mmm, procrastinatey

[robling_t]

As August wraps up, we find that Media Consumption continues at the usual blistering clip, logging 12 books and 4 films for the month and bringing the YTD total up to 103 and 40 respectively, which is 21 books down from this-time-last-year but 10 films up, so possibly we're seeing a tradeoff in progress. Or it could be that the dual strains of editing the knitting-guild newsletter and Learning New Things are prompting more Avoidant TV-Watching Behavior, whichever. I'd like to mention here that book #103, Soon I will Be Invincible, is exactly as loopily brilliant in treating its off-the-wall premise with utter conviction as everyone's been saying it is, and you ought to go log it onto your own tallies. You are all keeping tallies, aren't you...?

• New Thing Learned for 25 August: The purple-skinned pepper was green on the inside, viz:
  
  [Source: our garden.]
  
  
• New Thing Learned for 26 August: "Otec" and "Matka" are the Czech for "Father" and "Mother", respectively. [Source: headstones, Bohemian National cemetery.]
  
  
• New Thing Learned for 27 August: Molotov cocktails are more effective if you add a little dishsoap to the petrol, say the Martha Stewarts of the anarchist set. Obviously a high don't-try-this-at-home factor on this one, but I'll file it away against the day of the zombiepocalypse... [Source: the Execution Channel, Ken MacLeod.]
  
  
• New Thing Learned for 28 August: In a sign of global warming in action, ideal conditions for viticulture are creeping farther north every year. Mmm, love those Anchorage reds. [Source: Salon.com.]
  
  
• New Thing Learned for 29 August: During the Cold War, there may well have been nuclear-armed Nike anti-aircraft missiles on a site at Belmont harbor. I mean, Jesus, people. [Source: "Chicago Tonight".]
  
  
• New Thing Learned for 30 August: The word "slogan" comes from the Gaelic for "battle-cry". I seem to have taken a disconcertingly martial turn with these last few entries, haven't I. [Source: Wikipedia.]
  
  
• New Thing Learned for 31 August: Beginning with the 1928 Amsterdam games, Coca-Cola has been the longest-continuously-serving advertising sponsor of the Olympic Games. Hey, at least it wasn't some annoying beer bimbos. [Source: "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?".]

....Dammit, the fairies haven't snuck in and done the newsletter for me this month either. Oh, well, best get on that, then. I'll need some monkeys and some glue...