Among the other joys of this holiday season comes the joy of discovery – my discovery that the accessories for a black powder rifle include a “nipple pick” and a “ball puller”. Yes, I am easily entertained.

I seriously, very much DO NOT WANT an iPhone. Are those for real or just made up? And if they’re for real who programmed the auto-correction feature? A 13-year-old boy?

I bought these shoes two or three weeks before Christmas. They’re Earth shoes and normally cost about $100 but I got them for $47 and change, which makes me feel slightly less guilty about buying shoes that I don’t, strictly speaking, need. But I’m glad I gave in to temptation. I love them. They’re very [...]

I want this book just for the cover. I’m not so interested in the subject matter. It’s probably interesting but it’s not something I would ever buy. I’d just love to have something with that cover laying around the house. At that price though, I would worry that it might be much less awesome in [...]

There was another “bit” that I had intended to put in the “Random Bits” post below but I forgot about it. I remembered it while I was laying in bed last night, just after I turned off the light. Well, guess what. This morning, again, I can’t remember what it was. If I was a [...]

HaikuLeaks – Via Nag on the Lake who’s on a roll. Go check out her other recent posts. No job too odd – Hmmm… that’s a claim that begs to be tested. Old fashioned sci-fi Christmas – 1951-61 Galaxy magazine December covers. Awesome! Interesting mailboxes Happy Holidays – a great DRB collection of (mostly) Christmas [...]

*I actually stayed up and watched all of the Saints-Falcons game last night. That was the best game I’ve seen in a long time. Usually, I get impatient with defensive games but it was actually interesting enough that I didn’t just sit there for three hours thinking, “Sheesh! Somebody score already!” And the Saints won. [...]

I’m not going to list all of my Christmas gifts. They were all good. I didn’t get anything that made me go, “Uh… what?” But I don’t want to bore you* so just a few of the highlights… This, as you can see, is an electronic weather station. This panel communicates wirelessly with the other [...]

I have been chided for neglecting this blog. I was actually thinking about posting something yesterday but what I had in mind would have involved uploading pictures and for some reason that simple task seemed like too much bother. Maybe later. We had our usual “merry little Christmas” which, as usual, involved eating too much. [...]

For years when I was a little kid I was a huge fan of Ann Landers. Often, being a typical know-it-all kid, I thought I could give much better advice. In fact, I really thought I could be good at it and wanted to have my own advice column when I grew up. Many times [...]

Clever ad Christmas decorations – Ah the Christmas season, when we can fill our yards full of all kinds of tacky-looking crap and the neighbors can’t say anything that won’t make them look like Scrooge. “Divine Intervention” – 6 historic battles that were decided by weather and other natural phenomena The Tolkien Sarcasm Page – [...]

You will almost always find me in the “Don’t Screw With Christmas Songs!” camp but, I have to confess my weakness, I often find odd instrumental arrangements of Christmas music irresistible. I usually don’t like instrumental arrangements of Carol of the Bells – it’s all about the singing, you know – but this is very [...]

I’ve never responded well to deadlines. If the time until the deadline is measured in weeks it’s okay. It’s practically theoretical. But as the time grows short I, more and more, feel like saying, “Screw this; I will not be a slave to a calendar.” In the late 80s thru early 90s I worked at [...]

I’ve been neglecting to upload an updated version of my links page for quite some time now. I frequently make changes, then upload whenever I get around to it. And to anyone out there who is thinking of telling me that there is a better way, thanks but I love my simple, old-fashioned, scriptless HTML [...]

WARNING: SPOILER Back on December 4th, in our hotel room in Branson, I was channel surfing and stopped when I saw Nicholas Cage and a young boy staring at several glowy aliens. I soon realized that I was seeing the end of what looked like a very good movie. Later I figured out that the [...]

The butler did it. – Or did he? A little wire, a little imagination… Myke Amend – Steampunk and fantasy art. Has some nice skins for phones and laptops. Victorian Star Trek – Several cool images. I think Scotty is my favorite. The one with Chekov and Sulu is rather memorable too. Scroll on down [...]

I’m not superstitious. Really, I’m not. But sometimes it is very hard to remain “not superstitious” when it is so obvious that The Universe does things specifically to cause me the greatest possible inconvenience. I need to go to town. I have to go to town. Not going today is not an option. Just ask [...]

To me, the most impressive of Brett Favre’s records and statistics is his consecutive starts. To play every game for nineteen years takes a lot of dedication, stamina and more than a little luck. I was excited about the likelihood that Favre would reach that magic round number 300 this year but, sadly, the streak [...]

Here’s more proof that New Yorkers really need to get over themselves (via) * HER studio apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is just shy of 400 square feet, barely enough room for an Ikea open-shelf bookcase, a chocolate-brown tufted couch, a full-size bed and her brindle-coated Shih Tzu, Charlie. So when Claudia Argiro, 33, gave a [...]

If you watched NFL football yesterday you probably saw the Vikings stadium roof collapse. If not, go watch it. It’s rather spectacular. Fortunately no one got hurt so we can sit here and watch it over and over again and go, “Wow, look at that!” without feeling too guilty about it. They must have been [...]

Classical Top 100 – Whether or not these are actually the top 100 is, of course, arguable but this is a useful list. Brief samples of each piece are included. (plus links to iTunes and Amazon) So if you’ve ever heard classical music in a TV commercial and wondered what it was chances are good [...]

Happiness is not normal (PDF) I’m assuming this “proposal to classify happiness as a psychiatric disorder” is satire, but sometimes it does seem like happy people don’t get any respect. Everyone is supposed to be stressed out and anxious and if you’re not you must be in denial about something. So many people don’t even [...]

I’ve always been happy with AT&T’s cell phone service. I would even defend them to anyone who said “they suck”. That was before my husband spent two hours on the phone with them for a simple request which would have ultimately resulted in AT&T getting a little more of our money every month than they [...]

My husband’s employer’s annual Christmas party was this past Saturday. It was at the Chateau on the Lake Hotel in Branson, Missouri. There was this candy village in the lobby. (I’m pretty sure it did not contain any gingerbread.) Here’s a closeup of one of the houses. You can see gummy bears, M&Ms, licorice, pretzel [...]