OMG! Look What Happened To….
Social media exploded this week when a Hollywood star stepped out on the red carpet for the first time in a while. I’m talking, of course, about Tony Sirico. Here he is in his most famous role, as Paul Gualtieri, aka “Paulie Walnuts,” in The Sopranos: Can peel paint from a house at distances up […]
Emma Watson Tells It Like It Is
Emma Watson delivers a speech to the UN. Emma Watson delivers. I don’t have much to say about this right now–I don’t have much to say about anything right now, my brain has been kind of fried lately–but Ms. Watson is right on target: this is an issue for all, and we all benefit from […]
This is Plus Size?
This is the end of the second straight WEEK FROM HELL, which is at the tail of the MONTH FROM HELL. It’s not that things have been bad, just…busy. Really, really busy. I’ve got to be out early today and tomorrow, and then things ease off a bit. I came downstairs, made some coffee and […]
Tipper Stickers
Some time ago, Alec Baldwin and Kristen Wiig appeared in a Saturday Night Live sketch about two people carpooling for the first time. Their conversation starts out awkward, as can happen when people who don’t know each other find themselves in a confined space. It quickly takes a turn for the worse: Wiig: So, it […]
Beards
Hey, did you see this story make the rounds recently? It seems that, due to a phenomenon known as negative frequency-dependent selection, the more common beards are, the less desirable they become. In a sea of clean-shaven men, the one guy with the beard is likely to get the positive attention, and when all the […]
Bits and Pieces for a Friday
It’s Friday morning, and I’m once more not ready with a well-organized, deeply thought out topic. I have ideas, mind you, but I don’t have as much time during the week as I used to so it all kind of gets put off and we end up with this sort of loose collection of nonsense. […]
Goodreads Is Not Your Living Room
“Imagine that you are a reader who has shelved your own books in your own personal, idiosyncratic way, with shelf tags that amuse you and help you remember where things are, your own personal organisation of the way you think and read … And suddenly there is an author in your reading space complaining publicly […]
Monday Musing: Save the Cat, Kill the Kid
On Friday, I stumbled across a thread on Absolute Write that was already three pages when I started reading. By the time I got to the end of page 1, the thread was five pages long, and still growing. As of this morning, it is 9 pages long, with more than 200 posts. It wasn’t […]
Sports Narratives
Hey, a guy could get used to this. Sitting back, cool, salt-tinged breeze, cold drink at hand—yeah, it would be easy to just send a postcard back that says, “You know, I’ve decided to stay. So long, and thanks for all the fish.” Of course, that ignores the fact that, within about three minutes of […]
Little Brother Is Watching
Big Brother Is Watching You. Chances are you’re familiar with the phrase and its origins, even if you’ve never read George Orwell’s 1984. And while we in American swear, “It couldn’t happen here,” especially after the fall of the World’s Largest Totalitarian State, the fact is it’s easier than ever for Big Brother to keep […]