August 27, 2010 – 2:29 pm
In a conversation I recently had on-line about an article regarding citizens being tracked by GPS, the subject of privacy came up. Okay, I did what I often accuse others of doing and jumped to a reaction before I’d read the article. The article was actually a serious look at an opinion by certain judges [...]
March 18, 2010 – 11:22 pm
Okay, so I’m an idiot. I received my electricity bill from Southern California Edison, set it aside with a thought to look at it again as the due date got closer, then put something on top of it, then something on top of that. This morning at about eleven am, while composing a Tweet (yes, [...]
January 15, 2010 – 9:47 pm
(The following essay is a guest post written by my father, poet Rowell S. Hoff, expanding on a theme from a poem he wrote a few years ago. I have included the poem at the end. -Geoff Hoff) We The English pronoun we is difficult. Of course it is not difficult when it refers to [...]
I’ve been writing with Steve Mancini for over eleven years. That’s longer than many couples stay married! I still write things on my own of course (you are reading my blog, after all.) What we write together is completely distinct from what we do on our own. What we write together tends to be comedy, [...]
Okay, so I had a heart attack in January. Don’t worry, my health is improving. I was treated in a local hospital where, as I had just recently given up my insurance as a cost cutting measure (timing is everything) they made sure I was going to live, put me on a ton of medication [...]
Once upon a time there were usury laws, which limited the amount of interest an institution (or Vinnie from down the block) could charge on a loan. South Dakota decided a good way to attract some business to their state was to do away with such inconvenient laws. Vinnie moved to South Dakota and set [...]
March 12, 2009 – 12:21 pm
I see a great future for the technology now called “Texting”. Fairly soon, I predict that someone will invent a voice activated texting mode, so you can simply talk, and it will transcribe what you’ve said. After that will come the inevitable “Direct Texting” where your words, rather than being transcribed and sent to the [...]
December 20, 2008 – 4:33 pm
Every year, I get more and more annoyed at the tendency for people at all points on the political spectrum to manufacture issues about which they can become angry (and about which they can rile their “base” into a frenzied pitch.) It must be part of the human condition (or at least the Western psyche, [...]
November 24, 2008 – 1:37 pm
O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention, A kingdom for a stage, princes to act And monarchs to behold the swelling scene! - William Shakespeare, Henry V, Prologue If I have a muse, she seems to have fallen asleep. I wish her good dreams. That she can convey [...]
September 28, 2008 – 12:12 pm
On a radio show recently, the question was put forth, “does art have the power to change a life?” Although I’ve always thought a life without art is a dead life and a society without art is a dead society, I’d never considered the question quite in that way. It started me thinking about my [...]
