A Trip (And Fall) Down Memory Lane

You know what's fun and not a cop-out at all? Copying and pasting Revisiting old stories from the FMD days. Since Sean and Sandra Bernard took their hump'n and dump'n act to more hospitable doorways, and the Metro doesn't have any blatant mistakes today, let's take a look back to another time, when cataloging every single event in my life was a suitable, if temporary, distraction to the ad nauseum blather of Joe. Back in December of 2004, we had only just recently moved into our new office on Newbury Street, and most days I walked from Park Street Station to work, via Boston Common and the Public Garden. Let's have a look back at one such cold, December day, shall we? The past couple of days I've had a few close calls with icy patches on the sidewalk, so I guess it was only a matter of...

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Whatsa Mata?

As I've mentioned before, the Metro is my favorite paper. Both ironically and non-ironically. It's free, it's exactly the correct length to read cover to cover from Braintree to Park Street, and when they run out of space for an article, it just ends mid-sentence. I come for the free news, but I stay for the hilarious typos. While not technically a typo, one thing that always gets me is when a story reads "on yesterday" as opposed to just "yesterday" or "on Monday/Tuesday/Whatever day preceded this one." I don't know if "on yesterday" is grammatically correct (although I'm almost positive it isn't), but it definitely sounds...off. I can only...

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Mmm...Floor Chocolate

I'd never heard of Amy Vanderbilt, but she was one of those Annie Cavanagh-type purveyors of etiquette and taste until she fell out a window. Does my ignorance of Ms. Vanderbilt mean that I'm uncultured? Perhaps. For example, I had no idea that black suits are only proper for servants or the dead. That doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, and why lump servants in with dead people? Apparently this obscure rule that most people have never even heard of came about as a result of President Abraham Lincoln being assassinated in a black Brooks Brothers suit. According to Brooks Brothers' Wikipedia page, anyway. Incidentally, that's the second instance that someone's made a point to mention that Lincoln died in a Brooks Brothers suit. The Duck Tour guides usually mention it when they drive...

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Sweet Tapdancing Jesus!

Heath Ledger died! I did not see that one coming. And Michele did it to me again! People really need to stop dying before I find out about it. It messes up my whole day. I wonder if they finished all his scenes as the Joker? What if they left the ending open-ended for the Joker to return in future installments? I mean no disrespect, I feel terrible for his family and his daughter, and the whole this is very tragic, but it seems like they finally got this Batman franchise right, and I wonder what kind of effect his sudden death will have. Do they keep the Joker out of any further Batman movies, or do they find a new actor to fill the role? And...

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Things I Found Out In My Twenties

The first in an ongoing series, unless I change my mind and don't do any more I've got less than a year and a half before joining the creaky ranks of the thirty-and-over crowd, so now is a good time to reflect back on some things I've learned in the past decade. For example, while there very well may be someone named Annie Cavanagh somewhere on this planet, she is not mentioned by name in the J. Geils' song Love Stinks. For the first twenty-odd years of my existence, I'd thought Annie Cavanagh was someone who'd spurned Peter Wolf, and calling her out by name was some sort of revenge. Take that, Annie! You got served in a top 40 radio staple! The other idea was that maybe Annie Cavanagh was a noted romance or etiquette guru with a weekly advice column/radio show, like Dear Abby or Dr. Joyce...

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And If You Should Die Before You Wake...

Thank you, University of Sheffield. The school, which I totally heard of before reading the BBC News article, recently concluded a study of more than 250 children between the ages of four and sixteen, and discovered that they all saw clowns as "frightening and unknowable." The study showed that hospitals "decorating children's wards with paintings of clowns to create a nurturing atmosphere could backfire," because, according to child psychologist Patricia Doorbar, "Very few children like clowns. They are unfamiliar and come from a different era. They don't look funny, they just look odd." A companion artilce asks "Why are clowns scary?" And it probably comes as no surprise to horror fans that a University of Sheffield study of 250 children for a report on hospital design suggests the children...

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Soak it in Dishwater!

I found this joke online: A young bride and groom-to-be had just selected their wedding rings. As the young lady admired the plain platinum and diamond band she had chosen for herself, she suddenly looked concerned. "Tell me," she asked the rather elderly salesman, "Is there anything special I'll have to do to take care of this ring?" With a fatherly smile, the salesman said, "One of the best ways to protect a wedding ring is to soak it in dishwater." I've got to be missing something here. Where's the punchline? Are you not supposed to get dishwater on wedding rings? I feel like there needs to be another paragraph or two. Maybe a genie or a talking goat could also give her advice. There could be some wordplay at work here that I'm not picking up on. Soak it in dishwater. Maybe if you say...

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Why I'm Afraid of Clowns, Part II

Cave paintings recently discovered in Lascaux depicting a Clown Hunt Clowns. Clowny clown clowns. Man has feared clowns since the dawn of time. Whether we're pitting them against our super heroes, or turning them into sewer-dwelling giant spiders, man has looked to clowns as inspiration for dredging up our darkest fears. But clowns are funny, you say? Clowns are harmless. Well then, riddle me this: whenever you think of circus clowns, what song instantly plays in your head. It goes something like this "Do do doodle-oo do do do do do...", right? Do you know what that song is called? Entry of the Gladitors by Julius Fucik, a Czech military...

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The Stinkening

There was a weird smell emanating from our pantry. So Michele asked me to go find out what it was and get rid of it. I walked over to the big white cabinet, but before I could open the doors, before even getting within a foot of the thing, my nose was assaulted by the most foul smell it had ever encountered. I opened the doors and to my horror, the stink was even worse, but I couldn't immediately find it's point of origin. It could have been coming from anywhere, so I'd have to...ugh...sniff around. I started with the top shelf. Some time during the summer, the shelf had collapsed, cascading all manner of dried and canned goods all over the other shelves and onto the floor. We never did find the last of the four tiny L-shaped bits of plastic that hold the shelf in place, so ever since then,...

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Nuts to You

Let's say you're walking down the street, when suddenly you see a car parked alongside the road with a license plate that reads "NO NUTS." It's probably the best thing that's happened to you all day, perhaps all month. Now, you have you're trusty camera phone with you, but all around you are... PEOPLE!!!! And you suddenly feel a bit awkward whipping out a camera to take a picture of a vanity plate, regardless of how hilarious said vanity plate is. You briefly consider a cover story in case someone wonders why you are taking a picture of someone's license plate (apart from the obvious, "It says NO NUTS"). You'd say that you were involved in...

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His Hair Was Perfect

Welcome to this, the first full week of 2008! I think I've let enough time roll by to throw Kimmie off my scent. What, that was my plan all along. I can't have people ripping me off-- inserting their wenis wherever they see fit--and the best way to prevent that is to not write anything at all, right? Sounds like a perfectly reasonable excuse, err...explanation to me. How about you, LL? Okay, so back to business. The Friday before New Years, we gathered at Nick's house to exchange Christmas presents. No, we don't do anything on time. Nick gave Jose that little robot guy from FOX NFL Sunday that jumps around and points at people. Well, the CGI one does, I don't think this one does anything expect look like the one on TV. Actually, did he get that from Nick? I thought Wah-Kee got Jose in the...

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