Round Up

The word on my Forgotten English calendar is shumpgullion. A shumpgullion is a glutton.

I finally got around to canceling our telephone book delivery. Every year I say I'm going to cancel it, and then I forget. For awhile I was donating them to libraries, but then some of the libraries stopped wanting them. Here is the number for the Verizon Directory Distribution Call Center-1-800-888-8448. They are open between the hours of 8-5 (EST) Monday through Friday.

I remember when I first heard about these unclaimed money sites like Missing Money.com. I went on a couple and put in my name and alas-there wasn't anything for me. Well, lo and behold I went back and checked again and there were funds for me from one of the states where I've lived. I just got the check the other day. There are quite a few of these sites, but here are a couple. Here and here. Now what is even stranger is I've just done another search and my name has popped up again. Like I said you might want to periodically check these sites.

The Library of Congress has a blog. They also have a kick-butt newspaper project.

I just finished reading The Element of Lavishness: Letters of Sylvia Townsend Warner and William Maxwell 1938-1978. To receive a letter written by either of these wonderful writers would have a been such a gift. These letters are full of beautiful, lucid descriptions as well as wit and charm. I think this would make a lovely audio book. They corresponded for 40 years so the reader also gets an historical glimpse of what's going on in the world. I could go on and on about these two. Here are some links to biographical information on Ms. Warner and Mr. Maxwell.

I've read epistolary collections before so I deceded to do a bit of research and see what else is out there. I found this handy-dandy Epistolary Bibliography and Bookstore. (I may have linked to this before-it looks very familiar)

Hark!!! I hear tell that Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog.

I was pretty amused by this-Cheddar Vision TV. If you enjoy watching paint dry, you will probably like watching cheese age.

If you are constantly hiding from the sun like me you might want to check the UV Index for your neck of the woods.

I must say that I haven't read any of these alternate history books that appear to be quite popular. You know the books-if this was like this and this happened then would this have been like this. Confused???? Uchronia- The Alternate History List may provide some clarification. Here's Wikipedia's definition of Uchronia.

I'm always looking for small, diverse towns where A. and I can retire. I don't think Jerome, Arizona is all that diverse, but it looks very cool. And before someone from Jerome gets ticked at me for saying there town is diverse and telling me that they have 1 black guy living there, get over yourself. I am always looking at demographics. I've already done "the only black folks living in a place thing" so I am trying to avoid that. Wikipedia indicates that Jerome has 0.30% black, 2.43% Native America and 91.79% white. If I'm really seriously investigating a place I would dig deeper in my research than just Wikipedia, but you get my drift.

Have a great weekend.

"One day our descendants will think it incredible that we paid so much attention to things like the amount of melanin in our skin or the shape of our eyes or our gender instead of the unique identities of each of us as complex human beings." Franklin Thomas