20 Years of Blogging (sorta) – Redux

20 number emblem

Twenty years ago, I started this blog with this post.1 Ten years ago, I missed my tenth anniversary.2 This year, I’d like to celebrate with listing meaningful milestones of the past twenty years: So that’s it! What will 2025 and…

My Best and Worst Case Scenarios, pt. III

(Continued from here) A lot has happened, both in the past year and over the past decade, but I haven’t really had the chance to process it until recently. I’ve been thinking about this idea I had a while ago…

Malignant True Believers

A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject. – Winston Churchill On the way back home from my 30th birthday, I sat next to a 20-year-old, talkative Christian missionary to India. Aside from chattering about…

Disparaging humor

One day, I stopped listening to the WTF podcast and to Walking the Room. I stopped reading the famous blogs of Brian Leiter, Jerry Coyne, and Larry Moran. I stopped hanging out with my friends Dave, Miranda, and so many…

Life Block

I am really good at starting projects. Insanely good. I will have lots of awesome ideas and go super far with them in the first week. I tell people, “you could make a fortune by following me around and finishing…

How Guys Can Avoid Getting Mugged

A friend of mine recently told me that the best thing to do when someone tries to rob you is whatever they want. They’ve already broken the social contract. You don’t know what else they’re capable of, so you should…

My Once Best and Worst Case Scenarios

It all started with something my propaganda professor Frank Thayer said a long time ago: Life doesn’t turn out the best-possible way you could imagine.  It also doesn’t turn out the worst way.  It’s usually something in between. That scared…

Post-by-numbers

Atlas Shrugged

How I make a thoughtful post in six short steps: As I was writing the previous post, I noticed how all of my posts seem to have the same basic formula.  First, there is the background (“As I was writing.…

Nice Guys Screw Themselves III

Nice does not mean spineless. Sometimes guys hide behind the excuse of “I’m a nice guy” in hopes of sympathy. Perhaps if people realize that nice guys mean well but have a universe to compete against, perhaps then their niceness…

Living in the When

Pop philosophy: Carpe diem. Pix philosophy: I’m living in the When. I realized something the other day. I’m in friggin’ Australia! I am literally on the other side of the planet. WTF? I’m going to be telling stories about this…

“We Need to Talk”

As per my last post, I started thinking1. The reason that “we need to talk” creates such a sense of foreboding in the person listening is because it signifies a change in the conversation. Because, even if you’ve been talking…