This week was the first Shakespeare Week in the UK, a nationwide deal where they try to bring the big guy's works to life for elementary kids, a terrific idea and a tricky thing to do. Hell, it's hard to bring Shakespeare to life for grownups; that's when you get the faux-important approach, simply reading... Continue Reading →
Your blender is about to turn purple
Earlier this month Pantone selected its Color of the Year for 2014: "Radiant Orchid," or 18-3224 in the Pantone color-specifying system that prevents designers from having to say, "It's a kind of purpley lavender... No, not that bright." This business of selecting colors may strike normal people as complete horse hockey, but I am pretty... Continue Reading →
Perhaps a friendly recital of my flaws will inspire change
Recently did a quickie personality quiz that seems to be a not-bad "lite" version of Myers Briggs. I've been Myers-Briggsed before more thoroughly, but as with reading a literary work, it seems you get something different out of the experience every time you come at it, depending on where you are in your life at... Continue Reading →
Socrates, “Doonesbury” or Kinky Friedman?
Lately I've been trying to simplify and automate a lot of tasks, and I keep thinking of this quote: "I'm trying to develop a lifestyle that doesn't require my presence." Yes! If everything could keep humming along while I took a week-long nap ... This quote, or a version of it, is attributed all over... Continue Reading →
My desk was in an Angelina Jolie movie
Back in 2007, Michael Winterbottom filmed parts of a movie in and around Austin. The film was "A Mighty Heart," in which Angelina Jolie plays the wife of kidnapped journalist Daniel Pearl, and the Austin American-Statesman co-stars as a Wall Street Journal bureau. Us Statesfolk were reminiscing about this last week, and I thought y'all... Continue Reading →
When your CFL breaks and you don’t have a bunny suit …
[Disclaimer: This is NOT official medical, legal or any-other-al advice and I'm not any kind of expert. See full disclaimer below.] What to do when a compact fluorescent bulb breaks? CFLs contain mercury and other bad stuff, and I'd heard everything from "It's no big deal" to "Evacuate and quarantine immediately!" When one fell out... Continue Reading →
Gaslighting: ‘You’re just too sensitive.’
Thanks to the website Jezebel.com, which I highly recommend unless you dislike occasional comic vulgarity, twice recently I've come across the term "gaslighting." In reading up on it, I've decided that it's a term that should be known to everybody who's ever heard, and everybody who's ever said, "You're too sensitive. You're overreacting. You're just... Continue Reading →
A nerd walks into a 2,000-year-old bar
Sometimes I really can't believe I was here. A couple thousand years ago, if you wanted to meet up with a friend in Ostia, you could say, "I'll meet you at that bar, you know, the one on Diana Street just off Main." They have bar food, too, and a beer garden out back --... Continue Reading →
Traveling through a few Turnpike Troubadours songs
Disclaimer: I'm no music critic; we've got brilliant people like Joe Gross for that (hi Joe). But sometimes I just blab a lot about stuff that strikes me (this guy's neon artwork, my old car dying, a photo of Mark Twain when he was 13). Thank you for hanging with me. And thank you Jim... Continue Reading →
Fireflies in a jar, at dusk – in neon
Update, November 2017: Todd has made several more of these signs (they're now priced at $8,500 apiece, dammit), and one has popped up in my new hometown! The Stella Hotel in Bryan opened in April 2017, and up on the wall in its Campfire restaurant blinks one of the pretty "Fireflies" signs that I love... Continue Reading →
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