Continuing on towards the present:

• I know that when people start singing in Latin, that means what's going on is epic.  But what is it supposed to mean when people sing over the telephone?  (that is, with lots of distortion)  And was that a thing before Jethro Tull's "Aqualung" (1971)?  That's the earliest example I know.
• Sommelier in a dream I just had, swirling & sniffing his glass: "This is a truly superior wine, far superior to anything in this broken world, but with notes of anger and cruelty. It can't be placed too high on a pedestal, because the people would throw rocks at it, but miss and hit the people on the other side, inciting a bloody civil war that would rage for decades, pitting brother against sister, and when it finally ran its course, the wine would have just got better. ...Metaphorically, of course."
• OK, so I just got an email from HostGator asking me to take a quick satisfaction survey, and I couldn't resist the chance to tell them again that they published a bunch of my confidential data to the Web and didn't tell me they had done it, and when I complained they didn't so much as apologize for the security breach. So I clicked the link to take the survey, and my browser immediately told me that the security certificate was invalid!  So I used the survey to tell them that instead...
• You know, I really enjoy the Web migration project I've been working on for the past year (which shall remain nameless), but I increasingly feel like a mover who was hired to move everything from the old house, including the dust bunnies and the contents of the wastebaskets.  And don't forget the switch plates, light bulbs, and wallpaper.  And is that carpet tacked down? We might need it later.
• I feel bad for the TV characters who have to solve a murder every week, rain or shine. Doesn't matter what they were doing, taking the dog to the park or whatever -- it's Tuesday, and there's been another murder.  Their friends must try to avoid them on those days of the week.
• Pretty disturbed by "Get a Horse," the Micky Mouse short that ships with Frozen. Who knew Micky and his friends were such a gang of sadistic psychos? Don't cross them, man, they will F you up. Maybe it's a thinly veiled message from Disney's lawyers?
• First you eat a tortilla chip. Then another. Then you eat one with salsa. Then one with salsa and melted cheese. Next, a chip with salsa, cheese, jalapeños, and black olives. What is the next step in the Fibonacho sequence?
• Just learned that Stroud ain't just a town in Oklahoma.  The real Stroud in Glaucestershire is surrounded by some of the silliest place names you could ask for.  Lightpill.  Dudbridge.  The Vatch.  Thrupp. King's Stanley.  Slad.  Bussage.
• If the Illuminati want to slip important information past me, they don't have to train me to ignore fnords.  They can just disguise their information as sports news.  Heck, they may already be doing it.
• I just glimpsed an article headlined "What you Should Know about Window Manufacturer Jonathan Palmer" in a copy of the Tokyo Times at a local coffee shop. He was shown smashing triple-pane demo windows in a series of photos. I was about to send him a picture of the article, but then the cat woke me up.
• Just had a dream in which Owen Wilson dreamed he was a clarinet player in a band. Mid-performance on stage he was having trouble reading the music (this being his dream), so he said to the roadies, "quit bringin' Fang on!" And without further ado they carried off the saxophonist.
• Do you suppose the TV networks could change their "equal time" requirements into "equal money" requirements?  "Sorry, we can't show any more Tea Party ads until the other factions have also bought a billion dollars' worth..."
• Maybe I've read too much XKCD, but when someone says, "you're a lifesaver," I want to add, "topologically speaking."
• How has nobody started a community garden named "Soil and Greens"? The slogan could be, "it's people!"
• Why are ambulances always so boxy? Do they stack for storage?
• If Amazon is smart enough to know what I'm going to buy before I buy it, then why do they keep showing me ads for things I've ALREADY BOUGHT?
• You know what happens when you legume? You make a leg out of u and me.
• A character in my dream this morning told me, "I was in my 40s when I landed a spot in the symphony orchestra.  I told my dad; he said, 'You're at stage 3 in musical talent. Tell me when you reach stage 5.' Then he died. What am I supposed to do, make the heavens ring with the sound of my... bassoon?"  Apparently I'm now dreaming "Humans of New York."
• Word to the wise: If, after putting a snow tire on your truck, you cannot get the jack low enough to remove it, this indicates that the tire is flat (even if it looks fine), and you must put air in it before proceeding.  DO NOT attempt to free the jack by driving the truck forward.
• When did it ever make sense to say that two things "go together like a horse and carriage?"  Who hasn't seen a horse without a carriage?
• Can the Academy Awards really be said to have "snubbed" a film that its members did not give a plurality of votes to?  It's not like a group of people sit down in a room and say, "Film A has won three Oscars already, so in the interest of fairness we should give Best Picture to Film B."  The people filling out the ballots don't know who's going to win what awards at the time they're voting.  Wouldn't it be more appropriate to use the terminology we use to describe election results?
• Homieostasis, n. When someone you grew up with still lives with their parents.
• What's more disruptive than shelling pistachios in public?
  
  Eating them with the shells on.
• [photo of a "Straight Male Connector" pipe fitting] Nothing brings bros together like hardware.
• [photo of a Yellow Pages entry for Rosie's Daycare categorized under Tools Miscellaneous] Are the children tools, or the care providers?
• I don't know who Egberto Willies is, but I think that's my new name for breakfast sausages.
• Fatigue leads to drinking too much coffee. Drinking too much coffee leads to anxiety. Anxiety leads to the Dark Side.
• I think the active chemical in wasabi should be called chemosabi. And conversely, when the Lone Ranger helps a town, that should be called kemotherapy.
• Watching "The Right Stuff," and I desperately want Chuck Yeager to say, "smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast," instead of his line about borrowing a stick of Beemans.
• Do you suppose Prince meant to say, "This is what it sounds like / When gulls cry?" Because screaming at each other doesn't sound a *thing* like doves.
• Enquiring minds want to know: Why is long-haul trucking called over-the-road trucking? Is there some other way trucks travel?
• A certain local business's sign currently reads, "QUALITY START HERE," on both sides. I can't decide if it's missing an S or a comma.
• Quote of the day: "Being publicly recognized for having impostor syndrome is one of the more paradoxical situations of my life."
• So there's broad consensus that the proper order for watching the first six Star Wars films is IV, V, I, II, III, VI.  ...but what if it were also a chord progression?  Contrived and stupid, right? So... perfect theme song for episode VII?
• It just suddenly occurred to me how similar in plot and tone the movies "A Beautiful Mind" and "The Social Network" are.  There should be a version of "The Social Network" where Mark Zuckerburg turns out to be schizophrenic, and all the patterns he thought he saw in people's personal data turned out to be paranoid delusions, and Facebook's success and his immense wealth turn out to be imaginary.
• Typo of the morning: "pain-staking." Is that another word for acupuncture?
• So far the best thing I've learned from watching the special features on Back to the Future is this story, which I'm paraphrasing:
  
  When the directors approached Huey Lewis about writing a song for the soundtrack, they initially asked him to include details of the film's plot. He said he didn't really do that, but asked what style of song they were looking for, so they gave his hit "I Want a New Drug" as an example. He reportedly said, "Oh, you want a major song. Like, in a major key. I can work with that." The directors worried they had made a mistake, since his offhand comment made it sound like he didn't know anything about songwriting. He came back with "The Power of Love," which was an instant hit. But he said, "In case you don't like that one, I also wrote you the one you asked for" -- "Back in Time," which contains details of the film's plot and sounds a lot like "I Want a New Drug" ... and was also a hit. Plus he made an awesome cameo in the movie. Class act.
• How come scientists get all up in arms about organic food advocates using the word "chemicals" to refer only to harmful, synthetically produced chemicals, but no one gets upset about social scientists using the word "substances" to refer only to harmful, non-prescription drugs? Surely I'm not the only one bothered by the idea that we should aspire to be "substance-free"...
• Matt (Daredevil) Murdock was evidently asked "boxers or briefs?" by a career counselor. And he chose both.
• Whenever I start to think that humans are rational beings, I just have to watch us exit an airplane in EXACTLY THE WRONG WAY.
• I just watched a video on how to change the spark plugs in my truck myself. I will not be changing the spark plugs in my truck myself.
• How come Yoda's dying words were in normal English order instead of his usual object-subject-verb order? Was George Lucas afraid that even after rearranging all his other dialogue in our heads, we couldn't make sense of "Another Skywalker there is?"
• Ant Man = Iron Man + Puss in Boots.
• In a poem popularly attributed to Rumi, he says, "Ours is not a caravan of despair," as if that were a thing that people would mistake his movement for. But I can't find any evidence that anyone has ever claimed to have a caravan of despair. Was he just making up an imaginary thing in order to say what he was doing wasn't that? "Ours is not an invisible pink unicorn. Nor is it an omnipresent space wombat. Nor even is it a photoelectric appendix vibrator."
• Fork-assed, adj. Having a fundamentally chaotic and uncertain nature due to the branching of multiple universes. Ex: "This weather is perfectly fork-assed."
• What's a good word for the feeling you get when you watch a movie preview and feel like you've seen the entire film? [best answer: Deja View]
• I think the subtext of the "share a Coke with ______" campaign is, "we strongly recommend you not consume an entire Coke by yourself." Remember, until a couple years ago they listed the servings per can as 2. Maybe they know something.
• Day one of attempting to eat dairy-free as well as gluten-free, and so far it sucks. Only 30 more days to go. I apologize in advance if any of you invite me to eat anything. I'll be over in the corner gnawing on the wainscoting.
• I think Uma Thurman is secretly a spoonerism for Thermo Woman.
• I'm nostalgic for the days when singing falsetto was out of style.
• I accompanied Jessie Stallings to the little town of St. Marys, Kansas, and I'm working in a coffee shop while she sees a client. Two boys at a nearby table were watching Weird Al videos on a smartphone. It took me a really long time to recognize "White & Nerdy" from the tinny speaker at a distance. It's pretty remarkable that that song (which still seems really recent to me) came out before they were born, and that Weird Al has been cranking out clever songs every few years since I was younger than they are now.
• AAAA! Pet peeve alert! Popular does not equal "best"! Case in point: the read-it-later service I use, getpocket.com, just sent me a message offering to recommend to me "the absolute best content being saved" by other users. Just because other users wanted to read something later does not mean they liked it once they read it! There is no mechanism in the software for people to indicate whether they liked it or not. What they are measuring is the attractiveness of clickbait, not quality of actual content. Whew, done ranting now. No, not done yet. The same objection applies to bestseller lists of books. The people who buy books HAVE NOT READ THE BOOKS YET. What good is their recommendation? At least when people buy songs, you can assume they've heard the songs before. Another case in point: yesterday Facebook showed me a NYT article about Bernie Sanders. Loads of people had liked and shared it. I clicked through and read it. The appalling misuse of statistics would have made a stats 101 prof cry. I was tempted to share it as an example of how to lie with statistics. But doing so would make the article more popular and reward the author, the publisher, and Facebook for promoting such crap. We'll never know how many of the previous shares it received were from people trying to say it was wrong.
• One would think that when a utility's statement indicates a credit balance, they would not include the usual return envelope. What am I supposed to send them, an invoice? A check for negative dollars? The payment slip for some other utility that I do owe money to, so they can pay it for me? Or do they really think I'm going to send them more money just because they gave me an envelope to put it in?
• Got a large, dark blue envelope in today's mail, and for just a moment I thought we'd been invited to the Doctor's funeral. #toomuchwho
• As far as I can tell, no one has before observed that Monet painted mown hay.
• Irony: our houseguest last night says that he taught himself English by watching season 1 of Mythbusters on VHS, to the point that when he started English classes in third grade, he spoke better than the teacher. And I have no way to confirm it! He also says he's going to meet with Elon Musk about an electric airplane he (the guest) is developing, and that he used to be a compulsive liar.
• On the UNIX command line, adding -y to many commands allows you to automatically answer "yes" to any questions that may arise. Now I want to name a Drupal module "allons" so I can enable allons -y.
• I feel awful for our neighbors whose terrible day included another dog's death (third or fourth this year), a car getting totalled (unrelated), and a lot of angry words exchanged among family. I'm very grateful that our truck sustained only a dented bumper (while parked: the car hit it) so that I don't have to add an insurance claim to their troubles. Amid all the suckiness, I just have to say, our truck is kind of a badass.
• Too much screen time today. I just saw somebody's photo of a city skyline at dusk, and I thought the buildings needed to be defragmented. Then again, maybe that's what happens to them every night.
• Google advertised a 5K run, but when I got there, it was just a string of 5,120 zeroes. (And before someone points out that that's just 640KB, let me clarify, they were ASCII zeroes.)
• What type of houses do the people who *should* throw stones live in?
• Why do people use "glorified secretary" as a putdown? Many of the most powerful people in the world are glorified secretaries. The head of the UN, the President's cabinet...
• USB has been a standard for almost 20 years now, and I still can't believe somebody thought it was a good idea to make the plug the EXACT SAME WIDTH as an ethernet plug. Never mind the whole can't-tell-which-way-goes-up problem.
• You know, I've gone all my life making fun of French pronunciation, so I think I'm doing pretty well to get to 16% fluency on Duolingo before I discovered that "le requien" sounds like "ahooga."
• Just saw the utility meter reader walk through our yard wearing not just a safety vest but also eye protection. Because, you know, meters sometimes explode when you read them. You can't be too careful.
• I don't know what's harder to listen to: a disco version of "Thus Spake Zarathustra" or a young mother telling her kids to stop arguing with her, yes it IS the Star Wars theme song.
• The guts of squash bugs smell exactly like apple Jolly Ranchers.
• [link to news article] Let it be noted that the only thing that can stop a bad guy high on an unknown substance is a good gal with medieval combat skills, roller derby training, and a Japanese sword.
• I made a joke about my accountant being double booked. The receptionist didn't get it.
• In the event of a worst-case wind turbine malfunction, the public is advised to seek shelter until the air has been found to be free of hazardous wind contamination.
• Why do people keep listing Hillary Clinton's ability to raise money from large donors as one of her strong points? Since when is that part of the job description of the job she's applying for? And in what political system would that be a good thing??
• I saw two attics today that were so nice I hated to tell the owners to spoil them by adding more insulation. But being nice is not the purpose of attics.
• Do you suppose the people who make Point of Sale machines are aware of the more popular meaning of PoS?
• Why is it called an invoice when the whole idea is to get it in writing?
• [list of A Few of the Reasons People Shot People in September, 2015] Those who say "an armed society is a polite society" are evidently talking about some other society than contemporary America.
• I'm enjoying that one of the Dutch sentences Duolingo is having me learn is, "Ik ben groot." It translates to "I am big," but of course I imagine Vin Diesel saying it to mean anything and everything.
• Is someone who studies the Christian fish symbol an ichtheologian? [friends commented: Only one of great scalership. I like how you put together those pisces.]
• Gotta love how people are willing to swallow Superman's and Supergirl's ability to fly, super strength, X-ray vision, etc... but hide their identity from strangers by putting on glasses? That's unbelievable.
• That thing where you fumble your smartphone, and you have no idea what button you pressed, because THEY ALL FEEL THE SAME.
• I'm not sure how to feel about the fact that Orphan Black now officially exists in the DC Comics universe [after being mentioned in an episode of Supergirl]. Inquiring minds want to know: is it still filmed in Toronto, or does the equivalent city in that universe have a different name?
• Just overheard two middle-aged good ol' boys at Hardees complaining about how they hadn't used any of what they learned in pharmacy school.
• Esprit d'accord, n. Groupthink.
• When rich people sing & produce songs glorifying poverty, stupidity, and complacency, with or without jingoistic patriotism, I question their motives. If they like being poor so much, why don't they give away their money?
• If any other country unilaterally gave its companies mining rights to space, in violation of international treaties, we would be upset about it. I'm just sayin'.
• When you're circling the drain, remember: try to grab the wax ring as you go by!
• Want to make your white Christmas whiter? Have a cup of Cheer!
• Typo of the morning! Remember, when approaching a viscous animal, be sure to do so slowly, since any rapid motion may cause it to snap or break.
• It seems like celebrities who are knighted have fewer scandals than those who are not. Do you suppose they're really a better class of people, or do the paparazzi just agree not to follow them?
• Carcheesi, n. When two or more cars drive side by side, preventing other cars from passing.