We rented Mamma Mia! from Netflix and watched it over the weekend, and it was perfectly suited to our mood. Delightfully over-the-top, with dreadful performances (who knew Pierce Brosnan couldn't sing his way out of a paper bag?), classic songs, beautiful island locations, and a trio of broads (Meryl Streep, Julie Walters, and Christine Baranski) gaggling, honking, and brazenly chomping their way through the scenery. Come for the lark of it, and you'll have a good time. But expect nothing. Well, expect ABBA music, in ludicrously contrived situations, an amusingly Greek greek chorus, a set piece with beautiful men in flippers, and Stellan Skarsgård trying to play to type.

If you're in the right mood:  ★★★★☆ 

If you're incurably male, or born after 1975:  ★★☆☆☆ 

In this entry, Garrick Van Buren posts a simple, elegant way of remembering when to use i.e., and when to use e.g. Unfortunately, his method requires that you know Latin.

Herewith, my method: i.e. is short for, "in other words," which is easy to remember because they both start with "i." On the other hand, e.g. is short for, "for egg-zample," because they both start with the "egg" sound. Sort of. Close enough.

So we're coming home from Target, listening to the iPod in the car, and at one point the five year-old pipes up from the backseat, "Why is he the only one that could ever teach her?"

Bonus points for identifying the song without using Google.

On this trip I'm reading The Botany of Desire, by Michael Pollan. I'm just at the beginning, where he is talking about apples and John Chapman (aka Johnny Appleseed).

Historical books have always interested me (as do historical novels with a wee bit of fiction in them) and so I find this part especially fascinating.

Much of his information seems to come from the writings of people who met Chapman on his travels, homesteaders who took him under their roof in exchange for stories and, naturally, apple trees.

There must be a huge wealth of these writings, diaries, stories, back-of-the-Bible scribblings. But I can't help but wonder if there were any actual writers he met. Imagine, if you will, an encounter between John Chapman and Laura Ingalls Wilder. What colorful, wonderful, engrossing narrative might have resulted?

Did they even live at the same time? Was there anyone else alive at this juncture who could have served? Would Pa have even let this "frontier Dionysus" in? (Pollan's words)

Perhaps it is time for some historical fiction. Anyone?

Watching more TED and I'm on the J.J. Abrams talk, and he is talking about his favorite scene in Jaws. You can catch it here.

But it put me in mind of my favorite scene from Jaws, where Roy Scheider pours himself a full glass of wine, in a 10 oz milk glass.

Awesomeness.

I have a suggestion for Apple. Yes, I know they are (not) listening.

I think the next iPhone/iPod touch should have a WiFi button. Like the power button on the top, maybe on the other side of the device, it should glow a light blue when it is on. You'd use it to turn WiFi on and off on the device, without having to dip into the settings all the time. It would then be incredibly easy to prolong your battery life.

What made me think of this? Running out of battery halfway through my flight yesterday, partially due to constantly looking for WiFi at the airports. (Partially due to watching a lot of TED, admittedly.)

There, Apple. All yours. The fifth button.