Okay, my version probably won’t do well on the hip-hop music charts, but I think it will resonate with some readers on the hip-lumbar charts. It all started one morning at breakfast when my wife said: “My back is killing me.” Being a sympathetic guy, I suggested she call the police and report a sacroiliac […]
Watching the Paris Olympics has really inspired me, especially the swimming and diving events. “O-M-G! Are you wearing a Speedo?” my wife asked, a small hunk of baguette falling from the corner of her mouth. “Cool huh? Got it from the ‘Old Dudes Rule’ website. It’s a limited edition.” “Very limited. And, I hate to […]
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I spend a lot of time alone in my office. It gives me time to contemplate the oddities of life. Like why my printer suddenly refused to print the workshop materials I needed to bring to the Santa Barbara Writers Conference. No matter how calmly I coaxed it – “You stupid #%&^#*^%#! I ought to […]
When I first moved to California, I met a bunch of friendly people my own age who lovingly indoctrinated me into local customs. “Welcome to Santa Barbara. Let’s do some shots. Now, lick the salt off your hand, down this tequila, suck a lime, and say ‘hootah.’” Gasp. “Hootah!” Gasp. Turns out, these ancient local […]
That surely can’t be it I thought, as we walked across the tarmac toward a Volkswagen Beetle on skis with a long purple tail and a spinning propeller on top! Oh, and NO doors! I looked at Pat. She was zipping up her sweatshirt and adjusting the flotation device strapped around her waist… “We will […]
Many times in life I have gone virtually unnoticed. Not only could I stay safely under the radar, I could have set up camp inside a radar dish and only gotten spotted when I fired up my charcoal grill. “O. M. G. There’s a flaming meteor about to hit earth… ah crap, never mind it’s […]
This year, X-mas, formerly known as Twitter-mas, is “almost” failure-proof for me. How is that possible you readers of my Christmases past, want to know? Simple, three wise men (actually, it was my stepdaughter, Christy) proclaimed that the only gift required this year is one white elephant gift! For those of you unfamiliar with the […]
The driverless Metro flew into the station and stopped on a euro. The doors opened. There were so many Parisians crammed into the front car, I thought it might have been an AI-generated crowd image. Trois got off. Dix got on. Including moi. Yeah! But not my wife. Oh-oh! She mouthed, “See you at Saint-Sulpice.” […]
With ChatGPT Funny, I always thought of myself as having artificial intelligence. Maybe it’s because people often say to me: “Come on, man. Get real!” But I needed a quick column, and I heard great things about ChatGPT, a bot that processes language to create human-like dialog, so I signed up and typed into ChatGPT: […]
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It finally arrived! Freighter delays, they said. Lack of experienced labor. Cost overruns. Sound familiar? But a giant truck pulled up in front of our condo today and delivered my IKEA easy-to-assemble, all-parts-included, fully-illustrated-plans-provided… ark. That’s right! I’m going to save the world from the great flood! Or, at least a few hundred people from […]
There are several things I dread hearing when I’m on a docent-led excursion. “If anyone here is acrophobic, you may want to reconsider today’s steep hike up Mountain Goat Trail.” Or… “If anyone here is aquaphobic, you may want to skip the kayak experience down ‘Devil’s Muse Rapids.’” But I wasn’t worried today. We were […]
Seems like there was always a guy in Dam Square in front of the Royal Palace with a microphone. In our three days in Amsterdam, we had watched a group of protesters freely protesting their lack of protesting rights. A drunken magician, who spent more time cursing out the crowd than actually performing tricks. And […]
It was raining now and blustery. The temperature, which had been hovering around nippy, was heading toward less romantic sounding terms like “freezing my tuchus off.” “According to legend,” our guide was saying at a volume that came with weather-related experience, “the Rock originated in a high mountain located around 20 miles north of here […]
The woman up the aisle from me was staring at the floor of the LUAS tram, now speeding toward Dublin. I followed her gaze and spotted the three large drops of blood she was fixed on. Would she call the police? Would Cassie Maddox and Rob Reilly of Dublin Murders television fame be the ones […]
