Well, summer is shifting to its latter half now, with the coming of August.  And with it, the realization that there just isn’t enough time for all those lazy days, those projects, and those trips as you always think there will be.  Also, it’s time for Hollywood to begin the slimy, crass calculations to determine […]

This is a real headline from yesterday’s Guardian Online: “Romney Campaign Attacks Media: Mitt Romney and his staff lash out at media coverage of his inept, error-strewn overseas trip.” I love this headline so much.  I was about halfway through writing a mildly funny thing of Romney accusing the media of maligning him in the fashion […]

A couple years ago, there was a new theater in a neighboring town who decided to have a big gala opening.  They called a theater here, asked if they knew any stand-up comics, and then got passed along to me.  At first I said no, I didn’t really do that anymore, I’d quit several years […]

I don’t what it is, but I’m a total jigsaw puzzle wussy.  Seriously.  Not only do I feel like I’ve suddenly become elderly by doing a jigsaw puzzle (wearing the shawl and listening to Paul Harvey probably doesn’t help), but I’m not even good at it.  Maybe once every two years or so, my wife […]

I don’t usually watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, but it worked out rather conveniently this time around, and even if it hadn’t, Danny Boyle – the director of the ceremony – is one of my favorite directors and I was really, really curious to see what he’d do with it.  Something loud and […]

As you may have seen, on July 8, Greenland’s ice sheet had melted to the point that it generally melts by the end of a hot summer. Four days later, NASA satellites took another scan and thought their scanner was on the fritz: 97% of the remaining ice sheet had melted.  Now, many are quick […]

The other day I happened to mention that it’s illegal in Oregon, where I live, to pump your own gas.  This was inconceivable to a few people, seeing as how it’s a law that, you know, makes no sense and protects nobody from anything.  This was compounded when I explained that it’s illegal to pump […]

It’s always easiest to point to something. To say, ‘there – there’s the problem. Here’s how to fix it.’  It’s easier because it absolves us; it’s easier because it makes something impossible to comprehend make sense; it’s easier because it assigns blame.  And it’s easiest because these thing we point to, they’re not wrong.  But […]