We’re in SoCal this weekend for a couple of social activities with friends we hardly ever get to see. So of course, that means I’ve been called upon to do emergency work. It never fails somehow–whenever I’m away from home, be it Southern California, Florida, or Victoria BC, that’s when all hell breaks loose.

So I’m in the (rather depressing) business center of the (otherwise rather nice) Anabella Hotel in Anaheim working. Wheeeee…

SFGate is running a Wall Street Journal piece titled “Couples in U.S. used to marry early and informally”.

[T]he state of marriage in early America: no license, witness, ceremony, often not even a magistrate. Some couples wanted a blessing from church or state, but common-law marriages, men and women behaving as spouses without a formal contract, were both legal and respectable. An 1843 Indiana marriage law stated, “No particular form of ceremony shall be necessary, except that the parties shall declare … that they take each other as husband and wife.”

Hardly as “enduring” as say, slavery or hunger or abject poverty. Maybe those should be protected too.

Thanks to Valerie for pointing me to The Racial Slur Database, which as you might guess is a massive compendium of words and phrases used to describe people of various ethnicities around the world. Sort by epithet or target. Fun for the whole family!

The ACME License Maker is kind of like the DMV’s old plates.ca.gov site before they changed it to make it less usable. You can put in any valid combination of letters for all 50 US states and some Canadian provinces. Here’s mine.

“Jesus, rumor has it, didn’t die for sin. He died for enlightenment. He didn’t die so people would walk around all day in ugly nail necklaces thinking about bloody violent death, swapping quote cards and thinking they know something of the divine. He died to indicate humanity’s need to purge itself of hate, war, violence and ego — you know, all those things now performed in his name. Right, Dubya?” — Mark Morford