In true Miles fashion, I procrastinated on the very last paper of my undergraduate career. Surely I would pull through for this one, make a final valiant effort to work ahead of time. No way. Wrote two pages last night, ten today. Turned it in thirty minutes late. Oddly, there is no guilt whatsoever. I honor my priorities, which do not include seventeenth century royalist poets. Dommage.

Alright, I'm off to get some late lunch and finish some work, which includes installing a new scanner for my office. Excited!

Word I learned today:

Puncheon:
I. Name of various pointed or piercing instruments.
1. A short piercing weapon; a dagger.
2. a. A pointed tool for piercing; a bodkin.
b. A marble-worker's tool, ? a mason's pointed chisel. Now rare.
c. A graving tool, a burin
3. An instrument for punching or stamping figures, letters, etc. on plate or other material; also, for making dies for coining and matrices for casting type
4. A short upright piece of timber in a wooden framing which serves to stiffen one or more long timbers or to support or transmit a load; a supporting post; a post supporting the roof in a coal-mine; formerly also a door-post.

Also:
A large cask for liquids, fish, etc.; spec. one of a definite capacity, varying for different liquids and commodities.

As a liquid measure it varied from 72 (beer) to 120 (whisky) gallons.
Thanks, OED. Another word I'll never use.

Cool and weird, ceird: