Category: entertainment
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A Different Boy
Robert Goddard was the father of American rocketry, or maybe something more like the crazy uncle. Like Tsiolkovsky in Russia and von Braun in Germany, he not only cobbled together working rockets, he was inspired by a compelling inspiration to fly to other planets, which was crazy talk in his day, and I mean people… Read.
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Memory-free
I have no idea where I was or what I was doing the night I heard John Lennon died. I remember seeing plenty of television news stories with video of people weeping and lighting candles, but when I try to recall the first time I heard about it, I just can’t. It simply didn’t make… Read.
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Nit Picking
Okay, there’s a scene in the new Star Trek movie that I don’t get because it’s got about forty thousand discontinuities in it that didn’t hit me while I was watching it. It was a lot of fun to watch. I just loved it. But later my brain rewinded it and every time I watched,… Read.
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I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant
There’s a television show called I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant. You probably knew that already. I’m coming late to this conversation because (stop me if you’ve heard this) I don’t have cable, a dish or a digital converter box. Television used to be free when I was a lad, so I’m not going to… Read.
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Fair Game
If I took any truths away from the movie Fair Game, based on the book by Valarie Plame, it was these: I HATE SHAKY CAM! There has got to be a better way to make big-budget movies look like low-budget documentaries that doesn’t make the finished product look like the director forced a double-shot of… Read.
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Twirly Whirly
No group dance class tonight, for some reason. We practiced a whole bunch of moves Tuesday night when nobody else showed up for the group lesson, so Mr. Park turned the night into an extended private lesson, starting with waltz. If I remember right, we worked mostly on style, although My Darling B would be… Read.
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Pretty Good
I stuck my head in Laurie’s cube this afternoon to ask her if she could tell me the name of the tune that was playing on her radio. It turned out to be “Only Prettier” by Miranda Lambert. You’ll have to google that your darned self if you want to hear it. I was going… Read.
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Origins
For months, I’ve been watching the shelves of the local thrift store’s book nook for a copy of Darwin’s Origin of Species and getting no joy. Several textbooks on Darwin showed up, and one I even bought because it had excerpts from Origin, but I wanted the real deal. I thought maybe I wasn’t looking… Read.
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Dad Does Books
I found out the other day that a guy I know collects books as rabidly as I do, if that’s possible. He’s got bookshelves all over his house and apparently likes them as much for their smell as their looks or their content. And what sane human doesn’t? Well, lots, it turns out, but that’s… Read.
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Off the record
Today’s weekly visit to the thrift store at St. Vincent de Paul’s turned up four fabulous LPs, and don’t even ask me what an LP is because I’ll only give you a look that would freeze you solid where you stand, you heathen. It’s not easy to find an LP worth taking home from the… Read.
This Is Drivel 