Once upon a time, in a magical fantasy land just around the corner from my apartment, there was a coffee shop. And this coffee shop was good and quaint and had well-behaved customers and made a mean cappuccino. There were comfy chairs and a few well-thumbed copies of the Reader and a perky barista who [...]

So you’ve reached the end of book six by now, haven’t you? And you have your knee-jerk reactions as to the (somewhat different from the norm) ending? Now read this post - warning: contains spoilers - and rethink the entire episode. Mmm, that’s interesting.

Who would have thought that a day at work that lasts from 8 a.m. until 11 p.m. would be so … so … strangely non-tiring? My body’s awake, but since my mind is devoid of anything interesting, save discussions on Harry Potter and how to graphically present inane material (was that what I was doing [...]

Despite returning to the office after a near-two-week absence and finding some not-so-pleasing news in my mailbox, I managed to keep a strangely positive outlook today. I’m going to attribute this abnormal (for me) mental state to receiving two compliments in the last two days, each apropos of exactly nothing.
Offender the first: Yesterday marked [...]

Thanks to the efforts of certain friends last night, getting up for work this morning was quite the chore. But while going through my project list for the day, I was treated to the dulcet sounds of a fire alarm. For 15 minutes. And there was no fire. At least the fire department showed up [...]

Birthdays are perhaps entry number five on the list of all-time letdowns, just ahead of

10. Crystal Pepsi
9. the state of Michigan
8. the end of O.J.’s Bronco chase
7. Olean in WOW! Pringles
6. Pete Rose’s ‘confession’ to get reinstated into Major League Baseball

but just behind

4. Star Wars episode I
3. the 2003 Cubs season
2. The Roots at the [...]

When I pull mailing lists for my magazine, I’m always reminded of a riddle I heard as a kid.
Throughout the day today, I held in my hand more than $300,000. Now I have nothing, and must borrow $10 from you for a cab ride home.
What does this man do for a living?
I remember when I [...]

This is going to be the first post that could get me dooced but, in my defense, I could have said some worse things in the past.
If you’ll be kind enough to reference the post directly previous to this, you’ll notice that I planned to ‘drink the night away.’ I succeeded. So naturally getting [...]

By any reasonable measure of productivity, Monday was supposed to be an extremely busy day. Given that I’ll be in the office only Monday and Tuesday, any work that would have been accomplished during final 3/5 of the week needs to be completed by Tuesday close of business (or a reasonable facsimile thereof, i.e., by [...]

So my neighbor just stopped by and gave my back door The Knock.
You’re familiar with The Knock. It’s the first step in taking action against 45 minutes of pent-up passive-aggressive steaming, of tossing and turning in bed while entertaining thoughts of calm, cool, collected confrontations that leaves the humiliated neighbor questioning not only his late-night [...]

For some reason, I couldn’t get motivated today and spent a good portion of my time at work going over Wired and Slate. But the upside is that I did learn about a law firm in Chicago that took on a case involving those horribly proprietary ink cartridges for your home printer, if you can [...]