Howdy. Still alive, for any few folks who track me primarily through here ( Read more... )

I came to Jane Austin late in life.  I never read her for a class.  I watched Clueless with no idea that it was based on Emma until many years later.  My first intentional Austin film was Emma Thompson's Sense and Sensibility, and I loved it, at least as much for Thompson as for Austin.  Four years ago I started on Pride and PrejudiceFirst came the ( Read more... )

This morning, I found a list of domains that the nice people at FProt posted which are likely to be bringing bad things, and their names have to do with swine flu.  So I set out to add them to my hosts file, to avoid any problems from them ( Read more... )

I tend to be interested in shows where the fun of the show is the unfolding of the overarching story, and where little details along the way can really spoil the fun.  I appreciate that folks who post here to talk about their shows tend to take this into account by making it easy to avoid reading those little details along the way, but wanted to ( Read more... )

Just watching another insurance commercial that includes a claim about "those who switched to X saved an average of $Y."  Which is an interesting claim, because it seems to imply that you can save $Y by switching to X.  It does imply that, actually, but it doesn't mean that.  The only people who saved that money (on average, not each individual) ( Read more... )

As Adam Sandler so eloquently taught us:Channukah is a festival of lights.
Instead of one day of presents, we get eight.  Pretty nice!
As wonderful as the song is (all three versions), it doesn't teach much about Channukah other than that you don't pronounce the "ch" like in "cha-cha-cha" (the "ch" represents a harder "h" sound that sounds a bit like ( Read more... )

Remember Political Correctness?  It was so 90s, so silly, and based in developing "sensitive" terms that didn't accept culturally-based "norms" as moral points of reference.  Everyone made fun of such silly terms as "vertically challenged," and "differently abled," and the whole thing faded away, right ( Read more... )

So I was looking further into Jonathan Haidt and found my way to one of the website he's affiliated with called Civil Politics.  It has a pledge that you can sign electronically here.  I have signed it, and would encourage you to pass it along to everybody you know so they can consider signing it as well.  Here's what it says:I hereby pledge:

1) ( Read more... )

Technology.  Entertainment.  Design.For those who didn't already know.  I didn't until two weeks ago (although I think I'd stumbled onto some of it a time or two prior to that).  TED is a series of conferences held every year where very interesting people gather to make 18 minute presentations about what they know.  I've watched a few of these ( Read more... )

A bride is standing at the door to step into the chapel to be married, and she says to her mother "Oh, Mom!  This is so wonderful!  I'm at the end of all my troubles!" Her mother says "Yes, dear, but not at the end you think ( Read more... )