UFC. That’s Ultimate Fighting Championship, as in the Las Vegas-based mixed martial arts outfit where crazy people beat the sh*t out of each other in a cage. Case in point. It turns out that yours truly has had some success in this arena. Well, sort of. *** Anyone wanna come over tomorrow for UFC 300? It’s a stacked card. It was April 12, 2024, and that was the group text I received from my neighbor. I thought for a minute. I would get to go to his house, eat his snacks, drink his booze, and watch sports for five hours. That seemed like an offer I shouldn’t say no to. Ever. The next night, I ..read more

In the grand scheme of things, the blogger thing is relatively new. Here are 10 hints you’re on the cutting edge.   10 You drink heavily.   9 You write about how you used to drink heavily.   8 You’ve been called interesting—but mostly just weird.   7 No one really understands what you do—including yourself.   6 When people say cool! about your work, they actually mean you’re a loser.   5 You push the follow your passion garbage on the regular.   4 You use multi-passionate as a euphemism for confused as hell.   3 Your social skills are even worse than the ..read more

If hell were to freeze over, it might resemble the corner where Minnesota, North Dakota, and Canada meet. Yet 60 miles north of this frozen inferno lies a city that has defied the odds, not just by existing, but by providing the soundtrack to your life. Welcome to Winnipeg.   The City Ask a Winnipegger whether you should visit their city, and the answer will be probably not. Sure, the bland landscape is broken up by a series of lakes, including a large freshwater one from which Winnipeg takes its name, but that’s of little consolation when it’s -40°C. Where the prairies meet more prairies ..read more

They say Banff will make you believe in God. Where the Canadian prairies are no longer prairies, the heavens have indeed been kind. There, jagged peaks declare their majesty, adorned in fresh snow, an ideal mirror for the bountiful sunshine above. Lining the peaks are manicured evergreens, trimmed not by the hands of man but by the forces of nature. Icefields and glaciers have also laid claim to this land. As the latter recede, they leave lakes that birth rivers, which in turn nourish the oceans. When the Rockies are angled toward the sun, the lakes melt, their rock flour reflecting visible li ..read more

If Taylor Swift, born in 1989, can have eras, then my 1977-born cells sure can. Yes, they may not be quite as exciting, but I’m not one to harp on the details. Here’s the wild ride, in chronological order.   Innocence (1977-1990) I spent my childhood in a fantasy land, convinced that the only thing that mattered in life was the performance of the New York Yankees. I listened to baseball games on the radio, and then I switched to watching them on TV. I even played baseball, deluding myself into believing I was competent. There was no room for reality in this world, and I didn’t go out of m ..read more

Gender identity is fluid, as it should be. There are times, however, when the fluid turns to solid, and the melting point is too high for debate.   March 2024 “Yeah, I’ll do a bracket!” said my wife excitedly. I gulped. Married for almost 20 years, we obviously shared the same funding source. I knew that her $20 entry fee would, by default, be my $20 entry fee. And I didn’t like her/our chances. There was a time in her life when she could have named a couple active college basketball players. That ship had sailed long ago. As of March 2024, she could name only one person who had played co ..read more

We’re told that March Madness—the annual college basketball tournament—is about the stories. You know, the perseverance, the elation, the heartbreak, and all that stuff. But let’s be real—we’re talking about the US. And that means March Madness is really about something else—cold hard cash. Here’s how it works.   A Reminder As outlined by Investopedia, of the $1.28 billion in revenue earned by the NCAA in 2022-2023, about $1 billion came from the men’s basketball tournament (aka March Madness). The vast majority of that $1 billion was attributable to selling media rights, and the rest cam ..read more

Part of blogging is becoming creative at wasting time, convincing yourself that a given exercise was somehow productive, and later realizing that you are in fact gifted at accomplishing nothing. In that spirit, as someone who is obsessed with March Madness, it just seemed right to go on a hunt for the 10 best songs about being crazy. They have absolutely nothing to do with basketball and everything to do with actually being nuts, but remember the part about wasting time.   “Brain Damage” by Pink Floyd (1973) It’s only fitting that this list start with the masters of psychedelia, no strang ..read more

It’s March, American It’s that time of year When you prove yet again That your madness is sincere   First you exported those burgers If that’s what you call McDonald’s The fries almost made me a converter But the meat looks rather intestinal   And what’s the deal with Subway? That other place that you’ve spread The fresh veggies are kind of okay But is the brown thing even bread?   There’s a bunch of other stuff too Like Walmart and, yes, KFC The latter I would maybe pursue If I were looking for a coronary   Then there’s this other thing That you pushed on us years ago No b ..read more

Even my daughter was excited. That’s how I knew I had a win on my hands. Well, minus the paying for tickets part. But now was not the time for minor details. *** In Rochester, New York, we see the big picture. We’re often recipients of pity regarding how far we are from New York City. But that same spot on the map means we’re really close to something else—another country. It’s just across a small lake. (Fine, it’s a Great Lake—Lake Ontario, to be exact.) And once across, we’re greeted by North America’s fourth-largest and the world’s most multicultural city. Toronto. It turns out that in addi ..read more