Monthly Archives: July 2006

Vacationramblings 2006

By dave | July 28, 2006

The urban portion of our vacation is now complete. After a huge dinner featuring veal loin and large quantities of Montepulciano at Philadelphia’s Pompeii restaurant, I’m not good for much more than a few ramblings about the trip.
Sorry, no pictures from this segment…
The urban portion began in Boston on Sunday. After arriving in town around [...]

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Vacationblogging 2006, part 3

By dave | July 23, 2006

As I sit here in the lobby of the Holiday Inn in rainy Bangor, Maine, I get the vague sense that this town has something to do with Paul Bunyan.
Anyhoo, the Maine section of our trip has finally come to a close. The good: Jim has finally decided to enjoy himself on this vacation. The [...]

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Vacationblogging 2006, part 2

By dave | July 20, 2006

I’ve just finished reading David Foster Wallace’s essay “Consider the Lobster” from the book of the same name. Under the auspices of a trip to the Maine Lobster Festival, Wallace spends most of the essay discussing whether it’s ethical to boil lobsters alive in order to eat them. On the one hand, a lobster is [...]

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Vacationblogging 2006

By dave | July 17, 2006

If you watch any American road trip movie, you know that driving across America is a quirky journey on backroads through towns full of fascinating characters. This, of course, is a lie. Traveling across America, for most of us, involves barreling down interstates at 80 miles per hour, with an occasional stop for gas or [...]

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Heading out on vacation!

By dave | July 13, 2006

This year’s family vacation has no coherent theme. While last year, we could tell people we’d be going on a grand tour of the southwest USA, this year, things are different. I’ve resorted to selective description:
Q: So, you doing anything interesting this summer?
A: Yeah, we’re going to Maine. Should be fun.
later
Q: So, you doing anything [...]

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Advice for new bloggers

By dave | July 7, 2006

Now that I’m apparently a blogger of status, occasionally I get emails from bloggers just starting out, asking how they can be as rich and famous as me. Short answer: get a part-time job at McDonalds. You’ll make more, work less, and be recognizable to more people. In case that’s not satisfying, here’s what I [...]

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Rewriting patriotic propaganda

By dave | July 6, 2006

This year, for the first time, I attended my town’s Fourth of July spectacle. It was typical Independence Day nonsense, with a big picnic on the baseball field, a live band (Why do these things always feature '50s music? If that’s what classic rock 'n' roll was 20 years ago, shouldn’t we at least be [...]

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We’re number 8!

By dave | July 5, 2006

Nature has a list of 50 Popular Science Blogs. Although they don’t explicitly rank them, and though some key blogs appear to be missing from the list, I’m not going to let that stop me from claiming in query letters that Cognitive Daily is the #8 ranked science blog and the #1 psychology blog, according [...]

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