Revamped, rested and ready

[Off to register for spring semester at New College's main campus in the Mission (you knew the law school is on Fell, in a cute little Spanish-revivial building right around the corner from City Hall, didn't you?). If it's as chaotic as fall's orientation and registration was, I'll be needing a muy grande burrito and maybe a beer or two from Pancho Villa or Taqueria Cancun before the afternoon is over. There were hints that our grades would be posted at school this week, but now that it comes to the moment, I'm almost scared to find out. Almost, but not quite.]

[Now that classes are finally about to begin, I'm beginning to wonder where the winter break went. A lot of it was spent recovering from colds (John's cough seems finally to be fading, if I can just get him not to smoke for a day or two more), and making CD's to send out in lieu of Christmas cards. My book list was rather odd:
The Great Democracies Winston Churchill,
Red Mars (again) Kim Stanley Robinson,
The Lord of the Rings (I made it thru!) J.R.R. Tolkien,
Madonna Andrew Morton,]

[...and I'm delighting in leafing thru my new copy of the Phonetic Symbol Guide by Geoffrey K. Pullum and William A. Ladusaw. I bought the 1986 edition in 1996, when I was still feeling a horrible case of intellectual coitus interruptus after dropping out, and it turns out the edition I bought yesterday came out that same year, after the International Phonetic Association totally revamped the alphabet in the '90s. While linguistics as a vocation is in my distant past, I will always want to know the latest theories of segmental transcription of tones (memories of my 1989 phonology class, taught almost incomprehensibly by the Chinese head of UCSB's Ling department) and ingressive bilabial clicks.]

[Oh, and then I get this e-mail from my mother today:]
["When you get ads in your phone or utility bill, include them with the payment. Let them throw it away.]

["When you get those pre approved letters in the mail for everything from credit cards to 2nd mortgages and junk like that, most of them come with postage paid return envelopes, right?]

["Well, why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it in these cool little envelopes!]

["Send an ad for your local chimney cleaner to American Express. Or a pizza coupon to Citibank.]

["If you didn't get anything else that day, then just send them their application back! If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your name isn't on anything you send them. You can send it back empty if you want to just to keep them guessing!]

["Eventually, the banks and credit card companies will begin getting all their junk back in the mail. Let's let them know what it's like to get junk mail, and best of all THEY'RE paying for it! Twice! Let's help keep our postal service busy since they say e-mail is cutting into their business, and that's why they need to increase postage again!"]

[Good for a giggle, I guess, but I seem to think that the poor flunkies who open Amex's or Citibank's mail get just as much junkmail at home as you or I do, and the suits who put together mailer campaigns will never have to see all the wasted time and paper a gag like this would involve.]

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