Lovely article:

Honey is a clean food with a long and noble history among Muslims. The Qur'an offers the bee as an example of industry and speaks of honey as a wonderful food (Q. 16:68-69). Furthermore, honey will be among the foods of Paradise (Q. 47:15). Whilst in the earlier Scriptures, we read that the Prophet John ate honey (Matt. 3:4; Mk. 1:6). That Winnie-the-Pooh set his mind to eating not only clean food but food praised by the Qur'an shows the depths of his religious piety.

Was Winnie-the-Pooh a Good Muslim? An application of Muslim Hermeneutics to a Bear of Very Little Brain

I thought this was pretty cool: ToTheCell.com - Quick, easy, free cell phone reminders. It's a free web-based service where you type in your cell phone number (or someone else's, I suppose, too), a message, and a time and date, and the message is delivered as a text message at the time you specify.

I know that I can set an alarm on my phone, but in order to do that, you have to find a day on the calendar, set a task, then set an alarm, and it's kind of a pain to do. Also, typing in a lengthy list on the phone keypad is time-consuming.

I sent myself a message this morning to remind me to do something after I got to work; I can also envision sending a shopping list or something like that -- again, I could type it in as a "note" in my phone, but as long as I'm in front of a full-sized keyboard, I might as well take advantage of it.

Link from textually.org.

I like this a lot -- a watch (sadly not actually in production) that tells you the time in approximation: "Around 6 o'clock," "Half Past 7," "Just Before 8." Not for the literal-minded, I guess.

Link from Shiny Shiny

Good thing my mobile provider is Cingular, I guess:

The USA based mobile operator, Cingular Wireless has managed to get a patent on the concept of using emoticon on mobile phones. While the aim of the patent is to enable the displaying of MSN style graphics on handsets, they also managed to patent the delivery of text based emoticon - so presumably sending :) via an SMS - if selected via a dedicated or softkey, would be a breach of the patent in future.

Cingular Patents the Emoticon :(: Link via textually.org

As I turned the corner into the River Market area this morning on the way to work, I noticed a TON of people looking like they were camped out on the sidewalk across from the actual market area. My first thought was that they were lining up to get tickets to something, but then I saw someone with a handmade sign that said, "Pick me, Pick me!" so I figured it must be auditions for something.

Turns out it's for The Biggest Loser . And the auditions are at the River Market Brewery, a restaurant. How weird is that? I guess if you don't get picked, you can at least go have a good meal . . .

Even though I really thought long and hard about my New Year's resolutions, and made some, and am still thinking about things like, "Get more in tune with my spiritual side," I still liked these: electric mist: New Year's resolutions I know I will keep.

1) breathe. This is a handy little resolution I'm pretty sure I can keep, except when my head is spinning around in fury. (Given that this is when my husband usually reminds me to breathe, apparently there are some moments where it is remotely possible I might break this rule.) I especially like this one and feel it is my greatest candidate for "Most Likely To Keep."

2) eat. Whatever the hell I want. This is probably my second favorite category, although the third one competes heavily.

3) sleep. Especially naps. Long naps. Long naps where the phone is turned off. I'm liking this one better and better.

Oh, look at Google today:

I love that! Today is Louis Braille's birthday. One of my very proudest accomplishments is that I can read Braille (not by touch, of course, but by sight. Which sort of defeats the purpose, I suppose . . . ).

I trained to be a Braille translator, but the program that I was working with disbanded, and I never pursued it, but I can still read it pretty well.