tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36706362011-08-30T20:06:31.966-07:00mo·res n : (sociology) the conventions that embody the fundamental values of a group.Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05760991438858909841noreply@blogger.comBlogger201100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670636.post-1153183944446947622006-07-17T17:33:00.000-07:002006-07-17T17:54:45.963-07:00

The following is a letter that I have written to my biological mother. A physical copy of this letter exists in the hands of a confidential intermediary, who waits for the opportunity to share it with the woman that gave me up thirty six years ago. “I have no desire to meet my biological parents.”That was the standard disclaimer that I used each time someone would quiz me about how I could live

Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05760991438858909841noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670636.post-1109277710946682422005-02-24T12:39:00.000-08:002005-02-24T12:42:47.766-08:00

The snow beneath me was red.It wasn’t supposed to be – a fact that my throbbing nose told me was no longer relevant. Crimson droplets of blood flowed in a steady march downward from my left nostril. Usually, this would be cause for immediate action – a bit of ice, perhaps a swab of cotton stuffed slightly up the nose. Unfortunately (and if I were to be honest; humiliatingly), immediate action

Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05760991438858909841noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670636.post-1109097026039073282005-02-22T10:27:00.000-08:002005-02-22T11:23:42.323-08:00

I had a cat when I was little.We were tight; Bibbs and I, the stuff ABC After-School special were made of. Being an only child, he was like a brother to me – albeit a brother that constantly pooped in the geraniums.But who doesn’t have a family member that’s done that?For hours on end, we would play kitty hide-and-seek – a game which required me to withhold food from Bibbs until he was hungry

Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05760991438858909841noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670636.post-1109087269843278602005-02-22T07:38:00.000-08:002005-02-22T07:47:49.846-08:00

This is the seventh post in a series that started here. Questions are still being accepted, feel free to ask one yourself.Question:So I was lying in bed yesterday with an ice pack on my face, thinking about ice. I had just finished having oral surgery (no, surprisingly, not to have my foot removed), so I was swollen and grumpy and medicated. And cold. Man, was my face cold, which got me thinking

Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05760991438858909841noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670636.post-1108744025229122512005-02-18T08:20:00.001-08:002005-02-18T08:27:05.236-08:00

1970 was a great year to be an unwanted fetus.Take it from me. I remember swimming around with my little webbed feet basking in the warm darkness that was my support pod. Something didn’t feel right. The muffled voices I hear aren’t soft and soothing. And the stress vibes – wow! Yet I’ve made it this far; that’s a good thing. There are rumors – cells love to gossip – floating around about

Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05760991438858909841noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670636.post-1108651388369987002005-02-17T06:23:00.000-08:002005-02-17T06:43:08.380-08:00

This is the sixth post in a series that started here. Questions are still being accepted, feel free to ask one yourself.Question:How to correctly imagine inpredictable reality (the one we are in is predictable 'cause all our actions are predicted, to simplify, we have no choice but to walk our path), and is inpredictable reality better then the predictable one?Relatively difficult question

Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05760991438858909841noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670636.post-1108482588916128722005-02-15T07:44:00.000-08:002005-02-15T07:49:48.923-08:00

From Wired Issue 13.02Nobody lives forever - but we're about to get a whole lot closer, says Aubrey de Grey, a controversial age theorist and a gene database manager at Cambridge University. In February's issue of the international journal Gerontology, the self-taught scientist argues that recent advances in our understanding of aging may allow today's sixtysomethings to reach their 1,000th

Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05760991438858909841noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670636.post-1108130968572599212005-02-11T06:02:00.000-08:002005-02-11T06:09:28.576-08:00

These posts are a series that started with this post. Questions are still being accepted, feel free to ask one yourself.Question: Yes, I am in need of your help. I have a man, and I have kids, but I don't have Johnny Depp. I know he lives in France. Would it be wrong to mortgage the house, send the kids to boarding school, put my man on a cruise around the world and fly my ass abroad to hang out

Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05760991438858909841noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670636.post-1108130522624301832005-02-11T05:59:00.000-08:002005-02-11T06:02:02.626-08:00

These posts are a series that started with this post. Questions are still being accepted, feel free to ask one yourself.Question: What are your recommendations for obligatory Father's Day/ Mother's Day gifts from one's children to one's ex-spouse, particularly when the ex-spouse is a supreme jerk? Generally, I have found it best to choose items that appear to be nice presents to the casual

Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05760991438858909841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670636.post-1108130319247967362005-02-11T05:53:00.000-08:002005-02-11T05:58:39.250-08:00

These posts are a series that started with this post. Questions are still being accepted, feel free to ask one yourself.Question: Here's something really boring, but I've been meaning to research it but have been too lazy to bother. So what's the deal with social security? They've been saying it's going to run out for years now so should I really be concerned (I'm 24) or is everyone simply

Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05760991438858909841noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670636.post-1108129957310913072005-02-11T05:48:00.000-08:002005-02-11T05:52:37.313-08:00

These posts are a series that started with this post. Questions are still being accepted, feel free to ask one yourself.Question: There are lots of words in English that end in -eer, and you can tell the root pretty easily (thus establishing some idea of the meaning of the word). For example: engine/engineer; election/electioneer; puppet/puppeteer. You get the point. So anyhow, everybody knows

Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05760991438858909841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670636.post-1108129717826249482005-02-11T05:42:00.000-08:002005-02-11T05:48:37.830-08:00

These posts are a series that started with this post. Questions are still being accepted, feel free to ask one yourself.Question: Why is life so screwed at times? When we're on top, it seems like we're never gonna fall but why when we do fall, it never seem like we'll be coming on top back again? Nothing that we do can make us say 'ahh.. I'm on the right track'. Most of the times, we'll end up

Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05760991438858909841noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670636.post-1108051215162281562005-02-10T07:54:00.000-08:002005-02-10T08:00:49.423-08:00

Ok, here it is. You (yes you) leave me a question. Any question at all, mind you. And I’ll dedicate an entire post to answering it. I’ll be like Ann Landers, except I’m still alive, which makes me only a little more qualified to do this. Be clever, be inane, be sarcastic – I’m not smart enough to tell the difference. The good thing is, I don’t have to worry about the answer being ‘correct’,

Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05760991438858909841noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670636.post-1107878843917541102005-02-08T08:02:00.000-08:002005-02-08T08:17:58.520-08:00

I remember once, as a 10th grader, descending upon Burger King with a growl in my stomach and a gleam in my eye. I had recently been exposed to their clever marketing campaign to ‘have it your way’ a compelling slogan that was accompanied by several images of flame-broiled Whoppers custom designed by the attractive customers/actors in the spot. Talk about tasty! Thick, juicy tomatoes.

Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05760991438858909841noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670636.post-1107533041019625582005-02-04T07:58:00.000-08:002005-02-04T13:43:25.146-08:00

Ok, stay with me here… You’re in Central America – searching for a lost Mayan city in the south of Belize. The jungle foliage is oppressive, as is the heat. You cannot see the sky, nor feel the wind. Your guide has left you – three days since – and the silence is maddening. You hack forward with your machete, because that is all there is to do. Suddenly… a clearing. You stumble out of the

Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05760991438858909841noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670636.post-1107440277187400642005-02-03T05:32:00.000-08:002005-02-03T12:58:45.626-08:00

Excerpts taken from MSNBC article here The merchandising-minded spiritualists at the trendy Kabbalah Center are launching a new Kabbalah energy drink. And they’re hoping that Kabbalah devotee Ashton Kutcher will be the face of the new beverage, which they’re targeting to mass market, non-Kabbalah consumers. “We’re going after the Red Bull market,” spokesman Darin Ezra told The Scoop. “But

Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05760991438858909841noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670636.post-1107358840111731712005-02-02T07:37:00.000-08:002005-02-03T12:57:33.093-08:00

I loved Thriller. I say this because I assume there are people out there that didn’t, or are too young to have been exposed firsthand to one of the most significant works of music in the latter part of the 20th century. And hey, I’m not afraid to admit it. I can still remember watching Michael’s performance on the ABC special Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever – he broke out the moonwalk and

Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05760991438858909841noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670636.post-1107270333406114482005-02-01T06:59:00.000-08:002005-02-03T12:58:01.710-08:00

I’m looking for a new religion. It’s clear to me now that my current theocracy isn’t cutting the mustard. We’re way behind in celebrity endorsements. After all, ‘the meek may inherit the earth’ but they’ll still pay Ben Affleck $12 million to make Surviving Christmas. That said, I’ve narrowed my choices down to two, Kabbalah and Scientology. Scientology – I mean what’s not to like here. It’s

Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05760991438858909841noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670636.post-1107200161478555492005-01-31T11:34:00.000-08:002005-02-03T12:59:15.426-08:00

Ok, quick math quiz. No wait; don’t run away, this is interesting, I swear. This has to do with rounding. You know the old 3.5 rounds up to 4. Simple stuff really (and not that compelling to read about, I’m sure). Before you click away, grumbling about nerdy programmers and overly simplistic tutorials – take this quiz. The only caveat is that you must round these numbers as if you were

Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05760991438858909841noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670636.post-1106938008341553292005-01-28T10:35:00.000-08:002005-02-03T12:59:52.846-08:00

And not in the general way that every day as a public servant sucks, this day is different. A summary… My boss and the Troll (her secretary) call me via speakerphone last evening. BTW – in the history of phone calls, nothing good has ever come out of a speakerphone conversation with your boss. It goes something like this. “Hi Mike, This is Tanis and Carol. You’re on speakerphone” oh oh…. “Umm.

Mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05760991438858909841noreply@blogger.com10