delights

There are a lot of things that delight me.

I am delighted much of the time.

While lots of people blog about things that dismay them (and many of those things also dismay me), I thought I would enjoy noting down some of the things that delight me.

Website

Board Game Geek is a website, database, and forum covering "not only board games but also dice games, card games, tile-laying games, and games of dexterity." It's a remarkable achievement - impressively thorough and detailed. Each game lists facts about the game - how many players, average playing time, age range, game designer and other credits, alternate versions and expansion options - along with community input including ratings, comments, and player reviews, both written and video. There are extensive photo galleries, which are wonderful ways to get a sense of each game.

Website

Over on MetaFilter, beagle posted an appreciation of languagehat's blog, which has been running since 2002; beagle notes that there have been "posts on a daily basis virtually all of those twenty years."

languagehat is one of my favorite members of MetaFilter, and I am always happy to see his name appear as I'm reading threads there.

Somehow I completely failed to know that he had a blog.

It is, unsurprisingly, wonderful.

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I was never all that interested in space as a kid. I enjoyed reading The Martian Chronicles and some other sci fi classics, but I was barely aware of NASA or the science of space exploration.

That all changed for me on the Fourth of July, 1997, when I watched the Mars Pathfinder land on the red planet.

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I've been so lucky to see oystercatchers lately.

They're some of my favorite birds. They're about the size of a seagull, with black bodies, Silly Putty colored feet, and bright red tube-shaped beaks.

They can be incredibly difficult to see against the dark rocks where they feed. Fortunately, they often cry out just before they take flight. By following the sound, I can often spot them just before they leave their current rock for a different one.

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I spent $26 at Goodwill this afternoon, and I feel great.

I love shopping at Goodwill. It makes me feel lucky, and smart, and frugal.

I passed Goodwill as I was walking home from the library. I'd been thinking about getting some new (well, new to me) jeans and a sweatshirt or two if I could find one, so I thought I'd go in to see what they had.

What they had was a sale. Every single piece of clothing in the store was just $2.

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I love cheap books. I go to thrift stores and library book sales and come home with boxes full of books I have no room for. Half my books (honestly, well over half my books) are in storage, waiting for me to bring them back home where I can read them.

And yet, I'm surrounded by books.

I daydream about reading all these wonderful books. I take small paperbacks to the bus stop with me - Teach Yourself French, A Brief History of Japan, The Portable Greek Historians.

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