Miscellaneous Category

The TV Series, “Cosmos,” has shown a new generation of viewers what Carl Sagan did for an earlier one.  New Host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, has shown over the last few weeks how amazing and inspiring our “Cosmos” can be.  However, that sense of wonder and awe is not reflected in the way the United States government views the agency most responsible for this, NASA. The funding for NASA has steadily lost priority in the eyes of the budget makers in Washington.  We are currently at our lowest rate since theRead More

I knew it right away, after our first date, heading back to my apartment on the Metro line eight; this girl was different, awesomely different. We talked for hours as we wandered at dusk from the bars on Ile St. Louis to bars on Cité, listening to street musicians. Maybe it was Paris, maybe I became mature enough to chill out and go with the flow (probably not), or maybe it’s that she’s just a uniquely awesome girl (probably so), but also, maybe it’s just European women. In any case,Read More

In honor and celebration of my birthday, which marks 23 years of stinky cheese breath, I offer you 23 confessions of my very own…   1. My first official confession was at the guilty age of 8, when I confessed to my Catholic priest, before my first communion, that I sometimes committed the grave sin of lying to my mother when she asked if I had brushed my teeth.  One should never lie about dental hygiene.   2. In 2nd grade my meanest, cruelest act of bullying was telling aRead More

If you’re like me and go gah-gah over books then you’ll enjoy the beauty of these book stores from around the world. BBC did their research and I’m ready to jet set around the world for some visits. Here they are, in no particular order: 1. Polare, Maastrict This store in the Netherlands operates out of a 700 year old Dominican church. It is absolutely beautiful from the entrance to all the way through.   2. El Ateneo, Buenos Aires This building was originally built as a theater in 1919.Read More

To say my life has been less than perfect would be an understatement. I went to college just like most kids. Right out of high school. I went to the local university, but didn’t do a lot of studying. I really didn’t care at that point. I was more concerned with drinking, girls, and having a good time. My family would ask how I was doing. How I was enjoying school. How I liked my teachers. I conjured up a web of little white lies and deceits. I thought theyRead More

This will only apply to half of you. As a filmmaker, writer, creator, dreamer, and human being, I’ve held onto physical copies of things since I was a kid. I saved every letter from cousin Maria, I cut out every newspaper article on the Oscars. I scrapbooked each family reunion which included The Plate (a sign-in paper plate record of who attended that year). I have a collection of DVDs, VHS, and blu-rays. I have the binder paper where I wrote my first story in 8th grade to cope withRead More

… but someone has to do it. For those of you who know what I’m talking about, you get it. For those of you who don’t, well you’re about to learn. Serving is not a glamorous gig. No person in their right mind thinks to themselves growing up “yep I want to wait on other people who are ungrateful and rude.” Seriously, what I’m trying to understand about the other side of the fence is one simple thing: Why are people so rude to servers? That is the one thing I’mRead More

Feeling forlorn about the weekend ending?  Did your dog just get hit by a car? Is March Madness making you, well, mad?   Do you just want to curl up and die in your Happy Meal that you bought just to cheer yourself up?  There is no faster way to regain composure and cheer than learning about another person’s embarrassing moments.  In the hopes of turning your frown upside down I would like to leave you with my four most embarrassing moments that I wish I was making up.   1. Read More

It sucks.  Having a shitty boss is like surviving on rice cakes for the rest of your life.  It’s outrageous!  It’s unfair, ridiculous, and criminal.  Maybe you’re on your 16th draft of a Pros and Cons of Quitting list, or maybe you’re resigned to the fact that your boss is as intelligent and useful as belly button lint–either way, try to see the bright side.  Here are some invaluable life lessons you can learn during this time:   1. What Incompetence Looks Like Sort of like how being raised byRead More

I am participating in a project which I do odd jobs to pay off my student loans and blog about them at Missoddjobs.com.  This is how I met Larry, an architect in San Francisco with a foot fetish, and more specifically, a tickling foot fetish.  I let him tickle my feet for one hour for $100.  That is approximately $1.67 per minute, for laughing on camera.  I can assure you there was nothing sexual about this odd job that involved my homely and humungous feet.  Larry did not have anRead More

Kids are getting dumber. Okay, not dumber, but definitely less intellectual. It’s a proven fact. We have such a religious-like belief in controlling a child’s diet; as kids, we’re told that one sugar cookie or half of a coca cola is like a ‘gateway food,’ and it will surely lead to chronic obesity down the road. But as we spend all of our OCD energy on monitoring what children eat, we forget about the importance of a healthy mind. Just go to any high school, or mall, or just aboutRead More

Last spring I got out of the Marine Corps and decided to go on a road trip to enjoy all the freedom I had been busy fighting over for the last five years.  I’m not sure what a country with no Air Force or Navy or any hostile Army at all has to do with American freedom, but that’s what I was told.  I was originally going to go solo, but I ended up taking my little sister along.  I initially said “hell no” when she asked, but I thoughtRead More

When I began to talk to, well, anyone who would talk to me about their American Girl Dolls, there was one common theme among women—not the wealth of American history obtained from their 18-inch-tall childhood friends, but the response, “No I didn’t have (insert blonde doll’s name), she was a b*tch, I had (insert different doll’s name), the cool one.” Which brings me to my question, why the hell did my mom buy me an American Girl Doll? The original American Girls—Samantha, Kirsten, and Molly—arrived on the market in 1986Read More

1. In a literal sense or manner. (See: literal).    Read More

Because I am an insufferable hipster douchebag, I not only listen to NPR, I kill a fair amount of time dicking around on NPR’s website. One of my favorite NPR blogs is alt.latino, which explores Latin rock and alternative music, and yesterday that blog had a wonderful, albeit brief, article about a concept I’ve come, over the past several months, to find incredibly powerful: saudade. (Click the link if for no other reason than to listen to some absolutely gorgeous Brazilian and Portuguese music. If you’ve never really gotten into bossa nova,Read More