"When I do not want to say things in real life I often say them here." — Mimi Smartypants
I grew up hearing the years between 1900 and 1909 called “the aughts,” as in “nineteen-aught-four.” Somehow I doubt that’s what people called them at the time. I bet the people who lived those years had many different names for them, just as we do today for the years between 2000 and 2009. Some call […]
Unconnected thoughts and observations which don’t rate separate blog posts, but when aggregated together might just amount to something: Tasers: This seems like good news, and it comes not a moment too soon: “Police need reasons to believe a suspect is dangerous before firing a Taser and can’t use their stun gun simply because the […]
Some reviewers dismiss Avatar as a 2 hour and 40 minute visual effects feast with 20 minutes of plot. Other reviewers slam it for having a plot based on exploitation and imperialism. Okay, Avatar is a long movie. But I was riveted to my seat the entire time, and not merely by the visual effects. […]
I remember, as a kid, reading a science fiction story about a future in which working adults are forced to buy, use, wear out, and replace enormous amounts of material goods, their lives an exhausting cycle of consumption imposed on them by the government in order to keep the nation’s economic engine going. Older people, […]
Posted to a Goldwing forum yesterday: Thanks to my friend Ed, mounted and balanced in the comfort of his heated garage. And no wobble, at least for awhile . . . actually, the second set of tires I ran on this motorcycle, D250s, never cupped or wobbled. If only they had lasted longer . . […]
Favorite posts from 2009: January: Fuzzy Logic February: George Washington on Facebook March: My Dog Has Many Names April: Automotive Anthropology May: If Two Is Good, Three Must Be Better June: Call for Philip Morris July: I Married an Italian August: Chillin’ in Bisbee September: I Know Where I Was; Where Were You? October: Car-Eating […]
Polly called this afternoon to report Skipper’s passing. We brought Skipper into our family in 1986, for no better reason than that we’d named our daughter Polly and getting her her own parrot seemed like the right thing to do. Skipper lived with us in Florida, Okinawa, Hawaii, Nevada, and Arizona; a few years ago […]