Wonderful, sarameg!

Then there's the challenge of using different words for counting, depending on the type and shape of the thing you're counting.

Oh yeah, I just found out about that! It made me wonder -- do you use the same counting word for penises that you do for bottles and cigarettes, or does that go in a different category?

What? Yes, I have a dirty mind.

"I eat" and "you eat" is the same verb in Hebrew as well (though the "you" changes according to the gender, but it's still the same to the different "you"s).

Well, and Arabic balanced it out by having different verb forms (sometimes) for I (fem), I (masc), you (fem), and you (masc). Oh, and there's a particular noun ending for two of something which is distinct from the plural.

(I'm totally getting into all this language stuff. Sorry.)

I was thinking about learning Hebrew so my mother and I would share three languages, but then I figured that while Japanese and Arabic at the same time are probably safe, I should probably stick to just one per language family until I feel more secure in at least one of them.

OMG. I just got back from Career Management Services who tried to sell me $4K of professional services to help me move ahead in my career. Admittedly I'd never have to write another resume in my life (they'd keep updating it for me) and they provide all other sorts of cool-sounding stuff, $4K?? I didn't turn him down on the spot (I was still dizzy), but I will call and tell him no in a couple days.

I'm Taupe Armageddon Palin!

that's cool you get to go, sarameg! Is it this weekend?

Next. And I got a decent fare from SW!

Next. And I got a decent fare from SW!

Because SW rules!

Baseball oddity: both Chicago teams and both Los Angeles teams are in first place and likely to go to the playoffs. If the Yankees hadn't fallen off for the first time in fifteen years, both NYC teams would also be in the mix.

Nineteen years after the Bay Bridge series, the A's and Giants are both playing out the skein with losing seasons.

, environmental factors loom large (like, say, wind turbine fields killing scores of birds),

This always drives me nuts. The affects of wind on birds is trivial compared to coal and oil spills. The difference is that good wind sites tend to be playgrounds for the rich and upper middle classes. Better that poor kids in Boston suffer coal induced asthma than wind turbines be placed miles offshore where billionaires have to look at them.

This always drives me nuts.

True, but I used to work for a wind turbine company and all you have to do is hold up pictures of a few raptors that got killed in the blades and you've got a potent photo-op.