A comes before I — and I’m not sure why

December 2, 2018

Remember back in the good old days when AI was simply a reference to two of the five (and sometimes six) vowels in the consonant-heavy English alphabet? These days, those two little vowels are weighing down on humanity like a sumo wrestler on an all-you-can-eat buffet, you dig? Artificial intelligence is all at once exhilarating and apocalyptic, no? According to Darrell M. West, author and vice president / founding director of the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution (I’m terrified of him already, BT dubs), AI is a misunderstood panacea for civilization. ...

November asks, ‘Who you callin’ ordinary?’

November 25, 2018

Well, this is it. The last Sunday in November. In the Catholic church, we take note of this particular one as the last Sunday in “ordinary time.” As if poor November hasn’t been through enough already from all that overshadowing by its adjacent months with their flashy holidays that completely look down their noses at Thanksgiving — and at the 11th month in general. (Please see last week’s column for a refresher. #StopShoppingOnHolidaysPeople. I digress.) According to a recent article by ThoughtCo (www.thoughtco.com), it’s referred to as ordinary time not because ...

Thanks. Giving. Enough said? Apparently not

November 18, 2018

Thanksgiving. That poor, put-upon little holiday that gets lost amid the scary creepiness of Halloween and the lights, glitz and glorious splendor of Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and the other winter holidays. Sigh. Poor little old, neglected, practically skipped-over, who-cares-about-it-let’s-get-to-the-Black-Friday-deals-and-eggnog ironically underappreciated Thanksgiving. Hardly anyone thinks about what the day really represents. That would be the giving of the thanks, capisce? Originally, the concept was to thank the good Lord / Great Spirit for the bountiful yields of the ...

PK: Virtual vampire or insightful insomniac?

November 11, 2018

Remember when you were a little kid and one (or more) of your grandparents would talk about never sleeping? For me, it was my paternal grandmother, my Nonna. “No, I never sleep. One or two hours a night is all I need,” she’d say. Wait. What? What homo sapien could survive on such scarce slumber? I remember becoming frightened that Nonna was perhaps, how you say, otherworldly? In fact, I worried she might actually be a vampire. Once I even feverishly searched her attic for a human-sized bat perch — like a sturdy pipe or beam — from which I feared she might be ...

Ponderings on meaning of life and a family man

November 4, 2018

The meaning of life. Hmm. No shortage of theories out there. Everybody from Einstein to Col. Sanders has offered opinions on the great mystery of human existence. Who’s to say which concept is right? Well, that one Big Guy, but He’s sorta letting us try to figure things out down here for now. So we’re left to ponder… Is the basis something pragmatic? You know, the belief that working and playing hard and winning at all you do means gaining material rewards, bragging rights and “important” stuff like that. Some call that “living your best life,” as the buzzword ...

Grandpa or grand theft paws — you decide

October 28, 2018

I’m no perfect person, yo. Clearly. I make more gaffes, blunders and mistakes than “Sex and the City’s” Carrie Bradshaw has Jimmy Choos in her oversized walk-in closet, you dig? It’s just that even a dunderhead like me knows that you don’t steal. Like anything. Ever. It’s a pretty big rule; carved in stone, one might say. I confess that one time in my life — and only one time in my entire life, not that it makes it OK — I took something that didn’t belong to me. It haunts me to this very day. The gaggle of teenage girls I was with were on a mission to ...