From Twitter 09-02-2009

RT @blogofinnocence: Academic Earth: Full video courses from leading universities. http://www.academicearth.org/
Also, http://www.academichic.com - via @gwenbell
Loving the fall weather. It's cool enough to wear a skirt+ boots. Can't remember the last time I wore a skirt.
Fashion for Nerds makes street/geek wear office-ready. I approve: http://geekthreads.blogspot.com/
Gmail back but appears to be shunting things off to the trash without my permission (??) Anyone else experiencing this?

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tweet(s) of the day

• 22:38 Gmail back but appears to be shunting things off to the trash without my permission (??) Anyone else experiencing this?
• 08:51 Dining table accumulating stacks again. Irksome. Must clean off this evening/weekend.
• 08:53 Am again reminded of @dustdaughter's observation that 140 char. limit makes one read like Rorshach from "Watchmen".
• 09:01 Spice (cat) having an extended yowl/frisky this morning.

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book reports: American history

I just finished American Brutus, a comprehensive, Lincoln Presidential Library-endorsed blow-by blow of the Lincoln assassination plot.

I picked it up from the library on a whim because I'd never read a full accounting before and it really was vivid and riveting. According to the author, Booth was less motivated by personal politics (supported the Confederacy but spent much of the Civil War on tour in both north and south) than by a desire to make a grand gesture against a man he perceived to be a tyrant, fed by years of playing such "heroes" on stage and a need to prove himself a man of action. Booth comes off as both terribly vain and cruelly manipulative, as he convinced most of his co-conspirators that his was a plot to kidnap, not murder. Recommended.

I've just started the daunting Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America, intimidating not because it's a bookstop (almost 1000 pages) or because of dense academic prose (it's quite readable) but because it packs so much into each chapter and everything is heavily documented/footnoted. I'd been curious about it for awhile but Sara @ Orcinus' series on it (Intro, Puritans, Cavaliers, and Quakers, so far) cemented my desire to read it, because it provides the historic context for so much of the current American political/cultural scene.

So far I'm only as far as the Puritans and I'm already intrigued. It goes into not only the social and religious reasoning behind the Puritan settlement of New England but other factors like the climate (mmm, prefigures Brian Fagan) and geography (ahh, like Jared Diamond's work). Very promising so far.

other bits and bobs

• Busy week (Mediaeval Baebes, D.'s birthday, vet plus regular duties/hobbies) = far behind on laundry.
  
  
• Re: vet: Cats mostly good. One has ear infection, one has UTI/kidney infection. Both have medication and are likely to heal nicely but I still feel like a bad cat "mom" for not noticing enough, not thinking anything was amiss while simultaneously regretting that I have to take them to the vet at all - they hate and are scared of it and I can't explain to them why it's necessary :(
  
  
• Loving, LOVING the cooler weather, and don't think I EVER expected to say that!
  
  
• Fashion for Nerds is seriously inspiring me to further eccentricize my work clothes, but I'm tempering it with the knowledge that 1) she's in SF, a seriously more stylin' town than I'm in 2) she has lots more closet space, and 3) my pursuit of comfort (and occasional need to crawl around under my desk) really gets in the way of my desire to wear skirts.
  
  
• Having said that, link dump ahoy: Tulle US (Anthroplogie-type style at closer-to-Target prices), Red Dress Shoppe and Trashy Diva (delish retro 40s/50s dresses; the latter HT rm), Cydwoq (painfully expensive handmade shoes, but fun to look at nonetheless), Five and Diamond (steampunk showcase).
  
  
• Ow update: Shin splints have (d?)evolved into a near-constant tightness. Improvement on the strip is slow but steady. Elbows/wrists MUCH happier with trackball on work machine.