Tag Archives: culture

Mr. TIM Goes to Washington

It appears that winter is finally over here in Minnesota.  You can tell because all the east-west roads are under construction.  So to recap, you can’t leave your home in the winter because of all the snow and you can’t leave your home in the summer because the infrastructure looks like the set of Transformers 6.  It’s time to move.  But where?  Based on what I’ve seen in the news lately, the natural choice is Washington.  That is, Washington State, not Washington Den of Cheekiness.

“Why is that?” you ask in dumbfounded awestruck envy.  Well, this past week Washington State passed a 475-page piece of legislation implementing state-wide gender-inclusive language, finally completing a six-year, multi-gazillion dollar effort to remove any and all societal political incorrectness and enforcing a much more inoffensive and tolerant androgyny amongst its citizenry. Continue reading →

Just Call Me ‘For Dinner’

If you had read this post earlier, you could have surmised from the book on the lower portion of the bottom half of my page (that is not there anymore so don’t bother looking), that I had just finished reading Crow Killer: The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson, about a legendary mountain man of the Old American West.  What struck me most about this book is the extreme coolness of mountain man nicknames: Bear Claw, White-eye, Arkansas Pete, Hatchet Jack, Mad Mose, and of course the main character, Crow Killer, otherwise known as Liver-Eating Johnson.

This got me conTIMplating nicknames, where they come from, and perhaps most importantly, why I don’t have one.  Continue reading →

Sicky Sicky Two-by-Four

In a controversial decision last week, the AMA (the American Medical Association, not the Amarillo International Airport, nor the Academy of Model Aeronautics, nor the text lingo for ‘Ask Me Anything’) declared obesity as a medical disease, making it kinda like cancer or HIV except that it’s not.   Perhaps you are old enough to remember that the AMA was opposed to Medicare, then opposed to cuts in Medicare, then opposed to universal health care under Clinton, then opposed to opposition of universal health care under Obama.

In a related story, the AMA’s preferred footwear is flip-flops.

Perhaps what makes this decision controversial is that it is so stupid. Continue reading →

Lucky 7 Reasons I Hate Las Vegas

Vegas, Baby, Yeah! My kids must live here. All the lights are on. Stolen from wikipedia.com

Vegas, Baby, Yeah! My kids must live here. All the lights are on. Stolen from wikipedia.org

I am going to admit right now that I am not a fan of Vegas:  Susan Vega, Chevy Vega, Vega from Street Fighter, etc.  I suppose the Vega Rocket is pretty cool, but that’s only because it’s a rocket.  Neither do I care for Las Vegas, which is Spanish for “The Vegas.”  My job takes me to Las Vegas fairly regularly and thankfully, it more often than not takes me out again.  Rarely do I look forward to visiting for a number of reasons, and that number is Lucky 7—not to be confused with Lucy 7, the episode where Lucy reads the wrong horoscope for the day and she ruins Ricky’s business deals as a result.  Hilarity ensues. Continue reading →

Time for a Graduation Innovation Conversation

Yesterday was Thing 1’s last day of high school, which means she graduates in the top 100% of her class this week and enters the ambiguous and limbotic state of a Phillip Phillips Summer; somewhere between “Home” and “Gone, Gone, Gone”.

Not unlike your typical middle-aged milquetoast who has survived such a life event as this, my emotive state is one of uneasy apprehension and terrible trepidation, not so much from the launching of a long-time household resident as from the requirement that I actually attend the lengthy and dreaded tradition that is the graduation ceremony. Continue reading →