Boom boom, shake shake the room.

We had an earthquake in Southern Illinois Monday. I totally missed it. I came out of the shower, and my wife told me that the apartment shook for a second. We thought the girls downstairs might be fighting or something. Yeah, breaking up a fight between two young women would not have been fun. I'd have been lucky to escape with my fellas intact. Sure as hell wasn't going down there. At any rate, there was no fight to break up, since what shook my little homestead was some big ole plates, not two angry coeds. I have never actually experienced an earthquake, so far as I remember. I recall that there was one in Maryland when I was very young, but it happened at night. Until recently, I was always a very sound sleeper, so I missed that one, too. I think my brother said he grabbed the tail of his Scooby Doo doll when he felt it. He'll deny that now, though. Funny, since Joy and I were just talking about quakes the day before we had one in Carbondale. The area around here is home to the worst recorded earthquake in the continental United States. Not San Francisco. New Madrid, Missouri. Seems that Tecumseh did it. There's a nice series of essays about it all in the 2004 Waterman and Hill Traveler's Companion; too bad it's not online. Read up on it. Now you've learned something here today. See how I love you? Pragmatikally, of course. But it's loving nonetheless.

Gmail notifier.

If you've been waiting, like I have, for a Gmail notifier that works with Firefox and that does not require that annoying Google Toolbar, the wait is over. It's here! It works, so far as I've used it. Delicious, I know. If you're not using Firefox, you don't know what you're missing. It's not just some anti-Microsoft thing for me. I have nothing against Bill or Microsoft. I use Windows XP and don't really care for Macs that much (don't hurt me, Mac users!). The tabbed browsing is perfect for daily/hourly blog reading. I never use anything else for blogging. And it's not likely that the browser will crash while you're in the middle of a long post, either. That's always a good thing. Oh, and if you haven't tried Gmail yet, email me privately for an invitation. I've got at least 50 for the asking.

Learning, i.

Five Things I've learned in the last 24 hours:

1) Eating lunch is good. 2) Seeing the sun come up before you go to bed is not -- at least, not on Sunday/Monday. 3) Depeche Mode's "Walking In My Shoes" sounds hauntingly delightful on the mandolin. 3) "The Love Thieves" does not. 4) There is no such thing as too much coffee, even on a hot day, provided said coffee is in a cup of at least 20 oz. 5) Too much black bean soup means that I should be sequestered for the evening.

No more toenail.

My wife begged me not to subject the internet public to images of my toenail after my little spill a few weeks ago, specifically before it totally came off. I could pull it all the way back, etc. Yeah, it was gross. Especially when I went camping and kept getting pebbles under it. That's up there with getting sand stuck in the little undies of men's swimming trunks. Seriously. Sorry, Mrs., but I can't resist. The first is what I would do with toenail right before I cut the whole thing off. This is the least gross photo, honest. The second is what it looks like now, with no nail at all. I was considering painting my toenails this summer. I wear socks and shoes rarely enough that it would be worth the trouble. When I was 15, I had them all painted a different color. The summer camp I worked at included an art program. So when the kiddies all made dough dogs and rings and cars, the art teacher made me a foot with multi-colored toes. Very sweet.

Okay.

(In whiney teenager voice) I'm comin'! I'm comin'! Normal blogging will resume today, Monday. Sorry for the lapse.

Blogging from office.

So I wanted to get a laptop, since I will be working on my dissertation this coming academic year (and the following several). However, I certainly don't want to shell out precious cash for something I have to lug around -- that I only want for checking my email and writing papers. So I thought I would get a cheaper Dell desktop and have that in my office. I love the nicer Dell we have at home. Low and behold, my youngest brother and father gave me my father's old laptop. It's free, is only two or so years old (has XP, so that's good). Faner Hall is all wireless now, so my wireless card from Dell (which came today via the door-pounding and doorbell-ignoring DHL dude who is still nice in my book) allows me to sit here blogging from my moderately chilly office on the third floor of Faner. No more excuses to not come into the office like I should, since being away from the computer on a weekday makes me unnecessarily uncomfortable. This means, of course, more blogging about useless things and topics, like my newly-exercised online-ness (!) in my office. Yeah. Sorry.

Fortune cookies.

Last week, my wife and I both found the same fortune in our cookies when we had Chinese food delivered, as we do every Friday.(Enlarge to read fortune.) What does it mean to get the same fortune as someone at the same time? Does that make come true? Mean something deeper? Cause neither one of us is all that versatile, truth be told.

Blogging Thoreau.

I'm pretty behind on weblog news and such lately, but there's a nice article linked to from the Thoreau Society's webpage which features Greg Perry, the kind gent who brings us The Blog of Henry David Thoreau every day. I though I'd mention it, since credit is clearly due. One of the chief aims of the Thoreau Society has always been to spread Henry's message, and Greg does that in a way that Henry himself would never have dreamt possible.

Photo Friday: Sport.

For Photo Friday: Sport. If you've been reading this blog for more than, say, a week, then you know that sports are not exactly my cup of tea. I got a concussion once playing football, four sprained fingers playing football. I played seven seasons of soccer, and I used to play baseball daily, not to mention shooting and archery in Boy Scouts. Once I hit college-age, drunken frisby was my Friday sport. This summer, my sport of choice is studying for my preliminary doctoral examinations (or whatever the hell the full name for them is). The injuries will only be moral or intellectual onces. I mean, I have to read Kant (again), and I think it's more than a little impossible to entirely escape injury reading Kant's ethics. But that's just me. Hume, in all of his sexiness, however, I'm looking forward to. (Mega thanks, Mr. H. for access to "the notes.")

Theories.

I hate it when most people come out with supposed theories about humanity or the universe in general. These are usually half-cocked, over-arching statements that are as vague as fortune cookies and so, of course, are often at least partially accurate. These theories often come out after I answer the "What are you studying?" question that people inevitably ask when they learn that I'm entering my ninth year of schooling and won't be finished anytime soon -- though of course this only comes after it's clear that I choose to still be in school, not that I keep failing and/or partying and am taking nearly a decade to complete my BA. Anyway, my favorite answer to the "What are you studying?" question is always "Philosophy -- the money-maker." This is all-too-often followed with something like, "Oh, I'm a philosopher, too. I figured out that no one does anything unless they have to." What do you say to that? "Dude, you're a shitty philosopher," or, "That's an inane thing to say"? Maybe it's the philosophy-snob in me. "I do this for a living! How dare you concoct this bullshit and pretend to be one of the few, the proud, the chosen, the philosophers!" LOL. Hell, we call rich guys with law degrees and the leisure to write a short philosophy book (and then to pay us to read it and tell him what's wrong with it) "lay" people, as if philosophy goes beyond an academic or even intellectual pursuit and enters the realm of the religious or ever the sacred. Really, though, I don't think that my omnipresent snobbery is what drives me crazy when people tell me about their little theories. It's the fact that they really mean it. It's that some people decide that their moderately witty and pithy little theory about all of humanity is actually true -- and then go and live by it! Thoreau was correct to require that we all live by our principles, truths, etc. But some people have some strange and dangerous theories which they take as rules to live by. Shouldn't there be a test or some standard for what kinds of things we should live by? There are books on Creationism for sale at the Grand Canyon. While I certainly can't say that I believe in Creationism as a viable alternative to other more scientifically rigorous theories of the origin of the universe and its inhabitants (including humankind), there does not seem to me anything wrong with the Park Service selling these books. But these books are sold in the science section, along with science books. Far be it from me to judge another person's religious beliefs to be a little off. But calling Creationism a science like other sciences is just wrong. A professor I had in spring 2004 nailed it when he said what is wrong with that picture. Scientists are held to standards, scientific/academic standards. They have to prove what they posit, have to prove to a set of peers that what they say is not some crazy nonsense. Putting books on Creationism in the with science section is certainly cheating and allowing said books to be classified as actual science, when they are actually religious books. Religion and science might not mutually exclusive topics, yes. But they sure as hell are not the same thing. What I mean with this long aside is to ask: Are some people and their half-cocked theories about life, the universe and everything (salutes D.A.) as valid as, say, an actually thought-out theory about human behavior/nature? Aristotle's words or Peirce's essays are generally given more weight than Joe Theoryguy's concoctions. Why is this so? Doesn't it have something to do with reflection and testing and revising, etc.? I mean, it's not a degree. Neither of the gents mentioned above had philosophy degrees. I'm sure as hell not saying that one needs a degree or background in philosophy. I've met more people whom these degrees didn't help in being truly philosophical than I would care to recall. Most actively thoughtful and reflective people I've come across are not academic philosophers at all, and I think that hints at a lot of what's wrong with academic philosophy today (a topic for another time). Is a person's theory more "valid" then if he or she thinks about it more, reflects on experience, tests it against said experience (ah, the pragmatism!) and makes any necessary changes? Isn't the question then, a question of what makes philosophy? Or are we just foolish to make some universal-ish statements about the universe and humankind, after countless greater minds have failed to provide accurate theories? Are theories that are not universal but which work all we can hope for? [Note: Discussion continued here.]