Those of you who've followed this 'blog for a while might be wondering what happened to the paper that I started submitting to journals in mid-June of last year. Well, yeah; me too.

As previously reported here, it was rejected by three journals as unsuitable to a general audience of economists, after being rejected by one without any reason being given. As it was rejected for being too specialized by one journal, I would then submit it to a more specialized journal. I submitted it to a fifth journal in early September. That process had to be repeated as their representative wanted me to purge the acknowledgments before the paper were passed-on to an editor (I'm not sure why someone there didn't delete them from the LAΤΕΧ file that they'd had me submit, nor why their submission template provides for acknowledgments, with no guidelines on when not to include them), but the paper was then officially recorded as submitted on 8 September. And I've been waiting since for a yea or for a nay.

They have an on-line site at which I can check on the status of my paper. After a while, the site reported that an editor had been assigned; then, in early January that reviewers had been assigned. Anthony suggested that perhaps they had had trouble finding reviewers who would be sufficiently comfortable with the sort of mathematics used. In late March the status report was changed to say that reviewers were assigned at that time, as if perhaps one or more of the original reviewers had left without returning an evaluation.

This journal doesn't really provide any guideline about querying them concerning the status of a submission. A common guideline from economics journals (as some others) is to contact them if one hasn't received any word after six months. I couldn't really claim that I'd not got any word for six months, but what I'd got surely didn't seem informative. Towards the end of June, after getting an opinion from Anthony, who said that I should feel free to query them, I did. The person whom I contacted said that, much as Anthony had suggested, there seemed to have been a problem finding reviewers, and that my query had been forwarded to the editor.

I've received nothing further. So, I don't really know the status of my paper.

A stereotype ex libris book-plate that I got to-day: This image is by Andre Louis Armand Rassenfosse (1862 – 1934). I've had an eye out for one of this particular design for quite a while.

To-day, when I was starting my shower, I saw what looked like a silverfish swirling around in the water. I don't want silverfish in my apartment, but didn't see any need for the thing to die, and the water hadn't been hot enough to kill it, so I held my hand over the drain, turned-off the water, and let what was in the tub drain slowly.

Sure enough, there was a water-logged silverfish. I grabbed a clean, empty bottle in which the silverfish could be held until I finished showering and dressing, and some bathroom tissue with which to pick-up the insect, as I could not pick it up with my bare fingers without crushing it.

I made the mistake of using dry tissue, which did not mold itself around the creature, and which wicked the remaining water off it, so that the thing was able to leap free…

…into the drain.

Well, I'd tried.

My father has a pair of Microsoft® Xbox 360™ systems. He spends a fair amount of time on one or both of them, by himself and with my brother.

(My mother reports that my father's interest in the Xbox developed after I sent to him links to the Rooster Teeth Productions Red vs. Blue machinima videos.)

I have more than once been impressed by video games as programs, and wouldn't mind doing such programming, but I've never been much for playing them, unless one counts Rogue and NetHack as such.

And I really loathe the Xbox controller. It strikes me as a product of path-dependency, rather than otherwise optimal design. The particular path was begun by a controller for the 1983 NES (an 8-bit gaming system with a clock-speed of less than 2 MHz and accordingly limited possibilities), with understandably little consideration as to the effect of the design on the future. Each subsequent controller design was affected by the desire not to impose too much change upon users, and perhaps in some cases by a need for compatibility with existing and anticipated gaming systems. Were controller designers starting with an understanding of the information that players would now want to be transmitted, but otherwise fresh, then the designs would be radically different.

But it discernibly saddens my father that I don't join him on his systems when I visit. So I have purchased an Xbox 360™ wireless controller for Windows and a copy of Halo®: Combat Evolved for Windows, so that I can practice using controllers of that d_mn'd design, with a game of the sort that my father plays. (My computer does not have enough umphf for some of the newer video games.)

I'm also then being compelled to boot-load Microsoft® Windows in order to play the game. So I'm running an operating system that I hate to play a game that doesn't appeal to me to familiarize myself with a controller that I hate. Maybe I'll stop hating the controller. (I sure won't stop hating the operating system!)

I mentioned this matter to the manager of the apartment complex in which I live. She noted that there are far worse things in this world than feeling obliged to play video games. That's certainly true.

And it's even true in the face of something that I didn't mention to her, which is that something about the game — beyond the awkwardness of the controller and the usual objectionability of Windows — adversely affects my mood. Perhaps it's that the fictitious world has been one of emptiness punctuated by violence.

In response to my entry reporting that I'd developed plantar fasciitis, Ronnie Ashlock suggested that I look at an entry in Rational Fitness Blog by Scott Helsley. I was persuaded thereby to increase the amount of stretching that I did, and to order a pair of Heel That Pain heel seats and a Strassburg Sock™.

I first tried the heel seats in my boots (which I normally wear every other day), replacing the more ordinary heel seats thereïn. Rather than seeming to help, the new seats made the left foot hurt as if its fasciitis were worsening, and the right foot hurt as if it too had fasciitis. I then tried the seats in my walking shoes (which I wear on the days that I don't wear the boots), on top of the replacement insoles that I'd put in those shoes after the fasciitis developed. The seats seem to work well in the walking shoes.

The Strassburg Sock™ is to be worn when sleeping or sedentary. It stretches the fascia by flexing the toes upwards. My sister-in-law offered me the use of splint that instead flexes the heel, but the Sock seemed like a better idea. (When my sister-in-law had suffered from plantar fasciitis, she'd been unable to use a Sock because of recent injury to her toes.) Anyway, the Sock certainly keeps my fascia stretched while I'm wearing it. I cannot sleep wearing it for more than a few hours, but my sister-in-law reported the same problem with her splint. The Strassburg Sock™ has to be hand-washed and air-dried, so I'd need to have two (or live somewhere that afforded faster drying) to wear one every night.

My father keeps a cache of two-gallon (7.57 l) zipper storage bags in the glove compartment of his car. Some time ago, he and my mother took home some food in that car, and the odor lingered for many days. Now, before anything odoriferous goes into the car, it goes into one of those bags.

I thought having the cache an idea worth emulating and passing-along.

This stereotype ex libris book-plate would probably not be of much interest to me except that it was designed by Karel Šimůnek (1869 – 1942), the very same artist who did this lithographic book-plate a copy of which I acquired on 16 July.

I prefer the lithograph, in part because what the woman in the stereotype appears to be doing cannot be good for the book. And, while raised bands on the spine of a book might have peculiar užitečnost to a nemrava, they were an artefact of better-quality book-binding (though sometimes false bands are used to counterfeit such book-binding), and hence of what may be expected to be a more valuable volume.

For a couple of weeks, I have been in the process of changing the e.mail address that various parties have on file for me. Initially, a considerable amount of each day went into this chore. Now, it's just a few minutes here-and-there, when I am reminded of somewhere that I need to effect a change.

I think that it would probably bore the reader to relate the history of my e.mail addresses, so suffice it to say that I greatly value having a persistent e.mail address, and have had the same address for something on the order of 15 years, but it has been provided by a firm, AT&T, with which I can no longer comfortably do such business. I'll be using oeconomist.com for my email domain now, and hope that I can do so for at least 15 years.

I am visiting my parents because they were using the same firm for e.mail and for their webpage hosting, and are leaving it for similar reasons. I handled configuration of accounts and of e.mail handlers, and transferred WWW content.

I had been using that same firm as my ISP for about that same span, and as my land-line service provider since the acquisition of AT&T by SBC Communications. I have had my land-line disconnected, and turned to Sprint, my cellular telephone service provider, as my ISP. I'm using a Novatel Wireless™ MiFi™ 2200 Mobile Hotspot to connect to the 'Net. For about $100 more, I could have got a Sierra Wireless™ AirCard® W801 (AKA Overdrive™ 3G/4G) Mobile Hotspot, but Sprint doesn't provide and doesn't seem scheduled to provide a 4G network anywhere that I expect to find myself for a few years (after which time there will be new choices in such devices).

Last Monday, I got to meet Charles de Lint, a writer whose work I have long admired, when he came to dinner at my parents' home. He had been there before that day, but not on a day when I had.

My father's profession, writing mostly fantasy, brings him into acquaintances and friendships with some people whom I'd like to meet, or to have met. De Lint had been highest on that list.

Quite some years ago, I damaged both of my knees, especially the left knee (martial arts), and as a consequence I walk with limp. But I none-the-less do a fair amount of walking under normal circumstances. It seems that, as a consequence, I have developed plantar fasciïtis, the plantar fascia being a thick structure of connective tissue in the sole of the foot.

Apparently, I should do less walking for a few months. Additional treatment options include an orthotic support, which I almost certainly should get; stretching exercises, which I am doing; and a night splint, which I will probably get, to keep the foot flexed as one rests. I intend to avoid steroids and surgeory.

The reader may recall that it was a toe of my left foot that I broke last year. In fact, I have chronic tendinitis in my left arm (ancient weight-lifting injury), and within the last few months injured my left shoulder (I don't remember how, because whatever it was didn't much hurt initially) to an extent that the pain became literally nauseous and continues (albeït abated). I am evidently just especially hard on the left side of my body.