Steal My Ideas, Please

By all accounts, Pluto Nash was one of the all-time stinkers. Yet Eddie Murphy is one of the all-time funniest people. Which suggests to way the producers could have made lemonade out of this lemon: Borrow a page from Mystery Science Theater 3000 and have Murphy unreservedly rip his own movie. Could be a riot. Just the cranberry […]

Malcolm Gladwell’s best-selling Blink provocatively asks, how is it the mind sometimes understands in a flash highly complex situations that seem to defy rigorous analysis. No question that’s true. But so is the opposite: Sometimes, our minds lie to us, just can’t believe conclusions science tells us to be true. Flip five heads in a row, the odds […]

Now lawn inflatables move, with penguins that pop out of igloos and Santas and snowmen that wave. What’s next? How about inflatables turned mid-air balloons? Use helium, hot air or much more powerful fans keeping tethered characters aloft. The hot-air system would probably need flaming gas jets, which might not be too safe, but, hey, if you want to make […]

Finally, got my Internet back, after a few more weeks of problems with Verizon DSL. While working on a new puzzle for word lovers, I came up with this idea: Words that have the same sounds rearranged. Like mix and skim. See? Unlike anagrams, which rearrange letters, these words can use different letters. Must be […]