Seeing faces

From mckitterick, I ganked this: that the Face on Mars is - shock, horror! - actually not a face at all, tho' it still looks like one to me; but what I really treasure, what I want to point you-all at, is that we have a word for it! That universal human tendency to see faces in things, to invest the inanimate and null with familiarity and meaning: there is a legitimate English word, and it is pareidolia.

That is all. You may return to your workaday worlds, with your vocabulary (in most cases) enriched. Go forth and commit pareidolia immediately, in order to commit it to memory.

Conduction

Hmm. I'm standing here - well, no: a minute ago, I was standing there - in the hall, poised, ready to go: heading for the Lit & Phil with my little Vaio (what used to be autopope's little Vaio, but is now mine, I tell you, mine...!) in my bag and this endless SF novella in my head & heart (I blame the Vaio - I think just a little of that essential Strossity rubbed off...), I was adding a thermos of coffee in the interests of parsimony (and good coffee: for lo, they do sell coffee in the library, and lo, it is of a strength barely measurable) - and, well, when you put hot coffee into a thermos flask, the flask's not supposed to be warm to the touch thereafter, is it? This whole flask thing is new to me, so I don't know; I just have a feeling that the hotness is supposed to be contained within the coffee...

*sighs*

*departs, with presumptively cooling coffee*

*s'okay, though, likes cold coffee. Drinks it all the time*

*sighs more*

Shelvage!

...So I went to the Lit & Phil, as heretofore mentioned; and it's full of little flyers and big notices saying that it'll be closed on April 30th. Closed! Panic! Why?

I asked the librarian, whom we adore. Kay says they're getting new wooden shelving fitted, to replace all the extra metal units they've had to squeeze in as the collection has expanded. So - being as I am, ever on the qui vive - I ask what they're doing with the old metal shelving.

Kay says they were just going to dump it, and why, would I like some?

So I have measured up there, and come home and measured up here; and of course none of their units will properly fit any of my niches, but I didn't expect that, this house is way too irregular; but with interesting and novel rearrangements, and much discarding of old and badly-put-together improvised shelving, I can find room for lots of new shelves. Which will make my books very happy, and me too: I do like the idea of being reshelved by a library.

I may have to have shelving parties.That'll be fun for everyone.