I went on a wild time machine ride the other day thanks to a song on satellite radio. It had been on the first CD I ever owned. I got it the same Christmas I got my first CD player. It must have been 1987. Two CDs were all I had, and one of them was INXS. I was blown away by the sound. The perfect sound. Clear. Powerful. The plaster in my room cracked. And there was no hiss. Cassette tapes had hiss. Records had hiss. But not CDs. I didn’t even realize you could make music without it! For me, it was revolutionary technology. As I listened to the song, I thought about our high tech world. How it’s all around us. Ever-changing. Even assaulting. Yet, how much of it is truly revolutionary anymore? Like that first CD player?
Vacation on the brain? Time for summer planning tips
It’s that time of year again when I start suffering from a serious case of VOTB: Vacation on the Brain. Actually, such a thing does exist. I looked up “vacation brain” on Urban Dictionary. It defined it as “the 1-2 days before vacation when you can’t get much work done because your brain is already on vacation.” Only, I’m more than a month out from my first trip, and I’m already suffering. I’m busy planning. Busy day-dreaming. Busy thinking of some rest and relaxation and … oh, who am I fooling. Vacations are never restful and relaxing! Most of the time you come back more stressed out and exhausted than before you left.
Time for the factory-installed automobile dents
I think it is time, with all the modern and technologically-advanced features that come on new cars — backup cameras, side-curtain airbags, tush massagers — that we start requiring one more addition: the factory-installed dent. Don’t you think? Let’s make it standard on every new vehicle. Or better yet, right after you sign-off on the paperwork and hand the dealership a check, they should offer you a ball-peen hammer so you can go outside and ceremoniously put the first ding in your brand new auto. The inaugural ding.
Dread, panic and fear: That final week for over-caffeinated college grads
It’s that time of year again. When working on a college campus gives you a front row seat to all the excitement and worry and panic and dread that hangs over this collegiate land. The end of the semester. Exam week looms. Graduation sits perched on the horizon, taunting, haunting, teasing students. “Come and get me!” Some desperately want it. Others want it to go away. A few have been chasing it for so long, but still don’t have a clue how to bait the hook and catch it.
The home-sick, free vacation day
As a kid it was a free vacation day. An extra holiday. A get out of jail pass. A little slice of heaven. I’m talking about being sick. Or more importantly, being able to stay home when you were sick. It was just what the doctor ordered. Didn’t matter if it was mild sickness or dancing on death’s door, the minute your mother removed that thermometer from your mouth and uttered these words — “Nope, you’re not going to school” — it was party time!
Lost in a world of overly-advanced, high-tech … um … toilets
You know you’re living the dream when you find yourself comparison shopping for toilets. Yes, I said that right: comparison shopping for toilets. That’s when you decide that the one that has been in your house since you bought and renovated it will no longer do. That your past self was a cheap neophyte with the wisdom of bread mold. That the old commode with its non-stop running should be replaced, not merely fixed. And that you should take the next step up to luxury and water closet bliss with a modern, convenient, comfortable and truly sophisticated … dude, that just sounds ridiculous! It’s a frickin’ toilet!
Goodbye pillow fights, hello concussion
There is absolutely nothing funny about this column. I am legally obligated to state this right up front. In fact, I’m legally obligated to believe it. I’m legally obligated to promote it, preach it, scream it from the hills. I am also legally obligated to say that pillow fights are bad. That they can lead to serious injuries, and should never be performed with actual pillows. Air pillows — the imaginary kind — are the only kind that should be used in a pillow fight. I am legally obligated to say that if you do use real pillows, bad things can happen. Horrible things. Major injuries may ensue. Society might collapse. You will spend the rest of your days starting sentences with, “I am legally obligated to …”
Building the (almost) perfect Leprechaun trap
The letter from my daughter’s first grade teacher said: “We will be celebrating St. Patrick’s Day with a special project. Each student will be asked to build a ‘Leprechaun Trap!’” A Leprechaun Trap! Hot diggidy dog! It’s supposed to encourage her imagination and ability to write about a sequence of steps. But I don’t know why it kept talking about her. I GET TO BUILD A LEPRECHAUN TRAP!!! WOOHOO!
40 wishes from a newly-crowned 40-year-old
Forty years old. Four big decades. Whew! A major milestone like this is a chance to look back and remember where you’ve come from, and all the things you’ve been through. It’s also a time to look forward — to not dwell on the past, but to focus on the future and where you’re going. Life is meant to be lived, by golly, so in honor of my 40th birthday, I give you “40 wishes for my 40th year.” 1. To invent something really revolutionary and world changing. Like a manly boa, or a Swiss Army shoe. You know, a shoe you can use as a can opener or to fight off bandits.
The ‘genius’ idea that undoubtably wasn’t
Everything seems like an amazing idea when it’s just that … an idea. In its infancy. Still formulating. Percolating in the recesses of your mind. Where you roll it around a bit, think it over and finally scream, “Daggone, this is genius!” Sometimes it IS genius. Look at da Vinci, Einstein, the guy who came up with “Rocky and Bullwinkle.” They shook that bag of rocks atop their head and out popped ideas that changed the world. But here’s the rub: How do the rest of us schnooks recognize the difference between “genius” and cockamamie ideas dreamt up in a bout of deliriousness, or a mild-overdose of cough medicine? You know, ideas we THINK are genius — Einstein-squared kind of stuff — but are more like Bullwinkle droppings.