I grasped the calorie-exercise continuum when I had knee surgery at age 22. I have always been very athletic and active, but had 25 extra pounds that I just couldn't shed since age 16. The surgery I had was extremely painful and kept me laid up for weeks. Virtually no exercise besides hauling myself to the bathroom on…

You're so wide of the mark. Why so nasty suddenly BonBon? Something wrong?

Oh stop being so nasty BonBon. Twelfie and I decided it was his grammar checker betraying him, and I urged him to disable it and trust his own instincts if you bother to read the whole chain. Misunderstandings abound on message boards, and I inadvertently fuel them sometimes, I guess. Give up on screenwriting? Not…

I guess this Mamet effort is once again proof that talent does not necessarily spawn talent. But considering the discipline, creative originality, and dedication of countless young musicians with no connections and no money, honing their skills while surviving on junk food, hope, and no rent; the rejections, the…

To each his own, truly, but grammar checkers are a wobbly, unreliable crutch, as proven by those apostrophes. Spellcheck is a great tool. Never hit send without spellchecking. But as far as grammar, I'd rather eat my own errors (and protect my own writing style) than rely on some bumbling automaton. You're probably…

Point taken. However, if you feel confident of your grammar, and it seems you do, why not just disable that grammar checker? That's the first thing I always do with a computer. The program can't think, and any utility that regularly inserts mistakes is not only corrupt, it's damned annoying. Those apostrophes in…

Allow me to ask why this guy is claiming credit for his summary execution? If the Allies were capable of taking the worst Nazis alive and putting them on trial, then why just out-and-out murder Bin Laden, unarmed, and "martyr" him. Wouldn't it have been better to capture and try him for his crimes against humanity?…

Please stop apostrophizing plurals. The plural of Nazi is Nazis. What makes people feel they have to add an apostrophe to a plural? It's not a possessive; it's not a contraction. It's wrong, it's a needless keystroke, and it's annoying to read —- besides calling into question the credibility of what comes after,…

That is godawful, Complete strangers reach out and touch you? I've said before, as a white woman, I find white men, both younger and older, far scarier and creepier. In my youth, white men were the silent followers and stalkers; the ones who tracked you in their cars as you walked along. I never had a man of color do…

I remember one incident when my daughter was about 5 or 6 —- my father-in-law was a real boor and a jerk to me. He never liked me and made me the butt of coarse jokes from my wedding day on. My husband, who had been his victim too, was intimidated by the old man and couldn't stand up to him. The dad gambled…

What is wrong with you? That level of excoriation is way unwarranted.

That "Dracula" looks some like some hustler you'd meet in Medocino circa 1969. When Stoker says "old" he means OLD. A domed forehead means bald with maybe white hair flowing down from the circlet of remaining hair. A wispy white mustache, not this David Crosby style; a fierce deep scowl and wrinkles in the brow. I…

Actually, a mantis "shrimp" is not a shrimp at all and is not even related to a shrimp. It's a type of crustacean called a stomatopod.

From a short story:

How about the 400-wolf superpack that terrorized Verkhoyansk Russia when the wolves' supply of hares crashed? The pack killed thousands of horses and farm animals and kept people trapped in their houses. Hunting them was nearly impossible. And they were all breeding!

You mean rained down. Actually when it came to sheer hands-on genocidal murder, the Germans still reign (and I don't excuse the Allied fire-bombing of noncombatant civilians). The Nazis wrote the book, and the German nation followed it.

in-tri-cate is very easy to say. If you find it difficult, it's because of habit.

How about "step foot" when they mean "set foot." You can step or you can set foot. But "step foot" sounds dumbbb.

The dictionary gave in to popular error. Somebody told me that "nukular" was accepted now too in the dictionary. Still a fingernail-on-blackboard for me whenever I hear it.

Pres Bush mispronounced it as well, no surprise (sur-prize not soo-prize). Drove me crazy. I've heard supposed "experts" in the field mispronounce it.