Sunday, August 21, 2005

The Second in an Occasional Series

First of all, thanks to Amba for her kind words.

More bookmark cleaning:

If you don't look at anything else from this post, make sure to examine The Picture of Everything by Howard Hallis.

Have you ever wanted to draw like M.C. Escher? (Or at least tessellate like him?)

Muppet Central has a bunch of cool stuff. So does The Kermitage.

I have always loved crime and mystery novels. Here's A Guide to Classic Mystery and Detection.

Here's an interesting article I found a few years ago when I was trying to explain to a couple of friends of mine that ritual abuse of children by Satan worshippers is not exactly as widespread a phenomenon as they were concerned it might be.

Here's a 2004 article from the Telegraph on the origins of certain words and phrases. Excerpt:

Something that is the "bee's knees" is stylish and the height of excellence. It is sometimes explained as being from an Italian-American way of saying "business". I've also heard it argued that it is properly "Bs and Es", an abbreviation for "be-alls and end-alls". Both are wrong. "Bee's knees" is actually one of a set of nonsense catchphrases from 1920s America, the period of the flappers. You might at that time have heard such curious concoctions as "cat's miaow", "elephant's adenoids", "tiger's spots", "bullfrog's beard", "elephant's instep", "caterpillar's kimono", "turtle's neck", "duck's quack", "gnat's elbows", "monkey's eyebrows", "oyster's earrings", "snake's hips", "kipper's knickers", "elephant's manicure", "clam's garter", "eel's ankle", "leopard's stripes", "tadpole's teddies", "sardine's whiskers", "pig's wings", "bullfrog's beard", "canary's tusks", "cuckoo's chin" and "butterfly's book".

Lots of essays on politics and philosophy. The heading says "conservative" but, for my leftish friends, please don't let that dissuade you. Tocqueville, Mill, Burke, Hazlitt, Emerson, et al. rather than Coulter, Hannity, O'Reilly, et al.

PC World Magazine's 50 tips to kill the clutter on your puter.

You'll either think this is funny or you won't. If the phrase "Han shot first" means anything to you, you'll be more likely to be amused.

And last but not least, Guess the Dictator and/or Sitcom Character. I was only able to stump it with Byelorussian President Alexander Lukashenko.

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