When I started dating my wife, one of the things I liked the most about her was that we both wanted the same things out of life.
No. That’s not true. We both wanted completely different things out of life, but the differences were so compatible they fit together like Ikea furniture. Each of us was […]

In my thirty plus years on the planet, I have lived in six or seven different places. In every one of those places, I or a member of my family have experienced a random act of unkindness. When I was a kid in deepest, darkest suburbia, we got our mailbox smashed so often […]

Believe it or not, there are things I don’t talk about.
There are a good many things I keep out of quote-unquote polite conversation, in fact. A good way to figure out what they are is to read the things I post on the web. I think about political and religious issues more or less all […]

The state of Idaho is divided into three barley regions. A barley producer from each region is appointed by the Governor to serve a three-year term (limited to two terms) on the Idaho Barley Commission. The commissioners not only represent their districts but the state of Idaho through national organizations such as, US Grains Council, […]

So, having made its benjamins in theaters for the last five months or so, Star Wars Episode III comes out on DVD Tuesday. Allfather/carrion George Lucas has promised more adventures in the “Expanded Universe,” including a couple of developing TV series, but Epsiode III is the last part of the Star Wars saga I can […]

I do not especially remember Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. To a certain extent, that can be attributed to the fact that I read it over the 4th of July weekend while visiting the Wisconsin Dells, a trip that also included everything from fireworks to ice cream-covered funnel cakes to rides on […]

I find that a lifetime of playing video games, even games of the was-that-a-bloody-eyeball? variety, does not seem to have made me especially violent. The debate over violent video games, however, never fails to put me on the brink of a rampage. That’s why this piece made me happier than a Pac-Man at a blue […]

I took another thing away from that Newsweek dinosaur story (which apparently affected me the way the Bible is supposed to; I haven’t talked about anything so much since they started making Cheerios with the sugar already on them). Unlike a lot of kids, the thought of giant carnivorous lizards never really freaked me out […]

I.
from “Buried Treasure,” Newsweek, 6/27:
Other researchers have been doing equally remarkable things with [dinosaur] bones. Kent Stevens, a computer scientist at the University of Oregon, became interested in the large long-necked sauropods of the late Jurassic Period, about 150 million years ago. Members of this family, which includes apatosaurus and diplodocus, were assumed to be […]

When we were in college, my roommate Greg and I would often talk about technology and design through the ages. As we carted off the broken remnants of his sleek black plastic stereo, which we had dismantled with a hammer on the day it dared not to work anymore, we reminisced about the wood-paneled, silver-knobbed […]

The wife and I went on a crazy, gluttonous, Lenin-validating consumer spree with our wedding gift cards this weekend, sacking the Target and leaving nothing but debris and bruised stockboys in our wake. As we began to struggle a bit to find space for our existing wedding gifts in the manse, I was wary of […]

What did you get your mom for Mother’s Day?
Flowers? Candy? Maybe a nice piece of chicken at a classy restaurant?
For my mom’s birthday, which seems to be on Mother’s Day every other year, I got her the one thing she has been asking for consistently for the last several months, the thing that every mother […]

This is not a Photoshop. This actually happened.
UPDATE: much, much worse.

PEEMP.

When did angels become such pricks?
Though I would not have predicted it a month ago, some friends and I went to see the movie Constantine last weekend. It was the most recent example of something that has been going on around me for about a decade; everyone I knew was vaguely disdainful of the trailer, […]

The Passion of the Christ is in theaters now, and the reviews are in!
“That’s not acting; that’s staring.”
-Holly, 24
“Hey, that wasn’t in the book!”
-Peter Jackson
“I cannot accurately review this movie, having given up profanity for Lent.”
-Jimski, 28
Mel Gibson is a carny.
I was really looking forward to this movie, too. I’ve been waiting for this one […]

A week has passed since the election, and I still have not fully formed any thought that the world really needs to hear on the subject. I have proven once again that my vote counts. No matter what the issue, no matter which party you’re in, my support has the power to make you lose. […]

I was reading a blurb online the other day about a new Batman movie currently being filmed in Chicago. (Yes, yes. “Comic book movie spoilers? However did you find those on the internet?” Get it out of your system.) There was a sneak preview of some early footage at a big comic book convention in […]

Dear Senator Edwards:
I just wanted to drop you a quick note to say how nice it almost was to run into you at Blueberry Hill the other night. Actually, a couple of friends and I went by there specifically to talk to you, and for a while I started to worry that you weren’t going […]

I met a girl who’s way cooler than you.
I mean no offense. Don’t take it personally. I’m sure you’re a pretty groovy person, intelligent, happenin’. You’ve got a lot going on, but you’re still fashionably bored enough with the world to come look at this nonsense in the middle of your day. That devil-may-care, fire-me-for-noncompliance-to-posted-web-usage-policies […]

Why “tug of war”? Isn’t it more of a war of tugs? The tugs aren’t really of the war.
Unless it’s like, “This is not an idle rope tug, blaggard! This is a tug of war!”
My work is very engaging.

Let’s spend a moment on “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.”
A friend of mine had started to get “into” the show in that way people seem to get “into” all of this reality garbage. In a time when I am only nominally employed and still can’t seem to find the time to call my loved […]