Do the Yak

I left work at about 5:10 p.m. last night, It usually takes an hour or a bit less until I'm walking in the door. Last night? Not so much. I stood on the platform in Kendall for about half an hour until a train came -- packed like sardine can, naturally -- and I literally couldn't get on. (Meanwhile, a train going the other way was sitting at the opposite platform with its doors open. For about 20 minutes.) But my patience was rewarded, or so I thought, when 10 minutes later another train arrived, and I crammed myself into the last few cubic inches of space by the door -- which also satyed open as the minutes dragged by. I overheard another passenger say it had taken the train 45 minutes to get to where I was from Park Street (two stops). That's about when thought to myself, "Do I really want to be snuggling upright with my fellow commuters for an indefinite period in a train packed to tight that I can't even move my arms enough to get at my iPhone or magazine?&q

Usually Ben has little interest in this blog, but recently he actually suggested that I post something here -- something that tells a profound and historic story in images. I'll let him take it from here... Ronnie James Dio apparently is credited with inventing the heavy-metal hand sign that means "You rock!" In doing a bit more digging on the web, the honor also seems to have been claimed for Gene Simmons and even John Lennon. Won't they all be shocked to realize that the gesture was actually invented in Farmingdale, N.J., by Jewish chicken farmers. The historically important moment was recently discovered in a photo taken on February 24, 1946 at the wedding of none other than my parents (Ed. note: from left to right, person #1 and #3; person #2 is unknown but looks somewhat menacing and/or drunk.) Look carefully at this picture and you'll see one of the invited guests expressing his enthusiasm for the wedding, proudly proclaiming, "You rock, and d

The aging brain. Perhaps instead of a senior moment, you could call it a WTF moment (in which the W stands for "where") By the way, we're supposed to get another foot and a half of snow in the next two days. If we hadn't bought that snowblower, we'd either be hundreds or even thousands into a plowing service, or dead of a heart attack about two weeks ago.

This can be verified by reading Steam Me Up, Kid (the same genius who brought you the classic Adventure of a Lifetime, Now With More Lethargy ). * * * First day back at work after Christmas vay-cay. We basically slept our asses off and watched a shitload of TV, because we're an active, on-the-go family like that. But not jusst any TV -- high-quality streaming Netflix (thanks for the Roku box, Chanukkah bunny!) including, most recently, "Grumpy Old Men" (Burgess Meredith as Jack Lemmon's horny old father: "Looks like he's taking old One-Eye to the optometrist!") and season 1 of "Soap," which I'd never seen. LOVE the young Billy Crystal, though I was expecting his character to be a cross-dresser or something more flamboyant -- based, I guess, on my vague memory at the time of how controversial the show was. Ironically, Wikipedia says it was attacked by conservative Christians (no surprise there) but also by gay groups who felt the chara