Jane Galt writes about speed reading. I’m a fast reader also, and find it frustrating and painful to have to read something aloud–the baud rate is just too low.

Louise Riofrio has been providing a tour on her blog. Just keep scrolling.

Charles Johnson has a knack for taking pictures that remind me of when I wasn’t in Florida. I’ve seen this view many times on walks. In fact, for a time, I lived just a few blocks from where it was taken.

OK, you know those cheap Chinese icicle lights?

Does anyone understand enough about the circuitry to have an explanation as to why the first third of a string wouldn’t work, but the rest of it does? I look at the wiring, and there seems to be a lot more than necessary (sometimes four in the strand, sometimes three, sometimes two). What’s the deal?

I don’t want to spend a lot of time on it, because I can replace them for a few bucks, but if it’s something easy, it would be worth not having to run to Tarzhay for them.

Amidst discoursing on cold winters and Superman, Lileks coins a new word: bloggist (ah, I see that the spell checquer in Firefox doesn’t recognize it–I’ll have to add it to the dictionary…done):

Want to bet that his identity was safe at the end of the comic? Would you care to wager that the Girl of Tomorrow, who came from the future to use mind-reading powers to trap an alien into a loveless marriage

Fred Kiesche could use a new job. Help him keep blogging!

I’ve got family visiting, and am making my traditional stuffing with cornbread, turkey sausage (I used to be able to get cranberry sausage in California, but there are no Bristol Farms here), wild rice, pine nuts, wild mushrooms, and the secret ingredient, pomegranate. My niece helped me dissect it for the berries. Her mother is from Iraq, so she knows her pomegranates.

We’ll be busy the rest of the day cooking, taking kids to the beach, watching football, ingesting fermented malt beverages, etc.

I’m thankful that we have pomegranates. And turkeys. I’m thankful that at my age, I’ve still got enough teeth to enjoy them (I recall my grandfather having to cut off his corn with a knife to eat it, when he wasn’t a lot older than me). I’m thankful for medical technology in general, which seems to be continuing to get better, and giving me hope that I’ll live to see escape velocity.

I’m thankful for family and loved ones, and the ability to share my thanks with them in good health on this day.

I’m thankful for the technology that allows me to express my thankfulness to those people who read this little web site, and I’m thankful for the readers who unaccountably and seemingly masochistically keep coming back to read it.

I’m very thankful that we’ll have elections again in two years. And that’s not a partisan comment (particularly since I’m not a member of any political party)–it would be true regardless of the results three weeks ago. Having a sister-in-law who is from Baghdad can make you appreciate small things like that.

For those stuck to computers, follow the goings on at Pajamas Media.

I want to replace a bathtub. The existing one is a five footer, fourteen inches high. It’s wedged into three walls.

I talked to a contractor about it yesterday, and he claims that if he removes the tile, that it can be lifted up at one end, stood up on its side, and then taken through the door. I guess that I can believe this is possible, since the diagonal is only about 61.6 inches, and there’s probably enough slack and play in the drywall to scrape it by with tiles removed. What I have more trouble believing is that I’ll be able to get the new deeper whirlpool in without major wall surgery. If I go with a depth of 21 inches, that makes a diagonal of 63.5 inches, which seems like too tight a squeeze to me. I’m trying to avoid having to (temporarily) remove studs and move it in through the closet on the other side of the wall.

Does anyone have any experience with this?

The other question is, how do I disconnect the drain without making a hole in the wall opposite? Or is that unavoidable?

Unlike (apparently) many who were in Hawaii yesterday, I’ve been through several significant earthquakes. But if our trip to Kona had been one week later, we’d have gone through the closest major quake in our lives, despite decades in southern California. It would have been only ten miles away, off shore. And if our itinerary had been the same, we’d have been in bed, on the fourth floor in a condo, above the beach, so it would have been pretty exciting. But there was never a concern about a tsunami, at least not there. It didn’t have enough distance to build up a big wave, even if it was a big enough displacement to cause one (it wasn’t). But we’d probably be stuck there for a couple more days, at least.