In the Guardian this morning: “The pain of rejection is more than mere metaphor. A team of scientists have found that to the brain, a social snub is just like…
Now you can buy it. It comes with a Major Award certificate. And a box labeled FRA GI LE. (“Probably it’s Italian…”) Dear heavens above, how am I going to…
No, not the fairy tale by Comtesse d’Aulnoy (though that’s on my mind at the minute too). This White Cat is the subject of one of the most famous old…
With me, he’s always been tied with Peter Davidson as Best Doctor — PD for a Doctor who radiates compassion, TB for one who is a child in an adult’s…
Autumnal weather is swinging through Ireland: the northwest wind is blowing, and the temperatures have dropped hard from the Indian-summer range we’ve been experiencing for the past couple of weeks.…
“A ‘moving sale’ sign in front of one of author Anne Rice’s mansions drew bargain hunters and curious New Orleans residents. Susan Roesgen of member station WWNO reports on the…
No problem. Herewith Ms. C. J. Beemer (left) and her pet, the irrepressible Bubble. …Meanwhile, today’s horrible discovery (while watching a DVD of “Read Or Die”): the Intervideo DVD-playing software…
I owe my old friend a call this afternoon, when it gets to be a Decent Hour in LA. Tom it was who in 1979 or thereabouts read the newly…
Unhurt but hungry and very thirsty, she came in the cat door at 7:15 this morning. Probably she was shut in somewhere. I’m wrecked, not having slept too well the…
Peter was up all night waiting for her. Now he’s asleep on the couch, more or less exhausted from pushing forty hours’ wakefulness, and I can write this. Bubble went…
It’s a train I really want to ride with Peter some day, dressed to the nines… Put the term into Google and all kinds of things come out. But I…
“Paper capable of playing videos has been invented at the Philips Research laboratory in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. “…The invention is the latest version of ‘electronic ink’. Researchers hope to combine…
“Not only is the country’s leading touch-screen voting system so badly designed that votes can be easily changed, but its manufacturer is run by a die-hard GOP donor who vowed…
“Taken from the Japanese words wabi, which translates to less is more, and sabi, which means attentive melancholy, wabi sabi refers to an awareness of the transient nature of earthly…
While I was in LA doing “on-site” work on The Ring, I passed by a restaurant with a banner on it that said “Tokyo-Style Cuisine”. That interested me, so I…
“My vision is to make the most diverse state on earth, and we have people from every planet on the earth in this state. We have the sons and daughters…
“All nine members of a panel of outside experts, established by Congress to advise NASA on safety, resigned on Monday, with several citing frustration over their lack of influence.” “Two…
“The solar system’s greatest explorer will perish in a kamikaze dive into the solar system’s biggest planet late tomorrow. It detected a salt water ocean under the ice of Europa…and…
Once upon a time, a couple of decades ago, there was a terrific notecard / art book / children’s book publisher called “Green Tiger Press”. They specialized in the publication…
No matter how many drafts a book goes through, no matter how many times I deal with the manuscript or proofs on the way to press, a book isn’t really…
Thanks to Dave Barry’s blog for this.
I loved this the first time I saw it. I had occasion to look it up again today, and lo, I still love it. Especially the bit about the office-based…
“…new children’s books by big-name celebrities will at least initially sell well (and be foisted on defenceless kids).” Is it possible (as my mail suggests) that the kids aren’t quite…
Yesterday Peter and I went up to Dublin to do some food shopping at Asia Market, the grocery that supplies most of the Asian restaurants in town. As usual I…