Translating my thoughts into words.
Yesterday we ran down to DC for my grandmother’s 90th, yes 9-0, birthday. She is healthy and going strong. Much of the clan was there, all of the Bradys and a number of the Hugels. Here she is standing on the right with her “little” sister. I think this picture of her flashing the sign is great and ought to be an internet sensation. Happy birthday Grandma!
Gangster Grandma & Great Aunt Dot
This story was first forwarded to me by my brother and can be found at Squaredpeg.com which is a blog about higher ed recruitment. This afternoon the Chronicle of Higher Ed has picked up the story. Here is the gist of the story:
Company Created Official-Looking ‘Class of 2013’ Facebook Groups for Hundreds of Colleges
Anyone can create a Facebook group and make it appear to be something it’s not.
Brad J. Ward reminded admissions officials about that simple fact on Thursday after examining hundreds of “Class of 2013” groups that have popped up on the popular social-networking site. Typically, students who plan to enroll at a particular college create such groups to start communicating with their future classmates. Some colleges establish the groups or encourage admitted students to do so.
But Mr. Ward, coordinator for electronic communication in Butler University’s admissions office, found that dozens of the 2013 Facebook groups had been created — or were being maintained — by the same handful of people. Who were they?
On his blog, SquaredPeg.com, Mr. Ward wrote early this morning that, with the help of other admissions officials, he had traced several of the names to College Prowler, a Pittsburgh company that publishes student-written guidebooks about colleges and universities.
These folks are doing this so that they can eventually promote and advertise their own products and potentially others. Those in the group can still control the content, but it is a distasteful development. I usually prefer to allow students to create their own virtual community and I don’t believe that Prowler has yet created a group for the SHC Class of 2013, but I went ahead and created an “official” group. Just search for “Schreyer Honors College, Penn State – Class of 2013″
Anyone else having “500″ errors when posting a new note? I click “publish” and receive the following note:
An internal server error has occured! [sic]
Please try again later.
Everything worked fine, it appears on the blog, etc. but I am not sent back to the Dashboard as per usual. This developed with my update to WP 2.7.
Ed Cook of Ralph the Sacred River has his Fifth Annual Ralphies. I have not done this every year, but this year I can indeed offer my top picks for the categories required for the Ralphy.
BEST MOVIE: Like Ed and unlike the rest of humanity I have not seen The Dark Knight so I cannot make that obvious pick, but we have seen a few new movies this year. I like Wall•E but it wasn’t great, certainly not the best that Pixar can do. On the other hand, Bolt was great! So it gets my pick. See my review here.
BEST RECORD: Expanded, of course, to include CDs and downloads. I have been getting back into jazz lately and am rummaging in older artists. I bought Miles Davis Kind of Blue and I like it very much. That is my pick for 2008. A tip, if you have not already discovered this, instead of using iTunes, the dominant online choice for music, check out Amazon. Not only is their music DRM free at a higher bit rate, but it is also 10¢ per song cheaper (on average). They also have daily and weekly specials, I got 10,000 Maniacs In My Tribe the entire album for $1.99 last week. That’s pretty good! Amazon Music.
BEST BOOK (FICTION): I have been reading from my BlackBerry which means I am either reading out of print works, those available for download, or those distributed freely. An author I discovered whose works are available with all of the above is Cory Doctorow. He is a tech writer and founder of Boing Boing. I mentioned (too brief to call them reviews) Doctorow’s Little Brother, a juvenile title, and Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom this past year. I give the nod to the latter as my pick for 2008. It is a great sci-fi/future novel with, like all of Doctorow’s stuff, a good bit of social commentary.
BOOK BOOK (NONFICTION): This one is always harder for me because I am either reading administrative type works (leadership, etc.) that I usually don’t find very engaging or academic works specific to my field (and lately not too many of those either). This year, however, I have been the happy recipient of two works by Philip Jenkins. That is to say, Philip wrote them and gave them to me, a perk of having this great scholar and witty gentleman as a colleague and fellow parishioner. His latest, The Lost History of Christianity is shaping up to be very good, so that is my recommendation. The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia–and How It Died
I should also mention a work I look forward to reading over break written by my old college friend Andy Crouch, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling
BEST TV SHOW: Without a doubt it has to be Chuck! We watched the first episode last year and never had time to see the rest of the series (it comes on at 8pm on Mondays). In the past year, however, Hulu has been created, allowing me to watch old episodes in HD! So, while the first season is no longer up, but each week we are able to watch the latest episode. The show is about a smart guy who works at “Buy More” as part of the “nerd herd” and ends up being an unlikely secret agent. I will simply add that it is just the right amount of camp/humor and drama to make it a weekly highlight for us.
UPDATE: Mark Goodacre’s list reminds me of (duh!) Doctor Who. It is of course one of my all time favorite shows and I am a big fan of Tennant. I think my lapse in memory has to be that I only get to watch it in a very haphazard manner. I no longer have a DVR and there is no easy online access for those of us outside of the UK. (I should also add that, like Mark and Viola, my wife and I discovered Gavin and Stacey this year on BBC America. Hmm. no wonder I think Mark is such a good guy! He has great taste.) So, if you all do not mind, please allow me to add a strong runner up: Doctor Who.
Those are my picks, I look forward to reading yours!
From the Telegraph:
Toujours Tingo, a book by Adam Jacot de Boinod, lists weird words and bizarre phrases from around the world. The “tingo” of its title is an Easter Island word, meaning to borrow objects from a friend’s house one by one until there are none left.
Some of my favorite words exceprted in that story:
Gwarlingo: Welsh description of the sound of a grandfather clock before it strikes.
Pisan zapra: Malay for the time needed to eat a banana.
Layogenic: Filipino for someone good-looking from afar but ugly up close.
Mouton enragé : French for someone calm who loses their temper – literally, “an enraged sheep”.
Yupienalle: Swedish for a mobile phone – literally, “yuppie teddy” like a security blanket.
Sjostygg: Norwegian for someone so ugly the tide refuses to come in if they stand on the shore.
Sadly, it appears that this book is not yet available in the US but you can get it via Amazon.co.uk. Looks like a good present to me!
