Google has a cool new feature: you can search every book they’ve digitized for a specific word or phrase, and then chart how often it appeared by year. I’m sure this will be invaluable to language historians, but I’ve discovered an even more important use: you can use it to search for time travelers.
For example, here’s what the graph looks like for the word “Internet”:
My previous two Yankee Fog posts were a year apart. This one is a mere 10 months after the previous one. Why, it’s practically instantaneous!
Given that Yankee Fog has been more or less abandoned, I will forgive you if you react with some skepticism to the news that I’ve started a brand-new blog. But I have.
It’s called Caught Dead In That, and it’s nothing but funny photos of gravestones. That’s right: funny photos of gravestones. I believe that officially uses up the last remaining unmined humor topic on the internet.
Seeing as it’s been precisely a year since my last post, you have no doubt deduced that I’ve abandoned all pretense of updating this blog regularly. But for anybody still following me, here are a few things I’ve been up to recently.
A short story of mine called “Eugene” was published at Popcorn fiction. While you’re there, check out the archives. There’s some really brilliant stuff. My favorites include A Best Friend Named Rick and March 6th. I’d also recommend Unconditional, but I have to warn you that it’s every parents’ worst nightmare, so read with caution.
Flickr has photos of today’s headlines from the UK papers. I’m sure the next time the Brits go to the polls, we’ll return the compliment with similarly dramatic coverage.
My favorite headline is on the far right of the photo above. It’s from The Star, which considers Barak Obama significant, but not quite as significant as the attractive young woman it identifies as “Abbey Clancy in thigh-high boots.” It might seem from The Star’s headline that they’re thanking us for our choice, but, on closer inspection, they seem to be thanking us merely for having an election:
I would like to congratulate my fellow Americans for making a historic choice. At long last, the greatest barrier in America has been broken.
That’s right: for the first time in history, the President of the United States will have a rabbi for a cousin.
Mazal tov, Barak!
Not surprisingly, the election has received considerable interest over here. Last night, I was out at a movie and the gentleman sitting next to me heard my accent. He asked where in the US I was from, and when I told him Washington, DC, he said, in the mildest, most polite tone imaginable, “Tell me, is that a region that tends to trend towards McCain or Obama?”
Probably the question I am asked most often about life in the UK is, “What is the official tartan of Scottish Jews?” In the past, I have been able to answer only with a sad sigh and a brushed-away tear. But I shall weep no longer. Rabbi Mendel Jacobs– who bills himself as “the only Scottish-born rabbi living in Scotland” — has received approval from the Scottish Tartans Authority for the first official Jewish Tartan. Here it is, as modeled by Rabbi Jacobs:
My only disappointment is that “Mendel Jacobs” is a sadly non-Scottish name for Scotland’s only Scottish-born rabbi. Maybe it used to be Mendel MacJacob, and he changed it to sound less ethnic?
Apparently, John McCain feels he is needed in Washington, DC, on Friday, and he therefore can’t attend the scheduled debate. Senator Obama disagrees, and plans to attend.
Fortunately for Senator McCain, there’s an easy solution. He has already chosen the one person in America he considers most qualified to step in for him if he can’t fulfil his duties: Sarah Palin.
So why not send Governor Palin to debate Barack Obama?
I’ve been looking for some good Obama babywear, with no luck. The best I could find was a rather tacky looking outfit with the on-the-nose message “Babies for Obama.”
So I came up with a slightly more interesting slogan. And thanks to the exceptional design talents of the folks at Hunt Smith Design, it’s now available for purchase at Spreadshirt.com:
Here’s how my local pub is celebrating the 4th of July. (Apologies for the low-quality cameraphone image.)
In case you’re wondering, “Fancy Dress” is Brit-speak for “costume.” But aside from that one Englishism, they’ve got everything spot-on. Ah, how many a 4th July did I spend in my youth, dressed up as George Washington and playing “Shot The Balloon!” To this day, a good game of Hoopla brings back the scent of apple pie and cowboy cocktails.
Her Majesty’s Treasury has a subsection known as the Office of Government Commerce.
The Office of Government Commerce has a new logo.
Unfortunately, it turns out that, when scene from certain angles, the OGC’s new logo looks like… erm…
Well, see for yourself.