The Big Potato
Put Cyprus on your list of Must Visit Places. I know I have, now that I've learned they have a monument to rival the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty. It's called The Big Potato. That's not a typo. The town of Xylophagou (also not a typo) erected a 16-foot tall...
Death Cooties & Alluvial Deposits
A while back, I proposed that we needed to rename COVID. I felt "Mandalorian Death Cooties" was a much better title. It sounds exotic and menacing. COVID sounds like either the rec center at a small private college or the answer to some calculus question I got wrong...
My Brain Has a Gremlin
I think my brain has a gremlin. And that might not be a bad thing. It's helped me come up with some good story ideas. One of those is available for the first time today! More on that in a moment. First, did you see the movie Gremlins? Every time one of the nice furry...
The Euphemism is on Fire
A few weeks ago in Houston, a woman was playing a "gaming machine." A gaming machine is a euphemism for gambling, much like "circle back" is a euphemism for "I really don't want to talk about this right now." Anyway, she was playing away at her euphemism and lost. I...
Traditions
Are there any holiday traditions that you think are dumb? (I know I’m entering dangerous territory here, so if I offend you pretend this message came from John Grisham.) For me, it’s outdoor live nativity scenes. I was invited to be part of one once, and I can’t think...
Joy Mongering
Recently, in a moment of madness, I clicked on a headline for some political squabble. One side was accusing the other of fear-mongering. That got me thinking, is there a good kind of mongering? Let's face it, mongering gets associated with all the negative...