Tag: silliness

photos of exclamation points

I happened to look at the search terms people used to find my blog today, and saw that someone had come seeking “exclamation point photos.” I found this rather surprising. Perplexing, even. For one thing, I haven’t posted (or hadn’t yet posted), to my knowledge, any actual photographs of exclamation points. (I did once compose and post a rather nice graphic of an exclamation point made of punctuation marks, but it’s not a photo.)

For another thing, I was surprised that someone out there would actually be looking for “exclamation point photos.” That is, someone out there who is not me. As it happens, I have found myself noticing exclamation points in the wild for the past several years. They are elusive and rare creatures, but happily, once spotted, they tend not to run away. Many of them will even consent to having their photos taken.

First, my earliest wild exclamation point sighting. This little guy was seen at the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park in March of 2009.

It seemed to be made out of green tea, which is common for wild punctuation marks in the area. Sadly, shortly after this photo was taken, the little exclamation point was squished and smeared across the table by the fingers of a curious nearby preschooler.

This rather startled looking specimen was seen on the ceiling tiles in a lab at MIT. I think it was trying to run away. (Spotted March, 2011.)

This cute little guy was on some steps of the Great Wall of China, near Mutianyu. It posed for me in May, 2012.

And most recently, this timid creature was seen at a zoo in Massachusetts in August, 2012. It was trying to hide under a few leaves, possibly out of concern that it would be stomped on. (And it may have had some reason for concern, as I believe that the feet in the photo belong to the same individual who smushed the green tea exclamation point of the first 2 photos back in 2009.)

As you can see, my blog will now be THE go-to place for photos of exclamation points. Perhaps one day I will write a guide book on the subject.

The Oscars

Tonight, much of the world is tuning in to watch The Oscars. As for me, I’m not sure which of these Oscars has the Best Picture. I think it’s a tough call between Oscar Wilde and Oscar the Grouch.


image credits: Oscar from the Odd Couple, Oscar the Grouch, Oscar Mayer, Oscar Wilde

(I almost didn’t this post, as in the search for an Oscar Madison picture, I found this other post along the same lines. But I decided to go ahead, anyhow.)

digging out

As you may have heard, the US East Coast was hit by a blizzard over the past couple of days. We weathered the storm without any incident (happily, we didn’t lose power), and by mid-morning today the skies had cleared and the sun came out. All told, it looks like we got somewhere between 18 inches and 2 feet of snow. (It was crazy-windy last night, so there was much drifting.)

John had shovelled several times during the night, so the driveway only had about 8 inches when the snow stopped. He had, however, left the car untouched. Come 3 in the afternoon, pretty much all of the other necessary shovelling was done. It was time to deal with this:


Dude, where’s my car?

Theo, who often enjoys brushing the snow off the car with our long-handled snow brush, decided that he would take on the job.


2:54:28 p.m. Trying the side of the car first, but having trouble reaching the car.


2:54:46 p.m. Around to the back, and looking determined.


2:55:09 p.m.


2:55:16 p.m.


2:55:59 p.m. “You can get the rest, Mommy.”

So it was up to me.


4:09 Close enough? I think this is kind of a good look for the car. And we didn’t have to go anywhere.


What do you see? (Please participate in the snow Rorschach test.)

a dozen tomatoeufs

Back in the summer of 2007, I participated in a CSA, and found myself frequently overwhelmed by produce. Case in point: for several weeks in a row, I received 10 pounds of tomatoes a week. For people who do things like make pasta sauce and can it, this sort of bounty probably sounds wonderful. For me, who did neither, it was about 9 pounds of tomatoes too many per week.

I made it through, with many tomatoes shared with friends, many caprese salads, and probably a certain amount of compost.¹

I also had fun taking photos of the tomatoes. One week I had a large number of little egg-sized tomatoes, which inspired me to play with my food. (The yolk is a little round yellow tomato.)

¹ I also produced a fair amount of tomato posts, including a tomato ThThTh list, and a post about excessive tomatoes, in which I actually first posted these photos.²
² It’s so funny to go back and look at some of my old posts. I was a posting maniac back when this blog was in its infancy. Also, I was often pretty damn funny. If I do say so myself.³
³ Apparently, I do.