Category Archives: General

Now that social networks are the preferred mode of online interaction, I don’t blog as much as I used to. I’m lucky if I write in this space more than once a month. But I do spend a lot of … Continue reading →

A bomb explodes. You hear it. You’re just a few blocks away from the bombing site. A man runs up to you: “Help me, help me! A bomb just exploded and I left my phone in there! I can’t call … Continue reading →

One of my daily diversions is the Washington Post Crossword. It’s a pretty good puzzle, often quite witty, and most importantly, it’s free. But one thing about the puzzle has always bothered me: The descriptive text. Here it is. It’s … Continue reading →

The time has come to start work on my next project. About a month ago, I finished a draft of a memoir about my bout with melanoma last year, and while I think it’s kind of interesting, I don’t expect … Continue reading →

The news these days is filled with Tea Party wackos trying to explain to the rest of us exactly why it makes sense to oppose a raise to the debt limit. This one, highlighted by Steve Benen, is priceless: “It … Continue reading →

The Wall Street Journal recently published an infographic that is producing all sorts of shocked disbelief in the social media circles I frequent: The general gist of the comments in Facebookistan is that no one “really” makes the kind of … Continue reading →

There was shocking news about a near-miss of an asteroid a couple days back. But how much danger were we really in? According to the linked article, the asteroid passed within 230,000 km. That’s closer than the moon! But for … Continue reading →

I’m a fairly regular reader of Slate, and if there’s one thing you should never do on Slate, it’s mistake what’s in the headline for what’s in the article. Obviously the headline writers are playing a different game from the … Continue reading →

sciseekclaimtoken-506c621adf619 Kevin Drum doesn’t like loyalty cards. I agree, I don’t either. Obviously the only reason stores want you to have loyalty cards is so they can track your purchases and figure out additional ways to make money off of … Continue reading →

This week I underwent a minor outpatient surgery procedure. I have insurance, so the procedure was covered. But I found the breakdown of costs quite illuminating [these are approximations, given me over the phone, but they are close to the … Continue reading →

I learned something new today: The Unabomber believes in global warming. Therefore, since the Unabomber is a bad person, the theory of global warming must be false. sciseekclaimtoken-4fbf7c404ec3a Lots of other fun facts follow from this line of reasoning. For … Continue reading →

Well, that went by fast. Today Word Munger turns eight. Eight years ago, blogging was still a relatively new thing. I had had a livejournal blog before that, and a static web page with regular updates before that, but Word … Continue reading →

June 11, 2011. I’m here in Moab, Utah, enjoying some quality adventure travel with my daughter Nora, who’s the only member of the family other than me who’s even remotely interested in anything with “adventure” in its description. We spent … Continue reading →

Today Word Munger turns seven! That’s right, I’ve been filling this space with my musings for seven full years—or even longer if you count the original Word Munger, a hand-coded satire site I started wayyyy back in the year 2000. … Continue reading →

10. Ten? Why ten? Don’t some topics merit, say a top-20 list? Or on the other hand, sometimes there are only a few deserving items, so the list ends up getting padded with pointless choices. 9. Like this one. 8. … Continue reading →

As of this morning, I weighed 200 pounds. That’s the least I’ve weighed since the early 1990s. At one point in the late 90s, with the stress of running a business and two small children, I weighed as much as … Continue reading →

For the past two months I’ve been running with a new toy, a GPS trainer that tracks (almost) exactly where I’ve run and how fast I ran. Lately I’ve been improving a whole lot, which has been extremely gratifying. But … Continue reading →

I’m not feeling very inspired today, so how about a meme, courtesy of Kevin Drum. The higher you score, the more non-elitist you are. 1. Can you talk about “Mad Men?” No. 2. Can you talk about the “The Sopranos?” … Continue reading →

WordPress has upgraded. Why is it that every time I “upgrade,” my old theme no longer works? Now I’m using the standard, generic theme. Nothing wrong with that. But I wish there was some way to get the upgrade process … Continue reading →