Word: thingness
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Given a potentially world-changing new technology, what does your modern-day greedy capitalist do? Build a theme park! That Barnumesque observation (a tad dated in this age of tech multibillionaires) isn't the only thing that's overfamiliar in this dull time-travel tale from the author of Jurassic Park. Here, America's favorite didact is out to learn us a thing or two about quantum mechanics and taking history seriously. His highly educated, lightly characterized academic heroes get their soft hands roughed up battling 14th century knights rather than prehistoric raptors. Crichton has clearly learned from his best...
...first question of the show, the host asked, "Steve Martin played a wild and crazy..." I buzzed in with "somewhere near Romania." This premature gesticulation caused me not only to sit in a corner and wear a dunce cap for the first three episodes but to do things never before seen on a game show. When the host began a question with the words "Venus flytrap..." I emitted a low, guttural noise, which sounded like reee. I had started to say the name of Tim Reid, the actor who played Venus Flytrap on WKRP in Cincinnati, when I realized...
...word origins, monster must demonstrate a moral, a lesson, a value. What values do the Pocket Monsters demonstrate? "Pokemon appeals to children's desire for mastery," says Stephanie Pratola, a child psychologist. "That begins to develop at age six or seven. There are so many things to master--the games, knowing all the rules for the cards, what makes a good trade." It's a world of expertise in which kids can revel, free from parents who don't understand the rules. Pratola says the marketers have taken huge advantage of this developmental niche among children, but she spreads...
...Elaine Cassidy) is an Irish girl come to Birmingham, England, to find the guy who left her pregnant. He (Bob Hoskins) is a caterer with an eye, and a knife, for the ladies. In this sort-of comedy about a serial killer and his next intended, the only thing pushing the plot is relentless coincidence--a movie this implausible shouldn't be this dull--and a very aggressive score that tells you what you would have felt if the film (from the director of The Sweet Hereafter) had been made with more passion and craft. Only Hoskins rises above...
...anus and into the bowel, is still considered the gold standard for detecting colon cancer in its earliest, most treatable stage. Now there may be a less traumatic alternative. A study shows that a "virtual colonoscopy"--basically, a fancy CAT scan--is nearly as accurate (82%) as the real thing in detecting tiny precancerous polyps. The procedure zaps patients with radiation equivalent to about five chest X rays, but it's noninvasive, requires no sedation and is all over in about 10 minutes...