Author: brian
I Love Happy Endings
No, I’m not frequenting sketchy massage parlors. I simply have added a new television show to my weekly mix. “Happy Endings” premiered a month or so ago on ABC and has started to run through two episodes a week on…
ITEOTWAWKI: Pageant Anniversary
I first truly discovered R.E.M. through “Life’s Rich Pageant,” the band’s fourth album. I bought a cassette over Christmas break from college in the summer of 1987, almost a year after it was released. I had heard some of the…
Gaga for Gadgets
I remember coming home one day as a teenager to a deafening roar inside the house. Puzzled, I walked into the kitchen to find my mother, basically nonplussed by the noise. I looked at her quizzically. “Your father has a…
Suitcase Paranoia
I generally like change. People who cower at anything out of the ordinary bother me. But some changes make me step back and wonder what’s going on. When I came home from work one day last week, something new sat…
Hooray! Another Singing Competition
I was just sitting around the other week thinking, “We don’t have enough television shows which judge people’s singing ability.” Well, to be honest, I didn’t say that. I would never say that. But some television executive said it at…
Online Poker Showdown
I have a confession to make. I am a criminal. Well, I am not right now, but I have been in the past. OK, I’m not a criminal, but I have played online poker for money. According to the government,…
The Greatest Name Ever
Sports Illustrated has posted a fascinating article about the growth of high school wrestling and its connection to the popularity of mixed martial arts. I find the discussion very interesting because both sides do have a point. But if you…
Gettysburg Rolls Craps
The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board decided today to not give the final available casino license to a group from Gettysburg, which wanted to build a facility about 20 minutes from my house. Nemacolin Resort, out in the western part of…
Soup Season Is Over
Like most adults, my life basically revolves around calendars. I have many of these I need to follow with varying degrees of importance. At the top of the heap sits the calendar on the side of the refrigerator. That carries…
Book Review: My Life as an Experiment
Don’t you hate when you read something and immediately think, “Why didn’t I do that first?” That’s kind of how I felt after finishing A.J. Jacobs’ book “My Life as an Experiment.” Of course there is the factor that I…