I steal only from the very best.

“...a burger where the bun is two Krispy Kreme donuts...”

I was a young adult back in the space race of the ‘60s; I was there. The Mercury astronauts were absolute rock stars, household names who were going to save us all by out-flying the godless commies. But the press also made a huge deal about their families, printing and broadcasting endless pictures, interviews and…

I want “Waffles”, the bomb-sniffing dropout from Madam Secretary.

Not everything is about gender politics. Neil Armstrong was quite possibly the best pilot in the world at that time, and is certainly among the foremost explorers in human history. He was also, by all accounts, a really nice guy. The fact that he is a male human in no way detracts from his accomplishments, nor should…

#mandatory

Re. Rule 4:  the coyote did speak, just not to the Road Runner. In Operation: Rabbit (1949) he tries to catch and eat Bugs Bunny, and chats with him, introducing himself as “Wile E. Coyote, Genius”.

Sigh... the Warner Bros. cartoons of the late ‘40s and early ‘50s, including Coyote and Road Runner, are masterpieces, made by brilliant writers and animators. All attempts to revive them have imho been failures, even Space Jam. I say we just appreciate them for what they are, gems from a long-ago,…

“... spicy meat-a-ball... mamma mia.”

Short ‘o’, ahhh, Dop, rhymes with “stop”.

Short ‘o’, ahhh, Dop, rhymes with “stop”.

My all-time favorite bad movie is First Spaceship On Venus. A 1960 East German cold war opus, it features an international cast, an annoying robot, and the most stylish spaceship in cinema history.

You left out Bonomo’s Turkish Taffy, a delight from the ‘50s. It’s a bar of vanilla, chocolate, strawberry or banana hard taffy* that you’re meant to smack onto a table, shattering it into a number of irregular (and sharp) pieces. You would then eat each piece by sucking on it until it became soft enough to chew.…

Fun fact: this technique of hiding one file inside another is called “steganography” (concealed writing). Even if you send an encrypted message an eavesdropper can tell that a message was sent, and may divine from whom and to whom it was sent. Cryptanalysts can perform what is called “traffic analysis” and learn quite…

I live only a few miles from this museum and when I need inspiration I go visit the Discovery and the Blackbird.

“...a paper-thin parody of The Jerry Springer Show starring Springer himself...”

My own personal Jack Ryan: In Patriot Games Jack lived in Annapolis MD and worked for the CIA under cover of a job with The MITRE Corporation, a defense contractor. In the ‘80s I lived in Annapolis and for about six months commuted to my new job at MITRE in McLean VA, just a few miles down the road from CIA…

I dunno... Woody Allen disagrees. Or maybe that’s a good thing?

Just FYI, Harvard says coconut oil is poison.

I live in Virginia. Once I had to go to Taiwan on business, and was there for three days. I never made the time 12 hour time change; I was sleepy all day and wide awake all night. After takeoff coming home I put on the eye mask and ear plugs they give you, reclined my seat and slept. All the way across the Pacific.…

Get a set of Eneloops, the best rechargeable AA batteries. Some sets come with a wall charger; keep it full and you’ll always have a fresh set.