Like other commenters are saying, this book had a great and rather well-developed setting but not much actual "plot" to speak of — there's stuff going on, but the characters all sort of seem to be fumbling along with their independent lives and there's not really a solid beginning, middle and end. Ironically this kind…

The rebel party thing was Juliana's backstory, I think, which is mentioned once or twice in the book.

I'm having major flashbacks to being five years old again. I had those exact toys but never knew what they were called, so thanks for this.

I absolutely agree. Children learn by imitating and it's pretty abundantly clear to anyone who's ever spent any time around a very young child that they often don't fully grasp what they're imitating, or the function/goal of the imitated behavior.

I loathe reality TV, but when it masquerades as something else I might like to watch it's even more aggravating. Top Gun was a pretty good example: I wanted to watch shooting competitions, not grown men whining and griping at each other. And I would love a decent show making an honest stab at a Utopia — what, you…

The resident Chinese language scholar confirms that "next week" is "down week", as Chinese is written top to bottom, therefore the next word is below the current word. Neat!

I am a bit saddened that the protagonists seem to be adults rather than teenage boys, but otherwise I will reserve judgement. The Lotus Caves is a seriously wonderful (if rather short) story; John Christopher's Tripods trilogy is much better known.

When I worked phone support, one way of telling a dead/dying phone battery from a good one was to see if you could "spin" the battery. Phone batteries are normally flat squares, but as they degrade they often swell up in the center. Sometimes it's hard to see, but if you lay them flat and try to spin them from one…

I would love to play this. In the past I did spent long stretches of time without human interaction: stayed at home for weeks on end, with groceries brought in by someone I didn't see or speak with. Speaking from that experience, reality starts to get very bendy quite rapidly when there's nobody to talk to. I'm sure…

My pudding-crazy Japanese friend was sorely disappointed to realize that American "pudding" is more like gooey chocolate/vanilla frosting. Fortunately we figured out at last that Japanese pudding is basically flan, and that we could locate for her.

This is why, when you call customer support, we can tell we're on speakerphone (and make you turn it off.) It echoes, and we hear every word we just said repeated back to us. There is nothing more distracting.

I suspect slang of Yiddish origin is more obscure than most, but somehow I doubt that 100% of the people who use the terms 'putz' or 'schmuck' realize they're calling someone a penis. The verb 'shtup' also seems to have taken on meanings quite separate from its original one, which was "have sex with."

If you ever watched I Love Lucy, this became very obvious when she actually got pregnant and the characters could not refer to her as such. (Same show where a married man and his wife slept in separate beds, naturally.) Becomes really obvious when they title one of the episodes "Lucy is Enciente" because referring to…

Relevant trivia — the Japanese equivalent of the phrase "I'm coming" translates literally to "I'm going." Always thought that made more sense than the English equivalent.

For me, all it took was several months' abstinence from junk food. Now I don't even want it anymore, and whenever I do try greasy/sugary crap again it's usually pretty revolting. To those who are saying that your body naturally craves fats and the quick energy from easily-accessible sugars, that's true, but constant…

I brought a Taiwanese friend to Fuddruckers once. At the burger toppings bar they had sliced tomatoes, lettuce, onions, etc. sitting in metal bowls, with loose kale leaves arranged around the outside of the bowls for decoration. Of course my friend wasn't interested in the anemic-looking iceberg lettuce; I catch her…

I really liked this article (and laughed at several of the illustrations), so thanks for this. It probably goes without saying that there are still the few, rare situations where the opinions of others do have a significant impact on your life, like getting a job or applying for a loan. Otherwise this article is…

This sounds awesome (and you get bonus pts for the Animorphs reference.)

What about the chase scene directly following his transformation? Because all I remember from that sequence is how much his pecs jiggled when he ran, and how distracting it was.

I just wonder how they pitched this one to get so many major actors involved; I can't imagine explaining the plot in a way that made any sense, except maybe as a loose retelling of the Book of Revelations.