Day 841: Hunting The Lost City Of Z

originally published April 20, 2014 There are days when I look at my life story and say, “Woah. This is not the stuff of exquisite drama. Where’s the page-turning twist, the perilous element of surprise?” Then I flip on the TV and get distracted by an old episode of Seinfeld and feel much better. I […]

Day 840: Baby You Can Drive My Car – Or Better Still, Your Robot Can Do It

originally published April 19, 2014 As I trepidatiously shuffle toward the edge of the board, ready to leap into the warm waters of turning 40 this year, I realize it’s time to release my hopes of seeing the skies filled with flying cars. That Jetsons-style future-scape is not going to cross paths with my personal […]

Day 839: The Stars Of Our Show – The Alphabet

originally published April 18, 2014 I love playing around with the format of this little experiment and trying to cram as much (seemingly) meaningless trivia into a tiny thousand-word cubicle. To that end I’m going to offer a specific number of trivia slices to spread across your plate of knowledge today, awaiting the fork of […]

Day 838: More Roadside Strangeness

originally published April 17, 2014 Despite my wife’s overwhelming disinterest, one of my dream vacations involves combing the secondary highways of North America and tracking down the most boisterously benign roadside attractions the western world has to offer. I think it’s fantastic when a small town builds a UFO landing site, a massive ball of […]

Day 837: The Chess Moves Of Nuclear Madness

originally published April 16, 2014 I hate to get all gloomy and dark, but as blissful as the post-Cold-War afterglow may have been (and oh, how it was), we need to take a step back and remember that we still live in a world saturated with nukes, ready to pop out of the ground like […]

Day 836: When Wars Simply Won’t End

originally published April 15, 2014 I don’t like to get overtly political on this site, but I’m going to roll the dice and potentially alienate some of my audience by taking a firm stand: war, for the most part, is not good. What’s worse is a war that doesn’t end when it’s supposed to. You […]

Day 835: Presenting The… French King Of England?

originally published April 14, 2014 It’s surprising how often I find myself stopped on the street by a complete stranger – often a fan of my articles and almost always totally imaginary – asking me why I don’t write an article about the Magna Carta. These folks invariably get my mind-wheels turning; all I know […]

Day 834: The Dark Knight Redux

originally published April 13, 2014 When Hollywood scores a hit, we all know they will run it as far into the ground as possible, often forgoing quality and integrity somewhere within the planet’s crust and plunging deep into the molten core with a hot and hungry grab for easy audience bucks. The current crop of […]

Day 833: Tales From The Motown Snakepit

originally published April 12, 2014 The music that roared through the stucco and plaster of Hitsville U.S.A. to become the Motown sound that defined soul music in the 1960’s was crafted by some of the most formidable talent the music world has ever cradled. Unfortunately, while stars like Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson and Martha Reeves […]

Day 832: The Anti-Farting Law That Nearly Was

originally published April 11, 2014 Every so often a story wanders down the legal footpath, leaving in its wake the floral stench of incalculable weirdness. In the case of the 2011 Air Fouling Legislation in the tiny southern African country of Malawi, the scent is remarkably different. This is the smell of post-legume discipline and […]