At last, September 29th is finally here. New Alice, new beginnings. Here’s the opening track, which sums up the whole thing:

Hope, a new beginning.
Time, time to start living
Like just before we died.

There’s no going back to the place we started from.

The new Alice in Chains album hits tomorrow. Here’s an inspiring short film to get us started. It includes the guys discussing life after Layne, a bit about how they hooked up William DuVall, some talk on the new record, and what we can look forward to from Alice in the future. Life goes on, indeed.

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From ProofreadNOW:

These two verbs are too often confused, even by experienced writers. Perhaps the confusion stems from the acceptable use of either in certain contexts. We either convince or persuade someone of the value of a proposition or of the goodness of a certain action. But the two verbs part ways when we try to make them lead into complementary infinitives with to…it works with persuade but does not with convince.

We can convince a person that a statement is correct; we can convince him of its correctness; but we cannot convince (though we can persuade) him to believe it or to act on the belief. In all the examples here, the use of convince is incorrect:

• It was thought to have convinced a considerable number of independents to vote for the less experienced candidate.
• He said that the chairman had been convinced by the reporter to open the doors on the meeting.
• She tried to convince Williams in the interview to apologize to the fans and especially to the line judge.
• We made very attempt to convince the electorate to approve the measure, but without success.

All these examples should use persuade (or prevail upon) where they use convince.

My new favorite kind of dog. After assuming Oiselle — a pound rescue — was some sort of poodle/muppet/ewok mix, it’s been pointed out by those in the know that she is in fact a Brussels Griffon.

I was over at a neighbor’s place last night, and he had two of them. Small world. We took a few minutes to get some footage of his baby Lola, who looks very much like a less-dreaded Oiselle:

So cute.

Interested in one? Please don’t support breeders. Instead, hop on over to National Brussels Griffon Rescue, Inc. They’re waiting.

Last year my old man was inducted into the Punahou* Athletic Hall of Fame in Hawaii for his accomplishments in football, baseball, and basketball. I was fortunate enough to be present.

Here’s a video segment paying tribute to that 1963 superstar, which includes some vintage footage and interviews from peers and teammates:

*Punahou is the Alma mater of President Barack Obama.

Eight more days!

Summer of O’Nine
Now in the books forever.
Let’s move on to Fall.

Invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1761. Music by Wolfgang A. Mozart. Played by French artist Thomas Bloch, exhibiting the glass harmonica in the Paris Music Museum, Nov. 29, 2007.