Interested in doing a little science in your spare time?

• Volunteer meteorologist not just for a rainy day {Seattle Times, 4 june 2008}. Set up a backyard rain gauge and join the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network!
• UW, volunteers join forces trying to save Washington’s imperiled plants {Seattle Times, 20 november 2008}. Join the Washington Rare Plant Care and Conservation (or Rare Care) program at the UW and help with “collecting and storing seeds, research on rare plants and monitoring Washington’s rare plant populations.”
• Climate researchers seek citizen scientists {Seattle Times, 11 march 2009}. Join the USA National Phenology Network to help “measur[e] the pulse of the natural system and how it’s responding to climate change.”

Perhaps if i hadn’t missed my copy editing class on wednesday (thanks to some salsa bent on homicidal revenge), i would have realized that march 4th was National Grammar Day.  I would have at least liked the opportunity to rant about it, tho’ Arnold Zwicky did an excellent job last year.  I especially like this bit:

Finally, a point that has come up in informal discussions at Stanford about the regulation of language.  Paul Kiparsky has noted on several occasions that while in some European countries the prescribing of language forms for certain public purposes is the job of official bodies, which normally include language scholars (as well as literary figures), this sort of regulation has been PRIVATIZED in English-speaking countries: it’s managed by commercial publishers, newspaper and magazine editors, and a whole industry of free-lance advisers, only a few of whom know much about either the nature of language or the structure and history of English.  Such an arrangement resonates with American free-enterprise ideals and also with the widespread American disdain for “experts” and “intellectuals”.

In a different vein, here’s an amusing 4-part noir pastiche by John McIntyre, “mild-mannered copy editor for [...] The Baltimore Sun.”  One of my favorite phrases is “the bottom fell out of the paragraph game” (from part 1).  Yeah, that’s what happened to my 1st zine — just another victim when the bottom fell out.

1. Down those mean sentences I walk alone:  “I was sitting at my desk in the old Intelligencer-Argus building the day she walked in. It was late afternoon on a rainy day, and my hand had strayed more than once toward the dictionary in the bottom desk drawer. I heard footsteps approaching, and when I looked up, there she was. She was — lissome.”
2. “What are we going to do now?” she asked: “I reached for his collar and pulled him upright in his chair. An Eberhard Faber Col-erase number 1277 pencil, carmine red, protruded from his chest, just over the heart.”
3. The Fat Man chuckles: “I’d known him for years. We’d been honor students together — teacher’s pets — and then he started his slide. It began innocently enough, with a little amateur lexicography. But then he fell in with that hard set at Language Log. He was pals with both the Geoffs — Pullum and Nunberg — Arnold Zwicky, the lot. Before you could say lexeme, he was too deep into descriptivism to ever come back. But, maybe because of our old school ties, we had always managed a gingerly balance.”
4. The rule you don’t break: “I was pensive on the drive back to the Brockenbrough bungalow. Editing’s a mug’s game. The words strain and crack; sometimes they break under the burden, the tension. They slip and slide and perish — won’t stay still. You go out on a raid on the inarticulate, and not everybody comes back. The public doesn’t like to see it but wants it done. That leaves it to me.”

Perhaps ironically, for a hardcore descriptivist such as myself, i did spend wednesday morning proofreading.

• Obama signs his 1st piece of legislation into law:  Obama Signs Equal-Pay Legislation.  One word — YAY.
• If all that comes out of the Obama administration is that Tim Eyman becomes irrelevant? OBAMA FTW.  The Obama era of cool government makes Tim Eyman irrelevant.
• What do you get when you read FOXNews (Scientists Not So Sure ‘Doomsday Machine’ Won’t Destroy World)?  BAD SCIENCE.   To get a dose of clarifying good science, read Claire Alexandra Lee’s explanation over at Cosmic Diary:  The LHC Black Hole debate starts up again…

Tonight i learned a valuable lesson: i prefer rice balls when they’re wrapped around a delicious, pickled core of umeboshi.  But i was really hungry because Andy’s grand plans for slow-cooked pork ribs didn’t work out, and i do like rice and find it’s a convenient way to quickly fill my tummy.  And, indeed, my rice balls were tasty and they filled my stomach and all was well.  Mostly.  I still just prefer traditional onigiri because i love the bite of the pickled plums.

Andy makes our onigiri from scratch using Maki’s recipe for an “easier, neater way to make onigiri” (over at her blog Just Hungry).  It’s pretty simple: make rice, wrap around an umeboshi (or other filling of your choice), squeeze into shape, put into your belly.

Some other onigiri-related posts from Maki that will be useful if you want to try making onigiri at home:

• The Onigiri (Omusubi) FAQ
• Looking at rice
• Japanese basics: plain rice, sushi rice (how to properly clean & cook rice)
• Onigiri (rice balls) {The original post!}
• More about onigiri: keeping them fresh and more

And i do recomment trying your hand at onigiri at home!  It’s really pretty easy, and so SO tasty.