Moore’s law describes a long-term trend in the history of computing hardware: the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years.

The law really should be called Carver’s law, because George Washington Carver first hypothesized the same for peanuts. I remember my grandfather telling me that when he was a boy, peanuts were as large as a cantaloupe. These days you can fit about ten peanuts on a ritz cracker, and I can envision a future where we’ll all be talking about nanopeanuts. I pray I live to see that day.

Percival’s search for the Grail is the embodiment of commitment and perseverance. His quest has endured for centuries, taking him to all corners of the globe and even off planet. His heroic deeds, though not well known, will forever be equated with righteousness and purity of motive.

When God told him the truth, Percival decried him as an idolater.

The Cadillac hurtled through traffic like the driver was at the controls of a video game. He sideswiped several sedans and ran one SUV off the road entirely as he jumped the median and exited the highway from the on-ramp. When he crashed into the guard rail, he brandished a semi-automatic weapon, shot several innocent bystanders, and carjacked a new vehicle. The carnage continued for several hours.

News blogs later reported that seventeen motorists died, including four prostitutes. Journalists speculated on the driver’s motive. No one guessed that he was actually a video game developer who had forgotten his medication.

Brian wasn’t sure how it happened, whether it was the Christmas wish just before his father’s death, or the aftereffects of some magical spell uttered generations before in his attic, but every night, when his mother wasn’t around, his toys came alive.

His life was now a living hell. He didn’t mind the work itself, but the beatings and tongue-lashings were, to his mind, excessive. If only the toys would tell him what they wanted in a calm manner, he’d finish everything without complaint.

Billy was consumed by fear. Somewhere on the other side of the closet door was the man come to kill him.

It was not long after the incident that Billy checked himself back into rehab. Three days spent in the closet, hiding from the mailman, finally drove home the point that his marijuana addiction was out of control.

Every desert harbors an oasis at its heart. The more consuming the landscape, the more bountiful its sanctuary. The soil squeezes every spare drop into hidden, long forgotten recesses, where it will be conducted to safety.

They’ve promised me a taste of a single drop of water, a generation in the making, on the day of my death.

Georghi Kuritsa worked a short time for the Bolsheviks. They were always an unruly sort and Georghi was punctual and well-organized, just the sort of personal assistant that made revolutions a piece of cake.

So it really is too bad that Georghi was actually a giant chicken.

I’m looking at you. You’re sitting on your pulpit, grandstanding and demanding, acting as if the whole world is against you.

Well, let me be the one to tell you: the problem isn’t that you’re black and she’s white. The reason she’s not into is that you are always wearing a cardigan with a tie.

They lived in a state of perpetual cacophony. They bickered and sermonized, battling each other over everything, from the deepest philosophical questions of their own existence to who should get to use the bathroom first. They lived in tight quarters, and were forced to look at each other constantly. They hated each other. They hated the numbers that served as names and they hated the implied hierarchy of the whole affair.

The scientist who oversaw the entire program looked at his creations ruefully. He should have foreseen the now patently obvious consequences of cloning the Great Leader so many times.