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Poppy Z. Brite tries to get back to New Orleans

We got to Hammond, saw the solid line of traffic stretching all the way to Jefferson Parish on I-55, and realized we would never get there before dark and the curfew, let alone have any chance of getting into Orleans Parish. Chris turned the car around, saying we would finally have to put our trust in the animal rescue services. And that, friends and neighbors, was when I lost it as I hadn't done since we came here. I'd been wishing for the luxury of collapsing into a quivering heap of nerve endings, but hadn't been able to do it. Today I did it.

Food Whore discusses ham

BS: "You know what I would love to see you have? That Italian meat stuff wrapped around melon. Remember? We had that at Tracy's party?"

BM: "You mean prosciutto?"

BS: "Is that what it's called? Yeah. That was really good."

FW: Looking at TB and BM, "Do you want to tell her or do I get to tell her?"

Money magazine looks at the Fair Tax book

And although Boortz and Linder use the red-meat language of the right when pitching the FairTax, there are some elements of their plan that liberals ought to take a close look at.
It replaces the Social Security payroll tax, which tends to hit less affluent people harder. Rich big spenders could end up contributing more to the retirement system than they do today. And the other tax plans favored by Washington types raise their own fairness questions. Boston U.'s Kotlikoff, who recently argued for the sales tax in a cover story for the liberal New Republic, worries that other consumption-driven reforms will be a boon to the already wealthy.

Brian Tiemann discusses the new iTunes and iPods

Speaking of structures, when you install iTunes 5 it updates your music library—meaning there's a schema change. For what, you ask? Lyrics!

Well, it's nothing but a text field, and it doesn't present the lyrics in time with the music or anything, like I still hope someone figures out how to make AAC do. But it's definitely a start, and I applaud it.

Lileks discusses the new iTunes and iPods

I have a Mini for travel; it always has the stuff I’m listening to now, plus a batch of old radio shows and Gnat’s music. Four gigabyte seems fine. But now that Mini looks like a fargin’ Hummer compared to the Nano. I should probably hold off and wait for the SubAtoma, which will be implanted directly in the fluidic layer overlaying my eyeballs

Review of deduction games

Unlike most deduction games, winning Alibi is not restricted to discovering "whodunit". Rather, there is a fairly elaborate scoring system that not only rewards deducing certain elements of the crime but making melds as well! So, if you have all three gun cards in your hand you may reveal them to gain points. This melding aspect seems to be an odd addition and since deduction is so difficult, it seems to play an overly important role in determining the winner.