I've had it in the back of my head that at some point this year I would write about 2014 being my 20th year in online television fandom. I don't remember exactly how or when it happened, but I signed up for AOL in 1994 and somehow stumbled upon the TV Gossip section and its Melrose Place bulletin board, where I found a community of like-minded folk ( Read more... )

Back when I worked at the bookstore, my first week as a manager happened to coincide with the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I was rather unceremoniously thrust into the role somewhat earlier than planned because by a fortuitous (for him) coincidence, the General Manager had arranged to take his vacation that week. Corporate ( Read more... )

Apparently it was wrong of me to end Wednesday's post the way I did. I don't think I agree, but nevertheless, here is, as Paul Harvey might say, the rest of the story ( Read more... )

I learned this evening -- via Facebook, of course, because where else does one find out about what's going on in other people's lives these days -- that an old friend's husband had recently moved out on her. She realized tonight that among the things he'd taken with him when he left was her Kitchen-Aid mixer, leaving her both indignant and baffled ( Read more... )

Album That Has Nothing On Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Rumours’ Wins Grammy Award http://t.co/Xbc9tFJQYU #GRAMMYs
- The Onion (@TheOnion) January 27, 2014

I was surprised when my coworker Eileen mentioned the above Onion article to me this morning. because for the last week or so I've been planning to use last night's Grammy telecast as an excuse to talk about ( Read more... )

Saw this on a friend's Facebook wall the other day:


( Read more... )

My friend Jay is a high school Spanish teacher, and as he was giving me a ride home tonight, he told me that all the language classes at his school were celebrating the last school day of 2013 with an international festival. Each class will prepare ethnic foods to share with the other classes. I said that I remembered the language classes at my ( Read more... )

A bunch of my Facebook friends have been posting this in their status today:

"In your status line, list 10 books that have stayed with you in some way. Don't take more than a few minutes and don't think too hard--they don't have to be the 'right' books or 'great' books, just ones that have touched you."

Sounds fun! But I'm going to post my list ( Read more... )

Here are some ways I might have described the weather today, were I still in college:

• Butt cold
• Ochen cold
• Colder than a witch's tit

I was introduced to using "butt" as an all-purpose intensifier by my college pal Dick Z., who lived in the room next to me. His reasoning was that if "butt" could be used to mean "very" in the phrase "butt ugly," ( Read more... )

Back in the 1960s and '70s, it was fairly common for department stores and tire manufacturers to issue Christmas record albums every year. I remember my mom owned several of these Christmas compilations, and I remember one in particular that was issued by JC Penney: The Brightest Stars of Christmas. Actually, it's the album per se I remember -- ( Read more... )