memory is weird sometimes

conuly posted a link to an article called "Toothpaste Is Our New Favorite Souvenir," which I clicked on out of curiosity:

Cardamom sounded appealing (right now I'm using Tom's of Maine cinnamon-clove), thymol no, cucumber coriander mint… mastic dental gel "that's for Velma" and a momentary sad pang because of course I won't be able to share that with her.

I am easily amused

I just emailed the Arlington Library to ask about their privacy policy. Their anti-spam feature, to prove I'm human, was an arithmetic question. Any robot worth its salt can answer "9+14=?" but apparently the bots aren't programmed to recognize the question (displayed in the same way as "Name") or to call an appropriate routine and enter the answer.

a few random questions (Friday five)

via miss_s_b, who got it from

1. Where did you go the last time you took an airplane ride?

Home from Montreal, after visiting Jo Walton and rysmiel


2. Are you a nervous flyer or a comfortable flyer?

Pretty comfortable; sometimes I get nervous right at takeoff or landing.


3. Window seat or aisle seat?

Window for short trips, aisle for long ones where I expect to need to get up and use the bathroom.


4. What is the worst experience you've had flying?

The bad experiences that come to mind mostly involved not flying: a trip home from Montreal cancelled because of weather in New York, taking the bus from Chicago to Madison because of thunderstorms at O'Hare, a Minicon I didn't go to because pouring rain meant nothing was flying out of LaGuardia.…


5. What is the best experience you've had flying?

That would be either seeing Comet Hale-Bopp from 37,000 feet on a Cathay Pacific flight from Narita to San Francisco, or a window seat with a gorgeous view of Puget Sound, flying from Vancouver to Seattle on a puddle-jumper that flew low enough that I had a good view of the scenery throughout.

I like Dash-8s, and understand some reasons why other people don't. What I like is mostly the scenery, and that they'll take you some places a larger plane won't: back in the 1980s, LaGuardia to Toronto Island Airport (now Toronto City), where you were five minutes by free ferry from downtown Toronto once they stamped your passport.

Oh, one more memorable view: London to New York, a window seat for an afternoon flight, when I watched the sunset for almost the entire flight.