Good Grief!

I am currently testing a cereal called Optimum Zen, a Nature’s Path product. According to the back of the box, Optimum Zen will “bring back the peaceful sigh of being in tune with yourself, those carefree days when all you have to do is enjoy physical and mental harmony.”
Who knew you could get Zen and […]

Cabbing it back to Fairmount on Saturday night:
Becky: Hi, I’m going to W— Street.
Cabbie: Ok, that’s between some road and some other road, right?
Becky: Er, yeah. Specifically, between T— Street and C— Ave, behind Eastern State Penitentiary.Cabbie: Great, thanks.
Cabbie: See that car stopped in the middle of the road? […]

Good news! I am going into the publishing business to fill a terrible void in the women’s periodical market. Why do boss-across-the-hall and his ilk get magazines full of gadgets and half-naked babes, while we women get nothing?
Grrl Toys is my answer to Sync. Grrl Toys is not about the gadget–it’s about […]

He went home sick yesterday, which did not stop him from e-nagging the entire team via Outlook. I have a theory about what ails him.
Recall last summer when boss-across went on a sunflower seed diet that made his legs skinny. Well, now he’s on the Turbo Omega 3 fish pill plan.
Boss-across: This is […]

Did you know that pretzels, a popular American source of carbohydrates, are a sacred snack*?

Monks used them to reward children who memorized Bible verses.
The pretzel twist represents a child’s arms in prayer.
The three holes represent the Christian trinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

What, then, are we to make of the “Philly […]

Here in Philly, we are distressed about the financial woes of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA), the organization that runs our busses, trolleys, subways, and regional trains. Every year SEPTA ends up short on cash, and every year miracle money mysteriously appears to pull it through the crisis.
But this year, SEPTA really, really means […]

Brother Dan S got me Barry Schwartz’s The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less for Christmas–proof that someone actually looks at my Amazon wishlist.
The Paradox of Choice, which falls somewhere between a self-help book and a psychology 101 text, claims that the abundance of options available to middle-class Americans is harmful, a counterintuitive idea […]

During the past year, I have not always treated the international community with respect. I got jealous of the cute Japanese Good Grief!, boycotted hard Ukrainian Quizzo, accused the Russians of trying to taint the US Presidential election, and exposed the outsourced Indian ice cream man.
But no more: 2005 is all about fostering […]

What’s this? Why,it’s an animated Christmas light Jesus flogging. Frankly, I find this display a disconcerting piece of Americana.
The above picture is part of an annual spectacle in Blue Springs, Missouri. Guided by smiling gingerbread men, visitors drive through a subdivision and see lights that depict the life of Jesus—everything from his […]

It used to be a favorite ritual:  get up early, go to the gym, hope that the City Paper delivery guy shows up before the end of my workout, snag a paper on the way out, and read I Love You, I Hate You over a bowl of shredded cinnamon mini-wheats.  But now it’s all […]