Tag Archives: 1980s

The Most Spectacular Restaurant in the World

Posted on September 5, 2025 by smellincoffee

I’ve been collecting WTC photos since high school, haunted by watching the Towers burn and fall on live tv. Some of the most interesting I’ve seen have been inside Windows of the World, a restaurant that occupied two of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Memories from the Microphone

Posted on May 19, 2025 by smellincoffee

Memories from the Microphone is a history of baseball broadcasting that begins with primitive radio and follows broadcasting into the maturation of radio and television networks. In this, it’s also a partial history of how radio and television developed as … Continue reading →

Posted in General, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Trump: The Art of the Comeback

Posted on January 20, 2025 by smellincoffee

This business history / memoir is not something I’d ordinarily read, given that when my reading brushes business it’s usually in connection with something like food, energy, or IT. Howeverrrrrrr, since Trump went out of office and now he’s going … Continue reading →

Posted in General, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , | 14 Comments

Biking and Brotherhood

Posted on January 4, 2025 by smellincoffee

Although my dad had stopped biking long before I came on the scene, there were enough photos of him and my uncles sitting on their engines to make me a sucker for shows like Sons of Anarchy and books like … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Live, from New York — It’s SATURDAY NIGHT!

Posted on February 27, 2024 by smellincoffee

At the end of 2022, a friend of mine discovered that his former roommate had left a boxed set of SNL’s first five seasons — or at least, season two of the same. He was a teenager when SNL first … Continue reading →

Posted in history, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

America’s first female astronauts

Posted on December 14, 2023 by smellincoffee

When NASA was formed and began looking for astronauts, they settled on test pilots as the initial base: such men were already known quantities, with proven physical and intellectual gifts that could be applied to the pioneering work of Mercury and beyond. Although … Continue reading →

Posted in history, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Neuromancer

Posted on October 26, 2023 by smellincoffee

Neuromancer is a rare book — bewildering, beautiful, horrifying, disorienting. It’s the story of Case, a ruined hacker who is approached by a woman with a job offer. In the recent past, he made the mistake of stealing from the … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, science fiction | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

Millenium

Posted on October 9, 2023 by smellincoffee

So there you are, dear reader, engrossed in an interesting story about two airplanes smashing into one another, and of a man named Bill Smith who’s trying to find why. And then, perhaps a half hour into your reading journey, … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, science fiction | Tagged , , , | 13 Comments

Forever Young

Posted on July 20, 2023 by smellincoffee

If ever the title “Mr. Astronaut” was given out, it would not go to John Glenn, despite his being the posterboy of Mercury; it wouldn’t even go to Neil Armstrong, who fifty-four years ago today became the first human to … Continue reading →

Posted in General, history, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Gaming on the ZX Speccy, oceans, and harrumphing at the White House

Posted on March 30, 2023 by smellincoffee

I think I’ve managed to avoid doing any ‘short rounds’ posts this year, but three months in the streak ends. It’s not my fault, I swear. It’s the books. First up is The Nostalgia Nerd’s Retro Tech, a mostly-graphic look … Continue reading →

Posted in history, Reviews, science | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments