A lot has been a-changing around here, so another meta entry seems justified.

First, all three areas of the site (other than the blog) have content, and more is on the way soon for the reading room and photo sections. The "slideshow" seen in the photo section is my first attempt at CGI programming from scratch, and let me just say this about programming when the only output is essentially "it works" or "it doesn't work:" I don't recommend it. But happily the script does now work, and is nicely general, although the coding style ended up rather terrible. Some New York pictures from a year ago, and the ones from America: the Tour, are soon to come.

All the old "Think of a Name" entries have been imported and given quick titles, but not categories. Don't be clicking on any of the internal links in them, you'll only be disappointed by the result.

Speaking of which, the old site has finally been taken down by Michigan. So if you haven't found your way to this site yet, this is a good time to do so.

The new thing I'm most proud of is the "random rare word" you'll see to the left. This is the first good use I'm getting from my dictionary of rare, archaic, obsolete and otherwise fun words, which I'll probably put up in its entirety soon. You can see a new word by reloading the page, so now you have a whole new reason to sit there reloading this page all day! Besides the other ones.

A few notes about the words and definitions. I've only provided information about pronunciation, part of speech, transitive/intransitive, and such when I thought it was necessary. So if you're confused about any of that, or the definition itself, let me know. Keep in mind that some of these words are old and rare enough that no one really knows how to pronounce them, or even what the precise meaning was, so you don't need to worry all that much about using or saying them wrong. Also keep in mind that the process of compiling these was one of much mental and physical fatigue, so my decisions about when to include such information were often rather foggily conceived. Thirdly, there were some cases in which I included the word precisely because the definition was so cryptic and crazy.

I was 1/4 to 1/3 of the way through my second alphabetic pass of adding words when I recently lost my umich OED access, so the dictionary is a bit topheavy in that respect. I will try to complete the second pass by Christmastime using other access.

Finally, by way of responding to comments, thanks to Milkshake for pointing out my omission of the Green Party, which I realized that afternoon but then fell asleep. The reasons for that choice may be obvious, but I still tip my hat to them.