Some of us spent Saturday afternoon waiting for the big wave that never came. Most of us watched from the TV set, others in person from Hawaii, still others from California, Australia, etc. And…nothing. No death, no destruction, just a little three-foot tall ripple that flooded a few piers in Japan. CNN must have spent millions on news coverage – this was a bigger blunder than Geraldo Rivera and the Lost Vault of Al Capone (what idiocy that was). Regardless, …Read the Rest
I really want to. My life would be much easier. No more lower back pain, no more dropping shit in the parking lot, no more lost car keys or scratched sunglasses. But somehow, I just can’t bring myself to do it, even though I know it’s silly not to. I’m talking about the man-bag, the shoulder bag, messenger bag, courier bag, or European Carry-All. Whatever you want to call it, it’s still a purse. And real men don’t carry purses, …Read the Rest
Several years ago, I was working in Mexico a great deal and my employer rented a house for me there (FYI: I still work in Mexico a great deal, but now I stay in a hotel – you’ll understand why in a moment). It was a nice house, except for the nest of dead baby rats which my wife discovered one day while scrounging for spare change under the couch cushions, abruptly ending her heart-felt commitment to live with me …Read the Rest
According to the Centers for Disease Control, over 27 million people suffered “accidents or unintentional injuries” in 2006 (no, I can’t find a more recent statistic) and 120,000 or so died, of falls, poisoning, car accidents, etc. Apparently, us humans are a clumsy lot. The Grim Reaper takes roughly five percent of us every year because of the stupid things we do or the everyday mistakes we make. But to be fair to the species, sometimes shit just happens. Take …Read the Rest
In the movie Marathon Man, Dustin Hoffman plays an athletic young runner who is violated by a Nazi dentist. The dentist, played by Laurence Olivier, drills big nasty holes in Hoffman’s teeth, and asks him in a menacing voice, “Is it safe?” This is the scene that was running through my brain the other day when I underwent an extraction of my number 18 molar. It was abscessed. It hurt. And while I can’t find any statistics on deaths in the dentist chair, …Read the Rest
This swimming pool business is still new to me. Having been born and raised in Minnesota, where pools are either indoors, or are solid ice for nine months of the year, how was I supposed to know that some of the chemicals needed for swimming pool maintenance are dangerous? I suppose if I’d Googled “swimming pool chemical safety” I might have seen warnings such as this: “Store the chemicals in a cool, dry, and well-ventilated area away from direct sunlight and …Read the Rest
So, you’re taking a little hike in the desert, maybe thinking to yourself “what’s so tough about the Sonoran desert?” All this rattlesnake hype is for girls, never mind the silly warnings about dehydration and the advice to carry diesel drums of water and a pack of beef jerky and trail mix along just in case you get lost. And you decide to take a shortcut through the desert in order to get a better view of the mountains, or maybe you spot what …Read the Rest
And just where in Mexico do they find all this crappy toilet paper? The best two-ply down there is half a micron thick, if you’re lucky, so just be aware you will stick your finger through the paper, even when it’s tripled up. Yuck! And why are the rolls always smashed flat, like the guys down in the loading dock drove a truck over the box? There you are, you’re taking care of business, hauling away on this defective roll …Read the Rest
If you need laundry service while staying in a Mexico hotel, you must first try to cram three pairs of jeans, four shirts, and nine pairs of socks into the tiny plastic laundry bag which you will hopefully find in the closet. You should list the contents of the bag on the form with the microscopic letters and then leave the bag in the middle of the room. However, nine times out of ten she will forget the bag in …Read the Rest
I read an article yesterday about a man from Outagamie County who died in a burning car. The article didn’t say where Outagamie County is, but after a little Googling I found that Outagamie County is the home of Appleton, Wisconsin, which is close to Green Bay (Go Packers!). So now you know. Anyway, the car was parked in front of a house, the owners of which apparently knew nothing about the car or the man who burned there. Imagine, looking …Read the Rest