I seem like the kind of guy who would wants a cover for a Kindle

As everyone knows, Amazon has a feature that shows items you might be interested in buying based on your purchase history.

For each recommended item, it provides information on why the site believes you might be compelled to buy it. That is, Amazon lists the prior purchases that led to the recommendation.

I noticed a recommendation for a leather case for the Kindle 2, a product I don't own that is sold exclusively by Amazon.

Why does Amazon think I might need a cover for a Kindle 2?

After clicking through, I learned that it's because I bought a fancy-pants electric razor.

CATO Kaelin

Yesterday's newspaper contained a full-page CATO Institute ad claiming that there is no such thing as global warming. (It appeared not only in the Washington Post but also the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and Washington Times.)

It was signed by more than 100 scientists, including two from my alma mater and one who shares my last name.

Scientists who are climate change deniers — who are these people?

Well almost half of the names on that list are retired private-sector researchers or professors emeritus. But what about the rest of them?

Grand Concourse

Here are some pictures from my visit to Pittsburgh. They're pretty boring. I don't demand that you look at them. I'm just putting them here so I have them in one place.

Marnie is unimpressed with the latest trend in footware

Worst. Drive. Ever.

SOMEWHERE ON THE PENNSYLVANIA TURNPIKE — I love my Garmin Nuvi. But its estimated time of arrival doesn't take into account thick fog that makes it nearly impossible to see the road.

Big Jim's

PITTSBURGH — Do you like sympathetic bartenders? Then you're going to have to try out the Red Star Tavern. If you prefer the kind that are rude and ignore you when you're trying to buy a drink, look elsewhere.

Meanwhile, I highly recommend Big Jim's In The Run. More on that later.

Shoe City

PITTSBURGH — On the drive up here,¹ I noticed a bunch of billboards promoting Pittsburgh tourism. All of them have a shoe theme, which makes perfect sense because when I think of Pittsburgh I think shoes.

Evidently, it's not the Iron City. It's not Steel City. It's not the City of Champions.

No. It's Shoe City.



¹I'm not sure whether I still had a CIA detail at that point.

What Air Force One has in common with Frontier and JetBlue

Barack Obama, an avid basketball fan, has filled out his NCAA Tournament bracket.

When ESPN's Andy Katz asked the president he would manage to watch the Final Four despite the fact that it will be held next month while he's traveling to the NATO summit, Obama explained: "Air Force One has DirecTV."

Lincoln Steffens would be impressed

I have seen the future of hand drying. And it works.

It doesn't protect people from touching dirty door handles, but perhaps it's so cool that it will entice more people to wash their hands.

The Dyson Airblade dries hands in 12 seconds and uses 80 percent less energy than standard models.

Simon wasn't as excited as I was, but he was kind enough to pose for me.

Stop the game! What do I look like, again?

Have you ever wondered what the referees are looking at when they stop a basketball game to look at the little TV at the scorer's table?

Well now you know, thanks to the pause button on my DVR. They are looking at themselves.

Sponsoring the weather

As the nation's preferred news source tracking the development of the "coming soon" Qatar Airways ticket office at 15th and K, I'm here with the latest news.

I recently chatted up a construction worker who claims it will open this spring or summer.

But this morning provided a breakthrough in my quest to correctly pronounce the name of the Persian Gulf nation.¹

Today's WJLA weather forecast was sponsored by Qatar Airways, you see. And the voice-over for the state-run airline company presumably knows how to pronounce Qatar, right?

Have a listen:




¹ Merriam-Webster lists the following pronunciations for Qatar: kä-t&r, gä-tär, g&-tär, k&-tär.

It's good to have a dirty face

(Filed under linguistics.)

In sports, when one player beats another player with ease, we often say that "he cleaned his clock."

Why is it bad to have one's clock cleaned? I mean, if someone came over to my house to clean my clocks, I wouldn't turn him away. (It'd be a little weird, though.)

To start, the word cleaned, in this context, means a severe thrashing. For example, when a robber cleans you out by stealing everything you own. Or when a baseball general manager cleans house by firing everyone on staff.

And clock is 1800s-era slang for face.

Clearly, then, to clean someone's clock means to give a drubbing in the face. Or, loosly, to defeat someone decisively.

To clock someone, meaning to punch them in the face, is probably shorthand from this expression.

You should feel well rested today

In the fall, we set our clocks back and everyone gets an extra hour of sleep (while leading to confusing police reports). Everyone knows that.

But few realize that we also gain an hour of sleep in the spring when we set our clocks forward.

Not at first, of course.

When we wake up on the first Sunday morning of Daylight Saving Time, we've lost an hour.

But we get it back quickly. That very night, in fact.

Let's say your bedtime is 11:30 p.m. When you go to bed that first Sunday after moving the clocks forward, your body feels like it's only 10:30 p.m. Thus, you're treating your body to an early bedtime.

Why I am a slow walker

Compared with people who live in the Eastern Time Zone, we¹ Central Time Zoners get an extra hour each day, so we're not in as much of a rush to get around and tend to be slower walkers.

We can break up that extra hour and spread it out over the course of each day. A little more sleep. A little more TV. And yes, a little more time to walk around.

Where does this extra hour come from? See the example below:²

Dre Lanvette in D.C.
Falls asleep after: The Tonight Show
Which ends at: 12:35 a.m.
Goes to work at: 9 a.m.

David in Wisconsin
Fall asleep after: The Tonight Show
Which ends at: 11:35 p.m.
Goes to work at: 9 a.m.

¹I don't live in the Central Times Zone anymore, of course, but my 18 formative years in that time zone shaped my walking patterns.
²This is not meant to be taken literally, as I do not watch "The Tonight Show." Nor do I stay up until 11:35 p.m.