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Burton Cole column

I’ll make a note as soon as I find a pen that writes

My hand hovered over the mug. Would today be the day I won the lottery? My fingertips brushed past blue, green and yellow before pinching the red one. Yes, let’s try the red one today. I tugged the red ink pen out of the jam-packed coffee mug. Clicked it. Tried to write. I pushed harder through a swirl of circles. The nib tore through the notepad, but spilled no ink. “Another dud,” I muttered. “How is it that I possess hundreds of pens, none of which work?” I jammed the dead and dried ink stick back into the crowded mug. “Oh. Yeah. That’s why.” I sighed and ...

Are you all thumbs? Science says sure, why not?

Whenever I’m feeling down, I can always count on scientific research to cheer me up. You never know what crazy things researchers will try next. They have the minds of mischievous 3-year-olds. And they get paid to play. For example, scientific researchers, through actual studies and ...

These lazy days require dedication and a pillow

Once again, I discover that I am well above average. According to a new study, Americans require 60 lazy days a year to feel rested and relaxed. Sixty? Only 60? Ha! I can be lazy 160 days a year. Probably even 360. Why not the full 365? Because sometimes due to circumstances beyond my ...

Technology threatens to take big bite out of men’s appetites

After a dressing down from my medical health professional, I have been on a quest to eat a healthy diet. That is to say, instead of eating a whole batch of chocolate chip cookie dough in one sitting, I’ll down only two cookies’ worth of dough. That’s enough to cleanse my palate of the taste of all those fresh vegetables and other healthy things. This quest for better eating habits (figuring out how many sweets I can sneak without getting another admonishment from my primary healthcare provider), reminded me of a very scary bedtime story I read years ago: An engineer right out ...

Summer Games need to add thrifting

“I’m going for the gold,” she said. “That’s nice.” I nodded. “Or maybe the silver. Do you think I should pick the red instead?” “I don’t care. Get one purple, and one orange. Whatever. Just pick something. Shoe shopping isn’t an Olympic event.” She tsk-tsked me. ...

Enjoying the great outdoors 1 drive-thru at a time

You wouldn’t know it, but I grew up among outdoorsmen. Most of my neighbors were sportsmen. At this very minute, a great deal of my uncles and cousins probably are tromping through some marshy timberland or are splashing about some lake or stream in an overly optimistic quest to slap something on the supper table. Besides Cap’n Crunch. Through some apparent mutation of my genes, I lost my way to the great outdoors. As a boy, I could hunt black bear in the woods behind our family farm any time I wished. “But Burton, no bears live around here,” one of my he-man cousins ...