I want to be invited into other people’s lives. I’ve lived a life secluded and sequestered and now I guess what I’d like to do is be invited. This might not happen. This might not be my spirit. Maybe I was sent here to go at it alone, and maybe where I offer inspiration and have power is alone. But if you ask me, I’d like to be invited. — Rickie Lee Jones Read more →
Author Archive: Paul Epps
Darth Vader for President
People are so fed up with the gridlock and dysfunction in Washington. Congress is unfortunately unable to even agree on the most obvious kinds of things. I think Darth Vader looks pretty good to a lot of people. — Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, on CNN, responding to poll results showing voters say they prefer Darth Vader, the fictional villain in the Star Wars films, for president over her and several other potential candidates. Are people fed up with gridlock? I’m not. I love gridlock. It’s when those meddling idiots actually do something that life gets worse for everyone. Jokes aside, I think Darth Vader would be an exceptionally good president in some respects. Imagine him, for example, in an Israel-Hamas negotiating session: “Whose trachea do I have to crush with my mind to get some peace around here?” Read more →
Books, Writers, Bookstores, Libraries
World’s Coolest Bookstores – CNN Style 22 Most Spectacular Libraries in the World – Architecture and Design Writers at Work Erasing Infinite – Poet Jenni B. Baker creates erasure poetry from David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, one page at a time. Incredible. Must be seen to be believed. Read more →
You Could Be Someone Special
Thanks for pushing me and always preaching to me, “You could be someone special, if you really work at it.” I took that to heart, pops, and look at us today. — Frank Thomas, induction speech at the Baseball Hall of Fame Read more →
Airlines Headquartered in Strip Malls: Another Reason I Prefer to Just Stay Home
Here’s a photo of cameramen standing outside the headquarters of the company that owned the Air Algerie plane that crashed earlier this week . . . MY GOD WHERE IS THAT?! It looks like a strip mall, or a trailer. CANCEL MY RESERVATIONS! Read more →
More People I’m Sick Unto Death Of
People who say “I don’t take myself too seriously.” Let people make up their own minds about whether you take yourself too seriously. If you think anyone’s interested in your reflective insights about yourself, then you take yourself too seriously. Read more →
The Softball Waivers
Our company’s having an in-house softball game tonight, hosted at a field across the street at UC Irvine . . . That’s not our actual team in the picture, the difference being that the players in the picture look like they may have been athletes at one time. I’m not playing because I have a piano lesson tonight. (Actually, I wouldn’t have played anyway because I can no longer do things like run and see that used to serve me so well on the diamond all those years ago. But the piano lesson is a convenient excuse.) Everyone who is playing had to sign a waiver provided by UCI. Good move. Company softball games are rife with injuries. I picture a scenario like this: Dear UCI Parents, We regret that your students are not able to graduate on time, but as you know, we’ve had to cut back drastically on… Read more →
Horrific Ziplining Accidents: Another Reason I Prefer to Just Stay Home
How to Not Cry at Work
The most read post on LinkedIn today is “How To Not Cry At Work” with (as I write this) 241,549 views. The second most read post — and a very distant second with 101,906 views — is “It’s time to stop using recruiting agencies.” That can’t be good. What does it say about the American workplace that the most pressing issue is how to avoid crying? Read more →
One Thing I Can’t Tolerate is Intolerance: Tony Dungy Edition
“What’s your beef with Tony Dungy?” “He said he wouldn’t draft Michael Sam. He’s not showing the requisite level of tolerance and inclusiveness toward people who are different than he is.” “Isn’t Dungy himself entitled to tolerance and inclusiveness?” “Oh, no. No. Absolutely not. Because he’s being different in a way that’s totally unacceptable.” “So you’re not against intolerance as a matter of principle, so long as the ‘right’ people and groups get ostracized.” “Right.” “I don’t remember anyone until fairly recently saying that having openly gay players in the NFL is a good idea. Now that we’ve reached a point in history where everyone in America has a breezy indifference to homosexuality . . . everyone knows people, works with people, has people in their family who are openly gay . . . every single TV show and movie has at least one gay character — NOW people like… Read more →
Overreaction
Her parents must be pretty strict. They reported her missing just because she wasn’t home by 9? Read more →
The Last Minute of Your Life
“You should live every minute of your life as though it’s your last.” “You’d spend the last minute of your life giving other people dopey advice?” Read more →
Forgiveness
“This article says that lovers are more willing to forgive a partner for infidelity than for leaving dirty dishes in the sink.” “Just so you know, I wouldn’t forgive you for either one.” Read more →
Lightning Got a Personalized Pup Cup
When I go to Starbucks on weekends I always get a pup cup — a short cup of whipped cream — for Lightning. No one ever asks me about it . . . I just place my own order, ask for a short cup of whipped cream, they write “Paul” on both cups and serve them up. Today the Starbucks girl was puzzled. “You want a short cup of whipped cream?” she asked. “A short cup of whipped cream, right.” She still had a puzzled look on her face. Maybe she thought what I really wanted was cream. “It’s for my dog,” I said. “Your dog likes whipped cream?” “He loves it.” “What’s your dog’s name?” “Lightning.” “Lightning?” “Right. Like thunder and lightning.” So this morning, after years of eating pup cups with someone else’s name on them, Lightning got his own personalized pup cup. Read more →
Unintended Consequences: The Death of George Washington
In 1799, George Washington fell ill with an infection. Doctors at that time believed that illnesses were caused by an imbalance of fluids in the body. In particular, they believed that fevers were caused by an excess of blood, so they treated Washington’s fever with five separate bloodlettings, which together drained off over half the blood in his body. Not only did the bloodletting not have a healing effect, it probably hastened his death. The human body is a very complex mechanism. Society is a very complex mechanism. You might decide, with good intentions, to tinker with a complex mechanism thinking that even if your intervention doesn’t achieve the full benefit you’re hoping for, it will at least be better than nothing. No — tinkering with a complex mechanism when you have no idea what you’re doing is only going to make things worse. Related Links “In Praise of Passivity”… Read more →
What Comes Around Goes Around
Via MSN News: It’s a little-known fact that if a woman survives an honor killing, the would-be killers must themselves be killed in an honor killing for botching the original honor killing. Read more →
More People I’m Sick Unto Death Of: Hobby Lobby Boycotters
“Don’t tell me what to do” and “Do what I say” – these are not compatible admonitions. — James M. Buchanan I just saw this Boycott Hobby Lobby group on Facebook . . . There’s a longstanding liberal maxim — Keep Government Out of the Bedroom — i.e., “Don’t tell me what to do,” which has gone out the window on the Hobby Lobby case, where the liberal position is “Do what I say,” i.e., that a law requiring everyone to buy certain bedroom supplies whether they want to or not is not only a really great thing, it’s a moral imperative. Individual liberty is a two-way street, folks . . . Read more →
Income Inequality is the Best
R.I.P. America
This was on the front page of MSN this morning. I’m guessing that “Bush” is Reggie Bush and “Kim” is Kim Kardashian . . . who “Brody” is I have no idea but evidently that’s him in the photo. Why does anyone need to know what weddings this Brody person attends or doesn’t attend? Isn’t there anything else you could tell us? R.I.P. America. Read more →
A Male Chimp Can Spot an Ovulating Female From More Than a Quarter Mile Away
An ovulating female chimp, that is. Nearly all female primates advertise their days of fertility with colorful genital swellings. It seems like a useful indicator for humans trying to have babies or trying not to have babies, but for some reason evolution has seen fit to conceal the reproductive state of human females from observation. Read more →