Sleep, Pretty Darling, Do Not Cry... and Other Thursday Randutiae

Happy Pan-Universal Be Who You Are Day! Someone who uses voice recognition software and draws should start a VRS comic strip. The objects that appear suddenly in my scenes because my VRS has misunderstood me are visually amusing. I just dictated the line, "'I will,' she said with a sob," and my VRS typed, "'I will,' she said with a saw." I feel like a spontaneous saw could really add something to a conversation.Gentlemen of Cambridge: to the man, when faced with a long, narrow corridor of sidewalk between snowbanks, you have waited at your end and let me pass first. This has literally happened to me twelve times since the storm (which I know because at a certain point I started counting). In this northeast USA city (meaning, a city where strangers tend not to pay much attention to each other and rudeness is not particularly unusual), I am startled and touched by this thoughtfulness, then startled that I am touched. Thank you for your gentlemanly behavior.Have you seen the video and (even better, IMO) photo of extreme surfer Garrett McNamara riding a 100-foot wave in Nazare, Portugal?My Word Roundup last week led to some great conversations with friends. A couple things to share: here's Andrew's recent blog post about what is and what isn't a skeuomorph. Andrew is a designer and knows of which he speaks :). (Thanks, Anindita!) And -- AND -- a conversation with JD about writing backwards etc. led to this video. I know you're all busy, folks, but I strongly recommend you take the 7 minutes to watch this Mobius Story, by mathematician and artist Vi Hart. It is super. Thanks JD! 
Housekeeping: in an attempt to get more organized on the blog -- and less self-promotey in my blog posts -- I've started posting book news behind my News link again.I just can't take Captain America seriously. He has a big A on his head. It stands for America. And in the end... some of you will have recognized my subject line today. I can't stop listening to the back half of Abbey Road, the medley that starts with "You Never Give Me Your Money" and goes through to "The End." So much oddness and wisdom in that 16 minutes. Abbey Road is one of about five albums I grew up with from the time I was a baby, pretty much imprinted into my DNA. Listening to it is (almost) a way to get back home.