Some of you will know approximately where we live in Ireland, so I am sorry to tell you that this story is locally germane:
Post mortems due on County Wicklow bodies
They were our neighbors. Not the kind you’re close to, perhaps (though they were close to many others), but they were the kind you’d always wave […]

Posted in Hobbyhorses and General Ranting, Home life, Ireland, Medicine, nursing, health, Psychology / psychiatry 1 Comment »

Not about Jade. (Well, only peripherally.)
The inevitable comments are starting to come out of the British newspapers regarding the Big Brother bullying-and-racism flap. A few of the articles are making puns on Jade’s last name, including a very specific one: Is it too late to be Goody Two-Shoes?, etc. And something about that brought my […]

Posted in History, Hobbyhorses and General Ranting, Media, Writing 2 Comments »

Those of you who may have been watching the progressive site revamp at The-Big-Meow.com should be warned that, while I was attempting to add some features this morning, some stuff got screwed up. It’s not serious, but it affects the look-and-feel of the site, and may take a while to fix, as I’m still not […]

Posted in "The Big Meow", Hobbyhorses and General Ranting, Home life, Technogeekery, Writing No Comments »

(Like those UK commercials that showed things like giant hedgehogs running over tiny little trucks.)
Normally any time we hear the word “samurai” in a TV news story, Peter and I both wince, expecting to hear about somebody who’s run amuck somewhere with a cheap katana. But today, for a change, it’s something different.
Police are trying […]

Posted in Hobbyhorses and General Ranting, Home life, Media 1 Comment »

I’m about to coin a word.
I don’t know if the thing I’m going to coin about is happening in the US right now (or elsewhere), but it sure happens a lot on this side of the water, and it is driving me nuts.
It happens in commercials on both radio and TV. They’ll show you, or […]

Posted in Hobbyhorses and General Ranting, Home life, Media, Uncategorized 5 Comments »

I came across this comment about me a little bit ago, and it started me thinking:
Next you’ll be telling me she’s not really a libertarian.
This made me go look up “libertarian”, as I wasn’t sure that the world presently meant by the term what I think I mean by it. (For me, the word instantly […]

Posted in Hobbyhorses and General Ranting, Home life 4 Comments »

There are just a couple of things on my mind that (in light of earlier posts and responses) I want to share before I get back to the various pieces of work I need to be doing today.
Re whatever might have been going on in the ST:TNG offices as the first season got underway: […]

Posted in Film and TV, Hobbyhorses and General Ranting, Home life, Media, Psychology / psychiatry, Star Trek and other licensed properties, Writing 2 Comments »

A note to the US team:
Guys, please pull your socks up and start playing like grownups. You made it to the Cup when a lot of talented teams didn’t. If you don’t start functioning a lot better than this, you’re never going to have a chance to beat England…
(And, on a happier note, a magic […]

Posted in Current events, Hobbyhorses and General Ranting, Sports (mostly baseball) No Comments »

I am not normally of a litigious turn of mind. But if the incision of the gentleman in this story fails to heal properly, and if I were he, by God would I hunt down someone at Paramount to sue.
Whose idea was this inane stunt…?!
(Full story about the promotional campaign and its other backfires here.)Technorati […]

Posted in Film and TV, Hobbyhorses and General Ranting, Media 2 Comments »

That is to say, “buckets”.
(growl)
Tags: Inglewood, Los Angeles, elementary school, lockdown

Posted in Hobbyhorses and General Ranting No Comments »

Christians Sue For Right Not To Tolerate Policies
Ruth Malhotra went to court last month for the right to be intolerant.
Malhotra says her Christian faith compels her to speak out against homosexuality. But the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she’s a senior, bans speech that puts down others because of their sexual orientation.
Malhotra sees that as […]

Posted in Hobbyhorses and General Ranting No Comments »

Okay, listen. I love what Peter Jackson has done over the past five years or so. But there comes a time when you have to say “All right, hold it right there.”
This takes things just a little too far. What’s that high-pitched whining sound I hear? Could it be J.R.R. spinning…?
In the […]

Posted in Fantasy and science fiction, Hobbyhorses and General Ranting, Home life No Comments »

This is going to be a rant: so if you don’t care about obscure early 20th-century fantasy writers in general, or E. R. Eddison in particular, look away now.
I have a long-standing love affair with Eddison’s works. (And not just the fantasy, either: his translation of Egils Saga is hot stuff.) […]

Posted in Fantasy and science fiction, Hobbyhorses and General Ranting, Writing No Comments »