Four Colly Birds?
The fourth day’s gift is often stated as four “calling” birds but originally was four “colly” birds, this being another word for a blackbird. The fifth day’s gift of gold rings refers not to jewelry but to ring-necked birds such as the ring-necked pheasant or to “five goldspinks” — a goldspink being an old name for a Goldfinch. (Wikipedia)
Birds make great gifts!
Women & Vocal Fry
Vocal Fry Creeping Into U.S. Speech (ScienceNOW)
A curious vocal pattern has crept into the speech of young adult women who speak American English: low, creaky vibrations, also called vocal fry. Pop singers, such as Britney Spears, slip vocal fry into their music as a way to reach low notes and add style. Now, a new study of young women in New York state shows that the same guttural vibration—once considered a speech disorder—has become a language fad.
Of course, if you listen to NPR you’ve been hearing this for years, which drives me nuts for the worst offenders (I’m looking your way, every female This American Life reporter). And of course, Liz Phair was doing it before Britney even released an album:
Liz Phair - Go On Ahead (sample)
Walking is the Best Exercise
Well, as a “sedentary person” who is finally (now that the snow and cold weather is gone) getting out and walking again, I was happy to read What’s the Best Exercise? (NY Times):
[I]n general, a sedentary person’s risk of dying prematurely from any cause plummeted by nearly 20 percent if he or she began brisk walking (or the equivalent) for 30 minutes five times a week. If he or she tripled that amount, for instance, to 90 minutes of exercise four or five times a week, his or her risk of premature death dropped by only another 4 percent… “I personally think that brisk walking is far and away the single best exercise,” said Michael Joyner, M.D.
Related: good luck to all the Boston Marathoners tomorrow! I don’t have the knees (among many other things) for that kind of run, but I will enjoy my 30-minute walk…definitely not in the same league distance-wise, but at least it might keep me alive a bit longer.
Email Bookmarklet
I use the Share on Facebook bookmarklet a lot to share links with people, not because I love Facebook but because it’s a lot easier than copying the link, switching to email, creating a new email, pasting the link, and typing the page title. But a friend suggested that it might not be be best way to share pages because some companies block facebook.com, and he finds it somewhat annoying (which I understand…and agree with). Not to mention not all my friends are on Facebook, and sometimes the Facebook bookmarklet doesn’t attach the link.
So, after about 10 seconds of searching I found an article (5 Recommended Bookmarklets To Simplify Tedious Tasks) that included a similar bookmarklet for email. Just drag this link to your bookmarks bar — Email this — and it’ll automatically open a new mail message with the page name in the subject and the URL in the message.
And We’re Back!
I hastily set up kieranchapman.net back in 2000 in part to help my job search, and since then I have done one minor design update. After 11 years of pretty much the same design, an update to my site was long overdue. I’ve been thinking about it for years but never got around to it because I always had plans to do something special with this site.
As it turns out, great was the enemy of good and I never got around to it. Until now. I’ve moved the blog off of Blogger (forgive any broken links and images) and flat PHP files and should be able to update things much more easily now. I also skipped importing pre-2004 blog posts since it would require more work than it was worth. (Trust me: you’re not missing anything.) So now after three months of silence, I can continue my ramblings about nothing.
Ugly URLs, Hand Models, and the Costanzas
Roger Ebert has a pretty active Twitter account with often interesting links. However, I noticed that links to his personal Sun Times blog sometimes have ugly or bizarre URLs. This one was especially bad, with the page being not-quite-HTML-code for four nonbreaking spaces (emphasis mine, obviously):
blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/strange-3/nbsp-nbsp-nbsp-nbsp-my.html
I wasn’t sure what point I was going to make with this, other than it’s bad SEO practice to have poorly-named URLs … not to mention it’s almost impossible to tell anybody that link short of of copying and pasting. So let me switch gears to what’s actually on that page:
It’s an interview with a hand model — and she’s pretty cocky about them (almost comically so) — whose hands have never seen the light of day for 15 years. She doesn’t do anything with her hands — no cooking, cleaning, sports, gardening … not even opening windows — and she wears gloves everywhere she goes. It kind of blew my mind; check it out at Ebert’s ugly-URL page.
And of course, that interview only reminds me of George Costanza’s similar modeling career.
Fixie Tricks
All those kids doing wheelies & skids on fixed-gear bikes need to learn better tricks. Come on, “Quicksilver” was almost 25 years ago!
Sitting Will Kill You
So I’m sitting here — sitting! — reading kottke.org and he points to this:
Phys Ed: The Men Who Stare at Screens
“Men who spent more than 23 hours a week sitting had a 64 percent greater chance of dying from heart disease than those who sat for 11 hours a week or less. What was unexpected was that many of the men who sat long hours and developed heart problems also exercised. Quite a few of them said they did so regularly and led active lifestyles. The men worked out, then sat in cars and in front of televisions for hours, and their risk of heart disease soared, despite the exercise. Their workouts did not counteract the ill effects of sitting.”
I guess Homer was right:
First Time at Fenway
While cleaning my office today I came across an old photo my uncle took when he brought my brother and me to our first game at Fenway Park. On August 14, 1983 the Sox beat the Royals 4-3 in the first game of a doubleheader.
I don’t have any specific memories of the trip to Boston or the game itself. But what I still remember to this day is walking through the tunnel to our seats: The greenest-green field and the impossibly white uniforms (of the Red Sox, not the Royals’ blue pajamas) were amazing for me to see, and still is today.
The photo shows Brian and me taking it all in before the game started. Thanks again, Rick!
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