Prohibition's last holdout finally made it legal: Alabama's homebrewers may now brew out in the open! As you emerge from those closets of clandestinity, take a moment to look behind you and size them up. Then go to Home Depot, buy some insulation, and build yourselves some fermentation chambers. Congratulations, Alabama! … [Read more...]
Dear H&M,
I represent a quiet minority that your store refuses to recognize and continues to marginalize. I have visited your downtown Denver location several times since its grand opening, and each time, I have left in disappointment and shame. It is time that our voices are heard. I speak, of course, of the hidden, huddled masses who suffer from what are known as quadriceps and … [Read more...]
Etiquette Enforcement
Here are a few standards I think we as a modern society ought to implement with urgency and without delay: All coffee shops must have two lines. One of them shall be reserved for ordering coffee, and the other for any drink whose name involves adjectives and/or a trademark. Anyone attempting to order a complicated drink from the coffee line will be sent directly to the back … [Read more...]
Frustraided
It is rumored that there is a system to Band-Aids, in which the two white bits are meant to help ease the bandage onto your skin, like applying a brown, two-dimensional leach. But I believe this violates the second law of thermodynamics. Clearly the white bits are only too eager to stick to your skin, while the bandage prefers to curl up into a little plasticky wad. … [Read more...]
How to enhance your douchiness
You've always been confident in your ability to be ready for douchebaggery, but lately your inflated self-importance and disregard for others have become a touch flaccid. Luckily, there are concrete steps you can take right now that will boost your ass-wipeyness back to the level you deserve: Grow ironic, 19th century style facial hair. Leave your right pants leg rolled up … [Read more...]
This is why we're doomed
The English language nurtures oodles of excellent words (e.g., oodles), and its relaxed, nimble grammar permits -- indeed, encourages -- expressions that simultaneously engage, entertain, and inform. At what point along the way did we throw up our hands and accept empty statements like this? "I believe this transaction will open an exciting new chapter for Dell, our customers … [Read more...]
Happy Robert Burns Day
In celebration of Robert Burns Day, I offer to you the idiomatic English translation of Burns's famous Address to a Haggis (sourced from http://www.robertburns.org.uk). True Scottish haggis is a real treat (imagine an exceedingly succulent meatloaf), but Burns's poem is simply offal. Fair and full is your honest, jolly face, Great chieftain of the sausage race! Above them all … [Read more...]
Things that still perplex me
I turn 35 this year. I thought I'd have things at least kind of figured out at this point. But nope, I'm still as confused as ever: When I sleep on my right side, just where the hell am I supposed to put my right forearm? When I order coffee to-go in a paper cup, why do I still have to jam a paperclip or pen into that little pinhole to get the coffee to come out? Did plastic … [Read more...]
Peanut butter
I only realized this morning that the jar claims to contain 14 servings. There are clearly too many digits in that figure. … [Read more...]
A ringing endorsement
As I stood in line this afternoon at the Walmart pharmacy, I was struck with an epiphany, right there between the bunion cushions and the blood sugar meters. If the greatest endorsement of an establishment's products or services is its employees' self availing thereof, then Walmart's pharmacy must surely be the most highly regarded of them all. Because every single staff … [Read more...]
