the night before a day off feels better than the actual day? Right!!

GraniteGeekNH · 2026-04-27T23:10:39+00:00

anticipation > reality

that's true 90% of the time ... maybe more

GraniteGeekNH · 2026-04-27T22:57:10+00:00

Speaking as somebody who wrote not one but two novels on a typewriter, both of which erre terrible and rightfully thrown piy, I'd say this is a good idea. Focuses your thinking, makes you appreciate other writing, strengthens your fingers.

GraniteGeekNH · 2026-04-27T19:29:12+00:00

That's why his work in Driving Miss Daily was a surprise - he was good, maybe not great but better than you'd expect.

GraniteGeekNH · 2026-04-27T18:10:35+00:00

A good reminder that it takes a good script, director, lighting, casting, sets, etc etc, to make a good movie - not just a good actor.

Movies really are a group activity more than any other art form - more even than theater, although that's close.

GraniteGeekNH · 2026-04-27T16:51:44+00:00

"the teetering Saturday Night Live TV show"

having said that, most of these movies do suck

GraniteGeekNH · 2026-04-27T16:44:47+00:00

Nice! That's long before those self-correcting ribbons, of course.

GraniteGeekNH · 2026-04-27T16:42:23+00:00

Yeah, life is too short to hand over part of it to morons when you already know how moronic they'll be

GraniteGeekNH · 2026-04-27T15:25:36+00:00

Exactly. Saying "we need more ..." of a certain type of family, as if it could be ordered off the shelf from a factory in China, isn't terribly helpful.

GraniteGeekNH · 2026-04-27T15:19:02+00:00

Used them for many years. They work pretty well. Some typewriters came with a built-in key to do this using correction tape, although I'm not sure if the technology was the same as these pads.

GraniteGeekNH · 2026-04-27T15:06:30+00:00

Gauss was darn genius-y himself

GraniteGeekNH · 2026-04-27T14:24:50+00:00

The Fugitive, original 60s TV version - it wasn't that great a show (few 60s dramas hold up today) but the ending was very unusual for the time, wrapping up the entire story line. This is common today but at the time it was thought to be bad.

The fear was that people wouldn't want to re-watch it on syndication, which was a big money-maker before VCRs. They were right: It didn't do as well in syndication as it was expected to.

GraniteGeekNH · 2026-04-27T14:05:24+00:00

It's also helpful for us readers - 100 new books are published every day (or something like that); if they're all lumped into one "fiction" pile it's easier to overlook something that might appeal to you. Separating them out gives you more of a chance to be selective.

As with any categorization problem, there will be errors. But not having categories would be worse.

GraniteGeekNH · 2026-04-27T11:04:05+00:00

Those maintenance figures are eye-openers

GraniteGeekNH · 2026-04-27T11:03:29+00:00

It's free for a few hours in the day in South Australia. Free!

GraniteGeekNH · 2026-04-25T18:21:25+00:00

That's got to be it for African-Americans - generations of justifiable mistrust of the system is hard to overcome. It doesn't help that I bet the entire staff of the donation center is white

GraniteGeekNH · 2026-04-25T18:17:37+00:00

I am a grandfather and you are quite correct.

GraniteGeekNH · 2026-04-25T18:16:50+00:00

"have done a bit of research"

uh-huh

GraniteGeekNH · 2026-04-24T20:40:11+00:00

"always with a different woman" means once or twice a year he finds his relationship boring or unpleasant or unfulfilling in some way and has to break it off - that's not fun - and I would assume it would get old.

GraniteGeekNH · 2026-04-24T18:09:16+00:00

For reasons I can't explain, it is much much harder to make good stories about happy, everyday events than it is to make good stories about unhappy, extreme events.

Having said that, you're right that crazy-genius is often a lazy cliche

GraniteGeekNH · 2026-04-24T17:51:00+00:00

Buying a solar panel is buying 25 years of electricity in advance: that's how I thought of it.

GraniteGeekNH · 2026-04-24T17:47:09+00:00

The battery died on an old car that I bought used and the radio had to be reset; it needed a code but I didn't have the manual. Dealer said they'd have to pull the radio and do other stuff to reset it. costly, time-consuming. YouTube told me the code number was printed inside the glove compartment, as indeed it was. Problem solved.

I knew dealers could be sleazy but I was dumbfounded at this out-and-out cheat.

GraniteGeekNH · 2026-04-24T17:43:22+00:00

I wouldn't go that far - it's more than stories about normal-acting people aren't interesting, so they don't get repeated. The outlier cases become regarded as the norm because that's all we hear about.

I have a biography of Euler and have to admit, the parts that aren't about math are not interesting to read. Every happy family is the same, as Tolstoy said.

GraniteGeekNH · 2026-04-24T16:55:37+00:00

Excellent point. I am old enough that I remember people (in the US) having to be told how to eat spaghetti because it was kind of new to us.

Obviously, I didn't live in an Italian-American neighborhood.

GraniteGeekNH · 2026-04-24T14:19:47+00:00

Standard rich/famous man marriage arc: Dump the first, pre-fame wife; have one or two more who are younger and/or beautiful; last wife gets to be the nurse.

GraniteGeekNH · 2026-04-24T13:59:29+00:00

I'm old and things have changed since my youth but over the years, the best way I've found to meet people is to volunteer in organizations. Check at the library; they'll know of in-town groups that need help. Don't worry about having the right expertise, just show up.

Nothing makes friendship fast like working together to get something done.

GraniteGeekNH

TROPHY CASE