Snow Day in Raleigh!

This is today's view from the Old Lighthouse's office window.

A rare day in Raleigh -- just a few inches of snow, but enough to make the snowplow-challenged South come to a halt. The philosophy here is "God put it there -- God'll take it away."









Neither the kids nor I have school today, and they're basking in the leisure. Of course, we'll be making this up during Spring Break, but it's a small price to pay ...

Sam Vimes Would Laugh

Congratulations to Sir Terry Pratchett, OBE, on being knighted!

Death Makes the Holiday

The funniest entry in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series is Hogfather, where Death takes over for the Discworld version of Santa Claus when he goes missing. Death is sort of like Spock: he tries to get humans, and comes close, but always misses the subtleties. Here he's wishing his granddaughter (!), Susan (!!!), a "Happy Hogswatch":

The Way of the Book

There's a new book metasearch site on the Web: ViaLibri, Resources for Bibliophiles.

You have the option of searching all bookselling sites, or just the ones you check off, and away you go. One of the nicer features is the ability to weed out unwanted listings. You know what I mean -- you're looking for an original copy of, say, John Leland's Divine Authority of the Old and New Testament Asserted, and a search brings up a slew of print-on-demand listings. Well, now you can find what you're really looking for without having to puzzle out the correct combination of keywords. Neato!