A couple weeks ago I re-purchased Licensed To Ill, The Beastie Boys’ first album for the first time since buying the cassette when it first came out. “Whoop-de-do,” you say? Well, yes as a matter of fact: Whoop-de-do. I’m a huge Beastie Boys fan, but have always retroactively ignored the first album because in part […]
January 12, 2011
How Many Other Great Recommendations Were Lost to the Czech Accent?
So, one of my favorite places in the world is gone. Berbati’s Pan in Portland, Oregon closed up for good in 2011. Man, my favorite little Italian restaurant turned into a sports bar (and really, just in time because where oh where can someone go if they want to watch sports in a bar?), and […]
December 30, 2010
The Acronym: Scourge of Our Times? Okay, Probably Not “Scourge”.
I have, what I have come to accept as, a strange pet peeve. It is not my biggest pet peeve (can anyone know that? I mean, there’s a thin line between, say, your biggest pet peeve, and your smallest actual “issue” or “cause” or “hate”) nor is it my most ironic (that would be my […]
December 20, 2010
A Very Prufrock Christmas
I am not, by nature, an organized person. I tell my students this on the first day. Because of this, I have a strict system for keeping track of their papers. It involves a virtual Rube Goldberg device-like system of baskets and trays. I recognize this weakness in myself, and have compensated in a way […]
December 16, 2010
Press Conference Excerpt From When I Am President: #2
President Me: … farm allocation thing. Next question? Bill. Bill: Doesn’t it seem risky to dump the entire defense budget into space exploration? PM: I don’t follow. B: Well, I mean, we’re… okay, let me ask you this: what is it that you’re hoping to accomplish that requires 50% of our federal budget? Samantha: And […]
December 12, 2010
They Can Also Scoff, Sneer, and Snort Sarcastically.
Plain and simple. There’s just no masculine way to call a cat. Even if there isn’t someone in the vicinity – and there usually is, and it’s usually some guy dismantling the engine of his car down to individual molecules or something – you still feel the sting of it. Try it sometime. Try to […]
December 8, 2010
Obviously, It Will Be In 3D. Obviously.
So I’m a big fan of Christopher Nolan’s films. I’m particularly a fan of his collaboration with his brother Jonathan, because his brother is a prose writer, primarily, and lends a really interesting literary undercurrent to the films. People who hated the end of Dark Knight tend to hate it because it wasn’t a very […]
December 1, 2010
And That, Ming-Mai, Is Why I Pretended Not To See You At The Bus Stop.
Any time someone says they’re afraid of something, people immediately label it a “phobia,” which is, let’s face it, silly. You stand on the edge of a high cliff, look out over the side amidst gusts of wind and then step back saying, “whoa” or something and people say, “Oh, you have a fear of […]
The Byronic Man 
January 17, 2011
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