Well, this is my personal home page.
Contents:
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions." There's a phrase I'd like to abolish from the language. What an unprofound statement. It's true that bad results occasionally come from well-intentioned actions. But bad results also come (and more reliably so) from people working with bad intentions. And good results come almost exclusively from good intentions.
When you're watching the credits at the end of a movie, and it says "No animals were harmed in the making of this film," does that mean that the caterers only served vegetarian meals to the cast and crew?
I've always wondered why libraries and video-rental stores always urge people to rewind the videotapes before returning them. To me, it's no big deal to hit the "rewind" button automatically when I pop the tape in. Which is why I am so puzzled that the library does not have any little stickers on their AUDIOTAPES (books on tape) asking people to rewind them. And, indeed, people DON'T rewind them. It's quite a nuisance, because I am never quite sure which way my tape player is going (it has the auto-reverse feature). Usually when I put in a library tape and try to rewind it, I end up fast-forwarding it further in the wrong direction. IT DRIVES ME NUTS! And it's so easy to hit the fast-forward button for a few seconds when you're done listening to the tape, and leave it ready to play at the beginning. Why do I seem to be the only person who does it?
One thing that really gets my goat - you're in a public building here in the US and you see the little male and female glyphs on the doors of the restrooms - you know the ones I mean. The broad-shouldered man, and the woman in the dress. OK, all well and good. Then you look at the building map, and it shows the little broad-shouldered man glyph at the spot where you are standing. What does this mean? "If you are a man, you are here"? Or the broad-shouldered man, again, on the sign by the elevator, running down the stairs with flames around him. Which obviously means that, in case of fire, only women can use the elevator?
How about people who hang Dreamcatchers from the rear-view mirrors of their cars... are they planning to fall asleep at the wheel? :-) No, actually that's not a peeve, I just thought it was funny.
"For a perfectionist, the spiritual path offers an irrestistible high road of
noble conduct against which you can always feel inadequate. I once asked a noted
actor if his guru of many years (whom he was always talking about) was the center
of his life. Quite agitated, he said, 'No! I wish I could say yes, but that's what
I'm striving for.' He then added, 'It's like an onion, we have so many layers to
peel off,' implying spiritual growth was an unending task. I could see that my
question had really distressed him. What about loving the whole onion as you go,
I asked, so that you're not postponing self-love and peace of mind?"
RAFFI,
Raffi: The Life of a Children's Troubadour,
1999.
"Both sides of the calendar debate were wrong; the new century began on
11 September 2001."
BRUCE SCHNEIER,
Crypto-Gram,
15 September 2001.
"Nothing else is like information. Information is very peculiar stuff.
It can both be created and destroyed. You can steal it without removing it.
You can often get some just by guessing."
JOHN GORDON,
The Alice and Bob After Dinner Speech,
1984.
"One is lucky to have a vagina; it can be such a pleasure,
and it gives such pleasure. And never gets caught in a zipper!"
DR. RUTH WESTHEIMER,
Dr. Ruth's
Guide to Good Sex, 1983.
"Birth-control pills are safer than aspirin. The world would be a
healthier place if oral contraceptives were available in every corner
store and cigarettes were limited to prescription use."
DR. MALCOLM POTTS "The Unmet Need for Family Planning",
Scientific American, January 2000.
"But as records of courts and justice are admissible, it can easily
be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were
a scourge to mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which
certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a
flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges' decisions based on it were
sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing court was ever more
thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which
so many suffered death. If there were no witches, human testimony and
human reason are alike destitute of value."
ABMROSE BIERCE "The Devil's Dictionary"
"Every child should have mud pies, grasshoppers, water-bugs, tadpoles,
frogs, mud-turtles, elderberries, wild strawberries, acorns, chestnuts,
trees to climb, brooks to wade in, water-lillies, woodchucks, bats, bees,
butterflies, various animals to pet, hayfields, pinecones, rocks to roll,
sand, snakes, huckleberries and hornets; and any child who has been deprived
of these has been deprived of the best part of his education. By being well
acquainted with all these, they come into most intimate harmony with nature,
whose lessons are, of course, natural and wholesome."
LUTHER BURBANK 1849-1926 "Training the Human Plant"
"...but here were the young women of the highest intelligence, and
the most daring and ingenious of them, coming out of the chiaroscuro
of a thousand years, blinking at the sun and wild with desire to try
their wings. I believe that some of them put on the armor and halo of
St. Joan of Arc, who was herself an emancipated virgin, and became like
white-hot angels. But most women, when they feel free to experiment with
life, will go straight to the witches' Sabbath. I myself respect them
for it, and do not think that I could ever really love a woman who had
not, at some time or other, been up on a broomstick."
ISAK DINESEN 1885-1962 "The Old Chevalier"
Links to Web sites which I find interesting:
Last messed with on November 21, 2004.