Of my two cats, Biddy displays significantly more intelligence than Walter. He communicates well, he finds loopholes in all of the barriers I present between him and food, and his test scores are off the charts (unfortunately, those scores are for glucose). For example, here’s Biddy digging through an old game prototype from years ago. … Read more
In the midst of the continued aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in Texas, I saw this on ESPN yesterday: I’ve written about sports and related media sometimes forgetting that they’re just a form of entertainment. They bring a lot of people joy and meaning, but in the end, sports are no different than movies, TV shows, … Read more
Well, folks, we have a new greatest fear to add to the list. This is one that I wouldn’t have known about…but then it happened to real people! As reported recently by the NY Times, 16 employees at the the US embassy in Cuba became mysteriously ill last year. They experienced headaches, dizziness, and hearing … Read more
I worked in a movie theater for a summer right before college, and I had a blast. I love movies, I love seeing people get excited about movies, and I love popcorn. It was a good fit. There’s one part of the job that no one at the theater enjoyed: Cleaning up a theater after … Read more
All throughout my youth, my family ate meals together around our kitchen table. No TV, no cell phones, just the 5 of us trying our best to communicate. The same thing happens at a larger scale during our semi-annual family reunions, when everyone takes turns contributing to meals for 30-40 people. In college, I almost … Read more
A few weeks ago, I was cheerfully chowing down on some leftover Korean food when it happened: I picked up a chunk of rice, only to find a long, black hair protruding from it. My stomach dropped. There was something about that hair, pieces of rice stuck to the strand, that made me lose my … Read more
A while ago, I wrote about an “outward-facing life hack” for sending DVDs back to Netflix. This is a category of life hacks that make other peoples’ lives better, easier, or happier. Back in college, I spent two summers working as a waiter at local restaurants in my hometown. We had bus boys at the … Read more
For the last few days, I’ve been a part of so many discussions about how people (you, me, anyone) would look at the sun during the eclipse today. And I just don’t get it. Why would you want to look at the sun, eclipse or no eclipse? Is it part of human nature to do … Read more
I’ve been Facetiming from my home office with my niece (4) and nephew (2) for years now, so they’ve seen every inch of my condo on a tiny screen. I was elated to finally show them a little slice of my life in person in St. Louis this past weekend when they dropped in on … Read more
What if, in the blink of an eye, 2% of the world’ population disappeared? That’s the question posed by The Leftovers, an HBO show that has been my go-to entertainment over the last 2 weeks (it is NOT, as I originally thought, a reality show about leftover food). The Leftovers aired for 3 seasons, completed … Read more