the benefits outweigh the risks. spoken like a true scientist who lives with his head in the clouds totally discounting the number of dumb asses there are out there who want to do evil in the world. why don't you just teach the bad guys how to put the bad virus together (so they don't stumble on it accidently and let it loose), then you can tell them to play nice and not hurt anyone, counting on them to do the right thing. what idiots.

omg

no, thank you. i don't need to use the restroom.

isn't that cuuuuute ....

Rock Stars!! or dandelions, depending on how you look at it ....

look what we can do for you

i can see it now. these space adventurers want to go out and mine for resources they can send back to earth. for the good of humanity? ha! get outta town. for the profit and power and glory, of course. and i can see just exactly what would happen. they send down some stuff from space which carries a teeny little virus which kills us all. yep. republicanism at its best.

the old soft shoe, er ... shell.

so. there's something new on the market in the bicycle field. a new kind of helmet so that you don't have to wear the hard helmet all the time. this thing is a scarf you wear around your neck and it inflates if it detects some wild gyrations. see it here.

many ways to touch someone

if someone you know and care for is in a nursing home and but a shell of their former self, expose them to music and see if it helps them want to be part of the world again. touching video. thanks, husband.

there's fun out there

i got such a kick out of this video. i mean, you're walking down the street, stop to push a button, and all hell breaks loose! (i got a real kick out of the kid!) at least this was all in fun -- yay!! i mean, can you imagine seeing some mad violence and then it turns out to be real? yuck, bad!

coughing is the pits

MOS and the grandkids came up a couple of weekends ago. that was a fun time. they're 2 and 4 now and gorgeous kids. after they went home i came down with a cold. that was bothersome for a few days, then i started this cough. oh good lord. this was a horrendous cough and i drank water and put heat on my chest and slept as much as i could. the cold is gone and the cough is retreating, but it lingers. i hear that whooping cough is going around. since i was immunized way back when, i wouldn't think it would be a problem for me, but this cough sounded a lot like how i imagine whooping cough would. kind of a bark. and omnipresent. and annoying as hell 'cause once it started up it just wouldn't quit. i didn't call the doctor for any meds, since we're having such a hard time getting my blood pressure meds figured out and since i already know i'm allergic to codeine, so i took some of those burt's bees cough drops and amazingly they worked pretty well. lemon drops also worked. fisherman's friend worked for the husband. i have no idea how those could have made a difference, but no sense in arguing with what works. and one of these days it will be all gone. thank heavens.

age-related

i've always been a brunette and i like my hair. in my twenties it was long and sleek and pretty. in the sunlight it would show some red hairs and sometimes you'd see a purple sheen. i thought that was cool. these days my hair reminds me a lot of my mother's .... she was a blonde.

math is complex

jason padgett must have an interesting life. he used to be a ne'er-do-well who was beaten up by some thugs and came away with a mind which understood math. his drawings are incredibly intricate, and he says he sees math formulas in everything around him (example below). i don't think i'd want to have his talent. it would probably be an imperative, and there wouldn't be much time for anything else.

nightscapes

these pictures of the colorado sky at night are beyond lovely. my favorite is the first one (shown below). nicely done, mike berenson!!

can't we just put the bad people on another planet?

it seems that once again everyone is being warned there's a really bad virus out there, and this time the fbi is involved.

so i went to the recommended site and scrolled down to the first one of their 'check it with this' sites and my computer seems to be okay.

for now.  sheesh.

just (cough cough) a minute (cough cough) ... ouch

i've been sick -- a really yucky cold. usually i don't get sick, but this is the second cold this year. interesting that they can use the phrase 'a cold' for vastly differing symptoms. this last cold made me feel like i was 10 years old -- very snotty. and not from the nose but much deeper. yuck! and the cough from hell, or from the lungs anyway. irritating and very unpleasant. i'd like to go back to being well, please.

cities of the future

i saw an article the other day which discusses alternative housing for cities. it seemed curious to me that the ones which got the main prizes were not ones that i thought were impressive.

i was very interested, however, in this one which talks about putting a city into the side of a mountain. i'm not sure what the deal is on the surface covering they show, but maybe i didn't read the article hard enough. regardless, i would love to see this thing in action!

the only other one which caught my eye was this floating one.

to beyond

this is just pretty darned cool. and it's hard for me to understand why he's unemployed. do businesses not understand what an imagination this guy has?

it's a 6-minute clip, but it's so interesting you don't even realize the time it's taking. enjoy!

what's out there...

even though i'm completely out-of-touch with today's standards of humor, tv shows, music, pranks, etc, i think this kid is pretty cute. he seems like a normal kid who's pretty aware of things. take four minutes and see what you think.

i also think small houses are cute, but these little bungalows are a bit too small for me.

oh, how cuuuuuute...

in a twist on the normal way of things, this mommy is cuter than the baby! i love the dandelion-head look!! (or shag rug or whatever you see...)

can you hear me?

this is an interesting room. i'd kind of like to try it myself. i mean, i've got this permanent ringing in my ears so it seems like the room shouldn't bother me as much. the article didn't mention if anyone has tested deaf people in there. i wonder what kind of 'being able to last' difference there is with that group?

stormy skies

wow -- this is unreal. i mean, there's just something about a tornado video ... you just can't not watch it. this one isn't too long and it shows, the first i've seen, a number of trucking units being picked up and tossed around. it's just like 'twister,' which i thought was a good flick. the thing that i really thought was weird, though, was seeing all the traffic continuing on the highway less than a mile away (a guess). don't those people know that's dangerous? a sign of the times, maybe, huh?

too much fun

now today, boys and girls, we're going to go down the bunny slope. no ... wait ... not on your back ...

one big happy family

that's good. everyone just get along, now.

(it just shows how friendly everyone is in alaska!)

flexible flyer!

oh my god, this woman is 86 years old. she is totally amazing!

walk softly ...

man, it can get really vicious out there in nature. see goose. see man. see goose attack man. see goose chase man away.

abuse encouraged

so you think we should accept muslims and their faith in this country? does that mean you think it's okay to abuse women?

let's go play

i've always thought swiss family robinson looked like fun. if you ignored the spiders, the bugs, the mosquitoes. and last year my grandaughter and i climbed up (via stairs) into a tree house and later i realized i'd been bitten by something nasty.

but this tree house looks like fun and you're supposed to be able to live in it. for a day or however long. i'm not sure what i think, because ... wind?  spiders? tornadoes? ants? you'd have to be choosy where you built it, and spread around some kind of magic ward-away to keep little critters at bay.

but if you're just day dreamin', yeah. it'd be fun.

up ... no, down

here's another good video. about a climbing bear who understands english!

night lights

have you been in an airplane at night and seen the lights from the sky? from the cockpit? this video is so totally cool! i watched it first without the sound, then with the sound. it's easier to pay attention to what you're seeing without the sound. and it is sooooo neat!!

nature's beauty

MYS bought me some flowers before they left. awwww, that was so sweet. i don't get flowers very often, and these are beautiful. they are little carnations, creamy-white background just ever-so-slightly tinted with pale-pale-pale-yellow, with powdery hot pink and vivid violet colors on the edges. he couldn't have chosen better and i am still enjoying them. much pleasure!

bit o' blarney

the husband decided he wanted to have corned beef and cabbage this weekend. YAY! we love good corned beef. and he put it in the crock pot this morning before he left for the park. BOO! what?? well, i mean, come on. i've been sitting here at home all day, politely reading my book, and smelling that delicious smell. torture, i tell you!

but when he comes home ... YUMS!

great family!

MOS and his family were supposed to come up for the weekend a couple of weeks ago. then they all got the flu. oh yeah, i remember that -- young kids mean everyone's sick a lot of the time.

about the time of the cancellation we got the news that MYS and his fiancee were coming up for a couple of days on their way to a seminar she was going to. YAY! we hadn't seen them in x-months and it was great news.

older son, younger son, and the rest of us all got together one afternoon. it was great to have everyone in one place and i just wish we all lived in the same area so we could do that more often.

love them all!!!

excellent summary

this is the most-well-done pregnancy video i've seen. actually i don't remember seeing any others, but this one wins, hands-down. i just wish i'd be able to see pictures of the kid, month-by-month, for the first three years.

career options

daddy dresses baby. sooooo cute!!

they're just ordinary people ....

this is totally cool. i don't think i could stay with this star wars project for a whole year, but it's fun that he did. and pretty clever. and i wonder how much time of his day, was taken up with doing it? storm troopers ... at ease.

what do you mean it's not funny?

this video of a laughing man makes me wonder what they're saying. his wife seems awfully glum. i suppose it could get pretty hard to be around him ....

playhouses

do you like tiny houses? i do, and this maine husband-and-wife people have neat imaginations! yay bilbo!

now not so much ...

i'm trying to decide if i want to quit using google or not. their privacy issues are irritating. i used to love that company. . . . 'power corrupts' as they say. if i change blogs, i'll let you know.

worse than the past ....

i don’t have much imagination, but i have wondered what it would look like if there was a huge world war. these images are interesting but it seems to me like it would be much, much worse than these pictures indicate. but, again, maybe i just don't have enough imagination.

get outta my face!

if you're a firefox user, you will delight in this new information for staying aware of who's watching over your shoulder.

i'll pass. no, really.

this is a little spooky(as in, a lot). a roller coaster ride set up to deliberately kill you.

catches your eye

i completely forgot to show you the picture my nephew and his wife sent us this christmas -- love it!!!

the dotted line

it's just so silly when you have a product that you're supposed to open by pushing in on the dotted line which has supposedly been intermittenly slit to make it easier. ha! for some ungodly reason that slitted line seems reinforced so that it can't be opened, and you end up pushing in the whole side of the container and breaking your fingernail. what, exactly, are they thinking?

and then there are those little individual pill containers which indicate you simply have to pull back the backing and extricate your pill. ha! i'm sure they weld the backing to the container edge so that the only way to get to the pill is to stab the container with your magic sword. again, what are they thinking?

don't think about it, just do it

honestly, it's always an argument. "Go take your pills." "I don wanto. I don wanto." "Go clean the bathroom." "I don wanto. I don wanto. I don wanto." "Brush your teeth." "I don wanto." sometimes it's just hard to get yourself to do something.

oh yeah...

this kid is definitely getting jiggy with it!

zippin' around ...

okay! i'll take one of these. one big car, one little car. perfect!!

kinda like a dodo bird ....

i always thought kakapo meant ... well, nevermind. but this is a parrot bent on self-annihilation. the females don't want to mate, the males want to mate with everything, and all of them live to be 90. the birds only eat one thing and that is a fruit that only is on the tree every four years. weird.

superma ... oops

and you've seen pictures of that guy in a squirrel suit who flies off tall mountains and zooms down at x-ty mph? he had an accident last month and broke both his legs. there's a video (i watched it with the sound off and it was fine) which shows the accident but it's really confusing because he has a follower. i didn't realize there was a second guy (yeah, i'm slow ... so?) and the scene didn't make sense until the third time. at any rate, it's an interesting montage. and it looks like he only had his 'chute open about 2 seconds before he landed in some bushes. which had to really hurt since his legs were broken. and you have to wonder if any other, um, appendage was hurt because he hit the rocks just below the waist. i mean, ouch and forever.

oh good grief!

oh, this is so typical of the way some people think:

"Germany was criticised in a report issued by The Council of Europe’s anti-torture body, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT). In its own words it regards itself as 'influential in setting the EU political agenda, but it has no powers to pass laws'. In its report on castration it said, 'The CPT must express its fundamental objections to the use of surgical castration as a means of treatment of sexual offenders. Surgical castration is a mutilating, irreversible intervention and cannot be considered as a medical necessity in the context of the treatment of sexual offenders. In the CPT’s view, surgical castration of detained sexual offenders could easily be considered as amounting to degrading treatment.'"

that's rich. but it's okay to brutalize or murder children? get your heads on straight. these people deserve no considerations. none. they are non-rehabilitatable.  some people are just bad, so you deal with them, permanently. Germany at least makes the procedure an option. you CPT people are dolts.

my baby is a cowboy ....

the husband bought a truck.

danger, will robinson

since it's probably a crap-shoot as to when a computer would become infected, i wonder if it would help to turn off your computer when you're not actively on it, like when you head for bed or leave the house. dang these hackers, taking away all my fear-free fun and changing my innocence!!!

just let me toss in a load of clothes

i want one!! i'm not sure how you'd wash a quilt or bedspread, but i love the concept and the convenience. i probably won't be around for the 2050 production date though .... dangit.

did you pick up a gecko?

wow -- this is cool! they've figured out something small you can use to stick heavy things to the wall. i wonder how they'll price it

hand lotion

i am very particular about my hand lotions. a lot of them are really stinky. i mean, some fruity thing or some exotic something-or-other which totally makes me gag! other lotions are too greasy or too waxy.

but my daughter-in-law gave me this one which says it's for very dry skin but it doesn't claim a fragrance. it has one though. everytime i put it on i immediately find myself sitting in the weeds behind a big old barn on a gorgeous sunny day popping a new piece of bubble gum in my mouth. and i love it!

i mean, it sounds weird. but the fragrance is so clean and woodsy and happy and child-like. and i used the last of it last night. it's just sad.

wait! hold the phone! i just read the back of the tube. they say rainmakers of shea and cocoa butter, sunflower, soybean, ginseng, aloe, gentian root, murumuru, mango, kokum butter, boise oil, palmarosa, galbanum and grapefuit.

nah ... sunshine, bubble gum and weeds.

"But, Officer ...."

An officer responded to a homeowner’s call for assistance when the resident could not locate the source of an obnoxious persistent buzzing noise inside her house. Together they were able to narrow the list of potential culprits down to a single misbehaving appliance. Once again it turned out that the guilty party was the normally quiet one that you’d least suspect.

Police responded to a report of an occupied suspicious vehicle parked near a business late at night. The occupant was contacted and he explained he was living in his van and planned to be in the area for just a little while. He said he had been hiding from outlaws for years and years, and this town seemed to be a safe haven for the moment. The man agreed to change locations so the business nearby could enjoy the same feeling of safety.

An officer contacted a man in front of the police station, where he was asking for help getting to the next big town, after being deported from Canada. The gentleman turned out to be wanted by the state of Oregon Parole Board on a felony warrant for parole violation. He was provided a ride to said town and a safe warm room in jail, quadruple occupancy.

Police received a report of a suspicious vehicle parked just off the road at a business. The arriving officers contacted a young adult motorist who had driven off the road, damaging his car as he crashed into the nearby landscaping rocks and shrubs. In the process the driver suffered substantial distain and numerous disparaging remarks from his carload of young friends. His wounds were dressed by traffic citations and a collision report.

this is how you do it

i'm sure you've noticed how they pack a lot of air in those potato chip bags. and you've probably had to get a pair of scissors to get them open. and you can forget about pulling the sides apart because the seams are welded together. well, it's possible to just push the sides together to get them pop open. and does it work? yes. and where do they open? on the bottom. what happens then? you get greasy salty chips all over your clothes. is it hard to shake the pieces of chips out of your clothes? no. will you do it that way again? no, i'll use scissors.

high up in the sky

okay, so this guy is going to go up  to 120,000 feet and then dive toward earth and part-way down he's going to be going 690 mph. at what point does he start to burn up? this is so bizarre. if he doesn't burn up, how can his body withstand that speed? i'll take an enclosure myself, thanks.

the loss of individuality and one-ness

is this a day you'd like to be scared? i suppose you'd think it was scary only if you had any brains. this article talks about merging computers with our grey matter and carrying on. oh ick. if you read down the paragraphs, it just conjures up sci-fi at its scariest.

and supposedly it's going to happen soon. but then, as richard smalley says, "When a scientist says something is possible, they're probably underestimating how long it will take. But if they say it's impossible, they're probably wrong." that feels like a totally accurate statement. so ... ick.

kids play!

so here's this little 18-month kid playing table tennis. sort of. but he hits the ball like a pro even when he's not watching. and he's a cutie.

on the other hand my grandson could do that. only he'd hit the ball to hawaii. that kid's got power.

flowers that glow along with the bride

at first i thought they were pretty when i read the article, then i went to their website and decided they were kind of spooky. making the flowers pretty would take a little talent so that they didn't end up looking spooky.

vary inteligunt

i wonder if he does this more than once (as in, it's a regular feature) or not. it's pretty interesting to watch high school kids give answers to questions a peer asks. some are downright funny. and some make you wonder. and, oh yes, canada is a state.

beware trojan horses

did you see there's a new form of virus which can infect your computer from an e-mail just by opening it to read it? you don't have to have an attachment or anything. now, that's scary.

i'm planning on reading my e-mails from now on just using the reading pane.

the mile-high club?

oh good grief. we are totally losing our perspective here. two airplanes humping? on the cover of a magazine? no sense in studying anthropology ... we're back to being cavemen.

don't leave home without it

did you ever want to see someone caught in an avalanche? this gal was snowboarding and triggered an avalanche and used an airbag to keep herself on top. it's interesting to watch. curious that the whole thing was filmed, but i don't suppose they had that all planned out.

can this be real?

my oldest younger brother sent me this story and pictures. it's hard for me to imagine, and i'm left wondering how often this happens.

The law of the wild says kill only when you are hungry. Photographer Michel Denis-Huot, who captured these amazing pictures on safari in Kenya's Masai Mara in October last year, said he was astounded by what he saw:

"These three cheetah brothers have been living together since they left their mother at about 18 months old," he said. "On the morning we saw them, they seemed not to be hungry, walking quickly but stopping sometimes to play together. At one point, they met a group of impala who ran away. But one impala youngster was not quick enough and the brothers caught it easily."

the ideal ... maybe?

OMG, doesn't it seem like it would be lovely to live in a little town which had sidewalks but no streets? you have to go by boat. the video is nice but it made me wonder what the downsides were. and what in the world are their roofs made of?

string 'em all up

14,000 vs 460 million. i agree that $14,000 seems a little low to compensate for a ruined holiday, ruined clothes, frightening experience, inconvenience, etc. but $460 million? fucking lawyers are the leading cause of insanity in this country today. okay, one of the leading causes. sheesh.

sports and ads

are you curious about the superbowl ads? go here to see some short clips. i thought the priceline ad was dumb. very dumb. but i enjoyed the chevy ad -- poor baby. the audi clip was interesting. the volkswagon clip required effort on my part.

evil dictates

i quit liking amazon x-years ago when it was revealed they marked the cost of things differently for different buyers according to some system none of us knew about. now they are telling companies they have to price their items the same no matter where they sell them. i still don't like amazon. they are draconian.

current art

i think i've seen stuff this alex pardee person has done because the hugely fat and skinny-fingered images feel familiar, but i'm just not sure. all the same, if you want to see his take on superheroes, look here.

don't ... uh ... read

who knew that reading would cause the apocalypse? this short film is interesting, i guess, but mainly i don't get it. and i didn't think it was as funny as the reviewer did (as in not at all). it must be an age thing.

play that funky music

i guess the moral of the story is to always support your kids in what they want to do. or at least in what they're good at. this 8-yr old is pretty good. and cute.

oh joy!

do you like color? i do. and i enjoyed watching this little thing. they're dancing!

toddlers!

absolutely adorable little british baby girl -- father wants her to say he's her favorite. very cute video!

where's the sled? the snow shoes? the blanket?

i wanna move to alaska!! 172 inches of snow and counting! yay!!!

they live in a different world

they're being punished if they didn't cry after the death of their horrible leader. i just have to shake my head. sick, sick, sick.

a flaw in the system

okay wait. so this one sleezy mother kills her twin daughters and she's probably going to end up in jail for life. and then this sleezy dad beats his 6-month old baby and renders his blind and brain damaged and he gets eight years.

just what kind of justice is this? yes the mother should be put away for killing the babies. but the father should be castrated at the least. eight years is absolutely no punishment for the horror of what he did to that kid. it's beyond disgusting.

the future from the past

this is so neat. all the highways and byways and flyways and the way they get back to the top and how very clever. i wouldn't have been able to envision this thing at all. metropolis 2 is fun to watch -- those cars are going so fast and why don't they fling themselves off -- and i really, really like the music. check out what mahogany says at 5:18.

blindfolds and heads in the sand

i've been curious about physic things for as long as i can remember. someone is always wanting to call it bunk, someone else claims it's all true.

i've experienced the kind of thing in this article as have an awful lot of people. i enjoyed the article and would love to see the scientific world accept this stuff, even if they don't understand it. americans will probably be the worst about accepting it though.

i still remember one time when my girlfriend and i were staying in canada and were driving from somewhere back to our camp. all of a sudden i realized we were going the wrong way. there were no signs and i had no idea where we were or where we were headed since she was driving and i wasn't paying any attention, but i KNEW we were going the wrong way. so i told her we needed to go back and get on the right road. we turned around and went a few miles back and sure enough, she had missed the turn.

i actually attribute this more to a strong sense of magnetism in my body than a physic thing because i knew we should be going north and i felt that we weren't. but still .... it's all strange.

nature's art

if you like pretty colors and interesting creatures, check out this underwater video.

if you're full of ennui, watch this

the husband likes these guys. they're pretty funny. i watched this video of a road trip after i watched the one the husband sent me about their christmas songs.

google! of course!

have you seen this store-front-lights thing? the e-mail i got it in showed it from 1:14 on and i knew what i was seeing but wasn't sure of the purpose. then i watched it from the beginning and that, plus the end, made it all clear. it was simply a commercial.

but, whoa! what a commercial. way to go, google! (love the colored squares!!)

love their fun!!

you need to enjoy google's holiday search page.

people in glass houses

i just can't decide -- i mean, would you or would you not be bored in this house??

yeah, right...

stop protecting the jerks

so these guys are in a packed stadium playing a game and a loonie runs onto the field to attack a player. the player quickly responds to the threat, knocks the guy down and kicks him a couple of times. wrong response apparently. they threw the player out of the game.

the ref said knocking him down should have been enough. but i have a problem with that. listen ref, go after the bad guy, not the victim. this coddling of the bad guys and their rights really needs to stop.

if someone is going after you, you should not get in trouble for responding. a strong response might make the next guy think twice about running onto the field in the first place.

way to go!

i love this story and everyone is so happy for her. the puck went through dead-center! she was meant to have that truck!

too late for her

i will be simply amazed if this child grows up to be a productive member of society. she is clearly spoiled and probably demented if she's gone this long without discipline or direction. my guess is that she will commit some crime and end up in jail, or become a tough guy's mol and end up being killed. so be it as long as she doesn't come in contact with me and mine.

merry whatever and happy whenever

the franking commission staff must be a bunch of unamerican bozos.

the midwest rocks!!!

i LOVE stuff like this -- it is so totally and wonderfully American!

i don't feel like it

this is a really cute article about a guy who tried getting more in touch with his feelings. not a bad thing for guys to try. and if they could do it with this kind of humor, all the better.

no ... wait ... come back ...

i know, i know. it's just mean to laugh at little kids. especially when they're ... hahaha ... sitting on Santa Claus' lap ... hahaha ... and being a ... hahahahahaha ... kodak moment!

ears to the music ...

did you know that cows like music? if not, see this.

i can't what?

hahahaha .... this is not a surprise.

"One reader said that these religious 'leaders' give Islam 'a bad name'"

true. so true.

but WHERE is the pretty?

i've always thought of texas as dirt and mesquite bushes -- bleechk! then my cousin sent me this link and now i'm impressed. neat video! (and that cowboy had on a WHITE shirt -- wonder if his wife saw him leaving the house in that?)

yawn...

well, nevermind. jasper fforde's first two books were pretty good, but i just finished the third one and ... yuck. finished as in, read the first 71 pages and skipped through the rest. ho-hum and yuck. oh well.

back and forth and backandforth andback andforth

oh this is way too much fun!!

look at this video from harvard natural sciences and watch how a series of pendulums, each a little longer than the others, are in sync then get out of sync as time whizzes by. it's interesting and fascinating, as well as oftentimes funny.

thanks to my ex-boss max for the link!!

smooth groove

Groovera is still, of course, my favorite music station. i just listened to a track by Silk on tim's facebook page. very smooth, very nice.

honestly, one of these days i simply have to get an i-pod so i can gather (read: buy) the different musics i love, and listen to them!

graffiti wars

got this from the husband. it is totally cool!

i want one!

okay then, i'll take one holodeck in my mountain get-away, and one in my library here in town. i'll get one for the kids, and maybe buy another house to put one in there, too. but i don't want the green monster.

down, down, and away....

did you ever want a wingsuit? it's pretty clever. about the only way i'd use one, though, would be if i were in mountainous terrain and needed to escape from really evil people. but they'd have to be REALLY evil.

it's right there in front of you

i haven't seen anything recently which has made me change my mind.

here's one muslim's quote:  " 'I have to pray. I have no choice but to break the rules.' "

and here's the other article's headline:  "Saudis fear there will be ‘no more virgins’ and people will turn gay if female drive ban is lifted"

face it. they are different from us in a way that threatens the fabric of our society. it's not like the irish immigrants or the blacks breaking out of slavery. if the direction doesn't change, these people will be the death of the america i was born in.

starting with the eyre affair

okay, i can now report on Jasper Fforde: he's delightful! if you want an easy read, one which provides laughs, is silly, and has things that don't make sense but it doesn't matter, join Thursday Next on her adventures.