by Mark O'Brien | Jan 4, 2021
The phrase, I feel like, has become another blight on the language. It’s the equivalent of a synaptic knee-jerk. It’s something to fill time and conversational space, without thinking, in the hope that the person or people with whom you’re speaking...
by Mark O'Brien | Dec 21, 2020
Jack Dorsey, co-founder and CEO of Twitter, was born 13 years after “Things Go Better With Coke” was adopted by Coca Cola as its promotional slogan in 1963. And he was born seven years after it was retired by Coca Cola in favor of “It’s the...
by Mark O'Brien | Dec 14, 2020
This year has been one of distraction and disorientation. With the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, myriad questions have been part of our daily lives: Are we going to die? Are we even going to get sick? If masks prevent the spread of the virus, why do we have to...
by Mark O'Brien | Dec 7, 2020
I was listening to a podcast the other day. Hosted by a local news and sportscaster, the podcast featured a local meteorologist. Said meteorologist had formerly been the Chief Meteorologist at one of the local TV stations, until he committed the cardinal sin of making...
by Mark O'Brien | Nov 30, 2020
If you happened to stay away from your TV and keep 50 bucks in your pocket last Saturday night, you missed the sad spectacle of two fat guys in their 50s conducting a series of sad, two-minute dances in a boxing ring in Las Vegas. As Roseanne Roseannadanna loved to...
by Mark O'Brien | Oct 27, 2020
If you’re an excitable boy like me, you can get really juiced over headlines. This one, for example, grabbed me by the tonsils: “Scientists discover new organ in the throat.” My first thought, of course, was that someone had found a new, original...
