Tag Archives: James L’Etoile

How Did We Survive? The Grumpy Guy’s Guide

The other day I asked a youngish kid, maybe 10 years old, to kindly not play behind my car, in my driveway, because it wasn’t very safe. Her response to me was, “I don’t have to. I can play wherever I want.” Which led me to: Only the strong survive… How did we manage to […]

Have you tried plugging it back in?

I swear I was completely sober when this all began. Maybe “completely” isn’t accurate, but the point is, customer service drove me to drink. I should rewind a few days and start from the beginning, then you can get all judgey on my level of sobriety. It’s all about customer service and the times we […]

How It All Began…

Meet George Black. George was ordinary guy. A guy who put in his 40 hours (plus or minus) slaving away at a dead-end job, in some soul-sucking factory where he polished widgets. Day in and day out, George clocked in and clocked out. Mind numbing drudgery. At the end of the week he’d collect his pay, a […]

Are You Outraged?

Outrage! You see expressions of outrage everywhere. It’s on social media, television, and you can find it in your neighborhood. We seem to be outraged about something, all the time. Therein lies the problem. We’ve cheapened outrage by overuse. Not all outrage is created equal. There is righteous indignation and then there is the self-possessed […]

A Message from the Great Beyond

I’m not a guy who sees supernatural forces lurking in all the dark shadows. There’s enough real bad stuff out there without leaving it to my twisted little mind. But… Do ghosts exist? I mean is there something out there trying to establish contact with us on this side of the great dirt nap? All […]

The Spam Game – What does your spam say about you?

I’m overwhelmed with spam. These unsolicited messages are a waste product of all of our new fangled technology and electronic lifestyle. Spam defies a concise definition. It’s like porn — you know it when you see it. If I were a sensitive little buttercup and overthought the subject line of each spam e-mail in my in-box, I […]

An Unexpected Windfall

Since I’m the “Not Independently Wealthy” kind of guy, I’m always looking for get rich quick schemes sound investment strategies. Halloween, as it turns out is a vastly ignored windfall of untapped economic opportunity. You won’t find a free seminar, or an an e-mail from Ethiopian Prince on this little venture. It doesn’t require a chain […]

The Petting Zoo

The Petting Zoo is something that’s been around for almost one hundred years. (The first Children’s Zoo opened in London in 1938. Feel free to impress your friends and family with this fun fact). The city kids went to  the Petting Zoo at the local carnival and got to see what a cow, or sheep looked […]

After The Dust Settles – Burning Man

Several thousand years from now, alien archeologists will examine the burnt strata of our planet and conclude we were a shallow species, bent on self destruction. They will judge us on our mummified remains, adorned with metal piercings, body art and bong resin. After careful analysis, the archeologists will sanitize and quarantine the planet to […]

5 Life Lessons From Walking the Dog

I had a bit of an epiphany during the morning dog walk. The act of walking is good for the dogs, good for me, but it represents much more. Like most things in life, if we rush through the walk to get it over with to cross off an item on the never-fricking-ending-to-do list, we’re missing […]