Billionaire Limit

    I'd vote for this.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    I stopped for a drink.  The café overlooking the pyramid (or pyramids) had opened its terrace, and I treated myself to a highly alcoholic cocktail.  The tourists at the other tables had their noses in their guidebooks.  There is a class of tourists who never seem to see the things they’re visiting, I thought.  They prefer to look at directions to the next place they’re not going to look at.  A hot-air balloon piloted by naked can-can dancers could have flown past and no one would have seen it except me.

    (from A Year in the Merde by Stephen Clarke)

 

    8½*/10.  The complete review is here.

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Medical Monday

Take Out

Catnip

    For the record, I have no idea what this comic strip's about.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Friday Poetry

Trilingual Thursday

Wednesday Punnery

Book Excerpt for the Day

    The Forum had that look it always gets when everyone knows there is bad news in the air.  Instead of the usual drifting, shifting mass, people gathered in tight little knots, each one feeding the other’s ignorance with rumors and omens.  I overheard talk of military disaster, civil war, invasion by foreign enemies, plague, famine, earthquake and wondrous visitations by the Olympian deities, all before we reached the steps of the Curia.

    (from The Sacrilege by John Maddox Roberts)

 

    8*/10.  The full review is here.

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Geezer Monday

Writing Sentences

    I'm proud to say I made it through Grades 1-12 without ever being paddled.  But sentences?!  Lord, did I have to write sentences.

Weekend Maths

Risk Assessment

 

   Support an Indie Author Friday!

Bilingual Thursday

   Because I just started reading a book titled "A Year in the Merde".

Wednesday's Healthy Eating Tip

Book Excerpt for the Day

    “You clumsy idiot,” said the Prince of the Nibelungs, “you’ve broken my leg.”

    It occurred to Malcolm that this served Alberich right, and he said so.  In fact, he suggested, Alberich was extremely lucky to get off so lightly, since presumably he had broken in with the intention of committing murder.

    “Don’t be stupid,” said Alberich.  “I only wanted the ring.”

    He made it sound as if he had just dropped by to borrow a bowl of sugar.  “Now, about my broken leg…”

    “Never mind your broken leg.”

    “I mind it a lot.  Get a doctor.”

    (from Expecting Someone Taller by Tom Holt)

 

    7½*/10.  The complete review is here.

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Social Distancing

     I completely support this.

Word o' the Day

Punnery Funnery

Book Excerpt for the Day

    “Some fools will claim these creatures washed up from the depths of the arctic sea.”

    “I know,” Naomi answered.  “No one will believe it at first.  But if enough people see it, a few reputable scientists might come forward to challenge what they think is a fake.  You’ve just got to do whatever you can to get it in front of the media.  And keep yourselves alive.”

    Mikhailov snorted.  “The first should not be difficult.  I am not so certain about the second.”

    (from Season of the Harvest by Michael R. Hicks)

 

    7*/10.  The complete review is here.

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Art Appreciation Tuesday

Square-Earthers

    I'm joining this group.  Take that, flat-earthers!

Psychic Economics

Kitchen Entertainment

I've done this! Years ago, back in college. Watched muffins rise in a pan. It was awesome! … Drugs may or may not have been involved.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    A McDonald’s popped up in front of me, and the car automatically turned into the drive-through lane.  I ordered a vanilla milkshake and asked the kid in the window if they were hiring.

    “Sure,” he said, “we’re always hiring.  You want an application?”

    “Do you get held up a lot here?”

    “Not a lot,” he said, passing the application through with the straw.  “We get a few crazies, but usually you can buy them off with extra pickles.”

    (from Hot Six by Janet Evanovich)

 

    8*/10.  The complete review is here.

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Learning German

    Learning a second (or third, or fourth, or fifth) language can be fun.

Surreal Wednesday

English is goofy

Book Excerpt for the Day

    “What’s true?  What’s false?  In case you haven’t noticed, the world has pretty much given up on the old Enlightenment idea of piecing together the truth based on observed data.  Reality is too complicated and scary for that.  Instead, it’s way easier to ignore all data that doesn’t fit your preconceptions and believe all data that does.  I believe what I believe, and you believe what you believe, and we’ll agree to disagree.  It’s liberal tolerance meets dark ages denialism.  It’s very hip right now.”

    (from The Nix by Nathan Hill)

 

    9*/10.  The complete review is here.

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Sunday Sermon - Blessings Edition

Pronunciation

All the time. Tricky words like banal, concomitant, and paean. Names like Cthulhu, Ng, and Gaiman (long "a" or long "i"?). Weird words like mambaskin, lich, or oenophile. Slang such as pwn. British places such as Lancaster and Worcestshire. Foreign words such as etagere, hors d'oeuvres, vichyssoise, or anything Welsh.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    I live in an apartment.  I could never live anywhere but in an apartment.  I love apartments because I lose everything.  Apartments are horizontal, so it’s much easier to find the things I lose – such as glasses, gloves, wallet, lipstick, book, magazine, cell phone, and credit card.  The other day I actually lost a piece of cheese in my apartment.  Also, apartment buildings have doormen, a convenience if you’re having things delivered to you, which I often am, sometimes to replace the things I can’t find.

    (from I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron)

 

    8½*/10.  The complete review is here.

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Cloak of Invisibility

    This looks fantastic, so I bought it!!  I hope it arrives soon.

Diets

My kind of diet.

Shelf Space

 
    Why God gave us Kindles.

Higher Mathematics

RIP - Ruth Bader Ginsburg

 
    Honor her legacy.  Vote the bigots out on November 3rd.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    “These are about one day old.”  Peck points out a cluster of maggots, maybe twenty or thirty, feeding side by side, packed in close.  They’re easy to miss, because all that can be seen of them is their tail ends.  Insects take oxygen through openings in the exoskeleton called spiracles.  In the larvae, there are, specifically, anal spiracles.  On top of its other charms, the maggot breathes through its ass.  It is a handy evolutionary adaptation if, as Peck puts it, “you spend your whole day with your head buried in slimy dead flesh.

    (from Grunt by Mary Roach)

 

    9*/10.  The complete review is here.

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Art Appreciation Wednesday

Typos

    True dis.