Crime just doesn’t pay.

I have always loved medieval Books of Hours, which are some of the most stunning examples of Western calligraphic art and illumination. Here are a few examples:

Bibliotheca Schoenbergensis: An Exhibition from the Collection of Lawrence J. Schoenberg Books of Hours, A medieval French book of hours, Les Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, which is my personal favorite, Book of Hours, another Book of Hours.

You are wondering, I know, why Miguel is talking about medieval French books of hours. Well, something was familiar about the redesign D did for this site. So I went looking for his source of inspiration. And had to slap my forehead when I finally found it: “Presumptionis,” one of the most popular books of hours of the 13th century, although there is some disagreement between scholars over whether it should be considered a medieval or a pre-renaissance work, displaying as it does characteristics of both epochs. Go there now.

Eh, it seems the kilt-raise-on-MouseOver isn’t loading reliably yet. It’s being looked into; in the meantime try hitting “refresh”.

This girl is such a Unitarian.

Eh, D, my brilliant designer, could I have a word with you?

When I left the US about 20 years ago, you could get 1% milk in the stores. Normally we drank 2%, except my dad liked this 3.8% milk that my mother said would kill him sooner or later. He said it tasted better. What I’m saying, skim milk was the normal thing for us.

In Austria, it’s hard to find a cow that produces anything under 2%. I mean, low-fat here is 2%. And it’s gone through some process that makes it curdle faster, so if you’re shopping for the weekend, you have to buy normal milk as that stays good longer. And normal milk here has up to 4.5% fat, at least I’ve seen milk with that much; it was actually advertised as a positive selling point, being a richer product.

The fat thing hasn’t come to Austria yet. Mmm, 4.5%.

Two of my cats, when they want me to do something for them at night – feed them or let them out or let them back in – sit and meow until I do it, like good little cats, even if it takes all night. Oliver, the oldest and largest cat, might try a meow, if he’s in the right mood, but if I don’t wake up immediately, he says, “fuck this shit” and proceeds to my night stand. He used to jump up onto it and knock things off until I woke up. Now, he has a broken hip and is lame so he stands on his back legs and rakes stuff off with his front paws – the alarm clock, my reading glasses, books. It’s only a matter of time until he snags the lava lamp.

My wife and I are both light sleepers. I suspect – and I suspect that Oliver also suspects – that we already wake up when he enters the room, at which point we have a pretending-to-sleep contest. When stuff starts flying onto the floor, this gets hard to maintain, and one of us usually gives up and gets up immediately to feed him. Usually me, cause it’s my shit hitting the floor.

One night, I tried locking him in the cellar after he woke me up. I figured it would be negative reinforcement. But he has this special way of scratching the cellar door that makes it sound like a madman is standing on the other side pounding and rattling it that makes it hard to sleep.