No midnight oil

I was so exhausted last night that when I went to take a nap at about 8 PM, I didn’t get back up. I was supposed to get up at 10 PM, but at 10, I decided I needed more sleep. I told Kelly I’d get up at 3 AM. At 1:30 AM, I was [...]

On through the night

I worked 11 straight hours today without pause, getting ready for the rollout of the Visitor application tomorrow evening, and doing some work on my other big project. I was hoping to finish Our Oriental Heritage but the only reading I got done today was on the train into work this morning. I’ve still got [...]

The dissing of science fiction

Robert J. Sawyer had some smart remarks today on this dissing of science fiction. I completely agree with him. Isaac Asimov did too. He also used to insist on being referred to as a science fiction writer, which is what he was always mostly known for. But, like Rob’s experience, people shied away from that [...]

It just isn’t worth it

In the mail today, was an offer from American Express, for a free companion ticket (valued up to $500), if I was willing to try, risk free, some travel magazine that I never heard of. I read the fine print. I would be charged $2.99. I would then be billed $19.99 if I decided to [...]

Japan

I left China behind this morning at around 5:30 AM and at once started on the last part of Our Oriental Heritage, Japan. Keeping in mind that this particular book was published in 1935 (and therefore written some years before), I found this passage particularly interesting: The third act is modern Japan, opened up in [...]

Jamie’s Rules #1: Waiting on “hold”

I will not wait on hold longer than 15 minutes. If I have to wait longer than 15 minutes, I hang up and the place I was calling loses out. Or, if it is for something like changing the expiration date on a credit card (which is what I am trying to do at present), [...]

Monday, Monday

I was supposed to get back to the gym this morning, but couldn’t because I stayed at Kelly’s last night and we normally don’t leave her house until about 8 AM (whereas I leave my house at 5 AM). The reason I stayed at Kelly’s last night, when I had been planning to head home [...]

Sunday in New York

Even though we went to bed late, we were still up at around 8 AM. Around 10:30 or so, Kelly and I headed over toward Central Park. We arrived at the Boathouse Restaurant around 11 AM and met Kelly’s friends–Angie, John Jon (thanks, Kelly, for the correction), and their little girl Emma–for brunch. Surprisingly, we [...]

A night of jazz hosted by Bill Cosby, himself

First, Saturday afternoon: sometime after noon, Jen, Jason, Kelly and I headed over to Central Park to walk around the reservoir. It was cold. We made it about 2/3rds of the way around when Jen simply couldn’t stand the cold anymore and insisted we more to someplace warmer. Initially, “someplace warmer” was Central Park West, [...]

In New York

Kelly and I caught the 5 PM Acela to NYC yesterday. I tried to upgrade us to first class with some free upgrade coupons I had, but since I had already used one discount (Kelly’s ticket was a companion ticket) I couldn’t do it. So we rode in the regular Acela Business Express class. We [...]

Early math

Here is what I was doing at 5:30 this morning: Imagine a grid that contained a list of an arbitrary number of things, but displayed only 7 at a time. Suppose the total number is 35. If, when rendering the list, you wanted to have it take you to the “page” on which a specific [...]

Tax rebates and taxing days

The government decided to fight the recession today with a tax credit. The idea here is that taxpayers will get rebate checks. $600 if you are single and $1200 if you are a couple. In the fine print, single people who make more than $75K or couples who earn more than $150K are out of [...]

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  • Vacation in the Golden Age

    Episode 32: February 1942

    Stories by Smith, Moore, Brackett, Jones, Sturgeon

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    Episode 33 coming February 20

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    All Clear
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