Sentential Links

Time for the weekly links.

:: I am now... (this is the super-cool part)... a historian. I get to record history. For a living. (Ayup, that's pretty cool. I'm trying to make up history for a living! Not there yet, though.)

:: When I turned 50, I could think, “Maybe I still have another half a lifetime left.” After all, the number of centenarians in the United States has been growing. Willard Scott, with whom I share a birthday, BTW, still announces the birthdays of those over 100 on NBC-TV’s TODAY show, as far as I know.

Now that I am 60, though, I have to acknowledge that I’m not going to live another 60 years, even if I move to Azerbaijan and start eating yogurt soup. (And if I’m wrong, which one of you is going to write to correct me?) (I will. When Roger turns 120, I'll be a sprightly 101.)

:: Earlier today,we saw that Batman was ready to retire, psychological paralyzed by an inferiority complex triggered when he took one measly bullet during a mission.

Superman's "brilliant" plan--set up a fake crime wave in Kandor, so Batman could solve it and get all better.

Problem--the plan misfired (duh), the menace was real, but Batman found out it was a plan and is now all "I hate you!" (I seem to recall that exact plot from episodes of The Brady Bunch, Three's Company, and Eight is Enough.)

:: I will not buy anything I see in a pop-up ad. They are the most annoying form of advertising ever devised. I know the big problem with the internet is that no one has figured out yet how to make a substantial profit out of it. That certainly is my problem. Banner ads are only slightly effective. And newspapers and other sites have found it’s difficult to charge people for their services when other outlets will provide it for free. Why go to reputable newspapers when there are people like me in their underwear banging out blogs? (You know, this seems as good a time as any to get this out in the open: I have never, and will never, bang out material for this blog whilst in my underwear. Make fun of my overalls if you wish, but I am not blogging in my underwear. That is my pledge to you, dear Readers!)

:: Burroughs was pretty much done with Tarzan in 1914. He was feuding with his editor at All-Story over reprint rights and didn't have a lot of motivation to continue the series. But when a new editor took over the magazine and promised to work with Burroughs on his complaints, Burroughs agreed. He even accepted the new editor's idea of making the next story about Tarzan's son, Jack, running away from London to Africa with an ape. It would be the last time Burroughs set part of a Tarzan story in England. (Michael May is digging into the literary past of Tarzan. Check it out!)

:: Good morning, America! Are you feeling a little … discombobulated? Like you didn’t get enough sleep? That’s because you’re under the boot heel of the United Nations and their one-world “Daylight Savings Time” plot.

More next week!