Monthly Archives: July 2007

This chart nails a stereotype well

Somara showed me a a pretty funny D&D flow chart courtesy of Boing Boing (a rather hit-or-miss site) but the source link is completely down for reasons I can only guess. I wasn’t completely discouraged. With a bit of mental … Continue reading

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Happy 70th Birthday Bill Cosby

A landmark birthday for the Cos, one of the most famous and (my personal) favorite celebrities of Philly. His career lately has been waning and the last decade were rather trying on him but while growing up, Cosby was a … Continue reading

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Fred Thompson needs a new issue

A new study states how the Sun has little to nothing to do with Global Warming. I read way back on Bad Astronomy how the B-list actor was claiming the Sun was cause because the polar caps of Mars are disappearing, … Continue reading

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Springfield, VT beats Springfield, IL…D’oh!

What a bummer. The place I consider my childhood hometown came in second place! I have always felt that Springfield, IL fit the mindset of the show despite it lacking key geographic features: mountains, a desert, a pier and a clearly … Continue reading

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History Lessons, it helps with perception but not enough

History Lessons is really a collection of excerpts from foreign History textbooks and their take on particular events in US History. Namely, how the event affected their nation, what was their participation, how their textbook writers see it, etc. Besides … Continue reading

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1972: Ziggy Stardust makes his debut in London

Hard to believe I would find this on the History Channel’s site. It was a very interesting little snippet about David Bowie’s career. I never knew the whole Ziggy Stardust character was supposed to be a prank. Maybe all the cocaine … Continue reading

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My initial experience with the new Star Wars RPG

Twenty years ago this Summer, the first version of the Star Wars roleplaying game appeared at GenCon or maybe it was announced. Either way, it really dampened the 10th anniversary of Traveller (three mentions over the weekend, must be a … Continue reading

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“What’s Opera Doc?” turns 50

Somara said today was the 50th anniversary of this great cartoon’s first public showing, probably as the cartoon that accompanied a feature movie back then. Sadly, more reliable sources (namely imdb.com) contradict wherever she received the claim from. Either way, … Continue reading

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My 1.5 minutes on NPR

I chose to put this recent incident under my relatively new Brushes section because On the Media is aired nationally with numerous NPR affiliates and iTunes offers the podcast. Last week, they did a piece on SIGMA working with the Dept. of Homeland … Continue reading

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Robert A. Heinlein would be 100 today

I think my wife is more qualified to speak about his writings. He has been more of an influence on the writers I read during my bigger Sci-Fi period in high school. Heinlein definitely left a mark in the character … Continue reading

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Happy 2nd Birthday to Owen, belated one to Rad

I remember this today but impolitely forgot his dad’s birthday. I don’t have a current picture of him on hand right now, these posts tend to be spontaneous. Owen should be having a great time now that he has his … Continue reading

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Now if I could harness DDR to the Grid

I caught this on Marketplace’s little 10-minute newsbreak. Nice to hear about these Dutch guys combining their love of music with sustainability. Now if they could do something about most Europeans’ poor tastes in music and odd love of David Hasselhoff.

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Free Agency signings were plentiful this year

The news isn’t official about JR retiring as far as I’m concerned because it hasn’t been announced on his site and NHL.com would mention it. Flyers reporter Tim Panaccio hasn’t been able to completely verify and the rest of the … Continue reading

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Ratatouille

Quick disclosure on this review. Pixar’s head guy is Steve Jobs who is also the CEO of Apple, my employer. Hiring director Brad Bird was one of the smartest moves Pixar ever made. For years he worked on The Simpsons and … Continue reading

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Picayune, Weblog format, two years later (belatedly)

Whoops! I forgot that the shift in Picayune‘s style was on July 3rd, not the 5th. So what do you all think now after 677 entries in two years, a new set of colors every month and according to the Server, … Continue reading

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