"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter." —Mark Twain
Ever hear someone say he has a beak, or that such-and-such a thing gives him the beak? We said it all the time in the USAF; “I have a beak” means I’m pissed off; “you give me the beak” means you make me angry. The beak must be secret military jargon, because when I Google […]
I rode my motorcycle to El Paso and back over the weekend; east on Friday, west on Sunday, racking up just over 700 miles. Interstate all the way, smooth, almost boring. If you’ve taken I-10 across southern New Mexico and Arizona, you know it’s all open desert . . . fly-over country, as they say. […]
Now that televisions look like panels, will we continue calling them “boxes”? Probably. I’ve decided to quit watching Keith Olbermann’s Countdown. The commercial-to-content ratio is ridiculous; there can’t be more than 30 minutes of content in this 60-minute show . . . the pain far outweighs the gain. Plus he’s a pompous ass with an […]
The paint up under our eaves and patio roof started flaking, so the guy who repainted our house three years ago is redoing the job. All our outdoor stuff is out in the middle of the yard, and there are paint chips everywhere. But that’s not all: our pool has sprung a leak and the […]
Jesus, this burg. Back in November we picked up a flyer at a local bicyclist hangout. It announced the imminent construction of a bicycle trailhead in our neighborhood, right beside Catalina Highway, a route to and from Mount Lemmon popular with local bicyclists. The trailhead was to be a memorial to Brad Gorman, a bicyclist […]
Forever, by Judy Blume. Prominent on any list of banned and challenged books is Judy Blume’s Forever. It’s a great title, but Judy Blume could just as well have named it My First Fuck. Considering that Blume’s audience is made up of pre-teen and early-teen girls, it’s easy to understand why so many parents have […]
“The world breaks us all. Afterward, some are stronger at the broken places.” Ernest Hemingway, Farewell To Arms The Girl Who Played with Fire, by Stieg Larsson A Swedish journalist delivers three manuscripts to a publisher. He then dies. The manuscripts are published posthumously, one by one. No, this isn’t some high-concept movie pitch, it’s […]
“Hey, don’t knock masturbation. It’s sex with someone I love.” — Woody Allen (as Alvy Singer), Annie Hall (1977) S. Darko (2009) I liked Donnie Darko, but I didn’t see much point in S. Darko, unless the point was to cash in on the the success of Donnie Darko. Movie producers don’t do that, do […]