Category Archives: General

My favorite cat

I haven’t posted anything but ginger beer updates and memories of cats that have passed away for a long time. Maybe one day I’ll think of something else worthwhile to say and have the time to take to say it. And I have missed an entire life, our tiny little black and white kitten, Poppy, […]

Who the hell is Russell Brown?

A few years ago I noticed I’d gotten email for Russell Brown at my email address. I figured it was just regular junk; I get more than enough misaddressed spam. But mail for Russell Brown (always addressed to RUSSELL BROWN in block caps) kept arriving, and I realized that it was all from travel companies. […]

Basil, 4/2009-6/2009

I’m not sure if I’m ready to write this, but I want to try before I forget too much. I delayed my birthday this year to Saturday June 6th because my wife was out of town until then. When my fake birthday arrived, she presented me with a gift that was completely unexpected – a […]

A taste of England – for a time.

When I first came to the US, I didn’t consider that it would eventually become my home. After I took up residence here, I don’t think I ever quite believed it would be permanent. Even after I married, I think I assumed that sooner or later we’d move back to the UK. The more I […]

A fishy story

Vicki’s tropical fish tank has been set up for years, and I hadn’t realized how run-down it was getting until we started working on it a few months back. Adding some new angel fish was a bad idea; we introduced a disease that killed off all but one of our clown loaches and all but […]

Conning Kids

I was paying last month’s cellphone bill this week and found a charge I didn’t recognize on Simon’s phone. He’s 11, and shouldn’t be incurring extra charges. He did have a couple of games that Vicki told him he could download, but this wasn’t one of them. AT&T couldn’t tell me anything about the charge. […]

ConDFW

The con was worthwhile. I brought home a couple of useful pieces of knowledge. Always read a story aloud; to someone else if possible, but to yourself if not. You can hear clunky phrases more clearly. If you stumble over a sentence it might be awkwardly written, and if you run out of breath, it’s […]

Next Weekend

… Con DFW

Gnomes

Elliot graduated from UTD Saturday. I’ve never been to a US university graduation ceremony before, and I thought it was very well done. I still don’t understand why it’s called “commencement”. The one sour note for me was the commencement speaker. It just seems like it’s become obligatory to describe the world in terms of […]

Love enough to break a heart

Terry Pratchett just gets better. I’ve always loved the Discworld books (except the first two; they’re okay, but not up to the standards of storytelling of the later ones). The stories are so imaginative that it’s easy to forgive a few places with sloppy point of view or a climax that drags a little. I […]