21st of May, 2003 POST·MERIDIEM 04:07

Rain soaked me yesterday evening, which sucked; one of my shoes has a hole in the sole (they’re good-quality shoes, I’ve just worn them exclusively since September, and done a whole lot of walking in them) so my socks got all damp, and I made it to Blanchardstown too late to get a haircut (I’m desperately in need of one). On the other hand, I did buy a decent stock of Erdinger Weiß, and some good food, so dinner was much more civilised.

(I’m going to move back to -ise spelling in general, because it occurs to me that having arbitrary rules (which, apparently, there are) that say you have to spell “revised” with an s, along with other more questionable choices, makes the language more complicated than it already is. Which is more stupid than having it not very phonemic, but very consistent.)

DSL isn’t an option for our area apparently, since Eircom (may their directors die of syphilis, soon) haven’t upgraded the exchange (umm, huge development of new housing, huge numbers of young, tech jobs in the area; we may ask Why The Fuсk Not?).

Useful web links from the last few days; first one from Metafilter, other two from http://​www.​languagehat.​com/​ — http://​www.​counterpunch.​org/​neumann0604.​html , especially the bit "anti-Zionism is antisemitism!" quickly alternates with: "Don't confuse Zionism with Judaism! How dare you, you antisemite!" ; there should be much more vocal criticism of the “anti-Zionism is antisemitism” stance, IMHO. Second, http://​www.​demog.​berkeley.​edu/​~gene/​migr.​html — whence the info that “Welsh,” “Walloon” and “Vlach” are cognates; the page is a summary of the various factors in ethnic definition in the Balkans. Third, huge collection of Greek and Latin texts and grammars, in PDF format; http://​www.​textkit.​com/​.​