This is awesome! I just discovered that you can read Thinking Machine stories online! I had a book of them as a kid. The “Thinking Machine” was a super-smart detective, sort of an American Sherlock Holmes. The author Jacques Futrelle hadn’t written very many when he went to Europe to promote the books… and arranged passage back to America on the Titanic. Yeah. So there aren’t any more. Anyway, I think these versions online may have been slightly edited in my book. There are details that I distinctly remember from the stories that don’t appear here.

The really glaring change to me is in “The Silver Box”. I distinctly remember that one of the clues was that the boss had originally given the secretary a gold box, which she’d asked to exchange for a silver one (because the silver one was high enough to lift the phone receiver). That little bit doesn’t appear in the online story at all! And hey, now that I think about it, calling the story “The Silver Box” is a really huge tip-off that the secretary had something to do with it, right?

This is for Eileen: Roger Federer as King Arthur. Okay, I don’t even like the guy that much, but that picture? Phwoar.

Disney is shutting down “It’s a Small World” for refurbishments… because modern guests are too fat. Yikes. Me, I’d prefer them to alter all the rides for tall people! (Link courtesy of AskMeFi, where the comments are going just about as well as you might imagine.)

Edited 01/05/2025: Link is dead and not archived.

As the announcer puts it: “…one of the most miraculous plays in all of college football!” I can’t disagree. Trinity University had two seconds left on the clock and scored a touchdown off a crazy play that included fifteen lateral passes! Looks more like rugby than football to me.

Awesome. Way to go, ladies!

Did I mention that we’re moving into the new house NEXT WEEKEND? It’s exciting. I told the Snook the other night that I find myself a lot more interested in Chippendale issues now that we’re buying here. Which is silly, because we’ve been here for four years already. Somehow I guess I never really felt attached to the neighborhood before. When everybody was going nuts organising meetings about the CUB site redevelopment, we kinda just shrugged our shoulders, thinking, “We don’t have any property values to worry about. And we can always just leave.” I could count on one hand the number of “neighbors” I actually knew. Now I find myself stopping to say hello to people. We haven’t even moved into our building yet, and I’ve already introduced myself to half a dozen tenants. It’s fun. I mean, we could’ve gotten a lot more “house” for the money if we’d bought out in the suburbs, but being a part of this vibrant, connected community is the whole reason I wanted to stay in the city.

On a related note: I’ve just been invited to contribute to Life in Chippendale, a neighborhood blog I think I’ve mentioned a few times before. Steven assures me that even my mundane observations of life in the city will be welcome!