There are three things I really love about quilting: the serene, Zen-like experience of hand quilting, the thrill of seeing the finished quilt after weeks of work, and the excitement I feel when I get ideas for quilts. Admittedly I’ve experienced a lot more of the last of those three than of the first two. [...]

I think this might be the most bizarre thing I’ve seen all week. On the positive side, the linked post is proof that, while we’re not sure about Kansas, there is at least one sane preacher in Oklahoma.

Admittedly, there’s a little rush I get when I put on the doe-eyed “I don’t quite understand this” bunny voice and innocently ask the question they don’t want to answer. — here Hotlinkers are cut from the same mold as line cutters, rude highway drivers, loud cell phone talkers, non RSVP’s, trolls, spammers and telemarketers [...]

I’ve discovered another one of those Universal Laws. (You know… like Murphy’s Law) Not sure what to call this one – the Holiday Grocery Shopping Law maybe. No matter how carefully you plan ahead you will forget something and have to go back to the store the day before a major holiday. We’re not having [...]

Tonio has a great pictorial list of Ten things he loves about old movies. I like the street light scene.

Hradzka rants about one of my pet peeves: large format paperbacks and a new annoying size, just slightly larger than a normal paperback. I haven’t noticed the latter yet but in the last year or two I’ve seen quite a few books that I must read that are available only in hardback or those cumbersome [...]

White House Chef – Qualifications: service and sensitivity, not star power Another Firefly convert fan (UPDATE: He says in the comments that he is not a recent convert; he’s been a fan for quite a while. Great post anyway.) Light on Dark Water – a blog; music, literature, religion. And sometimes cats. All Manner of [...]

This new hi-tech waterproof coating sounds impressive until you get to this part: Experiments also showed that the new coating is durable. Unlike some water-resistant coatings, it remains more-or-less intact when the fabric is rubbed vigorously, although it didn’t survive an everyday washing machine cycle. “Didn’t survive an everyday washing machine cycle”? Well then it [...]

One of the most annoying things in life is when a moment of carelessness leads to hours or days of inconvenience. I have this bad habit of putting on pullover shirts without removing my glasses first. Putting on glasses is always the first thing I do, often before my feet even hit the floor. It’s [...]

I am nothing if not inconsistent in my tastes. — here I don’t think you can make a theological case for saying that the marriage of two straight people who committed adultery against their previous spouses, is any more blessed by God than the marriage of two gays or lesbians. Not if you’re taking the [...]

Here are a couple of pictures taken with my new camera. (Sony Cybershot DSC W-150) Leaves on a snowball bush: Just a stack of firewood. I was hoping there might be a little rustic artsyness there. I love this new camera. It’s very easy to use. The menus actually make sense and the screen is [...]

I don’t know anything about the stock market other than what I see in the media but lately, every time I see something about it I think what really needs to happen is for several thousand of us ordinary people to march on Wall Street and start slapping wealthy stock traders and tell them, “Don’t [...]

Stairs – a blog devoted to beautiful, unusual and creatively designed stairs Gigglerific – lots of very cute animals and various other fun stuff Scream Quietly – a beautiful personal journal type blog Science A GoGo – science news The 500 Most Interesting Photos on Flickr – Updated weekly. Also don’t miss the I has [...]

Another possible source of bio-fuel. Interesting.

I just noticed that Claw of the Conciliator has several links in his blogroll which appear to be devoted to the meeting of religion and science fiction. I’ve come across Old Testament Space Opera before. The rest are new to me. I will simply list, without comment, those that look the most interesting to me. [...]

Save The Hives: SaveTheHives is an organization of beekeepers, citizen scientists and researchers that is trying to establish a national database of honey bee information. We want to encourage the use web-based technology to collect, map and share information about honey bees to further the research of Colony Collapse Disorder and other problems facing the [...]

I still have a cold. I don’t feel really bad but I do have a strange lack of energy, especially mental energy. There are all sorts of things that I need to do and want to do that don’t take a lot of physical energy but I just don’t feel motivated to do any of [...]

A great collection of space art, mostly vintage and retro but some as recent as 2001. I’ve seen many of these before but there are a lot that are new to me. My favorites are the illustrations of toroidal and cylindrical space stations. I can almost imagine living in one of those. The post’s author [...]

I got an award. Thanks. I love your blog too. Now I’m supposed to pass it on to four other people. I always have a bit of a problem with these things. There are something like 500 – well, more like one or two dozen – blogs that I love and most of them never [...]

There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in travelling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one’s position, and be bruised in a new place. Washington Irving

Darn. I need a new camera. This is what pictures taken in the last few days with my trusty Canon Powershot A60 look like. Isn’t she pretty in pink? Yes, that’s Dax at the bottom of the pic. They both want to be friends but have different notions of what being friends means. Kes thinks [...]

Nov. 5 mosaic Scarlatti sonatas The Fungus Chorus Gummi Legos Other 1600 Pennsylvania Avenues Vampire Killing Kit, $14,850 Google Flu Trends Black and white photography

People who consider themselves on the “cutting edge” always reject and turn their noses up at latecomers, even though it was those very latecomers that vaulted them up to their perches. — here …Micklethwait’s Law of Sopranos – the less you’ve heard of them the nicer they will probably sound… — there I’m sorry… if [...]

Barack Obama narrating Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait on September 11, 2005. Unfortunately it’s a poor quality video and only one minute long – just enough for me to know that I’d like to see a video of the whole thing. Thanks, Aworks and Deceptively Simple.

Confusing, contradictory and self-referential sentences. Found at Mixed Meters in a post about music titles. (Oh, and there’s a picture of a cat in it too. Surely you’ll click for the cat.)