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Month: May 2004

Crooked Sticks and Windshear. (or, Polo sans Horse.)

Golf is either the most wonderful or the most demented sport ever invented. I can’t over-estimate how difficult it is to successfully play the game. Well, play the game may be too strong a word. Make no mistakes about it: golf is work. That’s probably why my grandfather–who golfs three times a week–doesn’t consider himself…
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Blame Assignment 101.

In Memoriam, Nick Berg I haven’t seen the video. I don’t wish to see the video. The various internet sites via which the gruesome murder of Nick Berg can be viewed all attempt to justify making the video available by way of platitudes like, “We think you should see what humanity is capable of.” Here’s…
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Tiki Torch Tributes

Patios aren’t patios unless they are surrounded by Tiki torches. For over two months, since the arrival of spring, I’ve walked through Wal-Mart, eyeing the bamboo-and-metal concoctions with an envious, intentful glare. Each time, though, I also eye the price tag and simply cannot justify the expense. So I sit outside and let mosquitos nibble…
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Unexpected Happy Memories in a Box of Camel Turkish Golds.

Things happen in life that we have no control over. Car wrecks, for example. While theoretically we hold control over our automobiles, unexplainable forces actually govern the dynamics of auto transit. And periodically those dynamics go haywire. So we do what we can to cope with the day-to-day frustrations of things that are beyond our…
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Workaholics Anonymous, or Why I hate weekends.

I hate weekends. Forty-eight hours of unadulterated boredom. Sitting on the sofa, surfing through seventy-eight channels of absolute nothingness. Forraging in the refrigerator for food that doesn’t have a colony of pre-cognitive lifeforms on it. Two days of pajama pants and CNN’s People in the News. I mean, do I really care that “The DaVinci…
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