It happens here every year, flea, and I still bitch about it. Also, at least Ann Rice doesn't refudiate. But her books are still too damn long to hold my attention, and I don't recall asking about her spiritual health.

Far be it from me to attach any value judgments to tourism, Spidra, but Yosemite is an enormously beautiful place. I don't get to it as often as I'd like, but every time I have it's made good memories.

July and August in Georgia are so much like January and February in Maine (where I grew up) that it's funny. I am so tired of being inside!

Seriously? I only just heard that he got married. (Orlando Bloom, that is.)

I was looking into going there with the last of my savings but the motel prices there are insane. I'm disabled so camping's kinda hard for me to manage even if I'd been farsighted enough to have made a reservation a year or more ahead. Hopefully I'll get to see it one day.

flea, I was just reading an article at the Tribune which said that Chicago will be breaking a record this afternoon with the most consecutive days over 80 degrees. The last day we had with a high only in the 70s was July 1st.

I think that, too. Not that I've ever done winter in New England, but people who promote Phoenix as a "year-round lifestyle" hit the monkey crack *hard*.

If you stay outside the park it tends to be cheaper. But, yeah, it's not Free Things to Do in California by any stretch of the imagination.

DH wants to know if he can use the word rigueur on its own (rather than as part of the expression "de rigueur," and if so what the precise meaning would be. (In context, he needs it to mean something like "discipline.") He's reviewing Dinner For Schmucks and talking about the original French version.

I was at the eye doctor.

You can definitely use it on its own. The most common way I've heard it is à la rigueur, meaning possibly/possibility, or at the very least.

Come to think of it, I've rarely heard the expression as it's used in English.

It often implies a more extreme discipline (harshness or austerity), as in government measures or punishments, but you can say manquer de rigueur for something that lacks discipline or precision. So, in an academic setting, someone's research might "manquer de rigueur."

Also, note to E: I was very disappointed that in this remake there actually is a dinner.