All Purls. No Swine.
Happy May 13, National Frog Jumping Day! I can’t think of a better way to celebrate it than to reprint here the story which started it all, Mark Twain’s The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. It was his first significant published work, and appeared as Jim Smiley and his Jumping Frog in The Saturday Press (a weekly New York literary… Continue reading Celebrating National Frog Jumping Day
One shortcoming of current machine-learning programs is that they fail in surprising and decidedly non-human ways. A team of Massachusetts Institute of Technology students recently demonstrated, for instance, how one of Google’s advanced image classifiers could be easily duped into mistaking an obvious image of a turtle for a rifle, and a cat for some… Continue reading I Know a Hawk From a Handsaw. And a Cat From Some Guacamole
LOL. Following on his his refusal to apologize, and his subsequent "resignation" under duress from Hello, Breakfast, or whatever that show is called, for the thought crime of disbelieving Meghan Markle's Oscar-worthy performance in her conversation with The Oprah last month, Piers Morgan has struck back, suggesting that the senior Primate of the Church of… Continue reading Fire that Canon!
I like to share the vicissitudes joys of life on the farm with those I love. So this morning I sent the above shot of Pinky and Perky in their playpen in my kitchen, replete and mercifully (temporarily) quiet after breakfast, to my brother. His response? “You’re microwaving them?”
I wrote about my Ur-cat Psymon a few months ago, about how he came into my life, and about his propensity for stealing cat food and climbing up library ladders. Well, add one more to the list. This story starts with the dogs, two giant Great Pyrenees who are, at the grand old ages of… Continue reading Psymon Strikes Again!
I was lucky enough to view the pre-publication chapters of this book--Virga Joy (Or the Adventures of El Colonel de Corona), and to be able to weigh in, in a very small way, on its final content. It's a very pleasing work of escapist fiction, written, in its entirety, by a friend. Enjoy! And please… Continue reading Please Consider This Book–Perhaps As a Christmas Present
But worthy, nonetheless:
So there I was this morning, laughing uproariously at a YouTube video of a sheep having joyful fun on a trampoline: And while I was noodling around looking for other amusing animal videos because I didn't want to go out and put on any more house siding today, …. I ran across the Australian news… Continue reading Words Fail Me. Well, Hardly.
Dear Spectacles, I’m giving you fair warning here: I’ve had enough. Enough of your silly games. Enough of listening to you snicker as I stumble blindly around the house trying to find you after you’ve hidden yourselves away for the infinity-umpteenth time (borrowed that locution from my granddaughter who, when she was four, learned about… Continue reading An Open Letter To My Spectacles
Ah, but not in the way you’re thinking, although I’d love to hear about the most expensive/best/worst meal you’ve ever eaten when you were dining out. Remember that? I do, and I miss it, even though my family’s endeavors in that area rarely approached the exorbitant, the world-class, or even the gourmet. (One startling exception… Continue reading Food and Drink Post: Restaurant Memories