Unfortunately, you can only participate in LiveJournal polls if you have a LiveJournal account. If you’re not a LiveJournal account holder, but want to participate, use the comment feature (click on the “Thoughts” or “Reply” link below) to cast your vote and/or make a comment. Check this out: Studies on the design of cell phones … Read more
This morning, I prepared for my 4:00 meeting with the NCSU Usability Testing folks, who I met with at 4:00. My afternoon, up until time to leave for that meeting, was spent reading always arduous, often arcane, scholarly papers and book chapters about sociolinguistics. I continue to waffle about dropping this class. My meeting with … Read more
We decided to blow off the trip out to the fairgrounds today in favor of getting home earlier. We left DC at about 10:30. We stopped for lunch at a Hardee’s, where we used a buy-one-sandwich-get-one-free coupon. I also filled up at this stop, as gas was $2.39 a gallon — the lowest I’ve seen … Read more
Robert got up at 8:30, and went and moved my car into a parking garage close by. We had breakfast in the room, consisting of coffee, “toast” (microwaved bread), and some deliciously ripe cantaloupe. We also split a slice of banana bread that Robert had picked up while moving my car. It tasted more like … Read more
I met Dr. Swarts in his office where he interviewed me regarding three of the four recordings I made of my “copy and paste activity.” It was interesting to have to think about, and explain, why I copied the parts of text that I did, and my reasons for reformatting upon pasting. It’ll be interesting … Read more
About this “Dear Prudy” today, I thought before I read Prudy’s response: “This is the stuff of classic literature.” I do hope she had the good sense to change the actual circumstance of what happened to make her point. I mean how many people’s fathers die by being hit on the head with a corn cob? … Read more
I listened to a couple of slate.com podcasts today that I just loved. One was called, “The Smartest Way To Say Stupid,” which is about a contest that slate.com held for people to send in euphemisms for the word “stupid.” The podcast clarifies that “synonyms” are not euphemisms, so words like “dimwit” and “knucklehead,” for … Read more
I worked from home today. I created my blog entry for our four readings due for tomorrow’s class: Eric Abrahamson, “Hear Me Now” This article is germane to our study in terms of learning the history of the wireless industry in the United States. Abrahamson documents that history by covering both the how and the … Read more
There is an ad campaign going on for the Metro that I really like, as it’s word-oriented. Here are two ads that we saw while using the Metro: Escalump: (es-ke-lump) n. Person who becomes a human speed bump by suddenly stopping at the top or bottom of Metro escalators. PlanBdextrous: (plan-be-dek-stres) adj. able to plan … Read more
We got up at 8:30, and walked down to Krammer’s book store at Dupont Circle, where we had breakfast alfresco at their Afterwords Cafe & Grill. I had the Banana French Toast, which was quite delicious, but I would say that overall the “dining experience” was disappointing. It took too long to get served when … Read more