Sunday Linkage Clearing House!

Some links that have been gathering dust in my bookmarks!

:: "Why would you waste cream and sugar on anything that you don't like?" Nifty little video on one restaurant's tradition of celebrating departing crewmembers with a pie in the face.

:: Universes that blur the line between SF and fantasy. The genre lines are not sharp borders....

:: Found: Map of Middle-earth, annotated by JRR Tolkien himself.

:: Behold the most complicated watch in the world. This thing is amazing.

:: The tangled cultural roots of Dungeons and Dragons.

:: Unopened mail...from 400 years ago.

:: Making a Dagwood sandwich...and, if you're so inclined, making the original Dagwood sandwich.

:: How the ballpoint pen killed cursive. I've never been able to make up my mind about cursive and whether or not it should still be taught. I've never really understood the logic of learning to write twice, but I don't get the idea that it hurts anything to learn, so...I dunno.

:: They've found a new earliest use of the F-word! (And by the way, if you're one of those who thinks the F-word is an acronym, please stop. You're wrong.)

:: Making The Warriors. I never saw that movie, but I've sure heard of it.

:: How Richard Scarry updated Best Word Book Ever to reflect a newer world.

Finally, on a much more serious note, two pieces that pretty much encapsulate my thinking on the horror that's been unfolding in the world the last few days: The Price of Civilization by Jim Wright, and Paris by John Scalzi. I honestly don't have any great prescriptions for making our world better, although I do cling to my faith that we (as a species) are getting better, albeit so very slowly that sometimes it doesn't seem like we're getting better at all. I do hope that we don't completely give in (and by 'we', I mean the Western powers and not just the United States) to the eternally-seductive notion that if we just let slip enough of the dogs of war, for a long enough time, we'll eventually kill all the bad guys and let the credits roll on a victory. History just doesn't work like that; it never has, and I see little reason to expect it to work that way this time.

With that, I go back to writing. Excelsior, and live well, people!