• Fashion

    Dotted Green Button Footie with Floral Detail from Carter’s

    April 3, 2021 - By 

    Any baby in this lovely spring green footie with bright florals will look like he or she is ready to take a pleasant nap outdoors! Printed at the chest is “lovely” in a fine cursive below a butterfly appliqué. Is the butterfly lovely? Or is it the baby who is lovely? Or is it meant to be a statement about the clothes itself? One does not know. However, floral at the wrists and all the way down to and under the feet might make one fashionable and lovely. In this infant outfit, your baby will be ready to stomp on…

  • Fashion

    Stripy Shark Footie for Newborns from Little Wonders

    April 1, 2021 - By 

    When I first saw this outfit, I thought that it looked very nautical. I also noticed that the feet appeared to be one-horned narwhals! This may be because one of her other outfits had one-horned unicorns. However, the two sharks swimming at the breast of the baby who wears this outfit probably shows that the feet were meant to be sharks. With back fins. I cannot be the only one who sees those narwhals. Anyway, my child cannot appreciate the animal differences amongst her newborn outfits, nearly all of which are of the same basic design and thus strongly resemble…

  • Finance

    Share Spinoff Sales at Tax Time

    March 27, 2021 - By 

    Pfizer (PFE) did a share spinoff into Viatris (VTRS) by joining Mylan with Pfizer’s Upjohn. I received a few shares, whole and fractional, and my brokerage sold the fractional. At tax time, my brokerage provided me with a .pdf which I loaded into Turbotax, but the .pdf did not provide the “cost basis” for the fractional 0.021 Viatris share sold and which I was credited for with $0.32. An error was detected and I was requested to add the missing information. How would I do that? As far as I understand, it goes something like this: When we say that…

  • Finance

    Don’t Buy Shares in a Partnership

    March 26, 2021 - By 

    If you do your own taxes, that is. In 2019, I had the most irritating experience of getting a K-1 for taxes. Dealing with a K-1 was more complicated than the meager amount I received was worth, so I sensibly sold the 3 units (the equivalent of stocks) I owned after doing my 2019 taxes. Unfortunately, this meant that I had to deal with the sale of those shares in my 2020 taxes. I soon discovered that this was even more annoying than the previous year. Most of the information was simple enough to complete from the K-1 and my…

  • Life

    Misspellings on Clothes: Princess Baby Hat

    March 25, 2021 - By 

    I believe that what you wear says something about who you are. In some cases, what you wearing literally says something. This hat, with its bright rose-gold foil-colored cursive commonly associated with throw pillows, decor about living and loving, and weddings, is not quite my style. Fortunately, thus hat was not gifted to me but to my baby. As you can see, the dot of the “i” is in the wrong place. I do not know whether this is a case of someone not knowing how to write cursive or an accident by a graphic designer. Surprisingly, this hat may…

  • Travel

    maidreamin – chain maid cafe in Akihabara

    October 22, 2018 - By 

    When I was in Akihabara, my friend was very interested in visiting a maid cafe. I was a bit curious, too, because I had been hearing a lot about the maid cafes of Japan. We ended up in a chain maid cafe called maidreamin located very close to the Akihabara Station. To find it, you do have to go in what looks like a side door and then up some stairs, but the very large logo on the wall will tell you that you are on the correct path. In 2018, there is a ¥500 cover charge for entry +…

  • Uncategorized

    Review: Dragon’s Egg by Richard L. Forward

    April 4, 2013 - By 

    This is a sort-of review of the book Dragon’s Egg by Richard L. Forward. Imagine a world of tiny creatures who exist with neutrons and live at a pace much faster than humans do. The cheela, once plants, become mobile and live through “turns”, their version of days. With twelve eyes and a rather malleable body, they evolve gradually. Their changes over time both pre- and post-human contact mirror human civilization both amusingly and sadly. Amongst those we meet are Pink-Eyes, who becomes their Jesus and beseeches the god “Bright” to still be kind to the cheela; Swift-Killer, who becomes…

  • Uncategorized

    Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

    May 13, 2012 - By 

    Abbott, E. A. (1984). Flatland. New York: Penguin Putnam Inc. A. Square, a perfect parellelogram with equal sides, begins by explaining his world where the more vertices one has with regular angles, the higher in status one is. In fact, the highest are polygonal and are indistinguishable from circles. Like Gulliver, A. Square visits other lands that are different from his own. In A. Square’s case, he visits Pointland and Lineland, two worlds rather different from his own two-dimensional existence. He attempts to enlighten the Monarch of Lineland and a self-proclaimed god in Pointland and is himself enlightened by a…