Men in skirts who aren't Mummers

So, you should know that the internets are broken in my house.  Right now I am practically hanging out the window trying to steal signal from the neighbors to get a train schedule online, and while I'm at it I figure I'll post something here.  I mean, the window is closed, but it's winter and I'm cold in my own home and I am especially, especially cold by the window.  At the wee hours of the morning tomorrow (7am), a nice gentleman or gentlewoman from Comcast is on the case.  We'll see.

Anyway, I just rediscovered this great photographic postcard from ca. 1910.  I bought it as a cheer-you-up present for a good friend, but you'd better believe I scanned it first.  When I am in a bad mood - like, say, when I'm freezing my butt off trying to check my e-mail - I like to look at it because it makes me laugh.  So now you too can look at it and laugh.  You'd better be laughing.

Acknowledgements

So I've been reading a lot of dissertations lately - like you do, when you're trying to write one - and hands down the best part of any dissertation is the acknowledgements section.  It's like the gossip column / family tree of academia.  A real place for discoveries like, "oh, so you're not gay after all" or "I see that so-and-so helped you work through your argument in chapter four -- interesting."

Anyway, since it's pretty much the only part of my project that seems manageable right now, I've been giving mine some thought off and on today.  Non-human entities that are getting a shout-out will most definitely include Google Books.  Do you know how many times today alone I've read a footnote referencing an obscure, unpaginated [love that word] 19th-century journal and thought, where the hell am I going to find this RIGHT NOW on the day after Christmas so I can read it RIGHT THIS SECOND?  And then there it is, right there, on the interwebs.  I don't even have to put on non-pajamas-type clothes and venture out into the snow.  A real life-changing source for 19th-century nerds.

And speaking of snow, pleaseohpleaseohplease let tomorrow be a snow day, but only if I get paid on snow days.  It's really important that I sit at home and read again.  And build a snowman in my front yard.