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.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    “Sometimes you think there’s more of you, though?  More survivors?”  She wished he would focus.

    “Yeah.”  He rubbed his beard, looked around the room like there was something he should have been doing for her, 

something you offered guests.  “I find things moved sometimes.  Find things left out.  The grow lights left on.  Then I remember I did them.”

    He laughed to himself.  It was the first natural thing she’d seen him do, and Jules figured he’d been doing a lot of it over the years.  You laughed either to keep yourself sane or because you’d given up on staying that way.  Either way, you laughed.

    (from Wool by Hugh Howey)

    7*/10.  The complete review is here.

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Cat Skeet

    Our three dogs all thought this Dilbert cartoon was hilarious!

Vocabulary Tuesday

Breakfast at Conan's

Happy Eostre!

    Tis the reason for the season!

Hoarding

    This is kinda my goal when it comes to LP's and books.

Gilligan's Island Color

   Had today off.  It was totally enjoyable.

Then and Now

    Well, it's not the Best Movie ever.  But it's in the Top 5.

Chalk Art Wednesday

    I think we've found the Higgs Boson particle.

Tea-bagger Dreams

Book Excerpt for the Day

    Another far less common group is where Balder hoped that August belonged: the so-called prodigious savants, individuals whose talents are sensational whichever way one looks at them.  Kim Peek, for example, who was the basis for Rain Man, was severely mentally handicapped and could not get dressed by himself.  Yet he memorized twelve thousand books and could give a lightning-quick answer to almost any factual question.  He was known as Kimputer.

    Or Stephen Wiltshire, an autistic English boy who was extremely withdrawn as a child and uttered his first word when he was six – it happened to be “paper”.  By the age of seven Stephen was able to draw groups of buildings perfectly and in the minutest detail, having seen them for just one brief moment.  He was flown above London in a helicopter and when he landed he drew the entire city in a fantastic, dizzying panorama, and with a wonderfully individual touch.

    (from The Girl In The Spider’s Web by David Lagercrantz)

     8*/10.  The full review is here.

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Scrabble Variants

    Don't know what to get that bookaholic friend for Christmas?  Try either one of these.

Flowchart Saturday

Rules for learning English

History Trivia Thursday!

   And it's absolutely true, you know.

Wednesday Math Lesson

   It's a heckuva deal!

Gymnastics WTF

    Ouch.  Just ouch.

T-Shirts and OCD

    You can probably double all three of these values for my t-shirt wardrobe.  But 2 times zero is still zero.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    The Black Weasel stood up and drew his rapier; moving slowly and gracefully, he placed the tip of the sword on the messenger’s Adam’s apple and growled, “Shut up and tell me what you’re doing here.”

    The messenger blinked.

    “That’s rather a contradiction, sir,” he said.  “If I were, as you put it, to ‘shut up,’ then how …”

    The tip of the sword drew blood.  The Black Weasel adjusted his stance to prepare for a thrust.  “You’re new at this,” he said.  “If you ever want to be old…”

    He let the threat hang unfinished.

    (from Split Heirs by Lawrence Watt-Evans and Esther M. Friesner)

  8*/10.  The full review is here.

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Saturday Illusion

    For some reason, this image reminds me of China Miéville's The City and The City.

Movie Friday

    From the second-greatest movie ever, The Princess Bride.  Monty Python's Holy Grail remains the greatest.

Chalk Art Wednesday

    Looks like the photographer used a fish-eye lens to "widen" the pic and make it look even more epic.  And I do like the "acting" by the three people in the pic.

Vinyl Flooring

   Man, do I love vinyl flooring!

Hate

    Sometimes you just gotta let all the negativity flow out.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    “LEP?”

    LEP stopped singing.  “Yes?”

    “Tell me something about yourself,” she said.  “Talk to me for a bit.”

    “There’s nothing to tell,” said LEP with uncharacteristic modesty.

    “I’m sure there is.”

    “Well, you’re quite right.  There is.  And every bit of it is phenomenally interesting.”

    “Go on, then.”  She continued with her recharging.

    “I’m deeply flattered,” said LEP.  “I hadn’t realized you were so interested in me.”

    “I’m not.  But it’s got to be better than your singing.”

    (from The Ultimate Inferior Beings by Mark Roman)

    7*/10.  The complete review is here.

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Number of Pillows

    True dis.  I sleep with two under my head, plus one "hug" pillow.

Doggy Park

   There's a doggy park about a mile south of our house.  We don't take our three mutts inside it, cuz frankly, they're aggressively rude.  However, the doggy park is part of a much larger park, with baseball diamonds, playgrounds, and acres and acres of bushes and doggy smells.

    Our mutts have learned the meaning of "Do you want to go to the park?". and go bonkers when they hear us ask it, just like the dog in these pics.  And no, they have no idea what the command "Sit" means, nor do they have any inclination to learn about it.

Book Vending Machine

    I really hope we get one of these sometime soon in my neighborhood.

Underwear

    Ah, Kermit.  Such a philosopher you are!

Crossover Music

    Must.  Find.  This.