John Cage

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

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!! 

Hammer Time

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

Sneezes

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

To Facebook or not to Facebook

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

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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Temporal Paradoxes

    There are some downsides to time-travel paradoxes.

Meteorological Marvel

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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Pipes

    Get your mind out of the gutter.

Handshake Replacement

    I fully support this.

Book Lovers

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

Book Excerpt for the Day

    Pirius said slowly, “I can’t come back.”

    Luru Parz laughed.  “But it doesn’t matter.  Sentient or not, it will only be a copy, like a Virtual.  And it won’t last long.  It has to be you, Ensign.” (…)

    Pirius looked at the frame.  He felt numbed, not even afraid; perhaps his imagination was exhausted.  He shrugged.  “There are already two copies of me running around the Galaxy.  I suppose I’m used to be being split in half.  When shall we do this?”

    (from Exultant by Stephen Baxter)

    7½*/10.  The complete review is here.

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Vrrooom!

    We have one of these on our street.  And at 3:00 AM too.

Fitbit Step Goal

    This really helps me meet my daily Fitbit 10,000-steps goal.

Motivational Monday

Sunday Sermon

Book Excerpt for the Day

    Even in the tropics, where the difference between winter and summer is minimal, temperatures can vary significantly between the rainy and the dry seasons.  Organisms have developed all sorts of ways of dealing with those variations.  They hibernate or estivate or migrate.  They dissipate heat through panting or conserve it by growing thicker coats of fur.  Honeybees warm themselves by contracting the muscles in their thorax.  Wood storks cool off by defecating on their own legs. (In very hot weather, wood storks may excrete on their legs as often as once a minute.)

    (from The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert)

    9*/10.  The complete review is here.

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Drano

    Bet on the Drano, Barney,

Food Science

    You can argue with me, but you can't argue with Science.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    “You drunk?” Thomas said.

    “Drunk on the love of a good woman,” Pirmin said slapping Thomas on the arm with one of his huge hands.

    “Found out her name yet?  Perhaps she had time to shout it at your back while you were riding away in the dark.”

    (from Altdorf – The Forest Knights by J.K. Swift)

    8*/10.  The complete review is here.

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Word for the Day

New Cologne

    I'm gonna get me a bottle of this.

"Waiting For Godot" Saturday

Francophone Friday

Book Excerpt for the Day

    “What’s going to happen to Winky?” said Hermione, the moment they had left the clearing.

    “I don’t know,” said Mr. Weasley.

    “The way they were treating her!” said Hermione furiously.  “Mr. Diggory, calling her ‘elf’ all the time … and Mr. Crouch!  He knows she didn’t do it and he’s still going to sack her!  He didn’t care how frightened she’d been, or how upset she was – it was like she wasn’t even human!”

    “Well, she’s not,” said Ron.

    Hermione rounded on him.

    (from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling)

    9*/10.  The complete review is here.

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Art Appreciation Wednesday

   I can feel relaxation taking hold of my consciousness!  At least until someone opens the car door. 

Wales

    Say what you want, Wales has the kewlest national emblem in the world.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    Mr. Barbecue-Smith arrived in time for tea on Saturday afternoon.  He was a short and corpulent man, with a very large head and no neck.  In his earlier middle age he had been distressed by this absence of neck, but was comforted by reading in Balzac’s “Louis Lambert” that all the world’s great men have been marked by the same peculiarity, and for a simple and obvious reason: Greatness is nothing more or less than the harmonious functioning of the faculties of the head and heart; the shorter the neck, the more closely these two organs approach one another; argal…  It was convincing.

    (from Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley)

    8*/10.  The complete review is here.

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Science Sunday

    The Theory of Relativity has never been so clearly explained.

Social Vegan

    This is me!

Existence

    Something to ponder when it comes to our mortality.

The Green of Black Metal

    It's heartening to see that something good is coming out of this pandemic.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    “OK, then,” I said, turning away, heading towards the stairs.

    The phone rang as I passed it.  Hoping it might be Violet, I lifted the receiver, my heart pounding.

    “Congratulations,” said a disembodied voice, “you have won a guaranteed major prize in the Lithuanian State Lottery.”

    I slammed the phone down, muttering a curse under my breath as I walked upstairs.  They’d got me once.  Never again.

    (from Inspector Hobbes and the Curse by Wilkie Martin)

    7½*/10.  The complete review is here.

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More Britishisms

    Moggy (n.):  An ordinary cat.

Others, all from a book I just finished: doddle, jacket potato, pong, fly sheet, footwell, settles, bin liner, skint, bleeper, scarper, AGM, spotty herbert, dust-dancers, cutlery draw, shufti, picnic hamper, stodge, going to the Casualty, skip, ‘having me on’, pebble-dashed, top up, nutters, lay-by, slowcoach, selvedge, tosser, punters, dozy, bacon-butties, and ‘trying it on’.

Sunday Sermon

    Count on it.

DIY Bidet

    How to foil those hoarder a$$holes.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    “You know,” said Adelsky, “four people will find treasure more quickly than two.”

    “Maybe,” said Nora, “but the dig has to keep going, one way or another.  The archaeological value of what you’ll be doing – uncovering the heart of the camp – is greater than a chest full of gold.”

    Salazar rolled his eyes.

    “But a lot less fun,” said Adelsky.

    (from Old Bones by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child)

    7½*/10.  The complete review is here.

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Zombies

    Uphill.  BOTH WAYS!!

Britishisms

    Britishism for the Day:  "spotty herbert" (n., phrase):  a foolish person.