German police announced yesterday that they had busted a transnational scheme to sell 20 forgeries of paintings by artists including Rembrandt and Pablo Picasso. Several suspected fakes were seized during coordinated raids across Germany, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein last week. Authorities allege that a 77-year-old German man led 10 accomplices in the scheme that priced the counterfeits between $465K and $150M. — aol.com I don’t know how to paint, unfortunately, but I do know how to use CSS DIVs. How much do you think I can get for this Starry Night forgery? Read more →
Author Archive: Paul Epps
Questions and Concerns at the Dentist
After my dental appointment, the hygienist asks me, “Do you have any questions or concerns?” I say, “Oh I’ve got a ton of questions and concerns.” Pause. “Did you mean about my teeth?” “Those are the only ones I can help you with.” “Well . . . no, nothing along those lines. Thanks for asking though!” Read more →
Ace Frehley, 1951-2025
It used to be that whenever a musical legend died — David Bowie or Prince, for example — I’d post something online to say “And yet all the members of Rush are still alive? How is this fair?!” I regard Rush as the worst band in the history of music. Then Neil Peart died and I had to switch to “all the original members of KISS are still alive.” Now that Ace Frehley has died, I’m not sure how to proceed. Are all of the Bay City Rollers still alive? RIP Ace Frehley Read more →
The Great Chicago Fire
On this date, Oct. 8, in 1871, the Great Chicago Fire started. The fire came under control on October 10, leaving an estimated 300 people dead, 100,000 others homeless and more than 17,000 structures destroyed. As major disasters go, a death toll of 300 is very low. Aren’t there about 300 people killed in Chicago every weekend now? Did you know? The same day the Great Chicago Fire began, a fire broke out in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, in which more than 1,000 people perished. The disaster (in Chicago, not Wisconsin) prompted an outbreak of looting and lawlessness. Some things never change. Martial law was declared on October 11, and lifted several weeks later. Also, Happy World Octopus Day to those who celebrate. Read more →
Einstein’s List of Marital Demands
EINSTEIN’S LIST OF MARITAL DEMANDS These are more useful than the Theory of Relativity, which no one understands anyway. Read more →
Career Lessons: Lesson #1
Currently I do most of my work from home. Mid-afternoon, loud music started playing from somewhere nearby and I went to a window to see if I could locate the source. What I saw was an Amazon truck parked in front of a neighbor’s home and a car stopped in the street. The driver of the car, a young woman, was standing outside the car, and the truck driver was standing near the young woman. From the physical interaction, they seemed to be boyfriend and girlfriend. I don’t know why they happened to be in the same place at the same time, but I didn’t care about that. I cared about the music. I couldn’t tell if the music was coming from the car or the truck until I walked out there, and then it was obviously coming from the truck. “What are you doing?” I asked them. “People live… Read more →
A Home Run Ball is Loose in the Stands
See videos below for what to do and what NOT to do when a home run ball is loose in the stands. This is how it's done pic.twitter.com/DV3fL41DnW — Boom? (@WeriBomb) September 6, 2025 Here is the full video of the situation in the outfield after Harrison Bader’s Home Run. ? @NBCSPhilly https://t.co/W5thuO6nhg pic.twitter.com/h9yJaPbcmX — Phillies Tailgate (@PhilsTailgate) September 6, 2025 Unless it’s some kind of record-setter like the Shohei Ohtani 50/50 record ball that sold for millions of dollars. Then it’s every mf-er for themselves. Read more →
Moms Miss Work to Care for Kids!
It’s amazing that anyone alive still believes in work-life balance. I thought boomers already proved conclusively that it doesn’t exist. You can have days focused on work or you can have days focused on family. You can’t have both. My opinion is that parents should prioritize family. Kids like to grow up with a parent and moms like to spend time with their children. Of course everyone else can do what they want to, but please stop pretending to be shocked that work-life balance is not a real thing. Read more →
The Principle of Unequal Distribution
I’ve always thought that wealth inequality should be called “wealth diversity” because then it sounds like a good thing. But seriously, folks, you’ve probably heard of the Pareto Principle, commonly known as the 80-20 rule. Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) noticed that in Italy in the early 20th century, about 20% of the population owned roughly 80% of the land, a skewed distribution that appears to be true for every society ever studied, regardless of governmental form. Pareto distributions arise naturally from systems where positive feedback loops exist—for instance, wealth begets more wealth. Or as Jesus said in Matthew 25:29: “To those who have everything, more will be given; from those who have nothing, everything will be taken.” The Principle of Unequal Distribution also applies, for example, to the population of cities (a very small number have almost all the people), the mass of heavenly bodies (a very small number hoard all… Read more →
Some Things Can’t Be Improved Upon
Just for fun, I clicked the “Rewrite with AI” button on one of my LinkedIn posts. I wasn’t planning to use the AI version. I just wanted to see what it would do. It came back exactly the same. Some things can’t be improved upon. Read more →
Choosy Maters
Most men do not meet human female standards. According to stats from OKCupid, women rate 85 percent of men on dating sites below average in attractiveness. That’s a frost-brewed, cold, harsh dose of reality right there! But then they date them anyway, right? If not, there’d be a much higher percentage of people, male and female both, without partners. For example, I myself am not a top 15 percenter in attractiveness but I have managed to consensually propagate my genetic material to future generations. Of course, my intelligence and wit are off the charts so that helps, I think. Female humans are unlike female chimps, their closest animal counterpart, in this regard. Female chimps are not choosy maters. Read more →
I Love a Good Insult
I love a good insult . . . Tolstoy to Chekhov: “You know I can’t stand Shakespeare’s plays, but yours are worse.” Unfortunately, most of the insults I see directed at me and others online are just lowbrow name-calling. Can we all try to raise our insult game? Thank you for your attention to this matter. Read more →
It’s Hard to Tell the Intolerant Fascists Without a Scorecard
Global Warming Killing Public Education?
You’ve Got to Fight For Your Right to Party
You've got to fight for your right to party.https://t.co/Z2APKYq8iJ — Paul Epps (@paulepps) August 10, 2025 Read more →
Newest Fruit Smoothie: Ketchup
Yes, you could have had a V8 but it wouldn’t have been quite this nauseating. Read more →
Good Bones
Life is short, though I keep this from my children. Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways, a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative estimate, though I keep this from my children. For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird. For every loved child, a child broken, bagged, sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world is at least half terrible, and for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you, though I keep this from my children. I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful. — Maggie Smith, “Good Bones” Read more →
How Do You Fix Schools?
Given that 40 percent of American fourth graders have less than basic reading skills, and only 26 percent of 12th graders are considered proficient in math, you’d think that there wasn’t much on the mind of teachers other than the best ways to teach reading and math. WE DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THAT! WE’VE GOT TO FIGHT TRUMP! Among the initiatives approved at the latest annual gathering of the NEA, the nation’s largest teachers union: $3,500 to “defend democracy against Trump’s embrace of fascism by using the term facism [sic] in NEA materials to correctly characterize Donald Trump’s program and actions.” Even the teachers can’t spell. What a horror show. Read more →
Can Your Brain Run Out of Memory?
Yes! I can remember things I learned as a kid — addresses, phone numbers, musical pieces — but I can’t remember things I learned last week. I would think that things I learned, or tried to learn, recently would be easier to recall than things I learned a long time ago but that’s not the case for me. My brain is full. Read more →
Squirrelly Behavior
I was watching these two squirrels from the community fitness center . . . In the first photo below, you can see them on either side of the palm tree on the right. They had been chasing each other across the wooden beams to the left of the tree when one of the squirrels made a leap for the palm tree and the other one followed. One chased the other to the point they’re at in the photo and that’s where they stopped. The palm tree, in my opinion, was a bad move, because 1) It’s a very tall tree. From their current position, they’re less than halfway to the top. And 2) Even if they got to the top, there’s nothing to do up there. Look at the palm tree on the left. They’d just have to turn around and come back down. The coniferous trees, like the one… Read more →