Review: Skios

Amazon

From Skios, by Michael Frayn

Please God it wasn't going to be too awful this year, prayed Nikki. All lectures, however unique and special, were of course awful, but some were more awful than others. There had to be a lecture. Why? Because there always had been one. There had been a Fred Toppler Lecture every year since the foundation had existed. They had had lectures on the Crisis in this and the Challenge of that. They had had an Enigma of, a Whither? and a Why?, three Prospects and two Reconsiderations of."

After the jump, my review.

OTBR: A Victorian House in San Francisco

Latitude: N 37° 45.924
Longitude: W 122° 28.206
A child on a road trip with his family asks, "Where are we?" and the father answers, "Let's check the map. We're off the blue roads [the Interstate Highways marked in blue on the road atlas]. We're off the red roads [the US and state highways]. We're off the black roads [the county highways]. I think we're off the map altogether." It was always my dream to be off the map altogether.

After the jump, a few of the random places (and I mean random literally) that I visited vicariously last month that are "off the blue roads".

Homecoming: Berkner 50, Sunset 0

From 2012 10 12 Sunset vs Berkner

Richardson Berkner High School celebrated a big homecoming win as the Rams shut out Dallas Sunset 50-0 Friday night at Ram-Wildcat Stadium.

More photos after the jump.

S2L77: Singapore, My Landfall in Asia

Singapore
January 28 - February 1, 1977

We attended a Chinese celebration for a baby boy, eating a feast of roast duck, quail eggs and seaweed.

We visited Toa Payoh and Dr Lee's home. We had fresh coconuts from a tree in the yard.

At midnight we went to Bugis Street -- amazing!

We ate Indian food. The cost for seven people was $US5. Later we attended the outdoor Chinese opera.

We ate seafood at a beach restaurant on Sentosa - cockle shells, crab, prawns, squid, cuttle fish.

Source: Personal travel notes.

From 1977 01 29 Singapore

Whereas many things in Australia reminded me of America, my trip home was going to take me to places as unlike America as I could imagine. I was able to ease myself into all that by starting my journey in Singapore, exotic but more like America than any other country ahead of me on my journey to London.

After the jump, Singapore, a fine city.

Telecom Corridor, Meet Tulsa

Matthew Yglesias of Slate had reason to spend a few days in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and came away with a few compliments and a few cautions for Tulsa and cities like it all across the country.

Tulsa was a boom city of the 1930s oil industry. Lately, Tulsa is trying to reinvent itself as a high tech startup haven. Yglesias finds it "lamentable" that Tulsa is trying to lure high tech startups through public investment in a supercomputer. Yglesias argues that cities make a mistake by focusing on high tech. That's just one sector of the economy and it's far from being where all the growth is.

You really should read Yglesias' whole article. It's short. But if you don't have the time, or interest, at least read his conclusion. After the jump.