I’ve been fighting a cold, and it’s gone straight to my head – feel like I’ve spent too much time in the pool or something. I did manage to get some cooking done today, so let me take a second to share a few points: I think I’ve gotten the hang of pizza dough. I’ve […]
Went out with Pattie tonight to the Helium Comedy Club in Philadelphia, a small, pleasant club that’s doing the best job I can remember of bringing comedy headliners into Philly. We had front row seats to see Jake Johannsen, who did a great routine filled mostly with new material. Indeed, a lot of the material […]
I’m fighting a cold, so no major entry tonight. I will encourage you to check out Young Philly Politics and the Next Mayor Blog for continuing coverage of Congressman Bob Brady’s small snafy with the filing papers for his mayoral candidacy. Now normally this might be the kind of thing you chalk up as minor […]
I’ve been sitting here at my desk watching a swirl of bad news affecting other people – stuff in the news, stuff that friends are going through – and it made me think a little more about how damned lucky I am. I have a freaking amazing life and I really gotta remember to be […]
This ought to sum up the life of a Philadelphia sports fan. It’s a paragraph from the AP’s coverage of the 76ers’ win over the Seattle Sonics: Once a leading candidate to earn the most pingpong balls in the draft lottery, the Sixers instead are talking about the playoffs. The postseason is still a long […]
Fading to Black is a blog that covers the ongoing decline of the newspaper industry in North America and the possible consequences of that decline for journalism. It’s an interesting read, and has the added benefit for me of being a window into how Canada is dealing with these issues. The blog highlighted my earlier […]
Following up somewhat on yesterday’s post, here’s an article from today’s Inquirer about brain research in Germany, where scientists are conducting research to see if they can use brain scans to determine a person’s intention to perform a mathematical operation. In one study, participants were told to decide whether to add or subtract two numbers […]
I’ve been giving some thought to explanations lately. As a teacher and as the parent of a five-year-old, I spend a lot of time explaining things, and I’ve been wondering a bit about what makes a good explanation. I’m talking here about explaining why things happen the way they do – explaining what the heck […]
One of my assignments in my education courses this semester was to evaluate several WebQuests – basically, online lesson modules that have some kind of interactive research component for the students. One of my chosen subjects was this module, where students conduct research in order to be able to hold a town meeting debate for […]
So we went grocery shopping at Whole Foods tonight. And things were going quite well until we got to the cereal aisle, and I discovered that this store had discontinued both of my favorite varieties of granola, Back to Nature’s Apple Cinnamon and Apple Strawberry. I made an exaggerated gesture of sadness at this development, […]