May 2009
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Here's my latest 'personal best.' It's now seven consecutive airplane trips in which the person next to me has been an obese hulk. The kind of person who spreads his (or her) legs, drips his (or her suet) onto and over my armrest and claims and colonizes territory that I have purchased and which should be…
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I've never understood money. It doesn't do you any good until you spend it, and once you spend it, you don't have it anymore. I never understood income, either. I was employed for most of my life at a frugal, let's call it, state university. I earned much less money than friends in the "private…
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We're still dealing with the bureaucratic fallout from Grandma's death in January. One consequence is that we receive impenetrable, inexplicable documents from Medicare every few days. Here's an opaque paragraph from the latest missive. Try to judge at what level — your choices are sixth grade through twelfth grade remedial — this entirely irrelevant and…
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A while back, I complained about Allen Iverson. Here's what I said: "he can do everything on the basketball court except win…. When the Nuggets come down the floor, whether Iverson eventually shoots or not, he clings to the ball and dribbles around while the rest of the team stand and watch. Iverson turns his teammates…
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After the passage of oh-so-many years, I've become shamelessly curious to know what happened to the friends and classmates who graduated from P. S. 217 in June of 1952. There were about 175 of these golden lads and lasses, and you can see their pictures here. I know just enough to pique my curiousity. Lester Silberman became a gynecologist, Stephen Lewin…
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I can't remember what I was dreaming, but I woke up in a state of pure etymological panic — over the revelation that I didn't know the derivation or meaning of the "welter" part of "welterweight." How could this be? Context was not the least help: lightweight, welterweight, middleweight, light-heavyweight, heavyweight. Why not the more logical, more consistent…
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For the new downtown apartment, we've purchased a Sonos ZonePlayer. What does this oddly-named machine do? It simply allows me to capture the signal of radio statios all over the world (through the internet connection), pipe them through the amplifier, and broadcast them on our old but functional speakers. Quite a step up in standard of…