Category: entertainment
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Doughnut
I spent about three hours trying to figure out how to make this goddamned thing. I needed a great big doughnut-shaped piece of plywood sixty inches across I could lay a curve of railroad track on. The easiest way to do this is: Get a sheet of plywood sixty inches wide, draw a big circle… Read.
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Talkies
Tickets went on sale for the Wisconsin Film Fest at noon today. We had the films we wanted to see picked out the night before and sat waiting with the web browser of the most dependable computer in the house parked on the film fest web site, mouse-clicking finger poised ready to hit the “buy… Read.
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Hot Pink
A few of our picks for the upcoming Wisconsin Film Fest, if you’re interested: Wednesday, March 30th 13 Assassins: “Takashi Miike’s rousing spectacle is a remake of a little-known 1963 film by the same title, but is clearly the heir to the ultimate posse-gatherer, Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. As his crimes against humanity are detailed… Read.
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Apollo 18
The announcement that there’d soon be a movie released about Apollo 18 caught my eye because it had the word “Apollo” in it and because there was no 18th mission to the moon. This monster movie is supposed to explain why that is, which got me all jazzed up because, you know, rockets and astronauts… Read.
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BLAM!
The ordinarily even-tempered academic Henry Adams goes all Chuck Norris on De Witt Clinton: With a violence that startled uninitiated bystanders, Cheetham in his American Citizen [newspaper] flung one charge after another at [Aaron] Burr; first his judiciary vote; then his birthday toast; then the suppression of a worthless history of the last Administration written… Read.
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Big Box
It’s another post about the big plywood box I’m building in the basement! I keep adding to it even though I haven’t brought it to your attention in quite a while. If I had, the posts would have looked something like this: It’s a big box. It’s a bigger box. It’s an even bigger box.… Read.
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Candy and Ronnie
“What’s the matter with him?” read the very enigmatic text-message from my brother, in response to no text message I’d sent him. I don’t text much. I don’t have anything against texting; I even like to do it; but there’s almost never been a time that I felt I had to whip out a text… Read.
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Genius
When it sucks to be a Genius: John Fitch, a mechanic, without education or wealth, but with the energy of genius, invented engine and paddles of his own, with so much success that during a whole summer Philadelphians watched his ferryboat plying daily against the river current. No one denied that his boat was rapidly,… Read.
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The Ladies
Saith the Duc de Liancourt, writing in 1797: … it must be acknowledged that the beauty of the American ladies has the advantage in the comparison [to European ladies]. The young women of Philadelphia are accomplished in different degrees, but beauty is general with them. They want the ease and fashion of French women, but… Read.
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Boooooard!
Day One of the Rebuild of the New Lost Continent Railway: The benchwork. [I know it looks like a big, empty box with no sides. Play along with me here.] I’ve been pecking away at this a little bit through the week, whenever I could find an hour or two after dinner. The frames at… Read.
This Is Drivel 