A fancy colleague said I looked "sophisticated" today, and yet somehow it felt like an insult? Or at least like he was laughing at me. Damn preppies and their invisible rules about when you dress up and when you don't!

Invisible rules are the worst.

I am appalled at the thought of schoolkids being kept inside during an eclipse. Argh. My hairstylist said her MiL is getting a halfday for the eclipse because "people go crazy". What kind of bizarro regression is going on with our so-called civilization?

I just bonded with a guy who's also waiting on his car because his text alert sound is from The Legend of Zelda, which I haven't played in 25 years but is still lodged in my brain. From there, we moved on to NES emulators and how my brother has built not only a game emulator system but the cabinet to keep it in.

Yeah, ignoring it is what I went with. I found myself unable to "like" the comment, though. And, no, meera, it was used as a term of address, not an adjective. It's not inconceivable that he forgot that we were related (?!) His flist is mostly full of attractive young women, and if he weren't family (and therefore, it might make drama), I'd have nothing to do with him. I think I already unfollowed him. There are, of course, also disability issues in the mix, all of which combine to make it harder to navigate.

Sounds like we need to keep an eye out for witch trials re-emerging.

Many are keeping them inside during the eclipse, because liability.

(planetarium director crashes through the underbrush) BOOOOO. Use pinhole projection, people. It's super safe. Your back is to the sun!

Hi Una!

I'm wondering if we can use some old eclipse beliefs to do some good? I'm looking at this one in particular:

The Batammaliba, who live in Benin and Togo, used a solar eclipse as a teaching moment. According to their legends, an eclipse of the Sun meant that the Sun and the Moon were fighting and that the only way to stop them from hurting each other was for people on Earth to resolve all conflicts with each other.

[link]

Use pinhole projection, people. It's super safe. Your back is to the sun!

But Little Tommy will get impatient for his turn and look over his shoulder and squint up at the sun, and the teachers will be defusing squabbles over whose turn it is and showing the kids Yet Again how it works, and won't catch Little Tommy before he gets retinal burns.

Or, if they've made all their own viewers, Little Billy won't be able to get his to work and won't wait for help and will just look at the sun himself.

I don't blame the admins for wishing this was happening on a weekend when it would be the parents' fault for kids being kids.

I just checked, and I'm going to get 89.7% of hte eclipse from my office window, just before lunch. Cool.

I like that, Jesse. Doesn't give us a lot of time to resolve all conflicts, though.