The other day, I was thinking that I hadn’t done anything worth writing about for a while. Then I poked myself in the eye with a stick.
I had been breaking branches off a small bush in the backyard when somehow a twig splintered off and flew into my eye. If you’d like to know what it feels like to have a twig fly into your eye, dig your fingernail into your eyeball and leave it there for the rest of the day. Continue reading
Perhaps you remember the greatest television advertisement of 2013: the Geico Hump Day commercial.
In the ad, a camel walks around a workplace asking people what day it is. (The people may be his coworkers. It’s unclear. The camel is not wearing a tie.) When he finally gets an answer (Hump Day), he lets out a “woo woooooo,” the Geico guys tell us that people who switch to their insurance are happier than a camel on Wednesday, and everyone buys Geico car insurance. Continue reading
Recently, the company I work for (STACK.com, Where Athletes Get Better©®™) partnered with Yahoo. It’s very exciting news that means everything we write gets exposed to a new crowd of horrible, horrible people.
Obviously, the vast majority of people who use Yahoo aren’t horrible. I enjoy Yahoo a lot, as do many of the non-horrible people I know. The company itself is great. The horrible people I am referring to, of course, are the commenters.
It’s not Yahoo’s fault. The anonymous Internet commenters of the world flock to places like Yahoo and YouTube where they can critique free entertainment from the safety of a username that combines their passion with their high school graduation year (Hanshotfirst98).
You know Steve, that guy at your work who seems vaguely racist but doesn’t really talk that much? You can find out just how racist Steve actually is by learning his favorite 70s rock band and graduation year, then checking out the comments on a Cleveland.com article about a basketball player in trouble with the law. Continue reading
Wicked, the musical event of the century, came to Cleveland around Christmastime last year. If you are unfamiliar, the play is about the two witches from The Wizard of Oz becoming friends and having adventures and arguing and singing and it is quite a production.
Unfortunately, a decent ticket to Wicked costs roughly as many dollars as a month in Europe. Which is a bummer because my wife, Deserae, and I enjoy going to plays.*
*I should clarify that we actually would not enjoy most plays. For example, as I write this, the local theater is showing Yentl, a play about a girl who decides to cut her hair and dress as a male so she can live in secret and study the Talmud after her rabbi father dies. I feel comfortable assuming this not a play I would enjoy. Upcoming productions that we might also not enjoy include Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, Tyler Perry’s Hell Hath No Fury Like a Woman Scorned and Menopause: The Musical. Continue reading
A hot water tank doesn’t seem to be something that should break that often. It’s got one job: hold hot water.
As I’ve recently learned, however, hot water tanks are a lot like bulldogs. You’re happy if they last 12 years, although you may have to deal with some leaking toward the end.
Last week, my hot water tank started leaking. A lot. Which is the type of thing that happens when I start feeling a little manly. Continue reading
Captain America 2: Winter Soldier comes out this week. I can’t wait to finally watch the movie to see Captain America, Bucky the Winter Soldier, Samuel L. and the jerk who stole my part.
Last summer, Captain America 2 filmed in Cleveland, which was very exciting except for the fact that it closed every single downtown street for three solid months. (But we’re Cleveland and people are paying attention to us, so we’re good! Please don’t leave!) Continue reading
My first day of college was worse than yours.
That’s not some sort of weird brag or the line I use to introduce myself to new people, but it is almost definitely true. I only know of one other guy who had a worse first day of college than mine, and his was a DISASTER. Most people’s first day of school isn’t a disaster. The worst it gets is a little awkward or crying-in-the-bed-in-the-dark homesick, but not a disaster.
Mine was 100% a disaster.
Like most college freshmen, I came to school with several concerns. Did I choose the right major? Would I find true love? What if my roommate was one of those people who are way into Lord of the Rings or Japanese anime or leaving fingernail clippings around the room? Continue reading
Plans for the World’s Greatest Underground Fort began in second grade.
It started as a simple hole in the woods by my house, but over the years, it grew to become bigger than the Batcave. Planned features included a secret entrance, retina scan (I considered fingerprints, but what if someone tried to chop off a thumb just to get inside?!) booby traps, batting cages, robot laboratories and slides. Continue reading