I'm in the library, looking through the shelves, in my browsing frame of mind and a bit cotton-headed from this cold, when all of a sudden a librarian I have never seen before (I only started using this branch last month, when I moved) comes up to me and blurts: "I really liked your column, well I've always liked it, but this last one especially, ( Read more... )

By accident of fate, I watched Crash for the third time last night. I've been trying to figure out why this movie won best picture for a while now. I watched it with Eve, who hadn't seen it and wanted to know why some people loved it and others hated it. I explained that people loved it because Crash is the best tricks from Aristotle's Poetics writ ( Read more... )

I am not one of those people who spends spring sneezing, winter dripping, and fall catarrhing. I never get sick. And now I have the nastiest sore throat of my life, a headache, a fever (yes, me, actually--as our mothers would say--"running a temperature") and there's no taking time off today or tomorrow, because we're short staffed as it is, there' ( Read more... )

This morning I found I had forgotten how to spell "pretentious."

Short people ain't got no reason to live, according to Randy Newman, and according to the Cheyenne County (Nebraska) District Court, they ain't got no reason to go to jail.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0525062shorty1.html

Three-day holiday weekends blow because the buses don't run. I'm stuck at home or stuck in town waiting for rides, and my three favorite places (the post office, library, and bank) are closed.  Plus, I've had to work Friday, Saturday, baby-sat for seven hours on Sunday, and work today, so nothing's good. Which reminds me of the difference between ( Read more... )

Mess with the mesothelioma bull, and you'll get the horns.

The last time REM played "Shiny, Happy People" was on Sesame Street. They did a version of it called "Shiny, Happy Monsters" -- there used to be all sorts of cool bands and actors on Sesame Street, all kinds of great parodies. I especially liked ones like "I don't like 'U' but I love 'U' " or turning "Material Girl" into "Cereal Girl," teaching us ( Read more... )

Sunchokes, which are the roots of a kind of sunflower, are actually called "Jerusalem artichokes." And oddly, they have nothing to do with either Jerusalem or artichokes; they look nothing like an artichoke, nor do they grow in the middle east. Supposedly they tast something like an artichoke, but most people disagree with that statement. They are ( Read more... )

Poll