“...what happens to your identity as a woman if you’re not f—kable and beautiful?”

Nazi physicist Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976) did the same thing after failing to make an atom bomb. He and his colleagues were held at a place called Farm Hall in England, where they were secretly recorded. There are transcription disks that captured them agreeing among themselves to say that they had purposely…

I grew up watching The Captain in the ‘50s, and loved the show as a child. Much later I met Keeshan at a public appearance, and he was just as nice as his character was on tv.

Say what you will about his movies, Adam has made a success of his career. On the list of richest actors he’s well head of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Robert Downey Jr., dead-even with Keanu Reeves, and just a few bucks behind Clint Eastwood.

I didn’t get his autograph, but I once cracked up Goofy. We were there with our kids and came upon Goofy. He was wearing cartoon gloves with only four fingers; I stuck out my hand palm up and said “Goofy, gimme’ four!” Goofy looked at his glove, and then totally lost it. True story.

Fun fact: the lead photo is from Wes Anderson’s 2012 film Moonrise Kingdom, the best film ever made. Well, ok... maybe that’s a bit of a stretch, but it’s very high on my list of all-time favorites. Yes, Wes is something of an acquired taste, but if you haven’t seen it you definitely should. It’s about two kids who’s…

Back in the day some PC games offered a “Boss Button”, pressing which instantly popped up a business-looking spreadsheet or graph. Some games still have that feature, but it was far more important back in the days of single-tasking operating systems. You could play Leather Goddesses of Phobos right there at your desk,…

All About Steve came a two months before The Blind Side. It’s enough to give you cinematic whiplash.

On a trans-Pacific flight I was once seated in the exit row of the upper deck of a 747. It was amazing; you could play handball in there.

If you choose to buy a safe, do your homework before you choose. It turns out that cheap imported safes, the kind you’d buy at Walmart or Home Depot, can be opened in a trice with simple tools, or no tools at all. As a locksmith friend put it: “Locks are for honest people.”

Window units are strongly preferred. An air conditioner pumps heat from inside your house to outside using two radiator-like heat exchangers, both of which must have a flow of air. In a portable unit the hot side is cooled by air taken from inside your house, then expelled outside via that big tube. This is air that…

Window units are strongly preferred. An air conditioner pumps heat from inside your house to outside using two…

Here in Virginia REAL ID is available, but not required; they issue both. My wife and I just got ours, and it turned out to be less trouble than I expected, about an hour at the DMV. We used our passports, present driver’s licenses, social security cards, and a recent real estate tax bill to prove state residency. One…

Ringo is playing Wolf Trap here near DC, and we have tickets. I had this fantasy that Paul would show up unannounced. Maybe there’s hope after all...

Hmm... it’s still parked up there on the moon. You can go get it if you want.

“The last human on the Moon was Gene Cernan in 1972.”

Fun Titanic fact: Titanic had only three functioning funnels (smokestacks). The fourth, aft-most funnel was a fake added for aesthetics, and to make the ship seem competitive with others that really did have four. A four-funnel ship was considered modern and safe. The extra funnel was used for storage and ventilation.

We borrowed our grandkids (ages 8 and 6) and took them to see Toy Story 4; I have all the questions. So anyone, even a young child, can make a sentient toy out of trash, dooming it to an eternity of suffering? So Keanu Reeves is doing cartoon voices now? So toys capture other toys and perform involuntary kidney…

Fun fact: the woman who says “I’ll have what she’s having” is director Rob Reiner’s mother.

I was eight, watching Attack of the Crab Monsters, a Roger Corman opus*. Atomic tests embiggen some crabs, who eat everything in sight. In one scene The Girl™ is in bed asleep, and a giant crab claw comes in through the window and grabs her. I nearly jumped out of my skin, and for a long time after I carefully closed…