en passant

You know what looks like fun? Chess looks like fun. Because the little table and little coffee cups and an ashtray and elegant little pieces and just sitting quietly looking thoughtful. It turns out, though, that chess is about thinking really really hard about how to avoid doing anything stupid. That’s no fun at all, and furthermore it has only been by doing profoundly stupid things and then dealing with the results that I have had any kind of life at all so far. Sort of like how walking involves almost falling flat on your face over and over again.

Seems like only last week

I’m feeling nostalgic. Remember back when everybody was all excited about maybe winning a billion and a half dollars? Absolute strangers were talking about it at the convenience store. It was kind of beautiful, really, to see how greed can bring us all closer. Me, I actually won a portion of the jackpot by not buying a ticket, thereby instantly receiving a two dollar “do the math” prize. I’m going to spend it all on Little Debbie Nutty Bars, the best straight stock cellophane wrapped snack available in the Free World. Next time, I’m going to not buy even more.

Looking for the next Big Pencil

To my  regular readers: both of you may have noticed there was no rant last week. I have an explanation. See, it was the first Monday of the New Year, and I couldn’t think of anything to write about except the whole New Yearness of it. Which seemed like cheating, because what would it be about? Broken resolutions? That’s comedy mulch, like mothers-in-law or airline food. I like to think we’re beyond that sort of thing. Then I thought, “Hey, this lack of a decent topic will be a great subject for next week.” But that hasn’t worked out either.

Back to Blue Amberol

Some folks are collecting old vinyl records because they're cool. They have bigger pictures and you can hold onto the jacket while you listen. But some people say an LP sounds better than a digital version of the same music, which is weird. See, to get sounds onto vinyl you have to squash it and take out any loud asymmetrical events while a digital copy can sound so much like the master tape even the guy who mixed it can’t hear the difference. With filtering, compression, and surface noise you could make any recording sound like an LP. But why?

I still like klobasa and polka, though.

Well, this is vexing. Voters in the tiny Balkan nation of Slovenia have rejected same-sex marriage. I myself contain a sizable percentage of Slovene DNA, so it’s difficult to not feel a little ashamed. What up, homies? Did you forget how first the Austrians, then the Italians, then the Yugoslavs all took turns denying you the right to exist? Did you maybe think they were trying to make gay marriage retroactive, universal, and compulsory? Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. For a lot of these folks, a Slovene boy hooking up with a Croat girl is still considered a mixed marriage.

History will absolve me.

Remember how Superman would squeeze a lump of coal between his mighty pink hands, replicating the effects of eons of geological action and producing a fabulous diamond? Well, it turns out diamonds are made out of carbon. So here’s my genius plan: capture the carbon in the atmosphere, mash on it real hard until it turns into shiny diamonds and distribute the resultant tons and tons of valuable gems to impoverished persons everywhere, thereby solving the challenges of global warming and world poverty in a single brilliant stroke. Absurd, you say? Go ahead; snicker. Remember, they laughed at Jack Benny.

:30 spot radio

MUSIC ESTAB AND UNDER

ANNCR (MATURE, RELAXED):
Natural, wholesome brown sugar or toxic, soul-killing white sugar? Brown rice or white? It’s a simple choice. Brown things are just plain better than white ones. That’s where the folks at Primal Harvest got the idea for their Natural Brown Salt. White salt comes from large corporations, and it contains chlorine, the chemical element government scientists use to destroy life in our nation’s water supply. Natural Brown Salt is gluten free, and it comes from the bulk section of your supermarket, so you know it’s good for you. Primal Harvest: for simple people.