like Perl? like kids? want to write a book?

i direct you to this. if you don't already know nat, you may find it useful to drop my name. unless you're going to make a totally halfassed proposal, in which case you should drop waider's name instead.

(i don't think Perl is actually a requirement, but it will score you a bunch of points.)

o daughters of Jerusalem, i beseech thee

today in the asian/mexican grocery, i picked up a packet of a mexican herb (or at least, it's from a company that sells mexican spices) labeled "alvacar." i have no idea what it is, but for a buck i figured i could buy it and look it up when i got home.

i googled it. no dice. lots of companies called Alvacar, but none of them have to do with mystery herbs. it smells a lot like oregano, but not quite... not as sweet as basil, too strong for marjoram.

anyone know what this stuff is? what it's used for? anything at all?

via drieuxster

a pitch perfect 30s style megaphone croon about Snakes on a Plane.

fabulous. i am so happy to live in a world where someone would even think of doing this.

so here's the thing about Wilma...

if you've been chained to the wall in a dark basement for the last few weeks, you may not be aware that tropical storm Wilma ties the previous record for most tropical storms in a year -- 21 storms -- since they started keeping track in 1851. that record was set in 1933, before they started naming them. (note: Wilma will be the first hurricane to start with the letter W. coincidence... or conspiracy? you be the judge.)

here's the thing that's so amazing about this -- the hurricane season is only half over. it lasts till the end of November. let that sink in for a minute: we've already tied the record, and we're only halfway there. in 1933, storm #21 appeared on the 15th of November and ran through the 17th. this is a Big Deal. it's such a big deal, i'm amazed the news media hasn't made more of it. we're clearly going to beat the record by an uncomfortable margin.

we're also out of names: W is the last letter in the alphabet used for naming hurricanes (they don't use Q, U, Y, or Z). during Rita, when i was looking up info on the last time we got up to R (1995, and before that not since '33), there was no information available on what happens when you run out of names for storms.

apparently since then they've decided what to do (or at least decided to post the info). from the NHC's Worldwide Tropical Cyclone Names page: "...additional storms will take names from the Greek alphabet: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and so on."

keep an eye on Wilma, but you can look forward to the imminent appearance of baby Alpha, coming soon to a tropical depression near you.