On Death and Doornails

My roommate and I were having another of those n-times-tangential discussions (ranging from bagels to Schrödinger's Cat to puppies to cookies) when I recalled the phrase "dead as a doornail." Since when are doornails dead? Wouldn't it be more accurate to say "Unalive as a doornail?"

Fallout shelter

Every time I see and stop to think about one of these, I can't help but shake my head in awe of the era that our generation so narrowly missed. I have (and it's archived on the internet) a "Duck and cover" educational video from the 1950's targeting grade-school children. It warns them that should the bomb detonate, they might get very bad sunburns, that they need to hide under their desks should it happen at school... I just watched it again, and it is frightening. I can't imagine having to be a kid in that era and watching that video. That must have messed those kids up.

I'm amazed and terribly grateful that the era of fear of large-scale nuclear war has passed from an ever-present danger into the history books.

New blog

I've been predicting the decay and downfall of MetaJournal for some time, what with the lack of admin support, the database problems, unreliable servers, and the decreased person quality. Ergo, I've finally made up a new Blogger journal (I'm not going to try to revive Black Smokers) to which I'll probably start posting any time soon.

View my old blog