Fair warning....
Wednesday, August 5, 2026
Mr. Mxyztplk v Joe Btfsplk — Vowel-Deprived Throwdown: Who came first?
From my longtime Crack bookofjoe Mississippi Correspondent©®™ Shawn Lea comes a characteristically deep diving investigation into the little-known origins of two great vowel-deprived comic characters of the 20th century, Mr. Mxyztptlk (above) and Joe Btfsplk (below).
Her report follows — and you can bet your bottom dollar that not one word has been.
- Mr. Mxyztplk vs. Joe Btfsplk
Who came first... Mr. Mxyztplk vs. Joe Btfsplk?
Joe Btfsplk preceded Mr. Mxyztplk. Joe Btfsplk's first appearance was June 11, 1942. Mxyztptlk ((roughly pronounced Mix-yez-pit-lick, also nicknamed Mxy) first appeared in September of 1944. Joe's creator, Al Capp, pronounced Btfsplk with a "raspberries" sound, also known as a "Bronx cheer."
Mxyztplk appeared originally as a small bald man in a purple suit, green bow tie and purple derby hat. This was changed to a futuristic looking orange outfit with purple trim in the mid-1950s, although the hat remained. At around this time the spelling of Mxyztplk's name changed (by mistake) to "Mxyz pt lk".
From Wikipedia:
After the establishment of DC Comics' multiverse in the 1960s, it was later explained that the purple-suited Mxyzptlk lived in the fifth dimension connected to Earth-Two and the orange-costumed Mxyzptlk in the fifth dimension connected to Earth-One. The Earth-One version was also retconned into Superboy stories as Master Mxyzptlk.
From www.supermanhomepage.com:
The imp known as Mr. Mxyztplk first appeared in our dimension in Superman #30 (1st series, 1944) in a story by Jerry Siegel with art by John Sikela. For those who haven't seen the original story, you can find it in "The Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told" trade paperback. The bald little fellow in the purple suit and green bowtie creates all kind of havoc -- including animating a naked statue he calls McGurk. Mxyztplk describes himself as a "court-jester" from another dimension. The not very bright imp laughingly tells Superman that there is no way he can be tricked into saying the magic word "Klptzyxm" that will return him to his own dimension. Oops. Saying the word, Mr. Mxyztplk vanishes.
A note at the end of the tale says, "If you enjoyed the antics of Mr. Mxyztplk and would like to read of his further encounters with Superman, let us know on a penny postcard." Obviously, Mr. Mxyztplk was a big hit and returned many times.
The imp's name was later changed to Mxyzptlk (for the consonant-challenged among you, the letters "t" and "p" are reversed). He had a long history of antagonizing Superman, supposedly every 90 days, until Superman inevitably tricked him into saying his name backwards. This restored everything back to normal and banished Mxyztplk back to the Fifth Dimension for another 90 days. Until the Crisis On Infinite Earths series rewrote DC history.
Darth Tater — Just the thing for the 'Star Wars' fan who thinks they have everything
From the website:
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Create your own unique Darth Tater character with interchangeable parts.
Includes a variety of accessories to customize your potato figure.
Perfect for imaginative play and creativity.
Suitable for children and collectors alike.
A fun twist on the classic Mr. Potato Head toy.
For ages 2+ so all my readers can have great fun with it.
Tuesday, August 4, 2026
'The Wizard of the Kremlin'
I've had this 2025 film directed by Oliver Assayas on my watchlist for months and finally took a flutter last night.
It's excellent!
I had no idea the cast included my favorite actor in the world, Jeffrey Wright (whose portrayal of a conflicted high-level CIA executive in "The Agency" [Season 2] was sensational), and Alicia Vikander as a punk goddess in the fragmenting post-Gorbachev Russia.
Lagniappe: you don't have to subscribe to a streaming service to see it — rent it on YouTube.
40,000-Year-Old Bird Figurines Carved From Mammoth Ivory Found in German Cave
Spectacular.
Archaeologists in southwestern Germany have unearthed two miniature bird figurines carved from mammoth ivory, among the smallest and most delicate examples of Ice Age art ever found.
The two ancient figurines, each about 0.8 inches long and weighing about 1 gram apiece, were discovered in 2025 in the Aurignacian layers of Hohle Fels Cave.
The site is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Cluster in the Swabian Jura known for yielding some of the earliest figurative art in human history.
Dated to be about 40,000 years old, the artifacts were found about 5 feet apart in the same layer, suggesting they may be roughly contemporaneous and possibly even the work of the same hand.
One figurine appears to show a bird crouched low, perhaps brooding over eggs; the other, incomplete, shows outstretched wings that could depict a bird taking flight, landing, or displaying in courtship.
"The figurines demonstrate that the earliest artists were skilled ivory-carvers, who could depict delicate motifs in miniature form," said Professor Nicholas Conard, director of excavations and an archaeologist at the University of Tübingen.
"Additionally, it seems that specific depictions are associated with specific sites."
The objects' naturalistic detail points to a ptarmigan as the likely model for the brooding bird, with the second figure possibly a ptarmigan, grouse, or bird of prey.
"The carvings are not highly stylized but instead include many specific and unique features," Professor Conard said.
"Here the artist has recorded detailed observations that allow us to consider which kind of bird is represented and what the bird could be doing."
The finds show that humans working in the region roughly 40,000 years ago, near the time modern humans first arrived in the Upper Danube region, were already accomplished ivory carvers capable of rendering fine detail at a tiny scale.
"The figurines in their present state weigh only 1.3 and 0.7 grams and are the smallest and finest depictions from this period 40,000-years-ago, but despite their size, they raise many new questions," Professor Conard said.
"Even 40,000-years-ago birds were here. Their song filled the air and some species came to the region in the course of annual migrations."
"Their calls signaled warnings, and the residents of the region often used their hollow bones and even mammoth ivory to make flutes that produced magical sounds."
[via SciNews]
Monday, August 3, 2026
Potholes Are Inverted Speed Bumps
The epiphany cited in the headline above came to me sometime in the past few months.
I was chatting with my neighbor from across the street while we were out walking her dog, and I told her that when I was out running through our hood one day and saw a pretty big pothole [above], it occurred to me that after driving over it at high speed once, you wouldn't do it again.
Every few years our homeowners association spends a few thousand dollars accrued from annual dues to repair our two streets, each about a half mile long, which are considered private roads for maintenance purposes yet are fully open to the public.
The potholes, some good sized, are the result of heavy equipment that's brought into the neighborhood for various home renovations/construction/etc. that proceeds to tear up our roads.
Apart from the fact I believe people who hire such machines should be responsible for road damage they cause — which will never fly — I like the concept of potholes as inverted speed bumps which will result in the same sort of driver reaction, i.e. GO SLOW!
The next time the topic of pothole repair is raised by our homeowners association, I am going to pay my share BUT I am also going to send a letter to each resident of our neighborhood urging them to take a fresh look at potholes.
Phones have beome a main character in all crime-centered movies and shows
I noticed this last night for the umpteenth time while watching Apple TV's excellent 10-part production of "Cape Fear."
I didn't keep count but as best I can recall, phones and their information were the focus/cause/driver of around a quarter of onscreen time.
Above and below, two screenshots from the trailer.
Compare that to the superb 1991 movie of "Cape Fear" starring Robert DeNiro: zero smartphones — because they hadn't been invented.
The penny only dropped for me earlier this year on how phones have become a standard and ubiquitous feature of thrillers.
Anyone else notice?
Sunday, August 2, 2026
Anthropeum: 500,000 Artifacts — 10 Rounds a Day
"Where in the world, and when, does this human artifact belong?"
"Each day, ten objects. Guess where and when each was made. Then see how you ranked against everyone else who played today."
Fair warning.
Our Philosophy
Saturday, August 1, 2026
2-Second Tent
From websites:
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Sets up in 2 seconds flat.
Accomodates two adults.
Combines excellent ventilation and light blocking for a good night's sleep.
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$149.
Why I don't want to get big again
A long time ago on an internet far, far different than today's, bookofjoe was way more popular than it is today.
I'm talking an average of 15,000 page views/day in 2010-2012 compared to around 500/day now.
Some days there were over 100,000!
A lot of great things resulted, one being that so many readers sent me stuff of interest to feature that it was much easier to post 8 times daily than it is now to do 3 posts/day.
I got very little spam, considering: each morning I'd go through what came in while I was sleeping (spammers and advertisers figured that out) and delete the junk: it took just a couple minutes.
Cut to today when AI and prediction markets have so messed things up that major long-time websites are being destroyed.
It will only get worse.
Me, I'm gonna stay under the radar.
In the 10 months since I switched from Typepad to Blogger, I'd guess I've received maybe 5 spam comments: not bad!
Animated Knots
"Animated knot-tying for boating, climbing, fishing, scouting, search-and-rescue, and arborists."
That oughta cover it.
Remember: "Knots weaken rope."
Friday, July 31, 2026
Live Aboard Your Boat While At Home
Why go to all the trouble and expense of acquiring and maintaining a boat when you can live the life aquatic on the cheap on dry land?
Below, 21 tips on how to simulate a floating palace at home sweet home.
1. Sleep on the shelf in your closet.
2. Replace the closet door with a curtain.
3. Four hours after you go to sleep, have your wife whip open the curtain, shine a flashlight in your eyes, and mumble, "Your watch!"
4. Put a wall across the middle of your bathtub and move the shower head down to chest level.
5. When taking showers, shut off the water while soaping.
6. Put lube oil in your humidifier instead of water and set it to high.
7. If your basement floods during a sudden thaw, go down and start bailing.
8. Bring inside some type of gas motor (lawn mower, garden tiller, etc), start, and leave running while trying to listen to favorite CD or having an in-depth conversation.
9. If the wind outside is howling, race around the house to make sure all windows and doors are secure. At night, everyone takes a turn on "watch."
10. Place all none-edible garbage in small plastic bags and store in other half of tub (edible garbage to be thrown out the window).
11. Wake up at midnight and have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on stale bread. Cold canned ravioli or soup is optional.
12. Make up your family menu a week ahead of time without looking in the pantry, 'fridge or freezer.
13. Once a month pick a major appliance, take it completely apart, and put it back together.
14. Use 18 scoops of coffee per pot and allow it to sit for 5 to 6 hours before drinking.
15. Put a fluorescent light under the coffee table and lay there to read a book.
16. Every so often throw the cat in the tub (hot tub, large sink, etc.) and shout, "Man overboard!"
17. Run into the kitchen and sweep all the pots/pans/dishes off of the counter onto the floor, then yell at the wife for not having the place "stowed for sea."
• After distributing this list the first time, I received some additions from Tommy Taggart:
18. With every major windshift, have your alarm go off so you can reset your address.
19. Periodically throw some sand about the house.
20. Cut two legs shorter on each chair.
21. During a squall, wake up, go to the front porch, throw a bucket of cold water in your face, then go back to bed.
[via the Grogono family website]
Magnetic Tape
From websites:
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Flexible magnetic tape instantly creates a magnetic backing on photos, mementos, shopping lists, notepads, and more!
Now you can make anything "stick" with this revolutionary magnetized adhesive tape that comes in its own easy-to-use dispenser.
Reusable tape won't leave marks; adheres to refrigerator, cabinets, and other magnetic surfaces.
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26-foot-long x 0.75"W roll + dispenser: $9.02.
Nature This Week — 'Find out what nature is doing around you'
Select a location and Bob's your uncle.
About this site and how it works.
Fair warning: there goes the day.
Thursday, July 30, 2026
'Things are seldom what they seem'
The great late 19th-century British neuroscientists Gilbert & Sullivan penned these words, sung by Little Buttercup and Captain in H.M.S. Pinafore.
"Skim milk masquerades as cream."*
*The next line
'So Many Books' — Gabriel Zaid
From this brief (144 pages), wonderful 2004 book:
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The reading of books is growing arithmetically; the writing of books is growing exponentially. If our passion for writing goes unchecked, in the near future there will be more people writing books than reading them.
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, our universal graphilomania produces a million titles a year, in printings of thousands of copies. Very few books are reprinted; even fewer are translated.
The freedom and happiness experienced in reading are addictive, and the strength of the tradition lies in that experience, which ultimately turns all innovations to its own ends.
The truly cultured are capable of owning thousands of unread books without losing their composure or their desire for more.
Almost all books are obsolete from the moment they're written, if not before.
Why read? And why write? After reading one hundred, one thousand, ten thousand books in a lifetime, what have we read? Nothing.
Maybe all experience of infinity is an illusion, if it is not precisely an experience of finiteness. And maybe the measure of our reading should therefore be, not the number of books we've read, but the state in which they leave us.
What matters is how we feel, how we see, what we do after reading; whether the street and the clouds and the existence of others mean anything to us; whether reading makes us, physically, more alive.
Maybe that is what life is: We stand up and say hello and then disappear. But it is difficult to accept that idea. In our hello is a yearning for eternity.
Today it is easier to acquire treasures than it is to give them the time they deserve.
Modern productivity reduces the cost of mechanical reproduction and increases the cost of Socratic reproduction.
Confronted with the choice between having time and having things, we've chosen to have things. Today it is a luxury to read what Socrates said, not because the books are expensive, but because our time is scarce. Today intelligent conversation and contemplative leisure cost infinitely more than the accumulation of cultural treasures.
Reading is useless; it is a vice, pure pleasure.
No experts in technological forecasting are predicting the end of fire or the wheel or the alphabet, inventions that are thousands of years old but have never been surpassed, despite being the products of underdeveloped peoples. And yet there are prophets who proclaim the death of the book. As a technological judgment, it doesn't withstand the slightest scrutiny.
Books can be skimmed.... It is very difficult to get a rapid sense of a temporal sequence (even if it is visual) that must pass through a machine. In order to follow what comes out of a player piano, record player, tape player, film projector, radio, television, videocassette player, computer, telephone, or fax, you must pay close attention to the sequence of images or sounds. To search for something, it is necessary to proceed blindly, stubbornly, clumsily, without being able to see any distance ahead. It is easier to find things in books.
A book is read at a pace determined by the reader. This is a significant freedom. It is so easy to turn back, to reread, to halt, to skip things that are of no interest. With the new media, these can be cumbersome operations.
Time is by far the most expensive aspect of reading. In a wealthy economy, time is worth more than things, and it is easier to buy things than to find the time to enjoy them. Reading is a luxury of the poor.
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Wednesday, July 29, 2026
Thread Cutter Ring — 'Jane Bond, call your office'
From websites:
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Slip this lovely ring on any finger to easily snip any type of thread — simply, smoothly, and quickly.
Provides fingertip convenience while sewing or crafting, eliminating the tedious search for scissors.
Brass with stainless steel blade.*
Adjusts to fit most fingers.
1" diameter.
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*I'm thinking this will likely be confiscated if you have it on your finger when you go through airport security.
Free Movies on YouTube
This is astounding.
I stumbled on this hidden feature last night when I was looking for a movie I'd seen reviewed favorably but couldn't locate on my usual streaming suspects.
That film — "Sudden Outbursts of Emotion," a 2024 title from Finland — is on YouTube, where it's not free but rather rentable.
And very good, BTW.
In the course of looking for it I opened a page with zillions of free movies — big time titles like "Mission Impossible" etc. — and it was like I'd fallen down a rabbit hole into an alternate universe.
Free, the way we like it!
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