Not!

If you're browsing a registration-required site like nytimes.com, you should know about bugmenot.com. And if you're buying on-line and would like a coupon, you should know about retailmenot.com, run by the same folks on the same principles.

Both sites do a great job of organizing collective wisdom for the benefit of humanity: namely, me. Oh, by the way: washingtonpost.com, you should know that I'm not an 84-year-old female retired accountant living in Beverly Hills, California. Sorry!

Google Streetview comes to Pittsburgh.

A view of our house is here. Take a walk around the neighborhood! This picture was probably taken in June or July 2007, based on the way the trees look, and also on the fact that Michael Moore's Sicko was playing at the movie theater around the corner (released June 22, 2007).

The Great White Van is visible here, but no children playing outside that I can see.

Benji's (Two) First Birthday(s).

Sarah and Megan realize, to their dismay, that they are outnumbered.














Benjy and Anna, caught planning their insurgency.






















Daniel eyes the trike, Jason asks directions to the Pittsburgh potty, and Benjy begs for a push.

























Behold! The dauphin prepares to eat the royal cupcake!














Simple pleasures.












Benjy figured out right away that the "cake" element is just an excuse for the icing.













Toward the end of the party, pants started coming off. I own the legs on the left.

Brooklyn: Here Comes the Nice?

O hi my name is Melvin and I am trying to provoke you by writing about how your favorite borough sux as a muse for literature.

SPOILERS!

The littlest Los Angeleno

Benjy and Gabby at the Santa Monica Pier.














Nana teaches Benji the right way to prick his finger on a palm tree.














Nana back in pre-internet days. Did they even have cameras back then? I bet memory cards were, like, seriously expensive. Crazy!

(This is Benjy's grandmother and great-grandmother in Calcutta.)
















Benjy with Nana and Jojo. I believe there is a specific name, in ballet terms, for the pose he is striking.












The Long Goodbye.

Benji walks! And whistles (with a little help).

July Visitors to Pittsburgh

A much-delayed photo report on two visitors to Pittsburgh in July: first, Benji's Grandmom; and then, Mark. With Mom, we went to the Phipps Conservatory for an exhibit by glass artist Dale Chihuly; then walked a few steps to Schenley Plaza for a ride on our neighborhood carousel. With Mark, we spent a rainy day at the Frick Art Museum. (Unfortunately for us, Frick kept his best stuff at his place in New York.)

Chief Justice Roberts, I know you're out there.

Quite obviously, he relies on this blog for reading recommendations:

Referencing the work of acclaimed Montana writer Norman Maclean on Thursday, Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts Jr. sought to inspire and encourage a future generation of lawyers, comparing the fundamentals of their chosen profession to firefighting.

“It might seem that smokejumpers and litigators have nothing in common,” Roberts told an overflow audience at the University Theatre. “But both are willing to jump into an environment that others try to avoid” and that contains a problematic situation.

Drawing on passages from “Young Men and Fire,” Maclean's nonfiction account of Montana's tragic 1949 Mann Gulch forest fire, Roberts settled into a classic Western theme as he delivered the ninth installment of the Judge William B. Jones and Judge Edward A. Tamm Judicial Lecture Series.

OK, but as for his claim that litigators have something meaningful in common with smokejumpers, other than being both mammals? Clearly erroneous!

Yinz gowen dahntahn?

The City Paper has just published this neat city guide, which includes a section on Squirrel Hill: Pittsburgh's Promised Land. Hee hee.

Lord Pratt, R.I.P.

Lord Michael Pratt has died. "[O]ne of the last Wodehouseian figures to inhabit London's clubland and . . . an unabashed snob and social interloper on a grand scale," Lord Pratt was "sent to Eton, having already acquired the rotund shape that would stay with him for the rest of his life." His office career was short:

After graduating Pratt found a position at Lazard Brothers, the merchant bank. Three months into his new job, however, he judged that it would be more agreeable to attend Royal Ascot than to turn up at the office, and his services were dispensed with. He never again sought full-time employment.

The responses, from the letters page of the Telegraph:

Sir - Your obituary (September 8) of Lord Michael Pratt was mean-spirited and, in a number of respects, false. Lord Michael never "pined" for anything so ephemeral as "the days of Empire", and the description of him as an "unabashed snob and social interloper" is a travesty of the truth. Lord Michael certainly treasured his annual tours of Britain, Europe and America, when he visited his vast array of friends, all of whom greeted him with open arms. The allegation that he overstayed his welcome by weeks or months is quite untrue.

The caricature of Michael as a gin-soaked club bore is so far from being true that it would be laughable were the lie anything less than wicked. His quick wit, his charm, his depth of knowledge, his powers of conversation and, above all, his great capacity for friendship were the qualities which all those who knew and loved him will cherish. He was a loyal friend and a genial and generous host at Bayham, in London and in Italy.

— John Bromley-Davenport, London EC4


Sir - Your obituary of Lord Michael Pratt raised my spirits. He seems to have contributed very little of use to the world in his life, and it is only fitting that his obituary should, at least, raise a chuckle.

— Richard Greenfield, Mildenhall, Suffolk

(via Mefi.)