Shortcuts

Well, we’re here! Now let us never speak of the shortcut again.”— Homer,  The Simpsons 
Since my feet are my main source of transportation, I’m a big fan of the shortcut. In movies and TV shows whenever someone takes a shortcut, bad, scary, deadly and/or hilarious things always happen to them. In real life, shortcuts are just a [...]

Compromising Principles

Louise recently did a post questioning how vegans know for sure that they’re not accidentally consuming animal products in some way. She points out that the H1N1 vaccine contains squalene, which is derived from shark livers. She later asks:
But can you really call yourself a vegan if you knowingly use or eat something that is made [...]

Hie Friggin’ Hoe

Is there anything worse than having to go back to work after a two-week Christmas holiday?
Okay, I know there are probably at least 53 things that are much worse than having a pretty good job and having had 2 weeks of paid holidays off from that job and that I and my loved ones have [...]

Play It Again, Sam

It’s a new year, so I thought it only fitting that I complain about Hollywood remakes. Do they no longer have money to hire writers who can come up with an original script? Does it always have to be a movie based on a 1970s TV show or on a book or on a movie [...]

Fast Away the Old Year Passes

New Year’s is the strangest of all the strange days we celebrate. Our system of marking days, weeks, months, years seems so completely random and arbitrary to me. What was that Pope Gregory the 13th thinking anyway?
Other calendars, like the Islamic calendar follow the phases of the moon. The Persian calendar follows the solar cycle. [...]

All-Consuming Passion

XUP Jr. tells me that being madly in love is out of style; that it’s a Hollywood invention; something that people in the “olden days” bought into; but which today’s youth are too cool for.
I’m talking about that all-consuming passion that teenagers can (could?) do best, but which many adults are also able to fall [...]

Peace

Happy Christmas, Hanukah,  Sharaf, Ashura, Tohji-taisai, Yule, Gahambar Maidyarem,  Kwanzaa and Happy Birthday, Mum. And if you’re not commemorating any of these, then there’s no reason why you still can’t have a pleasant day.
Wherever you are, the world has probably pretty much come to a standstill. Everything is shut down. It’s quiet. A lot of [...]

Traditional Airing of Grievances

Today, December 23rd, being the sacred day of Festivus, I am obliged by dictates of ritual to take part in the traditional Festivus Airing of Grievances. Orthodoxy states we must” lash out at others and the world about how one has been disappointed in the past year.”
This is going to be difficult because I haven’t [...]

Lies My Mother Never Told Me

Do/did you lie to your kids?
You’re going to say “no” right off the bat, but did you perpetuate the Santa myth? Do you keep bad news from them? Do you shelter them from unpleasantness?
I never believed in Santa as a kid, no matter how hard my parents tried to get me to. They even had [...]

The Superhero in You

Call me an old fuddy-duddy, but when it comes to superheroes, I still like Superman best. His back-story makes sense. He looks like a regular guy and not like some sort of mutant. And, he has a pretty damn fine collection of superpowers: flying, x-ray vision, he’s indestructible, he can run really fast, he can reverse [...]