Sometimes, life gets in the way of some pretty important experiences. Take the recent television marathon of every episode of “The Simpsons” ever produced. I admit that I don’t have the same affinity for the legendary cartoon that some people do, but this event really caught my attention. Just because I can’t remember which season […]
More than a decade ago, one of the regional grocery stores called their generic brand “Finast.” Around that time, I secured a new job which included a nice bump in salary. As Maria and I celebrated, I told her we could now buy “the finest meats and cheeses.” She replied, “Instead of Finast meats and […]
Sometimes, I feel like I should address this subject as if I am attending a recovery meeting. “Hi, my name is Brian.” “Hi, Brian.” “I think The Big Bang Theory is a quality television show.” Actually, that kind of meeting wouldn’t require the anonymity and potential shame that can come with a gathering of folks […]
Back when the nuns taught me the Bible in grade school, I think I had trouble understanding some of the ideas. I completely got don’t kill, love your parents (even if that can be tough for a kid sometimes) and don’t steal, but the whole “do not covet” thing might have gone over my head […]
I don’t think I have ever seen the unanimity of shock like I saw on social media last night when the news of Robin Williams’ death his the news. When a celebrity dies, you can count on some people in your network to take it hard, but many others don’t even notice. Not so with […]
A few recent news stories have uncovered behavior by websites that shock and worry some people. First of all, we all learned that Facebook allowed researchers to mess with people, I mean “tweak the algorithm,” to learn how people reacted when they saw predominantly happy or sad news in their news feed. Then I heard […]
As I hobbled around last week because of a sore knee, I realized that this summer marked a pretty important anniversary. I thought about this because I tried to trace the root cause of my pain. I hadn’t taken a fall or had anything else serious happen. I had been exercising, but didn’t think overuse […]
On this day in 1986, something very special happened. I had no idea at the time. R.E.M. released Life’s Rich Pageant on this day 28 years ago, the band’s fourth album. I had yet to discover the Athens (Ga.) quartet at the time even though I saw them open for The Police a few years earlier. […]
A Pennsylvania bank made a critical error 25 years ago this summer. I want to peg Mellon Bank as the culprit since I lived in Western PA at the time, but I can’t be 100 percent sure. Whoever it was, they screwed up big time by giving me a credit card. I can remember getting […]
The signs that we would have a fantastic beach week with my family started early. First of all, we saw something we have not seen in ages on our ride down to the Delaware shore – the absence of lines at the Bay Bridge toll plaza. I almost didn’t know what to do when I […]