This is a test. This is just a test.

If this works, I just might be able to give up livejournal for good.

ETA:  I can post by e-mail.  Awesome.  Now if only I could simplify the process of combining and whittling down the categories & links. . . .

How to Pan a Play in 100 Words or Less: NYT’s Charles Isherwood Offers a Clinic

At the end of a recent review of the shows at the Humana Festival of New American Plays, recently ended at the Actors Theatre of Louisville, Charles Isherwood of the New York Times offers this devastating assessment of one selection:

I have been casting about for something charitable to say about “All Hail Hurricane Gordo,” a comedy by Carly Mensch (still a playwriting fellow at Juilliard) about two kooky, emotionally stunted brothers (Matthew Dellapina and Patrick James Lynch); one kooky, emotionally stunted young woman (Tracee Chimo); and a refreshingly well-adjusted white rabbit (name unavailable).

Perhaps I’ll just say that I loved the rabbit, and leave it at that.

Ouch.

Not long ago, Pittsburgh’s dreadful (but occasionally amusing) Trib PM newspaper ran a bit in its sports section titled “Fallback Careers: Shamed stars Clemens, Bonds receive unusual job offers”—both Clemens and Bonds are free agents this winter, and neither have any hope of playing in the majors again, but both have received offers. From minor league baseball teams, no less.

The Roger Clemens one wasn’t that interesting: The AA-level team in Huntsville, Alabama (a major NASA and rocketry-in-general site) has offered the pitcher occasionally known as “Rocket” the job of portraying the team’s mascot, also known as Rocket. Meh.

However, the Barry Bonds one is great, though it requires a bit more knowledge of his history.

Barry received an offer to work in media relations for the Single-A Lake Elsinore (Calif.) Storm.

The team sent out a tongue-in-cheek statement announcing the club has offered Barry “a cushy media relations position (with slight pay cut from $19.3 million), full use of baseball facilities and, of course, expanded cubicle space with barcalounger and plasma TV.”

“We just think the way he has handled the media with such grace over the years that he would be a perfect fit in our media relations department,” Storm general manager Chris Jones said.

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I WANT!

via the wonderfully-named Words For Nerds…

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I don’t know if anyone who reads this has ever heard of Amaya, a combination HTML-editor and web browser put out by the group that creates the definition of what HTML is.
(I don’t know if anyone reads this, actually, but that’s beside the point I suppose, and I’m not sure I actually want to find out….)

The spell checker, in at least the two most recent versions of the program, knows the word Californium…. but not California.

(Actually, it doesn’t seem to know any of the states’ names…. or, for that matter, Mexico.)

Addendum:  Perhaps the best ‘word-not-found’, however, is it’s suggestion that by ‘Christ’ I really meant ‘Thrust’.  Thus forming…. the United Church of Thrust.

You know, I could get behind that.

Another assortment of Things.

• ManMan will be at Mr Small’s in Millvale Sat Mar 22. They’ll also be in Austin for SXSW and again on April 30; while there are assorted dates in New York, Baltimore (tonight!), Boston, and all over the Deep South (WTF?), it looks like nothing in Philadelphia or Seattle. Look for yourself (and buy tickets) here.
• From the NY Observer, via Inkless Wells: Hillary Clinton campaign forces reporters to work in the bathroom at a campaign stop in Texas. Another great photo over at Huffington Post. Apparently they were served dinner there, too—tamales.
• This one especially for
  byzantine_ruins

    , from the Chronicle of Higher Education’s blog: Are Private Student Loans the Next Subprime Mortgages?

• Several more links, including the full text of the Chronicle post (which may be blocked for those not on a university campus), what if the Dutch had never left New Amsterdam?, and the weaknesses, excuse me, future strengths, of academic libraries, are here.

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Just in case you’d been wondering about the state of France’s president recently (not good), check out the blog of Maclean’s Canada columnist Paul Wells, such as this post from Feb. 7:

Depending how you measure these things, today [Feb. 7] just happens to be a strong contender for the worst day of the Sarkozy presidency. Largely this is because Thursday, in France as in Canada, is when the newsweeklies hit the newsstands. Here’s a tour of the headlines:
Le Point: Picture of Sarko looking worried. “What’s Not Working.”
L’Express: Near-identical picture. “The Disappointment: Why The French Are Abandoning Him.”
[js: this one's my favorite:]Le Nouvel Observateur: Picture of Sarkozy and his new wife out for a stroll. “The President Who Goes Pschitt,” i.e. like a balloon losing air, although the word is pronounced as you suspect it might be.

For a while, actually, Wells’d been writing a fair amount about “France’s First Family of Self-Parody” … Until last weekend.

Apparently, in France, the politicians even go up in flames in style. . .

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It’s been nearly two entire months since I changed my username, and I still find myself trying to use the old one 3/4 of the times I log in. . .

On the off chance you’re interested in reading things I’ve found interesting elsewhere on Teh Net, try here: my Google Reader shared items pseudoblog. It’s largely librariany stuff, because, well, that’s most of the blogs I read off-lj, but there’s other stuff there, too, like this review of a Tallahassee restaurant (“Chance I’d eat here again: 100%”) which contains, more importantly for those of us unlikely to ever actually get to Tallahassee, a recipe for Deep Winter Oyster Chowder which looks utterly fabulous. (While you’re over there, check out also this fabulous excerpt from a soon-to-be-published essay of hers, The Outlaw Bride…)

Seems like a good place for it…

Kimchi in space!!

When South Korea’s first astronaut, Ko San, blasts off April 8 aboard a Russian spaceship bound for the International Space Station, the beloved national dish will be on board.

Three top government research institutes spent millions of dollars and several years perfecting a version of kimchi that would not turn dangerous when exposed to cosmic rays or other forms of radiation and would not put off non-Korean astronauts with its pungency.

I imagine that must have been difficult indeed….

(In all honesty, it’s been years since I’ve tried kimchi. I suppose I should make another effort.)

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The first of Pine Township’s Frequently Asked Questions is Who do I call to have someone pick up a dead deer?