When my almost-4-year-old announced the other day that he wanted to learn more about science (a side effect, perhaps, of watching Sid the Science Kid), we were only too happy to oblige. We had done some simple science experiments with him in the past — on the scale of freezing a small toy in a […]
Continue ReadingI love superhero stories, but I’m not big on visual formats like comic books and graphic novels. That’s why I was so excited to review Corrina Lawson’s new novel, Phoenix Rising. It’s a comic book kind of story anchored in novelistic prose, so it’s definitely my kind of read. Aside: After reading the review, check […]
Continue ReadingAlmost a year ago, I wrote one of my first posts for GeekMom. It was about my then-2-½-year-old son, my sense that he would soon be interested in superheroes, and my worries about how to explain supervillains to him. I wrote: “… How am I supposed to explain good guys like Superman without getting into […]
Continue ReadingA new Sea Life Aquarium recently opened in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. (In fact, it’s in the same Grapevine mega-mall that houses the Legoland Discovery Center I wrote about a few weeks ago.) There are Sea Life locations all across Europe and a few sprinkled around the U.S., so I thought I’d check it out […]
Continue ReadingIf you’re a fan of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series (recently made more popular than ever with the HBO series Game of Thrones), you’ll want to check out two fan sites that are dedicated to an unusual aspect of the books — the food. Specifically, they’re dedicated to recreating […]
Continue ReadingEven before I had a kid, I wanted to go to Legoland. The California theme park has dozens of rides and attractions, a water park, and acres and acres of amazing Lego sculptures. And there’s a new one opening in Florida, too. But since it will likely be a few years before my family can […]
Continue ReadingYou’ve probably heard of the famous prehistoric cave paintings at Lascaux in France. I’d read about them and had seen some photos of the images painted on their walls so many thousands of years ago. What I didn’t know was that the Lascaux caves have been closed to visitors since 2008 because the presence of […]
Continue ReadingI just got caught up on the recent controversial blog post made by “Dilbert” creator and geek icon Scott Adams and the resulting Internet fallout. For catching-up purposes of your own, here are some handy links: A copy of the original blog post, which Adams deleted from his site Adams’ response to the controversy, which […]
Continue ReadingI’ve been a fan of John Scalzi’s blog, Whatever, for a while now. In fact, I’d been reading and enjoying posts there for quite some time before it hit me like a slap to the head: I hadn’t actually read any of the man’s books. What in the world was wrong with me? I set […]
Continue ReadingEven if you’ve never heard the term “earworm,” you’ve had one. You know — one of those songs or tunes or fragments of melody that gets stuck in your head for days on end, so that you find yourself muttering “if you’re blue and you don’t know where to go to, why don’t you go […]
Continue ReadingThe web is abuzz over an article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune that says the zodiac is off and we all need to change our astrological signs. According to a follow-up post on CNN’s “This Just In” blog, we really don’t need to do that, after all. But since many of us don’t give much […]
Continue Reading