It's that lazy, week-before-Christmas time of year when one is feeling disinclined to do much of anything that might require deep thought or mental discipline, or even light bloggy creativity. So we might as well indulge our inner slacker and take part in the meme ricocheting 'round the blogosphere at the moment, in which we feature the first sentence of the first post for every month of 2007. I did this last year, and resolved to pay a bit more attention to snappier openings. Let's see how I did, shall I?
JANUARY: "Popular legend has it that the 17th century monk Dom Perignon invented champagne -- hence the classic brand that bears his name."
FEBRUARY: "Anyone who doubts the existence of entropy has clearly never tried to stage a combined Buffyverse lecture/martial arts demonstration in midtown Manhattan on a Thursday evening."
MARCH: "If it's Sunday night, it must be Denver." [Half-assed intro to the first post on the APS March Meeting.]
APRIL: "There's much to love about the animated film, Finding Nemo, but one of many treasured moments is the frenzied fish in the dentist's aquarium, who is enthralled with the toy sunken treasure chest."
MAY: "Memes are nefarious things, ricocheting their way around the Internets for months on end, and never quite dying away entirely."
JUNE: "Jen-Luc Piquant has been on a bit of a mummy craze this past week, ferreting out such online gems as a downloadable Mummy Maze Game; an archived Cyber Mummy; and National Geographic's highly informative How To Make A Mummy."
JULY: "It's a national holiday and Los Angeles is experiencing its version of a heat wave -- which pales mightily in comparison to the equivalent in New York City or Washington, DC." [Here we see the beginnings of serious decline...]
AUGUST: "Among the many things I was anticipating about my relocation to Los Angeles was the thrill of once again having a voting representative in Congress." [Introducing a post about the reliability of voting machines, or lack thereof.]
SEPTEMBER: "Got an hour to spare this fine Labor Day weekend? Head on over to Bloggingheads TV to catch my "diavalog" with fellow physics history buff George Johnson." [Opening with a shameless self-promotional plug? How dare I?]
OCTOBER: "Original posting at Cocktail Party Physics is on hiatus." [Wow, that's kinda an all-time low for opening lines. Then again, it was introducing a re-post.]
NOVEMBER: "It seems I moved away from Washington, DC, just in time: Earlier this week, the Washington Post announced the arrival of The Rumbler, a high-tech blaster now being used in conjunction with the traditional siren on a select few police cars in the District."
DECEMBER: "Ya gotta love John Donne, who was quite possibly the first English poet to find romance in a blood-sucking, disease-carrying insect." [Another re-post, this time on account of illness. Am I lame, or what?]
So that was the year in blog posts, or at least a representative sampling thereof. Like most resolutions, I did well at the start, but my resolve to come up with better ledes began to wane mid-year, and really petered out there at the end. I'm not giving up, though: I shall endeavor to do better next year. In my defense, lots of other stuff happened in 2007 to keep me ridiculously busy: a book tour, selling my condo, moving to Los Angeles, my folks' 50th wedding anniversary, and something else that escapes me at the moment. Let's see... what could it be...
Oh yeah! That whole getting married thing! (Yes, I wore red. I've always wanted to be The Scarlet Bride.)
And now the Yuletide Season is upon us. Hope y'all have a wonderful holiday, and if you have a spare moment between all the feasting, ceremonial opening of presents, and sitting around feeling bloated, check out this killer a capella rendition of "The 12 Days of Christmas."
If you think about it, all you really have to do is be creative for that first line of that first post once a month. Then at the end of next year, with a *real* minimum of effort you'll look fantastic!
Posted by: Matt | December 21, 2007 at 04:18 PM
Hi Jennifer,
here's wishing you and your close ones much merry making and all the best for the festive season
Posted by: Quasar9 | December 22, 2007 at 09:51 AM
Red on your wedding day, what a great idea. Congratulations.
Posted by: Grace | December 31, 2007 at 01:02 AM
Congratulations!!
Posted by: Rich | January 03, 2008 at 09:41 AM
Here in Massachusetts, I could be the Scarlet Bride too, but I suspect you pulled it off better than I could.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | January 13, 2008 at 08:05 PM
Congratulations!
Very Chinese of you. In China white is the color of death.
Posted by: donna | January 15, 2008 at 12:22 AM
Did you consider Caltech as a wedding site?
http://cosmic-variance.blogspot.com/2006/06/qtvr-panorama-of-caltech-auditorium.html
That white-building is nicknamed the "wedding cake". I remember seeing a wedding couple in a Caltech parking lot, so I think they allow that.
Huntington Gardens (several blocks from Caltech) has some really nice scenery:
http://www.caltechscience.com/qtvr/qtvr.html
Did you have a professional photographer cover your wedding?
Posted by: chimpanzee | January 20, 2008 at 08:50 AM
You go GIRL! Congratulations on all fronts! Continue being so very awsome and full of beautiful energy! I absolutely love reading your notes & just love all of what you do/you become! Félicitations!
Posted by: h2O | January 27, 2008 at 10:30 AM
You do GIRL!
Posted by: h2O | January 27, 2008 at 12:13 PM
I thought champagne was invented by a red siren in China
Posted by: paul martin | February 23, 2008 at 07:49 AM