Month: February 2026

  • ODDS and ENDS: Time for Some Trust Busting, Vacation, and a Cigar

    ODDS and ENDS: Time for Some Trust Busting, Vacation, and a Cigar

    (Something Clever Goes Here…)

    Looks like Paramount is about the buy Warner Bros./Discovery, which means there will be five companies that control 51% of the media. If what the Ellison’s did to CBS is any indication of what they’ll do to WB/Discovery, then we are about to enter into a dark age. Prices will go up, coverage will be pro-conservative, service will decrease, and market share will continue to be concentrated. The good news is that this has happened before in America, and we have the tools to break all these trusts up. And I mean all the trusts; media, social media, airlines, online shopping, web services, and banking. The only thing stopping it is the will of the people. The laws are on the books, but they’ll only be enforced if we elect the right people to do it. I’m telling you, we gotta get involved before its too late, and we are getting very close to it being too late.

    I think I might vacation in West Virginia this year. Somewhere up in the Appalachian Mountains. Maybe along a river or a creek. Nothing crazy, but a cabin away from everyone and it should also be a place where it gets cool at night, like low 60’s or high 50’s. This is Summer after all. Just a thought I have been having of late.

    I haven’t smoked a cigar since college; it was after a cast party and I was feeling on top of the world. I don’t particularly like cigars or the smell, but the idea of sitting on a porch as the sun sets, smoking a cigar with a glass of bourbon in my hand sounds wonderful at this point. This might be tied in with the West Virginia vacation thing from above… but it’s on my mind.

  • Short Story Review: “Something Familiar” by Mary Gaitskill

    (The short story “Something Familiar” by Mary Gaitskill appeared in the March 2nd, 2026 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Photograph by Billy Dinh for The New Yorker

    “Something Familiar” by Mary Gaitskill is one of those short stories that feels like it’s from another time, like the 70’s or 80’s. A contemporary set story, but the setting, a late-night taxi ride with two strangers conversing, feels quaint, and even a little nostalgic. And I do think that this choice was deliberate, as the story also involves these two people reflecting on the life they lead back in the 80’s.

    Overly Simplified Synopsis: A taxi drive and his passenger converse with each other, which causes both to reflect on their lives. Also, there is a possibility that they shared an important moment with each other, though they aren’t aware of this coincidence.

    This is a competent story. The characters feel lived in, and make decision on how they present themselves to the others. Perhaps it is a coincidence that these two people find each other in a cab, and I wouldn’t disparage a story using coincidence as a plot device, though I did enjoy that Gaitskill never fully says that these two people met before, which keeps the story feeling tactfully undefined – rough on the edges. I also appreciated how, when the two characters split up and go their separate ways, the woman has someone in her life she can be open and honest with, while the man lives a life in a lie with some regret added on top.

    Yet, it never felt like this story went anywhere, or progressed in some way. The characters are the same from start to finish. They do reflect on their past, but that reflection doesn’t lead to growth in the present setting of the story, which leaves the piece in a sort of unfulfilled status bubble.

    Things happen, yet nothing happens, making the story feel incomplete and unresolved.

  • Earworm Wednesday: If You Look Past the Haircut and the Butterfly Collar, This Song is Awesome!

    As a kid from the 80’s and a teenager in the 90’s, any song that slightly resembled 70’s disco or adult contempory music was just the worst. And for that reason, this song got thrown onto my own personal dustbin of awful music.

    I can now admit that was a mistake when it comes to Michael McDonald’s “I Keep Forgettin.’” This song has a way better grove and flow to it than I gave it credit for. (I mean, Warren G did sample the hell out of it for “Regulate.”) The part that gets stuck in my head is just the first line of the song, and the way McDonald just breaks up the words; a little in front, then behind the beat.

    The video is cheesy as hell, though. If you like teased and feathered hair; than have I got a video for you!

  • Snow Fatigue

    I don’t know if that is a real thing, but I am going to chalk up all of my feeling of exhaustion and the sore right elbow that I have to “snow fatigue.”

    Yes, I shoveled our car out of the snow once the blizzard let up. I took the kid with me, but she was only into cleaning the car off for about fifteen minutes. After that, she just wanted to play in the snow. Don’t blame her, I still like playing in the snow.

    After cleaning off the car, we went to the local park and did some sledding. We have a two-seater sled, which we are rather good at. Yet, for some reason yesterday, we just kept heading toward the trees and bushes, or we were tumbling down in the hill. Not that it really mattered, we were having a good time. We even got in a snowball fight; as you do.

    This morning, when I woke up, I was sore. Sore in my elbow, neck, and knees. Add on top of that is the feeling of continual fatigue. I got almost all of my chores done, yet I can’t shake the feeling that if I sit down, I will fall asleep. In fact, I’m having the toughest time staying awake as I write this. I just want to go to bed.

    Making it hard to focus.

    Making hard to get anything done.

    Making it hard in general to generally do anything.

    Again, I blame the snow.

  • Snow Day, Again!

    My fire escape this morning.

    Taking it easy today. Might have to stay in pajamas and read. Kid is home from school so there could be board games as well. Naps and sledding seem likely, as well as an attempt at a dog walk coupled with digging out the car.