Our snowblower crapped out on me after just two runs trying to blow nine inches of heavy, wet snow.   Figures.   My wife and I broke our backs shoveling the stuff for an hour and a half, all while that big, expensive snow blower sat there without any pretense of apology or guilt.   It remained, inoperative in the driveway, sportscar red in its nonrunning smugness.   I won’t deny it. I cussed. I swore. I moaned. I think, in some way, the pathetic whining helped to fuel my musc

This will get extremely controversial, so I apologize ahead of time for bringing up such a sensitive topic, but…   …I must maintain my strong belief that the 1984 production of A Christmas Carol  directed by Clive Donner and starring George C. Scott is the definitive and best version of the Dicken’s classic.   Now, I get it, right away, everyone will be wanting to counter with either 1992’s The Muppet Christmas Carol  or 1951’s version with Alastair Sim. I no doubt agree that

Of course I think about my parents during the holidays.   On each Thanksgiving, I think about how hard they worked to make Thanksgiving dinner for us. Their roles were traditionally split, with my father in charge of the meat and my mother in charge of the fixin’s.   My Dad would make his stuffing (each additional year measured by the additional salt and sage he’d add as his taste buds slowly withered and died). His greasy, turkey-grimed hands would stitch up the turkey, alwa

A Motto of Regret We were the wild bunch. The rabble-rousers. The risk-takers. The rebels of Regis High School. We weren’t nerds or geeks or outcasts. We weren’t popular. We were outsiders, and we were proud of that. While the jocks and popular kids simmered through their nights on the low flame of light beer and pop radio in someone’s basement, we were exploring abandoned sanitariums at the midnight hour on Folsom Street, or taking the First Avenue jump at 86 miles an hour t