The gronk, it burns. 5 hrs of sleep is not enough for me.

Off on the hour long journey for mac's brace in the hinterlands of Queens.

Ion, last week's parenthood. Max's mom at the beginning felt like a mirror.

I knew I was clenching my jaw last night due to stress. And I woke up this morning to discover my screwed up crown had popped off again. My dentist appt to get it all re-done isn't until the 27th. I guess I'll call to see if they can reglue it or something today.

I haven't been to bed. I did just finish my taxes though. The question now is shower and post office first, or nap first?

Ann Taylor Loft shoppers - get extra 40% off sale items: [link]

It's the anniversary of the Titanic sinking. Soemone from work is posting records and pictures from the tragedy all day: [link]

Including things like the description of the personal effects of a second class passenger: [link]

There's a whole book of descriptions of the unidentified bodies and their effects and when I worked in the library, I used to read it all the time. It's totally macabre, but fascinating the details you learning about their clothing and personal effects.

Sue -- Halifax was where a lot of the unidentified bodies went, right?

Reading about true crime in the 1800s, I found a researcher who was using the courtroom transcripts to find out a lot about the ordinary lives of household help and common laborers, because the cross-examination gets down to what was precisely happening just before, during and after the crime occured. She said it was like digging up Pompeii, in that a moment in time was exactly captured.

Sue -- Halifax was where a lot of the unidentified bodies went, right?

Yeah, I think it was where most of the recovered bodies went and were buried. (Survivors went to NY.) There's a grave in a cemetery near my house of a person named J. Dawson, which inspired DiCaprio's character to be called Jack Dawson. That caused a lot of weird movie-inspired tourism. Which tourism types totally exploited.

Theo, another job I used to do when I worked retrieval in the archives was to check microfilms of old newspapers to see if they were readable. That lead to me reading a lot of the crime reports published for Halifax back in the 1880's. It was so interesting, the picture it created over time as the same people and areas of the town were being arrested all the time. Let's just say there was a lot of drinking, fighting and prostitution on the streets adjacent the main military fortification.

From Victor, elsewhere, JK Rowling rips the Torys a new one:

[link]

Nobody who has ever experienced the reality of poverty could say “it’s not the money, it’s the message”. When your flat has been broken into, and you cannot afford a locksmith, it is the money. When you are two pence short of a tin of baked beans, and your child is hungry, it is the money. When you find yourself contemplating shoplifting to get nappies, it is the money. If Mr Cameron’s only practical advice to women living in poverty, the sole carers of their children, is “get married, and we’ll give you £150”, he reveals himself to be completely ignorant of their true situation.

My boss just sent me an email with a link to pictures of someone skinning a cat. Ew!