Month: November 2011

We’ve all done things that didn’t turn out exactly as planned. Since you’re not here to defend yourself, I’ll give a personal example. When I was a kid I wanted a rocket launcher. Well, what kid doesn’t? As regular readers of this blog know I made some unusual choices as a child. Anyway, like I said, I wanted a rocket launcher. Since my family thought this was an incredibly bad idea I was shut down. Or so they hoped. Instead I decided to build my own. After all, how hard…

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You know what I love about the ancient aliens crowd? I mean besides nothing? It’s how they can take one fact and extrapolate outward until they can find that wonderfully irrational response that ignores the initial fact. There’s a certain skill involved in being that delusional. I’ll give you an example. Most everyone knows what a pyramid is and the Ancient Alien crowd really seems enamored with them, so we’ll start there. Even the most ignorant among us have to agree that to build a pyramid requires very accurate cutting…

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We all know that one special person, usually a guy, who somehow, despite life’s best efforts, continues to breathe our air and comment on that fact. This is not the person who’s done something a little off center, this is the person who had his eyelids tattooed pink. And then noted that his career in customer service had been hampered by his boss’ wrongheaded devotion to dealing with the customers. In other words, the kind of person who makes life choices that would baffle the most unusual among us. Also,…

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You know what it’s like. You finally get settled into your little cul-de-sac, the kids like playing on the driveway and – WHAM – some new jerk moves in with a big old Harley, a wife who loves wind chimes and three kids fresh out of reform school. It’s like being trapped in an episode of the Jerry Springer show. Well, that’s kind of what things are like for the various world space agencies. Now that they narrowed out the nearby possibilities for what may be exoplanets they’re now faced…

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Some days I end up staring at the news stories the Nude Hippo robot drops off each morning and wonder how I’m going to make anything coherent out of them. Other mornings are laid out as neatly as if they’d been vetted by interns. Every now and then, however, there’s nothing I can do but punt. It’s just a weird overload. And, by that, I mean there’s way too much weird in the world today. Let’s start with an easy one. The bright people of Derby, Connecticut just elected James…

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The nice thing about this job is that I can just let my mind wander and contemplate great thoughts. For example, today I found myself wondering if any men still call their penis a tallywhacker and, if so, why? I also contemplated the great mysteries of life that concern the male fascination with the female anatomy. That took several hours of dedicated research. I can now officially attest that men do, indeed, look at women. In other words, as you can plainly see, I earn every penny I make here.…

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Cliches make writing easy. Gotta scandal? Toss the word “gate” on it and everyone knows what you mean even if they have no clue that the original referred to a rather nice hotel. I should know, I’ve stayed there. And if you’re throwing a big shin dig that’s guaranteed to be lots of fun for all? Toss “palooza” at the end even if you have no clue who Perry Farrell is or why you should care. I can even remember when Xerox had to sue to get control over their…

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Western religion has had a long problem with the whole idea of sex. Some of the earliest porn can be found in the Old Testament, or the Talmud if you prefer, with the Songs of Solomon of the tales of Bathsheba. Yet right along side those tales are the many admonitions against everything (except selling your daughters) in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Among others. The various western religions preach peace above all else and, yet, glorify the stories of King David. A guy who sent his buddy to die so he…

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When I was nine years old I was deeply inspired by Evel Knievel. As such I decided that I needed to have a cool stunt too. Since my family would not let me assemble a large ramp to see if my Schwin Spider could leap cars or buses I had to come up with something else. It took my, still forming, brain a bit but I finally came up with a great idea. Well, a great idea for a 9 year old anyway. I would haul my bicycle up onto…

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We are, each and everyone of us, bludgeoned daily about the need to “go green.” Many of those efforts are well meaning and, possibly, even useful. But there are others that are merely scams designed solely to separate you from your money. That Electric Dog Polisher isn’t really going to save the planet or make Fido happy. Fortunately for you there is an easy to access website that lists all the wonderful scams out there so you won’t get taken. Think of it as the green version of Snopes. In…

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