Last night Mark asked me to make him a PB&J sandwich. The peanut butter was too hard coming out of the fridge, so I put it in the microwave to soften it up. I hadn't noticed remnant flecks of the foil seal on the jar's rim, so in went the whole jar. After a few seconds, and and then milliseconds after a couple of flashes, the entire inside of the oven was blazing blue/white plasma. Luckily I was right next to the oven and able to shut it off within 1/2 second. Very exciting! The oven seems no worse for the wear, as it brought a liter of cold water to boiling in a nominal 9 minutes.

Blade Runner is my all-time favorite movie. (In fact, it's about time to watch it again.) Roy Batty nails the interesting philosophical problem in his rooftop monologue, and I like the way the movie is built out from that point.

Black humor time.

This headline crossed my desk today:
U.S. sends arms to Somalia, rebels amputate limbs

Say what?

The whole article is at Reuters. While still unpleasant, the truth is a bit different than the headline!