10. “I couldn’t afford a Fitbit and thought this would be the next best thing.”

9. “I’m a big fan of ‘pumping’ iron.”

8. “I thought it would be a good way to meet one of those hunky firefighters.”

7. “I made a miscalculation; the 6-pound dumbbell has a bigger hole.”

6. “It’s the male equivalent of Kegels.”

5. “It takes a dumbbell to fuck a dumbbell.”

4. “I’m very nearsighted, and I honestly thought it was a cat.”

3. “I misheard something about the gym being overcrowded, and then something about cramming in a member.”

2. “I was practicing my short-range ring toss.”

1. “Well it had a hole in it, didn’t it?!”
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

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I did not realize this until recently, but I have been waiting for someone to write a series of stories around the adventures of a Jewish wizard divinely sentenced to an extended life of servitude applying his wisdom and his wit – and added abilities possible only through God’s power and indulgence – to help His Adamic Brood through a bizarre array of problems … no matter how far they have strayed from His path in the course of causing those problems.
[Read more →]

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PALMYRA, NJ — Palmyra High School (PHS) will be the beneficiary of $15,000 in science equipment thanks to a casino night fundraiser conducted by the Palmyra High School Foundation for Educational Excellence (PHSFEE). [Read more →]

Tags: education, virtual children by Scott Warnock // 3 Comments »

10. The Bad, The Ugly, and the Morally Reprehensible

9. Tombstone (if Obamacare is Repealed)

8. Unforgivable

7. Once Upon a Time in the Moscow Hilton

6. 3:10 Chartered Flight to Yuma

5. The Odious Seven

4. Dances with Nazis

3. The Outlaw Jared Kushner

2. A Shitload of Dollars

1. For A Few Million More
 

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I’m confronted with what one of my boys would call a “first world problem” …

Last week, Twitter launched an experiment, expanding the number of characters allowed on posts to 280 from the original limit of 140. The test, I read later, involves a small, random group of users (a single-digit percentage of the total users). It seems I’m one of the select few.

“We few, we happy few …”

Hmmmm, happy? Maybe not … at least, not in my case,. I rather liked the 140-character limit. It was a challenge to me. Could I communicate my thoughts successfully – and succinctly! – in my tweets? It required me to stretch my vocabulary, use punctuation more effectively, and move away from rambling rants and towards brief bullet-points.

Sort of a haiku for the new millenium.

I’ll be interested in learning the results of this experiment. For my part, I’ll be contributing to the 140-character end of the bell-shaped curve (or whatever) illustrating those results.

Just because I get twice as much space doesn’t mean I have to fill it. If I have more than can be said in 140 characters, I could always post something on “When Falls the Coliseum.”

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10. The Lion King Kong

9. Django Undead

8. Kramer vs. Kramer vs. Predator

7. Mummy Dearest

6. The Werewolf of Wall Street

5. Jack Creature: Never Go Back

4. Hunchback Mountain

3. The Thing and I

2. My Bigfoot Greek Wedding

1. What About Blob?
 

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First, they came for my appetite, and I said nothing.

Well, I said some things, some complaining type things. And I may have had some help acquiring some items that are legal in only certain states, in order to address this thing that the chemo took away. (Thanks again to you-know-who-you-are!)

Then, they came for my hair, and I said nothing because I knew that this was going to happen, so I shaved my head Britney-style. I complained some more, because my hair, ya’ll!

Now, they have taken away my eyelashes and eyebrows. (Yes, I skipped the part where my body hair fell off, because not shaving is clearly a bonus and this blog is not titled “The Upside of Trying to Chase Out Every Last Damn Cancer Cell.”) I was prideful about my eyelashes and eyebrows, which both of my children were lucky to inherit. It was nice to know that in a wig I could maybe fake people out because I still had them. They are nearly gone now. Sigh.

What I have gained is a thing called neuropathy in my feet and hands. Just a little bit of it. A sort of dull feeling in my hands. As for the feet, well, you know how it feels if you step on something and it sticks to the bottom of your feet? Like, a piece of paper or scotch tape? I feel like I have something stuck to the balls of my feet, off and on, all day. That one big Taxol dose added this to my chemo repertoire after only a couple of days, and I’m doing all the extras to combat it that all the people recommend. Trust me, I am reading the stuff and listening to you folks.

I also gained this super fun thing called menopause, which so far is manifesting as a short temper and heat waves that mostly hit at night, like Tom Cruise is dangling from the ceiling holding a space heater. Then I wake up and he gets sucked back into the ceiling and suddenly I feel normal again. I never liked him. Even before he jumped on Oprah’s furniture.

New lower dose Taxol started today. It is one third the strength of the last one, but they gave me the same amount of steroids that they gave me last time. That means tomorrow I will probably feel like I can do all the laundry in the world (that is not an invitation.) We wait for Thursday morning. That’s when the crash came last time, when I sent the kids off to school and then sat down and realized that I felt as though I’d just been hit by a car. I have high hopes for this coming Thursday. Let’s get through this, my body, without so much strife.

Then I can just focus on waiting for all of my beloved hairs to grow back. Good thing we bought me the medicine cabinet with the built in magnifying mirror!

Tags: health & medical, square one by Van McCourt // 2 Comments »

My experience with LibraryThing has added a LOT of different works to my e-bookshelf, and that’s led to a diverse array of reading experiences for me, and reviews for the books.

Some were great, others not-so-great-but-alright … there were titles that registered somewhere in the middle of the ‘meh’ meter … and one that left me scrambling to find words that adequately expressed how odorous I found it.
[Read more →]

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10. Schrödinger’s cat walks into a bar, and doesn’t.

9. When the bartender told the helium, “We don’t serve noble gases in here,” he didn’t react.

8. After the neutron drank his beer, he asked the bartender for the bill, but the bartender said, “For you, no charge.”

7. When the bartender told the Higgs Boson he had to go to church right away and the Higgs Boson asked why, the bartender said, “Because they can’t have mass without you.”

6. A photon checked into a hotel, and when the porter asked him if he had any luggage, he replied, “No, I’m travelling light.”

5. A student sees Einstein sitting next to him on the train, and asks, “Excuse me, Professor, but does Boston stop at this train?”

4. When the policeman stopped Werner Heisenberg for speeding and told him how fast he was going, Heisenberg responded, “Great! Now I’m lost!”

3. Never trust an atom, because they make up everything.

2. The Theory of Relativity says time moves more slowly when you’re with your relatives.

1. They say one day the universe will implode — no matter!
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

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I tried so hard to resist this summer, and I nearly did it: I almost made it through those hazy months without scrawling a lament about kids and reading. But now we’re at the end, and I again am coming off another three months of banging my head against the wall trying to get the kids around me to read, so, well, better luck next year. [Read more →]

Tags: virtual children by Scott Warnock // 4 Comments »

One week ago today, I was in the food court at Houston-Hobby Airport, waiting for a flight home following the latest round in my ongoing Texas Cancer Smackdown. This round had gone well, with good test results and encouraging words from the folks at M.D. Anderson.

For obvious reasons, I was in the mood to relax – even celebrate – with some lunch. The food was good, and a cold glass of local brew added to my enjoyment of the meal. Several feet away, the Apollo Chamber Players were performing light classical pieces as part of the airport’s “Harmony in the Air” program … all in all, I was in good spirits.

But then there was change, as Apollo switched gears and began playing “The Star Spangled Banner.”
[Read more →]

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10. I need a punctuation mark that’s halfway between a period and an exclamation point, so I can answer texts without sounding bored or insane.

9. I didn’t pay my syntax, so I got a poorly constructed prison sentence.

8. I once saw a forklift lift a crate of forks – which was way too literal for me!

7. A girl texted me, “Your adorable,” I texted back, “No, YOU’RE adorable,” and now we’re married – when all I was trying to do was correct her typo.

6. If I had a dollar for every time I leave something unfinished,

5. There’s a fine line between hyphenated words.

4. Sometimes I use phrases that I don’t understand, and vice versa.

3. I seek eloquence, but I’d be satisfied with coherence.

2. I saw a teacher beating a student about the head while screaming, “Die! Die! Die!” so I guess, from now on, that kid will remember what the singular of ‘Dice’ is.

1. If life gives you melons, you might be dyslexic.
 

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10. Ball the President’s Men

9. Barbara’s Bush

8. Politically Erect

7. Pussy-Graber-in-Chief

6. The Devil in Miss Conway

5. Filibuster Cherry

4. Nazi-jism

3. Nailin’ Palin

2. Cruzin’

1. Deep Pockets
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

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10. Why was six afraid of seven? Because seven ate nine.

9. I for one — but that’s Roman numerals for you!

8. Did you hear about the constipated mathematician, who finally worked it out with a pencil?

7. I was quite young when I learned to count, and it was odd at first, even then.

6. When my math teacher told me I was average, I said, “That’s just mean.”

5. I’ll stop at nothing to avoid using negative numbers.

4. If I ever get taken in for questioning, I hope there’s no calculus.

3. I heard the government was doing away with Roman numerals, but all I can say is: Not on my watch!

2. A farmer saw that he had 37 cows in his field, but when he rounded them up, he had 40.

1. Why was six afraid of seven? Because seven was a registered six offender.
 

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10. On my first day of school, my parents dropped me off at the wrong nursery, so there I was, surrounded by trees and bushes.

9. I won’t say ours was a tough school, but we had our own coroner.

8. In school, I wasn’t so much the class clown as the class trapeze artist, because I was always being suspended.

7. My physics teacher told me I had a lot of potential, just before he pushed me off the roof.

6. When my math teacher asked me if I understood inequalities, I answered, “More or less.”

5. It’s Groundhog Day, but enough about the school lunch menu.

4. The only thing more dangerous than grizzly bears in our schools is Betsy DeVos.

3. When I went to college, my parents threw a going-away party for me, according to their letter.

2. There are certain things about school that you hate at the time, but would pay good money for later in life — like being spanked every day by a middle-aged woman.

1. If I’ve learned one thing in life, then the American education system has really let me down.
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

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I’m on a little of a generationist roll here (as much as I get on a roll about anything on this blog), but why not? I collect these tidbits, these links, and I’ve been accumulating many lately about the ever-growing body of evidence that social media overconnectedness threatens mental health — and this is especially the case for young girls. [Read more →]

Tags: virtual children by Scott Warnock // 1 Comment »

10. Alt-Right Guard

9. Goebbels ’n Bits

8. White-In Liquid Paper

7. Grey Goose Step Vodka

6. Invading Poland Spring Water

5. Death Campfire Marshmallows

4. MixMaster Race

3. K-K-K-Y Jelly

2. Eva Brawny Towels

1. Reich Krispies
 

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10. In Cold Bloodhound

9. Slaughterhouse Canine

8. The Bitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

7. The Hound and the Fury

6. Jane Airedale

5. The Picture of Dorian Greyhound

4. Barkness at Noon

3. The Great Dane Gatsby

2. Love In the Time of Collie

1. The Adventures of Huckleberry Hound
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

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All my kids are teenagers, so there’s a gap there now. Sometimes it’s a wispy, barely discernible need for space that they express through body language. Other times, it’s an overt, intentional shout for Space! [Read more →]

Tags: virtual children by Scott Warnock // 2 Comments »

10. Preventing childhood obesity is as easy as taking candy from a baby.

9. I don’t know why all the kids call me Quasimodo, but I have a hunch.

8. If I could have dinner with any person living or dead, I’d pick the living one.

7. I have kleptomania, but when it gets really bad, I take something for it.

6. I had to cancel my appointment with the impotency clinic, because something came up.

5. The police recovered my stolen sofa, which was really nice of them because it was looking a bit tatty.

4. Diarrhea must be hereditary, since it runs in your genes.

3. If you believe in telekinesis, raise my hand.

2. My granddad had the heart of a lion, and a lifetime ban from the Philadelphia Zoo.

1. My wife may nag me at times, but when she told me to stop impersonating a flamingo, I had to put my foot down!
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

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