Of the beasts of the field, and of the fishes of the sea, and of all foods that are acceptable in my sight you may eat, but not in the living room.

Ian Frazier’s vintage “Laws Concerning Food and Drink…” hits the spot.

(Link via Scott Rosenberg’s Wordyard.)

Henry Phillips received a patent for his screwdriver and screws on this day in 1936, as Randy Alfred summarizes. The fastener and tool were designed with power tools and automated assembly lines in mind, and indeed General Motors adopted the system for the 1936 Cadillac. Supposedly it’s harder to overtorque a Phillips screw.

The Phillips cam-out—when you’ve gone far enough and the tool pops out of the screw—has led to plenty of workshop profanity. And loosening a machine-driven Phillips screw with a hand-held screwdriver has apparently reminded many, judging from their language, of the tenacity of a female dog protecting its newborns.

Still, remember Henry Phillips gently. His screws are holding your life together.

Not to mention your set.

bit-player asks an interesting question: are there any board positions in Scrabble that are stymied, i.e., in which no additional words can be formed? (Let’s stipulate a two-player game, and that only acceptable words are played. As we know, it’s perfectly legal to invent a word and play it, so long as your opponent doesn’t challenge it; it may be in your opponent’s interest not to challenge a bogus word.) I suspect that such a stymied position, if it exists, uses all four of the S’s. This is actually a two-part problem: find a board position and state of the players’ racks that is stymied, and (harder) find a board position that is stymied no matter how the remaining tiles are distributed.

But not a big surprise: following the recent closure of its Penn Quarter store, local independent bookseller Olsson’s has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, reports DCist and Anita Huslin. My list of favorite things in D.C. keeps getting shorter.

Yemm & Hart of Marquand, Mo. have established a prototype program to recycle wine corks into building materials. At present, they’re accepting contributions, freight prepaid, of any amount; shipments of 10 pounds or more are purchased at the rate of $1.63 per pound (to non-profit organizations).

Gasoline prices in the United States continue to be a bargain compared to the rest of the industrialized world, as a short article by Bill Marsh (accompanied by a chart) points out, part of the Times’s collection of stories this Sunday about consumer energy costs. Back when we were kids, and gas was less than half a buck per gallon, it was explained to us that prices in Europe were much higher (and efficient cars more popular) because of higher taxes. Prices have risen a lot since then, but I was mildly shocked to learn that U.S. taxes haven’t kept pace. Of the current national average pump price of $4.00 a gallon, only 49 cents (12.3%) is taxes. By comparison, Canadians pay $5.09 per gallon and $1.26 (24.8%) in taxes; in France, the comparable price is $8.78, of which more than half, $5.06, is taxes.

We moved rehearsal props and set pieces into the theater now that the show before us, Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, has closed. The cast got through their first run of Act 1, scene 2 off book, and everyone stayed focused and on task. No small accomplishment, what with two different crews doing construction (mainly deconstruction) work upstairs. Bang! Every time the crews move on to something else, we get a new leak or see daylight through the ceiling. It wouldn’t surprise me to come in one evening and see parts of the lighting grid on the floor.

Meanwhile Andy was making his own noise, working in the shop adjacent to build our set. And I’m trying to feed the cast lines in two different voices, a flutey one for John (Br. Felix) who was scheduled to be out, and a more commanding prompter’s voice, when needed.

The rush hour commute from Sterling to Silver Spring hasn’t been bothering me too much. I’ve started keeping track of how long the drive takes, to confirm my general observation that the congestion gets worse with each passing day of the week. So I more or less know what to expect, and I can be pleasantly surprised when I can get there in only a hour. (?!) The Traffic View of Google Maps helps a lot, too.

Still one box unhatched as of this morning’s checks. Unfortunately, we’re writing up box #61 as a failed attempt: no eggs, but no shells, so most likely predated. Brief visits from unwanted deer flies as we walked out; I was wet over the tops of my boots as we walked through waist-high lizardtail (Saururus cernuus). Paul found an Orchard Oriole (Icterus spurius) in a bare tree in the middle of the Run.

“And your English lakes—Vindermere, Grasmere—are they, then, unhealthy?”

“No, Frau Liesecke; but that is because they are fresh water, and different. Salt water ought to have tides, and go up and down a great deal, or else it smells. Look, for instance, at an aquarium.”

“An aquarium! Oh, Meesis Munt, you mean to tell me that fresh aquariums stink less than salt? Why, when Victor, my brother-in-law, collected many tadpoles—”

“You are not to say ’stink,’” interrupted Helen; “at least, you may say it, but you must pretend you are being funny while you say it.”

“Then ’smell.’ And the mud of your Poole down there—does it not smell, or may I say ’stink, ha, ha’?”

—E.M. Forster, Howards End, chap. 19

Guest blogger Ann Hall advises the hiker on how to deal with t-storms in the field:

The chances for being caught in a thunderstorm at Dolly Sods are good. Avoid these storms if possible. If, however, you are caught in one of these storms make yourself as unattractive to lightning as possible, stay as dry as possible, then enjoy what you see and hear (since you’re already there).