You get invitied to a couple's house...the next day you are uninvited because of of the couple is having a meltdown.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 08:55 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Happy Birthday, USA! Still going...and going...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 08:56 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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"Now, I go to spread happiness to the rest of the station. It is a terrible responsibility but I have learned to live with it." (Peter Jurasik as Londo Mollari, A Voice in the Wilderness, Part I)

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 02:56 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Some very nice pictures from Apollo and the (let's hope they don't muck it up) Constellation program.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:37 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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The monthly summary from me will be delayed a tad until I find some free time to write up some pithy comments and do a final count on books and short works read...

Not quite completely updated book and short list here...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:21 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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"The Republics were assembled. The Games were set to begin. The Sun glared down upon the Olympiad, brutal. Tempers were short. Surly Greeks exchanged surly words. An old man entered the arena. He was bent, this old man was. His every bone ached. He pleaded to the Athenians for a place to sit—and they ignored him. Leaning heavily on his walking stick, dizzy now, his knees quaking, the old man begged the delegates of Corinth, of Mykonos, of Naxos, of Thira. Each turned a deaf ear to his plea. At last, the old man staggered to the Spartan delegation—and before he could croak out a single word, every Spartan rose as one, and stepped aside. And the old man shook his walking stick at all assembled, his voice rising to a lion's roar that rattled the very stones. "Every Greek knows what is right," he bellowed, "every Greek knows—but only the Spartans choose to do it!" (The character "Dilios", 300, Frank Miller and Lynn Varney)

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:20 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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John's Reading Report (June 200

OK, here's what I've read over the past month, some of it unplanned:

Pattern Recognition, William Gibson

No More Mr. Nice Guy!, Robert Glover

Skeleton Crew, Steven King

In progress:

Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, Douglas R. Hofstadter.

Consciousness Explained, Daniel C. Dennett.

On deck (this is growing faster than my finished list):

Necessary Losses: The Loves, Illusions, Dependencies, and Impossible Expectations That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Grow

My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey, Jill Bolte Taylor

Extraordinary Relationships, Roberta Gilbert.

Suite Francaise, Irene Nemerovsky.

Soul Made Flesh: The Discovery of the Brain--and How it Changed the World, Carl Zimmer.

Spook Country, William Gibson.

Posted by: JohnL at 03:47 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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It was hot. Africa hot. Even Tarzan would have found it hot.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:12 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Have historians gotten the date of Caesar's invasion of the island of Britain wrong?

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:00 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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You know you have too many fonts installed when it takes 4 attempts to find Times New Roman.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:46 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Plush microbes (or disease carriers) and plush sub-atomic particles. Can you imagine the conversation between a mother and father?

"Dear, I've given our daughter the clap."

"WHAT????"

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:11 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I've read Homer's The Odyssey several times, including once in Latin (high school). One thing that has fascinated me about The Odyssey...as well as The Iliad...is how much "truth" there is to the epic. Amazing to find an occasional bit that has survived the passage of time, countless re-translations and re-interpretations and the like.

And then there's the fanciful side. For example, here's a depiction of the "cosmos" of The Odyssey...as a snowglobe.

Addendum: The scholarly paper (Adobe Acrobat).

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 09:18 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Equal rights for apes.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:57 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Ansible 252 is up!

There was even a role-playing game that utilized strangely shaped polyhedral dice, minute but over priced models, and rulebooks the size of bibles. This was aimed at pale young men who mumbled self-consciously, washed infrequently, and never got picked for the stone-skimming team—and it was, frankly, a disappointment. (David Bilsborough, A Fire in the North, 200

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:14 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Law of Mechanical Repair: After your hands become coated with grease, your nose will begin to itch and you'll have to pee. more...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 08:24 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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When Beowulf collides with Dr. Seuss.

Hark and ware, oh Warrior!
Weird of Sven now hear you.
How good Lars he harried,
pestered him with questions.

Late at meadhall light burned;
Lars did strive to largen
belly with a bowl of
boiled fish his mission.

And some chunks of chicken,
cheese and bread and peasoup,
finally pounds of pancakes
paired with lingon berries.

Smallish snack he snuck while
woozy wife lay snoozing.
When inside there wandered
forth a fellow northman.

Lars did greet him greatly
for he knew the gruesome
tales of host who hasten
travellers forth from doorstep.

Lars did ask his name then.
"I am Sven," he mentioned.
"Sven I am," he stated.
"Do you like lutefisk and yams?"

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 08:43 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Hmmm...why hasn't there been more coverage of this part of NASA's Phoenix mission?

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 06:33 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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A house with a two-story outhouse? How is such a thing possible?

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 06:17 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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...in London, in that part of it known as Whitehall where the art of government was once practiced and is now imitated; where lies flourish and are admired as if they were prize blooms at the Chelsea Flower Show; and where infirmity of purpose is practiced with a belligerence that might almost make you think great men had come again...

(J.K. Mayo, The Interloper)

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 06:14 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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No matter how you work it, "ground chicken" and "Italian chicken sausage" just doesn't cook up as well as the real thing for a good pot of tomato sauce.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 06:11 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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