Small local papers are loads of fun. Without them, we'd have nothing important to read about. This article even has a photo! (thx AF)

The reconstriction of Shakespeare's Globe is my new favorite thing in London. If you're anywhere near here, I highly recommend popping in for a performance.

Last night I saw Christopher Marlowe's Edward the II, which was fabulous, though a bit long (3+ hours). Ignoring the electical lighting, you can easily pretend you're in old London. Very cool, especially with a mug of wine. I'd like to make it back there soon for some actual Shakespeare.

I've been embarking on a project over the last couple of weeks wherein (for one of my email addresses) I have been hitting the "unsubscribe me" option on every piece of spam I get. From porn, to mortgages, to high school diplomas, I have dilligently asked to be removed from every mailing list I appear to be on. After doing so, I am appologized to, and assured that the penis-enlargement scheme I was offerred will never be sent to me again.

After two weeks, I actually seem to be recieving more spam than I was before.

Population statistics are among my favorites. According to this article, what was formerly known as the San Francisco/San Jose/Oakland metropolitan statistical area, is now known as the San Jose/San Francisco/Oakland metropolitan statistical area. Catch that? San Jose is now listed first, reflecting it's larger population.

Fair enough. The bay area is clearly a single urban entity, even if it is stratified in many ways. The naming conventions for such entities in the
United States dictate that the largest incorporated city in the area gets listed first. For example, DC's area is referred to as the "Baltimore-Washington" area.

Although this is probably really boring to most people, you can't help but recognize the psychological significance of this. While flying into SFO, if the pilot welcomes you to the "San Jose" area, it will certainly change people's perceptions of the place, to San Francisco's loss.

Given that San Jose is still little more than a bunch of parking lots with some office parks here and there, this is quite disheartening to those of us who have more refined urban interests at heart, and it's unfair to San Francisco (which is clearly a vastly more important city in almost every area). But so it goes with statistics. They key is to be able to see through them.

Before I bore you to death, allow my hometown pride to tell you that Milwaukee is almost twice as big as Boston, Atlanta, Miami, St. Louis and a host of other more famous cities, but what counts in that case is the metropolitan population, which Milwaukee lacks. Point is, San Francisco dosn't really have that much to worry about.

Anyway, none of this really matters when you think about it. I just can't help obsessing over this stuff.

This is either something I just haven't noticed, or else it's an American newspaper making up strange stories about Britain in the same way the British claim every American has an arsenal of firearms in the closet...

Anyway, according to the New York Times, there is an epidemic of hedge rage tearing Britain apart. Apparently neighborly disagreements regarding hedge maintenance have been turning bloody. There is even a lobbyist group known as "Hedgeline" founded by a man described as "a hero to the fledgling hedge-dispute empowerment movement". Wow.

Never having gone to law school, I had no idea what a tortfeasor was until the always creative Andrew Sinclair came up with his tortfeasor T-shirt idea. I'm now proudly sporting one on the streets of London. Comments so far: None. But that dosn't make them any less amusing! [full explanation]

"I just looked over and saw our wieners in a wad." - Milwaukee Brewers Manager, Ned Yost referring to the aftermath of a bizarre attack by bat-weilding Pittsburgh first baseman Randall Simon on an innocent, 8 foot tall Italian Sausage. And the press goes nuts.

Witness the video and equally hilarious [TV news report here]

Paypal has always been one of my favorite conveniences on the internet. Unfortunately, they've just made a move I find incredibly irritating.

A "basic" paypal account is free, but if you want to receive credit card payments you have to upgrade your account and pay a certain fee. This is fair enough, as credit card companies will be charging paypal. However, once you've "upgraded" your account to be eligible to receive credit card payments (which I did as a one-time favor to a friend who owed me some money), you are forever trapped with a "premier" account and paypal will dock you 4-5% for ALL payments regardless of their origins. There is no way to downgrade back to the basic account.

I don't mind paying for the privilege of receiving credit card payments, but paypal makes enough money off the interest on my account. They don't need to screw me on regular contributions. If you owe me money, please DON'T paypal me.

The last few times I've moved, one of the first things I've done is turned on my laptop and wandered around to see if there was a Wi-Fi in the neighborhood. It never worked, until now! Courtesy of the local neighborhood council! I have free broadband! At last!

Unfortunately, my apartment is so old-school you have to buy "electricity tokens" from the gas station and put them in a machine downstairs. We ran out tonight and I'm typing this by candlelight. Looking forward to a cold shower tommorow! Good grief!

The blog-o-sphere grows. Jeff Rueppel now has a site up and running. If you know Jeff be sure to hassel him about his default tempalte (or lack therof). While you're at it, hassel Thomas too.

More obscure thoughts... If you've ever looked at the back of a large ocean going ship, you may have noticed that more often than not, the ship says either "Panama" or "Monrovia" on it. (those being the capitals of the Republic of Panama and Liberia respectively). The ship will also fly the flag of it's country of registry even though the crew and owner are probably not from there. Here's a list (there are other popular countries too, but you don't see them as much).

The reason is that it's legally advantageous to register your vessel in certain countries, even if it's owned elsewhere.

I can understand stable countries like Panama or the Bahamas as places of registry, but how can a country as messed up as Liberia make this happen? Is there actually a functional Liberian shipping bureaucracy? Or is it just a bunch of people in Switzerland with "Liberia" on the office door? (the Liberian pitch) Then again, if you really want to avoid taxes, perhaps an unstable registry is to your advantage...

One of the main reasons Britain is reluctant to joint the Euro is purely psychological - people attach a huge piece of their national identity to their money. To account for this, each country inside the "Eurozone" prints its own coins with country-specific iconography on the reverse side. This is a great way of preserving some degree of national identity. I have no idea if each country prints the same amount or if it depends on population.

An interesting effect of this is that when you're in a Euro country, you tend to get mostly coins from that particular country. While in France last weekend, we counted up a pile of 30 or so coins and found only two that were not French. The question is: Is it simply a matter of time before the coins distribute themselves? Or are they deliberately collected by banks and sent back to their country of origin? Or are people deliberately hoarding their national coins as a matter of pride?

Speaking of French pride, here's an interesting piece of trivia: There's a map of Europe on the reverse side of the notes which has a tiny inset in the lower left corner. Often overlooked, this section of the map features French Guyana, Martinique, Guadelupe and Reunion. Four disparate overseas territories of France which also use the Euro.