no sleep for you

Woke up about 0400 and couldn't get back to sleep, so I read for a while, had pizza for breakfast, and now that the coffee has taken effect, I have a little catching up to do.

Tom Maguire (among others) points and laughs at Mary Bucholtz, a UC Berkeley linguist who wastedspent the last 12 years researching the nature of nerds, somehow managing to avoid attending any SF conventions in the process or even crossing the campus to meet the archetypal nerds in the engineering school. Anyway, what inspires all the hilarity is Bucholtz' insistence that nerdiness is a reaction to the "dominant" whigger culture, an expression of "hyperwhiteness". This will no doubt come as a shock to all the black, Chinese, Hmong, Indian, Korean, Latino, Singaporean and Vietnamese nerds out there who thought they were just being good students with a preference for different literature genres. Once again I am reminded of Camille Paglia's comment that most feminist seem hell-bent on proving the old slur that women can neither think nor write - nor, apparently, do serious research. Fortunately, this study is likely to be taken seriously only by that dwindling tribe that still pays attention to what the New York Times has to say...(Instapundit)


On a less (bitterly) amusing but more instructive note, Rachel keys off a post by Our Girl in Chicago and offers a list of five fictional series.
( I'm going to take it in a slightly different direction )

no sleep for you

Woke up about 0400 and couldn't get back to sleep, so I read for a while, had pizza for breakfast, and now that the coffee has taken effect, I have a little catching up to do.

Tom Maguire (among others) points and laughs at Mary Bucholtz, a UC Berkeley linguist who wastedspent the last 12 years researching the nature of nerds, somehow managing to avoid attending any SF conventions in the process or even crossing the campus to meet the archetypal nerds in the engineering school. Anyway, what inspires all the hilarity is Bucholtz' insistence that nerdiness is a reaction to the "dominant" whigger culture, an expression of "hyperwhiteness". This will no doubt come as a shock to all the black, Chinese, Hmong, Indian, Korean, Latino, Singaporean and Vietnamese nerds out there who thought they were just being good students with a preference for different literature genres. Once again I am reminded of Camille Paglia's comment that most feminist seem hell-bent on proving the old slur that women can neither think nor write - nor, apparently, do serious research. Fortunately, this study is likely to be taken seriously only by that dwindling tribe that still pays attention to what the New York Times has to say...(Instapundit)


On a less (bitterly) amusing but more instructive note, Rachel keys off a post by Our Girl in Chicago and offers a list of five fictional series.
( I'm going to take it in a slightly different direction )

a brief note to SuperAmerica/Speedway management

Your rewards program would do a lot more to build loyalty if the in-store terminals ACTUALLY WORKED.

In other news, my podiatrist shot my toes full of novocaine, chopped out a few ounces of proudflesh and pus, and sent me home to spend the rest of the day in bed. All this while conversing happily about leeches, maggots, and other marvels of modern medicine. I'm going to miss Dr. Werkhoven, I am. Dude fucking rules.

a brief note to SuperAmerica/Speedway management

Your rewards program would do a lot more to build loyalty if the in-store terminals ACTUALLY WORKED.

In other news, my podiatrist shot my toes full of novocaine, chopped out a few ounces of proudflesh and pus, and sent me home to spend the rest of the day in bed. All this while conversing happily about leeches, maggots, and other marvels of modern medicine. I'm going to miss Dr. Werkhoven, I am. Dude fucking rules.