(no subject)

My @alumni.upenn.edu forwarding address (and perhaps other people's....can anyone verify this?) has not been working since something like Friday. I found out yesterday morning, and haven't gotten a tech support response from anyone yet. (I emailed about 3 different people who might be in charge.) I have no idea what's wrong, or what could possibly be wrong with something that's just a forwarding address. I suspect that some misguided attempt at spam filtering has gone haywire.

But it's driving me NUTS. I HATE lost data, and I suspect that's what this is. (Though email delayed by days and days is about 63% as bad as lost data.) I hate that I can't email certain mailing lists because I won't get personal replies, and I don't feel like changing all of my mailing list memberships. I'm feeling quite handcuffed here. I just want to be able to talk to someone who can tell me that they're working on it!

If you have anything to say to me for the near future, or if you've emailed me since Friday at that address, please comment here or email whatever other addresses you may have for me.

Graaaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!!!!

link and ramble

First, some links. Then, some sports ramblings. Then a random poll. Ready? Good.

Al Taubenberger is the Republican mayoral candidate in Philadelphia in this November's elections. Even for a city that might never again elect a Republican mayor, he's pathetic as a candidate. Absolutely no shot of winning. And a pathetic website to boot. (At least he has a snazzy URL.) BUT he just YouTubed the best political commercial I've ever seen. It's morning again in Philadelphia. Well, a really cheesy morning, maybe.

I never did post the 2007 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest results, and to be honest, I haven't even read through all of them yet. But they're annually fantastic—people writing the worst possible opening sentence for a nonexistent novel. Check it out.

This dude has gotten at least one baseball at 454 straight baseball games.

NFL TV distribution maps show you which games are playing in which cities throughout the country every week. Gives you a little insight into some of the rules determining that stuff too.

Is local food really more environmentally sound? (The latter two links are from http://www.kottke.org/, which perhaps I should start reading, via Crushing Krisis, which perhaps the rest of you should start reading.)

If you give this site chapter and verse, it will give you the Bible text you specify...in about 50 different languages and translations.

I can't remember the last time I linked to Gene Weingarten's chat. But it's one of the highlights of my week, every week. He's a brilliant humorist, and in the online chat format, he's transcendent. The next one starts at noon EDT today, but be sure to take the poll first.

Now, sports rambling!

( Baseball rambling )

( Football rambling )

( Hockey rambling )

Poll time! (By "rhyme" in the answers below, I'm referring to vowel sound only. Clearly the words don't all rhyme in the usual sense of counting the final consonant as well.)

[Poll #1057223]

(As usual, if you mess up, you can change your answers. The link to do so this time is here.)

I know you always see pronunciation surveys like this, but this is a particular class of regional pronunciation differences that I don't think is normally differentiated in those surveys. And I do think it's Philadelphia specific. More info here.

Happy Tuesday!