misc.

I received the title to my car in today's mail. This means that now my most valuable possession is something understandable by normal people. By the time I paid off my last car, its book value was slightly less than the book value of my collection of Magic: the Gathering cards.

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I was leaving the bank, and overheard someone use one of the few words of Arabic I remember. I can still count to five and say yes, no, thank you, and I don't want any. I used to be able to buy bottled water and ask directions to the hotel or the bathroom, but those phrases have escaped me.

My grasp of Italian is similarly limited, but different. I remember all the phrases that my mother remembers from her trip to Italy in high school. Sometimes I wish I remembered less of my mother's childhood, so I could use those parts of my brain for my own life! I also know quite a few off-color phrases, and just about everything to do with food. This part of New Jersey is so very Italian that you've got to be able to understand some.

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From the cover of the new People magazine: Kim Kardashian at 30: "I thought I'd be married by now." I haven't read the article, but my reaction to the headline was "Welcome to the club, honey. Time to go home and rethink your life." I don't blame her for whining about it, though. God knows, I still melodramatically lament my single state whenever I have an audience, and I did rethink my life.

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Typing a letter to attorney Phil Kahn, one week before Philcon, is making me slightly nuts.