Some friends came over yesterday for a lovely luncheon (prepared by Leonard) and a joint expedition to the Costco in downtown San Francisco. Astonishingly, there is room for a Costco in downtown SF. As discovered …

Upon seeing that Leonard had spilled peppercorns in the kitchen: "Are you making counter au poivre?"

I have a small combination FM/tape/CD player in my room that my mother gave me as a high school graduation gift. I adore the UI. For example, the designers put the tuning wheel next to …

In case you were wondering how I feel about Indian Independence Day, today's MC Masala column hints. On Aug. 15, 1947, India broke free of the British Empire and became its own country. The date …

Salon published a review of new Nike ads. Sadly, the Salon piece contains no instances of the word "bedonkadonk" or its variant spelling "badonkadonk." It brings to mind a phrase I loved in Salon long …

I think twice over the past 30-day period, a man has mentioned to me that his wife is or soon will be out of town. Do they realize how cheesy and pass-y that sounds, even …

If you've really enjoyed a police procedural crime novel set in Israel, please let me know the title and author.

Last night I watched a Star Trek: The Next Generation rerun. In "In Theory," a woman tries to date Data as she's on the rebound from a bad relationship. I remember thinking it was funny …

I should admit to you all that I've been deleting the Reading Rainbow episodes from the TiVo left and right. All that we've saved: the one with Star Trek bloopers and "Simon's Book" because it …

Or at least I hope it is. Today's column. I used to be good at this stuff, back in high school, when my time was heavily structured but I barely perceived my workload as a …