Many years ago, in the Mayan capital: a wealthy man is surveying his room of slave-scribes, all of whom have been calculating the calendar into the future. They have no idea why they have been set to this task, but their lot is not to question. It is tedious work, but full of mysteries; no [...]

Ersatz anchormannery, empty violence, cheap emotion: another day. The first was the workaday part, and it was fun. Love my job, as I keep saying. Would like to keep my job, too; we’re having more cutbacks. Went into the boss’s office this morning, said I was just there to see my manager squirm trying to [...]

Spending a day at home with sick child, going through YouTube to find the cartoons we watched when we were home together every day. Ah, nostalgia. Discovered the Olie intro – and episodes – translated into a variety of tongues.
First, the original, complete with 20s-style megaphone vocals:

Then, Italian – it doesn’t quite fit the [...]

Flotsam and jetsam today; big work night and even more to come tomorrow. I’d feel guilty about this if I was running a pay site, AND there wasn’t an enormous update over in Black and White World that features some of the wildest, most striking sets in any movie, ever – let alone a small [...]

Lovely day, and the last, they say. Highs in the sixties with sun on the grass. Colder tomorrow, as the season collapses. Trees shed. Lawns brown. Hostas rot. I still think it’s stupid to end the year when we do; we’ve nothing to show for it.
But a good day. Busy, if reading into a [...]

It became apparent Sunday that Fall wasn’t indulging us, it was just distracted. Like a parent who tells the kids it’s time to go, but gets a call on the cell, and walks around for a while dealing with some stupid thing at the stupid office that can’t wait until stupid tomorrow and will be [...]

Who is this woman, and why is she smiling?

We’ll get to that.

Now we have a piano. My wife is playing it as I write, giving the day a rather archaic feel – old summer nights always seemed to have the sound of a piano trickling from a [...]

Labor Day this year didn’t have the end-of-summer BBQ at the Giant Swede’s house; sick kid. In a way it seemed apt; it didn’t feel like the end of summer at all. The kids are already in school, the weather has decided to be civil and even generous, and the nights are full of crickets [...]

Brian at Peeve Farm flayed Vertigo tonight, and I ended up writing a reply so stupidly long I might as well post it here. So:
It’s a sick, clammy, uncomfortable misfire, and aside from the accidental-documentary tour of pre-Summer of Love San Fran, I don’t like it. Part of my opinion has to do with Novak [...]

Reader’s Digest has declared Chapter 11 – or, as the final documents read after their editors finished with them, Chapter 5.  I once wrote that Reader’s Digest contained the first practical application of Nanotechnology – no matter where you put the magazine, tiny mites embedded in the cover would pick it up and move it [...]