Writer, Dabbler In Things
There’s a lot that grown-ups can learn from kids. Yes, we have bills to pay and jobs to go to (or, even more stressful for many more these days, not), and weighing the pros and cons of getting that root canal… there’s no end of big person responsibilities and issues on our minds. But too … Read more
I write this shortly after my nine-year-old has been dropped off at a summer day camp. Your reaction to that line will range from some variation of “Hey, that’s super!” to “What the hell are you thinking?” And as a parent in these pandemic days, I’m rolling up and down through the range of those … Read more
A couple of friends of mine forwarded this post about a deal that a TV and movie production company struck with Netflix, which will see a number of films from unrepresented writers get a solid shot at getting made. In a couple of decades of writing movie scripts and entering contests (or at least keeping … Read more
Off and on for a couple of years, we’ve raised monarch butterflies from eggs to first flight. It’s really cool to see. There’s something satisfying and heartwarming about seeing a monarch that you raised from a tiny egg finally crawl out of its chrysalis, dry out its wings and fly away. We just got some … Read more
A couple of Christmases back I received a little set of photo lenses that clip onto my cell phone, and while I haven’t used them a ton–a fisheye lens, while cool in its own wonky way, isn’t an everyday kind of photo accessory for me–a recent rainy day offered a great opportunity to give the … Read more
June was no less busy for the household than previous isolation months had been, and in some ways was even more busy. On top of the usual busyness of taking care of household, shopping and cooking duties (while ensuring that my wife had the time and space needed for all her online teaching, and my … Read more
I mentioned recently that I was entering the NYC Midnight Microfiction contest, wherein writers have to write no more than 100 words for a story the organization assigns rand0mized genres, actions, and single words for. Well, the results came in, and I was in the top 20 of my group, so advance to round 2. … Read more
There may be no genre I enjoy as much, but can be so disappointed by, as science fiction. Any genre has its good and bad, of course, but I find the best science fiction of certain stripes really strikes a chord with me–Blade Runner is my favourite movie–while the worst of it is particularly bad. … Read more
The Family Edition of Trivial Pursuit is effectively the Junior version of the original game: Here, as you roll the die to move around the spoked wheel of the board, every correct question–broken down into the same original coloured categories of Science & Nature, Entertainment, Sports & Leisure, etc.–gets you a coveted coloured pie wedge. … Read more
I’d heard the name Josh Gondelman for years off and on, but particularly recently on various comedy podcasts I started seeking out as some levity to working in a news environment where I hear close to four hours of (almost entirely negative, often demoralizing) news a day. And lately I’ve heard his name more often, … Read more