August 2004

Write an essay about your most memorable reading experience in the last ten years and Powell’s Books might give you $1,000 to spend on books at their website. With every essay submission they’ll also donate one dollar to Reading Is Fundamental, the nation’s largest nonprofit children’s literacy organization. The contest runs through August 31, 2004.

Too funny.

A number of Finnish conscripts have been excused their full term of military service because they are addicted to the Internet, the Finnish Defence Forces said on Tuesday.

Doctors have found the young men miss their computers too much to cope with their compulsory six months in the forces.

Giddy

• Having a reeling, lightheaded sensation; dizzy.
• Causing or capable of causing dizziness: a giddy climb to the topmast.
• Frivolous and lighthearted; flighty.

Word History: The word giddy refers to fairly lightweight experiences or situations, but at one time it had to do with profundities. Giddy can be traced back to the same Germanic root *gud- that has given us the word God. The Germanic word *gudigaz formed on this root meant “possessed by a god.” Such possession can be a rather unbalancing experience, and so it is not surprising that the Old English descendant of *gudigaz, gidig, meant “mad, possessed by an evil spirit,” or that the Middle English development of gidig, gidi, meant the same thing, as well as “foolish; mad (used of an animal); dizzy; uncertain, unstable.” Our sense “lighthearted, frivolous” represents the ultimate secularization of giddy.

Eight years ago a friend sent me seven tapes consisting of his entire REM non-album track collection spanning 1981-1996. It’s a great bunch of music that includes most every tune REM recorded (beyond the regular album stuff) up until the point where I mostly stopped buying their music. A couple years ago someone converted each side of the tape to an MP3 and I’m finally getting around to splicing and dicing them up. The plan is to make a mix CD with 20-30 of my favorites. Here’s the list to choose from.