Q: What do you get when you drop a piano down a mine shaft? A: A flat minor. Q: Why did the chicken cross the road? A: To get away from the bassoon recital. Read more →
Author Archive: Paul Epps
Two Tickets
I’m now the proud owner of two tickets to Game 7 of the World Series, provided there is a Game 7, and provided that it’s played at Edison Field (which it will be if the Angels are the AL champs). Read more →
Donnie Moore
There’s a sad story on Donnie Moore’s daughter in the Orange County Register today . . . In 1986, the Angels were one out away from the World Series when Moore gave up a two-run homer to Boston’s Dave Henderson. The Angels lost the game, lost the next two games to lose the series, and — until this season — haven’t been in the playoffs since. Three years later, Moore killed himself with a gun. Read more →
Damn Yankees
I know all about it. But I don’t see it as magic. They have a good team. It isn’t magic. — Troy Percival on the Yankee mystique Percival’s first pitch last night was a 97 mph fastball that “accidentally” sailed about two feet inside and drilled Alfonso Soriano. Soriano had celebrated a go-ahead home run earlier in the game with a fist-pumping curtain call. Read more →
Janeane Garofalo
From an OC Weekly interview with Janeane Garofalo: OC Weekly: With war brewing, are you venturing into foreign policy? Janeane Garofalo: I can’t think of how to say something funny about how I feel about a preemptive strike in Iraq. But I am on top of all the news, and I am endlessly disappointed in the news. I am extremely angry. . . . Read more →
Geography
This is probably why geography has not really been taught since World War II — to keep people in the dark as to where we are blowing things up. — Gore Vidal Read more →
Personal Attention
I’m explaining to my son another advantage to being an only child: personal attention . . . “I don’t have to tell, say, four kids to shut up; I can just tell you to shut up four times as much.” Read more →
Love and Marriage
After eight years of living together, Erik decided we should marry. I didn’t want to, but I did. During that ninth year it all fell apart. It shows. Never try to hold on to anything. — Martha Graham Read more →
Mike Webster
Former Steeler Webster dies at age 50 — ESPN.com This is a sad story. Mike Webster’s football career brought him nine Pro Bowl appearances, four Super Bowl victories, a Hall of Fame induction, and irreversible brain damage, which in turn led to memory loss, depression and homelessness. He was living in Pittsburgh with his high-school age son, who last week told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: My dad has some health problems no one knows about and that I don’t want to get into that much. But he has some brain injuries from football. I have to take care of my dad. Read more →
:-)
Research indicates that today is the 20th anniversary of the smiley 🙂 Read more →
Does an Elite College Really Pay?
This article concludes that the answer is no — that if you’re smart enough to get into, say, Princeton, you’re smart enough to make money wherever you go to school, even if it’s someplace a lot less expensive. Not to say that I wouldn’t be thrilled to have my kid get into an Ivy League school, but I’ve always thought that it’s no great feat to graduate “the best and the brightest” if you only admit the best and the brightest to begin with. Read more →
Baby Talk
One of my wife’s friends in Thailand has been trying for years to have a baby and finally did. Her typing and English are not so good, but her email I thought was quite affecting: My girl, JOOK-KRU,is so young, so I want to spend most time for her. I had a little trouble in first 5 months pregnancy. Now I feel very good, I think big trouble in my life was gone. As you know We see docter for 8 years continuiously and spend a lot of money for the problom. We get her by IVF technique. She is healty , try to climb to upatairs, always make loud noise. I think she can call ‘ mae’ or ‘mama’ or ‘papa’ soon. “Mae” means “Mom” in the Thai language. “Jook-Kru” means “little bird.” Read more →
Healing Power
“Healing power of sports” nonsense thoughtfully refuted: If, in the long run, you need sports to help you through a time of tragedy and to take your mind off a grimmer reality, then you are emotionally in so much trouble in not understanding what is real and what is fantasy that the prospects for your long-term emotional health are probably not very good. Read more →
1st Day of 4th Grade
We have Mr. Walker for 4th grade this year . . . I saw an article today: Do Kids Need MP3 Players for School? It seems obvious to me that they don’t, and why even bring it up, although a pair of my kid’s back-to-school pants actually came with a built-in MP3 player holder. His reaction: “Cool! . . . what’s an MP3 player?” Read more →
Geometry or Epistemology?
With school starting up in a couple of days, my wife is trying to get our boy in an academic frame of mind . She has him doing some exercises from a geometry workbook and of course he’s not interested. “I can’t tell if these lines are exactly alike,” he says. Holds the book up to his face. “They look exactly alike . . .” Call me biased, but turning the whole exercise into a philosophical problem, rather than just saying “I don’t want to do this,” is a pretty sophisticated plan of attack for a 9-year-old. Read more →
Editor Dies in Fall
A NY Times business editor took an apparently intentional header off the 15th floor of the Times building. Too bad he wasn’t the crossword editor, it would have made a better headline. You’d want to work the phrase “15 Down” into it . . . Read more →
Overheard
A brief conversation between Victor, one of our project managers, and our Sales VP as Victor is walking out of the VP’s office: VP: You’re the greatest! VICTOR: I’m trying. VP (louder now, as Victor is halfway down the hall): Thanks, Wayne! Read more →
Talking to Your Kids
ME: I hope when you and Jeremy are over at Jessica’s house, that you include her in your activities, not just ignore her because she’s a girl and do your own stuff. HIM: Dude, she’s a STU-pido! Read more →
At the Ballpark
Woman collapses, dies in Orlando Rays’ minor-league promotion — ESPN.com Nothing like this ever happens when I go to the ballpark. The story doesn’t give the woman’s height and weight — it may have been newsworthy in that 28-year-old women normally don’t keel over and die after a short run. At least one paper elected — somewhat insensitively, I think — to run news of the woman’s death in a baseball roundup column, immediately followed by the mesmerizing news that the Blue Jays activated Carlos Delgado from the 15-day DL. Read more →
“Hiring the Best” Explained
An employer is always somewhat reassured by the ignominiousness of his staff. At all costs the slave should be slightly, even much, to be despised. A mass of chronic blemishes, moral and physical, are a justification of the fate which is overwhelming him. The world gets along better that way, because then each man stands in it in the place he deserves. A being who is useful to you should be low, flat, prone to weakness; that is what’s comforting; especially as Baryton paid us really very badly. In cases of acute avarice like this, employers are always a bit suspicious and uneasy. A failure, a debauchee, a black sheep, a devoted black sheep, all that made sense, justified things, fitted in, in fact. Baryton would have been on the whole rather pleased if I had been slightly wanted by the police. That always makes for real devotion. — Louis-Ferdinand… Read more →