Day 421: The Number That Will DESTROY You!!!

originally published February 24, 2013 People believe in some strange things. Some of these beliefs evolve into organized religions, others turn into cults, and the ones that don’t catch enough fan buzz get pigeon-holed into superstition. Had Jesus broken a mirror or walked under a ladder right before his betrayal and crucifixion, then these precautions […]

Day 420: The 420-Characters Project

originally published February 23, 2013 A funny thing happened on my way to this article. I had a topic picked out months ago – one I’m as positive as a rum-soaked, middle-age mind can be that I’d found on the shelf of my muse, Ms. Wikipedia. Alas, this volume appears to be no more. I […]

Day 419: My Two-Hour Weekend In Vegas

originally published February 22, 2013 I wrote a few days back that Las Vegas is a city in which one can spend an action-packed weekend, all within the course of a couple hours. That wasn’t just a flowery, literary suggestion. I based that statement on personal experience. In October of 2009, my best friend got […]

Day 418: The Titans Of Vegas

originally published February 21, 2013 Every city has its share of oddities, but a city like Las Vegas – sewn together by the forsaken dollar bills lost to an unsatisfied inside straight, fortified by sticky plastic novelty cups and souvenir snowglobes, and ultimately cemented with a seductive plaster made up of $1.99 shrimp cocktail and […]

Day 417: Vegas & The Casha Nostra

originally published February 20, 2013 Thirteen years ago, during my second trip as an adult to that star-spew oasis in the armpit of the desert known as Las Vegas, I got stuck on a monorail. On this particular August night, a wicked storm was wreaking havoc along the famous Strip, with flash floods sending confused […]

Day 416: A Minor In Adultsville

originally published February 19, 2013 In honor of this week marking the anniversary of my first visit to Las Vegas as an adult – for a romantic post-Valentine’s weekend with my wife, who at the time was simply this chick I was shagging (hi, honey!) – and possibly as a testament to the fact that […]

Day 415: Happy Pretend Presidents Day

originally published February 18, 2013 As I crawled out from under my overturned sofa cushions, pushing away the vacant pizza boxes that littered my living room floor like a ghost town that once housed a thriving populace of Italian sausage and thinly-sliced peppers, it dawned on me that I don’t have to call in fake-sick […]

Day 414: Spelunking For Dollars

originally published February 17, 2013 If you’re a fan of the earth, so much so that you enjoy being completely ensconced in it, do I have some vacation spots for you. You see, ever since humankind moved out of caves into 4-level split duplex suburbia, we have been fascinated with returning to caves, shining lights […]

Day 413: Harsh Measures

originally published February 16, 2013 If this massive project accomplishes nothing else (and with any luck, it won’t), I hope to expand the working vocabulary of myself and those around me. I want some new level of understanding, an appreciation for as wide a swath of the available lexicon as we all can muster. And […]

Day 412: Spun-Off & Spun-Out (Part 2)

originally published February 15, 2013 Some topics are simply too large to be contained within a single article. A month ago I marveled at some of television’s more obscure spin-offs, but I only scratched the surface. Television networks have a habit of trying to stretch their audience’s limit of how much of a good thing […]