b.rox

It’s entirely ridiculous for me to offer up an annual “best of” list. I don’t keep up with the latest and greatest. I’d rather plunder the riches of the past than fetishize the new. Of the twenty or so books I read this past year, only one was published in 2010: The Heart of Higher [...]

In addition to Xy’s birthday, we’re also celebrating Persephone’s 25,000th hour of life today; but how to explain this number to a toddler?

Strange times we live in. Here’s a Christian pastor, C. Joshua Villines, who says we should take Christ out of Christmas. Compare that to noted Pagan, T. Thorne Coyle, who wishes we’d all put Christ back in Christmas. They both make interesting points. As far as I can tell these two essays were written independently [...]

We exchanged presents to celebrate the Solstice. But when, exactly, does one celebrate? Is the Solstice a day or discrete moment? It’s both, I guess. This year the Solstice took place at 5:38 PM, Central Time. But that’s a matter of celestial mechanics. In terms of real human experience, it’s not a moment but a [...]

Dear Persephone, You’re thirty-four months old today, but there’s a lot of other things going on as well. For one, there was a full lunar eclipse last night. I explained how the moon would fall into the shadow of the earth, and you’d seemed to understand. I even got you out of bed for it [...]

3:15 AM, New Orleans Of course this is a terrible photo, but it proves I was there. I caught some zzz, then got up at 1:45AM. The total eclipse was in full effect. A half dozen people were hanging out in the street in front of Banks Street Bar, gazing upward. I went around the [...]

An interesting pair of celestial events is in the offing. In addition to the solstice (Tuesday 5:38PM central) there’s a full lunar eclipse which should be visible in North America all night after midnight tonight — weather permitting. Unfortunately, here in New Orleans we’ve got a good chance of cloud cover all night. But it’s [...]

After much dithering and even more mulling, I’ve decided to implement a new policy regarding comments on this blog. From this point forward, I’ll be moderating all comments. In other words, until I approve a comment, it won’t appear here for public view. In the past, this was semi-automated. Certain posts would be flagged for [...]

I got a vasectomy today. As promised, here are the before and after photos, and even a video. Before After Video Vasectomy @ Yahoo! Video Many thanks to Michael for driving me and taking the pix. The procedure was, as advertised, no big deal. It took about five or ten minutes. The doctor praised my [...]

Here’s two sets of a dozen pictures each. For maximum enjoyment, view each slideshow in fullscreen mode. (A button will appear in the lower right corner after you click play.) The first batch is over 40 years old, the second batch was collected (from our refrigerator) over the last three months, but both were scanned [...]

When I whipped up a Xmas mix three years ago, I had to engage in some serious scraping to round it out. Times have changed, and my collection has expanded. I can now present a collection of seventeen tracks with zero compromises. This is everything I consider necessary for a Five Star Xmas. Enjoy! I [...]

It’s been cold in New Orleans lately. The last two nights we’ve had freeze warnings. I don’t think it actually froze, though. Fortunately the new insulation under our house seems to be making a huge difference in terms of our general comfort level. The energy savings remain to be seen. I still find cold weather [...]

A package arrived at the office Friday containing the latest edition of a psych textbook, hot off the presses. It’s Psychology Applied to Modern Life by Wayne Weiten, Dana S. Dunn and Elizabeth Yost Hammer. That’s right, my boss is one of the co-authors. We (meaning her staff) knew a little something about this book, [...]

In case you missed it, a photo by yours truly featuring the infamous Xy is gracing an article on Lifehacker right now.

Yesterday the verdicts came down in the Henry Glover case. According to the morning paper: Federal prosecutors won the first convictions in their sprawling probe of police misconduct in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, as a jury Thursday found three New Orleans police officers guilty in a high-stakes case accusing them of killing Henry Glover, [...]

Yesterday we had our annual holiday open house here at the Center, and faculty came from all across campus to enjoy a variety of treats. I’d say it was pretty successful, in that we saw a number of faculty who haven’t darkened our door way for a good long while, which is the whole point [...]

Our friend James is kind of like the brother I never had. We’ve even been known to quarrel from time to time. I remember some years ago when James went back to school and started studying history in earnest. That he’s now presenting original research at the Louisiana State Museum fills me with a feeling [...]

Another cold front passed through our area this weekend. On Saturday it was unseasonably warm, on Sunday unseasonably cold, and all day long Sunday I felt out of sorts — not quite right — like my body was out of tune. Nothing severe, but a tiny headache, a touch of fatigue, a slightly upset stomach, [...]

Two headlines from today’s news caught my eye. Each is bad enough on its own, but taken together they are exponentially more infuriating. BP to Challenge Government Estimates of Oil Spilled “During the disaster, BP did whatever it could to avoid revealing the true flow rate of the spill,” Mr. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, said [...]