Some days just can't hold onto their hours. This day — Wednesday — has butterfingers. It feels as though only seconds ticked since I phoned Jon Iverson this morning. In fact, an entire day has gone by. People are walking out the door, saying "bye," without looking back. Meanwhile, I'd like to start from the beginning.

Getcher Mobius strips, Klein bottles, and Costa surfaces here!

<I>Locust Street</I> is exploring 1956. Yesterday's post actually manages to connect Stockhausen to Clarence "Frogman" Henry. True, it's a chronological connection, but I guarantee that nobody will contrive an odder coupling in 2006. Great site, worth a regular visit.

No dogs or philosophers allowed. Yes, they're ads, but they're very funny ads.

Here's a sobering story about computer buying. <I>[H] Consumer</I> went to Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA, and Fry's Electronics to buy a computer and simply tells us what happened. The money quote: "Most retail sales people are simply not going to possess the necessary knowledge to correctly recommend or explain every nuance of a piece of hardware. Even if a sales rep has all that down, a greater skill is required from them: relating that 64-bit-Lightscribe-GeForce knowledge in a non-condescending, helpful way to someone who is unsure what his hardware needs even are. The potent combo of techie know-how and properly relating it to an 'everyday' consumer is a difficult knack to develop. Most sales reps you’ll encounter are polishing one or the other, if not both of those skills, if they posses them to begin with."

<A HREF="http://blog.hometheatermag.com/markfleischmann/">Mark Fleischmann</A> sends us a cautionary link that argues that our immersion in the technological soup of bleeps, blips, and scattershot images is changing us from critters who think in words to ones that utilize pictures.