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Category Archives: Bloggity Blog

Blog-like blogs here. Short, even prattle. Hence, this folder of brief miscellany.

Turning the Economy Takes Time

Apparently, it’s not just the banks. It’s not just the automakers. Not just the newspapers. This, from today’s Wall Street Journal: Shoppers continue to pare back spending even on basic household staples, resulting in lower-than-expected sales for Procter & Gamble Co. and Colgate-Palmolive Co. The consumer-products giants are responding by raising prices to keep profits [...]

Irish-style Soda Bread

Traditional Irish soda bread consists just of flour, buttermilk, salt and baking soda. Americans added sugar, raisins and sometimes caraway seed. Soda bread gets stale in a day and crumbles when you try to slice it. The New York Times in March 2007 discussed this here , with an improved recipe here, which makes a [...]

Blog, Column Contest Ends Sunday

The 2009 deadline of a long-running column-writing contest, now open to bloggers, is less than a week away. Entries for the seven categories of the annual contest of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists need to have a postmark — or time-stamp — of Sunday, March 15. Five of the categories are traditional: humor and [...]

On the Wall

Should I get back into more frequent or even regular Brick postings, it will be in part because of waking today to an image of the artistic caveman. It may have been the last scene of an otherwise forgotten dream, or just an isolated visual, conjured just before sitting up. The fellow chooses a charred [...]

I’m just saying, I’m just saying

Copyright 2008 Ben S. Pollock An evaluation of the run-off candidates for mayor of Fayetteville, Arkansas. The election is Tuesday the 25th, and early voting is under way. Though not today: The courthouse is closed. Brick never makes endorsements. Still, comments I’ve avoided should be made. The incumbent Dan Coody wants a third four-year term [...]

The Server Ate September

OK, kids, here’s a lesson — back up even files other entities are saving for you. Here’s what I learned from my service, Hosting Matters: The primary drive on this server failed over the weekend, and all sites were restored [on Sept. 22] from the last error-free backup, from Aug 29, which would account for [...]

Where Has September Gone?

That’s what I’d like to know. Sometime in the last couple of days, all of the Brick essays I published in September have disappeared. Poking around my Web site indicates that the problem originates not with WordPress but Hosting Matters, which operates my domain overall. This posting serves first as a test for whomever might [...]

Don’t Stop the Presses

Copyright 2008 Ben S. Pollock I’m not nearly old enough to say I’ve seen it all, or even seen a lot. But when I worked there, my college newspaper, The Stanford Daily, had a noisy Teletype for AP and UPI stories, complete with increasing numbers of bells to rate degrees of breaking news. My first [...]

Roger That 404

When you click from one Internet page to another and you get a message saying “we were unable to find” it, sometimes including the phrase Error 404, there’s a problem, Houston. Brick is having just that issue. Please bear with me, and WordPress, while I try to figure it out, or get them to fix [...]

Aarp, Aarp, barks Sandy

If AARP is 50 this year, and it is, then it qualifies for AARP. That means AARP will be eligible for AARP membership with all its discounts and special offers. The American Association of Retired Persons thus will send itself innumerable messages, electronically and postally, offering targeted news and special privileges (insurance, travel discounts). If [...]