Back in 1914, Shaw’s Pygmalion opened in England. There was an uproar, even before the opening, because the press knew that a certain word would be used by the main female character. I recently bought (for a dollar, thank you very much) the Cambridge Encyclopedia of English, which reprinted an article from an outraged newspaper […]
Author Archive | weeklyrob
Shoot Him
One of the many funny lines in Pulp Fiction was when Vincent said something like: “Jules, if you give this nimrod fifteen hundred bucks, I’m gonna shoot him on general principle.” So, here I am watching an episode of the hugely entertaining Rockford Files (on hulu.com). And Jim Rockford gets mad and says something like: […]
Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike something I'll read
I guess that money can make anything happen. Douglas Adams is dead, but next October there’ll be another installment of the Hitchhiker’s Guide trilogy, this time written by a non-Douglas Adams person. The BBC brings us the story, without so much as a raised eyebrow. This doesn’t make me happy at all.
Nucular
Palin says it the same way Bush does. I love it. Anyway, two quick videos that maybe I’m the last to see. Palin said that US soldiers are going to Iraq on a task from God. Asked about that, she tried her best to backtrack, hem and haw, and pretend that it’s similar to Lincoln’s […]
Bring It!
I’ve been waiting for this for a LOOOOOONG time. (That’s pronounced “long,” not “looooo+ng.”) Let’s see some action.
Welcome to Oz
I’m reading The Fatal Shore, by Robert Hughes, about the settling of Australia. It’s very good, and much more interesting than the blurbs make it sound. Hughes writes with humor and doesn’t leave out the juicy bits. I didn’t know much about the convicts in Australia, but I was completely wrong about how it all […]
Regret
XKCD is a very good geek-math-science-love-humanity comic strip. (Not like all the geek-math-science-love-humanity comic strips out there that suck.) This one says it all about regrets. As everyone already knows, regrets are usually about what you didn’t do. But it’s so hard to remember that when deciding whether to take the risk.
Magazines
I dropped my subscription to Seed magazine and to Macworld. Kept Wilson’s Quarterly and Wired, and I thought I would leave it at that. But I had forgotten about the new kid on the block I had already subscribed to. They’ve finally released the premier issue, and I got it recently: Knowledge magazine, put out […]
Jesus Says: Burn in Hell
Richard Dawkins reads his mail:
Fabulous Wii Theatre
The Fabulous Fox Theatre in Atlanta is an extraordinary place. It was designed to be sort of mosque-like, but also like the palace of a sheik. It’s huge, and has lots of rooms and corridors and everything is decorated. Because my friend Amy is the assistant production manager there, I was allowed to do something […]