Dr. Weevil » 2006 » October     @import url( http://web.archive.org./web/20210225163758cs_/http://www.drweevil.org/wp-content/themes/hybrid/style.css );                                                                                                              Dr. Weevil Pedantry, Poetry, Politics, and Pie           Contact me: E-mail: (turn it backwards)gro.liveewrd@liveewrdAny e-mail sent to this site is fair game for quotation in full or in part, with or without refutation, abuse, and cruel mockery of the spelling, style, and syntax, unless the writer specifically asks not to be quoted. Even in that case, if the e-mail is slanderous or offensive, I may and will feel free to print it and hold it up to ridicule. You know who you are, and you have been warned.

  Testimonials: Anonymous student evaluation in Latin 102:“God-like and unimprovable . . . can destroy small-minded creatures with a single thought” The Safety Valve:“the Abominable Dr. Weevil” James Lileks:“adamantine nuggets of erudition” Bjørn Stærk:“first up against the wall” (one of only 22 on his Stalinist hit-list) Pejman Yousefzadeh:“I find the bug drawings . . . creepy and worrisome” Robin Goodfellow:“kinda newsy / kinda thinky” Pseudo-Hesiod:“petty, small-minded, pinched, and boorish” Silflay Hraka:“pitch, turpentine and rosewater” Max Sawicky:“rude, unedifying, and unamusing” Protein Wisdom:“urbane and erudite” Noam Chomsky:“Stalinist methods of argument”    October 2006   M T W T F S S     « Sep   Nov »      1   2345678   9101112131415   16171819202122   23242526272829   3031        Search:        Category Archives:  Ancient Joke of the Day  Ancient Text of the Week  Anecdota  Blackfriars Playhouse  Classics  Economics  General  Literature  Metablogular Musings  Music  Orbilius  Poetry  Politics  Science  Theater Reviews  What I've Been Listening To  What I've Been Reading  What I've Been Watching    Monthly Archives:  August 2013 March 2013 October 2012 August 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005   Old MT Archives: January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 February 2002 January 2002 November 2001     Powered by WordPress

     Tuesday: October 31, 2006  Linguistic Puzzle II Filed under:  Orbilius — site admin @ 11:11 PM UTC   Am I the only one who can’t help thinking of gigantic sandwiches when driving down Interstate 40 between Raleigh and Durham? Specifically when passing the scene for ‘William B. Umstead State Park’, I should add.

   Comments (1)     Linguistic Puzzle I Filed under:  Orbilius — site admin @ 11:04 PM UTC   A local shopping center contains a ‘Center for Aesthetic Dentistry’. Wouldn’t that be the exact opposite of Anaesthetic Dentistry? Ouch!

   Comments Off    Wednesday: October 11, 2006  Something Wrong with the Algorithm? Filed under:  Literature What I've Been Listening To What I've Been Watching — site admin @ 9:13 PM UTC   When I searched for ‘Torless’ on Overstock.com just now, I got two hits: the Criterion DVD of Volker Schlöndorff’s Young Törless, and the Penguin translation of the Musil novel on which it was based. When I clicked on the latter, I was given a list in the right margin headed “Customers who liked this also liked:”. So what did they like?

  One jazz/blues album: The Bosses (Big Joe Turner and Count Basie). Three French movies from the last decade: Un Air de Famille, The Taste of Others, and With a Friend Like Harry. Two Hank Williams III albums: Straight to Hell and Risin’ Outlaw.  A rather heterogeneous list, you may think. How many people are interested in Hank Williams III and contemporary French cinema? Actually, I am. If one more French movie (The Closet) were added, the list would be exactly what I ordered from Overstock a week or so ago, my first order from them in the last year. Either Overstock is trying to fool me into thinking that Young Törless is exactly the book I want, or their algorithm is faulty. Most likely the latter: it looks as if I’m the only visitor to their website who has so much glanced at the Törless book lately, so they were forced to give me back my own preferences as the only ones on file. Then again, when I went back to the same page for another look, I got five more recommendations, none of them even remotely enticing. Judging from the titles (G-Spot, Caramel Flava, Candy Licker, Taming the Beast, and Discipline) and the covers (look ’em up yourself), the five paperbacks they were pimping are all soft porn or worse. Perhaps some day Overstock (and Amazon) can come up with some genuinely useful recommendations, omitting both the titles I’ve already paid good money for and the titles that I wouldn’t want to own even if they were free.

 P.S. It gets worse: I clicked on Taming the Beast, which was even fouler than I expected, and was recommended Great Women of the Old West, a how-to book on consensual sadomachism, and a 32-page illustrated biography of Gerald Ford aimed at 3rd- and 4th-graders.

   Comments (1)         More than just Blogs:  James Bowman Victor Davis Hanson Mickey Kaus Martin Kramer James Lileks: The Bleat Mark Steyn David Warren  Les 120 Journaux de Blogdom:  About Last Night Ace of Spades HQ American Digest Armavirumque   Babalú BeldarBlog Belmont Club Big Lizards Tim Blair   Chicago Boyz Cold Fury Cranky Professor   Durham in Wonderland Dustbury   The Fat Guy Five Feet of Fury Dr. Frank's What's-It   Gateway Pundit   Mick Hartley   InstaPundit   Joanne Jacobs Just One Minute   Legal Insurrection Libertarian Samizdata The Little Professor   Brian Micklethwait . . . Muttered the Ogre   Patterico's Pontifications Power Line Protein Wisdom   Random Jottings The Rat   Sand in the Gears Roger L. Simon Small Dead Animals The Strata-Sphere   Throwing Things Transterrestrial Musings Jim Treacher   Viking Pundit Violins and Starships   Wormtalk and Slugspeak   Meryl Yourish