It's easier to trace the mental map to my next reference. Russia in this period had serfdom, autocracy, all sorts of arbitrariness in its political system. "I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How …

I'm not certain what in my Russian Imperial History class reminded me of Shirin Bakhshay and a song by Cake, "Going the Distance", that she liked back when we were in French class together in …

I used to do tech writing for money during the summers. If I'd had fun stuff to write, like this, maybe I wouldn't have gotten sick of it.

I'm tired and blue and I misspelled "brag" as "vrag" a few days ago and I spend this weekend without most of my friends. But I received a substantial injection of cheer this morning in …

"But doctor, why? Why did you create a bomb to destroy all of pop culture?""People have become obsessed with the nonsense that the mass media tell them is important! People never talk about anything real …

Last night, boarding the 43, I think I might have seen Eve, the pseudonymic administrator of InPassing.org. A nice-looking girl holding an O'Reilly book was a bit exasperated when some other woman accused her of …

I am assuming that, if one searches for "sumana" via any relevant search engine, one of the last URLs that will actually refer to me is the alt.fan.dave_barry FAQ. That list is how I met …

Oi! Five messages in my inbox when I wake up, and four of them are from actual people I know, including Susanna wishing to see a picture of my haircut (perhaps next time I see …

All right, I lied. I won't be finishing all of July tonight. Maybe if I have some free time tomorrow morning. I'm not setting my alarm, I'll tell you that right now. I'm sleeping as …

I'll just stay up long enough to archive July, and then I'll go to sleep, I promise.