Michael Hopcroft

There was a novel on this very topic -- The Wind Done Gone -- about Scarlett's slave half-sister. The Margaret Mitchell estate was very unhappy with it.

Mashed potatoes with termite gravy, washed down with cricket soda. NT: Subtle signs the generals in command of your armed forces can no longer be trusted.

"Do you want a car that is an extension of your *****?"

...and the Hens are laying Opening Credits. This is Eva Gabor. Eva will not hurt you. Remember -- it's not dopey, it's surreal!

Q: And how do you play Mad Libs again? A: That's the most obscure crossword puzzle I've ever seen in my life. I wonder if it's even meant to be solved!

I would make two mangaka nominations. 1. Leiji Matsumoto. His creations include Galaxy Express 999 (a transhumanist saga before transhumanism was even a word), Space Battleship Yamato (aka Star Blazers), and the legendary space pirate Captain Harlock. 2. CLAMP. This four-woman team from Osaka created some of the most memorable works of the period from the '80s to the present, including Magic Knights Rayearth (a brilliant synthesis of magical girls, mecha, and fantasy), X/1999 (a saga about fending off the end of the world that was not ashamed of the deadliness of the situation), Card Captor Sakura (which combined a variant on the magic girl genre with profound -- and occasionally disturbing -- meditations on the nature of love in its different forms), and XXXHolic (and the memorable space-time witch" Yuuko Ichihara).

It's like all the CEOs everywhere know the corporate economy is about to hit the biggest damn iceberg you'll ever see in your life, and want to hoard everything for themselves before impact, leaving nothing for anyone else as they take the only lifeboats.

Fried Lice, of course.

According to the commentators I heard, the Pelicans are supposedly in very good shape this season. Lonzo Ball has had a completely different summer now that he's not a Laker anymore -- getting a real agent, hiring a chef to prepare his off-season training meals (as opposed to grabbing cheeseburgers at In-and-Out) and in other words applying himself to be a professional basketball player. LaVar seems to have lost interest in his eldest son's career, preferring to position his youngest (now playing pro ball in Australia) to be the #1 pick overall. But Big Baller Brand has just about completely imploded (apparently the shoes were terrible, though nobody seemed to care) and the media has tired of the act. Hearing less from LaVar Ball is a good thing in my opinion.

A brilliant Edith Piaf cover, from one of those pseudo-reality sining contests. I have no idea who this is. Among the Youtube followers the performance seems to be a little controversial. For comaprison, here is Piaf's original recording. And here is a translation of the lyrics, one of several online.

General Zod. But he's tired of people kneeling to him instead of the kowtow he deserves. NT: Special qualities required of the American ambassador to Gatchastan.

Q: Thing are getting a lot worse under (leader of your choice here), aren't they? A: The Abbey will stand forever, unfortunately.

Physicist Michio Kaku weighs in on the oldest debate in philosophy -- are our actions determined, or are they freely chosen? -- using principles of physics. If he is right, then so is Jean-Paul Sartre and our actions are indeed free -- whether we like it or not. Terrifyingly free, because we are totally responsible for the effects of whatever we choose to do or not do, from eating a hamburger (and keeping the ranchers in business) to the votes we cast in elections to getting into a bar fight that seriously hurts someone.

One of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite series.

Throughout this video, I kept expecting Peter Davison's face to appear out of nowhere.

Originally, it was the troops of nearby Laurelstan. Now, it's Laurelstani political manifestos. They really don't like Laurelstan. NT: How Gatchastan intends to finally win their endless war against neighboring Laurelstan.

Q: What are this lion and this witch doing here? I just wanted my jacket! A: I don't care if you are a Sasquatch -- you still need a shave!

And Chip Kelly's UCLA team falls to 1-5 after losing to Oregon State. Nobody loses to Oregon State at the conference level. It's practically a fundamental law of the universe. Plus they had to give away hundreds if not thousands of tickets, and the stands were still empty. It was the single most humiliating event of the college season so far.

I'M 56. That's too damn young.

Did Coors Field go back to being a launching pad for the Rockies' opponents. I the Strat-o-Matic/Action Baseball leagues I've been in, Colorado pitchers haven't exactly been a prized commodity because the games' rating are based on the previous season's statistics and pitching in Coors tends to inflate those.

Apparently one of the key witnesses in the Texas case has also been gunned down in his apartment. This is chilling. It might be coincidence, but it will take some doing to convince me of that.

Black Plastic, the 2019 album from virtual band Savlonic (actually the creator of Weebl's Stuff and his wife). It's good techno-funk. It is a good album, and a decent follow-up to 2016's Neon. neon is when Savlonic stopped sounding like a comedy act and started sounding like an honest-to-goodness band. The lyrics and videos released for Neon suggested the band was going through a bad breakup, which was thankfully not the case. So it's fortunate that Black Plastic is not a continuation of Neon. I also heard the new single from The Who. For heaven's sake, Pete! If you don't want to tour, don't!

And suddenly the NFC West got a lot more interesting.

Super-technology in refrigerators, microwaves, and toaster ovens. NT: What the super-technology in your new Gatchastani-manufactured microwave oven actually does.