Time seemed to dilate more than usual this year. It was January, and then, rather abruptly, it was December again. I prepare to make this list all year long, starting on January 1, and take it quite seriously, probably too seriously, as I enter my tenth year making it. But
Think of your favorite dish at an overly-priced but delectable restaurant that you frequent. Envision the plate as it arrives at your table. The satisfying clunk as the waitstaff sets the plate down and invariably warns you that it’s too hot to touch (but still sets it too far
As the title implies, mixing metaphors is confusing. While you could potentially (maybe) convey the same message using disparate parts of separate metaphors, it would require the listener to both know and understand the original metaphors and also not immediately think that you are having a stroke. But in our
Alfonso Cuarón's 2006 film Children of Men is one of my all-time favorite pieces of art, film or otherwise. Seeing it in the theater while in college, fully whacked out of my gourd on what I can imagine must have been three to four bong rips and one-third
Writing with consistency is difficult because writing is a muscle that needs to be exercised constantly lest it atrophy. Life is busy, complicated, and kind of confusing, and I am often too mentally gassed by the end of the day to be able to work on the lengthy and research-intensive
At this point in history, most people under forty have been on the internet for most of their lives. They have been on the internet for longer than they were ever not on the internet. Assuming most youthful Westerners got personal “modern internet” tools like laptops, emails, smartphones, and social
Like most people unwilling or unable to part with certain physical objects of apparent personal meaning, I have a box in my closet with a few important and cherished things from my past. A CD of the first Audioslave album, signed by all four members of the band, AKA three-quarters
Immersing yourself in something outside your corporeal reality is liberating. Life is hard, and we all deserve a break from the harsh, grating daylight of whatever currently ails our fragile minds, bodies, and souls. Escapist storytelling rituals have evolved alongside human society and ebbed and flowed with our collective identities,
Contrary to the axiom we all learn in high school Economics, “There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch,” many things are, in fact, free. Sleeping, for instance, is free. I can’t remember a time when my pillow demanded I renew my annual subscription before tucking in for
Originally Published January 16, 2024 "What the fuck happened to you, man? Shit, your ass used to be beautiful!" - Ordell Robbie, Jackie Brown I have been a Spotify “power user” since 2013. Back then, while working for a pro audio hardware company, I was frequently doing product
Originally Published on December 8, 2023 In the past 15 years since graduating college with a degree in Political Science, I can’t say that I have read much Marx. My days as an aspirational leftist ideologue of sorts may not be totally behind me, but I’m also an
Originally Published November 15, 2023 Fear of the unknown is powerful. It could be argued that fear of the unknown is the root cause of most of or all human suffering depending on your level of cynicism. People fear what they don’t understand and consequently resist what they don’