The Boston Diaries

The ongoing saga of Sean Conner, who doesn't live in Boston, nor does he even like Boston, but yet named his weblog/journal “The Boston Diaries.”

Go figure.

Thursday, April 02, 2026

Zemblanity is the word, is the word that your heard, it's got groove it's got meaning

I received an email from Christopher Williams about a word for an unplanned unfortunate discovery, and he stated that the word I was looking for was “zemblanity.” I have never heard this word before, so I decided to try looking it up in the The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. I did not find it, but then again, the copy I have is from 1971. It may be a new word. I did, however, find the word “Zemblan,” which describes things relating to Nova Zembla, an island in the Artic Ocean north of Russia.

I decided to check the online Oxford dictionary and did not find the word there. I then did some Internet searching and found that it was made up by William Boyd for his book Armadillo. The reason for defining the word “zemblanity” as the opposite of “serendipity” is worth reading in the linked article. Not only is it fitting, I found it amusing.

No more pictures sans context

For the past year, I've been enjoying the Picture Pages, a site on Gemini that presents five random pictures. It was always enjoyable and sometimes surprising when it linked to some picture from my blog without context. And today, it's no more.

I already miss it.

Obligatory Picture

[Self-portrait with a Christmas Tree] Oh Chrismtas Tree! My Christmas Tree! Rise up and hear the bells!

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Obligatory AI Disclaimer

No AI was used in the making of this site, unless otherwise noted.

You have my permission to link freely to any entry here. Go ahead, I won't bite. I promise.

The dates are the permanent links to that day's entries (or entry, if there is only one entry). The titles are the permanent links to that entry only. The format for the links are simple: Start with the base link for this site: https://boston.conman.org/, then add the date you are interested in, say 2000/08/01, so that would make the final URL:

https://boston.conman.org/2000/08/01

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