Cult of the Poison Dart Frog

Lipstick by the self

Zoe, with mom's supervision, applied lipstick.

The Circle of Life

Until our daughter's goldfish were spotted eating one of the "golden mystery snails" they shared the tank with, we were uncertain what was causing their high mortality rate.

One of the deceased.

Apparently, the snails were no mystery to the goldfish; the larger snails retreated into their shells after having hunks taken out of them and died, making for more of a mystery. But the smaller ones got sucked out of their shells wholesale.

What survivor of the apocalypse are you?

Which Survivor of the Impending Nuclear Apocalypse Are You?
A Rum and Monkey joint.

Rainbow over Duck

A rainbow we spotted this summer after a huge downpour on NC's Outer Banks. It was part of a treble rainbow--we saw three full bows, nested.

The Idiot Box

Why is it that some people, when placed in front of a television camera, have the uncontrollable urge to make asses out of themselves?

Take, for example, the brother ofBethany Hamilton, the 13-year old surfer in Hawaii who lost her arm to a shark over the weekend.

While being interviewed by news-chiapet Matt Lauer, he kept flashing the "hang loose" hand signal at the camera, as if he was checking himself out in the mirror after smoking a nickel bag of Maui Wowi.

You see it everywhere. When Baltimore was flooded by Hurricane Isabel, and the cameras were on the scene to interview people who had lost property as a result, there was always some loser in the background waving to the camera ("Hey look, I'm on TV!").

For these people, Sony has the EyeToy, a video interface for the PlayStation 2 that puts the player on the screen in the game, and uses body movements to control play. And they realize it, too--check out their US advertising campaign, which spoofs the "I'm on TV!" syndrome.

So, please, step away from the camcorder display in the mall. Move away from the live report from the crash scene. Go home, turn on your PlayStation, and wave to your heart's content.

Stephen King--didn't he retire?

It's hard to believe that Stephen King is still, even in his alleged retirement, managing to drive the publishing world into a frenzy with the aid of his seven-book "The Dark Tower" series. Let's face it: King is so last millenium. He's just not scary anymore--Hell, our president is scarier than he is. How do you sell horror stories when "The Stand" starts to look like a transcript of a Congressional subcommittee in comparison to the real world's horror/action movie plot?

You have to admire his work ethic; King has churned out nearly as much pulp as Issac Asimov did in his lifetime, and a lot of it sold very well. But he has become something of a domesticated pet in the last few years--there was that horrible accident in which he was run down by a drunk driver, and the long recovery, but I doubt his injuries have had anything to do with the decline of his stock as a writer. He's up against the evening news these days, and the evening news is winning.

The definitive moment for me in Stephen King's conversion into a vest-pocket member of the literary pet set was when he started doing a column for Entertainment Weekly. While his columns have been somewhat entertaining, they don't shed a whole lot of new light on anything.

But somehow, he retains his grip on the publishing world, and his seven-book opus is being pumped off the presses at a decent clip. It's like one of his early short stories--the printing presses have come alive, and they're bent on destroying mankind by drowning them in a sea of Stephen King novels.

Crimes against Television

Ladies and gentlemen, let me first admit that I did not watch "Average Joe" tonight. Technically speaking, I only overheard it as my lovely wife watched pieces of it. And let me tell you, that was enough for me, thanks.

Admittedly, the concept is subversive enough--a woman who could be categorized as being in the 99th percentile for physical beauty getting stuck with a horde of middle-percentile loser men from which she must select her True Love(tm). But in the execution, it's probably the most demeaning exercise in reality television since the Naked Guy on Survivor.

Tell me, why should I watch?