864511320

    Truck Fump.

Irregardless

        Regardless vs Irregardless.  Flammable vs Inflammable.  English is a goofy language.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    Patriotism as a word and deed has made a comeback.  At Halloween, costume shops did a brisk business in Uncle Sam and Betsy Ross getups.  Teen pop bombshell Britney Spears took a breather during her live telecast from Vegas’s MGM Grand to sit on a piano bench with her belly ring glinting in the spotlight and talk about “how proud I am of our nation right now.”  Chinese textile factories are working overtime to fill the consumer demand for American flags.

    (from The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell)

    8*/10.  The complete review is here.

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Tuesday Science Lesson

    It's called "Kinetics".

Reading Tastes

    Calvin and I have the same tastes in reading.

Paly

    Got a microphone for the 'puter so I can do Zoom meetings.  But what really excites me is the box's promise that it's also great for "Game Paly Online".

Book Excerpt for the Day

    Serge reached in a paper sack and pulled out a piece of fruit.

    “I didn’t know you liked to eat bananas.”

    “I’m not eating it.”  Serge held it in front of his face and stroked the yellow skin.  “I’m having a religious experience.  All life is connected, and I just heard last night on TV that humans possess half the DNA of a banana, so I’m checking it out to see if I can pick up a family vibe.”

    (from No Sunscreen For The Dead by Tim Dorsey)

    7½*/10.  The complete review is here.

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Coughing

    This has been a Public Service Announcement.

Bookmark Alignment

    I waffle between Lawful Neutral and True Neutral.

Wednesday Poetaster - Haiku Edition

   
    BTW, the "a" in "poetaster" is short, as in "master" or "plaster".  I've been pronouncing it wrong all these years.

    Really.  Google it.

TV Extras

    That's it.  I need a new TV.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    “I like it.  Very much.  I’ll take it.”

    “Would you have references?”

    “I’m awfully sorry, but I haven’t.  I just arrived in New York, and don’t know a soul.  Except you.”  I smiled but she didn’t smile back.  She stood hesitating, and I said, “It’s true that I’m an escaped convict, an active counterfeiter, and occasional murderer.  And I howl during the full of the moon.  But I’m neat.”

    “In that case, welcome.”

    (from Time and Again by Jack Finney)

    7*/10.  The complete review is here.

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Little Known Facts

Portable Pods

    This looks great!  I've just ordered one of the "Version 2.0" jobbers at Amazon!

Friday Punnery

Book Excerpt for the Day

    Grant sighed dramatically.  “Ah, San Diego.”

    “Oh, my God.  You’re not going to get all mushy about what happened, are you?  You were just there at the right time.”

    “Mushy?  Hell no.  Can’t a guy reminisce about a fun afternoon?”

    “Good.  Because that’s all it was.”

    “Fine with me.”

    They scanned for a few more minutes before Grant said, “But just for the record, I wouldn’t mind having another afternoon like it.”

    Morgan smiled.  “Maybe we’ll find the right time again.”

    (from The Roswell Conspiracy by Boyd Morrison)

    4½*/10.  The complete review is here.

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Astronomy Wednesday

    An actual NASA photograph of the relative positions of Earth, Arizona and the Sun.  This explains so much about why our summers are so hot.

Patriot Alert!

Art Appreciation Monday

Vocabulary Sunday

Book Excerpt for the Day

    Because, Mordak reflected, what’s the defining experience of Evil, taken as a whole, throughout three Ages of recorded history?  It loses, that’s what.  It gets hammered.  It gets the stuffing bashed out of it, every single time.  A Dark Lord rises, for a while everything goes swimmingly, vast swathes of territory fall under the Shadow; and then a handful of pointy-ears or a bunch of uppity humans or even a solitary furry-toed, knee-high hooligan stops us dead in our tracks and it’s straight back to square one, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred zlotyl.

    (from An Orc on the Wild Side by Tom Holt)

    8*/10.  The complete review is here.

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TGIF

    It's the weekend!!

Wednesday Word Play

Book Excerpt for the Day

    By 1800, the British thought they had found a perfect solution to their tea-trade deficit, the ideal product to give China something to do with all its British silver: Indian opium.  The Chinese government thought otherwise, banning opium in 1829 and, when drug-smuggling increased, dispatching a commissioner, Lin Zexu, to Canton to stop the illegal trade.  After neither Chinese nor British merchants took any notice of his order to destroy opium stocks, he took action himself and flushed a year’s supply of opium into the sea.  The British retaliated by shelling Canton; war was declared.

    (from The Great Wall by Julia Lovell)

    8*/10.  The complete review is here.

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Passive Aggressive

Enough Sleep

    My Fitbit confirms this, and my right knee wants to know the answer.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    It would be better for them not to be sentient, Holloway thought.  Just because they were sentient wouldn’t be a guarantee they’d be recognized as such.  Not when so many people had such a vested interest in them not being so.  Better to be a monkey and not be able to understand what’s been taken from you, than to be a man and be able to understand all too well – and be helpless to stop it.

    (from Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi)

    8*/10.  The complete review is here.

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Happy Third of July!

    I'm already resigned to the fact that the neighbor behind us will start shooting off fireworks tonight.

Dust Cloud Blues

    It sure does.

Your Author Name

    You mean that's all there is to it?!