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Knowing the definition of irony is required before reading this column. Ready? OK. Hold on to your dictionaries. Irony is stalking me around every corner. And that's no small thing when you're trying to live - as the trendsetters say - your "best life." You're loving, you're caring, you're giving, you're successful. But irony is lurking. It's ready to pounce on your "best life" at any moment. Ah! How to avoid it? Well, we could avoid turning any corners. OK, OK. That's...
This past football season, I finally realized a long-standing dream of mine to watch football 24/7. Impossible, you say? Way, I say. First of all, there is some kind of football on broadcast TV, cable TV, streaming, online, etc., nonstop, all day, every day. Now, don't get me wrong. You do have to be flexible. It's not all pro or college. Sometimes you have to watch games that were decided decades ago. Sometimes you have to watch high school football, flag football, Falcon...
We flew out Dec. 31 from O’Hare and the airport was completely empty. The weather was sunny, clear and 60 degrees. TSA waved us through, smiling and wishing us a wonderful flight. Then, they called us an airport transport and whisked us to our gate. The ground attendants upgraded us to first class and we boarded immediately. The captain came on the intercom and said we would arrive in New York City 40 minutes early due to the westerlies. Meanwhile, we drank champagne and ate c...
Once upon a time, in the good old days of analog, I could do no wrong. In fact, some said - mostly me - that I was the King of Analog. Yes, as the song goes, "Those were the days." During those dear old analog days, I was smarter than all my kitchen appliances. And they darn well knew it. Yes. I knew how open the fridge, turn on the stove and even use the oven without a YouTube tutorial. Now, all my kitchen appliances are smarter than me. My fridge knows when I've left the...
Ahh ... that's better. The good old prefrontal cortex. Where would we be without it? Pretty much brain dead; that's where we'd be. The prefrontal cortex is the region of the brain responsible for planning complex cognitive behavior, personality expression, decision-making and moderating social behavior. But why empty it? And how would you even do that? You might not be familiar with this process as I identify it here. You might know it by other names - writing, painting,...
They say dogs are man's best friend. I wonder who came up with that? A dog, of course. And why wouldn't they be, considering all we do for them. In fact, let's build two lists. First, what Man does for Dog. Then what Dog does for Man. Ready? Hold onto your leashes; it's going to be a sobering journey. Man 1. We feed them. 2. We shelter them. 3. We pick up their poop. 4. We take them for long walks at 5 in the morning in all kinds of weather. 5. We play catch with their...
We humans think a lot of ourselves. And rightly so. After all, unlike other species, we can contemplate the past and look forward to the future. We humans can talk in actual sentences with distinct and nuanced words. All you other species, what have you got? Quack, quack. Oink, oink. Bah, bah. Tweet, tweet. Come on, you, you — animals! And how about quantum physics? Any chimps or crows or dolphins thinking about that? Huh? Our greatest human minds can’t figure it out, of cou...
Among my several pet peeves is perhaps the granddaddy of them all - loud music playing everywhere, all the time, yet no one is listening. "What music?" If no one is listening to it, then is it even playing? This is kind of like the tree falling in a forest and no one being there to hear it. Does it still make a "thud?" So, if no one is listening to this music that plays everywhere, all of the time, then what is its purpose? Here's my guess - the death of silence. Remember...
The nice thing about winter is that there is nothing to do, and since there is nothing to do, there is no reason to feel guilty about doing nothing. Got that? Now summer is a different story. When the weather is nice, we feel compelled to go out and do something. Anything. Run, jump, bike, swim, barbecue. Eat barbecue. Eat more barbecue. Summer is a very demanding season. But winter asks nothing of us. We can cuddle up on the sofa and read, watch TV, surf social media. We can...
Decorating used to be a laborious process of looking through hundreds of colors, fabrics and other materials until you found just the right combination and balance. Not anymore. Now it revolves around one simple principle - gray is great. Repeat it like a mantra and you will soon believe. Gray is great. Gray is great. Gray is great. Got it? Now, all your decorating needs are solved. I have lived through the 1960s and 1970s when decorating had real exuberance (to put it...
First, in this age of full disclosure, I disclose that I am ... you guessed it ... a dad. But my preference for Dad's Day over Mom's Day goes well beyond self-aggrandizement. Dad's Day is just more fun. Let's take a closer look. On Mom's Day, the whole family has to get up really, really early, get dressed in really, really uncomfortable clothes, and then rush off to be robbed. This robbery is commonly referred to as Mother's Day brunch. It's perpetuated by legions of hotels,...
Golf got started in the Scottish Highlands. Men would walk for hours - up and down, round and round. But one day, someone had the bright idea of knocking a tiny white ball ahead of him as he walked. That person, who shall remain anonymous to protect his life, started what we now call golf. A nice walk in stunning surroundings, apparently, was not enough for this masochist, he had to spoil it all by inventing, ugh, I can barely utter the word - golf! To this day, many pay homag...
I consider myself an enforcer of the oft-neglected and seriously misunderstood apostrophe. After 15 years of teaching in college, I can tell you for sure its days are numbered. Few students can write beyond texting and that, of course, is a language all its own. The little old apostrophe just gets no respect. My students consider its placement to be strictly optional and a serious impediment to their creativity. "A little dot with a tail. What's the big deal, huh, professor?"...
At the end of the year we really (really) need Christmas. I'm an admitted Christmas bah-hum-bug kind of guy. But a few years ago I had a miraculous conversion. Was it God? Santa? The Easter Bunny, maybe hoping my Christmas conversion would spill over into his turf? No. It was none of those things. Maybe, it was just this simple - I finally grew up. Yeah. That's it. After all those years of thinking I was too cool, too mature, too intellectual, I finally faced the truth. I...
With the holidays right around the corner, it's time to consider The Fear-of-Death Diet. Of all the diets I've tried, none has been more successful than The-Fear-of-Death Diet. It's a lot like that well-known adage: "Nothing clarifies the mind like a hanging." Especially your own. I came across The Fear-of-Death Diet by accident at my doctor's office. Most of my "numbers" were not good. Since I was an avid, decades-long lap swimmer, I thought I could eat whatever I wanted. App...
