Unusual Stuff

At age 36, Jon Stewart went from a modest stand-up comedian to the seat that would make him a household name.  Now he’s a little long-in-the-tooth for the daily grind of creating television news satire that’s more informative than your average news broadcast and is looking to do other things.  That leaves Comedy Central in […]

Two years ago, Angelina Jolie made waves when she made a decision to save her own life.  Cancer is common in her family, and Jolie has the BRCA1 gene mutation that significantly increases cancer risk for both breast and ovarian cancer.  Jolie’s mother died of ovarian cancer, and having seen that struggle, Angelina Jolie decided […]

When it comes to racist business signs, there are the sort that are deliberate and the sort that are accidental.  It’s not hard to accidentally change Rich Whitney to Rich Whitey, and freshly ground black people is a typo, not a real ingredient in a meal.  Still, some Austin, Texas businesses opened for business with […]

It seems like only five years ago we were celebrating the 25th anniversary of the first dot com address.  That’s because we were.  Thirty years ago, symbolics.com was the first dot com address registered, kickstarting the modern Internet as we know it.  Happy 30th anniversary, Symbolics.com!  And more importantly, happy 30th anniversary, Internet! “In the […]

All Terry Pratchett wanted was what he called a noble death.  He wanted to die on his terms, while he still had the mental capacity to make the decision himself.  He wanted what he called the Victorian death:  surrounded by friends and family, a few tears, and the chance to say goodbye.  In the end, […]

Is it possible to be both a cranky old man and an action hero?  Let’s ask Harrison Ford.  He shot to fame as Han Solo, roguish pilot, and it appears he’s something of a rogue pilot in real life, as well.  Ford’s love of flying is well documented, and it was his love of flying […]

He had legions of fans, all of whom no doubt greeted him with “Live long and prosper.”  Well, he certainly enjoyed a nice long life.  With one of the longest and most interesting careers, including a golden-years renaissance, the one thing you could say about Leonard Nimoy is that he made the most out of […]

With the increased use of antibiotics and hormones in food, it seems that pretty much every disease is getting harder and harder to treat.  Diseases thought controlled, like measles, can spread like wildfire.  It seems that there’s no place more likely to spread disease than your local hospital, supposedly the cleanest place around.  Hospital endoscopes, […]

All good things must come to an end.  With Stephen Colbert leaving his Colbert Report for the greener pastures of network television’s late-night chat game, it was only a matter of time before the other guy decided to test the waters elsewhere, too.  Jon Stewart is leaving The Daily Show after a staggering 17 year […]

I thought it was a joke.  I started laughing, and I know I wasn’t the only one who was surprised by the fact Kanye West suddenly developed a sense of humor.  In 2009, he interrupted Taylor Swift and in 2015, he was about to interrupt Beck before thinking better of it.  The same situation, six […]

There’s no feat quite as difficult as ice climbing.  Climbing a normal mountain is hard enough, but when that mountain is slick and frozen and going straight up and down, that’s even more difficult.  There are only a few hardy souls who indulge in ice climbing, and Canadian Will Gadd is one of them.  In […]

I live in a place where we don’t get a lot of very bad winter weather, but when we do, the whole town gets shut down.  Anything over, say, 8 inches of snow is too much for the city to handle, but I live in Kentucky, not New York City, where they get real weather […]

The New England Patriots lambasted the Indianapolis Colts 45-7 in the AFC Championship game.  At points, it looked like the two teams were playing different games, and as it turns out, they might have been playing the same game, but with different equipment.  Almost immediately after the game, the allegations started trickling out:  the Patriots […]

The flu vaccine is kind of a crap shoot.  Every year, doctors formulate a new vaccine based off of whatever strains of the flu were more active the previous flu season, and every year, if they’re lucky, they get it about half right.  There’s no universal flu vaccine, despite the best efforts of doctors, and […]

The goal for any coach is to win a national championship, if they’re looking at pie-in-the-sky results.  Most coaches would be happy with bowl games, improvement, good recruiting.  Urban Meyer wasn’t hired to improve, he was hired to win it all.  Be it in bowl game championships, a final game between the top two seeds, […]