Who ever said that domestic violence and sexual assault are hard subjects to talk about? What’s the deal, NFL?

I applaud the NFL for their recent “No More” campaign, targeting domestic violence and sexual assault. I hope they continue to raise awareness and assist victims in every possible way.

But their recent series of television ads baffle me. The ads, which feature prominent football players staring in silence at the camera, end with the message:

Domestic violence and sexual assault are hard subjects for everyone to talk about. Help us start the conversation.

I don’t think that domestic violence and sexual assault are hard to talk about at all.

Does anyone?

Perhaps it would be difficult to talk about these subjects with my children or my fifth graders. Maybe it would be difficult to discuss if I were the perpetrator of these crimes. But what is so hard about discussing these topics with law-abiding adults?

I honestly don’t get it. I can’t think of a single person in my life with whom I couldn't talk about sexual assault and domestic violence.

What am I missing?

How much would you pay for one more hour in your day. Hint: There is a correct answer, and most Americans got it wrong.

A new survey says that more than half (58%) of Americans are willing to pay cash in exchange for one more hour in their day, and that the average amount that these people are willing to pay for that extra hour is $2,725.

From the TIME piece:

The fact that people are willing to shell out that kind of cash is, well, sad, but also indicative of a larger problem that is unfortunately hard to buy your way out of: An out-of-whack work-life balance.

Am I the only sane person left in this world?

Only 58% of people would pay money to add an hour to their day? What the hell are the other 42% thinking? Do they have any idea how valuable an extra hour a day could be?

Sorry. Stupid question. Clearly they do not.

Time is the most precious commodity on the planet. More valuable than oil or diamonds or fame or even cold, hard cash. Time is a tragically finite resource for which there will never be any replacement.

Time is the great equalizer. We all have 24 hours in a day. No more. No less. If you can get an extra hour on everyone else, you would be an idiot not to pay for it.

If given the opportunity to purchase anything in this world, you should always  purchase time first, and then time again and again and again.

Yet 42% of Americans would apparently not spend even a single dollar for an extra hour a day.

Clearly traumatic brain injury is a more serious problem than I ever imagined. 

Next, let’s look at the amount that the average American would be willing to spend for an extra hour a day: $2725.

Have these people also been hit in the head by large objects?

An extra hour a day for the rest of you life isn’t worth the price of a motorcycle? Season tickets to your favorite baseball team? One-fifth of the average kitchen remodel in America?

I would pay as much as I possibly could for an extra hour a day. I would take out a second mortgage on my home for an extra hour in my day. I would forfeit a year’s salary for an extra hour every day. I would have another child with my wife just so I could trade my third-born child for an extra hour in my day.

An extra hour a day amounts to an extra 15 days a year. That’s an additional year of life every 25 years.

An additional year of life is worth less than $2,700?

People are insane. Stupid and insane. 

Lastly, let’s look at the rant of TIME writer Melissa Locker again:

The fact that people are willing to shell out that kind of cash is, well, sad, but also indicative of a larger problem that is unfortunately hard to buy your way out of: An out-of-whack work-life balance.

Sad? Has Locker been struck in the head by a ballpein hammer, too? Does she not understand the value of an extra hour a day for the rest of your life?

Sorry. Stupid question again. Clearly she does not.

The desire for an extra hour in the day is not sad. It’s not indicative of an out-of-whack work-life balance. Desiring an extra hour every day (and being willing to pay for it) is common sense. It’s logic. It’s an understanding of time on an economic level. A clear-eyed view on how short and precious life is and how valuable one hour a day, seven hours a week, and 365 additional hours every year would be.

Sad to be willing to pay for an extra hour every day? I don’t think so. 

What’s truly sad it how people don’t realize how fragile and tenuous our lives really are. How fleeting our days on this planet will prove to be. How much they will they will have wished for those extra hours when facing the specter of death.

An extra hour every day would be the greatest opportunity imaginable. And the greatest bargain of all time at $2,7o0.

Perhaps I have more in common with the Matthew Dicks of Des Moines, Iowa than just our names and our mug shots

Back in May of 2011, I wrote a post lamenting the fact that a person with the same name as me has been arrested in Des Moines:

Great. Someone who shares my name has been arrested and booked at the Polk Country Jail in Des Moines, Iowa for failure to pay child support.

You’d think my name is difficult enough without guys like this further besmirching it.

Recently, my namesake's girlfriend contacted me, asking me to remove the post. I initially balked at the request. The man’s mug shot is available online on desmoinesmugshots.com. Removing it from my blog wouldn’t remove it from the Internet entirely, and it wasn’t like that post, written more than three years ago, was garnering any traffic.

Then it occurred to me:

I have a mug shot as well. I’ve never seen it, and because it was taken in 1992, it’s unlikely to ever appear on the Internet. But in some police database, a photograph of me exists, alongside the charges of grand larceny and embezzlement.

I was not guilty of those crimes, and I was eventually exonerated at the end of a lengthy and expensive trial, but had I been arrested two decades later, I might be in this man’s same position. My mug shot might be posted on the Internet.

Elysha might be as upset as this man’s girlfriend clearly is.

Truthfully, I don’t even know if this man was guilty of a crime. Like me, perhaps he was falsely accused. There’s no more ardent supporter of the concept of  “innocent until proven guilty” than me.

Wasn’t placing his mug shot on my blog antithetical to that position?

Had it been my image posted on the Internet, I might want my mug shot to appear in as few places as possible, too.

And having been the victim of a widespread, illegal smear campaign later in my life, I understand the pain associated with someone attempting to destroy your reputation.

So I deleted the post. Honestly, I felt bad that I ever posted it in the first place. A Google Alert on my name had probably brought it to my attention, and finding it both coincidental and amusing, I decided to post it to my blog.

But had I thought about how much more that this man and I might have in common beyond just our name, I probably would’ve never posted it to begin with.

Halloween has meant many different things to me depending upon the year. Have your Halloweens followed a similar trajectory?

Halloween is one of the few holidays that has changed completely depending on how old I am.

As a child, I donned a Halloween costume and went trick-or-treating, hoping to accumulate as much candy as possible in the allotted time. I learned to despise homeowners who gave us trail mix or Rice Crispie squares and adore those who were generous enough to offer full sized candy bars to children.

As a teenager, I became more enamored with the tricks and not the treats. Egging the homes and toilet papering the front lawns of deserving teachers and loathsome trail mix dispensers became the order of the day.

As much as I loved trick-or-treating as a child, this was better. More exciting. More dangerous. My favorite of all my Halloween experiences.

My car was once toilet papered by friends so completely that I walked right past it, wondering what poor sucker would be cleaning all that off his car before driving to work.

As a late teenager and twenty-something, Halloween shifted again. It became an excuse to throw a party. The importance of costumes returned, but instead of using them for trick-or-treating, they were an excuse to gather, flirt, and drink excessively. Bobbling for apples became quasi wet tee shirt contests. Princesses became sexy nurses. Plastic, super hero masks became costumes designed to demonstrate your cleverness and creativity to the opposite sex.

As I got older, the costume party scene began to evaporate. Sexy nurses got married. Excessive drinking lost its luster. Until I had children of my own, Halloween became an awkward time when a handful of colleagues dressed up in Halloween costumes during the  work day, and I spent my Halloweens at home, watching horror movies, handing out candy, and feeling lame.

Eventually, I became a teacher, and this filled my Halloween days with classroom parties, costume parades, and the childhood excitement of Halloween that I had long since forgotten.

In an attempt to embrace the excitement, I created short films for school assemblies that terrified children and upset kindergarten teachers. I devised stories to tell my students that (in the words of Mo Willems) scared the tuna salad out of them.

Then my own children came along, so once again I find myself walking the streets of my neighborhood, trick-or-treating. Nowadays, there is responsibility associated with Halloween. I have a peanut-allergic daughter, so I must remain vigilant when inspecting candy. I must be watchful for cars and creeps. I am required to shoot photographs in low light and carry tired children in my arms.

There is a sense of childhood joy in Halloween again, but there is also responsibility and obligation. Wariness and even a tiny bit of worry.

I love it, but it’s not the same as when I was a child. Not even close.

I probably have about a dozen years of this version of Halloween before my children are asking to trick-or-treat on their own. Perhaps the tricks will become more important than the treats for them, too.

I hope so.

I’m not sure what happens to Halloween after that. I would imagine that for many older adults, Halloween becomes an evening of answering doorbells and handing out candy. Little more.

I’ll have to find something better. Something joyous or thrilling or both. I see the excitement in my students’ eyes and my children’s eyes and want to hold onto that. Never let it go.

Maybe I’ll volunteer at a haunted house. Or attend a Rocky Horror Picture Show performance. Or take grandchildren trick-or-treating.

Or maybe I’ll just egg just a few more houses.  

Who is watching these political ads?

The Center for Responsive Politics estimates that nearly $4 billion will be spent on television advertising for the 2014 midterm elections, up from $3.6 billion in 2010. 

My question:

Who is watching these ads?

We’re about two weeks from Election Day, and I have yet to see a single political ad on television. I suspect the same goes for my wife. Granted, we don’t watch much television, but even if you’re among the zombie class of average Americans who watch 6-8 hours of television a day, who isn’t time-shifting their television viewing in order to avoid commercials? More than 70% of American households own a DVR.

People don’t actually watch live television anymore. Do they?

Even if Elysha and I plan to watch a television show on the night that it actually airs, we wait 20 minutes before turning it on so we can bypass the commercials. And if it’s a show on HBO or Netflix or OnDemand, there are no commercials.

Where are people encountering these commercials?

While I’m sure that the viewing habits of every American does not match my own, I can’t imagine that enough people watch television live to warrant spending $4 billion dollars on television ads.

And if I’m wrong, what the hell is wrong with you people? Why are you wasting time watching commercial television? 

So I’m serious. Is anyone actually seeing these political commercials?

Why does this photo make me so sad?

My daughter, waiting for the bus to kindergarten. Her little brother, standing alongside her.

So sweet.

So why does it make me so sad?

Purposeful procrastination: Are slightly lower grades really all that bad?

A new study suggests that students who turn in homework at the last minute get worse grades.

Of the 777 students involved, 86.1 percent waited until the last 24 hours to turn in work, earning an average score of 64.04, compared to early submitters’ average of 64.32 — roughly equivalent to a ‘B’ grade.

But the average score for the most part continued to drop by the hour, and those who turned in the assignment at the last minute had the lowest average grade of around 59, or around a C+.

It’s a bit of a no brainer and something that a reasonable person might have accurately assumed absent this research, but I think a more important question remains unanswered:

Are the procrastinators learning less?

I am a strong advocate of purposeful procrastination in all non-critical tasks. If I report is due to my boss on Friday, I will wait until the last possible moment to begin working on it, filling my time in between with more meaningful and enjoyable tasks. Being constantly concerned with the prospect of death, the last thing I want to do is spend my final day on Earth completing something mundane or ultimately unnecessary that I could’ve been done three days later.

Many think that factoring in the possibility of death into my to-do list is fairly insane, but those critics will die someday, and it will probably be on a crisp, September day spent sorting receipts for next year’s taxes.

As a purposeful procrastinator, I’m left wondering if the procrastinators in this study who are turning in work at the last moment and achieving slightly lower grades are actually learning less, or are their grades merely a reflection of a rushed effort that contains all of the learning required but with less polish?

And if so, do these lower grades actually matter? If the procrastinators and the non-procrastinators are equal in their learning, do the slightly higher grades of the non-procrastinators yield a greater number of job offers? Higher starting salaries? More rapid advancement?

In most cases, I don’t think so.

I’d also love to see the differences in happiness between procrastinators and non-procrastinators. In my admittedly biased and anecdotal experience, the procrastinators of the world seem to be a more relaxed and less anxious group of people. They seem to handle stress and uncertainty better. They appear to be less concerned with the opinions of others. They are not the ardent people-pleasers that aggressive completionists tend to be.

Don’t get me wrong. All procrastination is not good. Allowing your laundry to reach the point that you must devote an entire day to it is not a good idea. Waiting until the last minute to write your novel will probably result in a poor effort. Forgoing your oil change for another 5,000 miles is not a wise decision.

But a fairly innocuous college assignment?

Maybe the slightly lower grade isn’t such a bad thing if you fill the time that you spend procrastinating with something that is meaningful or joyful or more valuable.

And perhaps the process of completing the assignment at the last minute has its benefits as well. By purposefully procrastinating, maybe a person learns to manage stress better. Focus more effectively. Handle uncertainty with greater deftness.

This is the kind of research that I would like to see.

When you choose the name Moxie Marlinspike, you have to expect people to ask about the name. Just answer the question.

I was listening to Moxie Marlinspike, an Internet security researcher, on the most recent episode of Planet Money.

image

Here is the exchange between Mr. Marlinspike and reporter Steve Henn:

Henn: Is that your real name?

Moxie Marlinspike: It is.

Henn: Was it on your birth certificate?

Moxie Marlinspike: No, it was not on my birth certificate, but it’s what almost everyone I have known has called me for most of my life.

Henn: What’s on your credit cards?

Moxie Marlinspike: Ah… which credit card?

Henn: You have a credit card with Moxie Marlinspike?

Moxie Marlinspike: Well, okay, I’m curious why you want to know?

Henn moves on (or edits out the rest of the exchange), but I’d like to answer Moxie’s question, because I want to know.

You see, Moxie, since you are an Internet security and privacy expert, I’m wondering if your apparent pseudonym is used to thwart the hackers who you spend so much of your life attempting to thwart.

It seems like pseudonyms might be relevant given your line of work.

If so, that’s interesting. I’m wondering if it’s effective.

If that’s not the reason (and I suspect that it’s not since your Wikipedia page lists two other names), I’d like to know why you changed your name to Moxie Marlinspike, because it's a fascinating choice of a name and may indicate something interesting about you.

It says even more when the man who chooses Moxie Marlinspike avoids answering questions about the origins of the name.

Add to this the fact that you possess a master Mariner’s license and a love for the sea (facts I found on your own website), and the last name Marlinspike seems to take on even greater meaning.

In short, your obvious dodging of the name questions (not to mention your initial attempt to obfuscate the truth by indicating that it was your real name) leads me to believe that the story behind your name amounts to little more than a man who wanted a name that was cooler than the one his parents assigned but is uncomfortable admitting to this fact.

I could be wrong. This is an enormous and perhaps erroneous assumption, but you sounded so defensive. So annoyed. There may be a damn good reason for the name. Maybe there’s an amusing (or less-than-amusing) story behind the name. If so, may I suggest you simply answer the question of whether or not your name is real with something like:

“It’s not my legal name, but it’s the name that I use, therefore it’s real. It’s a long and uninteresting story about how the name came to be.”

But the fact that you wouldn’t answer the reporter’s questions (and sounded fairly defensive while refusing), and the fact that the questions seemed fairly relevant considering the unusual nature of your made-up name and the fact that he was reporting on your company, which specializing in protecting your clients’ anonymity, leaves me assuming the worst. Unjustifiably, so perhaps.

And perhaps part of this assumption has to do with my own life history. 

When I was nineteen, I told girls who I met while on vacation that my name was Gunner Nightwind, mostly because I was an immature douchebag. 

I’m not saying that this is the case with you, but you haven’t given me much else to go on.

The dark is coming.

My two year-old son has become fond of looking off into the distance and saying, “Uh oh. The dark is coming.”

I worried that I’m living in a Stephen King novel. Or one of the Terminator films. I hope he doesn’t know something I don’t know.

Open a toy. Record. Make a fortune.

My wife made me aware of the inexplicable existence of YouTube videos that feature the removal of toys from their packaging.

That’s it. Someone purchases a Transformer or a Barbie Doll or a SpongeBob Squarepants action figure and opens the toy on camera.

And millions of people watch.  

I can’t imagine who the audience is for these videos. Are little kids flocking to YouTube to watch their favorite toy emerge from it’s plastic cocoon? Is there a Brony-like brand of adult who is fascinated by this? Is this some kind of fetish that I can’t understand? 

I don’t know.

I didn’t believe Elysha when she told me that these videos existed, so I started watching this one, which had ten million views at the time, waiting for something to happen.

Something… anything other than toys emerging from plastic.

Nope. Toys removed from packaging. That’s it.

The world is a strange, strange place.

What is the best way to invest one dollar?

Melissa Batchelor Warnke of The Morning News asks: Say you had a buck in your hand: What would be the best way to invest it?

The piece features answers by two dozen people—a JP Morgan associate, a sex worker, a pastor, a living statue, a marine, and many more.

There are some great answers. My favorites come from the professional escort and the founder of DreamNow.

There are some stupid answers, too.

I’ve been struggling with three possible answers to this question, but after much internal debate, I have finally settled on one.

My runners-up include:

• Take my children to a penny candy shop. Allow them to purchase as much candy as possible. Walk to a park and devour the candy while we play.
• Find a company where I would love to work. Ideally a startup of some kind in a field that intrigues me. Call the CEO, the human resources director, or whoever else is responsible for hiring. Offer to buy them a cup of coffee in exchange for 30 minutes of their time. Attempt to win them over and land a job.

But my winning answer is this:

Purchase a notebook. Begin writing my next novel.

My wife’s answer was also excellent.

Download a song that is guaranteed to make me happy regardless of  the circumstance or the number of times played.

Apparently there are two such songs:

Van Halen’s Jump and Hall & Oates You Make My Dreams Come True.

What were the three most important decisions of your life?

A recent Quora question asked, “What were the three most important decisions of your life?”

I’ve been debating this question for almost a month, and I have finally settled on three. While many decisions could have occupied these three spots, I decided to favor the toughest and most unlikely decisions of my life rather than the ones that were easy and obvious.

For example, deciding to marry Elysha is probably the most important decision of my life, but it was barely a decision. Who wouldn’t want to marry Elysha if given the chance? It was a no-brainer.

Instead, I found three extremely important decisions in my life that could have gone either way and changed the course of my life forever.

1. Maintaining my innocence when charged with grand larceny and embezzlement.

While being questioned about a crime that I did not commit, the police almost had me convinced to confess to the crime rather than risk a lengthy prison sentence. I spent a minute in a mop closet pondering that decision and ultimately decided to stick to the truth, but it was a close call. The police can apply a great deal of pressure in these moments, particularly when you are a 19 year-old kid without any parents, any money or an attorney.

The result was a brief period of homelessness, 18 months spent working 80 hours a week at two different jobs in order to pay a $25,000 attorney’s bill, a permanent case of post traumatic stress disorder as a result of an armed robbery, and a trial where I was found not guilty.

Had I confessed and accepted their plea deal, I could not have become a teacher. 

2. Choosing West Hartford Public Schools over Newington Public Schools.

In the summer of 1999, my hometown of Newington, CT had offered me a permanent position as third grade teacher in one of their elementary schools. I was asked for a day to consider their offer, but the wait time was merely perfunctory. I was taking the job.

During that 24 hour period, I received a call from a principal in West Hartford requesting an interview. Out of curiosity more than anything else, I agreed to speak to him that day. Three hours later, he had offered me a one year position covering a second grade teacher on maternity leave.

The permanent position in Newington would have been the wise and sensible choice. It was in my hometown and would provide me with long-term stability in a time when teaching jobs were hard to find. But I was impressed by the principal, his commitment to children, and his support for the arts. After much debate, I decided upon the one year position in West Hartford, and 16 years later, I am still teaching in the same school.

 

That decision changed my life. I met my wife while teaching at that school school. I met five of my closest friends while teaching, including the principal, who has since retired but remains one of my closest friends today. I met my son’s and daughter’s god parents while teaching at that school. Many of my former students are my children’s favorite babysitters, and one of my first students is our primary babysitter and like a member of the family.

I was given the freedom to create a classroom environment that placed reading, writing, and theater at its core, and I have developed a teaching philosophy that has led to much success in my field. I was named Teacher of the Year in West Hartford and was a finalist for Connecticut Teacher of the Year.

I started playing golf, a game that I love beyond all others, thanks to the friends I met at that school, and ultimately wrote a book about it. 

The school’s community, teachers, students, and parents, have become a second family to me. When my job and my future were threatened several years ago, they rallied around me in ways I could have never expected.

3. Saying yes when my best friend asked me to start a wedding DJ company with him.

In 1997, I was attending Trinity College and Saint Joseph's University fulltime, working on degrees in both English and elementary education. I was also managing a McDonald’s restaurant fulltime and tutoring students part-time at the college’s writing center. I was writing for the college’s newspaper. I was the Treasurer of the Student Senate.

I was busier than I had ever been in my life.

Then Bengi called and asked if I wanted to be a wedding DJ, even though we had no experience or equipment or knowledge of the industry, and I said yes.

Seventeen years later, we remain in business. I have entertained at more than 400 weddings in that time. The DJ company has provided me with much needed income through the lean times of my life.

I met one of my best friends while working as the DJ at his wedding, and that friendship has led to me becoming a Patriots season ticket holder. That same friend led me back into writing when I had given up hope on ever becoming a novelist and professional writer.

I would not have a writing career today had it not been for him. 

I unknowingly gained 17 years of public speaking experience, which allowed me to step into the world of storytelling and public speaking three years ago with unexpected ease and success. I won my first Moth StorySLAM in large part to the experience I gained as a DJ.

I have since competed in 24 Moth StorySLAMs in New York and Boston and won 12 of them. I’ve told stories for Main Stage shows and GrandSLAM championships and many other storytelling organizations in New York, Boston and Hartford. I would not be the storyteller and speaker I am today had I not worked for almost two decades as a wedding DJ.

 

Telling stories for The Moth led to the founding of Speak Up, the Hartford-based storytelling organization that my wife and I founded last year. In a little over a year, we have produced eight sell out shows, launched a series of storytelling workshops, and have now been approached by outside venues, asking us to take our show on the road.

The DJ business also led to me becoming ordained as a minister. I have presided over almost 20 weddings, one baptism, and three baby naming ceremonies in that time.

I’d love to hear your three most important decisions if you’re willing to share. Post in the comment sections. Send me an email. Contact me through social media.

The question all successful people can answer immediately: What’s your super power?

Serial entrepreneur Tina Roth Eisenberg says that all the most successful people she’s met have been able to answer this question immediately:

What is your super power?

From TIME:

John Maeda, who led the MIT Media Lab and Rhode Island School of Design, responded with “curiosity.”

Maria Popova, who curates the popular Brain Pickings blog by reading 12-15 books a week, said “doggedness.”

Eisenberg’s own superpower? Enthusiasm.

Knowing your superpower means you know yourself well enough to have a focus, and that’s the same competitive advantage that makes you so great at what you do. It’s the quality you’re most proud of, the one thing that makes you stand out, and what gives you an edge over everyone else.

My wife claims that my super power is productivity, but what she really means is efficiency. I get a lot done, but it’s in large part because of the systems of managing work that I have developed.

It’s not magic, as much as some people may think. It’s not even hard work (although it does require hard work). It’s a combination of focus, determination, and a willingness to spend time and effort developing streamlined processes for my work. 

But I would drill down even further and get even more specific. I think my real super power is my ability to rapidly and seamlessly shift between projects without a reduction in quality or loss of efficiency, which allows me to work on many things at one time.

On Monday, for example, I completed a re-write for a musical, finished writing the first chapter of a non-fiction book, wrote about 10 pages of my screenplay, worked on two different novels, worked on a story for a Moth event, and completed tasks for my DJ company and Speak Up.

I shifted between all of these projects quickly and without loss of productivity, and I didn’t require an artisanal latté, a communal table made from refurbished railroad timber, or any smooth jazz to do so. I worked in many different locales at times ranging from 4:00 AM to 10:30 PM.

That is my super power.   

My wife’s super power, by the way, is her ability to endear herself to every  person of every type almost instantly. People automatically love Elysha. It’s as if humanity’s default setting is almost instantaneous love for her.

I wonder if she would agree.

Three questions:

1. What is your super power?
2. Were you able to answer the question almost immediately?
3. If you know me well, do you agree with the super power that I have proposed?

Are toddlers really smarter than the elderly?

A friend of mine works in the healthcare industry helping people to quit smoking by providing strategies and incentives to those who are willing and able to quit.

Using a breath sensor that attaches to the iPhone, he is able to remotely monitor a person’s respiration output and even determine if the person is being honest about the amount of smoking that he or she has done in the previous week. 

One of his greatest challenges is with the technology. Many of his clients are elderly, and they  have great difficulty navigating the iPhone’s interface.

I find this astounding. My not-yet two year-old son can take my iPhone, close the app that I am using, swipe to an app three screens away, open the folder with the app, open the app, and begin playing a game more complex than any game that I ever played on the Atari 2600 when I was a kid.

If a two-year old can navigate the technology, why can’t an 80 year-old?

Sincerely. I don’t get it.

   

Will my daughter miss out on the culture of cruel pranks and purposeful, public embarrassment because she is a girl? If so, I’m sad. Also, why?

Men can somehow be incredibly cruel to one another, in a very protracted and public ways, and not damage their friendships at all.

Pranks are accepted in male culture. They are encouraged. Embraced.

They may actually serve to strengthen friendships over time.

The more elaborate and cruel the prank, the better.

The prank that these minor league baseball players played on their teammate, Jeff Francoeur, is hilarious and incredibly embarrassing. Not only did they make him look foolish, but they created a film to document the prank and posted it online, where it’s received more than a million views already.

Still, I have no doubt that the relationship between Jeff Francoeur and his teammates remains unaltered and unharmed. He may be embarrassed, and he may be plotting revenge, but he’s not angry.

This is how man are.

I don’t see this same phenomenon in female culture. Perhaps I’m wrong, but the elaborate prank, the public acts of cruelty and the constant attempts to embarrass or derail your friends for the sake of amusement are not things that I see women regularly embrace.

Women don’t seem to prank one another. At least not with the frequency that men do.

As a man, I’d be hesitant to prank a woman, especially in a public way. 

As the father of a little girl, it makes me sad to think that she may miss out on the joy of prank culture. Some of the pranks that I have perpetrated and been victim to are some of my all-time favorite memories.

When I was 17 years-old and working at McDonald’s, my friends waited for me outside the restaurant, near the dumpster, knowing that I would be bringing out the trash soon. As I lifted the first bag into the dumpster, they emerged from their hiding places (four guys in all), dragged me to the ground, held me down and tickled me in front of fellow employees and customers for a solid minute before sprinting to their cars and driving off. 

I’ll never forget it. It was horrible and embarrassing and even a little  terrifying at first, but it was hilarious, too.

I have dozens, if not hundreds, of memories like that. 

I’d hate to think that Clara won’t enjoy similar moments in her life because she’s a girl.

Tell me I’m wrong.

If no one believes your lie, what’s the point?

North Korean reports that dictator Kim Jong-un has been “reelected” with 100 percent of the vote. Kim also won every single vote in his district on Mount Paekdu with 100 percent turnout.

I understand the value of propaganda, but wouldn’t it make more sense to have your propaganda sound believable?

Or at least mildly plausible?

I don’t get it. What’s the value of making a claim that no one believes?

I’ve always thought that a library fine was a good thing. Unexpected income. Some librarians have disagreed. Am I wrong?

From a piece in the Hartford Courant entitled Wethersfield Library Begins ‘Food For Fines’ Program:

For a limited time, Wethersfield Library patrons can pay their overdue fines with a can of beans or a jar of spaghetti sauce.

The library's Food for Fines program, which began Monday and lasts through the end of August, donates the items to the town's food bank, Library Director Laurel Goodgion said. The library runs the program every year, she said.

"People like doing it," Goodgion said. "It gives them a way to feel good paying off their fines."

I have always been a person who doesn’t mind paying fines for overdue books. I’ve always considered it my way of supporting the library. And because I’m never borrowing a new release, the books that I borrow are presumably not in demand. No one else is waiting for them when I am finished reading. I’ve never been accused of making another patron wait for a book.

In my mind, my fines have always been favors for the library.

Unexpected income.

Some librarians have disagreed.

While I admire and respect librarians a great deal, I have run into one or two in my time who become genuinely angry when I return an overdue book. It typically occurs when the librarian attempts to scold me for my tardiness, and I respond with a smile and a comment over how happy I am to pay the fine.

One time the discussion became so heated that I stormed out of the library and charged into the restroom in the outer hallway, only to find myself standing over a half-naked woman sitting on the toilet.

Her fault for failing to lock the door on the single occupancy restroom, but had I not been so angry, I may have offered a courtesy knock before entering.

While I understand that one of a librarian’s duties is to safeguard books and other media on behalf of the general public, I have never understood the emotional response that has occasionally greeted me.

The system of overdue fines serves a purpose. If I am late in returning a book, the library (and thereby the general public) is compensated for my lateness.

And it’s not as if I’m paying a fine for speeding or failing to stop at a crosswalk, which endangers the lives of others. It’s a fine for a book that I kept for three extra days.

Can’t we be a little happy that the book is being returned along with some unexpected cash?

I’d even be happy to pay more. Increase the fines if necessary. I’m more than happy to contribute to the library. Perhaps the increased fine would increase my chances of returning the book on time. At the very least, it may give librarians a reason to smile while collecting the fine, knowing the money will support the institution that they and I love.

Am I wrong about this?

Toys don't mean as much when you're not allowed to play indoors.

My siblings and I did not take good care of our toys.

We did not keep track of pieces. We were never careful with fragile parts. We smashed and crashed and broke our toys at every turn.

We would throw our toys out of our second floor bedroom window onto the driveway just to see what would happen. We would tie rope to action figures and drag them along the road as our mother drove down the highway.

Considering that we had very little growing up, this has always surprised me. I’ve often wondered why we didn’t take better care of the little we had.

I watch the way that my wife takes care of our children’s toys today, trying to keep every piece of every train set and Lego set together and repairing toys when they break, and it makes me wonder about my childhood even more.  

It has baffled me. Why were children with so little so careless?

Then I had a thought.

As children, we played outdoors at every moment possible. We were sent outside after breakfast and invited back inside only for lunch and dinner. We were sent out in the rain and the snow. Only extreme weather kept us indoors.

We has few restrictions on where we could go, so the world was our playground. We had fields and orchards to sprint across, trees to climb, forests to explore and ponds and rivers and streams to splash through. We had a barn in our backyard that we used as a clubhouse, a poorly maintained pool for swimming and bicycles that could take us anywhere.

We never had time for toys. When you are required to play outside all the time, toys quickly lose their meaning. Action figures, stuffed animals, board games, and Matchbox cars are nothing compared to a fishing pole, a bicycle, a length of rope, a baseball glove and acres of unsupervised forest and field.

Perhaps we didn’t take great care for our toys because we never had time to play with them the way my wife did as a child and my children do today. We were so rarely inside our home that we never even saw most of our toys on a daily basis.

Maybe we threw toys out of our bedroom windows in the same way that our parents tossed us out of the house everyday.

This makes sense to me. It feels right. I think I’ve found an answer.

Facebookless friends

It just occurred to me:

My three closest male friends are not on Facebook. Two have no accounts whatsoever, and the third has an account that he has never used. 

I can’t decide if I have the most impressive assemblage of friends in the world or simply a collection of Luddites.

What kind of food is this?

I was visiting the pretend diner at Kid City, a local children’s museum. I was sitting at a Formica table, waiting for my daughter to serve me some plastic food on a plastic plate.

These are the two items she placed in front of me.

I honestly have no idea what either of these things are supposed to be. Nor did my wife.

Thoughts?