20 March 02026: Celebrity Deathwatch--This Is Only An Exhibition,
Not A Competition
...so please, no wagering.
Chuck Norris: 14 emails.
As people pull out their favorite jokes about CN from the 02000s
I'net, so too shall I:
Chuck Norris doesn't need a
spell-checker. When Chuck Norris misspells a word, the
dictionary changes.
RIP, World Blackbelt League (which I kind of
like because it had a team in the Dominican Republic and one
nicknamed the "Superstars") co-founder. We'll see if the
obits mention that.
M-->
17 March 02026 (Happy Evacuation Day!):
Irish Adjacency One of the things I learned over spring break in Las
Vegas is that my saturation level for traditional (or
traditional-adjacent) Irish music is low. Way too much
fiddling for my tastes.
With that realized, it is a pleasant surprise to hear Thin Lizzy
being played on the radio today as an example of an Irish band.
7 February 20026: All Clear, And Hoping
You Are The Same I have confirmed that my name is not included in what
fraction of the Epstein files has been released to the public.
I doubt rather strongly that my name has been redacted, also.
Time to carry on.
M-->
30 January 02026 (Happy birthday
tomorrow!): A Little-Known Conundrum
Here in the home of The
Markives, we are pondering a philosophical question
that few minds have considered*:
If a college closes down on Friday due to
the weather, will its library be open on Saturday?
This applies most prominently to Laurie's employer. Even
though my employer called off all classes last Friday, whether
or not the library was open the next day didn't really affect
me. Since Laurie is scheduled to work on Saturdays
throughout the spring semester, this is of more than casual
interest to her.
One could see arguments both ways.
However, since the campus was not closed today due to the
weather being ever-so-slightly more clement, we have missed our
latest chance to get an answer to this
whatever-the-antonym-of-"vital"-is question.
Of course, winter is far from done with us yet, so we might get
more chances to resolve this.
M-->
*--With good reason, I hasten to add.
23 January 02026: Updates From A Secure
Warm Location
My employer has shut down all non-essential
services, in which category we include in-person classes, today
due to the cold. Time for some semi-random observations.
1. I've heard entirely too much recently about the Mercator
projection. What's vaguely annoying there is that much of
the pontificating overlooks the very real benefits to navigation
that Mercator provides/provided.
2. Most of us do not have a blood clot in our lungs. I
count myself among that group, and I do so with hard evidence to
that effect in the form of 2 CT scans I underwent last week.
Two.
Not "one for each lung". No, no--evidently the second one
was necessary* because the first one wasn't readable.
Which is not what I was told in the 830 AM phone call that said
"Get to the ER right now, and expect to be admitted."
My confidence in the medical profession--as a whole, not in any
individual or group of individuals--took a small hit that day.
M-->
*--Probably necessary, truth be known. There's a little
uncertainty in my mind about what might have happened.
5 January 02026: Into The Second Quarter
of the 21st Century (When Did That Happen?)
As the new year dawns, I look forward to Congress doing
nothing useful about, well, anything currently plaguing the
country, including but not limited to international affairs.
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