‘Sneaky Pete’

The first season of this Amazon crime drama was so good, I’m going to go ahead and use three popular initials I’ve never used before: OMG! What an intense show. It’s about a con man desperately trying to raise a hundred grand to free his brother from the clutches of Bryan Cranston, or something to that effect. The show is so absorbing that I’m considering leaving the news business to make a career in pickpocketing. Next time I see you, we’ve got to hug, for sure. A big long hug. We don’t do enough hugging, you and I.

Gee whiz

Now that I’ve actually gone ahead and used OMG for the first time, I don’t feel quite as exhilarated as I expected. Did I do it wrong? Maybe I’ll just stick to “gosh” and “golly.”

Did you feel that?

On Wednesday, I felt a rumbling beneath me that was so pronounced, I was fully convinced that I was experiencing a full-blown earthquake. And it’s about time, too – on those rare occasions when a quake is reported in the area, I’m always that odd man out who didn’t feel nuthin’. This time, though, I sat through a full 10 seconds of trembling, watching knickknacks chattering on a shelf and waiting for the ceiling to come down. When it was over, I fully expected the phones to ring off the hook and for social media to light up with hysteria over the seismic event. You know what happened instead? Nothing, that’s who. The one time I’m completely cognizant of The Big One, the rest of you are oblivious. And I was so sure of myself that I danced on over to the Geological Survey website and had myself a look. Bingo. In fact, there HAD been an earthquake – in Maoping, China. It turns out that I’m just very sensitive.

Can’t you hear me knocking?

So, NASA claims to have discovered a cluster of earth-like planets spinning around a dwarf star not 40 light years away. In a cosmic sense, that’s just down the road a sneeze. Sadly, if there’s life there and if those life forms have been paying attention to what’s been happening on the blue marble the past few years, when we go knocking on their door, they’re totally going to pretend they’re not home. We’ll send over our probes and those ETs will dive behind their sofas so fast, it’ll make their three heads spin. They’ll crouch there in silence until we go away and then pull all their shades down in case we come back. Can you blame them? Earthlings, man. We’re like the political poll takers of the universe.

Out to lunch, or something

It was fun writing that scene. Why, just the other day, I dove behind my own sofa to hide from somebody knocking on my door. I don’t know who he was, but the dude had a clipboard, and guys with clipboards never herald happy news.

Alcohol on the disc golf course?

This headline in Wednesday’s business section pleased me to no end. Are you saying that people aren’t presently drinking while they play disc golf? Because I just assumed that they were. There are two elements here that make me think of excess boozing; to wit, the disc and the golf. Heck, I don’t know if I could even throw a Frisbee whilst sober. And you’d definitely have to get me plowed to convince me to golf again. I haven’t golfed since the tragedy. I don’t like to talk about it.

Comments are not available on this story.