— Strictly Speaking

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Please be advised: I am the friend of the stomach!

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My method of celebrating Pi Day (March 14) did not involve pizza (“pizza pie” as it is sometimes known in this area), but if it had I could have deployed the Second Pizza Theorem to calculate how much I was eating.

A friend points out that since I’ll be living in Europe this summer, I will also be able to officially celebrate Pi Approximation Day with the correct date format.

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Some interesting facts I learned this evening from the program (yes, program!) I got at the Loew’s Jersey theater where I saw The Man with the Golden Gun:

Roger Moore was the oldest starting Bond; his did his first film in the franchise, Live and Let Die, when he was 45 (he’s actually older than Sean Connery).

Moore suffers from hoplophobia, which is the fear of weapons.  It would perhaps be overkill to point out that this doesn’t seem like a good feature in someone who plays James Bond regularly.

Moore is the longest serving Bond actor to date; his Fleming franchise films span twelve years.

Artist's Impression of Gun Assembly

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These are some of the questions I had to consider when applying for a UK visa:

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On a road trip

Originally uploaded by thatgirl

I’m currently in Wyoming, and although gas prices are hitting record highs, we’re really glad we drove instead of flying. This country is so wide and full of sky and space.

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So we’re leaving on a crazy road trip this weekend, which involves the states above, plus some others on the way back.  The initial goal is the 36th annual meeting of the Society for Exact Philosophy (hah hah, yes, Grice, is there any “inexact philosophy”, implicature, etc.) and then who knows.  Yellowstone, visiting our friend Melissa (formerly of Merce Cunningham and lately of Headwaters Dance Company) in Montana.  Then maybe a Cary Grant-esque jaunt through Mt. Rushmore, and across the UP (where perhaps we’ll see our “wife at the K-Mart“), down to the family, and then back home.

Apparently there are no escalators in Wyoming.  We shall investigate.  Stay tuned, or whatever.

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Saw this when installing from some old Adobe media today:

meta.png

But who will police the police? Or, “Police police police police police police police.”  See also: buffalo.

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The amazing thing about the NYTimes is that you can, in one day, read this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/opinion/16landsburg.html

“All economists know that when American jobs are outsourced, Americans as a group are net winners.”

 

and also read this article: 

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/us/16ohio.html

“Middle-aged men moving in with parents, wives taking two jobs, veteran workers taking overnight shifts at half their former pay, families moving West — these are signs of the turmoil and stresses emerging in the little towns and backwoods mobile homes of southeast Ohio, where dozens of factories and several coal mines have closed over the last decade, and small businesses are giving way to big-box retailers and fast-food outlets.”



Yay for “free” trade.

 

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Don’t just take my word for it — the trustworthy Robert Sietsema of the Village Voice says so:

“Little India has bloomed like a rosewater lassi, so that now the thoroughfare and surrounding streets form a South Asian business district more impressive than either Jackson Heights or Iselin, New Jersey.”

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From the New York Times

The Federal Aviation Administration will also create a ”czar” for New York City air travel, hoping to solve some of the confusion and headaches with a new position. 

Can we please put a moratorium on non-Czar related uses of the word czar?  Whence this trend of calling U.S. government officials “czars”?  Although now that I think about it, the reign of the Bush dynasty in this country does have some parallels to the Tsardom of Russia, e.g. (from the wikipedia article): “Ivan IV was succeeded by his son Fedor, who was mentally deficient.”

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