I found an interesting post about 'Ebonics' and linguistics, on Dean's World, via Anil Dash:

"The world is full of non-standard languages. French, German, English, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and every other major language has related variants which are looked down upon by the dominant culture as "stupid" or "ungrammatical" or "illiterate." But if they are carefully studied it usually comes to be found that they are not stupid or ungrammatical, they simply follow a set of rules different from the dominant tongue."

In a related vein, check out Languagehat, if you're at all interested in linguistics.

I'm too tired to explain why Yoko Ono is important in music history right now, for my friend Wes. So, I'll do it later. I'll just say I find it sad that the woman is so reviled, when really, all she really is, is a widow.

This is so funny. You have to read it. "If I had just married a supermodel, I would have protected her from the rain. Or the panic caused thereby." via Monkeyfilter

I saw Mike off to the airport yesterday, after a nice spot of tea with his sister and a nice lunch at J.D. China. It's sad to see him go again, but it brings a warm spot in my heart to know that he's right where he needs to be right now, even if it's very far from an awful lot of his friends and family. What's really cool, is that Kara and Philip had their baby, so he got to see her before he left.

And of course, congrats to Kara and Philip. Valarie is so super cute.

In other news, if you never saw Garden State, you're a fool. Go rent it. And then listen to the soundtrack. The songs by the Shins are very cool, in particular.

I took Max (Maximilian Constantine the Destroyer), our new cat, in to get fixed today. He's pissed off, but seems to be bearing the loss of his testicles rather well, all things considered. To be honest, I don't think he's noticed it yet.

While Mike was here, we rediscovered Birth of the Federation. It's this old game that's essentially a Masters of Orion II clone in Star Trek drag. It's got it's flaws, but there's something immeasurably cool about conquering the galaxy as the Romulans, or the Klingons. Great fun for geeks.

My vacation is going great. Lots of sleep. Working on my D&D campaign. Going to do some circuit bending tomorrow. Saturday and Sunday afternoons are for my record collection.

The other day, I was playing Halflife and listening to Huge Chrome Cylinder Box Unfolding by Venetian Snares. Mike thought I was crazy. Seriously, if you find some Aphex Twin or Autechre crazy and frenetic, Venetian Snares (whose real name seems to be Aaron Funk) will blow your frickin' mind.

Tomorrow is my last day of work before my little vacation. I'm very much looking forward to doing some projects, like finishing a few tracks, and sending them off to some small record labels. Also, finishing some circuit bending projects. Reorganizing my record collection.

My wife (my wonderful wonderful wife) got me 4! CDs from Saul Stokes. They really are amazing. They make me wish I still had a radio show on KXUA, so I could force people to listen to him. More people should know about Saul.

Oh yeah, and if you haven't seen this short flash film about Scrabble, watch it.

Oh yeah, and even though I really hate what those idiots at Paramount have done to Star Trek, apparently a new episode of Enterprise will be tackling the forehead issue vis a vis the Klingons.