a remarkable worm

My favorite sentence yet in a Sherlock Holmes story:
“A third case worthy of note is that of Isadora Persano, the well-known journalist and duellist, who was found stark raving mad with a match box in front of him which contained a remarkable worm said to be unknown to science.”
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, from [...]

space bikini

I don’t know how I missed this movie when it opened in 1979. Thanks to JetCity Improv’s bad-movie-with-faked-dialog show I had chance to see it in all its spectacular awfulness. The hero, Stella Star, wears a space bikini throughout most of the film, and the bad guy has a kind of Bozo the [...]

gut gut gdak

Maggie finds the best links. Here’s one about how people imitate animal sounds in various languages. For example, chicken clucking in Turkish is “gut gut gdak.”
It had to happen. Someone’s planning to make the world’s largest Ouija Board at Burning Man this year. If you want to read about their progress as the summer progresses, [...]

third life

I heard about Second Life on a radio story about some people who got married in Second Life, but had never met in real life. It must be the most popular and maybe the most elaborate virtual world, where people go to parties together, own land, and all that. We were talking about it at [...]

sunday driving

I’ve been out riding around the urban zoo on my bicycle. Though I never did get my dream bike (a Cannondale Road Warrior 500), my old one is still pretty good, and anyway, now I’m thinking more about a “new” junker bike for Burning Man. My old junker hurt too much. Gave it to Kelly, [...]

the b612 foundation

Have you been wanting to alter the orbit of an asteroid? Did you want to do it before 2015? Then I’ve got the organization for you–the B612 Foundation.

elementary

I’ve been reading my way through the complete collection of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes novels and short stories. My favorite quote so far is one that Holmes came up with while explaining the importance of trivial details:
“You will remember, Watson, how the dreadful business of the Abernetty family was first brought to my [...]

clear plastic dreams

Maybe you’ve thought about wrapping the late Roy Orbison up in Saran Wrap. But have you written stories about it? Now that I think about it, when I was a young guy making Super-8 movies, we once wrapped someone in plastic wrap, laid him out on the floor and dropped marshmallows onto his head. The [...]