Let's take a moment to mourn Rocky Aoki, who lived one hell of an interesting life. And that article barely even mentions his kids (in the sidebar), who have their own interesting lives.


Logical Operator

The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »

Obama Criticizes Obama Over Rising Gas Prices

I was going to share this fake news article that I drafted in a chat with friends...Stopped at a DC-area gas station to fill up his motorcade, President Obama groaned as he watched the numbers climbing ever higher on the pump. "God, why don't I get off my ass and do something about the price of gas?" Go »

The Tiger

This is the second of four weekly blog posts about diagnoses that have completely changed my life since the pandemic started, after The Dragon. Last week, I wrote about my liver disease, which doesn't have any direct, detectable signs. It's not as if I feel any pain in my liver, or that I can sense that it's not working in the same way that I could tell right away if, say, my eyes stopped working or my lungs stopped working. Go »

R.I.P. Pat

Kelly's mother passed away last week. The event had been anticipated for decades: Pat was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes as a child, suffered kidney failure in 1995 and survived on her brother's donated kidney, and had five strokes and five heart attacks and countless operations, including emergency brain surgery in 2007 that changed her personality. She obviously possessed quite an inner resiliency even if she seemed petite and frail on the outside, but it was inevitable that she would someday lose the fight with her own body. Go »

Random News

Russian reporter murdered by the state. When I observed to a Bulgarian friend that Russia seems to be sinking back into its old fascist state by breaking one inviolable law at a time, he remarked that it always was that way and always will be that way. Whatever things we may dislike about our Congress or President, thank goodness they don't murder us for saying so. Go »

The Little Ship

Our cat Sweetie Pie passed away in her sleep on Thursday night after a very long illness. We don't know how old she was -- she was my mother's cat before mine, and my grandmother's cat before that, and belonged to some other lady in my grandmother's nursing home before then. We have that stranger to thank for giving her the old-fashioned name, but it was appropriate: Sweetie Pie was a friendly cat, who was happy when company came over (especially if they fed her treats!) Go »

Roger Ebert Should Lay Off the Facial Reconstructive Surgery

When Roger Ebert took ill last fall, I thought it would pass in a week like his previous cancer scares, and he'd barely mention it. Then he didn't come back to work for months, and I thought he'd announce his retirement, because it's really hard to go back to doing something full-time when you've rested too long, even if you love it like he does. Then he announced that he'd be present at his annual film festival this month, and I thought the recovery was done and he was about to return. Go »