National Novel Writing Month screeched to a halt at midnight last night, and, pencils down, everyone! Last year, 119,301 people declared that they would write a novel in November. In total, those people wrote 1,643,343,993 words. (That’s, on average, almost 14,000 words each.) They’re still counting up the numbers for this year, but participation (and success) looks blockbuster. NaNoWriMo is among America’s best institutions, like up there with the League of Women Voters and Crazy Ladies Who Feed Stray Cats, because it teaches thousands of people that there is nothing that is beyond them. I took part in, um, like 2002 or something, and what I learned was that there is no magic trick to book writing! Any jackass can do it. (Insert mean list of authors here that supports that contention.) The trick is just putting words on top of each other. Like Jenga, but in Microsoft Word! The only other trick is that some of those words can be deleted later. So hooray for everyone. You are awesome.

In a quest to be EXACTLY the place where Jemaine, Bret, and Murray WOULD come from, New Zealand has managed to launch a wee little rocket just slightly beyond our atmosphere into a stratum of area that could technically be called space. It then triumphantly fell into the Pacific Ocean.

The sub-orbital vehicle was launched by a private company, Rocket Lab, and named The Atea-1, after the Maori word for space (I am racist because I am surprised that such a word exists). The owner of the company, Mark Rocket (yes, seriously) says: “It’s not trivial sending something into space. This is a huge technological leap for New Zealand.”

BECAUSE, you know, puking a rinky dink syringe-looking thing 63 miles above the Earth’s surface into sortaspace for “just the tip” is exactly the same as sending an entire space shuttle with seven astronauts to resupply the International Space Station and getting them back in time to catch some wicked-good Black Friday sales. USA!

A British medical researcher has put forth a new theory on the disease that claimed Jane Austen’s life. While previous speculation centered around Addison’s disease or lymphoma, “Katherine White of the Addison’s Disease Self Help Group has written an article for the British Medical Journal’s Medical Humanities magazine in which she says that Austen probably died of tuberculosis caught from cattle.” This postulation is actually borne out if one reads letters Austen sent to her family at the time, as well as the original ending of Sense and Sensibility, which was changed because it was thought to be too bleak.

With an income quite sufficient to their wants thus secured to them, they had nothing to wait for after Edward was in possession of the living, but the readiness of the house, to which Colonel Brandon, with an eager desire for the accommodation of Elinor, was making considerable improvements; and after waiting some time for their completion, after experiencing, as usual, a thousand disappointments and delays from the unaccountable dilatoriness of the workmen, Elinor, as usual, broke through the first positive resolution of not marrying till every thing was ready, and the ceremony took place in Barton church early in the autumn.

The first month after their marriage was spent with their friend at the Mansion-house; from whence they could superintend the progress of the Parsonage, and direct every thing as they liked on the spot;-could chuse papers, project shrubberies, and invent a sweep. Mrs. Jennings’s prophecies, though rather jumbled together, were chiefly fulfilled; for she was able to visit Edward and his wife in their Parsonage by Michaelmas, and she found in Elinor and her husband, as she really believed, one of the happiest couples in the world. They had in fact nothing to wish for, but the marriage of Colonel Brandon and Marianne, and rather better pasturage for their cows.

The cows, in fact, were more than vexed. As Elinor walked thru the pasture one morning, a milk cow, familiarly known as Bessie, rose upon its hind feet, as if some kind of great beast.

“I shall kill you,” cried Bessie, quite startling Elinor, “I come to talk to you of your demise. This way of treating us is more than unflattering. So terrible you are!-You know how I dread to complain;-but the very moment I saw you pass by, there was such an anger in my temper as really should seem to say, I will see you shuffle off this mortal coil.”

“But, but-” stammered Elinor, so full of fear and confusion, “you are a cow! How could you kill me?”

“It’s called bovine disseminated tuberculosis, you annoying bitch, and now you’ve got it. You won’t see Christmas. MUHAHHAHAHA.”

Elinor was indeed dead within the month. Fucking cows.

THE END

Yep. It’s all there.

Things are getting hectic over at Language Log, in a conversation about the rise of “snuck” instead of “sneaked.” (The chart at left: usage in the Times over the last few decades.) Notes one commenter: “Seems ‘received’ grammar has little stomach for regression toward non-standard false strong verbs.” FOREALS YO!

Ah, Minnesota: “For recordings of bird songs, call 612–673–7800.” Or you can save yourself the price of a call and listen on the web! They’ve got the Carolina Chickadee and the Red-breasted Nuthatch!

I can’t help but feel giddy schadenfreudeish glee that the Italian PD has suffered a major blow to their unctuous swagger since their obscenely expensive 200 mph Lambo Gallardo got smithereened by a Seat, a Spanish car that’s basically a toy Audi. And the ill dork Easter egg has to be that the design director at Seat is Luc Donckerwolke, who used to work at Lamborghini and DESIGNED THE GALLARDO. I know! Circles rule. Man, “Jersey Shore” better NOT get cancelled because now I’m pumped.

Instrumental rock is a tough sell. It’s hard to sing along with, for starters. (What I am supposed to do with this hairbrush, brush my hair?) And it’s often boring, a film score without the film. But Australia’s Dirty Three do it right. Really right. Violinist Warren Ellis is like Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson without the flute and the ren-fair tunics (and, of course, the singing)-all shambling madman with crazy eyes and messed-up hair and guitar-hero chops and poses. Drummer Jim White and guitarist Mick Turner provide him with elegant, restrained romance for backdrop. By all means, see them live if you get the chance. Here, in this Pitchfork video clip, they play in a hotel room, with guest keyboardist Nick Cave. (Who, we reiterate, we love, despite what he did to The Road.) It’s long, eight minutes, and it starts off slow and quiet. But by the end, it’s like driving on the rim of an erupting volcano. Watch!

Stuart Elliott at the NYT is hysterical. Check it, he says, “FIRST, Justin Timberlake brought sexy back. Now, Dockers will try to bring khaki back.” MAHAHAHAHAHA. Isn’t that great? I mean, I don’t know about you but I think mashing that message into the squarest lead ever is some boss shit.

The weird thing is, Dockers are absolutely ripe for return. The price-point is sweet at around $27-$35 a pop which is rare for garments with crotches. The author posits that they’ll see some friction in competing for the affections of men wearing SWRVE pants which makes exactly fuck-all sense since they cost about a hundred bucks more and are purveyed at your finest cycling stores but where Dockers is egregiously fumbling is that they’re not quietly going for the James-Perse-at-Dickies-prices lane. It’s confusing since their parent company Levi’s is so cannily positioned right now on the heels of their awesome Whitman ad campaign. They could have the soft cotton twill game on lock if they didn’t feel the need to trot out douchechill ad slogans like “it’s time to wear the pants” and “khaki diem” (baaaaaarf) and capture the fancy of the youth market by telling them to “man up.” And never mind that they got a female SVP to declare it’s sufficiently vetted “to make sure it’s not sexist.”

You can keep the classic cut-the rear flattening, gut cinching, pleated kind that are perfect for fat dudes, foreign substitute teachers, or dick-swinging aggy ex-white hats who can’t stand without their feet being really far apart-so as not to alienate the core, and a modified, leaner, flat-front one for sexy poor people and ladies. They could occupy the slot that American Eagle Outfitters’ denim does for women in that we all SILENTLY own a pair.

So yes, Dockers could happen. They just need two cuts, four colorways, two weights, a Harrington jacket (am I right?) and they’d be right at home in those shit-eating steampunk stores next to the Filsons or in skateshops next to the SBs. I win. Someone give me a job.

Your word for the day is ‘sexsomnia’: “THIS woman suffers from a mysterious disorder which turns her into a sex addict — when she is ASLEEP. Stunning Belle Floor is a Sexsomniac — meaning she engages in sexual acts while she is sleeping — and cannot remember ANYTHING the next day.” The condition is also known as “being a dude.”