I'll just entertain myself

I just learned that Pluto has not made a complete revolution around the sun since it was discovered. All the more reason to kick it out of the club, I say.

Editor's note: This post was originally published on July 26, 2015. The topic — the meaning of the greeting "namaste" — was in the news this week. According to a report in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, a Georgia elementary school introduced yoga classes to de-stress students, but some parents thought that certain elements of the practice reflected a "non-Christian belief system." The school sent an email about changes in the way yoga will be taught. One change: The greeting "namaste" will be banned.

If you take a yoga class in the U.S., the teacher will most likely say namaste at the end of the practice. It's a Sanskrit phrase that means "I bow to you." You place hands together at the heart, close your eyes and bow.

That's not the namaste I know.

My parents taught us to say namaste as kids growing up in India. They told my younger sister, my brother and me that it was good manners to say namaste to the elders. It was the equivalent of hello, but with an element of respect. If we didn't say namaste, they wouldn't consider us to be good kids.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/07/26/425968146/whats-in-a-namaste-depends-if-you-live-in-india-or-the-u-s

I've written the following - EB

To quote Charles Dickens: "The law is a ass." - Mr. Bumble, from Oliver Twist

Puts me in mind of the last time I sat in a doctor's office. I brought along a book to read. It was a paperback with a title and images to evoke Tibet or else some place in the region nearby. I don't recall exactly. This clean cut guy with a crewcut and suit was also waiting. After getting a gander at my novel, he said as loudly and clearly as he could, "I never allow any kind of eastern thought into my mind." Supposedly addressed to the nurse behind the desk. She tried to ignore him. But I grinned slightly and turned the page and kept reading.

While browsing a record store around mid-1964, I chanced across The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. I had never heard of the man, but some songs he wrote for the album were already familiar to me. Telling myself that a person who could write those songs just has to be good, I plunked down my $3.98 plus tax and took it home. Now, here is Bob, turned 80 today, and more of an icon than ever, and I love him as much now as then. The first time I saw him live was at a concert in Long Beach, CA, not so long after the release of Highway 61 Revisited album. His first half was acoustic. After a break, during which I watched Barry McGuire leave his seat and go backstage, Dylan performed the songs from Highway 61 Revisited, using the same band that recorded the album. My favorite concert ever. I've since seen him a few times more - Tried to buy a ticket to the memorial concert for Woody Guthrie - All I can say to Bob is, "May you stay forever young."

I have been able to catch up with episodes of Tales From the Dark Side this past week. A UHF channel has taken to airing the program at seven PM, on weekdays. Yesterday's first episode featured a woman who received a mysterious package. Turns out, the content related to weight loss. She was instructed to put an object in her ear before her next meal. So, she is in this nice restaurant with her date, with this nice steak dinner before her. Every time she attempts to slice off a bite, the meat screams in agony, unnoticed by her boyfriend. Upset, she calls off the date and goes home. She discovers a second package, containing this time, a pair of glasses. She impulsively tries them on. After a moment, she tries to remove them. They are fixed to her face, permanently. Likewise, the ear contraption. Now that she wears the glasses, the fruit and vegetables have begun talking to her, begging her not to eat them. She ends up, dead, after sewing her own lips together.

You might like Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace.

Thanks. I will search for it.

It’s a parody, v tongue in cheek.

Since I got a smart TV I am seeing new to me stuff. I didn't know there was a Ray Bradbury Theater, for instance. The series is rather old but I don't mind.

I didn’t know that either.

I saw the film version of Fahrenheit 451 some time ago, I think it was made for TV.

I was running the channels and came across Bradbury's The Sound of Thunder. An episode of Ray Bradbury Theater. Some days Roku runs several episodes in a row. It seems to have originated in Canada.

I read the short story but I’ve never seen an adaptation of it. It has been referenced hundreds of times. I remember the Simpsons one with the toaster most fondly.

I first became aware of Sound of Thunder when it appeared in an EC comic book in the 50s. I think the comic was titled Weird Science but could be wrong.

It was ruined for me by having to write an essay on it immediately after finishing it.

Mozart in Mirrorshades by Bruce Sterling and Lewis Shiner takes the exact opposite tack. Nothing the time travellers do affects the(ir) future, it just sets off an alternative time line.

That makes the past a third world resource rich place ripe for exploitation and they’re not happyabout it.

I could see time travel creating multiple time lines or not. It's something I've avoided doing any stories about. I feel inadequate to address it. But I love reading about it, ever since getting hooked on Alley Oop as a kid.

I was hooked on Doctor Who, I don’t know about Alley Oop.

Can’t have made it over here.

Alley Oop was a comic in the newspapers. It started out he was a caveman who often rode on a pet dinosaur. After a few years the author introduced Dr Wonmug and his time machine. Alley Oop visited every known area of human history. An abomination carries on the same characters these days.

Obviously not taken up, some have like Peanuts, and Hagar the Horrible, but we’ve got a lot of our own.

I have the run of the strip in binders that fill up two very long shelves. Much of the art and many of the stories are actually still good. One little tidbit - Oop was the model for the face of the Sphinx.

When British comics strips look back over time they normally claim the character is an ancestor of the protagonist rather than travelling in time.