Past Articles

Woe to the shoemaker whose children have no shoes, or the baker who is without bread. I felt like this tonight when I stupidly clicked on an email claiming to be giving me a password and found my computer hijacked by the evil worm that turned out to be a […]

Bruce Wallace writes in the LA Times (thanks World Hum) about the trip of a lifetime–to North Korea–for a group of hard core world travelers, including Joe Walker, whose been nearly everywhere else on earch. “This is definitely the weirdest trip I’ve been on,” he said as the Ilyushin headed […]

Boy what a bad idea. I thought I’d save some money by switching my home internet to cheap Verizon DSL for $14.95. More than a few times I wondered if the $42.95 Comcast clipped me for each month was worth it…hey it’s all high speed, right? WRONG! Verizon suckers people […]

Chris Anderson is the editor of Wired and publishes a blog called The Long Tail. Today he posted a grim list for Mainstream Media, showing all of the indices that are down and the ones that are up. Down: Box Office: down by 7% this year (tickets per capita have […]

Newsvine is a new way to look at the news, being developed for rollout early next year. The Seattle Post Intelligencer reports that the company will be offering a news site with feeds from the AP, ESPN and other sources and users will be able to rate the importance of […]

Today is a lovely day. A day to rake leaves, or walk in the woods. Or play poker with my pals. I’ve opted for the latter, so today I will join Donny, Dave C, cousin Steve, and Eddy V over at Steves for some good old fashioned seven card stud. […]

Charles Cooper of CNET writes about blogs and newspapers and the clash of the two. “During a panel discussion on Internet versus traditional media that I attended this week in Santa Clara, tech columnist John Markoff of The New York Times and tech columnist Kara Swisher of The Wall Street […]

You know those books you keep trying to finish, that languish on your bedside? One of mine is Paul Theroux’ “The Pillars of Hercules,” about a journey around the Mediterranean. His observations of people are keen, below is a section about what he saw in Sardinia. “It was a marketplace […]

The most depressing thing, writes Tina Brown in the Wash Post, about the spat between Times reporter Judith Miller and her colleague/nemesis Maureen Dowd was the tired old debate it kicked off about who’s the bigger vamp, Mo or Judy? “According to Dowd in a lethal column that put her […]

When I was making a fire I used Sunday’s NY Times holiday films section. I read a story about the new 50 cent movie called ‘Get Rick or Die Tryin’. He and the director, a famously short Irishman, were filming in New York on location. A bunch of Fifty Cent’s […]

The new skywalk at the Hualapai Indian Reservation, sticking 70′ out and 4000 feet above the Grand Canyon. 

Francisco Cosme got good news yesterday. My future son-in-law has proven himself at Yankee Candle Company, where he got a temporary job several months ago. He’s going to massage school now, weeknights and Saturdays, so he has to report to work at four am to make up hours. Every morning […]

When it comes to multitasking, it’s hard to beat the woman who can rob a bank and never interrupt her cell phone conversation. Today’s Washington Post reported on a woman who robbed banks while on the phone. “In an act of either incredible cool or something much more sinister, a […]

They are two icons, almost cartoon characters, who have been doing the same thing for 35 years. They are Billy F. Gibbons and Dusty Hill, whose trademark foot-long beards and sunglasses make them instantly recognizable as Texas’ famous rockers ZZ Top. The pair were interviewed by Alan Light in today’s […]

I had an interesting exchange with a local newspaper editor about blogs today. I answered his email out loud, NO NO, I said, newspaper reporters are NOT the ones who should write blogs. “Blogs are something else. Some are erudite and accurate. So many are narcissistic drivel. I think our […]

From the NY Times Book review came this quote from a review by Henry Alford of John Hodgeman’s “The Areas of My Expertise.” “Many people know the Oscar Wilde lament, ‘it is a sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information,’ but how many people are actually DOING […]

Peter Guralnick was interviewed on Fresh Air recently, he wrote a book about Sam Cooke called Dream Boogie. The most interesting item I recall was his tale of how this music legend met his untimely demise. He said that Cooke for most of his life preferred the company of hookers […]

Last night we watched “Inside Edition,” and among their breathless revelations were details on how the pirates were repelled last week from the Seabourne Spirit Cruise ship sailing off Somolia’s coast. A large, round device called an LRAD is mounted on the ship’s upper deck. This machine emits a highly […]