Screw it, said I. While my grandmother took her nap I turned on the furnace. I'm tired of being fucking cold all the time. I swear, it's been warmer outside the house than inside. Just yesterday my grandmother complained about being cold. “We could turn on the heat,” said I. “No,” she said. “We neverContinue reading “On Cold”
Monthly Archives: October 2006
On Hugh Laurie's SNL
Hugh Laurie, of Blackadder, Jeeves & Wooster, and House fame, hosted Saturday Night Live tonight. Unfortunately, it wasn’t especially funny. Laurie’s monologue was amusing. The joke he made about being “bottom” in the Royal Shakespeare Company was quite inspired (even if the audience seemed slow on the uptake). The skit based on Most Haunted wasContinue reading “On Hugh Laurie's SNL”
On How I'd Vote In Scotland
With politics on the brain, I wondered. If I lived overseas how would I vote? So, after much digging, I found Who Should You Vote For, a website that quizzes you on political and personal beliefs and then matches you to a UK political party. Scotland, I decided. If I were a Scot, if IContinue reading “On How I'd Vote In Scotland”
On the Upcoming Elections
The Atlantic posted an article online by Jack Beatty earlier this week entitled “War and the American Voter.” Beatty looks at the historical parallels between this year’s Congressional elections and previous Congressional elections during wartime. Beatty’s conclusion? Things don’t look good for the Grand Old Party: In the five wartime congressional elections since 1860, theContinue reading “On the Upcoming Elections”
On The Eye of Argon
On this Saturday past (and with thanks to Terri Osborne) I attended Capclave, a science fiction convention in Silver Spring, Maryland. As conventions go, it was different than any I had attended before–my previous convention experiences having been limited to Shore Leave and Farpoint, both of which are media conventions, while Capclave was geared towardContinue reading “On The Eye of Argon”
On Failures
Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo makes an interesting analogy to President Bush’s Iraq policy and his insistence upon “stay[ing] the course”–Iraq is a business start-up, and President Bush knows business start-ups. Unfortunately, what Bush knows of business start-ups is how to fail at business start-ups, as Josh explains: Setting aside the vast costs inContinue reading “On Failures”
On Headaches
Frelling migraine. I want to stab myself in the head. And, stolen from a good friend of mind, a science fiction meme! You scored as SG-1 (Stargate). You are versatile and diverse in your thinking. You have an open mind to that which seems highly unlikely and accept it with a bit of humor. NowContinue reading “On Headaches”
On Rick Santorum's Faulty Analogy
Pennsylvania’s junior Senator, Rick Santorum, spoke recently about Iraq and terrorism: Santorum said that the United States has avoided terrorist attacks at home over the past five years because the “Eye of Mordor” has been focused on Iraq instead. “As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhereContinue reading “On Rick Santorum's Faulty Analogy”
On An E-Mail Received
Today I received an e-mail I've been expecting for about six weeks now. It's from a reader of “Make-Believe.” The story hit close to home for him. He lost his brother-in-law in Iraq. The characters, the emotions rang true, he wrote. He said he was touched. I've written back to everyone that's written me aboutContinue reading “On An E-Mail Received”
On a Great Quote
Garrison Keillor had a fantastic line in his most recent newspaper column: When I was in college, I read Kafka and Camus and tried to write like them, in flat non-American English, as if written under the influence of a migraine, until it slowly dawned on me that I was missing the basic experiences thatContinue reading “On a Great Quote”