short takes (before going home to the flaky computer)

Check out this list of top 100 April Fool's pranks (link courtesy of a coworker). I'm glad to see kremvax on the list; that was fun.

I saw a news item this afternoon that a plane is currently being quarantined in California because some passengers showed symptoms of SARS. If I were a healthy passenger on that plane, I'd be pretty irked at my heightened exposure. I hope they can separate the sick from the healthy quickly, before some idiot on the plane breaks out the duct tape.

Yesterday I got a phone call (on the answering machine) from someone saying "good job" on my letter in the paper. Not that I write letters to papers often, but that's still never happened to me before.

CompUSA called yesterday to say that the fan in my machine is dead and the motherboard probably is too, so they're going to replace both. ( Read more... )

I've been vaguely meaning to write about intermarriage for several weeks now, and independently the topic formed in the comments here. But I haven't had time to write my own thoughts on the subject yet.

A coworker and I had approximately the following exchange this afternoon:

Her: Is there a Jewish holiday that corresponds to Easter?

Me: Well, Easter sort of corresponds to Passover, kind of. According to tradition, the Christian last supper was a Passover seder.

Her: (blink)

Me: Is that what you wanted to know?

Her: I meant dates.

Me: Oh. Yes, most years they're within a few days of each other. Sometimes they're a month apart. (pause) This is more than you wanted to know, isn't it?