Some Assembly Required

Yesterday I was at the salad bar in the cafeteria, crafting my lunch. A woman next to me said, "I never met anyone else who hums to the...

 Well, how about that? It's my 11th blogaversary. According to Blogger, my first post was 11 years ago today, and in that interval I...

When George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic are playing at a festival a couple of miles from your house--with food trucks and local craft ...

I've found myself frequently thinking about posting, but obviously I don't do much here these days. My workload is lighter than it w...

It's been a challenging week month year for right-thinking Americans, and by "right-thinking" I mean the vast majority of us...

We've been spending some time over the past few months doing some sprucing up around the SAR homestead. This has been a multifaceted end...

This one comes to me secondhand from one of my coworkers, so it's not "overheard" in the strict sense, but why mess with the f...

Normally I read the paper during my commute. I somewhat stubbornly cling to my old-media habit for several reasons: more than ever, it's...

There's something fascinating about hearing someone say, in the most New York accent imaginable, "I'm not familiar with the sub...

As I deal with the realities of being middle-aged, I've had to confront the fact that I don't eat as well as I should, and I am not ...

It's a little creepy that LinkedIn suggested one of the guys who lives upstairs in the "people you may know" section. Usually ...

(This isn't exactly "overheard," since the speaker was directly addressing a bus full of commuters, but it's close enough....

The office move went smoothly, and when we arrived at the new office a week ago Monday, everything was waiting for us in our cubicles. I had...

It's strange to have to break out my summer sun-protection headgear in mid-April, but when it's almost 90 it doesn't make sense ...

My department at work is moving to new office space in a different building. We've been preparing for the move for the past couple of we...

The things you miss when you are not commuting via public transit: this morning I got to hear someone else's music being played out of e...

As a guy in my fifties, I don't pay a lot of attention to what's going on in pop music. I almost never listen to radio anymore, and ...

On the platform at the Mass. Ave. T station, I unavoidably overheard one side of a phone conversation. The caller asked the other person, ...

When you have a dog, but you don't have a fully enclosed yard, you have to walk the dog, regardless of the weather, so you have to have ...

I've been in my new/old job for a couple of weeks now, and getting used to again having a morning routine that includes getting out of t...

Life is funny. Things happen when you are not expecting them. Generally, the older you get, the less surprised you are when something unexpe...

Aziz Ansari is a very talented actor ( Parks and Recreation ) and stand-up comedian, who created and stars in the excellent Netflix series M...

When I wrote a similar post last year, I said I'd check back in to see where things were; here we are on December 31st, and I don't ...

Friday afternoon, December 30th, Newbury Street: "You don't have to be European to be boring."

Hello out there. I know it's been a while since I've surfaced. Things have been pretty busy around here, leaving me almost no time f...

I was in the kitchen last Saturday morning, making coffee and cleaning up things. The window was open, and from the upstairs neighbors' ...

The departure of our dog left a void in our lives, but at the same time I appreciated having a break from the daily responsibilities of feed...

When you search in Google (or whichever search engine you prefer), do you ever look at what results come up when you start typing? It can be...

Ooh boy, it's been a while. I'm working a lot, you see, sometimes 50 hours a week. It's challenging and draining, and at the end...

We've been going to Trader Joe's since the store on Memorial Drive opened in... 1999? I'm not exactly sure when it opened, but i...

Some events have occurred in our lives in recent months that I did not specifically discuss here, mainly because I find it difficult to devo...

Last weekend we attended a bar mitzvah; the young man is the son of a colleague and friend of the Mrs. The event was really nice, with teena...

A few times over the past couple of weeks, I've wanted to post but felt like I didn't have enough to say to justify it. At the momen...

Okay, two weeks is a long time to be absent from here, and I apologize. I admit that I've been devoting most of my free time (what there...

(I'd planned on making this only two parts, but part 2 ran a little longer than I'd expected and I wanted to give this enough space....

Right, where were we? On Sunday morning of our weekend trip to New York, the Mrs. was tired from all the walking we'd been doing and wan...

As I have mentioned previously, my longtime friend Just Bud Fox is on tumblr, but I'm not. I don't fully understand how tumblr user...

I saw the '72 Grand Prix again yesterday, parked in the same spot where I found it in January (which is making me wonder if its owner h...

When I mentioned going to New York a couple of weekends ago, I may have indicated that I would be writing something about it. So let's n...

Here I am, doing this again... it's been a rough year for musical greatness. By now I'm sure all of you have heard that Prince die...

Hello there. I know it's been awfully quiet around here lately. Life has just been hectic, as it is for many people. For a long time I...

A listing for cell phones contained this nugget: "Photos shows condition of the photos." We assumed they meant to say "phones...

My job continues to provide moments of amusement from the material that I'm checking. We had a listing with the title Assorted Rugs, 7...

You've probably figured out by now that when it comes to music and the artists I choose to feature here, I have a fondness for the obscu...

I try to avoid getting into any political stuff in this space, mainly because there are many, many other people who understand politics bett...

I stepped outside a few minutes ago to put out some trash and recycling. While I was in the driveway near the back of the house, I heard a v...

I still have a few car photos on my phone that I haven't gotten around to posting. This one is from last summer, which is kind of discer...

From the description of a bra assortment: "Note: The size tag on the bra may be wrong. You might have to figure it for yourself." ...

Having purchased plenty of used clothing items over the years, from both thrift shops and eBay, I have occasionally had to deal with the pro...

Since I am working at home I don't have to deal with a commute, which means I can get up a bit later. But I don't sleep in too long;...