Science writer Michael Fumento remembers an amazing Good Friday, that was almost a Very Bad Friday, from years back.
Category Archives: General
Ice Sculptures
Natural ones. Some very beautiful nature photography.
In Case You’re Wondering
We didn’t feel a thing this morning. Slept right through it.
Teevee Deals
I’d upgrade to a fifty-plus incher
But if you buy one from the link, it will help me get one, too. Not to mention buy my next bowl of gruel…
And it’s nice to see electronics continue to drop in price, even if space access doesn’t.
This Seems Symbolic, Somehow
The United States is heading for the scrapyard?
Cookie Chemistry
I have to say that I was a little surprised to read that she didn’t consider baking soda first, because that’s what seemed obvious to me reading of her travails. But I assumed until reading the comments that it was so obvious that she hadn’t bothered to mention that attempt at a fix.
On a personal note, this past Christmas might have been the first season that I didn’t make Christmasholiday butter cookies using my mother’s half-century-old cookie gun, due to the continuing discombobulation of the move from Florida, and our trip to Colorado for house renovation.
For Those On The East Coast
Snowmen. A classic collection.
New Year’s Predictions
From Alan K. Henderson (I’ve always wondered what the “K” is for…):
A band of Somali pirates will relocate from the Indian Ocean to the Caribbean, in a plot to hijack the cruise ship Oasis of the Seas. In a case of bad timing, Chuck Norris and Steven Segal will be among the passengers when the strike occurs. Tiger Woods and his wife Elin Nordegren will also be on board; she will incapacitate one of the pirates with a sand wedge.
During the Daytona 500 trials, Michaele and Tareq Salahi will mysteriously emerge from Mark Martin’s car.
Dan Brown of will release yet another Da Vinci Code sequel, in which symbologist Robert Langdon discovers clues in the CRU climate data that ultimately lead to the Bavarian Illuminati.
There are more.
God Damn
…the naughts. It was an awful decade, in many ways.
And yes, I know that the first decade of the millennium isn’t over until a year from now, but the naughts ended tonight.
[Update a few minutes later]
Happy new year! I’d like to say that it can’t be worse than the past one, but I’ve lived long enough, and read enough history, to know better.
Avoiding Tickets
Drive one of these cars. This would be more interesting if there were some theoretical basis as to why they’re less ticket bait than others, as opposed to (I assume) empirical data. It’s not clear what else they have in common.
My theory of ticket avoidance is a) don’t drive a red car — they stand out and look fast even sitting still and b) don’t cruise the left lane on the freeway — that’s where cops are looking for speeders. I’ll never rent a red car if I can avoid it. I rarely drive below the speed limit, and I get a speeding ticket about twice per decade or so (a rare enough event that it has no effect on my insurance rates, let alone my driving privileges).
I recall back in the early nineties, when a well-known space activist (who will remain nameless to prevent embarrassment) and I were driving from DC up to Princeton for Gerry O’Neill’s funeral in his rental. We were going through Maryland, which is renowned for speed traps, and I warned him to use the left lane for passing only, but he didn’t heed me, and blithely cruised in it, until he heard the sirens behind him. And while we were pulled over, yet another well-known space activist passed us, saw who was sitting in the driver’s seat, and laughed.
And this all confirmed my theory, sort of, at least to me. I’ve only gotten two speeding tickets on a freeway in my entire life — all the others have been on open two-lanes, or passing through towns and not slowing down enough.