Do you find that when one person is appointed Leader, other people in the group then expect the Leader to do things that they could do perfectly well for themselves? That they expect the leader to function as a sort of surrogate parent or playground monitor? If you are the Leader, what, if anything, do you do to encourage or discourage this? Thus spoke The Programmer. Read more →
A Lot of My Problems
I went over to a floor lamp and pulled the switch, went back to put off the ceiling light, and went across the room again to the chessboard on a card table under the lamp. There was a problem laid out on the board, a six-mover. I couldn’t solve it, like a lot of my problems. — Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep Read more →
I’m in the Mood for Soup
I’m looking at the 5-day forecast for Irvine: little rain cloud icons for Wed, Th and Fri. Rain always puts me in the mood for piping hot chicken noodle soup. Makes me feel like a kid again! Although I usually get the chicken noodle from Trader Joe’s now, not the old-fashioned Campbell’s Soup . . . Read more →
Love and Marriage
Love and marriage Go together like a horse and carriage. Ha Ha Ha! What a joke! To young people, gay people, young gay people, I would say this: Don’t confuse “I love you” with “I want to marry you.” Read more →
Adventures in Housebreaking
We lead the puppy to the carefully arranged newspaper. He’s four months old now, and to my way of thinking, he should be starting to get the hang of this by now. Read more →
Profiles in Management: The Tank Commander
In the military, when I was in tank warfare and I was actually fighting in tanks, there was nothing more soothing than people constantly hearing their commander’s voice come across the airwaves. Somebody’s in charge, even though all shit is breaking loose. . . . When you don’t hear [the commander’s voice] for more than fifteen minutes to half an hour, what’s happened? Has he been shot? Has he gone out of control? Does he know what’s going on? You worry. And this is what Microsoft is. These little offices, hidden away with the doors closed. And unless you have the constant voice of authority going across the e-mail the whole time, it doesn’t work. . . . You can’t do anything that’s complex unless you have structure. . . . And what you have to do is make that structure as unseen as possible and build up the image… Read more →
Paradigm Shift
One of the 5th grade girls had a birthday party, to which a select few boys were invited. A boy we’ll call Freddie — who was not invited, even though his best friend Eddie was invited — was overheard to say: This is not right! If Eddie is invited, I have to be invited! It seems like only yesterday — in fact, I think it was only yesterday — that none of these boys would be caught dead at a party hosted by a girl . . . Read more →
At the Cotillion
It’s the evening of the Irvine Cotillion for January, and my son is trying to figure something out . . . Read more →
Today’s Text
But now isn’t simply now. Now is also a cold reminder: one whole day later than yesterday, one year later than last year. Every now is labeled with its date, rendering all past nows obsolete, until—later or sooner—perhaps—no, not perhaps—quite certainly: it will come. — Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man Read more →
Happy New Year!
Today is Chinese New Year. Why the Chinese can’t celebrate the New Year on January 1st like everybody else, I don’t know . . . According to my wife, Chinese New Year is celebrated by eating good food and avoiding unnecessary work. I try to do that every day! I’m lovin’ it! Let’s party! Read more →
Dogfood
NEW YORK (AP) — Olivia Goldsmith, a best-selling novelist whose book First Wives Club was made into a movie starring Goldie Hawn, Bette Midler and Diane Keaton, has died. She was 54. Goldsmith had been in a coma since last Wednesday after complications resulting from anesthesia during plastic surgery . . . Read more →
The Way We Are Living
The way we are living, timorous or bold, will have been our life. — Seamus Heaney, “Elegy” Read more →
A Moron’s Guide to Success
You could easily conclude from reading profiles in OC Metro that there’s not a single businessperson in Orange County with an ounce of wit or self-awareness. Case in point: A profile in the current issue of “surfing banker” John Lynch, executive VP of Secured Funding Corp. in Costa Mesa. The hook is — he’s a banker but he surfs every morning before work, and he says things like “Hey bro,” “We rock,” and “I never took a day of college.” Read more →
Pursuit
A phrase began to beat in my ears with a sort of heady excitement: ‘There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.’ — F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby That we pursue something passionately does not always mean that we really want it or have a special aptitude for it. Often, the thing we pursue most passionately is but a substitute for the one thing we really want and cannot have. It is usually safe to predict that the fulfillment of an excessively cherished desire is not likely to still our nagging anxiety. In every passionate pursuit, the pursuit counts more than the object pursued. — Bruce Lee, Tao of Jeet Kune Do Read more →
Fun With Obituaries
Several ordinary life stories, if told in rapid succession, tend to make life look far more pointless than it really is, probably. — Kurt Vonnegut Is that a fact? Let’s try it and see! Here are some excerpts from this week’s obituaries in the Irvine World News: Read more →
When Technology Falls Into the Wrong Hands
Here’s what happens when a 10-year-old gets hold of a digital camera. And there’s lots more self-portraits where that came from, including the ones he took of his own butt, which are his personal favorites. Read more →
Overheard
One cow to another: They’re not booing. They’re saying ‘Moooo!’ Read more →
Happy New Year!
The rest of the family got up early and went to the Rose Parade. I stayed home and watched it on TV with the dog. This is what the parade looks like to a 10-year-old. Read more →
More People I’m Sick Unto Death Of
Hugh Hefner As if the Carl’s Jr. commercials weren’t bad enough, I saw one of those “Celebrities on the Town” shows where “Hef” is getting out of a limousine with his entourage of girls, shambling into a club like a doddering old man in what appears to be a bathrobe, his hair sticking way out in back like he slept on it the wrong way and nobody bothered to tell him . . . Pathetic — hurry up and die. Read more →
My Kid Got a Dawg for Christmas
My kid got a dog for Christmas — a Pug. His name is Lightning. The dog’s, that is, not the kid’s. Pugs take the cake for “cute,” judging by the reaction of every woman or girl who sees one. Oh, he’s so cute! Oh, he’s so precious! Read more →