oh: and by the way

A few unrelated topics:

1. After three days in Leiden I'm convinced we'd all be better off if we all rode bikes. I think the Dutch ride bikes in part because being a pedestrian there is a full-contact sport. Curiously enough I didn't see a single person wearing a bike helmet, and yet I didn't read any stories of devastating head injuries. Could it be they've made cities "bike safe"? Or are their heads simply that much harder? By the way a wonderful review of a typical Dutch bike can be found here, with bonus points going to the author for being a Chicago resident.

2. Somewhere over the Labrador coast yesterday I finished Gail Carriger's Victorian-era vampire/werewolf comedy Soulless. It's a fast, fun read that will appeal to fans of the Dresden books (comme moi). It's a little long on the smoochy bits for my taste. The second book in the series is due out later this year.

3. While I invite and value your comments, I am going to delete any comments that include long strings of embedded URLs. I hope my Chinese readers will not be offended by this and will continue to read ack/nak.