The top domestic earning film this weekend was  Superman . $196,616,498.  There have been dozens of  Superman films,  with 11 of them considered to be re-makes. #1 the weekend of July 4-6 was  Jurassic World:  Rebirth   $152,305,936. #1 the weekend of June 27-29 was  F1: The Movie   $124,133,275. The latest  Worldwide box office  ( in 100 million $, with Rotten Tomatoes rating in parentheses ): #1     Ne Zha 2   $1.90 or, $1.9 billion ( 96/99 ) #2      Lilo & Stitch   $0.99 ( 52/71 ) #3     A Minecraft Movie   $0.96 ( 47/85 ) #4     Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning   $0.58 ( 80/88 ) #5     How to Train Your Dragon   $0.56 ( 77/97 ) #6     Jurassic World: Rebirth   $0.53 ( 52/71 ). #7     Captain America: Brave New World   $0.42 ( 47/77 ) #8     F1: The Movie ...

This is the third and final part of our trip to France in 2019.  Part 1 was to  champagne country , Part 2  Bordeaux , and this Part 3 to Cognac, which is both a town ( 250 miles southwest of Paris ) and the highest form of brandy.  All bottles labeled Cognac are produced from grapes grown in this location.  The population of Cognac is around 19,000, but was as high at 22,000 in 1975. We only stayed two nights in Cognac, at what was then a new  Chais Monnet , one of the very finest hotels we have ever experienced.  Virtually adjacent are the grand four cognac companies, Martel, Hennessey, Courvoisier and Rémy Martin.  I picked this hotel because Rémy Martin is just across the street, where we had made a special appointment to get a private tour.  These four make 93% of all the cognac drunk.   We arrived by train.  Every major train station has a taxi stand, right?  Nope.  We waited for 15 minutes, and finally got some...

During the pandemic, Thursday was my day for COVID-19.  Looks like there is a new variant that could become serious, so I return today for an update.  But first, yesterday I ended with input from Elon Musk.  Today I will start with him.  From the  New York Time s: Elon Musk is leaving Washington . In a post on X last night, he confirmed for the first time what has become increasingly clear for weeks — that his work with the Trump administration and DOGE is coming to an end. He thanked Trump “for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending. ”   One more matter dealing with politics.  The  New York Times  this morning also showed the following graphic, which is startling: Trump won because many counties shifted from Democratic to Republican.  Ironically, Democrats improved in mostly richer counties.  What has happened is that Republicans are now making gains in working-class areas.  Wonder what will happen in November 2026 when t...

Japan had the first bullet train more than 60 years ago.  It was 10October1964, when the opening ceremony was held in Tokyo in anticipation of Japan's first-ever Olympic Games, which began that day. The  Shinkansen,  meaning  new mainline , with a separate track, arrived when normal train traffic had reached the limit for carrying passengers and freight.   A train trip between Osaka and Tokyo dropped from 6 hours and 40 minutes to 4 hours, shortened to 3 hours and 10 minutes by 1964, and is now 2 hours and 30 minutes.  From the Shin-Osaka Station to the Shin-Yokohama Station only takes a little more than 2 hours. In 1964 the track was 320 miles long.  Today, it's up to 1484 miles.  The original itinerary incorporating Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka now carries 159 million passengers/year.  In this 6 decade period, more than 10 billion passengers have been safely handled.  CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT NOT ONE PASSENGER HAS YET BEEN KILLED IN A DERA...