Recent Comments

1. about 6 hours ago on Gray Matters

   “An underachieving voice coach finds herself competing in the movie trailer voice-over profession against her arrogant father and his protégé.” —the short IMDB write-up for the movie In a World. . .

2. about 6 hours ago on Rabbits Against Magic

   “And Ukraine should never have invaded Russia, right?”

   Yeah, and Czechoslovakia should never have invaded Germany, either. Fortunately, in 1938 Chamberlain and Hitler were able to put matters right (without inviting Czechoslovakia to the table), and bring peace to their time. /s

3. 1 day ago on Tom the Dancing Bug

   I thought that lamp posts were the favoured venue for mass revenge. Check out the slightly grotesque “À la lanterne” article in Wikipedia.

4. 1 day ago on Tom the Dancing Bug

   Alas, it was looking as if the Conservative leader was attending Trump Leadership University, hitting strong on Culture War, “Populism,” and beating on immigrants. And it was looking as if he would be able to beat the admittedly-tired Liberals in the upcoming election.

   Ironically, the Orange Guy’s boast / threat to take over Canada seems to have soured many Canadians on the Conservatives, and Liberals are now thought to have a chance. Or maybe my own quasi-socialist party might—who knows?

5. 1 day ago on Dick Tracy

   And Spencer Tracy could wrestle man-alligators with one arm.

6. 1 day ago on Doonesbury

   I gather that the most colourful Speaker of the 21st Century (so far) was John Bercow. I’m not aware that we in Canada have had such notable characters.

7. 1 day ago on Luann

   “Even if it’s just Gilbert & Sullivan. . .”

   In 9 Chickweed Lane, there’s a character whose life’s ambition is to play in The Yeomen of the Guard.

8. 1 day ago on FoxTrot Classics

   “I knew what I wanted to do with my life.”

   I was a slow learner. In my freshman year at college, I played with the school’s IBM 610 (84 memory locations, programmed on a plugboard or with a punched paper tape). I thought that it was the most wonderful toy anyone could get for a growing boy like me. Later in my academic career, I ran into other computers—IBM 1620, IBM 7040/7094, CDC 6400, and loved them all.

   Somewhat stupidly, I kept up with the academics, while continuing to be “The Computer Guy” in my department. When I finally graduated, I looked for jobs—either in academia or computing—and computers came up first. I became a computer consultant, realizing that that was my true calling.

   I worked in a number of languages, but perhaps my favourite was Delphi—a descendant of: Pascal.

9. 1 day ago on Dick Tracy

   I had an honorary uncle, good friend of my parents’, who was the lead technician at the medical school’s Anatomy department—he was in charge of the cadavers that the students took apart for education.

   He had some letterhead printed up: Knox, Burke, and Hare: We make mummies out of paupers.

10. 1 day ago on Dick Tracy

    For architects, perhaps the most interesting and influential entry was the second-place finisher, the submission from Eliel Saarinen, Eero’s father. See En.Wikipedia.Org/Wiki/Eliel_Saarinen%27s_Tribune_Tower_design

    I used to have a nifty paperback set from Rizzoli, the art/architecture publishers. Volume 1 was all of the official submissions. Volume 2, “Late Entries,” contained designs, many of them somewhat fanciful, from contemporary architects and artists.