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"A Few Too Many" in the New Yorker

For Alex: the New Yorker has an exhaustive article on hangovers, both the causes and the cures:

There are other non-ingested remedies. Amazon will sell you a refrigeratable eye mask, an aromatherapy inhaler, and a vinyl statue of St. Vivian, said to be the patron saint of the hung over. She comes with a stand and a special prayer.

Water Wars

I discovered today that our monthly water bill (from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission) includes a graph of our water usage over the last year. [1] It's pretty fascinating trying to correlate it to events; for example, we used a lot of water last November, the month after Penelope was born.

I think I'm going to experiment with bringing our water usage down to see how much of an effect I can have, now that I'll have this data on a monthly basis.

But here's what I'd like next: a comparison chart (anonymous, of course) to everyone in my neighborhood; my city; my state; and so on. That way, I can see how we compare to other people in our area, and it can become a competition. Give me stats, charts, and graphs showing us how we compare, and you'll see our water usage drop!

[1] Considering that they're pushing water conservation, I'll bet this isn't a coincidence.

McAlmont & Butler

Speaking of Duffy, Bernard Butler produced a couple of the songs on her album Rockferry. Not only that, but David McAlmont provided backing vocals on two of the songs.

This pleases me greatly, as one of my favorite albums from the 1990s is the album Butler and McAlmont made together, The Sound of McAlmont & Butler. A couple of months ago I was inspired to dig it out of a box and rip it, and I've been listening to it obsessively ever since.

While the two of them created some incredible music separately (Butler in Suede, and McAlmont both solo and with Saul Freeman as Thieves, whose "Unworthy" is one of my favorite songs of all time), I like them best together, where they created two of the best pop songs of the 90s: "Yes" and "You Do".

Here's "Yes" in all its soulful, operatic glory:

Duffy's "Warwick Avenue"

My favorite video of the moment? Duffy's "Warwick Avenue", which is one of the most gorgeous and intimate videos I've seen in a long time. And, of course, the song is lovely as well.

(And if those tears aren't real, she should be an actress.)

Buffalo!

My new favorite sentence in the English language:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

It's a grammatically correct sentence that utilizes three different meanings of the word "buffalo": one as an adjective, one as a noun, and one as a verb. Pay close attention to the capitalization!

It sort of makes you appreciate the difficulty of learning English (or any language, for that matter).

Hence, the fanatical devotion of fans of Crazy English, maybe? From the New Yorker article about Li Yang's shouting-as-learning program:

Li's cosmology ties the ability to speak English to personal strength, and personal strength to national power. It's a combination that produces intense, sometimes desperate adoration. A student named Feng Tao told me that on one occasion, realizing that he had enough cash for tuition to an out-of-town Li lecture but not enough for train fare, "I went and sold blood."