Day 441: Dog-Day Middle Age

originally published March 16, 2013 Regular readers of this site – both the actual ones and the ones I make up when I tell my mother that “millions” of people read my stuff every day – know that I love dogs. I have four of my own – four bulldogs, each with their own distinctive […]

Day 440: Strange Tales From The Hall Of Inventors

originally published March 15, 2013 If you’re wandering through the halls of the National Inventors Hall of Fame museum in Alexandira, Virginia, then congratulations, you have more free time than most of us. This is a shame, because something is lost when we forget the paths these visionaries blazed for us. We might remember some […]

Day 439: Thirst Is A Battlefield

originally published March 14, 2013 You walk into your local convenience store, peruse through the salty offerings of starch-based stoner food to accompany your quiet night of magic mushrooms and Nicholas Spark movies, when you decide you’d best grab a beverage. Little do you know, behind the double-pane glass of the store’s cooler lies a […]

Day 438: The Last American Slave – Blind Tom Wiggins

originally published March 13, 2013 Ask anyone connected with the music world, and they’ll probably tell you that the industry is more full of dicks than an all-male adult film parody like The Wangover Part II or One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Gay Sex-Den. This has been the case since the first schlub was willing […]

Day 437: Skyscraper Lite

originally published March 12, 2013 The humble town of Wichita Falls, Texas, with a population just over 103,000, has a somewhat unusual past. First of all, the actual falls after which the town was named were destroyed in a flood in 1886, just fourteen years after the town was founded. They had to build an […]

Day 436: Great Standing Beavers, Thar Be Life On The Moon!

originally published March 11, 2013 That is the sullen yet learned face of Sir John Herschel, the greatest astronomer of his time, “his time” clearly coming before the advent of quality hair product. In 1835, he taught us all about the secret goings-on taking place upon the moon’s surface, including trees, oceans, beaches, and a […]

Day 435: We Found Our War Hero – No Others Need Apply

originally published March 10, 2013 Every so often, I come across a story so skull-squishingly incredible, I feel I have to splurt it into an article before someone tells me it isn’t true. I wouldn’t feel right soaking up too much of this space with a rambling introduction – let me just say that this […]

Day 434: 50 Years Of Feeling The Boner In Her Hair

originally published March 9, 2013 Not a lot of songs are so generously packed full of interesting tidbittery to warrant a thousand words. Three-hundred fifty-one days ago, I devoted an article to what I have yet to be convinced is not the worst song of the 1980’s, “We Built This City” by Starship. Today’s song […]

Day 433: I’ll Take This Article To Go

originally published March 8, 2013 The beauty of subjecting oneself to the fickle cough of Wikipedia’s ‘Random Article’ button is that sometimes the end result reveals a fascinating slice of history, or a deliciously sparkling canvas for low-brow comedy and pop culture references. And sometimes, you simply end up with Fugitive Glue. “Am I really […]

Day 432: Hitting The Jackpot (Before It Hits Back)

originally published March 7, 2013 After yesterday’s tragic tale of lotto-mania gone bad, I needed to cleanse my perceptual palette. Is there good news to be found among the scant few lottery winners with the infamy required to earn a Wikipedia page? Are the only stories worth reading about filled with tragedy, back-stabbery and lawsuits? […]