After decades of debating whether or not to stop minting the penny, the United States has finally stopping minting them. Just last month, in fact. Maryclaire Dale has a good overview article for the Associated Press that came out right around the time the last pennies were being made at the Philadelphia Mint. For example, what will businesses do now that the penny is still legal tender and circulated, but no longer produced?

No, not if the play's gone wrong. That's its own thing. And I don't mean the Shaun of the Dead has gone wrong. That's as brilliant as Shaun's plan to get to the Winchester is daft. I just needed a good image of befuddlement. But we have all watched films where we're befuddled about how unremarkable it is, haven't we?

All seven or nine regular readers may realize I like folklore, probably more due to two fiction podcasts (one more fairy tales, one more spooky tales) Jabberwocky Audio Theater makes versus posts here. Basically, you combine the fact that my siblings and I quickly went beyond Greek, Egyptian, and Norse mythology with the fact that we got to read O.G.

Firefighters embarked on an "extraordinary rescue mission" when an American exchange student got his leg trapped inside a giant vagina sculpture.

I knew Milwaukee's Mitchell Airport had the added appeal of a Usinger's store (which I no longer see listed, so maybe it doesn't?), but I did not know it had a wonderful used book store, Renaissance Books, which you can learn about in this short piece: As with my post last week about retail stores trying to become more of an "experience,"

I thought of that quote this weekend and what it means to me. And boy, it takes some shifting of weigt for this kind of creative loss. You see, British playwright Tom Stoppard has died at the age of 88. You can read obituaries and remembrances from: Associated Press BBC Deadline The Guardian The Hollywood Reporter National Theatre NPR…

Along with "Alice's Restaurant" and WKRP in Cincinnati's "Turkeys Away," I feel this should be in seasonal rotation: Stay safe out there, people!

Well, maybe. Retail is the era of omnipresent online shopping needs to have some extra experiential spice of its own. And it's no secret that retail's "biggest season" is upon us. Much digital ink is being spent on analysis as folks try and find trends. I'm a fan of "Small Business Saturday," but and would note: If you search for "Small Business Saturday" and your city or locality, there might be a page about stores in your neck of the woods, and…

You heard it right, someone is dialing the gate and a new Stargate TV show is coming through the wormhole. And no, as fans will patiently explain, they're not talking about the 1994 movie, they're talking about the multiple shows that started in '97 and ran for a surprisingly long time as I posted about back in 2022. But for fans, of course, there have been no new chapters for a depressingly long time.

YouTube video by Thomas Davies

On May 16th, 1990, Jim Henson a writer, director, puppeteer, and all-around friend of imagination, died suddenly. There was a public memorial less than a week later and another one in July. Then, 35 years ago this night, November 21, 1990, the Muppets did their own remembrance on CBS. I had forgotten about it, but thanks to writer and de facto pop culture historian Mark Evanier, …

If you're in a workplace like mine, you probably get a lot of seasonal online safety tips... but what if you aren't? So in the spirit of remembering some handy tips as all the holiday deals start dominating our inboxes and site next week, check out some of CISA's guides for shopping safely: Shopping Online Safely: A list of bullet points to remember…

You all may recall last year got an opportunity to play the good-natured Deputy Ray Lester in the freaky-natured horror podcast Partial Veil. Well, besides picking up some darn fine awards and acclaim, Partial Veil has continued with season two and now they're looking for funding for said season with a twist: they're giving some great swag as well as the chance to shape what happens in season three. Check out the Kickstarter before Tuesday, December 2nd for all the details.