Author Archives: John

Stupid NFL

Between these two NFC quarterbacks, the first of which played in a more difficult division and finished with a 10–6 record, and the second of which finished 9–7 to win his shitty division, which one would be more deserving of … Continue reading

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Overhaul college football overtime!

The college football overtime format is pretty stupid. It’s not as bad as the sudden-death NFL overtime format, but seriously. Both teams start in field goal range? It makes scoring way too easy. The teams should have to mount an … Continue reading

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Kristen Bell was Uda Bengt?!

I was shocked and amazed to find out recently that Kristen Bell, best known as Veronica Mars, also played Uda Bengt in Rob Thomas’s other show, Party Down. I had known Kristen Bell played Veronica Mars for several years, from … Continue reading

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Sentences I like

I was told I was a good writer from a young age, and throughout school, including writing grants and a co-first-author manuscript in graduate school, I always felt I had a knack for writing. I never took English after 12th … Continue reading

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English grammar guides that prescribe the inclusion of the Oxford (serial) comma

Growing up privileged with the instruction that a comma should be placed after each item (except the last) in a series of three or more items (i.e., before the and, or, or occasionally nor), and continuing to observe how much … Continue reading

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Tim Andrews on the lottery

On August 11, 2011 on the Regular Guys show, Tim Andrews struck ad-lib comedy gold yet again in his impersonation of Curtis Washington giving Larry advice on how to win at the Georgia lottery and the Powerball. The sad and … Continue reading

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Soccer is an inherently inferior sport

I just watched the United States women’s World Cup soccer team blow two leads against Japan and then lose in penalty kicks for the 2011 world championship. Bob Ley and everyone else covering it for ESPN were quick to point … Continue reading

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Tim Andrews impersonates Michael McDonald

Tim Andrews is clearly the best Regular Guy because of his sense of humor, his internet and geek culture savvy, and his voice impersonations. One of my favorites is Michael McDonald. I’m not sure why I like that impersonation so … Continue reading

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How do radio stations build the seven-second delay back up?

My favorite radio show, the Regular Guys in Atlanta, has mentioned the need to “build back up” their 7-second delay after a caller has said something profane that needed to be dumped. This pretty much has only come up during … Continue reading

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Buffy vs. Edward

As someone who recently finished all seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Netflix (and am almost finished with Angel), I got a kick out of this mashup of scenes from Buffy mixed with scenes from Twilight. It is … Continue reading

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Batting gloves

A surprising proportion of people who play slow-pitch softball wear batting gloves, but I definitely prefer not to. This is in contrast to my younger, baseball-playing days, when I usually wore two batting gloves. I don’t remember exactly why; I … Continue reading

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The en dash vs. the hyphen: examples for more precise English usage

You can tell there’s something wrong with me when I have a favorite punctuation mark. It’s the en dash, the bastard middle child between the hyphen and em dash, but it can provide oh-so-much clarity and eliminate oh-so-much ambiguity once … Continue reading

Posted in Grammar, Writing | 1 Comment

Narrative songs: Paradise by the Dashboard Light

Clearly the all-time greatest story-telling song is “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” by Meat Loaf, featuring Ellen Foley as the girl. It was from his 1977 album Bat Out of Hell and was written by Jim Steinman, who wrote most … Continue reading

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Sure vs. certain

Without reading the title of this post, if you were asked to give a synonym of “sure”, wouldn’t your answer most likely be “certain”? And vice versa? In most cases, these words are identical and interchangeable. But these cases are … Continue reading

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I can’t watch NFL football anymore, or: Why Roger Goodell is a small, weak coward of a commissioner

I’ve long been more of a fan of college football than professional football, and the nullification of Calvin Johnson’s game-winning touchdown reception against the Bears according a rule and an interpretation of that rule, which everyone in the NFL is … Continue reading

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Sharp 52” LED-backlit television for $1100

Ah, I love 4th of July weekend. Not necessarily because of anything intrinsic about it, but I loved this one and I loved the one two years ago, so it’s becoming a trend. Today I got up early and ran … Continue reading

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Oh, it’s already been broughten!

I am amazed at how familiar the American public is with my favorite line from Not Another Teen Movie, “Oh, it’s already been broughten!” One of my friends made her Facebook status simply “bring it.” Of course, someone else commented … Continue reading

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December miscellany

My brother told me about the web page Symphony of Science, where its proprietor, John Boswell, mixes the voices of famous scientists (e.g., Carl Sagan, Michio Kaku, Richard Feynman) with an autotuner and puts them over R & B–style music. … Continue reading

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Jimmy Fallon’s brilliant and hilarious impersonation of Neil Young

At some point on this public, personal web page, I suppose I should admit I’m not as big of a Jimmy Fallon detractor as most people. I got annoyed at his giggling and breaking of character on SNL in every … Continue reading

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Monkey-proof passwords

You know what’s stupid? That old saying (I guess it qualifies as an “old saying” now) that if a million monkeys banged away at a million typewriters, they would eventually reproduce the complete works of Shakespeare. Obviously you could fill … Continue reading

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