dsandler.org/wp

NON PRECIPITATION STATEMENT
URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE KANSAS CITY-PLEASANT HILL MO
1055 AM CST WED DEC 17 2003

.UNUSUALLY HOT WEATHER HAS ENTERED THE REGION FOR DECEMBER...AS THE
EARTH HAS LEFT ITS ORBIT AND IS HURLING TOWARD THE SUN.

It was only on the NOAA page for a short period of time, but dolecki caught
it.

Comfy pens, from my
new guilty Web pleasure, ask.metafilter.com. Very high
traffic, but very low noise; you really need to slurp the RSS feed to keep up with
it. (This particular thread links back to some recent MetaFilter front-page threads,
including “Moleskine-ing”
and “Fountain Pen
Mania”.)

“Should shut down the restaurant and just serve the view.”
Outtakes from the Zagat guide.

Seriously, I thought E was nuts, telling me to
try writing tricky prose in longhand before hitting the computer.

Damn if she wasn’t right (as usual). On the computer, ideas fly out
of my brain as fast as I can come up with them — which is
very much faster than I can sort through and focus
them. On the page, however, writing takes time. I can actually
think ahead a little, and plan my next argument. Also, the page is not
“blessed” with the power of destructive deletion; as I make edits, the
old versions are all there for me to see, informing each new attempt,
giving context to the evolution of the text. The computer,
on the other hand, makes it all too easy to write yourself around in
circles when you can delete words as fast as you can type them.

Also, scribbling things down on dead trees gives me an excuse to use my nice pens,
which in turn makes the
process of writing more fun and helps me stay focused on the words.

News: Rice
announces David Leebron as its 7th president.

I hate the Hummer H2. I’m not the only one: FUH2!.com.

Hey, did I ever tell you I entered the Netscape Throbber contest? I got a t-shirt, which I
wore my freshman year at Rice. (I wore it earnestly once or twice, and
after that, only on laundry days. I did eventually learn a sense of
shame!)