Last call

Like cocktail hour, it's always the end of the world somewhere. Death, pestilence, war, and famine are the traditional harbingers of the final days. But it seems like the apocalypse has whole platoons of horsemen. Prewashed jeans, the passenger pigeon, fluoridated water. A Muslim president from Nigeria, the insidious introduction of fructose into our food, casual Fridays. Fire or ice, bang or whimper. For yeast, the End comes from their own poisonous alcoholic excretions, so their Armageddon is somebody's delicious pint. For me, nothing suggests impending doom better than knowing there is such a thing as currywurst flavored energy drink.

son if it was up to me

It's possible to listen to a song and just plain miss the idea. Like when Reagan's handlers thought “Born in the USA” might make a good campaign song. Or last week when Dropkick Murphys told Wisconsin Governor and odious dickweed Scott Walker, “Please stop using our music in any way... we literally hate you.” “Dancing Queen” is sad. So is “Happy Together.” And then there's some dudes with no girlfriends who every weekend pile in one guy's car and drive up and down the same street. Everybody leaves them alone. “I Get Around” may be the saddest song ever.

1%: Bikers or Billionaires?

The big news is that one percent of the people in the world have more of the money than everybody else combined. And don't get me wrong, I have the same visceral resentful reaction as you do. But don't forget, being wealthy is expensive. The number of dollars it takes to feed a family of four for a day in your neighborhood isn't enough to tip the wine steward in some joints. One humanday of healthy nutrition is a more consistent measure than any currency, so we have to conclude that rich people get much crummier money than we do.

Fretless

Dang, my shoelace broke. I need to sharpen this pencil. I burned the toast. The bus is late. My team lost, my job sucks, somebody parked in my space. Squeak in chair. Zit on nose. There's bills in the mailbox, ants in the kitchen, and ketchup down the front of my shirt. They say don't sweat the small stuff. I say only sweat the small stuff; the big stuff will stop you cold. A guy named Edward Noyes Westcott said, "A reasonable amount o fleas is good for a dog – keeps him from brooding over being a dog, maybe."

Mass media

I was watching football on the television, and when they talk about the players as they go on and off the field, they always mention their weights. These are pretty large numbers, usually between two and three hundred pounds. Call it an average of 250, which gives us roughly 1.4 tons a side. Okay. Here's a way to make football more fun. Instead of limiting the number of players, let's define a team by weight. So you could put 12 men on the field if they average 230. Who wouldn't enjoy watching 22 jockeys line up against 8 sumo wrestlers?

Lives of the Philosophers, Pt. 4

Ludwig Wittgenstein had for a father one of the richest men in Europe as well as a one-armed brother who became a famous concert pianist. His other three brothers committed suicide. Ludwig himself studied engineering until a “constant, indescribable, almost pathological state of agitation” drove him to study the philosophy of mathematics. Either philosophy or mathematics alone would have been too easy, I guess. Seriously, this guy was so smart you needed to be Bertrand Russell simply to misunderstand him properly. I can't actually read Wittgenstein. It's like watching a powerful motor rev itself to pieces on a static dynamometer.

Strapped

Dollar stores are not created equal. Family Dollar is okay, Dollar Tree is utterly worthless. A store called “Everything’s A $1.00 Dollar” (pronounced “everything’s a one dollar dollar”) used to have the best selection of colorful rubber frogs anywhere. Anyway, in the parking lot of the Dollar General a guy is getting out of his camouflage pickup. Big guy, camo pants, tall boots, camo cap. And he’s wearing an actual live baby strapped to his chest. And I want to tell him, “Pal, you’re living in a fool’s paradise if you think that little thing is gonna stop a bullet.”