Thursday Bag o’ Wasteland

Donna hosted bridge last night. I had planned, as soon as I finished a post about aerial refueling, to go to the local cineplex and watch Get Out, but in the end I stayed home and watched MSNBC with the sound turned down low. Note to self: go see Get Out, it’s supposed to be good. […]

Convention Watching

I’m watching the Democratic National Convention. Last week I watched the Republican National Convention. I don’t want to give the impression I’m obsessive about politics, but the coming election’s an important one and I want to know what forces are in play. Last week I watched prime time coverage of the RNC in Cleveland on network TV and […]

Underpants-Gnoming

And now, from the personal back to the political (even though my friends like the personal posts better). Re Trump’s shouty speech: loved this tweet in spite of not knowing what “underpants-gnoming” meant: Naturally, I looked it up. Google steered me to this video clip, which explains it perfectly: [youtube]https://youtu.be/tO5sxLapAts[/youtube] In the random but disturbing thoughts department, […]

Return of the Half-Mummy

Another day, another skin cancer. This’ll make six, and they’ve all been on my face. Some have left visible scars, some haven’t. I’m hoping this one won’t be too bad, but it’s out of my control and I’m not going to lose sleep over it. Two weeks ago the dermatologist found what he thought might be […]

Tuesday Tube Report

Look, I don’t have to explain myself or justify my choices, so save your “I quit watching that after the first episode” cracks for someone who’ll be impressed by your brilliance and discretion, all right? I will admit, however, that I’ve fallen into some lazy habits when it comes to watching TV, because I’ve been […]

Cable News

My problem is I still think of the primetime MSNBC news shows … All In with Chris Hayes, the Rachel Maddow Show, the Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell … as news shows. Chris Hayes, I’ll give him this, covers a lot of news (his recent series on water use in the American Southwest was exceptionally good), but […]

Thursday Bag o’ Empty Calories

I saw a commercial for implantable contact lenses on TV last night. If “implantable” means what I think it means, what does “contact” mean? Contacting the inner surface of your eye, looking out? Why not just “implantable lenses”? Sort of a Six Million Dollar Man kind of thing, or am I thinking of The Terminator? The thought […]

Monday Bag o’ PC

I’ve been thinking about political correctness lately. The legend on the bag says “Political correctness killed soldiers at Ft Hood.” Really? We all know what happened at Fort Hood in 2009: a single gunman, an Army major serving as a psychiatrist, killed 13 of his fellow troops and injured 30. He was Arab-American and Muslim; […]