on a lighter note

dirigibles are cool for a number of reasons. first, the name. in french, dirigible means "able to be directed," a rather humorous and self-evident name for the thing, as well as an adjective that's been turned into a noun. imagine if the car were called the driveable. same thing. but the true beauty of the word dirigible lies in a sort of onomatopoeia, which is both silly and quasi-scientific, just like the thing itself. if dirigibles make sounds, they probably go something like this: "ddddrrrrrrrigible!" and if i were looking at a dirigible and didn't know what to call it, i'd call it dirigible.

the dirigible comes from the era of early flight, which i thought accounted for the ridiculousness of the design, but it turns out i may have been wrong. there was a resurgence of interest in dirigibles -- i mean like as in actually using them -- in the early 90s. have no idea why. but today that's waned and there aren't too many dirigibles out and about.

a major dirigible disaster, the burning of the Hindenburg Zeppelin in new jersey on May 6, 1937, has etched the image of the dirigible fairly firmly in the cultural consciousness. my friend noah referenced the hindenburg in the final for his puppeteering class at wesleyan, which was a titanic/dirigible spoof entitled "Dirigible: A Woman's Heart is as Deep as an Ocean of Secrets." they actually built a dirigible puppet and set it on fire. got an F.

shortly thereafter, i looked into purchasing the domain name dirigible.com. here's the response i got from the owner:

Dear Sir,Thank you for your interest concering dirigible.com i own. Selling price of this dirigible.com domain name is USD $35,000. If you can pay USD $35,000, we are that sell domain to you immediately. If you agree in this transaction, I will begin transaction after I join on escrow. I think we can transact safely if we get services through Escrow. Escrow service consists in escrow.com. Here is place that can believe most. If you money is paid to Escrow.com, I will change owner information. If you have any question, Please send email to me. Best Regards,Inchonseekers, Inc. David, Jun, CEO

i'm pretty sure old david is still current owner, but if i had USD $35,000 lying around, i'd contact the guy.