After giving it much thought, I've decided I rather like gathering links and other short items into lists rather than publishing each as a separate entry. Don't know why, and I may change my mind. But for the time being, I'm continuing the ancient Contra custom.

• While in Chicago over Christmas, we watched a movie I wholeheartedly condemn: Knocked ( Read more... )

• Small, short-lived sunspots are starting to turn up on a fairly regular basis. (I monitor spaceweather.com daily.) Their polarity suggests that they belong to the long-delayed Cycle 24, but they are so small as to be almost invisible without a powerful solar ( Read more... )

• I'm a sucker for a Depression-era railroad oddity called the Galloping Goose, which is a stitched-together Frankenrailcar made of bus and truck parts and other odd bits. Pete Albrecht sent me a link to a nice history/photo site, revealing something I had not known ( Read more... )

• For a little over a year, I've been buying dry-roasted peanuts from Safeway that do not contain MSG. Recently we noticed that the packaging had changed, and checked the ingredients. MSG returns, gakkh. Dry-roasted peanuts are a much better snack than their rep would have ( Read more... )

• Wired aggregated this item about a convertible bus/railcar that somehow suggests a modern take on the legendary Rio Grande Southern Galloping Goose lashups. I like the concept a great deal, especially for rapid transit in places where there are rails but ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

( Read more... )

Whew. Some observations after a very long day trying to finish up my Christmas shopping, during which I hit not one mall but two, as well as numerous sites along the interminable commercial strip down the full length of Academy Boulevard:

• From the Who's Twisting That Poor Cat's Tail ( Read more... )

We're in Denver for a couple of days at 2007's Bichon Frise National Specialty Show, a competitive dog show where it's all bichons, all the time. We went to the National Specialty in Indianapolis two years ago to pick up QBit, skipped it for various reasons last year, and went this years ( Read more... )

( Read more... )