September Pieces Of My Mind #1

• Why you should never get a tattoo: it’s a fashion item that can never be upgraded. Imagine being forced to wear 1979 glasses all of your life from age 18 on.
• So boring to proofread hyphenation.
• Artists referenced in the sleeve notes to Goat’s first album: 1. Dan Andersson, 2. Boubacar Traoré.
• Jrette has excellent innate inscrutability skills. She tells me she’s taken to ignoring boys who demand her attention or some of her Saturday candy. Oh boys and men of the 2020s and 30s, you will be sooo ignored.
• Since 1991, we’ve sent 84 people into my copy of Dungeonquest. Only 31% have survived. This is actually twice what the basic rules tell you to expect.
• It’s a bit of a hassle to travel to my teaching gigs, but still I enjoy it hugely. I think it’s largely because it makes me feel that I matter to people. Also it’s fun and easy.
• Homeless drunks seem to have great conversation. I overheard a couple on the subway who were complaining laughingly about a friend’s personal hygiene. Among other details, they described the tick that this man had removed from his bell end and left on a piece of paper next to the toilet.
• Woah. Almost none of the students I teach right now had been born when I started making my living as an archaeologist.
• Saw an ad for cheap used bikes on campus and was enthusiastic. Then realised that the campus I need a bike at was >700 km distant. Kind of far to cycle.
• A lot of the proofreading errors I have to point out while guiding various publications into print have to do with the spacing of adjusted text. Lines will get too airy if you don’t hyphenate aggressively enough. This looks to me like something that should be easily automated. Don’t current graphic design programs have the ability to spot too-airy lines automatically and flag them for correction?
• An idea for a parable about lost youth: a middle-aged hero wandering through subterranean catacombs, sword and torch in hand — and there’s nobody there. The goblins have moved on. The gold has long been stolen. The traps no longer work for neglect. Just dark dusty empty rooms and twisty little passages, all alike.
• Swedish election: I’m happy that the reds & greens will be in charge, but confused by the Racists taking so many votes from the Conservatives of all parties. The Red-greens win not because they have gained any votes, but because the Tories have lost a big chunk to the Racists and are decent enough to refuse to collaborate with them. But why is the main change in the power landscape a movement of voters from the anti-fascist Conservatives to the Racists? Sten Thaning suggests that those voters were simply disappointed to find after the last election that the Tories aren’t racist.