Posts by Jolisa
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[NCLB] is unlikely to change under Obama.
Angus, really? I'm still hopeful, although it won't happen as fast as it would if Sasha and Malia were in DC public schools like brave little Amy Carter.
The thought of a similar regime hitting NZ schools just breaks my heart. The effects over here are so pernicious, so insidious, and so uniformly negative for children, teachers, administrators and parents alike. It's a policy that is badly thought-out, badly designed, badly run and enriching nobody but the manufacturers of testing prep material, as far as I can make out. One of whom is, funnily enough, Neil Bush.
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Ooh, that Frosty Boy. You just know he was doing it with the Milky Bar Kid, that not-so-crypto-racist "cowboy."
(I hasten to add that the capitalisation was in the original. I'm not one to wink wink nudge nudge a subtext into the foreground when it's doing perfectly well on its own.)
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And I tend to keep away from any menu item featuring the chef's special sauce.
Here's something serendipitously apposite... today I was idly perusing a 1914 New Haven city directory, which contains a full-page ad for The Semon Ice Cream Co., the "finest ice cream plant in America." I cannot imagine why it is no longer in business:
"If you could see the different departments where SEMON'S ICE CREAM IS MADE. If you could follow the process of making from beginning to end. If you could note the great care devoted to every detail in every department. If you could watch the workmen and realize how seriously they take themselves and their tasks, you would then know that in THE SEMON PLANT was made something in ICE CREAM very choice, very delicious, very palatable to the taste..."
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Many years ago, in the changing rooms at the Freyberg Pool, I was astonished to look up and see a certain National Party MP scoping my junk with a lecherous grin.
I'd hazard a guess as to who was checking out your sugarlumps, but I suspect it's (ahem) academic...
And why "astonished"? You've mentioned your overendowment in the appendage department in these pages before. Don't be shy now!
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Y'know, funny thing is, when we drove out of town after my defense, my ass was nowhere to be seen !
Probably galloping off into the sunset in a freelance, unhybrid (good point, there) sort of way.
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Rich, you've got a lot of coats. Just sayin'.
Danielle - gaaaah! WHAT? Just when Obama made it right for all the Lilly Ledbetters out there. Tony Ryall, crocodile.
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Hold that Donkey, Giovanni! Jolisa is pulling a fast one on you.
Curses, Paul. You cost me a sale. I had him down for at least 10 yards. (Intellectuals - they can't just stop at one).
You get a donkey! You get a donkey! You get a donkey!... EVERYBODY GETS A DONKEY!
Which is all very well until they start enforcing the relevant section of the urban livestock law. Unless we can spin the donkeys as a fleet of low-emission hybrid vehicles?
[Secretly, I've always wanted a donkey. We used to drive past one on the way into and out of Ithaca, New York, and I thought of it as a totem: The Donkey of Thesis Completion.]
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How could meaningful legislation possibly be constructed in a city that's lost its tape measures??
Perhaps not meaningful legislation, but certainly the "one size fits all" kind.
Anyone can sell old books. For the craftsmanship of false books, you need to go to the The Manor Bindery
Oh, genius. And the suggested applications: inside an elevator? Hiding a TV! A secret door... Actually, I can suddenly see a use for this stuff; Famous Five set-dressing for the best rumpus room ever. My detective-obsessed 7 year old would be all over it.
But why is it always a false bookcase concealing a wallbed? Why not a false floorbed concealing a pop-up real bookcase? People have their priorities all wrong.
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And of course you can order books by the yard.
Contrary to popular belief, the most expensive aspect of creating an elegant library or study is not the furniture. It is not the impressive bookcase or the fancy lighting or even the cozy reading chair. Actually, the priciest design element of a library is almost always (what else?) the books.
Positively Pythonesque bit: "If your bookcase or study could use a boost in the books department..."
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See now, why mess about with ripping apart real books and gluing them to your walls when there are so many excellent trompe l'oeil options?
Plus, the really interesting bits are inside. That said, it would drive me bonkers to have printed matter on the wall. I'd be reading it over people's shoulders all day long.