And I make you really horny.
Oh, my god! You love me! You get goosebumps every time you hear that first piano note in the opening credits. You have the option to skip the intro, but you never do. You want to hear me wind my way to the moody point in the story where a traditional detective show has a climax. But, we don’t have those. So, you keep watching, keep listening, keep telling yourself you’re here for the writing.
Throughout the series, I bring the darkness differently depending on who’s on-screen. Detective Henrik Bjornson is a stoic man who feels guilty about the death of his wife and daughter prior to season one. I highlight his despair with a cheerless EDM score — distorted Super Mario sound effects played over the rumbling of an oak barrel full of broken He-Man action figures rolled across a cobblestone street. We add a kick drum to propel things further into hopelessness as Henrik drinks from the bottle of vodka he keeps under his car seat while you wonder whether you can fix a broken man with your tongue. …
Pass the f@#$ing stuffing!
While historians will tell you our national election schedule was determined by the sagacious leaders of America’s mostly agrarian society in 1845, I like to believe it’s the machinations of a few old, sadistic jerks who wanted to wreck Thanksgiving every four years. You see, kids, some men just want to watch the world burn. Even on Thanksgiving.
In a hyper-political year, every choice you make will be politicized. Never has the disagreement over dressing versus stuffing been so potentially volatile. Oh, how those old farmers would be amused to see the chaos they’ve wrought a mere 175 years after determining our election calendar around harvest time and Sunday church service. This year our family decided to Zoom, but even the wonders of turkey at a distance won’t overcome all the political booby traps lying in wait. …
Netflix’s Christmas sequel is a masterclass on what drives human behavior.
As I collapsed onto our sofa with a mug of hot cocoa in my hand, I’d planned for a relaxing evening of Netflix and holiday cheer with the family. While I felt a smidge silly for engaging in such festive fair in mid-November, I didn’t expect the sequel to Vanessa Hudgens’s Christmas tale to be a scholarly discourse on Sigmund Freud’s structural theory of personality. However, as Siggie himself might say, Sometimes a Yuletide movie is just a psycho-sexual examination of conflict resolution.
(Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t yet seen The Princess Switch 1 & 2, what are you waiting for?!? …
Are you in danger of being ghosted?
- His afterlife glow seems a little too glowy lately. Why so luminous, mister?
- You notice him liking a lot photos of a mysterious ghoul on Instaghost. Who is this strumpet and does she own a sheet in an adult size?
- He suddenly decides to cut back on his nightly glass of spirits because he wants to get in better shape. Wait, there’s more than one?!?
- Last night he broke out some new scare tactics in bed, which felt amazing, but where the hell did he learn those moves?
- Rumors are circulating he was seen with a skinny banshee at Macabre, the fancy place he promised to take you on your death day! …
While my parents partied in Texas.
My wife’s phone blares out a shrill warning. It’s another Romania Alert, warning us COVID-19 cases are up in our city, Iași. She angrily shuts off her phone and looks at me,“Maybe we should go back to Suceava in case there’s another lockdown.” We spent three months with my wife’s parents in Suceava during this year’s Coronavirus lockdown, and if given the choice between doing it again or dying of COVID …
… I’m still thinking.
Typically, my wife splits her work week between Suceava and Iași. The two cities are roughly 150 km apart, or a two-hour drive. She’s a life coach and maintains an office in Suceava and a small practice in Iași. When we realized the quarantine was inevitable, we relocated temporarily to Suceava so she’d be close to her parents. I work online so I can be anywhere. The next three months were a fascinating study in crisis management, highlighted by the differences between my Romanian and Texan families. …
Man, you folks are excited about voting!
Hello everybody!
I received all your emails this week and so I copied everyone on this reply! Did you guys get together and plan this? It was a fantastic surprise, even if you all seem a little voting crazy.
I’ve included the email(s) I previously sent to you below to refresh your memories about our conversations. Please get back to me as soon as you can.
05/17/2020
Dear Former President Barack Obama,
I hope you’re enjoying life post-White House. Do you sometimes write down your old address by accident? I did that for a year after moving. My wife was all ‘Honey, we don’t live there anymore.’ …
And we get to watch it in slow motion.
2020 will go down as one of the most memorable years in recent history and it may not be done with us yet. One of the more likely outcomes of the US presidential election on Tuesday is Donald Trump loses the popular vote but wins the Electoral College. If this happens, it will be the third time a US candidate lost the votes but won the presidency in the last twenty years. However, that would be the end result of a week that could be full of election stupidities.
Forget the fact we vote on the first Tuesday in November only because this gives us enough time to complete our autumn harvest and then travel by horse for one full day to the closest polling station. (Side note — if you haven’t yet completed your harvest and set off on horseback, you’re probably screwed.) And ignore the long voting lines. The most embarrassing aspect of US elections is that the Byzantine Electoral College crowns losers as winners, and this year’s winner may be the biggest loser to ever win. …
The shameless way I greeted the Devil.
Traditional greetings vary. Handshakes, kisses, two kisses — regardless of how it’s done, I’ve made it awkward at some point. Yet, all my previous social disasters pale in comparison to the level of humiliation I brought on myself the night I met the Prince of The Devils, Lucifer.
I’d never met royalty before. The closest I came was seeing Michael Jordan in a mall, but we were two ships passing in the night. And everybody was staring at one ship, but nobody noticed the other except for that ship’s mother, who was annoyed at the ship for wearing a wrinkled shirt to meet the ship’s aunt for lunch. …
Just in time for them to make dinner for their breadwinners.
Hello Ladies of America,
In case you’ve yet to hear the big news, US President Donald J. Trump has promised to get your husbands back to work! Breathe a deep sigh of relief America, President Don is on the job! Not only will there be baked Alaska on your dinner table once again, but with your handsome husband back at the office, you can get back to being a proper housewife.
It’s time to return to normalcy, ladies. While your husband is out bringing home the bacon, break out your nifty, new Hoover Constellation vacuum and clean that carpet! Make sure to check your make-up and brush your hair before Prince Charming’s chariot arrives back at his castle, and have his Scotch and slippers ready at the door. …
Here’s how you keep your terribly scary boss at bay.
Just when you thought it was safe to go back to your office — in walks YOUR BOSS! Some bosses are great, exhibiting consistent leadership and empowering employees to succeed. Others are like a Lovecraftian monstrosity, wreaking havoc and destroying productivity. Here’s how you survive the workplace when you report to a monster.
The Blob
In pop culture, the Blob is a gelatinous mass of intelligent goo that chases you until it smothers and consumes you. It’s everywhere and all you can do is attempt to run away from its ever-increasing reach.
In the workplace, the Blob is the boss who is insecure and doesn’t possess a solid vision. Therefore, they feel the need to micromanage everything, which inadvertently smothers employee creativity and output. You feel as if you can’t escape and are incapable of doing your job since the Blob is always lurking! …
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