Saturday, May 30, 2020

Nutty Buddy


    The best Little Debbie snack ever!  And I should know; I've tried them all.

Friday, May 29, 2020

Book Excerpt for the Day


    Claudine had mentioned that Claude had just broken up with his boyfriend, too, so he was unattached: all six feet of him, accessorized with rippling black hair and rippling muscles and a six-pack that could have been featured in Abs Weekly.  Mentally add to that a pair of brown velour-soft eyes, a chiseled jaw, and a sensuous mouth with a pouty bottom lip, and you’ve got Claude.  Not that I was noticing.


    (from Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris)

    8*/10.  The complete review is here.
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Thursday, May 28, 2020

Estragon



    Oh neat!  It looks like Barney & Clyde are doing Waiting For Godot cartoons for a bit.

Wednesday, May 27, 2020

Tuesday, May 26, 2020

Hoarding


    I admit it.  I hoard books.  But only ones I haven't read yet.

Monday, May 25, 2020

Saturday, May 23, 2020

Florence


    I like 'em both.

Thursday, May 21, 2020

Book Excerpt for the Day


    “Let me provisionally say that we knew each other nineteen years, seven months, and around fifteen days when he passed away so tragically.  I have kept careful records my whole life.  The only data I won’t be able to record is the exact time of my own death, unless I commit suicide, which I have no plans to do.  But my lawyer has instructions to burn all my notebooks when I die.  They are of value only to me, not anyone else.”

    Wallander was starting to sense that Sundelius was one of those people who did not get enough chances to talk to others.


    (from One Step Behind by Henning Mankell)

    9*/10.  The complete review is here.
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Wednesday, May 20, 2020

Darwinism


    Evolution.  Just a theory.

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

Monday, May 18, 2020

Sunday, May 17, 2020

Book Excerpt for the Day


    A few entrepreneurs realized that there was a market for higher quality ice cream in small containers at high prices.  In 1961 Rose Mattus and her husband, Reuben, developed such a brand and called it Häagen-Dazs.  The success of this brand name proves that Americans like their food to have foreign names – the way they will use coriander only when it is called cilantro and the way sherbet has made a comeback under the name “sorbet”.  The Mattuses intended “Häagen-Dazs” to sound Danish, though there is no umlaut in Danish.  But if you wanted a word to look foreign, what could be better than an umlaut?


    (from Milk! by Mark Kurlansky)

    8½*/10.  The complete review is here.
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Saturday, May 16, 2020

Cornhole Competition


    We were reduced to watching a "cornhole" match today during breakfast. That's apparently an updated word for "bean bag". I am not making this up.

Friday, May 15, 2020

Word for the Day


    Word for the Day: "Proustian" (adj.): relating to or characteristic of the French writer Marcel Proust or his works, particularly with reference to the recovery of the lost past and the stimulation of unconscious memory.

Thursday, May 14, 2020

Book Excerpt for the Day


    Before the Virus, schools taught all sorts of subjects, but now they stuck to the basics.  Enough to communicate and survive in a world of rudimentary living.  And parents could stop sending their kids to school whenever they wanted to.  It was more important for your kid to help grow food or sew shirts or fish or chop wood or keep an old car or bicycle going.  Or to work one of the necessary jobs in town.

    (from H2O by Irving Belateche)

    6½*/10.  The complete review is here.
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Wednesday, May 13, 2020

John Cage

    We are committed to posting anything that touts John Cage's masterpiece, "4 Minutes, 33 Seconds".

Tuesday, May 12, 2020

Scams


    FRAUD ALERT!!  I paid $11.99 for this e-book at Amazon.  Not only does "instant pot" never appear, but there isn't even any mention of cannabis in it!! 

Monday, May 11, 2020

Hammer Time


    Once it's been seen, it cannot be unseen.

Sunday, May 10, 2020

Sneezes


    Three.  Almost always.  Four is cause for alarm.  And yes, I'm OCD.

Saturday, May 09, 2020

To Facebook or not to Facebook


    The saddest part is that they usually log on to Facebook to tell you this.

Friday, May 08, 2020

Book Excerpt for the Day


    “Is it safe to talk here?”

    “Well, sure,” I said.  “Why not?”

    “The place isn’t … bugged?”

    “Well, we have an exterminator come once a month, but in a neighborhood like this you can’t expect –“

    “No no!  I mean microphones, listening devices.”

    “Oh, those!  Oh, sure, we’ve got lots of those.  In the light switches mostly, and here and there.  But they don’t work any more.”

    “Are you sure?  You’ve deactivated every one?”

    “Well, most of them, rats ate the wiring.”

    (from The Spy in the Ointment by Donald E. Westlake)

    6½*/10.  The complete review is here.
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Thursday, May 07, 2020

Temporal Paradoxes


    There are some downsides to time-travel paradoxes.

Wednesday, May 06, 2020

Monday, May 04, 2020

Book Excerpt for the Day


    Two things became apparent: first, that Ralph Waldo Emerson had lived and died in the 1800s and therefore could not have written any letters dated September third, 1940, and, second, that his writing was so dense and arcane that it couldn’t possibly have held the slightest interest for my grandfather, who wasn’t exactly an avid reader.  I discovered Emerson’s soporific qualities the hard way, by falling asleep with my face in the book, drooling all over an essay called “Self Reliance”.

    (from Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs)

    8½*/10.  The complete review is here.
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Sunday, May 03, 2020

Pipes


    Get your mind out of the gutter.

Saturday, May 02, 2020

Friday, May 01, 2020

Book Lovers


    I'm guilty of all of these, except #8.