Category: Miscellaneous
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Huh?
Can anyone explain why my Thursday post apologizing for missing a week of posting got more than 600 hits? That's about ten times more than anything since my gripe about Marty McFly's dad.
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We Apologize For The Interruption
Apologies for my absence. I was traveling and didn't have the time (or reliable Internet access) for 'blog posts. But because I was traveling on my own, I wound up having a lot of time to think about various things, and one of them was this 'blog. Up to now I have focused on "long…
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A Vexillic Issue
Most State flags are awful. There, I've said it and I'm not sorry. Even my home State of Louisiana has an awful flag. There are fifty States in the United States, and two-thirds of them have awful flags. What makes an awful State flag? Well, twenty-nine States have flags that are horribly boring. You can…
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The Inertia of Stereotypes
My family and I are fans of the past decade's amazing string of Marvel superhero movies. In the film Captain America: Civil War, the villain (not really a spoiler, here) is an eastern European military man named Zemo. What's interesting is that in the comic books, Zemo was always Baron Zemo, a Teutonic villain of…
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Boskone 55, Featuring MEE!
On the weekend of February 16-18 I'll be at Boskone, the grand old New England science fiction convention, now in its 55th year. My schedule is below — stop in at the Westin Waterfront in Boston and join me! Friday, February 16, 4:00 p.m.: Kaffeeklatsch — Join me for a cup of coffee and discussion…
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Euthymus Contra El Zombi-Lobo Achaeanico!
Fans of Mexican B-movies are aware of the long-standing popularity of Luchador movies. These feature masked wrestling stars, but their opponents aren't other wrestlers, as one might expect. In film the Luchadores battle ghosts, spies, Frankenstein's monster, Aztec mummies, gangsters, mad scientists, aliens, monsters, and vampires. Sometimes all at once. According to Wikipedia, the genre…
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Counting Down
Once again, it's time to link to the greatest Christmas Web site ever. I refer, of course, to the NORAD Santa Tracker. As I write this, their countdown stands at 6 hours and 41 minutes. The tracking begins at 6:00 a.m. GMT, which is when the sun is setting in New Zealand and the Pacific,…
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PhilCon 2017, Featuring MEEE!
This weekend sees the return of Philadelphia's legendary science fiction convention, PhilCon! And once again I'll be there. If you're anywhere in the mid-Atlantic region, come down to Cherry Hill, New Jersey and join the fun! My schedule for the con: Saturday, November 11, 12:00 noon, Executive Suite 623: Readings. I'll be reading at noon,…
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An Ancient Dessert
In the course of a recent bookstore raid I got a copy of Arcana Mundi by Georg Luck. The bulk of it is a compilation of writings by classical authors on occult topics. While reading it I stumbled across a passage translated from Homer, describing how the enchantress Circe turned Odysseus's men into swine. To…
The Cambias Digression 