Friday, March 25, 2005

This is a really interesting site!

MLA Language Map

It's a map that shows national distribution of people speaking a wide variety of languages based on 2000 US Census data. The chloropleth geometry can be arranged by counties and by zip codes, making it useful both as an overview and in great detail.
This is hilarious! Take a look at this:

Le Bloggeur

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

I was talking with Hoosier Daddy and he showed me that his cell phone had Danse Macabre as a ring tone. Penguin in the City's phone plays the theme to Cheers.

This conversation has inspired me to look for a better ring tone for myself. All my phone does is play a canned version of a synthesized but traditional telephone ring with an unhealthy amount of re-verb. Does anyone out there have a good idea of what tune I should get?
I was just listening to a radio performance of The Case of the Noble Bachelor, a Sherlock Holmes mystery, while working and heard quite a surprising statement from someone in Victorian England.

After a major character storms out, Sherlock Holmes turns to an American man and says:

"Then I trust that you at least will honour me with your company," said Sherlock Holmes. "It is always a joy to meet an American, Mr. Moulton, for I am one of those who believe that the folly of a monarch and the blundering of a minister in far-gone years will not prevent our children from being some day citizens of the same world-wide country under a flag which shall be a quartering of the Union Jack with the Stars and Stripes."

What a world it would be if something like that had actually come to pass....

Monday, March 21, 2005

Yet another piece of evidence demonstrating the flaws in the whole Iraqi War debacle, though I'm not sure I had put Tony Blair quite in that light.

MI6 chief told PM: Americans ‘fixed’ case for war
The Sunday Times (UK)-- March 20, 2005