A mind-bloggling idea...

I am probably the last person on the face of the Internet to have found the diary of Samuel Pepys online, in the form of a blog that is updated daily, albeit a mere 343 years after the fact. I suspect this kind of serialization will make reading Pepys' diary more attractive, especially to many who would otherwise not even consider the idea.

My own knowledge of Pepys is sketchy. According to Robert Latham:

Pepys's skill lay in his close observation and total recall of detail. It is the small touches that achieve the effect. Another is the freshness and flexibility of the language. Pepys writes quickly in shorthand and for himself alone. The words, often piled on top of each other without much respect for formal grammar, exactly reflect the impressions of the moment. Yet the most important explanation is, perhaps, that throughout the diary Pepys writes mainly as an observer of people. It is this that makes him the most human and accessible of diarists, and that gives the diary its special quality as a historical record.

The reference to "shorthand" belies the fact that the diary was kept in secret, according to David Kahn in The Code Breakers, who mentions that Pepys "once remarked to a friend about how undersirable it would be to have it generally known that he kept a diary." Kahn recounts an abbreviated version of how the diary came to be deciphered; I recall reading a more detailed version, but forget where.

If the Pepys blog marches along at the same pace as the original, we all have a bit more than 8 years of good reading ahead of us, even if The Powers In Charge don't (or can't) publish the racy bits.

Cheers...

Slowly winding down...

I moved the ActionLaser to the store this morning and made sure it works before dragging the LaserJet home to sit on the floor of my office while I figure out what to do with it. I also went down to the Ace hardware store to return some things I'd bought around Thanksgiving. The one plant shop I know of in town was, of course, closed.

The home stretch of the translation started at noon and ended around 4:15. I've done all the post-translation stuff except for a line-by-line review, which I may do tomorrow before sending the file to the client. (I have to remember to get up early enough to make sure Galina sets off for Durango in time to meet our box supplier's truck.)

I had meant to also revise the store's spreadsheet, since the UPS rates go up tomorrow, but that can wait for a day or two. Right now, I'm letting dinner settle with a cup of green tea at hand as I type this. I think I'm going to watch The 13th Warrior in a little bit.

As I type this, I've hooked up the 15" monitor that I bought at the Humane Society's thrift shop (together with the color inkjet printer). The monitor seems to be in excellent condition; the screen is bright, multicolored graphics show up in striking multicolor <grin>, and there is no fuzziness. I think I'll keep it (the HS has a 3-day return policy for stuff like this).

Cheers...