Touting the Boni

Of course "Boni" is not the plural of Bonus, any more than "Prii" is the plural of Prius, although the latter seems to have been established by usage in the on-line newsgroups.  A much-ignored feature of this blog are my various bonus items.  This ignorance is well deserved, since once you see the stupid joke in the first of them the temptation to click "Next Bonus" is somewhat tempered.  Recognizing this, and starting with this blogitem, I have redirected the "Bonus!" link at the left to a newly-created index of the boni.  The reason these are bonus items is that they are not the usual, well-reasoned, highly pointful items of my daily blog.  Rather, they are idiosyncratic lists that I update as frequently as the gas tank, the Wall Street Journal, or metaphysical afflatus moves me.  Here is a summary of the bonus items so far.  If after reading this, you choose to continue to ignore them, well, who can blame you?

• The first, target of the older links, is the stupid joke page.  I was thinking of updating it once per April first, but I realize that that might be a little too infrequent.  So in honor of today's tout, I've added a second one.

• The second is a list of chemical sightings in the Journal.  Although I began this list years ago, it originally lived on the whiteboard in my office and was summarily erased in the fit of Indburishness that overcame me a year or so ago.  I regret this because we're unlikely to have another sighting of gentisyl quinone isovalerate in that august rag any time soon.  The chemical list was and is going so slowly that I made this bonus a double:  I have added "Periodic Table Bingo."  Yet to be decided is what to do when a row or column is completed, although rows one and two at least are susceptible to timely* completion.

• The third is my ever-growing spreadsheet of gas consumption by my Prius.  Just plain boring data, which nonetheless is closer to the EPA rating than to the scurrilous comments one sees from the SUV-loving web babblers.

• The fourth is likely to be supplanted soon as I get Cold War Week under way!

• The fifth, which I just added, along with the not-yet-extant sixth, prompted me to to write this today.  Just as the "ticking clock" is obsolete, so are many other clichés.  I'm trying to spot them.

• The sixth will be, when I decide on the proper display format, a "powers of ten" using energy instead of physical dimensions.  The initial information will come from the September Scientific American, a special issue on our "energy future."  I must collect data to extend the numbers upward and downward before promulgating this bonus. 

Is six the limit?  Certainly not!  Perhaps there's a "QSL of the Day" in our future.  Or I could start learning to sing and post periodic progress reports in podcast form.

*Timely:  Before the Journal publishes by thought transference.