sports, etymology, etc.

Hello.

It's 530 am, which is, I guess a little before bed-time for me these days. I need to get onto a more human schedule, Perhaps.

I was hoping to post with grand news about the new housemate, but such news is not yet available, although I'm certain it will be grand.

I've been a little down of late. Nothing too bad, just feeling the season wearing on me more than usual.

On the plus side, there is always sports. I would like to point out that NCAA basketball is reaching the most important part of the season. Memphis remains undefeated. The rest of Conference USA is quite weak however. I'm actively keeping tabs on those teams that are hovering on the bubble, and I am sad to say that the extremely high level of play across the board in the Atlantic 10 is actually going to hurt the conference come selection time. This is a real shame, but to be expected when reputation is worth as much as skill. I guarantee that if you replaced the 'Atlantic' with 'Big' you'd get 5-6 of those teams in no sweat, maybe even 7, but they're going to have a hard time getting 4. This isn't an idle comparison either. The Big 10 only really has 3-4 deserving teams, and yet will likely get 5, possibly even 6 if Minnesota makes a strong run in the conference tournament. The A10 has at least 7 strong teams, including our 5-college's own UMASS Minutemen, who'll be happy to get an NIT bid because of the relatively weak reputation of their conference.

Speaking of the NCAA tournament, does anyone know the etymology of the term 'on the bubble'?

No longer sports from this point. It's safe to begin reading again here:

A few things we discovered at the house; humans are the tuna of the land, manta rays are the birds of the sea, airplanes are the submarines of the air, frogs are the toads of the water and toads are the frogs of the land. Feel free to add any I missed. Peter thinks Benny is some kind of donkey?

Fish and Chips was today. Too many people came. I felt like very uncomfortable in the little fish market with about 2/3 of the hampshire student body. Speaking of student bodies, bodies politic, etc. I think it's very interesting that the term body, which refers generally to our most personal possession, also doubles for any group of bodies. I'm reminded of the cover to Hobbes's Leviathan in which the body of the sovereign is composed of hundreds of little bodies of the people. On a scholarly note, I'm referring to the illustration of a recent cover which was taken from the plate for the cover of the original edition.

etymological oddity: testimony originates from roman legal practice of swearing on the testes. something here should be written about origination/insemination/testes/the law/the law as father inseminating his own practice. I'm losing my train of thought.

Also, I learned today that in Iranian angelology, one's guardian angel starts off as a positive, beautiful thing, but the moral choices a person makes in life change the character of the guardian angel. Upon death, you get to see your angel and if you were a good person, the angel will be unbelievably beautiful and if you were a bad person the angel will be like a hideous demon. The angel will tell you that they were made that way from the choices of your life, and then you will expire.

I will try to sleep now. Don't wake me before 2.
-Ben