Day 821: Schlepping A Thousand Kosher Words To The Page

originally published March 31, 2014 I’m not one to toot my own genetic horn, but I have yet to discover a language more palette-ticklingly entertaining than Yiddish. I may have been raised in a Jewish home whose only strict adherence to the faith involved my father slightly furrowing his brow when I’d order a bacon […]

Day 820: The Mind Behind The Map

originally published March 30, 2014 Were we to kick aside the boulders of our base knowledge – the works of Newton, Galileo, Edison, Tesla, Shakespeare and the mighty triumvirate of Bell, Biv and Devoe – we would eventually reach the fortified foundation of our species’ early great minds. These are the men (unfortunately, the great […]

Day 819: How To Talk Like A Geek, Circa 1993

originally published March 29, 2014 As romantically as it may roll from the tongue, the notion of September, 1993 being referred to as “the Eternal September” is far from the fodder for another Nicholas Sparks melodramatic novel (which he has no doubt penned in the time it has taken me to write this opening sentence). […]

Day 818: Brother Can You Spare Infinity Monkeys?

originally published March 28, 2014 Every so often I encounter one of those weary, soggy mornings when the lazy sun can’t seem to prop my fingers upon their ASDF-JKL; thrones to do their little thousand-word dance. Artificial stimulation helps – sometimes a throttle-jolt of caffeine, perhaps a bursting platter of bratwurst eggs benedict, even one […]

Day 817: Adios, Amigos!

originally published March 27, 2014 You know what’s wrong with the world today? The children. I’m not talking about their slimy little running noses, their unmitigated X-box apathy or the horrific Beiberfication of what was once a proud, noble, Huey-Lewis-worthy pop culture. No, it’s their very existence that’s dragging us down, the fact that two […]

Day 816: Gettin’ High Off Last Week’s Munchies

originally published March 26, 2014 If there is one constant in human nature – and I hope there’s more than one, or I’ll never again be able to employ this opening – it’s that people love to get high. Some get their highs from adrenaline, others from religious fulfillment, and still others simply from exhuming […]

Day 815: Warriors Of Virtue

originally published March 25, 2014 While the bulk of our news sources have us scouring the globe for a missing plane, watching for the next drunken act of buffoonery by Toronto’s mayor or collectively pretending that Kim & Kanye’s pampered offspring has any relevance to anything, the mainstream western media has skipped a few stories. […]

Day 814: Little Boxes Made Of Ticky-Tacky

originally published March 24, 2014 I was perusing through the November 1952 issue of Popular Science magazine yesterday (yes, I’m a little behind in my reading), when I came across an interesting article. It boasted the proud promise of a fresh residential concept: cozy in its cohesive uniformity, a respite from the urban blues, and […]

Day 813: Biting The Bullet

originally published March 23, 2014 To my fellow fans of tweaked reality, I ask: what is the ultimate magic trick? Is it David Copperfield sending the Statue of Liberty into a temporary netherworld? David Blaine bending the laws of logic and physics two inches from a spectator’s nose? Jim Belushi keeping his garbage sitcom on […]

Day 812: The Sunday Funniest

originally published March 22, 2014 Three years ago I was a discontented drone, shackled to a job so heaped in mundane repetition, to describe it to friends would often invoke a yawn the size of Black Chasm Cavern. Alas, this project of passion before you hasn’t yet afforded me a tether to a more interesting […]