For those who are interested, this site has been set up so that U.S. citizens can wave good-bye to their money. Hooray for accountability!

On Wednesday I made a batch of red velvet cupcakes to take to my bridge class and to work, but when I was finished there was a lot of the butter cream cheese frosting left. It seemed too good to throw away or to feed to the cat so tonight I’m making carrot cupcakes to take to work with me.

Earlier tonight I went to the grocery store to get carrots and walnuts. The entrance looked like Valentine’s Day had been murdered there, red and pink flotsam everywhere. Also one of the cashiers was questioning every man who was checking out without flowers. It was a macabre scene. It did give me an idea though for some future Valentine’s Day: I want to draw a chalk outline of cupid on a sidewalk somewhere and stick up a bit of crime-scene tape around it.

Incidentally the red velvet recipe said it would produce two dozen cupcakes, but I ended up with only enough batter for twenty-two. The carrot cupcake recipe I worked from claimed to produce twenty-two cupcakes and I ended up with two dozen.

Last night at Whole Foods I bought a couple of cans of “Amy’s Organic Soups” because they were on sale. Tonight when I went to prepare one of them for dinner this is the only guidance I found on the can’s label, “Directions: Heat and serve. Please do not overcook.”

Given the parcity of the preceding sentence, it is the “Please” that really amuses me.

This site makes pretty word clouds out of the words which appear on the website one provides:

Driving home this morning I saw one of those electronic road signs informing me that “Momerial” Avenue was closed and to take a detour. I can only hope this was a result of those hackers who are elsewhere telling folks to be on the look out for dinosaurs and zombies.

Addendum 2009-02-09 0722 hours:

The “typo” yet lives.

Another Addendum 2009-02-10 0716 hours:

The misspelling yet lives and I feel at this point I should note that I believe that this error is not really a “typo” so much as a phonetic spelling based upon the pronunciation of the typist.

And Another Addendum 2009-02-18 0736 hours:

The sign, after several days of being rendered blank, has been fixed and the spelling corrected.

The video for “Her Morning Elegance” by Oren Lavie is a unique example of time lapse photography being used in a music video. The song is good, the video is better. My only somewhat negative comment is that the idea that the musician must appear in the music video is false and this isn’t a bad example of why that is the case; I think it would have been a stronger work without him. There is some information about the making of the video here.

My local NPR station is currently engaged in one of its bi-monthly membership drives. It occurred to me as I was listening that I would be far more likely to donate if the personalities interrupting the programming to ask for money would stop implying that I was stealing from them by being anything less than a current member. I made note of this to Daniel.

Tonight as I was listening to All Things Considered, Christine Dempsey, WHYY Program Director, came on the air and talked about how she was in the cafeteria earlier that day and she made sure to wait in line to pay for her lunch because it would never occur to her just walk out with the food and with that “analogy” the hitherto implied accusation became a direct one. Now I kind of wish I had never donated to the station.

I understand that NPR needs the funding. I am even the sort of person who is generally inclined toward giving money to make sure programs like American Routes or Fresh Air stay on the air, but it is entirely unacceptable to suggest that everyone listening to a freely available radio show without donating is a thief.

I noticed along the top edge of the remaining cover on a battered copy of Webster’s New World Dictionary (1995 edition) a line of text, “The #1 New York Times Bestseller”.

I have to wonder if that fact is particularly enticing to those in the market for a dictionary.