My friend's dog Sadie is no longer with us. She was 14, a full lifespan for her breed(s).

She was ½ Australian Cattle Dog, ¼ Lab, and ¼ German Shorthaired Pointer.

We had in common a dislike for large gatherings. She'd have a why are we doing this?  look on her face when a dozen or more humans were around. I miss her.

I have many fond memories of her keeping us company while climbing.

ff, ffi, and fi ligatures, all in one headline:

25 years ago, people who learned that I worked in software often asked me what I thought about the Y2K problem. If someone I met at a dinner party said, "I have a question," I knew what was coming.

Nowadays, it's "what do you think about AI?"

Neighbors and I went out to dinner this evening. The restaurant owner's dog was in the room (no that's not legal), a dog shaped like nothing I'd ever seen before. The mother was an akita and the father was a dachshund. "He must have used a ladder," the owner said. No pic as I didn't take my phone with me.

The owner, the dog, and I all have the same birthday.

I once mentioned to a friend how much I like it when a musician can express a lot while playing just a few notes. He asked for an example and I cited Tony Levin's bass part in Don't Give Up by Peter Gabriel. Had my friend had asked for another example, I probably would've named another of Tony's bass lines.

In a recent interview on YouTube, Rick Beato asked Tony about playing on John and Yoko Lennon's 1980 album Double Fantasy. Tony said,

I walked into the first session, happy to be there, and [John] came up to me in a very New Yorker in‑your‑face way and said, "They tell me you're good; just don't play too many notes," and had a smile.

The whole interview is worth watching. Rick asks Tony about working with Paul Simon on 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover. Tony Levin has played on over 500 albums, that one was 49 years ago, and he recounts how the song was developed in the studio and then plays his part from memory as if he'd done it yesterday.

Dangling modifier yesterday:

Superficially, it might be said that the function of the kidneys is to make urine; but in a more considered view one can say that the kidneys make the stuff of philosophy itself.

- Homer William Smith

If you read that in context, he isn't likening philosophy to urine. But it's more fun to imagine that he is.

When stores have greeting cards organized by occasion, I wonder if there's ever a section for I'm breaking up with you but don't want to say it directly.

When I was 21, a boyfriend gave me this card and stopped seeing me: