Reading: Forgotten Gems from the Twilight Zone Vol. 2
Music: Pendragon
TV/Movie: Futurama
Link o' the Day: issue 0 from January 2001 of Fanzing (the Warlord issue)

Some interesting bits of trivia I ran across...

Did you know that in every movie featuring either Tom Hanks or Tom Cruise, there is an extended scene featuring one of them running?

There are several types of ants in South America that not only produce honey, but produce it more efficiently than bees?

Wild peanut shells contain three peanuts. It's only the domesticated variety meant for consumption that normally contain only two?

Canned food preceded the can opener by about 50 years?


Following the Spanish-American War, the king of Spain presented the US with a rare species of ficus tree now known as ficus americana. Every US president since McKinley has kept a ficus plant in the Oval Office grown from a cutting from the original tree. Theodore Roosevelt took some cuttings to his Long Island estate and it is now the most common species of ficus in North America.

Every person who has been sent into outer space by the United States has had at least two grandparents who lived to be 100 or more.


Well..not really. But doesn't all that sound like stuff that could be true? Of the above six items, only one is true. The other five I made up. (I leave determning which is which to you as an exercise.)

I'm considering making this a regular feature in my blog posts. "Rumor Has It..." or some-such. The point, I think, is how easy we can be fed misinformation if it's worded properly and sounds even vaguely plausible. How many of us are expert enough in anything to be able to gainsay such statements as those above with absolute confidence? Take the last item for example. You might be an expert on the space program, but information on astronaut families isn't exactly common knowledge. To be absolutely sure, you'd have to spend time researching each and every person the US has shot into space. Time consuming at the very least.

Do I have a point, or am I am just being a jerk? The jury is still out.

What it comes down to is that I should never be allowed to edit Wikipedia articles.

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Got up a little early today and got a head start on a few things. I turned in the complete proof to Hardcastle and McCormick yesterday and received back changes to the Lonnie Burr book much more quickly than I expected. The SFWA Bulletin (#181) has been delivered to the printer, and it's time to get cracking on the March issue of Medicine & Health/Rhode Island. Busy busy.

There are some interetsing book projects on the horizon. I hear tell an autobiography by The Amazing Kreskin may be in the offiing. And there'll be a Louise Brooks book coming soon as well, and another very interesting book featuring interviews with actors, directors, writers and so forth on the creative process.

Good stuff a'coming.

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Today's link visits issue 0 from January 2001 of Fanzing--a neat little DC Universe online fanzine. Why this issue? Because it features a ton of great stuff about one of my all-time favorite comics The Warlord. They should really collect this series into a big bound edition. Tracking down all 133 issues, plus annuals and special appearances is a bit daunting, but these were great Sword & Sorcery adventures. Better than Conan.

So shout outs today to Travis Morgan, the Warlord, and all the Skartaris gang.

Cheers!