The Empty Soda Can

Yesterday I came across this picture and posted it to Facebook: Shortly thereafter, my friend Tim posted the following comment: “Can you explain this quote to me? How is it Bullying to fight for the right for gay people to marry. Why should they not be allowed to express their love and devotion to each in the same manner that you and I can?” As is my custom, I’m taking a response that turned out to be rather long, and posting it to my blog for ease of reading. Tim, the rest of this is for you. :-) First of all, I’d like to point out that that’s actually a great question. The problem is that it’s unfortunately based on a false premise. If I may, I’d like to deal with that part—the false premise—first. Gay people have always had the right to marry. If an man and a woman walk into a courthouse and ask for a marriage license, their sexual orientation is never an issue. They can be straight, gay, bi, pan, or whatever other term they might choose to identify as—or any combin...

First of all, hats off to my beloved brother-in-law Ed, who started me down this thought process with  this post . If you’d like to read it before continuing here, that’s fine; I’m not going anywhere. Now for my thoughts: first of all, it’s definitely easy to go to one extreme or the other. I am reminded of the conscious decision I made, somewhere along the line, that I didn’t give a *$#@ what other people think about me as long as I’m happy with myself. I’m still not sure my unconscious mind is completely on board with this decision, but it does manifest itself in things like: When I go to the beach, I generally let my gigantic belly hang out all over the place, despite the fact that most guys my size would be hiding under a T-shirt. When I was 13 years old, I really liked Debbie Gibson (mostly because I was a teenage boy with hormones, but I digress) and actually saw her in concert twice. The day after each concert, I wore the T-shirt I’d purchased there, knowing full well...

…WHAT THE *#%! IS GOING ON? Today on What the *#%! Is Going On?, we have another entry from the book we spoke of, a few weeks ago. In this bleary, blurry photo, we see two boys doing… well, you decide. My personal take: a rare shot of Goofus actually doing something right for a change, although I’m not quite sure that rickety ladder will hold him much longer. Meanwhile, Gallant gets caught—on camera, no less!—stealing a sack of potatoes, ostensibly to pay the doctor’s bill for his sprained wrist. What’s your take?

It was a couple of months ago that my wife, Anna, decided that we should start purchasing Dean’s ® brand milk over the store brand, because she heard somewhere that, unlike store brands, Dean’s contains no hormones. As luck would have it, about a week later, CVS started having sales on Dean’s milk, pretty much every week—sales so good that it’s now actually less expensive than the store brand—so we started taking advantage. This morning, I was sitting at the table, innocently eating my breakfast, when I noticed that Dean’s has actually begun advertising this rumored fact. You probably can’t read it in the photo, but that golden, rounded fourteen-point star contains the following words: Our Farmers Pledge Not to Use Artificial Growth Hormones* So I’m thinking, “Cool! Anna was right! There’s no artificial growth hormones! How consumer-conscious of them!” But then I notice the asterisk. “Hmmm…” I think, using those exact words. “What could that be for?” I look around the label—it re...

So yesterday, I got this magazine in the mail. Let‘s take a step back—just for a moment—and look at the cover. What’s the name of the cover story? Yeah. That’s what I thought, too. I don’t doubt for a moment that this cover was developed by a professional graphics designer—the color composition and muted design tell me that—but seriously, dude (or dudette, as the case may be)… how many fonts do you have on your system? And you couldn’t find a single one that actually managed to convey what the heck it is you’re talking about? (I eventually had to look at the table of contents, to be sure.) So as a nickel’s worth of free advice, here’s a tip from one magazine designer to another: have someone check your work !  If your company can’t afford multiple designers, go to another department. In fact, that’s probably a good idea, anyway. They might (okay, they will ) have some pretty ridiculous feedback, but among all that, somebody might possibly mention that it sounds like your...