Day: May 27, 2004

I recognized none of the birdsong I heard walking home tonight. The daunting Birds of Michigan (Auburn, WA: Lone Pine Publishing, 2003) makes you feel like such a nitwit when you open it up and see meticulous descriptions of the calls and songs of hundreds of Michigan birds. The Eastern kingbird (Tyrannus tyrannus—what a great...

Weird how eerily quiet it was tonight ….. except for the occasional sound of what had to be firecrackers in the distance. Is today some holiday that I’m not aware of?

My first time in the Fine Arts Library in Tappan Hall today. It’s a smaller library than the behemoths next door, but it’s got its charms. There’s a nice, extensive reference room, and across a landing, there’s two floors of stacks (deserted when I visited today). I didn’t find the James Gillray books I was...

Crazy Wisdom Books on 114 South Main is worth a visit at least once. They’re well-stocked. They have two floors, one with a fairly decent selection of metaphysical and “alternative religion” (pagan, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.) books, though the inventory within each category is not as deep as the amount of categories is wide, and the...

Apparently everyone’s not universally thrilled with the new Seattle Public Library. A blog called Caminothoughts opines: Will it take half the electricity production of the Skagit River dams just to keep the greenhouse-like building at a tolerable temperature during a warm and sunny summer? This afternoon with a little sun and a large number of...

It just started pouring rain. Forget what I said.

We went to Tios the other night. Very good Mexican restaurant (odd location, though, across the street from the Ann Arbor News building and nothing else around it). The atmosphere was pretty laid-back, the rows and rows of chili bottles lining the walls was a nice touch, and the food, though a little too rich...

The New York Times has an amusing article today about blogging. It’s essentially the same idea as most articles or mainstream media treatments these days. Blogging is an addiction (therefore morally suspect), people sit on the toilet and blog into their laptops for hours (even on their anniversaries!!!) and ruin their relationships, people who blog...

The sun seems to be making a reappearance the past two days. It’s in and out, but it’s definitely there. I would say I guess the worst of the rainy weather is over, but I know better anymore than to hazard any guesses about Michigan weather.