Category: play

  • Old Paint

    Paint for scale models used to cover in just one coat when I built plastic model airplanes by the dozen many, many moons ago. Now it doesn’t. What the hell’s up with that? I’ll grant you, a few other things have changed since then: Not all of the models I build now are plastic. Some… Read.

  • Fair Game

    If I took any truths away from the movie Fair Game, based on the book by Valarie Plame, it was these: I HATE SHAKY CAM! There has got to be a better way to make big-budget movies look like low-budget documentaries that doesn’t make the finished product look like the director forced a double-shot of… Read.

  • Twirly Whirly

    No group dance class tonight, for some reason. We practiced a whole bunch of moves Tuesday night when nobody else showed up for the group lesson, so Mr. Park turned the night into an extended private lesson, starting with waltz. If I remember right, we worked mostly on style, although My Darling B would be… Read.

  • A Bird for a Bennie

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    I took almost the whole day off from work today because I was the only one in the family who still had enough time off from work this year to drive into the country to pick up the turkey. One of the bennies in my contract for employment is that I get thirty-six hours of… Read.

  • Shameless plug

    The book that I’m currently devouring is The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes, an economist who writes articles for media outlets like Bloomberg. I was a little worried this would turn out to be a great big yawner, even while it has a relevance to contemporary times so intimate that I shouldn’t even say how… Read.

  • Pretty Good

    I stuck my head in Laurie’s cube this afternoon to ask her if she could tell me the name of the tune that was playing on her radio. It turned out to be “Only Prettier” by Miranda Lambert. You’ll have to google that your darned self if you want to hear it. I was going… Read.

  • Origins

    For months, I’ve been watching the shelves of the local thrift store’s book nook for a copy of Darwin’s Origin of Species and getting no joy. Several textbooks on Darwin showed up, and one I even bought because it had excerpts from Origin, but I wanted the real deal. I thought maybe I wasn’t looking… Read.

  • Magic Java

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    The coffee house down the street is just close enough for me to make it there and back on my morning break to refresh my cup. And it’s just far enough away that I can barely make it there and back on my morning break to refresh my cup, if you get what I’m saying.… Read.

  • Dad Does Books

    I found out the other day that a guy I know collects books as rabidly as I do, if that’s possible. He’s got bookshelves all over his house and apparently likes them as much for their smell as their looks or their content. And what sane human doesn’t? Well, lots, it turns out, but that’s… Read.

  • Playing Trains

    Today is Play With Your Toy Trains Day all across this great nation of ours. I hope you were sprawled across the living room floor piecing together track and crashing choo-choos into one another a la Gomez Addams, or in your attic adding another building to the sprawling iron road empire you’ve been steadily assembling… Read.

photo of the author and the author's best friend