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Let’s talk about porn
It’s our third rainy day of the year here in the desert, and if the 17 years I’ve lived here are any indication, it will probably be our last. Gordon is quite unhappy with it; not only is he frightened of the raindrops when they fall on him, but it is cold out (48 degrees)…
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Tacos
Now I’m all about a good steak, and pairing it with a lobster tail for surf and turf is delicious. If I’m feeling like pasta, it’s gotta be carbonara, and I’ll jump at anything with peanut sauce on a Thai menu. I have made my affection for the French Dip sandwich known, as well as…
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The Avolatte
If you’re like me, and let’s face it, not many are, then you too love the newest coffee craze taking California by storm. Californians love their coffee. But not a piping hot mug o’ joe at Denny’s or your local diner, served with those little thimbles of creamer. Folgers? Maxwell House? Yuban? No, I’m talking…
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Duck You
It isn’t easy. I resigned from my job at 41 – medical reasons and all that – which means for the last 17 years I literally had nothing I have to do. Oh sure, there’s an appointment here and lunch with a friend there, but filling my days is a bit of a challenge. For…
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Finding Sunlight in Darkness
This morning I read a press release about the “scrubbing” of LGBTQ+ resources and information from government websites by the new administration in Washington DC, and it felt like something I should write about. I even thought of a way to write about it: pointing out how the administration’s efforts are an attempt to “erase”…
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The Great Debate
Happy New Year! From time to time, I wade into a controversial topic here on taxpoodle.net. Really existential questions like should you drape the loose sheet of toilet paper over or under the roll, and whether there is any real difference between catsup and ketchup. I do this not to advocate any position other than…
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This is how religions get started
Perhaps the most erudite commenter on religion of my lifetime, the late Christopher Hitchens, once said: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him will believeth in anything. – Hitchens 3:16 In 1963 at a small, liberal arts school in Northfield, Minnesota called Carleton College,…
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The Fall Classic
As today marks the first game of the 2024 World Series, I thought it a good time to share my time-tested and remarkably successful betting scheme. But before I do, can we just acknowledge the arrogance of calling a sporting contest played exclusively by American teams a “world” series? I am reliably informed that there…
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Mondegreens
The American writer Sylvia Wright, writing about how she misheard the words “laid him on the green” as “Lady Mondegreen” when her mother read her the Scottish ballad The Bonnie Earl o’ Moray as a child, created the neologism “mondegreen.” In a 1954 essay in Harper’s Magazine entitled “The Death of Lady Mondegreen,” she wrote:…
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On Bathtubs and Bunkum
On December 28, 1917, American journalist and cultural critic Henry Louis Mencken, better known as H. L. Mencken, published an article in the New York Evening Mail entitled “A Neglected Anniversary.” In it, he described the history of the bathtub in America, making particular note of how people, believing bathtubs posed a health risk, were slow to…
Your mileage may vary.