What Do We Want to Know About the Presidents?

When you type in a President's name, Google Instant will pop up with the most common suggestion of what should come next. Here are those results, at least in Boston, MA. I think it says a lot about human nature.

"facts", 17: James Monroe, Martin van Buren, William Henry Harrison, James Polk, Zachary Taylor, Rutherford B Hayes, James Garfield, Chester Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, William Howard Taft, Warren G. Harding, Herbert Hoover, Lyndon B Johnson, Gerald Ford, George HW Bush

"quotes", 7: Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, George W Bush

"biography", 3: Ulysses S Grant, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Barrack Obama

"university", 3: George Washington, James Madison, Franklin Pierce

"impeachment", 2: Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton

"house", 2: John Adams, John Quincy Adams

"gay", 2: James Buchanan, Richard Nixon

"suburban": Millard Fillmore

"school": Woodrow Wilson

"library": John F Kennedy

"grandsons": John Tyler

"rabbit": Jimmy Carter

"jihad": Andrew Jackson

"vampire hunter": Abraham Lincoln

Teaser Tuesday Three

After a week's hiatus (I got a new teaching job!) we return.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly blog hop I got from The Bathroom Monologues by the fabulously talented John Wiswell.

A break from fiction, we have Richard Feynman's "Six Easy Pieces".

"The science which is perhaps most deeply affected by physics is chemistry. Historically, the early days of chemistry dealt almost entirely with what we now call inorganic chemistry, the chemistry of substances which are not associated with living things."

I love the history of science, and classic scientific works. Recently I just finished Asimov's three volume "Understanding Physics". This will be a comparison to that text in some ways. You can also watch Feynman's full hour lectures on YouTube.



Everyone is welcome to Teaser Tuesday. The rules are as simple as:

• Grab your current book
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• Avoid spoilers! Don't give too much away or you'll ruin it for the very people you're suggesting it to.
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers

Inside the Actor's Studio Redux

In 2010 I made a list of my dream line-up.

Those on my 2010 list who have subsequently been interviewed:


George Clooney
Bruce Willis

Yup. Those on my 2010 list who still haven’t been interviewed:

Jack Nicholson
Bill Murray
Daniel Day-Lewis
Sean Connery
Sidney Poitier
Woody Allen
Shirley Temple
Mel Brooks
Sophia Loren
Lily Tomlin
Helen Mirren
Monty Python Ensemble
Judi Dench
Angela Lansbury
Patrick Stewart
Gary Oldman
Diane Keaton
Rob Reiner
Sandra Bullock
Alan Rickman
Liam Neeson
Quentin Tarantino
Albert Brooks
Penelope Cruz
Neil Patrick Harris
Scarlett Johansson
Nicole Kidman

Died:

Elizabeth Taylor

My three new additions to replace Taylor, Clooney and Willis are:

Frank Oz
Michael Gambon
Marion Cotillard

Rainbows and Puppies

and Nightmares!

You're welcome.

Teaser Tuesday Two

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly blog hop hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. I got it from The Bathroom Monologues by the fabulously talented John Wiswell.


This week, the second edition, goes to "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller.

"'Can I do anything at all to help you?' the chaplain asked.
Yossarian shook his head, still grinning."

I may be the last person on earth to get around to reading this. Part of my personal 'Read More American Lit/Procrastinate Reading Gibbon's Decline and Fall' Campaign.

Everyone is welcome to Teaser Tuesday. The rules are as simple as:

• Grab your current book
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• Avoid spoilers! Don't give too much away or you'll ruin it for the very people you're suggesting it to.
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers