For some reason, you can buy every Nine Inch Nails album EVER on iTunes, except Pretty Hate Machine. I hate you! (I think it has something to do with it being an import.) Now I have to buy chunks of plastic to get "Head Like A Hole", wah; I bought it used off Amazon. ‡
Did it ever occur to you that the baby on the cover of Nirvana's Nevermind is an actual person? Me either. He's 17 now and his name is Spencer Eldon. He was interviewed last week on NPR's All Things Considered. He thinks Rock Band on Xbox sucks because it keeps his friends from going out and forming real bands (which is debatable since my friend Brian got started on drums that way.) Geffen sent him a platinum album and a teddy bear for his first birthday (though his family only received a $200 flat for his appearance on the album cover.) And, he's trying to graduate high school early because he's "so over" it. "Same people, same teachers ... going to your locker, worrying about stupid girls ... I wanna get something going, I wanna travel," he says. ‡
Either is used with a negative verb; Neither is used with an affirmative verb. "I haven't been to France. I haven't either / Neither have I." ("I have been to France. I have too / So have I.") "I can't see the screen. I can't either / Neither can I." ‡
There are four main types of brackets:
» round brackets or parentheses: ( )
» square brackets or box brackets: [ ]
» curly brackets or braces: { }
» angle brackets or chevrons: < >
The angle bracket was the earliest type to appear in English. Desiderius Erasmus coined the term lunula to refer to the rounded parentheses (), recalling the round shape of the moon. ‡
The interrobang (‽) "American Martin K. Speckter invented the interrobang in 1962. As the head of an advertising agency, Speckter believed that advertisements would look better if copywriters conveyed surprised rhetorical questions using a single mark. He proposed the concept of a single punctuation mark in an article in the magazine TYPEtalks. Speckter solicited possible names for the new character from readers. Contenders included rhet, exclarotive, and exclamaquest, but he settled on interrobang." ‡
The paragraph sign's (¶) proper name is pilcrow, but can also be called an alinea (Latin: a linea, "off the line"). ‡
There is a great video interview with Charles Eames on YouTube (thanks Drawn!) In this video, he discusses his design principles, and then they debut the Eames Lounge Chair! Goose bumps! His wife Ray comes out near the end of the interview. As the TV interviewer is talking to the camera and signing off, Charles and Ray just look at each other, beaming, nothing else exists to them. It's pretty sweet. ‡
There aren't very many hybrid fruits. You'd think there'd be a truckload, what with people's determination to monkey with nature. I learned of the pluot (of which there are some 13+ varieties). It's a plum and apricot hybrid, 3/4 plum and 1/4 apricot (thanks KellySuzanne!) A pluot is a tradename for a fruit developed in the late 20th century by Floyd Zaiger. Conversely, the aprium is an apricot and plum hybrid, but 3/4 apricot and 1/4 plum. A nectacotum (also known as a nectacotum pluot) is a hybrid fruit, combining an apricot, plum, and nectarine. It was developed by the Ito Packing Company in California. ‡
Since 1992, badminton is an Olympic sport with five events: men's and women's singles, men's and women's doubles, and mixed doubles, in which each pair is a man and a woman. ‡
My new favorite drink is a Gin Fizz. A Gin Fizz contains gin, lemon juice, sugar, and carbonated water, served in a highball glass with two ice cubes. The drink is similar to a Tom Collins, the difference being that a Tom Collins historically used "Old Tom Gin" (a sweetened version of, and precursor to, London Dry Gin). A Sloe Gin Fizz contains sloe gin (a blackthorn plum flavored spirit), lemon juice, sugar, and carbonated water. It is commonly mistaken that this drink is spelled "Slow" Gin Fizz. A Gin Fizz is the best known cocktail in the Fizz family, but there exist other (some might opine revolting) varieties:
» Silver Fizz—addition of egg white
» Golden Fizz—addition of egg yolk
» Royal Fizz—addition of whole egg
» Diamond Fizz—sparkling wine instead of carbonated water
» Green Fizz—addition of a dash of green crème de menthe ‡
Goose Step: Der Stechschritt (literally: piercing step), commonly known in English speaking countries as "the Goose-Step", is a special form of military step, which is usually demonstrated in solemn military parades and passes in review of closed units. The marching troops swing their legs from a vertical leg to a nearly horizontally-extending one, bringing it down with a loud simultaneous stepping noise and continuing the cycle in unison. It emerged from Prussian drilling regulation during the early 19th Century. Goose-stepping is commonly associated today with the German armed forces of the Reichswehr and of the Wehrmacht. After the end of the Second World War a reduced form of the goose-step (boot point in knee height) was still used by the East German National People's Army under the name drilling step to avoid references to old Prussian or Wehrmacht military tradition. ‡