April already?

Sheez. March got really busy really quickly. I can't believe I'm so far behind on posting stuff already. So much for my goals for '08.

Anyway, in the interest of clearing some tabs off my browser, here are a bunch of things I've been meaning to post about for a while:

• Anu of A Word A Day went on a tear using quotes from Yahia Lababidi as the x-bonus quotes on the AWAD mailings recently. My interest was piqued - dude's got some great aphorisms (scroll all the way down the page on that last link to see some). So now I want to get his book, Signposts to Elsewhere, but it's currently unavailable on Amazon, and I can't even tell if it's currently in print. I guess I'll have to check the library sometime soon. But if you see one, please buy me a copy. :)


• I still need to listen to this Mike Doughty interview on NPR, from back when his new album came out in February. The album (Golden Delicious) is ok - the songs on it that are good are really good, but there are a few in the middle that feel like filler. Still, filler from MD beats what most people put out.


• R.I.P., Arthur C. Clarke. I always had more of a soft spot for Isaac Asimov, and I don't think I've ever read a Clarke novel, but the man did write some fantastic short stories. Here's an interesting NY Times piece about the influence of spirituality in Clarke's work.


• Rag Trade is for sale. The owner chick has posted a bunch of Myspace bulletins (that link might not work if you're not their friend on Myspace) advertising that fact. She says she wants like, $20,000 for the store, and that she's very motivated to sell because she's moving to an organic farm in Israel (!). If I were at all interested in owning a business, in particular a clothing store, I would 100% jump at this chance. Rag Trade's in a great location, across the street from Amendment XXI and a few blocks down from Churchill's and Sweat. I don't know if it's got a really huge clientele (it's got that weird super-expensive-trendy-upscale boutique thing going right alongside the odd-and-tacky thrift store stuff, which is not a combination just any old store can pull off), but they didn't seem to be hurting for business when I went there. They seem to get a lot of mentions in articles featuring trendy things to do in Miami, too. That kind of business is very personality-driven, tho', and I know I don't have the personality (nor the fashion sense) to be a success at it. But it's a great opportunity for some aspiring young businessperson, and I hope the store continues to do well after it's sold. I'll be really sad if it goes under, even if I don't get down that way to shop there very often.


• So after hearing the episode of Topical Currents (the crappy local talk show) on WLRN a while back about Peruvian food, I am very excited to try it! They had on the chef from Panorama, a swanky hotel restaurant in Coconut Grove. I'm sure the place is really expensive, but I still want to check it out because the food sounds ludicrously tasty. Maybe for a special occasion... (More info here.) Also, in Googling that place, I turned up quite a few other Peruvian places to try. This could become quite the gastronomic adventure!


• Speaking of food, I am also dying to try these: amazing black bean brownies. Don't they sound good?? Mmmm, brownies...


• Johnny hepped me to this post on Critical Miami about how now (or at least, relatively soon) is the time to move to South Florida and buy a house/condo here. It says pretty much exactly what I've been thinking - that this whole mess with the housing market means that people like us (first-time home buyers who are really super eager to buy a house) now have the rare opportunity of *perhaps* being able to find housing in this market that is *relatively* affordable! In that vein, I have been kind of trying to keep an eye on HousingTracker to see roughly what sellers are asking for around here. The whole idea of buying a house, and all the research and paperwork and massive amounts of stuff that go into it, plus the thought of having to move again soon, just makes my head spin. But I know that it might be a now-or-never kind of proposition, so I'm trying to prepare for it, at least a little bit.
  
  We already missed out on one great deal, tho'. The house at the end of our block had been on the market since before I moved here, and had originally listed for $625,000 - reduced to $550,000, and then to $499,000, which was still too much - but it's so pretty and seems (from the outside) to be so well-suited to our needs. I hadn't bothered contacting the real estate agent about it, because even the reduced price was still nearly twice what we can really afford to pay - but then I saw the "for sale" sign was down, so out of curiosity, I e-mailed her. She said there was an offer in on it, but asked if I had a backup offer. I told her no, since the last list price I saw was still way out of our price range. She wrote back and said, oh, that's the old price - the house is in pre-foreclosure and it's going for $274,000. D'OHH! Now every time I drive down the street, I look at that place and think, "Oh man, if only I'd contacted her sooner..." :( It's pretty depressing.


• Here's an amusing NYT article on bad baby names, and whether or not they really have any effect on a kid's personality as they grow up. Here's the bit I found personally relevant:

  “Today it’s all about individuality,” Mr. Sherrod said. “In the past, there was more of a sense of humor, probably because fathers had more say in the names.” He said the waning influence of fathers might explain why there are no longer so many names like Nice Deal, Butcher Baker, Lotta Beers and Good Bye, although some dads still try.

  This explains why, every time we talk about what we'd name a cat if we got one, Johnny suggests naming it Thor (note to my DH: never gonna happen). Thank goodness we're never having kids.


• Another article I found interesting due to my linguistic and biological nerdiness: Are Women Really Better at Language? It will be interesting to see if the results are reproducible with a larger sample population, and if, as the research team plans to examine next, girls' language processing advantages really do decrease with age. If they do, what might the biological factors be in boys' skills eventually reaching parity with girls'? Ok, I like to think about these things, anyway. I know, I'm a weirdo.

Gahh, this post is getting huge, and I am still nowhere near done posting all the pages I have up in tabs. I'm gonna call it quits for now, tho' - but here's one last item before I do. In honor of April Fool's Day (a "holiday" which I generally detest and refuse to acknowledge, btw), here's a video of Norfolk Academy's class of 1986 senior prank: filling The Pit with water on April Fool's Day.

I was in 2nd grade at the time, and I seriously thought those seniors had done the coolest thing ever. They were totally rockstars to me. I wish my grade had been able to come up with something even half as cool for a senior prank (I don't recall us actually doing a senior prank of any sort - how lame). Thanks for the trip down memory lane, Ned Lilly.

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