Fred Astaire was 42 years old when his character was drafted in You’ll Never Get Rich, released some months before Pearl Harbor. What?!

I found a laser pointer lying around …
Bramble sat up and watched the spot attentively.
Rocky chased it like a demon.

I return to Cascadia after a 39-day visit with Dad in the high desert. He forgives me for not fully sharing his admiration for dry scenery.

We watched a slew of movies together: Wreck-It Ralph; Midnight in Paris; Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog; The King’s Speech; Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner; Hot Fuzz; Tucker & Dale vs Evil; The Good, the Bad, the Weird; 3 Idiots; Brave; Absurdistan; Going by the Book; An Unexpected Journey; The Thirteenth Floor. (He didn’t “get” Dr Horrible and I didn’t “get” Atanarjuat, but in general we approved of each other’s choices.)

We also watched about a dozen NFL games, including the first round of playoffs (the “wild card” games). I had seen few if any games since Jerry Rice’s day, and was surprised at how the defense dominated most of these; in particular, I saw very few successful long passes.

Much as I enjoy Dad’s company, I am glad to get back to familiar routines, green grass, and cats who know what my lap is for.

Backtracking a search that led to my runes, I found this page that seems to claim that the futhark descended from a Russian system based on segments selected from the wheel graph W₆. One needn’t accept the claim to find the system at least a little bit interesting.

I’m too literal-minded. When I hear corporate puff like

None of this would have been possible without the complete dedication and teamwork of every one of you in this room

I think, wow, just imagine all the grand projects that vanished without a trace because one of several hundred drones either lacked complete dedication or was hit by a bus.

A new participant on Wikipedia, with an axe to grind, wrote to me:

I’ve seen your articles. Devout liberal garbage that even your own administrators bash you for writing.

Less than a week later, that editor has been banned for persistently trying to use Wikipedia to push political agenda — and now I’ll never know what that crack was about. I have administrators?

Hm, Shapeways has an API. If I were a skilled Web programmer I’d make a page where you can choose the size and frequencies of a Klein bagel model …