Our One-Year Birthday Celebration for G & F
How do you celebrate a year of having the most fun you can imagine doing a “job”?
Social Marketing
The Top Shows (We Got Around to Watching) of the Year
In 2023, we mixed our streaming views with new and current stuff while also taking the TV time machine back a few decades.
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Social Media Detox is Coming
Derek has challenged me to go on a 30-day social media detox. I’m going to do it in 2024. That will mean no Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads or LinkedIn for a month. No Randy Rainbow, Holistic Psychologist, Anthony Jeselnik or Michael Rappaport.
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My First Annual, Somewhat Biased, Gift Guide
We have few people to buy gifts for this Christmas. No parents. The honorary grandkids want gift cards. I made a deal with my brother. We told each other about something we want but haven’t bought for ourselves. That’s how I know I’m getting a bonsai tree and a growing kit!
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When Chips Off the Old Block are Potato Chips
My general disdain for billionaires who stay billionaires is well documented on this site. It’s not the accumulation of wealth that bothers me. It’s hanging onto that wealth while so many suffer. We’re all spinning on this big blue ball together. If we have the means, and don’t bother to help each other, then what’s it all about?
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A Lifeline Goes Live Across the Country
Anyone who is considering ending their life needs to know that society doesn’t want them to. We won’t be better off without you. Your brain is lying to you if that’s what it’s saying. That’s depression or addiction or mental pain talking, and it’s not the truth.
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Retirement Isn’t in Our Vocabulary
…“Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.”
Attributed to various sources from Confucius to Mark Twain
Food for Thought About Grocery Prices
I’ll explain the pine cone in a moment. This post is about not all complaints about high prices being created equal.
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What the Dickens is Up With Small Business Saturday
We sometimes buy things from Amazon. I shop at a couple of online grocers who carry specialty items I can’t get from anyone near me. We are not perfect beings and I despise helping a billionaire like Jeff Bezos get richer. But Amazon didn’t become the monolith it is without doing a few things right.
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A Late-Runner Embraces the Early Side of Life
Please meet our friend Kendra. She and her husband Tim live in Arkansas and we’ve been to see them exactly once. (Derek’s been there a few times on motorcycle trips with buddies.) I won’t share her life story here, because it’s not mine to tell. But let me assure you that she has overcome a lot of major obstacles in her life. So has Tim, for that matter.
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Old Friends Acting Our Age
Derek has a weekly breakfast with a bunch of guys he’s known since high school. One of them just had a pacemaker installed. Another, an emergency appendectomy. Still another will have to lie face down for weeks – WEEKS – after eye surgery to repair a detached retina. Four people we know have COVID-19. And all of this happened within the last week.
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Henry Winkler and I Have Something in Common (Besides Affection for The Fonz)
I will never share the name of the one of the most important people in my life.
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Professional Pivoting is What All the Cool Kids are Doing
Long ago and far away at a point in my radio career, I transitioned away from being a music host into newscaster and reporter.
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Review: Welcome to the Stupidpocalypse – Survival Tips for the Dumbageddon
You’ve probably read a funny post or watched a viral video by Brittlestar, aka Stewart Reynolds. He’s all over social media as Canada’s Dad, nailing Canadianisms and other isms including polarizing subjects with wit, humour, and just the right tone. His comedy hits a narrow sweet spot between “if you do this, you’re stupid” and, “stupid doesn’t mean worthless – let me give you a hug!”
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Review: Foolish – Tales of Assimilation, Determination, and Humiliation, by Sarah Cooper
So many comedy and comedy-adjacent people have released books in recent weeks. It’s been paradise for me, a voracious reader of memoirs who would rather watch stand-up than any other form of live performance. If I had my career to do all over again…but I digress!
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European Travel Tips or What I Learned on My Fall Vacation
To me, part of the fun of traveling is figuring some things out as you go. But there are other things it’s best to learn ahead of time.
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Review: Kiss the Red Stairs by Marsha Lederman
The horrors of the Holocaust are well known to most of us. The statistics, anyway. Six million Jewish people murdered by the Nazis. One-quarter of them, children. Many more were also killed, including disabled people, gays, Polish people, and prisoners of war.
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Small Town Journalists Report the News in Person
Fake news doesn’t just sprout from national politics and pandemics. It happens in a small, lakeside town, too. Here in Port Stanley we have a mystery in the harbour. And you won’t find the truth from the Internet.
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