Notes from a Medium-Sized Island

Interesting dialect discussion over at Language Log. To me "'cause of" sounds right exactly when "because of" would, in contrast to Lieberman's grammaticality-sense. I think if someone said "...'cause of I had already left" I would probably have heard it as "...'cause if I had already left" and I would be left waiting for the conclusion, since both "of" and "if" in that position would be realized as a schwa followed by a v, the way I talk.

Hanging out with combinator and pete. Got a copy of the Bad Plus's "Give" at Borders. Haven't finished listening to it, but it shows some promise. You may recall that I liked "These are the Vistas" a lot, which I got in mp3 form from tom7. The plan to drive all the way to Kenosha to eat at White Castle was modified to a plan including buying White Castle frozen burgers and making them in martin's apartment. They're surprisingly good.

---

ETA: Man, too bad I can't get this shit back in pittsburgh, unless Whitey's website is lying to me about frozen foods availability. These are awesome little burgers. There is a place called White Tower, though.

FontBlog: I kind of like this font. Apparently some people really hate ITC Garamond, the font Apple used a shitload in the early 80s. I'm actually rather font of it, even as much as it's so much pissing on Garamond's grave. Funny quote:

The most distinctive element of the typeface is its enormous lower-case x-height. In theory this improves its legibilty, but only in the same way that dog poop's creamy consistency in theory should make it more edible. Some people dislike ITC Garamond because it's a desecration of the sacred memory of Claude Garamond.

It also seems cool to hate Optima, which I also like. Maybe I'm just not cool.