3 more dead

    Here we go again.  Student goes on rampage in a Ohio high school, and three more kids are cut down in their prime of life.  But God forbid that anyone should call for even a shred of gun control.  Cuz you never know when those commie Cubans (or commie North Koreans, or commie Iranians, or pinko Norwegians) are gonna invade the United States, and we'll all have to be like Patrick Swayze-ish, and hide out in the wilds of Colorado.  With our Rugers.

Vivaldi

   Yes, it's a pun.  My favorite kind of humor.  Yeah, it's a bit forced.  But hey, come on now.  Have you ever seen Vivaldi used in a pun before?

Book Excerpt for the Day

    "Then we have divers inventors of our own, of excellent works; which since you have not seen, it were too long to make descriptions of them; and besides, in the right understanding of those descriptions you might easily err.  For upon every invention of value, we erect a statue to the inventor, and give him a liberal and honourable reward.  The statues are some of brass; some of marble and touch-stone; some of cedar and other special woods gilt and adorned; some of iron; some of gold."

(from New Atlantis by Francis Bacon)


4*/10.  The complete review is here.  I love my new Kindle!

Steve and I/Me

Two comics from this past week.  Both hilarious.  Both good strips to read every day.



But I'm a grammar-nazi.  So I have an issue with Panel #2 above.  I really think it should be "Steve and me", not "Steve and I".  The applicable rule is given in the comic below.

    And yes I know, we were all taught in grade school to use the "Steve and I" convention.  But is it right?  Listen.  remove the "Steve and" words from Panel 2 of the top strip, and it's obvious that "me" is correct.  So why would the inclusion of  "Steve and" change that?

    Alternatively, replace "Steve and I" with "Steve and him" and do the same exercise.  It's never "Steve and he".  So why should a first-person pronoun be any different from a third-person pronoun?

    Language is a living organism.  It is constantly changing.  We can't read 10th-century English (think "Beowulf") because of this.  And in 50 years, the rule here will be "Steve and me".  Trust me.  I've traveled forth in time and can confirm this.   

Friday Night Demotivation

Book Excerpt for the Day

    "Eriu?"

    "Yes."

    "Are we accepted?"  I held my breath.  When she did not reply immediately I took a daring chance.  "May we stay here under your protection?"

    After a measureless moment the answer came.  "You may, as long as you pay the price."

    "What price do you ask?"

    "Remember us," whispered the voice.  "Remember us."


(from The Greener Shore by Morgan Llywelyn)

9½*/10.  The complete review is here.

Suns-Warriors tonight!

    Heading out to see the Phoenix Suns play the Golden State Warriors tonight.  Neither team is setting the NBA on fire, but both have a run-&-gun-the-hell-with-defense mindset.  Which means it'll be a fun game to watch.

    Can't really find any basketball-related jpeg in my pics stash, so we'll go with this one.  If you see some pornographic here, you need to seek professional help.  A hooker maybe.

Kindle

     I've taken another step into 21st Century technology.  I am in the process of reading a book on the Kindle that I got for Christmas.

    I downloaded the book during the holidays, but didn't read a word of it in January, due mostly to the fact that I was working my way through 600 pages of Dostoevsky's The Idiot.

    The book I downloaded is New Atlantis, by Francis Bacon.  Are you impressed?  Actually, I chose it because it was free (public domain), and extremely short (48 pages long in a real-world book).  I'm OCD; I am compelled to finish almost any book I start.  So I figured if I didn't take to the Kindle, at least my ordeal would be over rather quickly.

     But not to worry; I'm adapting to the Kindle faster than I expected.  The screen is easy to read, and I've figured out how to underline (digitally) excerpts.  I'm not sure how to quickly get to a given note or page yet.  If I'm on, say page 50 (actually, the units are in "percentages", not page numbers), and want to go back to, say, page 10, all I can do is hit the page-back button 40 times.  I have a feeling there's a quicker way to do this, but since the Kindle is not a touch-screen, the shortcut isn't intuitive.  Yeah I know, I can always RTFM, but where's the challenge in that?

    I still prefer to be holding an actual book in my hands.  And despite the fact that Kindle downloads are now (for the most part) cheaper than the real-world book, I'd rather pay a bit more, then put the book on my TBR shelf, read it whenever I bloody well want, and get a couple pennies for it when I take it to the used-book store.

    But no trees are killed when making an e-book, and when the download is *free*, I can be talked into going the digital route.  And there are hundreds of free e-books.  They are all "classics" whose copyrights have expired (New Atlantis was first published in 1627).  But that means if I want to read a Sherlock Holmes book, or something by Mark Twain, or even something by - gulp - Fyodor Dostoevsky, I can probably download it for free.

    So I'm sure I'll be using my Kindle more in the future.  I am told it can hold about 3600 e-books, so space will not be a problem.  And Lord knows, when I go to the used-book store, the Classic Lit section is not a place I spend any appreciable time in.

Pangaea

    Well, not exactly Pangaea, since some liberties were apparently taken with the relative sizes of the various chunks of landmass.  But these are cleverly done.  Even if it's a rooster, not a chicken.  And T-Rex has a nipple.

    This does bring back memories of my Risk-playing days, though.

Wicked

    The musical Wicked was in town over the weekend.  Liz and Jason went to it on Friday night, along with a bunch of friends.  I stayed home with the dogz.  Everyone thought it was a splendid evening.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    There were parts of Monk she admired greatly: his courage; his strength of will; his intelligence; his loyalty to his beliefs; his passion for justice; his ability to face almost any kind of truth, no matter how dreadful; and the fact that he was never, ever, a hypocrite.

    But she hated the streak of cruelty she knew in him, the arrogance, the frequent insensitivity.  And he was a fool where judgment of character was concerned.  He could no more read a woman's wiles than a dog could read Spanish!  He was consistently attracted to the very last sort of woamn who could ever make him happy.


(from The Silent Cry by Anne Perry)


7*/10.  The full review is here.

Escher and Dali

I notice I haven't posted any Daliesque or Escheresque stuff for a long time.  Not sure why; those are probably my two favorite artists, and even take-offs of their works are really a salute to them.  I've got a couple Escher books on my bookshelf; and 4 or 5 Dali ones.

   So here's a couple Worth1000 tributes to them.

    Yeah, I know.  This blog just oozes culture.  You're welcome. 

Science Wednesday

   

  
   Your science lesson for the night.

Happy Valentine's Day!

    And Happy 100th Birthday to Arizona as well!  It's also Oregon's 153rd Birthday, but that's not nearly as noteworthy.

LOTR

For Math Geeks only

Palin Power

    I'm bummed that failin' Palin never got around to joining the Goat Rodeo this year.  But I am impressed that she actually could read the tea (party) leaves and realize that there was about zero interest in her antics this time around.  Methinks she'll end up being a permanent fixture on Faux News.  Spewing bile; screeching outrage; and trying to be stupider than Glenn Beck.  Yeah, good luck with that, Sarah.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    "Well," the Bemme robot spoke up, "my kind has fought the bone-fleshed kind ever since our two species went to space and discovered the delights of interstellar war.  We even named your kind: MAN."

    "You did?" Norton asked, surprised.

    "Of course. MAN - an acronym."  The mouth on the screen quirked with obscure humor.

    "Oh? What do the letters stand for?"

    "Multi-Appendaged Numbskull, of course.  Every creature who is worthy of the title sapience knows that."

    "What?" Dursten exclaimed indignantly.  "It can't be that!"

    The Bemme fidgeted, and the screen mouth frowned.  "I did clean it up a little for mixed company."  Two eyes formed on the screen, glancing at the Alicorn.

    "What's the danged original?" the spaceman demanded.

    "Mucky-Arsed -"

   "We'd better get moving," Norton said quickly.



(from Bearing An Hourglass, by Piers Anthony)

5½*/10.  The complete review is here.

Look at the bright side, Tom.

GOPigan's Island

    They're lost, clueless, and frankly, no one wants to go looking for them.  Although I think Ron Paul's kinda sexy in that dress.

Happy Birthday, Charles Dickens!

    Born exactly 200 years ago today.  I can't say that I've read a lot of his stuff, other than David Copperfield, which I trudged through in English class in high school.  But there's no arguing that he's one of the greatest authors of all time.

    And a major influence on the English language as well.  Here are a few of words that he either invented personally, or "saved" from the linguistic dustbin : butter-fingers, sawbones, messiness, spiflication, whizz-bang, seediness, unpromisingly, flummox, kibosh, devil-may-care, angry-eyed, hunger-worn, proud-stomached, fancy-dressed, coffee-imbibing, ginger-beery, copying-clerk, crossing-sweeper, tousled, boredom, rampage, casualty ward, allotment garden, footlights, fingerless, fairy story, messiness, natural-looking, squashed, tintack, spectacularly,confusingly, and last-but-not-least, dustbin.

    So Happy 200th Birthday, Mr. Dickens, sir!  I think I'll pick up one of your works the next time I'm at the used-book store.

Happy Waitangi Day!

    It's a New Zealand thing.  Those of European descent there think it's a time to patronize the locals and accept their thanks for civilizing their culture.  Those of Native descent see it a bit differently.

The Periodic Table of Tables

Book Excerpt for the Day

    "I came here today with curiosity, with excitement.  I wanted to see for myself and make up my own mind whether this uppercrust of Russian society is really good for nothing and has out-lived its time, is drained of its ancient life and only fit to die, but still persists in a petty, endless strife with the men... of the future, getting in their way and not conscious that it is dying itself."


(from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky)


9*/10.  The full review is here.

I pledge allegiance...

    Wow.  It's amazing who got the pledging right and who got it wrong in this photo.  The littlest girl is doing it right.  So's Laura, despite being high on her meds.

    The Village Idjit apparently has gas.  The girl on the far left can't seem to remember which hand to use, so she's covering her bases by using both.  And the gorilla behind her either has cold fingers, or is packing a rod.

    All in all, I'm thinking family get-together here.

new John Hiatt album

Artist  :  John Hiatt

Title  :  Dirty Jeans and Mudslide Hymns

Release Date  :  16 August 2011

Available In  :  CD, Vinyl, MP3-download

Genre  :  Folk-Blues; Americana

    Santa brought me this CD for Christmas, but I just got around to listening to it now (I got lots of music over the holidays), and it is fantastic.  Of course, I say that about all John Hiatt albums.

    He still has his gravelly voice; and he's still writing powerful songs about the Common Man in America.  The opening track, Damn This Town, very much catches the feel of living in a small town.  Other tracks that I really liked : Adios To California; When New York Had Her Heart Broke (about 9-11); and Til I Get My Lovin' Back.  But frankly, there are no weak tracks; this is good from start to finish.

    The CD comes with a DVD about making this album, but I haven't watched it yet.  I discovered today that I can play DVD's at work, but it would have to be during lunch, and that's my reading time.

    If you're a fan of (the late) John Stewart, or Bruce Springsteen since he's re-defined hinself as a folk-singer, you're going to like John Hiatt.  Mosey on over to YouTube and check him out.

Valences

   We don't post Calamities Of Nature comics as often as we should.  I don't know why.  It's one of only about a half-dozen comic strips out there that actually assumes the reader has a certain degree of intelligence.  Plus, it quite often has science or math as its topic.  Plus, it is usually hilarious.  Like this one.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    Eventually Mariko said, "I didn't like it when they made him into a hero."

    Joanna frowned.  "Who?"

    "Godzilla.  Those later movies, when he battles other monsters to protect Japan.  So silly.  We need our monsters to be scary.  They don't do us any good if they don't frighten us."

    "Am I about to get hit with some philosophy of the mysterious East?  I didn't hear the Zen warning siren."

    "Sometimes we need to be frightened," Mariko said.


(from The Key To Midnight by Dean Koontz)

8*/10.  The complete review is here.

Happy Saudade Day!

    Well, that's kind of an oxymoron, since "Saudade", as given in Wikipedia. means "a deep emotional state of nostalgic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves. It often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never return."

    It's one of those strange foreign words that has no equivalent in our language and takes a couple dozen English words to describe.  In Brazil, they celebrate it today, January 30th.

    I have Dinocomics to thank for this bit of enlightenment.  The Wiki article on it is here.  If you are unfamiliar with Dino Comics, the link is here.

2012 Cameo Ball

    We made it to - and thru - our 3rd-straight Cameo Ball last night.  As usual, the food was good, the music was good, everyone had a good time, and it was all for a good cause. We got there around 6:30 and got out of there around 10:00.

    There was a silent auction and a live one, but none of the items really seemed worth bidding on to me.  Lots of stuff from local artists and craftspersons; and lots of rounds of golf.  Meh.  Jason had winning bids on a faux-fur coat for Jasel, and a basket of wine-&-restaurant-giftcards.

    Oh yeah - there was this strange ritual where the women grabbed clubs and stalked the men.  I managed to snap the pic above before the savagery reached me.

Cameo Ball Night!

 



    Yessirree bob.  Tonight's my once-a-year dress-up-in-a-tux night.  Aka "The Cameo Ball".  No top hat or cane, so I won't be as classy as this mouse.  But I will have to wear pants.

    And a new vest.  Cuz apparently the one I wore (and bought) last year doesn't match Liz's dress this year.  Who knew we had to be color-coordinated?!

    It's all for a good cause though - raising funds for a Battered Women's Shelter.  And the drinks are free, although I'll be sticking to Diet Cokes since I'm the DD.  The dinner is awesome and is free too.  And there's always the silent auction to keep me entertained.

    Oh, and I will have to get out on the dance floor for one slow dance.  Two steps forward; one step back.  Try not to step on Liz's toes. 

Teabagging Tillie

Yes, that's our governor, Jan Brewer, showing a complete lack of class when President Obama visited Phoenix yesterday.  I expect our local Tea-Baggers to act this way. But elected officials - first and foremost a governor - need to observe proper protocol. Otherwise they end up looking like complete bumpkins.

     OTOH, this does go to show you that Arizona Republicans do not discriminate. If you ain't White, you ain't Right, and they'll hate you, no matter where you come from and no matter what your status in life.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    Paleontology and archaeology and other skullduggery were not subjects that interested wizards.  Things are buried for a reason, they considered.  There's no point in wondering what it was.  Don't go digging things up in case they won't let you bury them again.

(from The Last Continent, by Terry Pratchett)


8*/10.  The full review is here.

Punny Tuesday

    And just my luck, I've been informed that I will be taking my first cruise this fall.  To Alaska.

Xinnian Kuaile!

   

    Happy Chinese New Year, everyone!  Today, two weeks of celebrating commences.  It's the Year of the Dragon (hence the pic, above), and the Chinese year is 4710.

    The Phoenix Chinese Cultural Center is about a mile from where I work, and back when I was learning Mandarin at the local community college, we'd take a field trip each (new) year there to enjoy the festivities and soak up Chinese culture.  The only catch, of course, was that we had to do all our conversing in Mandarin, with our professor watching.  It was a blast, although I'm sure the Chinses merchants "forgave" a lot of errors on our part.

9 Chickweed Lane

    A 9 Chickweed Lane comic strip from earlier this week.  Maybe it's just me, but I can't help thinking that they slipped this one by the censors somehow.

Happy Birthday, Edgar Allan Poe!

    Happy 212th Birthday to Edgar Allan Poe, whom I consider to be the greatest American writer of the 19th Century.  His style was original; he excelled at both novels and poetry; and he's a heckuva lot more interesting to read than Longfellow, Frost, or Whitman.  Indeed, Jason has waggishly bestowed honorary British citizenship on him, since to call him an American writer puts him in some pretty shoddy company.

    He had a rough childhood; did some strange things (like marrying his cousin when she was only 13 years old); and died prematurely under strange circumstances.  You can read all about it here.

     We'll leave you with this Trivia Teaser, that seems all too obvious but isn't :  What was Edgar Allan Poe's middle name?  Answer in the comments.

Quote for the Day

    George Carlin was a fabulous wit, and a great stand-up comedian.  But that didn't translate well into the printed word.  I've read two of his books (which are really just recycled excerpts of his performances), and they were both "meh".

Book Excerpt for the Day

    "You've all been living under the threat for so long that you can't wake up to the fact that it isn't there any more," he said.  "You've been hooked on missiles and bombs for as long as you can remember, and the idea of getting along without them just doesn't get through.  It's over.  Can't you get that into your heads?  We don't need it any more - any of it.  Everything that the West has publicly claimed to want for the last fifty years has happened.  Doesn't it occur to you that we might be able to do something constructive with all those armaments budgets now?"


(from The Genesis Machine by James P. Hogan)


4½*/10.  The complete review is here.

Happy Martin Luther King Day!!

   Yeah, I had to work, but I'm cool with that.  The commute to and from work was a breeze, and really, I've had enough days off in December, what with Holidays and Vacation.

Trivia Question : Which commie-pinko president signed the bill that made Martin Luther King Day a federal holiday?  Answer in the Comments.