Yeah, I’ll just leave this right here.

Fun fact: America was still reeling from the attack on Pearl Harbor. Military planners know another attack was coming, but didn’t know where. US cryptanalysts had broken some Japanese codes, and knew that the attack was coming at a location coded as “AF”. They thought it was Midway but didn’t know for sure.

Speaking as a former child as well as a father and grandfather... this is why god gave us television.

This puts me in mind of the Radium Girls of the early 20th century. Thousands of young women were hired to paint the hands and faces of watches and clocks with luminous paint, containing highly radioactive Radium. No one warned them of the danger; they were instructed to “point” the brush with their lips and often…

I saw Andie in Michael, a kind of fantasy in which John Travolta plays an angel. It’s partly a road movie, and in one scene they go to a karaoke bar in the evening. As one reviewer said at the time: If you think Andie McDowell can’t act, just wait until you hear her can’t sing.”

I like Millie as much as anyone, but... Speaking as the father of two daughters and now a grand daughter, I’d like to point out that Millie is 15 years old. Children of that age can almost glow with health. I think her flawless skin is due not so much to her regimen as to her very young age. Check back after a while…

“There’s no such thing,” he said, “as cold, hard reality.”

Immortality occurs in nature. Several species of fish and reptiles exhibit negligible senescence; they don’t age. Some plants and bacteria are similarly immortal; there’s a stand of aspen in Utah upwards of 100,000 years old.

“...whale songs have been getting deeper...”

This whole thing is an abomination. Tony Stark telling Peter Parker that he is an Avenger is the greatest moment in western literature. Ever.

I love posts like this. I worked in industry (aerospace systems engineering, broadly speaking) for 45 years. I was often unable to use all my vacation due to deadlines and whatnot, and like everyone else worked myself to a frazzle.

Yes, this times 1000. Batteries leak and corrode, even good ones. For a while I used the Costco house brand “Kirkland” batteries, the brown ones. I found that they corrode and leak all the time. I once bought some new ones that had corroded batteries in the unopened pack. I now use Duracells exclusively, but they’re…

When I was a young man in the early ‘70s I, like every human male of the time, wanted a Corvette. It was sleek, dangerous, and as we said back then, a chick magnet. However, a ‘71 ‘vette cost $6K, or nearly $40K today, and I couldn’t swing it.

Angel Has Fallen is no dumber than any other shoot-’em-up. Here’s the synopsis: Gerard Butler, and then everything blows up.

“...wouldn’t you have skipped school in a second?”

“Back in the 1980s, when the nuclear threat was at its most acute...”

No. The “Left Turn” gag originated in Herr Meets Hare, 1945. “This means war” is a Groucho Marx gag from Duck Soup 1933, first used by Bugs in Hare Hunt, 1938. It troubles me that my brain is full of this kind of thing.

I live in Northern Virginia near DC, an hour or so from the Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah National Park. Every fall we take a leisurely drive down it in our convertible. Very nice.

I’m fortunate to live quite near the Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah National Park. A leisurely fall cruise down it is an annual treat. When we were younger my wife and I did it on our motorcycles, but we’re pretty old now, and have traded in the bikes for a convertible. Still very nice though.

“...vitamin C deficiency that was pretty tough to get in my home in the 1990s, a place where oranges basically fell into your mouth...”