I was just reading a (rather self-serving) article in the NYTimes about why the lack of cohesion on the Yankees is actually a strength.

I read that. I expect the underlying social science -- group dynamics -- is perfectly sound, but its application to the Yankees was silly and wrongheaded. (That goes double, trying to contrast the "loose-knit" Yankees to the "tight-knit" Red Sox. It's not that the Sox were a lovefest; it's that one of their primary spokesmen is a social butterfly.)

(Actually, Spring Training gossip has been little short of venomous, in regard to people who have left the Sox over this past winter.)

The basic idea is that cliques are not necessarily a detriment to group functioning, and that they will naturally arise in a large enough group. Smaller social units mean that, if there's a falling-out, the whole group doesn't go into disarray. The keys, though, are people who can function in more than one clique, providing the social bridges from one group to another, like the skater kid Hec mentions above.

I am really really not a bridge person, but I can usually recognize one when I meet him/her. On LiveJournal, there are people I call superconnectors through whom you just sort of naturally meet other people you wouldn't otherwise meet.

TAR: I'm not clear on why everybody seemed to be running low on money -- maybe the nonstop train was more expensive?

Oh, good point. This was definitely the case when I was traveling in Mexico - the nicer/express bus was far more expensive. Re: the brothers. My cheering at the end came down to the fact that I feel like I'll grow to like the brothers more as the race goes on, and I didn't at all have that feeling about the blond women.

I just helped my boss fire a gun. Actually, it's this thingie that's used to drive nails into mortar, and it uses a .22 caliber shell (minus the bullet) to fire the nail into the mortar. So when it goes off it's as loud as a gun (.22 caliber guns are small and not as loud as bigger guns).

You have to press the end that holds the nail into a hard surface before it will fire (as a safety mechanism). But still, my morbid immagination was wondering if you could kill someone with it....

Nilly, the wedding and the henna ceremony sound lovely!

spend a few moments every hour contemplating comics and good Mexican food.

Timmay and Connor (Angel). Eating Mexican food and playing "My father (figure) is more fucked up than yours."

t /Tim-whore

why is it that if I eat breakfast before I go to work I am hungry by NOW, 10:30ish, but if I eat nothing at all, I am not hungry until 12:30 or 1?

also? I am wearing a new suit that I bought back in Oct/Nov, but just now got altered. It is pictured [link] there, the jacket is a one-button grey pinstripe and then the pants have one big button like the jacket on a tab waist. It may become my new favorite suit. I am wearing it with a peachy/pink microfiber tee.

</Tim-whore>

Okay, between this thread, Bitches, and Minearverse, there are TOO MANY TIMS! I vote we pick one and rename all the others Bob.

Best. News. Ever: [link]

But what kind of cookies

shrift, Morrocan cookies. I don't even know the names of most of them. There were more than a dozen kinds of cookies, in every texture (from rock-hard to so soft and airy they're like sweetness alone in your mouth), size (from fingernail to a fist size), degree of sweetness and color I could think of (no food coloring, of course, only natural stuff).

Oh, one of the sweetest one is names mufleta ('e' like the first one in "there"). It's been forever since I tasted one, and it took me a minute to remember what's caught my attention in its name and how come it had an "inspiring discussion/argument" air to it.

[Edit: 5+4=0+9]

Timelies,

Ack to the various insomniacs. I didn't get as much sleep as I would have liked, but better than you guys did. I realized this morning that around the time the vents finally stop woofing someone will undoubtably move in upstairs and if the pattern holds will be loud and obnoxious. (I seem to alternate between quiet and noisy upstairs neighbors. The last one was quiet, but only there for a month, so maybe I'll get a reprieve.)

I've almost got my apartment cleaned and ready for company on Saturday. Just have the bathroom and my bedroom left. I could get away with just closing the door to my bedroom, but it's overdue for a good cleaning.

I vote we pick one and rename all the others Bob.

Nah, gotta go with William, not Bob.

Though I hear he likes carrots.