It pays to be prepared for any emergency.
Thursday, February 28, 2019
Wednesday, February 27, 2019
Tuesday, February 26, 2019
Monday, February 25, 2019
Book Excerpt for the Day
The
man laughed heartily. “The score of your
crimes is higher than the Great Pyramid.”
He
took a deep breath, then another. It
made the nausea lessen. “What did I do?”
“All
right, let us see.” Clearly amused, the
man thrust his palm forward. “You made
trouble on the Plaza, ran away from the guards and fought them, and of course,
kidnapping a princess is quite a feat for a boy of your years.”
“I
did all that?” he asked, blinking.
(from The
Highlander – The Rise of the Aztecs Book One by Zoe
Saadia)
.
Sunday, February 24, 2019
Saturday, February 23, 2019
Friday, February 22, 2019
Thursday, February 21, 2019
Book Excerpt for the Day
Not
all technology is the future. Some technology
succeeds in a changing society and some fails.
And even when an idea is right, the machine that introduces it to the
society may not be. Cai Lun did not
invent paper, Gutenberg did not invent the printing press, Robert Fulton did
not invent the steamboat, and Thomas Edison did not invent the lightbulb. Rather, these were people who took existing
ideas or machines that were not suiting society’s needs and reworked them into
technologies that did. It says something
about our world that we seldom remember the person who came up with an idea,
but canonize the pragmatist who made it commercially viable.
(from Paper –
Paging Through History by Mark Kurlansky)
.
Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Rip Van Winkle's music
I have no idea what the joke is here, but I do agree with Rip's musical tastes.
Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Xylographer
Word for the Day: Xylographer (n.): a person who makes engravings on wood, especially for printing.
Sounds pretty primitive, eh? Well, the above picture was made from a xylograph, created by Albrecht Durer in 1498.
Monday, February 18, 2019
Casper Capers
This is why Drinking and Time-Traveling don't mix. And for the record, I was nowhere near Casper, Wyoming when this occurred.
Sunday, February 17, 2019
Saturday, February 16, 2019
Book Excerpt for the Day
A
high, quavering voice rang in my ear.
“I’ve got all my teeth, you know.” (…)
The old lady, standing by the sofa, gave me a gummy smile. Though I could have sworn she did not have a
single tooth left in her head, I thought a positive response was appropriate.
“What?” I said. “All your own
teeth? How wonderful.”
“Isn’t it?” Reaching into the
pocket of her pinafore, she pulled out a jar, rattling it.
I
took a step back as the horror hit. It
was full of teeth. Lots of teeth. Hundreds of human teeth.
The gummy grin broadened. “I
collect them. Aren’t they beautiful?”
(from Inspector
Hobbes and the Blood by Wilkie Martin)
.
Friday, February 15, 2019
Neighborhood Book Exchange
We've started bicycling around the neighborhood for the exercise. Today I came across one of these "Little Free Library" boxes along a nearby street. These are those "take one, leave one" street-side book exchange sitesm, such as the one pictured above. I'm a bookaholic so I had to stop and check out the (very limited) selection.
Most of the books were for juveniles, and there was one YA Harry Potter book. But fortuitously, there was also a copy of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter", which I've been meaning to read sometime this year.
So I pedaled home, grabbed Ray Bradbury's "The Martian Chronicles" and went back and made the exchange. I figure I traded down, but that's okay.
Thursday, February 14, 2019
Wednesday, February 13, 2019
Tuesday, February 12, 2019
Resist!!
To resist inequality, injustice, hatred, bigotry, bullies, and the like is our American heritage.
Monday, February 11, 2019
The Queen's Gambit
First of all, it's not a true gambit. White can, and does, win back the pawn. Always.
Secondly, Black has a whole bunch of great options for beating the Queen 's Gambit. I've used the Leningrad (Dutch) Defense, the Grunfeld Defense, and the Benoni Defense in tournaments. I had good results with all of them.
Sunday, February 10, 2019
Saturday, February 09, 2019
Book Excerpt for the Day
“Setting a god to do mortal work’s like
passing a three-phase industrial power supply through a torch bulb. So we can do work that’s suitable; which is
another way of saying that the only thing a god can do is be a god. And unfortunately, what with the spread of
the Big Four religions and the trend towards global secularism and the loss of
faith in anything much, there’s too many gods chasing too few godheads.”
(from Valhalla
by Tom Holt)
.
Friday, February 08, 2019
Thursday, February 07, 2019
Wednesday, February 06, 2019
Tuesday, February 05, 2019
Chocolate Hobnobs
Apparently, they're made in, and quite popular in England. So why haven't they been exported to us Yanks?
Monday, February 04, 2019
Book Excerpt for the Day
With a stiff back and jet lag beginning to
announce its presence, Harry and his suitcase were now alone on a pavement in a
town boasting a population roughly equivalent to the whole of Norway, outside
the splendid Crescent Hotel. The name was
printed on the door next to three stars.
Oslo’s Chief Constable was not known for largesse with regards to
accommodation for her employees. But
perhaps this one was not going to be too bad after all. There must have been a civil service discount
and it was probably the hotel’s smallest room, Harry reflected.
And it was.
(from The Bat,
by Jo Nesbo)
.
Sunday, February 03, 2019
Saturday, February 02, 2019
Surreal Saturday
I don't remember now if this is an actual Salvador Dali creation, or someone emulating his work. Either way, it's quite good.
Friday, February 01, 2019
Thursday, January 31, 2019
Book Excerpt for the Day
“The cruel dawn comes on apace, when we’ll
be powerless and thou pursued. Make
haste!”
Oberon nodded; the plumes swayed and shimmered on his crown. “Indeed.
But first I’d best explain to thee, Prince Rupert, why we lend our aid
in this thy mortal quarrel. It is
ours. We elves are spirits of the living
world, the haunters of its virgin loneliness, the guardians, helpers, healers
of all things in nature, whence we draw our nourishment.”
“You’re sometimes tricksy, sometimes terrible,” the man said.
(from A Midsummer
Tempest, by Poul Anderson)
.
Wednesday, January 30, 2019
Tuesday, January 29, 2019
Muzak Protest
Spare me the Muzak. But I have been known to play Classical Piano music. At 120 decibels. On the afternoon commute home from work. With the car windows rolled down. Just to balance the neighborhood music selection out.
Monday, January 28, 2019
Punctuation Monday
The squirrel in the lower right implies the cartoonist had the apostrophe in mind, but this could apply equally to commas.
Sunday, January 27, 2019
Saturday, January 26, 2019
Friday, January 25, 2019
Book Excerpt for the Day
By some measures, the solar system’s moons are far more fascinating than the
planets they orbit. Mars’ two moons,
Phobos and Deimos, appear (not with those names) in Jonathan Swift’s classic Gulliver’s Travels (1726). Problem is, these two small moons were not
discovered until more than a hundred years later; unless he was telepathic,
Swift was presumably interpolating between Earth’s single moon and Jupiter’s
(then known) four.
(from Origins by Neil de Grasse Tyson and Donald Goldsmith)
.
Thursday, January 24, 2019
Wednesday, January 23, 2019
Tuesday, January 22, 2019
Monday, January 21, 2019
Book Excerpt for the Day
Satina
could smell the paper from the street facing entrance. She stood just inside the stone arch and
inhaled the crisp, slightly-musty aroma of old knowledge. Outside the nook, the sea still dominated the
evening air, tangy and full of salt and fish and other slippery creatures. Here, however, she could block out the tide
for a moment and enjoy the smells of home.
Stories lived here, and any town that boasted an archive, that still
cared about what once was, was worth her time.
(from Unlikely
(Kingdoms Gone, Book 1) by Frances Pauli)
.
Sunday, January 20, 2019
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