Let's just hope these tablets are better at raising our kids than cable. — Paul Danke (@pauldanke) June 24, 2014 Read more →
Author Archive: Paul Epps
Bad Personal Ad
Bad personal ad: Looking for someone to take all of my pain from me. In exchange I will take you to a concert. bi. smoker. serious only. — eddie pepitone (@eddiepepitone) July 10, 2014 Read more →
It’s All Part of God’s Plan
One Piece of Advice From T. Boone Pickens
If I had to single out one piece of advice that’s guided me through life, most likely it would be from my grandmother, Nellie Molonson. She always made a point of making sure I understood that on the road to success, there’s no point in blaming others when you fail. Here’s how she put it: “Sonny, I don’t care who you are. Some day you’re going to have to sit on your own bottom.” After more than half a century in the energy business, her advice has proven itself to be spot-on time and time again. My failures? I never have any doubt whom they can be traced back to. My successes? Most likely the same guy. — T. Boone Pickens Read more →
Ten Steps to Being Fat, Lonely and Broke
Some behaviors come naturally while others require more effort. For example, there are dozens of bestsellers on finding love, losing weight and creating wealth but no market for books like Ten Steps to Being Fat, Lonely and Broke. Read more →
If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete. — Buddha
As every married person here knows, love is a rotten substitute for respect. — Kurt Vonnegut
An iPad a Week
Our boy has an internship with Red Bull this summer . . . he’s excited because in addition to getting paid, he gets an iPad and 2 cases of Red Bull a week. The last time I told someone that, she said, “He gets an iPad a week? Can I have one?” Read more →
Not Enough Information?
Bertrand Russell declared that, in case he met God, he would say to Him, “Sir, you did not give us enough information.” I would add to that, “All the same, Sir, I’m not persuaded that we did the best we could with the information we had. Toward the end there, anyway, we had tons of information.” — Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage Read more →
More People I’m Sick Unto Death Of
The worst thing you can do to people, aside from physical injury, is give them the idea to blame their failures on vague impersonal forces or the actions of anybody but themselves. It doesn’t promote success or happiness. I don’t know any happy people who think like that. For example, I read this in a New York Times article about an impoverished area of West Virginia: John got caught up in the dark undertow of drugs that defines life for so many here in McDowell County. That is just awful. I live in Southern California, not too far from the ocean . . . I’m familiar with undertows (although I’ve never heard of a “dark” undertow). First of all, sorry to be pedantic but undertows aren’t dangerous . . . they’re just after-effects of individual waves. What’s dangerous is a riptide . . . a concentrated flow of water that… Read more →
Futility
We saw BODIES: The Exhibition at the Luxor in Las Vegas. You’ve probably heard about this . . . dissected bodies are preserved and displayed for educational purposes. Most of the bodies are displayed in athletic poses with props: baseball, basketball, tennis racket, etc. One of the bodies is aiming a dart with his right hand while holding a second dart in his left hand. Of course he’s never going to need that second dart because he’s never going to throw the first dart. Because he’s dead. It creates a sad effect in my opinion . . . plans, unbeknownst to the planner, that will never come to fruition. Futility doesn’t always end with death. Meanwhile . . . I overheard a young woman telling her girlfriend that one of the cadavers had “a nice butt.” Live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse. Read more →
How I Identified the Impostor
Capgras Syndrome – The patient believes that a friend, spouse, parent, or other close family member has been replaced by an identical-looking impostor. We’re going on an overnight trip out of town. Whenever we do that, my wife packs a bag the size of a steamer trunk full of clothes and god-knows-what for all eventualities. This morning, when I went to carry the giant bag downstairs, I realized it was only half full. It was too light. And that is how I identified the impostor. Read more →
Any time I see a person fleeing from reason and into religion, I think to myself, There goes a person who simply cannot stand being so goddamn lonely anymore. — Kurt Vonnegut
Team Foosball
Killed by Prayer
A woman on Facebook a couple of days ago asked everyone to pray for her seriously ill father. Today, he died. Go figure. Had he made a miraculous recovery, we would have said that prayer “worked” . . . but what does it mean when you pray for someone to live and he dies? I had a college professor . . . his exams were graded by a graduate assistant, but students had the option of appealing grades to the professor. That’s not unusual, but most professors will either raise the grade or leave it as is. This guy, however, would either raise the grade, leave it as is or lower it. Risky! Maybe God operates on the same principle. When you put someone’s fate in his hands, he retains the option of saying “toodle-oo.” Read more →
Email From a Bird
I meant to sign this email “Nest Regards” but I typed “Best Regards” by mistake — and the spell check didn’t catch it! I am one angry bird right now . . . Read more →
Milestones
Someone asks me for my home phone number and for a moment I can’t remember the last four digits. I am 55 years old . . . Read more →
Descending Kroeber Hall
Infographic of Soccer Players, Fish and Gunshot Victims
Infographic idea: A multivariate analysis of who spends more time flopping around: soccer players, fish on a boat deck or people who’ve just been shot. Read more →
3 Links
9 Things Bruce Lee Taught Me About Programming What a coach can teach a teacher, 1975-2004: Reflections and reanalysis of John Wooden’s teaching practices Wolfram Programming Cloud Is Live! Read more →