In retrospect, driving from Oakland to Texas without checking the weather report or taking time zones into account was foolhardy. This is why I am never on time to anything; every trip I plan always seems perfectly reasonable to me until someone else reacts to it. By then it's too late to change anything. "You can't drive from California to Austin," my dad said, after laughing so hard he started wheezing when I mentioned I…
Robert Benchley was the smartest and the funniest and the best man who ever lived, and I will brook not even the whisper of the most whimsical misandry about him. He was the only member of the Algonquin Round table it would have been possible to have a pleasant lunch together with. His wisdom is timeless; I will pass some of the best of it onto you now.
My darlings. Today I can leave you only with an apology and a promise -- I am driving to Texas at this very moment, and as such cannot devote the time I would like to crafting the perfect ode to Adventure Time's Princess Bubblegum/Marceline pairing, which is rapidly approaching canon. The gifs I will have for you, my precious pets. The Tumblr-sourced fan art. I swear you shall have it. But not yet. There is…
In the light of the moon a little egg lay on a leaf. One Sunday morning the warm sun came up and - pop - out of the egg came a tiny and very hungry caterpillar. He was alone, except for his hunger, and his hunger was a writhing and a hissing thing. He started to look for some food. On Monday he ate through one apple, but he was still hungry. On Tuesday he…
"There are a lot of characters that we are inspired by in The Bible. There are a lot of characters that play into coming in and out of the apocalypse — The Seven Signs, what's our version of that and who can we adapt that that's not so obvious? Even the population of Sleepy Hollow is 144,000 — that's a number from the Bible. There are a lot of details from the Bible, but we're not trying to do the…
Still not worth it: People who regularly eat nuts appear to live longer, according to the largest study of its kind. The findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, suggested the greatest benefit was in those munching on a daily portion. An alternate study has found results that lead to a different conclusion: Once ingested, an almond will absorb roughly 1000% of the natural moisture found in the human mouth. Do…
Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes. An all-woman team of spelunking scientists has retrieved hundreds of fossils from a 100-foot-deep (30-meter-deep) cave in South Africa — including the cranium from what appears to be a prehistoric humanlike creature. Yes. Yes. Of course that is what today needed; an entirely female team of cavers to fling themselves into the steaming, black corners of the earth and retrieve the bones of our ancestors, clawing…
It was still dark out when he got the news. He was alone in his room, and then suddenly, he was not. A slender red-haired woman who had appeared at his side whispered the words, "It's you, Adam. People has chosen you," then quickly and gracefully flung herself out the window. He could hear screams drifting up from the street. He wiped his eyes. "It's me." A grin broke out across his face, and…
hey
are you coming? You forget what you want to remember
and you remember what you want to forget
look
it's fine if you can't make it
it's just people are starting to head home
but if you're on your way Nobody wants to be here and nobody wants to leave
oh
Shalom Japan, 310 S. 4th St. [Grabs you by the lapels] "Listen, mister, you've gotta -- well, well sit down, here, now, make yourself comfortable, I've got to tell you something -- listen, there's this little place in New York City, name of Shalom Japan -- can you beat that? Shalom Japan -- and it's just the most terrific little piece of something you've ever seen. This restaurant -- it was started by a swell Jewish fella and a…
Coming to Bravo this fall: The False Housewives of Atlanta. Watch these shapeshifters ensorcell men and captivate their haters after trapping the true housewives under sea and under stone. The series delves into the lives of six monstrous witches impersonating women from Atlanta’s social elite. Juggling families, careers, magickal imprisonment, and jam-packed social calendars, the False Housewives live their triumphs and frustrations out loud. They also must carefully guard the True Housewives they have buried…
I was going to ask these questions to my brother, who is a scientist and also used to read Animorphs with me when we were kids, but he only answered some of them before going to bed, so I turn to you, the good people of the Toast. 1. I assume you are familiar with Clarke's law of science fiction writing, which states in part that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." With this…
I want to tell you about a movie. A movie where, whenever a character prays, he does so like a cartoon character: forehead bowed, eyes closed, hands clasped together with unbent fingers in the "I'm praying" position, on his knees. A movie where the line "Just this once, call me Daddy" inspired me to write 5000 words of Terrence Howard/Taye Diggs slashfic. A movie where good-looking men wear expensive peacoats all the time, and no…
