If I’d been on the air Monday in the hours leading up to the solar eclipse, I would not have told people to not look directly at the sun. Not because we need more people with ocular damage. I wouldn’t do it for the same reason I wouldn’t tell them to look both ways before crossing the street, or not to put their hand into an open flame, or not to eat Tide Pods. While we have plenty of evidence that a growing number of Americans are idiots, I would still treat my audience as adults who don’t need reminders of how to avoid hurting themselves. Yes, I’m a contrarian to the many in the media who feel they have to be everyone’s helicopter parent. After all, no one issues that “don’t look at the sun” warning on any other day. What’s next, telling viewers and listeners don’t run with scissors, don’t lick electrical outlets, and don’t climb into the bear pit at the zoo?
When did “x” become the new “versus” instead of the sign for multiplication? ESPN uses it to promote games (“Iowa x South Carolina”). Hollywood uses it in a film title (“Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire”). I don’t think my calculator can figure out Godzilla times Kong, but I do blame the x-ification on Elon Musk.
Yesterday, I saw a man walking around with a wallet so long that it was hanging half out of his back pocket. Because I’m a movie nerd, my mind immediately went to the great pickpocket movie, “Harry In Your Pocket,” starring James Coburn, Walter Pidgeon, Trish Van Devere, and Michael Sarrazin. I wrote about it here in 2010 when I added it to my Movies You Might Not Know list.
Hotel bathrobes are not made for an XXL body. In fact, anything that’s “one size fits all” will not fit me.
Emily Heil’s piece about the near-death of Boston Market made me sad. While I haven’t been to one of its outlets in a couple of decades, I still remember how novel the concept was when the company made it popular in the 1980s in the northeast. We thought the food was so delicious because rotisserie chicken wasn’t a thing yet. Now, I can get the same or better from every supermarket within a few miles of my house, and that’s part of the reason the chain has collapsed. As my wife says, Boston Market was the topic of discussion when her father warned her: “Don’t ever go into the food business!“