Not too long ago I attended a talk by Stephan Pastis the creator of one of my favorite comic strips: Pearls Before Swine. Of course he described the process of getting a strip selected for syndication (a process ultimately aided by Scott Adams), how many times he had to submit and so on. This reminded me of my own experience in that arena. Being a “child” of the 60’s…uh, not the bead wearing “peace, man!” slacker types, my sister filled that...

It’s no secret that Apple has produced a number of oddball machines: the spasm-inducing Mac Portable, the original Color Mac, the eMate, and so on. Toss into this hodge-and-or-podge is the Twentieth Anniversary Mac, otherwise referred to as the “TAM.” The TAM was a boutique computer, designed by Sir Jony himself, and celebrated the 20th anniversary of Apple. Released in the spring of 1997, the TAM was initially priced at $7499, and was the...

The predictions were dire. Scientists warned of crop losses that were sure to doom billions to starvation, entire countries would be wiped out and the seasons as we know them would all but vanish. As familiar as these headlines sound, they are not from Al Gore’s latest “documentary” but come from febrile writings scattered across 1890s on through the early 1930s. The enemy in this case was not global warm..I mean, climate change, but was...

It’s no secret that Prof. Stephen Hawking is a “rock-star scientist”, as much as Einstein was in his day. Both have the reputation of being considered about the smartest people who’ve ever trod this veil of tears, even if only a few people can actually understand the substance of their contributions to science. Contributions which are substantial, whether understood or not by the public. Hawking’s reputation is naturally enhanced by his tragic...

Since we’re in the High Holy week for space nerds everywhere as this being the 45th anniversary of Apollo 11, my Weird Crap is a pair of handrails from a lunar module. They don’t look like much, but they’re FREAKING HAND RAILS FROM THE FREAK’N LUNAR MODULE! I wasn’t sure on how to display them but then did this as the “porch” to the inner sanctum, the second floor in other words.

Growing up in the 60s, I was a bit too young to get into the officially approved rockhippieantiwar-run off to the Height and Groove all Night-scene. That duty was relegated to my sister who was 4 years older and part of the prime demographic for VW Bugs, beads and Patchouli incense. And we were only about 35 miles south of The City. My job was to follow the moon program. So odd to think that as I write this, it is 45 years since the One Small...