Continuing to mine the past for what's worth keeping:

• Just re-watched this old Babylon 5 episode and was struck by how "Earth's dominant belief system" in the 23rd century is apparently tokenism: Here's one person to represent an entire religion, and another person for another, and please just shake each of their hands and move on down the line.  Must have seemed like a good idea in 1994.  And I guess there's a long tradition of tokenism in sci-fi, but it's odd how the "alien races" in B5 are so much better developed than the supposedly diverse Earth culture. It would make more sense for residents of B5 to worship the Great Machine of Epsilon 3, don't you think?
• Until a few minutes ago I'd never heard Loca howl along with music. She just needed the right inspiration. Spinal Tap's "Springtime" did the trick.
• If the President swore to protect the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and he was pressured to sign the NDAA against his "strong reservations" by certain undisclosed parties who wanted to take away our Constitutional rights... then shouldn't those parties be the first ones to be "indefinitely detained" by the act?  Doesn't directly attacking the Constitution make one its enemy?
• How do people sing "Our God is an Awesome God" without thinking of the other awesome gods that the statement implies exist?  It's like telling your spouse, "You're one of the best people I could have married."
• Have you ever wondered what trucks must be saying as they back up to justify so much bleeping?
• Attention companies.  If you suspect your email to me is getting filtered out as spam, sending me MORE MAIL is not the solution.  Especially a duplicate of the previous message from an hour before, with a note at the top asking me to whitelist you.  If you were blacklisted, I couldn't see the dang note, so stop it.
• Is pie in the sky served Allah mode?
• I'm surprised nobody has pointed out that the way to combat piracy is not with legislation, but with NINJAS.
• Tournament brackets look like family trees.  Fortunately games don't look like matings.  Except for wrestling.
• [re a headline, "Emporians for Drug Awareness Dissolving"] Must have been the acid. Sorry.
• Just got a business message that mistakenly ended with "I love you." I've worried about accidentally doing that sometime... I don't know if this means I shouldn't worry or I should worry more.
• Can find no evidence that other Kirby vacuum cleaner salespeople have used the term "rotting human flesh" to describe dander.  Apparently it was just ours who did that.
• I wonder if anyone has tried to beatbox on the human microphone. "Mic check! Boots and cats and boots and cats..."
• How come [our dog] Marcel hates bicycles so much? I'm starting to think we're not related.
• The phrase, "everything else is icing" takes on a new meaning when talking about shoveling the walk.
• Hm... if I begin training for the Bike Across Kansas 22 days in advance by riding 10 miles and increase by 10% a day to reach the target of 75 miles the day before the race, I will total 725 miles, more than the distance I covered in my first (2002) bike trip around Minnesota and Iowa.  I didn't train at all before that trip, but I was in much better shape back then!
• Every time I think about how the unlimited campaign funding of Citizens United has the potential to allow a dark horse candidate to sweep in at the last minute and make the whole primary process irrelevant... I can't help thinking about evil politicians from fiction.  Harold Saxon especially.  I mean, sure, his nationwide psychic control network probably helped swing the election a bit, but how did he build it?  Unlimited funding is how.  And a paradox machine.
• I can't help it, whenever I hear the phrase "from the ground up" I imagine that people who have had accidents with heavy machinery are being used as references. I'm sure they prefer to be called "people of uniform texture."
• French equivalent of a spaghetti western: Violence Baguettes Violence.
• I think a big part of the appeal of being a geek is that it's a tremendous return on investment.  Just by reading a single book on an obscure topic, you can know more about that topic than 99% of the population.  Boom - instant expert!  It beats being a small fish in a big pond any day of the week.
• I get a certain amount of satisfaction out of reading other people's hopelessly pretentious writing, because it means there are people out there more pretentious than I am.  Aside from that satisfaction, though, it kinda sucks.
• You know who needs to be back on TV? The pak'ma'ra. They eat carrion, they carry their deadbeat husbands around on their backs, and they sing beautifully... What reality show has all three of those features?
• Muzac at the grocery store is "A Pirate's Life for Me."
• Must... resist... analyzing song lyrics. Therein lies madness. Case in point: in the final verse of "The Rainbow Connection," Kermit says he's supposed to BE "the sweet voice that calls the young sailor." Are we talking mermaid here, or lover? 'Cause he's no mermaid.
• Expediasure: an infant formula that finds you the best price on nutrients.
• I have to wonder about the folktale Sandman. Are there people who find it comforting to be told that a stranger sneaks in while they sleep and administers a hallucinogenic drug?
• Rereading "A Princess of Mars" is really making me appreciate the changes made in the John Carter movie. In the book, all the main characters are deceitful and manipulative, while all the minor characters - including the bad guys - are reliably honest and trustworthy. What's up with that??
• Now I've heard everything.  A jazz reggae rendition of "Tradition" from Fiddler on the Roof?  really??
• A DJ this morning described The Monkees as "one of the first reality shows."  Really?  Really??!  He must be a Thermian from the Klaatu Nebula.
• Those who remember that Santayana quote are condemned to repeat it.
• I got the "Baby there's a shark in the water" song stuck in my head, and I'm wondering where else a shark could be expected to turn up.  "Baby there's a shark at the front door..."
• I don't know what surprises me more: the fact that so many people have used the phrase "bad breath and beyond" in Web pages, or the fact that none of them are apparently using it as a pun on "Bed Bath and Beyond."  Google sees the two searches as related... don't know how they came to that conclusion.
• [regarding an item described as having a weight of 20.6 pounds and a shipping weight of 9.4 pounds:] I suspect Bruce Boxleitner.
• Anyone who thinks there's nothing new under the sun has not seen the spelling on Craigslist.
• I wonder if, back when "Soak up the sun" was a popular tune, anyone took a poll to see how many listeners thought "got my 45 on so I can rock on" referred to a record, how many to SPF, and how many to caliber.
• Misread a Party Time Ham as a Time Ham. "The question's not what's in it, Constable Reggie, but when??"
• Lectionary, n. A party game in which one player delivers a sermon, and the other team members try to guess the topic.
• I love the scientific name of chives.  Allium schoenoprasm.  How often do you get to say schoenoprasm?  Not enough, I'll bet.
• Enjoyed the Hunger Games movie, but I have to say I was disappointed by the casting. I totally expected the tributes from District 9 to be giant alien bugs.
• Which circle of Hell is it where you have to try to print envelopes in OpenOffice?  Just trying to get my bearings.
• It's hard to be 100% sure that what you're hearing in a guitar recording is string noise and not a dolphin.
• Overheard: "Wow, you got a landfill there!  A landfill!"  "What?  What are you talking about?"  "Landfall!  Windfall.  You got a windfall."  "Not the same thing."
• Realized while waking that the silly children's riddle, "April showers being May flowers; what do May flowers bring? Pilgrims!" is actually a pretty good paraphrase of the first stanza of the Canterbury Tales.
• I wonder if smartphones are responsible for a reduction in restroom graffiti.
• Didn't realize the conference hotel is the same one where I've attended many a SF convention. Having flashbacks.
• I love how quickly cuts heal when I'm taking multivitamins. It's like a superpower. This one cut on my thumb was starting to get infected this morning, and now it's not sore anymore, and all I put on it was painter's tape. Are you my mummy?
• I'm sure Prometheus will be a great film, but I really want it to be about the ship that took Anna Sheridan to Z'ha'dum. Edit: ...except that was the Icarus. damn. Anyway, it could make a good movie. In B5 the Prometheus was the ship that started the Earth-Minbari war, and as depicted in "In the Beginning" it was just a simple misunderstanding, but "Tora Tora Tora" is evidence that exactly such a simple misunderstanding can be spun out into a captivating movie. The Icarus's story as depicted in the series is basically just a log entry: made first contact with the Shadows; got reanimated as minions. But the Doctor Who episode "The Waters of Mars" proves that a simple log entry can conceal a pretty involved horror story.
• What's the opposite of going viral?  I think it's going anaerobic.  I have some Web sites that have gone anaerobic.
• Is an animist someone who is prejudiced against anything that moves?
• When children play "house," the eldest sister is the dungeon master.
• God, I love it when backups go smoothly.  It's kind of like if you sat down to buckle into a car once and the seatbelt came off in your hand, and the brake pedal went to the floor without resistance, and you had to drive that way... forever after when you sit down in a car and the seatbelt works and the brakes work, it's a relief not to be taken for granted.
• Due to a GPS hiccup, my phone thinks today's training ride took me 297 miles at a top speed of 514 mph.
• It occurs to me that in an age where a Web search is never more than a few seconds away, it may no longer be necessary or desirable for college students to sit around debating their uninformed opinions.  That was such a huge part of my college experience, it's hard to imagine it gone.
• The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.  It's got electrolytes.  It's what plants crave.
• Overheard: "I don't think I'd be able to navigate this [Logan, KS High] school if I hadn't played so much Doom in the '90s."
• "Rose colored glasses" are just a euphemism.  The past appears red-shifted because it's receding away from us so quickly.  That's also why the future looks blue.
• All these stories about rich people avoiding paying their taxes makes me think that the saying "Freedom isn't free" is being misused.  Why do the rich hate freedom?
• If you believe it's 5:00 somewhere, do you also believe it's 8 a.m. on a workday somewhere?
• I guess I should have asked whether the hotel had a laundromat before driving all over town.
• Is there a word for feeling annoyed with people who don't act in the way you failed to tell them you expected? Maybe in German our something?
• The worst part about forgetting to start the washer is wondering how, for pete's sake, you forgot to start the washer.  It's not like it's complicated or somehow ambiguous or anything.  But time goes by, and the washer should be done by now, but lo and behold, you never started it.
• For those who are paranoid about how the Internet knows everything about us, I have to ask, have you ever noticed how your browser gets flooded with ads for a product *after* you've already bought it?  Yes, I know about that concert already, thanks, I ALREADY BOUGHT TICKETS.  Wouldn't you rather spend your advertising budget on somebody else who doesn't already have what you're selling?  If that's what the all-knowing Internet does with my privacy, I'm not too concerned.
• I think if Curiosity finds signs of life in one of the rocks it zaps, it should say, "Directive!"
• NASA's Curiosity rover team would like you to know that reports of the cat's death are greatly exaggerated.
• I'd like to be in charge of making coffee at a homeopathy conference.
• When did people start saying "woo" when applauding? I don't remember that when I was a kid, but I may have just not noticed.
• Ah, so the global entertainment media corporations are "content creators."  Even though some 99% of the Internet's content is created by people outside that industry.  This terminology sounds strangely familiar.
• OK, now I don't want to start a conversation about legalizing hemp, but honestly, if it's the only thing that can grow in a drought, it seems like the stupidest thing we could do is cut it down and burn it.  Seriously, that's absurd.
• I don't know what to say when someone refers to an alkaline battery leaking acid.  Tactful suggestions?
• So apparently there's no prohibition on carrying concealed weapons at the Republican National Convention.  I wonder what percentage of delegates are packing heat?  Someone should do a poll.
• I'm pretty sure fake driver's licenses are more common than voter fraud. So how does requiring a photo ID prevent voter fraud?
• Wow, Americus, KS needs a part-time substitute postmaster, so they sent a postcard about the position to EVERY POSTAL CUSTOMER IN EMPORIA.  Yet, when the postage rates go up, we have to read about it in the newspaper.  ???
• Walter Koenig is the LAST member of the Star Trek cast to get a Hollywood Walk of Fame star?  Yet he "never expected it to happen?"  Somebody did a crummy job of foreshadowing!
• Pizza Hut has started abbreviating its name "pH." Because pH wasn't confusing enough already.
• When a chairperson says, "all in favor say aye, all opposed, same sign," what are you supposed to say if you're opposed? Same sign would seem to be "aye," but that makes no sense.
• Typo of the day: "Please sing the attached waiver."
• A guy yelled at me that I should ride my bike on the sidewalk, or I "might get hit." I must be doing something right if I look like I'm under the age of consent! Or perhaps he's one of those legally blind drivers made possible by technology. The world is full of wonders.
• As the peanut butter recall gets more and more broad, it really makes you realize how vulnerable our food system is. Also kinda makes you wish for a recall on Total cereal.  Just for the headlines.
• How come liberals don't denounce Luke Skywalker for being an unrepentent slaveowner?
• Listening to a song with the refrain, "I've never wanted anything so bad." I dinna think this means what you think it means...
• Listening to "Turn, Turn, Turn" and wondering about the time to cast away stones and the time to gather stones together.  Would that be like in "The Long, Long Trailer?"  Was Lucille Ball getting all Ecclesiastical on us?
• I thought the story about climate change hitting the Middle East was ironic, but this one [linked] has it beat.  CEO of the company that's genetically modified salmon to outcompete everything in their environment says that environmental review by the FDA "threatens our very survival."
• RIP Dave Brubeck.  I'll never forget seeing him live in 2006.  For all the world it was like Yoda's fight scene in Episode II.  Little old guy hobbles out to the microphone, hobbles to the piano, burns the freaking place down for over 20 minutes, and then hobbles back to the microphone...
• I am SO glad I'm not one of those people who believes everything happens for a reason.  There are so many meaningless coincidences in my life, it makes me exhausted just thinking about inventing explanations for them.
• For years I've ridiculed phishers (email scammers) for doing such a laughably bad job of pretending to be legitimate.  This week I've started getting scams that are terrifyingly convincing.  Um... I take it back, guys.  The other way was good.
• What is sweeter to a cat than letting him sit in your lap when he wants to?  Kicking a dog out of your lap to make room for him.  Sweetest of all: letting the cat change his mind about the whole lap thing after the dog has already been evicted.
• Dogs managed to have an accident in every room of the house last night.  We should change their names to Bingo and Blackout.
• Earlier tonight I got a call from someone trying to reach Shanghai restaurant. I answered, "Green Door, this is Ben," and she said, "I want two happy families." Don't we all...
• When light sabers are outlawed, only Siths will murder a room full of children, leave their pregnant wives for dead, and then lose all their limbs.  Until then, we all have that right.
• Just once, when the soundtrack of a movie starts chanting in Latin for dramatic effect, I would love for them to sing, "lorem ipsum dolor sic amet..."
• [re: gun violence] Big Tobacco announced today that the only way to protect against the dangers of secondhand smoke is to personally take up smoking.