Article from straightdope.com

I listened to NPR for a little while this morning and they had a conversation with someone from a British heritage committee in London. They’re planning a series of medieval style tournaments with archery, jousting, and the like. This will be the first time these competitions occur in 500 years. After the interview, the musical interlude was a song from Monty Python and the Holy Grail:

Bravely bold Sir Robin rode forth from Camelot.
He was not afraid to die, O brave Sir Robin.
He was not at all afraid to be killed in nasty ways,
Brave, brave, brave, brave Sir Robin!

He was not in the least bit scared to be mashed into a pulp,
Or to have his eyes gouged out and his elbows broken,
To have his kneecaps split and his body burned away
And his limbs all hacked and mangled, brave Sir Robin!

I found it hilarious that NPR chose to interview this guy from London, then mock him with this satirical tune.

In other news, the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament ended today.

So Jim Dandy and I were walking through Sproul Plaza today on the campus of the University of California, when two guys flashing a handful of money asked us if we wanted to make a dollar. All we had to do was let them take pictures of our faces. They are conducting a study on how well people remember faces when shown for just a few seconds. So we did our part and walked away each a dollar richer. However, the study was put to the test about 45 minutes later when we walked back through Sproul and the same guys flagged us down to have our pictures taken for a dollar. Beaudry and I glanced at each other, shrugged, and said, “Sure, why not?” I feel like I should tell them not to spend much more time on their study. We got their answer right there.

It used to be that people would forget the address for the ol’ Realm of the Wombat. So they would google it. The problem was that it wouldn’t come up. Not on the first page. Or the second page. Not at all. With the new address, you’d think I’d be number one. Nope. But I’m fourth, so it’s an improvement. If you put it in quotes, I’m still #4, but the three links ahead of me refer to the Realm, so that’s good. I’m out there people, contributing to the internets in a big way.

Google Search: realm of the wombat

This is just a fun book to read. It’s smart, with a good blend of action and dialog, and a quick read. I read this book once before after picking it up from the Barnes & Noble staff recommendations section, and now I’m reading Orwell’s 1984 as a comparison to Jennifer Govt.’s business-centric society. I’m not too far into it, but already there are strong parallels.

Ironically enough, a scene from Jennifer Government took place in real life recently. Early in the book, Nike intentionally limits the number of shoes produced in order to generate demand. The demand is high enough to drive the price skyward and people to mug owners to steal the footwear, further creating interest in the items. So when a local store is rumored to have a number of the shoes, a throng of rabid customers surrounds the Nike store, leading to mayhem. Just such a scene broke out in New York last week [Story from NY Post]. For more business satire, I suggest Max Barry’s other book Syrup also.

My first experience off of the North American continent was to London in March of 2004. It’s actually a good story of how I planned this trip.

I was talking to Odie in February and he mentioned that he was going to London with Mike and Chris to visit Jack. Usually I’m invited to these sorts of events, but have to politely decline due to my (a) restricted amount of vacation and (b) restricted amount of funds. But this time, the trip was planned with no mention to me, which made me determined to go. So I rushed my passport application, and my parents gave me a very nice birthday present in the form of a plane ticket from SFO to LHR.

So I packed my things and crossed the Atlantic to hang out with my brothers from Keough Hall. You might think we’d take it easy after arriving to get our wits together, but no, the adventure began in full force on Day 1…

Incidentally, I do know that my elbow is wet in the picture above, but no I don’t know how it got that way.
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I’ve been a bit lax about adding pictures to the site in recent months. I’ll start to rectify that now.

The day started with Odie and I driving to Bolinas to go to church there. It was a neat little place with an Irish priest filling in for the regular Irish priest. Maybe 30 people were there. At the end of mass, one of the parishioners told a story he heard from his son in Iraq. A convoy of trucks and tanks was moving through an Iraqi town, but in the middle of the road sat a young girl. If she didn’t move, the convoy would have to divert its path costing valuable time. However, one of the soldiers recognized the toy the girl held as one the army had distributed to the local children. As he approached her, she smiled at him, and he prepared to ask her to move out of the way. But when he tried arrived, she revealed that she was sitting with her legs over a landmine to stop the transports from setting it off.

We left Bolinas and decided to go for a hike at Point Reyes. We opted for a trail with a wide variety of terrain. Below is where we were after about 45 minutes. Charlie is parked over the hill behind that central group of trees.

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