🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩
Illegals or Guns? 🤦
Scrolling Through Stupidity 🖱️
Worst Nurse Ever 👩⚕️
If there’s anything I hate more than politics and politicians, it’s political advertising. Cutting the cable cord has lessened its intrusiveness in my life, yet it still manages to seep in.
Case in point: I was watching the Padres-Phillies game last night and saw something that could just as easily been a Saturday Night Live parody as a real political ad. I guess parody and politics aren’t that far away from each other these days.
The ad was paid for by something called Citizens for Sanity. Based on the name alone, we all should be members, right? I mean, sanity’s a good thing, i would say. There’s never a situation in which being sane is actually bad. Well, politics being what they are today, this particular kind of sanity means you have to believe that illegal immigration is what is leading to mass casualty events.
The obviously right-leaning ad showcases the recent stabbing on the Las Vegas strip in which a dude the ad says was here illegally stabbed eight showgirl impersonators, killing two of them. The ad then mentions that every dope Democrat congressperson voted against a plan that would have strengthened border security and pushed for deportations of illegals. The conclusion? Vote for Republicans because they’ll make sure showgirls are safe.
The level of hypocrisy and tone-deafness of this ad cannot be overstated. That a Republican-leaning group would point out the Democrats’ failures on immigration and border policy (be they justified criticisms or not) by using mass casualty events while conveniently ignoring the hundreds of Republican senators and representatives who voted against more strict gun control laws — ya know the weapon used in 95%+ of mass casualty incidents here in Muricah — is astoundingly blind and stupid. I mean, it’s so stupid that it’s offensive to call it stupid because stupid people are like, “Hey, we’re not that stupid.”
In case you need a reminder on who voted “no” on the Protect our Children Act that would have increased gun restrictions in the wake of Uvalde, here’s every “nay” vote, the party that person belongs to and the state they represent. But yeah, let’s talk about illegals with knives.
Aderholt | Republican | Alabama | NAY |
Allen | Republican | Georgia | NAY |
Amodei | Republican | Nevada | NAY |
Armstrong | Republican | North Dakota | NAY |
Arrington | Republican | Texas | NAY |
Babin | Republican | Texas | NAY |
Bacon | Republican | Nebraska | NAY |
Baird | Republican | Indiana | NAY |
Balderson | Republican | Ohio | NAY |
Banks | Republican | Indiana | NAY |
Barr | Republican | Kentucky | NAY |
Bentz | Republican | Oregon | NAY |
Bergman | Republican | Michigan | NAY |
Bice (OK) | Republican | Oklahoma | NAY |
Biggs | Republican | Arizona | NAY |
Bilirakis | Republican | Florida | NAY |
Bishop (NC) | Republican | North Carolina | NAY |
Boebert | Republican | Colorado | NAY |
Bost | Republican | Illinois | NAY |
Brady | Republican | Texas | NAY |
Brooks | Republican | Alabama | NAY |
Buchanan | Republican | Florida | NAY |
Buck | Republican | Colorado | NAY |
Bucshon | Republican | Indiana | NAY |
Budd | Republican | North Carolina | NAY |
Burchett | Republican | Tennessee | NAY |
Burgess | Republican | Texas | NAY |
Calvert | Republican | California | NAY |
Cammack | Republican | Florida | NAY |
Carey | Republican | Ohio | NAY |
Carl | Republican | Alabama | NAY |
Carter (GA) | Republican | Georgia | NAY |
Carter (TX) | Republican | Texas | NAY |
Cawthorn | Republican | North Carolina | NAY |
Chabot | Republican | Ohio | NAY |
Cheney | Republican | Wyoming | NAY |
Cline | Republican | Virginia | NAY |
Cloud | Republican | Texas | NAY |
Clyde | Republican | Georgia | NAY |
Cole | Republican | Oklahoma | NAY |
Comer | Republican | Kentucky | NAY |
Crawford | Republican | Arkansas | NAY |
Crenshaw | Republican | Texas | NAY |
Curtis | Republican | Utah | NAY |
Davidson | Republican | Ohio | NAY |
Davis, Rodney | Republican | Illinois | NAY |
DesJarlais | Republican | Tennessee | NAY |
Diaz-Balart | Republican | Florida | NAY |
Donalds | Republican | Florida | NAY |
Duncan | Republican | South Carolina | NAY |
Dunn | Republican | Florida | NAY |
Ellzey | Republican | Texas | NAY |
Emmer | Republican | Minnesota | NAY |
Estes | Republican | Kansas | NAY |
Fallon | Republican | Texas | NAY |
Feenstra | Republican | Iowa | NAY |
Ferguson | Republican | Georgia | NAY |
Fischbach | Republican | Minnesota | NAY |
Fitzgerald | Republican | Wisconsin | NAY |
Fleischmann | Republican | Tennessee | NAY |
Foxx | Republican | North Carolina | NAY |
Franklin, C. Scott | Republican | Florida | NAY |
Fulcher | Republican | Idaho | NAY |
Gaetz | Republican | Florida | NAY |
Gallagher | Republican | Wisconsin | NAY |
Garbarino | Republican | New York | NAY |
Garcia (CA) | Republican | California | NAY |
Gibbs | Republican | Ohio | NAY |
Gimenez | Republican | Florida | NAY |
Gohmert | Republican | Texas | NAY |
Golden | Democratic | Maine | NAY |
Gonzales, Tony | Republican | Texas | NAY |
Good (VA) | Republican | Virginia | NAY |
Gooden (TX) | Republican | Texas | NAY |
Gosar | Republican | Arizona | NAY |
Granger | Republican | Texas | NAY |
Graves (LA) | Republican | Louisiana | NAY |
Graves (MO) | Republican | Missouri | NAY |
Green (TN) | Republican | Tennessee | NAY |
Greene (GA) | Republican | Georgia | NAY |
Griffith | Republican | Virginia | NAY |
Grothman | Republican | Wisconsin | NAY |
Guest | Republican | Mississippi | NAY |
Guthrie | Republican | Kentucky | NAY |
Harris | Republican | Maryland | NAY |
Harshbarger | Republican | Tennessee | NAY |
Hartzler | Republican | Missouri | NAY |
Hern | Republican | Oklahoma | NAY |
Herrell | Republican | New Mexico | NAY |
Herrera Beutler | Republican | Washington | NAY |
Hice (GA) | Republican | Georgia | NAY |
Higgins (LA) | Republican | Louisiana | NAY |
Hill | Republican | Arkansas | NAY |
Hinson | Republican | Iowa | NAY |
Hudson | Republican | North Carolina | NAY |
Huizenga | Republican | Michigan | NAY |
Issa | Republican | California | NAY |
Jackson | Republican | Texas | NAY |
Johnson (LA) | Republican | Louisiana | NAY |
Johnson (OH) | Republican | Ohio | NAY |
Johnson (SD) | Republican | South Dakota | NAY |
Jordan | Republican | Ohio | NAY |
Joyce (OH) | Republican | Ohio | NAY |
Joyce (PA) | Republican | Pennsylvania | NAY |
Katko | Republican | New York | NAY |
Keller | Republican | Pennsylvania | NAY |
Kelly (MS) | Republican | Mississippi | NAY |
Kelly (PA) | Republican | Pennsylvania | NAY |
Kim (CA) | Republican | California | NAY |
Kustoff | Republican | Tennessee | NAY |
LaHood | Republican | Illinois | NAY |
LaMalfa | Republican | California | NAY |
Lamborn | Republican | Colorado | NAY |
Latta | Republican | Ohio | NAY |
LaTurner | Republican | Kansas | NAY |
Lesko | Republican | Arizona | NAY |
Letlow | Republican | Louisiana | NAY |
Long | Republican | Missouri | NAY |
Loudermilk | Republican | Georgia | NAY |
Lucas | Republican | Oklahoma | NAY |
Luetkemeyer | Republican | Missouri | NAY |
Mace | Republican | South Carolina | NAY |
Malliotakis | Republican | New York | NAY |
Mann | Republican | Kansas | NAY |
Massie | Republican | Kentucky | NAY |
Mast | Republican | Florida | NAY |
McCarthy | Republican | California | NAY |
McCaul | Republican | Texas | NAY |
McClain | Republican | Michigan | NAY |
McClintock | Republican | California | NAY |
McHenry | Republican | North Carolina | NAY |
McKinley | Republican | West Virginia | NAY |
Meijer | Republican | Michigan | NAY |
Meuser | Republican | Pennsylvania | NAY |
Miller (IL) | Republican | Illinois | NAY |
Miller (WV) | Republican | West Virginia | NAY |
Miller-Meeks | Republican | Iowa | NAY |
Moolenaar | Republican | Michigan | NAY |
Mooney | Republican | West Virginia | NAY |
Moore (AL) | Republican | Alabama | NAY |
Moore (UT) | Republican | Utah | NAY |
Mullin | Republican | Oklahoma | NAY |
Murphy (NC) | Republican | North Carolina | NAY |
Nehls | Republican | Texas | NAY |
Newhouse | Republican | Washington | NAY |
Norman | Republican | South Carolina | NAY |
Obernolte | Republican | California | NAY |
Owens | Republican | Utah | NAY |
Palazzo | Republican | Mississippi | NAY |
Palmer | Republican | Alabama | NAY |
Pence | Republican | Indiana | NAY |
Perry | Republican | Pennsylvania | NAY |
Pfluger | Republican | Texas | NAY |
Posey | Republican | Florida | NAY |
Reschenthaler | Republican | Pennsylvania | NAY |
Rice (SC) | Republican | South Carolina | NAY |
Rodgers (WA) | Republican | Washington | NAY |
Rogers (AL) | Republican | Alabama | NAY |
Rogers (KY) | Republican | Kentucky | NAY |
Rose | Republican | Tennessee | NAY |
Rosendale | Republican | Montana | NAY |
Rouzer | Republican | North Carolina | NAY |
Roy | Republican | Texas | NAY |
Rutherford | Republican | Florida | NAY |
Salazar | Republican | Florida | NAY |
Scalise | Republican | Louisiana | NAY |
Schrader | Democratic | Oregon | NAY |
Schweikert | Republican | Arizona | NAY |
Scott, Austin | Republican | Georgia | NAY |
Sessions | Republican | Texas | NAY |
Simpson | Republican | Idaho | NAY |
Smith (MO) | Republican | Missouri | NAY |
Smith (NE) | Republican | Nebraska | NAY |
Smith (NJ) | Republican | New Jersey | NAY |
Smucker | Republican | Pennsylvania | NAY |
Spartz | Republican | Indiana | NAY |
Stauber | Republican | Minnesota | NAY |
Steel | Republican | California | NAY |
Stefanik | Republican | New York | NAY |
Steil | Republican | Wisconsin | NAY |
Steube | Republican | Florida | NAY |
Stewart | Republican | Utah | NAY |
Taylor | Republican | Texas | NAY |
Tenney | Republican | New York | NAY |
Thompson (PA) | Republican | Pennsylvania | NAY |
Tiffany | Republican | Wisconsin | NAY |
Timmons | Republican | South Carolina | NAY |
Turner | Republican | Ohio | NAY |
Valadao | Republican | California | NAY |
Van Drew | Republican | New Jersey | NAY |
Van Duyne | Republican | Texas | NAY |
Wagner | Republican | Missouri | NAY |
Walberg | Republican | Michigan | NAY |
Walorski | Republican | Indiana | NAY |
Waltz | Republican | Florida | NAY |
Weber (TX) | Republican | Texas | NAY |
Webster (FL) | Republican | Florida | NAY |
Wenstrup | Republican | Ohio | NAY |
Westerman | Republican | Arkansas | NAY |
Williams (TX) | Republican | Texas | NAY |
Wilson (SC) | Republican | South Carolina | NAY |
Wittman | Republican | Virginia | NAY |
Womack | Republican | Arkansas | NAY |
Zeldin | Republican | New York | NAY |
If you’re still with me after all that scrolling through representatives who don’t seem to give a shit about kids and hide behind bogus Second Amendment claims and either/or falsities regarding gun control and mental health, give your finger a rest and yourself a round of applause. It’s hard to get through that much assholery and still be sane. Morgan Freeman is proud of you, as am I.
It’s always fun to find good examples of horrible things happening in other countries. It makes me realize it’s not just Muricah that is so screwed up.
Enter Lucy Letby. Heard of her? She’s a nurse in England who’s on trial at the moment for the death of seven babies and the attempted murder of 10 others. Letby was working in a neonatal unit and allegedly injected babies with things like air or insulin, causing their deaths.
Ho-ly shit.
The best thing I’ve seen as far as what her defense might be is that she’s just a really, really, really bad nurse. If you ever find yourself in a situation in which the only thing between you and a lifetime in prison is the fact that you suck that hard at your job, well, something’s gone wrong somewhere.
I have no thoughts on whether she’s guilty or not, as I haven’t taken a deep dive into the case. But it does go with something I have often thought. Most of us don’t put much time into choosing people we trust with very important things. I mean, when we’re seeking a doctor, we might poke around on the internet, talk to some friends, read a review or two. Some make choices based on the bio on a website. If you’d like me to write a bio for you in which you, too, are a great doctor, my rates are reasonable.
The fact is, even if a doctor legit went to a great medical school, well, someone has to graduate last in that class, right? Ditto with attorneys and car mechanics. Not only that, but someone has to be the worst nurse or doctor in Muricah, right? So maybe good-ole Lucy was that person.
We’ve all worked with someone like that. You know what I’m talking about. It’s the person who does the thing and then everyone else is like, “Yeah, but we better check that before it goes out.”
If you’ve never had that happen, you just might be that person. Sorry to have to break it to you this way.
Since Then
Since Then … Every morning holds that moment Every mile, a reminder Every night sighs a silent prayer Since Then … The music tends to a hurting heart Harmonizing with the memories of what was Before ripping the wounds open once again Since Then … A million words haven’t fixed what I didn’t know was…
Keep readingToday’s Reasons to Keep Living
- Marcus King Band tonight with Boy The Elder and his girlfriend.
- I can smell the weekend.
- My dog, Luna.
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🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩One in Two? ✌️Isolation 😥Really, HR? 😠 OK ladies, look to your left. Now look to your right. If you’re flanked by two men, one of them likely has been on Pornhub today. I used math today to figure that out. (Proud of me, aren’t ya, Wifey Poo?) I read a…
Keep readingIowa Visit — May 2, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Relays Weekend 🏃♀️Janelle 🤗No Steve 😥 Want to experience something trippy without the benefit of hallucinogens? Return to the place you met your spouse more than 30 years ago with your 20-year-old and 13-year-old sons. The Core Four took a long weekend minus My Favorite African, who was wonderfully cared for…
Keep readingListening Right — April 25, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Drive to Work 🚗Drive to Home 🚗Broken System 💔 I was thinking a lot on the drive to work this morning, which isn’t necessarily anything new. I think a lot, well, a lot. Long drives are usually prime time for me to tap into my intuition and listen to what’s being…
Keep readingBaseball Bookend — April 23, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Sweet Single ⚾Car Delivery 🚗Back/Neck Fixers💆♂️ On the one-year anniversary of that time a jackass piece of crap Little League “coach” did the most un-adultlike thing I have ever seen, Boy The Younger took the field for his new team in the spring’s first tournament. He batted second and started at…
Keep reading3:32 a.m. Thoughts — April 19, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Garbage Can 🗑️Food Insecurity 🍲Poop Smell 💩 The level of significance of a particular task varies based on the time of day. This is something I realized this morning when I hauled my ass out of bed at 5:09 a.m. because of a thought that popped into my brain at 3:32…
Keep readingLiving — April 19, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Alive vs. Living 😔Dental Thoughts 🦷Pronouns 🧑🤝🧑 I am 48 years old, and I realized something today: I have no idea how to live life. This isn’t to suggest I don’t know how to stay alive. I’m OK at that. But the finer points of relationships and communication and working my…
Keep readingTeam Thanos — April 18, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Awww, Snap 😏Office Flood 🌊Potty Mouth 🚽 Boy The Younger is like his old man in a lot of ways. One is that, if we experience something cool, we have a pathological need to have others experience its awesomeness as well. It wounds my soul when I share my music or…
Keep readingFalling Down — April 17, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Fuck Carvana 🚗Stupid Tooth 🦷Cave Woman 😠 I am a huge fan of the 1993 movie Falling Down. The movie stars Michael Douglas. Interesting side note: I once umpired a Little League baseball game for his son and called him out on strikes, which led to a crying temper tantrum. His,…
Keep readingToxic Positivity — April 14, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Stop Being So (Fake) Happy 😊The Better Choice ✔️Checkmate, Motherfucker ♛ I’m not exactly what anyone would call an optimist. Perhaps it’s because I see the world too clearly these days to think that we’re headed anywhere close to the right direction. Some would call me a pessimist, and I’m OK…
Keep readingNickname Need — April 13, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Brown Stockings ⚾I’m A Dentist 🦷Quick Hitters 🐅🦎 If all had gone according to plan, I’d be well into retirement and diving into my money Scrooge McDuck-style after a success career pitching for the New York Yankees. Alas, I’m sitting at my desk in Maryland Heights, Missourah, munching on carrot sticks…
Keep readingDental Malpractice — April 5, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Crowned 👑MFA Moment 😥AI Danger 💻 I remember as a kid getting a filling and hearing that it was real silver being put in my mouth. I figured if times ever really got tough, I could just yank out my tooth, melt the filling and buy food. Yes, these were thoughts…
Keep readingNot Snot — April 4, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Nose Woes 👃African in School 🚌Trumpster Fire 👮 The human body has a way of keeping us humble, especially as we get older. We lose hair where we want it and grow it in abundance where we don’t, we produce ear wax and eye boogers, and 99% of us should never…
Keep readingWTF is a Tiguan? — April 3, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Tiger-Iguana 🐅🦎Cornhole Crushing 🌽Poison M&Ms ☠️ The first time I saw a commercial for the Volkswagen Tiguan, I thought it was a parody. As a marketing guy, I couldn’t fathom how an entire department of highly paid professionals could sit down at a table and decide the best name for a…
Keep readingThe Difficult Thing — April 1, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Closing the Door 🚪Car Shopping🚙Fake Kid-Hater 🧒 Over the course of my life, I’ve gotten used to doing the difficult thing. This often hasn’t been by choice, and it’s never been easy. It’s simply what I’ve had to do. Whether it was facing a pregnancy in which we knew our child…
Keep readingAfrican Arrival — March 31, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Changes and Similarities ✈️Family Drama Update 🎭Close Encounters 🤼♂️ My Favorite African (MFA) has arrived. His plane landed at Lambert International at around 1:15 yesterday, and about 15 minutes later, a kind TSA person allowed us and the woman who accompanied MFA on the flight to violate all sorts of Homeland…
Keep readingAfrican Eve — March 29, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Little D Nears ✈️Familiar Familial Drama 🎭Van O’ Canadians 🍁 My favorite African returns to us tomorrow afternoon. Dieudonne will board a plane from Philly with an escort (not THAT kind … I think, anyway), and land in the STL around 1:15. For the next three or four months, we’ll take…
Keep readingTech Hatred — March 24, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩TikTok Stupidity 😠Back Woes 😧Improv Friends 🎭 There are increasing number of hours each week in which I have a strong desire to throw every piece of connected technology into the nearest lake and move to wherever I have to go to be as far away from any modern gadget as…
Keep readingExit Ramp — March 23, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Anniversary Changes 💍Near Death Experience 💀Dreamcatcher Drama 😳 All relationships change over time. Friendships, parent-child, boss-employee, husband-wife … no matter the relationship, the only constant thing is change. My marriage has changed mightily since it began. When Wifey Poo and I said our vows on March 22, 1997, we were –…
Keep readingBlah — March 22, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Why The Blahs? 😷Anniversary Plans 💍Unpleasant Warnings 🐍 Feeling blah is complicated when you have my medical history. For many people, feeling blah as I’m feeling right now is a clear indication that some sort of illness or infection has invaded the body. But for me — and for many others…
Keep readingFloss Shaming — March 20, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Dentist Visit 🦷Basketball Sucks 🏀Found Husband 👨 No one truly likes going to the dentist. I’ve had people push back on me when I’ve said this before, but when I lay out the following scenario, well, it’s pretty much checkmate: “You just had the most well-respected doctor in the world tell…
Keep readingThe Lunchable Deal — March 18, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Dumb Gubment 🦅Dawg Party 🐶Flying African ✈️ We as modern Muricans tend to just accept that it’s the gubment’s job to educate our children. Of course, when other countries that aren’t our friends do that, we call it “indoctrination,” but that’s a topic for another day. The topic for today is…
Keep readingDeath Cometh — March 17, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Costly Mortality ☠️Crazies, Unite 🤪Defining ‘Appointment’ 🦷 I’m getting ready to die. Sounds ominous, right? Dramatic? Scary? It’s not. Oh yes, in a certain light, it’s depressing as hell. But what it really involved was a meeting with an attorney that Wifey Poo and I had yesterday to figure out exactly…
Keep readingFinishing — March 14, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Books and Stories 📚SVB Lessons 🏦Basketball Party 🏀 Holy crap, you guys! I actually finished something I wrote! In fact, I finished two somethings I wrote! As my regular readers (hey you three!) know, I’ve been stunk in a funk of starting to write books and short stories with gusto and…
Keep readingSorry, Please Continue — March 9, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Podcast Appearance 🎙️The Birth Control Pill Story 🐶Good Tired 🥱 If you would have asked me a few years ago whether I could ever envision myself on a stage in the back room of a dive bar sharing a story about how my dog ate six months of birth control pills…
Keep readingPeaking — March 8, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Pee Mate 🚽Game Maker 🎲Dumb Muricans 🦅 I have been thinking about death a lot lately, not because I’m particularly eager for it to happen or because I’m particularly not eager for it to happen. I guess it’s because I’m a few months shy of my 49th birthday and please-for-the-love-of-God let…
Keep readingThe Return of the African— March 6, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Dieudonne 🌍Hoops Win🏀Cornhole Roll ✔️ In 2021, during some of the darkest and most difficult times in our lives as individuals and couple, Wifey Poo and I did a thing. It was a big thing. It was a challenging thing. It was an amazing thing. But to say it was just…
Keep readingTribe — March 3, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩’Full Stop’ 🛑Needles 💉Business Lessons 🧑💼 Here’s something I learned about myself today: One way to ensure that I will debate you on a topic until I give my last breath or until you are huddled in a corner in a fetal position is to end the statement of your opinion…
Keep readingMindful Commute — March 2, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Mindfulness 🧘Mullet Prez 👩🦳Murder Family 🔪 Our brains are amazing things. So adept are they at routines that they can essentially run on autopilot and let you do the everyday stuff like operating a multi-ton object advancing at 70+ mph among lots of other multi-top objects advancing at 70+ mph without…
Keep readingAfter Life — March 1, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Bloody Hell 💂Circus Moments 🤡Silence 🤫 OK, people: I’ve got a bone to pick with you. But first, a little digression. What in the bloody hell does that phrase mean? “A bone to pick with you?” That sounds absolutely disgusting. And if you’re wondering why I said “bloody hell,” well, that…
Keep readingAngry Marketing Guy— Feb. 28, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩24 Hour Video 😡Rubik’s Kid 🧊Dilbert Doofus 🤪 There are two things I cannot stand in the working world — and in life, in general. The first is people whose lack of preparedness turns ordinary stuff into emergencies. The second is when people criticize the result of something they previous approved.…
Keep readingCorruption, Penis Sizes and Bird Drones — Feb. 23, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Mormon Billionaires 💰Bigger Packages 🍌Birds Really Aren’t Real 🐦 Can we just get on with blowing the tits off the world with nuclear weapons or something and end this stupid thing we call the human race? Yeah, I know that’s a little dramatic, but when I take a look at the…
Keep readingHome of the Hypocrite — Feb. 21, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Muricah The Evil 🦅You Buy You 💰Big-Ass Van 🚚 I find it rather humorous that Muricah warned China not to send arms to one side of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine … and that we issued this warning with a straight face. I’m quite sure most Muricahns believe their country…
Keep readingWal-Mart — Feb. 20, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Salve 🩹Car Wash 🚗💧Light Removal 🎄 I try not to venture too often into a Wal-Mart, especially on the weekend. I cling to slim hope for this nation as it is, and I find Wal-Mart trips do not help my grip. Alas, this weekend, Boy The Younger was under the weather…
Keep readingShit People — Feb. 17, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩CC, BCC, FU 📧Basketball Poll 🏀Andy Rooney 🎙️ This week has largely been a Shit Week marred by Shit People. What are Shit People? They aren’t exactly easy to define, but one hallmark of a Shit Person is his rampant use of the CC function at work to passive-aggressively play power…
Keep readingBrain Rest — Feb. 13, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Chill Day 🛋️Busy Weekend ⚾Halftime 🏈 I’m not working today. Not only am I not working at my day job, I’m not doing any work for my side gig today. I’m not planning on doing much of anything, actually. And I don’t feel guilty about that. This weekend was insanely busy.…
Keep readingDrugs — Feb. 10, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Big Pharma Sucks 💊Work Rules 🧑💼Big Weekend 🏈 Spend any time in front of the television and you’ll see ads touting the latest drugs that you shouldn’t take if you’re allergic to and that you most definitely need to ask your doctor about. Now comes a study showing that the people…
Keep readingMissourah and the Spy Balloon — Feb. 7, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Top 5 🎈Symphony 🎻Living Eulogies 💗 Top 5 things overheard in Missourah last week as a purported Chinese spy balloon made its way over the state en route to its rendezvous with an F22’s missile: Despite my high-brow upbringing in Suburbia, New York, I’m not what anyone would call A Symphony…
Keep readingPokey Joe — Feb. 2, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Space Walk 🧑🚀Bye-Bye Brady 🏈Failure Rate 🐿️ When Boy The Elder was just Boy and devoid of a younger brother, we had a nickname for him: Pokey Joe. BTE didn’t do anything fast, but more than anything, what he did incredibly slow was get out of a car. That would suck…
Keep readingStuck Balls — Feb. 1, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Raccoons 🦝February 💘Man Nips 🕺 Today I bring you the story of a raccoon who got his balls stuck to railroad tracks. But the reason you think I’m bringing you this story is not the reason I’m bringing you this story. You think I’m bringing the story of the raccoon Neil…
Keep reading‘Fuck Tha Police’ — Jan. 28, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Tyre Nichols 😔Tattoo Day ✒️Nephew Hoops🏀 I was a white kid in suburbia, New York, in 1988 when the gangsta rap group N.W.A. came out with its album Straight Outta Compton, featuring the song Fuck Tha Police. It was scandalous, at the time, to suggest that the police would be anything…
Keep readingSnow — Jan. 25, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Car Concert 🎵Sick Wife🤒People Suck 🖕 Within the 24 hours in the run-up to Snowpocalypse 2023, the estimates on the Weather Channel app for our snowfall total ranged from 1 to 10 inches. That’s like going to the doctor and being told you have anything from a splinter to terminal cancer.…
Keep readingSTUPID Goals — Jan. 20, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Mission: Failed 👎Ho 🤣Handy Family 👍 It has to suck to work at the Missouri Department of Transportation. Why? It took exactly 75 minutes for all of 2023 to be a failure. Let me explain. Those of you unfortunate enough to have been involved in any sort of corporate planning process…
Keep readingWriting Retreat — Jan. 15, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Houston 🖊️Sad clown 🤡Taco Seasoning 🌮 Houston, Missourah, is not unlike a lot of other rural Missourah towns through which I’ve driven and bears a resemblance to the Small Town USA in which Boy The Elder did a lot of his early growing up and to which Boy The Younger came…
Keep readingCeilings — Jan. 14, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Definitions 📖Missing Bourbon 🥃Mysterious Knocks 😵 I generally abhor any writing that starts with, “Webster’s dictionary defines …” Webster’s dictionary defines “ceiling” as a noun meaning “the overhead inside lining of a room.” The implication is that it’s a limitation, a max, a point of demarcation between what’s out there and…
Keep readingMovie Ambush — Jan. 13, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Sadness 😥Annoyance 😠Disappointment 😞 When Boy The Elder was Boy The Only in our home, he watched one of the Air Bud movies featuring a basketball-playing dog. Or maybe it was football. Or soccer. By the time that series was over, that dog had played them all. Anyway, whichever Air Bud…
Keep readingAnimal Updates — Jan. 12, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Thor’s Blurry Hammer 🍆Pigeon Delivery 🕊️Idiot List 🤪 Thor is really, really good with his hammer. And by that, I mean that Thor the walrus in Scarborough, England, is really good at masturbating and ruining New Years Eve. If you haven’t heard about this story, stop reading stupid news like politics…
Keep readingBad Boys— Jan. 11, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Bruising Basketball 🏀Poke ☝️Six?!? 🔫 I grew up in the NBA era of the Bad Boys Detroit Pistons while loving a New York Knicks team that was, to put it mildly, quite physical. Guys like Steph Curry and LeBron James can makes basketball seem like artistry these days, but give me…
Keep readingDone — Jan. 10, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩What There is Like! ⛅’Modern Policing’ 🚨Xylophone Time! 🎵 When you decide to talk about a time in which you truly believe you more-or-less died and saw what comes after this life, you have to be comfortable with the fact that people might think you’re nuts. Hell, talking about it on…
Keep readingMedia Landscape — Jan. 6, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Grace Ashford! 📰Idaholy Shit! 🥔Story of the Year! 🍆 The three most influential people in my life as a journalist are, sadly, all part of the Great Newsroom in the Sky now. Professors Michael Perkins and Bob Woodward (AKA Bob Woodward-Not-That-Bob-Woodward) helped educate me at Drake University, and Lisa Warren was…
Keep readingSantos Kills Puppy — Jan. 5, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Poor Puppy 🐶Romeo and Juliet 🤴👸Meta Mistake 🙊 Disturbing news out of Washington, D.C., today as Republican Congressman-elect George Santos (if that’s his real name) brought a 6-month-old puppy to the house floor and screamed “Hey, look at me!” before slitting its throat and lapping up its squirting blood like a…
Keep readingInstitutions — Jan. 4, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩A Pretty Good Rant 😠Tesla Plunge 🚗Missed Lasts 😥 Those of you who regularly read my drivel (I see you, DirtySciFiBuddah) might have become aware of the fact over the past year or so that I am not a huge fan of our world’s modern institutions. All of them might, in…
Keep readingFinishing — Jan. 2, 2023
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Incomplete 🕮Frustration 😠Bowl Bust 🏈 To say that I know how to write is like saying I know how to breathe. No one considers that they know how to breathe. They just … breathe. No one is particularly good at breathing or bad at breathing. Again, they just … breathe. I’ve…
Keep readingFifty Intentions for 2023
Welcome to Issue No. 15 of Listicles, the feature that presents the Top 10, Top 5, Top 3, Top 100 or Top 1,000,000 of whatever it is you want to know about. Email your Listicle suggestions to johnagliata@gmail.com. So last year, I had a list of 100 intentions for 2022, and I did fairly well,…
Keep readingVision Board — Dec. 30, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩2023 📅Helping 🧠The Universe 🔭 I’m not much for long-term plans and goals. This isn’t to suggest I don’t think they’re important. I just think that spending a lot of time on them is futile. What’s the saying? Man plans, God laughs. Something like that. Anyway, I’ve learned through experience that…
Keep readingThe Point of Suffering — Dec. 27, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Chain Links 🔗”Work” 🧑💼Popular Toys 🧸 After my first son died in December 2000, I spent a lot of time wondering why. Why me? Why Wifey Poo? Why Jacob? Why this level of suffering in a world supposedly created and run by an all-loving, all-knowing, all-powerful God? So I did what…
Keep readingFreezing Fans — Dec. 26, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Chiefs! 🏈Indy Tickets 🏎️Bank Visit 💰 When I bought the tickets to the Christmas Eve contest between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Seattle Seahawks as a gift for Boys The Elder & Younger, it was sometime in September and temps hovered around 90 degrees. The thought that the game might…
Keep readingJacob at 22 — Dec. 20, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Timelines 👶Extinctions 🌋Sin City 👌 As I fall deeper down the rabbit hole learning more about theories on space and time, the concept of alternative timelines comes up again and again and again. Whether it’s the stuff of science fiction or one day will be proven to be the stuff of…
Keep readingJoe(y) the Comedian — Dec. 18, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩’Cousin’ Laughs🎤Improv!?!? 🎭Drake Hoops 🏀 Back when I was a boy, I had a favorite Cousin-Who-Wasn’t-A-Cousin. His name was Joey DeVito, and he was in no way a blood relation to me, though I called his father Uncle Frankie and his mother Aunt Celia. I’m pretty sure this is an East…
Keep readingDoughnut Guy — Dec. 17, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Glazed 🍩Bingo! 🖥️Disappearing Christians ⛪ I didn’t intend to bring doughnuts for my co-workers yesterday morning. It just sorta happened. How it happened and how it played out is a window into my weird mind. First, an explanation: I have a card purchased from Boy The Younger that entitles me to…
Keep readingJames and Stinky — Dec. 15, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩STL’s Homeless 😥Snake Hoo-Hoos 🐍That Was Epoch 👴 I found James huddled underneath a blanket as he sat, knees to his chest, head bowed, just outside the doorway of a CVS in the Delmar Loop section of St. Louis. If you’re not familiar with the area, it’s a fun place filled…
Keep readingPaul Silas — Dec. 14, 2022
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Knicks Memory 🏀JBM LLC 🧑🏼💼Brain Drain 🧠 My most memorable interaction with Paul Silas occurred when I was a 17-year-old kid with big dreams of being a sports reporter. I’d talked with Paul before — his wife and Mother Dearest were active in the local Make A Wish Foundation chapter and…
Keep reading