They Will Rise Again From the Tundra

If you’re an office worker like me, you probably spend quite a bit of time clicking a mouse and pounding on a keyboard. The time you spend doing this also might lead to some manner of repetitive stress injury. In my case, my right index finger is nearly perpetually swollen, stiff, and in pain [...]

As best I can remember, I originally posted this blog post some time during 2005 or 2006 on the now-defunct WritingUp.com, and because I’ve been too busy (or something) to maintain a semblance of a working blog these past few months, I hereby provide this tasty archival morsel. It is my sincerest hope that posting these foul words precludes some increased [...]

Simon Read begins War of Words: A Tale of Newsprint and Murder with two quotations, the first an excerpt from the Daily Dramatic Chronicle (later the San Francisco Chronicle) comparing the marksmanship of American journalists to that of their French counterparts and the second a fitting quote from Thompson’s indelible The Great Shark Hunt [...]

I am forced to sit here and suffer through another long afternoon of pretending to work largely because I have become more efficient as a worker. I wouldn’t even go as far as to say that I’ve automated everything because, in truth, I haven’t automated anything. I’ve simply succeeded in cutting down the number of steps it takes to complete [...]

It happened very suddenly. A large pair of artificial breasts shrouded in a loose-fitting shirt of the Renaissance Period slid into view at eye level as I was standing in a circle of my friends. I tilted my head upward to meet the large middle-aged man’s gaze. Thin lines of lavender set his lips apart from the rest of a ruddy, sweaty face, and the curly, black nylon wig [...]

There are too many stimuli and no way to unhook from the Delivery System. Every thirty seconds or so, TweetDeck chirps and notifies me that some Twitter entity or another has posted something to the web. Facebook is running and constantly updating itself with video, status updates, and one friend who is rebuking me [...]

There are few activities more masochistic than golf. The twisted nature of the sport has been covered all too well by golfers and comedians alike, so I will spare you the banal jokes. I’m in no mood for them after what happened this afternoon.

I’m not one of those people that plays golf [...]

When George Orwell’s famous protagonist from 1984, Winston Smith, begins to read The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, supposedly penned by the revolutionary Emmanuel Goldstein, Orwell writes that the best books are the ones that tell you what you already know. Granted, Winston arrives at this revelation while hiding from the eyes [...]

The rants don’t come easily these days — at least not as easily as they once did — save for a few impromptu outbursts when something ruffles the feathers or playing the jester. Other than that, there is little to be said about current events. Things continue much as they always have [...]

Listening to a new Bob Dylan album almost always conjures doubt and conflicted feelings, echoes of past greatness, evidence of current greatness, and obvious signs of disintegration, at least it’s been that way for me since 2001’s Love & Theft [...]

I was stumbling around the internet when I happened across the full text of Gen. George Patton’s famous speech to the Third Army. My memory is a bit fuzzy, but up until about fifteen minutes ago, my only knowledge of this oratory marvel came from anecdotes and the film Patton starring George C. Scott. [...]

Easter isn’t exactly a day I relish in any capacity, and on this Easter Sunday, I am, perhaps, more irritable than usual. This patch on my arm is feeding nicotine into my bloodstream to the tune of 21 milligrams over a 24-hour period for the sixth day in a row with no telling how long [...]