On this day in History

    Henry Kissinger is easily the smuggest, dumbest, most-clueless Secretary of State I've had to tolerate in my lifetime.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    The homes were different.  While mostly silver or white in color, they were muc closer in physical appearance to the buildings I’d seen in Riverfork.  They stood three or four stories in height at most, and they all had the same steep roofs.  Many of the buildings were connected by bridges because, as I later learned, the Tal’mar dread setting foot on soil.  They believe it lowers them to the status of humans, whom many of them feel are little more than hairless apes.

    (from The Tinkerer’s Daughter by Jamie Sedgwick)

    7½*/10.  The complete review is here.

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Halloween Costume

    I do believe I've found (our Jack Russell terrier) Mr. Jynx's Halloween costume.

Fermat's Last Theorem

    We are committed to posting any comic that somehow manages to incorporate Fermat's Last Theorem into its punchline.

Terminator Action Figures

    Groan.

Describe Yourself in One Word

    Well, that was easy.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    “We must be stealthy as rats in the wainscoting of their society.  It was easier in the old days of course, and society had more rats when the rules were looser, just as old wooden buildings have more rats than concrete buildings.  But there are rats in the buildings now as well.  Now that society is all ferroconcrete and stainless steel there are fewer gaps between the joints.  It takes a very smart rat indeed to find these openings.  Only a stainless steel rat can be at home in this environment.”

    (from A Stainless Steel Rat Is Born by Harry Harrison)

  8*/10.  The full review is here.

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Time Travel Vet

    World War 11, aka as "Nicaragua vs. Estonia" was not the bloodiest of conflicts.  Still. Don did see action is the Battle of Katyn Wood.  He told me all about it as we dined in 12th-Century BC Troy.

Book Clubs

    I don't do Book Clubs.  I do Book Blogs, GoodReads, and have participated in a cooperative book blog in the past.  I enjoy all of those.

    The problem with a book club is being told what book you are going to read this month.  I know my inner voice.  He will object strenuously to this come the second month.

RIP Prince

    I can't say you were my favorite artist, but you were certainly an original and a one-of-a-kind.  In the music world of cookie-cutter wannabees that allow themselves to be molded by the whims of record companies, you stand almost alone as someone who stayed true to his Muse.

Happy 420 !!

     There will come a day when 420 will be a legal holiday.

Newspaper Headline for the Day

    If you've never watched the video "Cows With Guns", go immediately to YouTube and watch it.

Mime Funeral

    I'm speechless.

Art Appreciation Sunday

    Absolutely ingenious!

Limits

    Limits are so ... well... limiting.

Lint

    There are monsters in the laundry room!

Fungi

    And this is the reason I chose to become an analytical chemist instead of a biochemist.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    I’m not so sure the Big Guy’s not getting me back for something.  Maybe I shouldn’t have sent that email to Shelby.  Maybe I shouldn’t have keyed Reed’s car.  Maybe I should have tithed more to my church.  What if God is like the Godfather and so long as you pay up, he won’t break your kneecaps?  What if the Old Testament was right, and you shouldn’t suffer a soothsayer to live – which – that would be me.

    (from Lord Vishnu’s Love Handles by Will Clarke)

    7*/10.  The complete review is here.

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Chalk Art Tuesday

    Ingenious.

Greengrocer's Apostrophe

    To be honest, I had never heard of a Greengrocer's Apostrophe until I read this comic.  And by this rating system, I am a bona fide grammar nazi.  Which I already knew.  But I am not a grammar neo-nazi.  I value Oxford commas far too much to waste one by burning it on someone's lawn.

New Neighborhood

    I want to live here!  Except not in the winter.  And not at high tide.  And not when a hurricane is blowing through.

Puppy Love

   Today was Puppy Love Day (the name of our dog groomers' company) for our three mutts.  Trust me, this is not the expression they had on their faces when they realized where we were going.

Insanity

Book Excerpt for the Day

    “He won’t release me,” Suke smiled cheerfully.  “He’ll order me hanged and display my head on a pole as a warning to others.  I don’t mind.  Death will free me to enter my next incarnation.  This time, I hope I return as a cat.”

    “A cat.”  Hiro had to ask.  “Why do you want to become a cat?”

    Suke’s lips curled into a knowing smile.  He raised a hand to wipe the tendril of drool that started down his chin.  “Cats catch mice.  Mice eat grain.  Grain makes sake.  As a cat, I’ll find a brewery and kill its mice.  The grateful owner will give me a bowl of sake every day!”

    “Cats don’t drink sake,” Hiro said.

    “I would,” Suke said.

    (from Flask of the Drunken Master by Susan Spann)

  8*/10.  The complete review is here.

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The Life of a Creative Person

    It does indeed have its ups and downs.

Quantum Physics Tuesday

Criticism

We are all humans

    True dis, only I'd also add "until national borders alienated us".

When superheroes collide...

    This cannot end well.

Music Quiz

    Well, the two outside Jimmy's are easy, and I'm pretty sure of the mustached one.  But the one in the hat has me stumped.