The ‘genius’ idea that undoubtably wasn’t

Everything seems like an amazing idea when it’s just that … an idea. In its infancy. Still formulating. Percolating in the recesses of your mind. Where you roll it around a bit, think it over and finally scream, “Daggone, this is genius!” Sometimes it IS genius. Look at da Vinci, Einstein, the guy who came up with “Rocky and Bullwinkle.” They shook that bag of rocks atop their head and out popped ideas that changed the world. But here’s the rub: How do the rest of us schnooks recognize the difference between “genius” and cockamamie ideas dreamt up in a bout of deliriousness, or a mild-overdose of cough medicine? You know, ideas we THINK are genius — Einstein-squared kind of stuff — but are more like Bullwinkle droppings.

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When it rains, it pours broken stuff

Grrrrr! I’m mad. Mad at the universe. Because the universe is mad at me. It’s the only thing that could explain it. The only thing that makes sense. All the things that have broken or gone wrong in the last couple of weeks. One right after another. A waterfall of malfunctioning mayhem. Not quite Murphy’s Law — “anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” No, this strange phenomenon needs a new term. Something like: “Simultaneous Broken Crap Syndrome.”

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The life-robbing, ‘Boardwalk Empire’-watching marathon

My wife said: Every hour spent watching television takes 22 minutes off your life. She told me this while we were watching television. I almost choked on a cookie. Nearly proved her right. Twenty-two minutes. Could it be? She had heard this somewhere. Some study. It looked at how many hours of television people watched. How this sedentary, slothful activity affects our health. (I wanted to know what “sedentary” meant, but couldn’t find a dictionary in the digital TV listings.)

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