Most folks who opt to sacrifice a few moments of life's rich pageant to read my blatherings have already roamed the highways and byways of this big blue marble for a few years.

And I'd be willing to bet that most of you have encountered a situation or two similar… Read full post »

It's prom night. Anyone remember it?

My daughter is attending, yet in an administrative capacity. She's gone ahead and donned her "I'm-going-to-make-you-sorry-that-you-didn't-ask-me-to-this dance, you-immature senior bastard" outfit, as she and a friend have assumed tonight's duties of checki… Read full post »

It's been a big news week already.

But you may be pleased to learn that I won't be delving into Mitt Romney's high school internship at the Cranbrook Preparatory Hairmasters Beauty School, where he coined the phrase, "Listen, Sheila, lie down because it's… Read full post »

Welcome to the club, Tar Heel State.

Congratulations to the newest member of the Dinosaur Coalition, North Carolina, which joined twenty-nine other states in approving a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

While they were at it, they may as well have voted on bringing back the… Read full post »

Today I'd like to begin with a couple of battle-worn bromides which capitulate my platform:

Fish or cut bait.

Speak now or forever hold your peace.

Poo or get off the porcelain (but wash your hands first, and you know who I'm talking to, dude at work).

Aren't you just a little tired of this… Read full post »

Are you a pet owner? I'll bet you are.

You've probably got a fuzzy mammal or two running around your house, chewing and scratching and scarfing and panting and drooling and occasionally puking and licking split-pea-soup-covered Tupperware lids.

But oh, so lovable.

My family is no different; we've… Read full post »

When you were younger, did your mom or dad ever bark out, just before you left the house for the evening, "Just remember, nothing good ever happens after midnight!"?

Depending on how you define the word, "good," I've grown to believe it's a fairly… Read full post »

I know it's irrational and I know it's immature. I should feel fortunate that she's on the college path and that my wife and I can drum up the means to support her endeavors.

Why should I give a rat's gluteal hemisphere about her post high school preference? It's not… Read full post »

All right, so maybe the cops went a little too far, but she was totally trashing the place. They had to do something.

Plus, name one time when law enforcement hasn't practiced professional restraint and sound judgment when dealing with a disrespectful and potentially violent protester.

Okay, there… Read full post »

And then there were two.

Well, okay, actually four, but I think the only reason Newt is still around is for the free grub at those rural Utah diners.

I can just hear that old fuzzy Muppet now: "Good morning, North Ogden! Hey listen, I understand that I… Read full post »

So much has already been written since his death on Saturday, so many apt tributes have cluttered the internet, that anything I scrawl about my admiration for Mike Wallace has likely already been stated verbatim somewhere in the ether of cyberspace.

However, in deference to a man who… Read full post »

Sunday marked the informal yet infamous "April Fools Day."

Legend holds that the custom of playing tricks on friends originated in France during the middle 1500s. The European calendar, which formerly recognized the first day of the new year as April 1, was shifted in 1564 to… Read full post »

I've been a parent now for, let's see, almost seventeen years.

If the title of "Dad" were a tenured position, I'd probably have attained  full professor status by now; if it were a seventeen-year-old Glenlivet single malt Scotch, you'd have to cough up sixteen bucks for… Read full post »

I had a little time to kill Sunday.

My tween daughter's recent windfall of black market cupcake cash had been burning a hole in her bedazzled billfold, so we cruised down to the consumer crap cluster, a.k.a. Southcenter Mall, and parted ways to allow her and her… Read full post »

Remember middle school?

Remember how that adolescent crock pot, whose initial ingredients are anxiety, fear and insecurity, is switched on to the "low" setting during September, then slowly percolates for one-hundred-eighty days?

The eleven-, twelve-, and thirteen-year-olds who occupy this bubblin… Read full post »

Snubbed.

We've all experienced it. During our time on this big blue marble, we've suffered the blows of being rebuffed and rebuked, rejected and repelled.

We've been told to sod off, to take a long walk off a short pier, to shut up, pipe down and go… Read full post »

War—it springs eternal.

As constant as a heartbeat, as enduring as the tides.

But riddle me this: which war has raged without end for the duration of human existence thus far?

The war on drugs? Nope. The war on terror? Sorry.

It's the war on women.

Although stoked by the… Read full post »

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This morning, as with most Friday mornings, my wife offered to drive our eleven-year-old daughter to school.

"Mom, can we please leave now?"

"You're going to have to either stop following me around or wait in the car. I'm almost ready and you're just slowing me down."

Our cherub heaved… Read full post »