I was musing on seatbelts, as I was pulling mine on. A couple of years ago, a woman in my parent's congregation was killed a traffic accident after she took off her belt "for just a moment" to turn and get something out of the rear seat. The sickly ironic thing is that she had been known for being a hardcore stickler for buckling up. Also, a few years ago, while we were living in Boston, my ex was in a very serious crash that probably would have killed her, if she hadn't been buckled up. I remember when I was a child, my parents not wearing theirs, and then later wearing them, but wrongly, under their arm instead of over their shoulder. Me and my siblings were much more likely to buckle up. It just seemed smart, plus it was cool "to have our own place" so well defined while in a car.

Just how bad was the road carnage, back in the days of no seatbelts, of no crumple zones, and of solid metal steering columns?



I helped jezel do the last little bit of moving out of her old place this evening, mainly by shuttling a load full of stuff and nonsense to the closest thrift place, and then mopping all the hard floors.



I downloaded the most recent episode of "Enterprise", just to watch the modified opening sequence. The episode is set entirely in the "Dark Mirror Universe" (the "Spock's beard" world, for people who know Trek classic), with no intersection at all with the regular "good people" universe.

The sequence was pretty well done. The standard opening sequence is a montage of ships of exploration, starting with the earliest sail, up to FTL warp ships. The altered montage was entirely about ships of war, and of powerful weapons, from cannon to tanks to nukes to photorps.



An interesting word for the day. It's an "wasei eigo", which is an english derived word used in Japan but not in English speaking areas. The word is "skinship" (actually "sukinshippu"). It's a portmanteau of "skin" and "friendship".