When our first child was born, we were naturally nervous about what to do. Most new parents will recognize the feeling that we had, of facing an enormous responsibility for which we were totally unprepared. Since this was in Sri Lanka and we had plenty of extended family and relatives and friends close by, you would think that we had a wealth of advice that we could draw upon. Actually this did not help because, as is the custom there, every one of them gave us plenty of unsolicited advice, with all manner of rules about what we should do in every situation that was often conflicting, confusing, and overwhelming. [Read more…]

What is it with gun owners accidentally shooting themselves in the buttocks? We had the earlier story of someone accidentally shooting himself this way with his concealed gun while reaching for his wallet. [Read more…]

I have written before (here and here) about my mystification with people who blindly depend upon and follow their GPS instructions even in situations where common sense would tell them to double check or have a plan B. This can lead them badly astray and even end in tragedies. [Read more…]

If you were driving by and saw on the sidewalk a man struggling with a woman over a bag, what would you think? [Read more…]

Here are two examples of people turning small everyday items into projectiles without any mechanical aids. In the first case, a man throws ordinary playing cards in a way that can slice vegetables. [Read more…]

I enjoy playing the board game Scrabble, starting with my family when I was a child and playing with my own daughters when they were young. And now that they are grown and have moved away, I am still able to play with them thanks to the app Words With Friends. [Read more…]

As I have said, I am a sucker for animal recue stories.

This time we have a series of photos of a mother dog repeatedly going into a burning building to recue her 10-day old puppies one by one and carrying them to safety.

Sadly, one of the puppies did not survive the burns.

As some commenters on my post about badminton pointed out, table tennis is another game that requires very quick reflexes and is another Olympics sport that is well worth watching. [Read more…]

Almost everyone has heard the story about how Orson Welles produced a radio drama based on H. G. Welles’ story The War of the Worlds that was broadcast October 30, 1938, the night before Halloween. The dramatization largely took the form of a series of news bulletins that interrupt regular programming about the Earth being attacked by Martians. The story goes that people who heard it thought it was a real news story and there was mass panic and hysteria, with people all over the country running out of their homes and into the streets in fear. [Read more…]