by Mark O'Brien | Apr 30, 2015
I don’t know if I’m your garden-variety hoarder. But I do tend to be a rather indiscriminate and prolific accumulator of thoughts. And I like to hang onto them until two or more present common threads in some form or fashion. In this instance, three of...
by Mark O'Brien | Apr 29, 2015
Here’s one of the most commonly dispensed, least-examined admonitions I can think of: “Don’t burn your bridges.” Provided you exercise at least a modicum of discernment and discrimination, why not? To establish the point, I offer this brief,...
by Mark O'Brien | Apr 17, 2015
I know of only one person like Norm Crosby. That would be Norm Crosby, who’s also the only person I know who could make a career out of malaprops. The rest of us typically have to make careers out of avoiding them. In fact, Christina Desmarais recently wrote an...
by Mark O'Brien | Apr 13, 2015
I’ve identified a new psychological phenomenon. I’ve called it The Gatsby Syndrome. Because we just can’t get enough abbreviations, I refer to it as TGS. I’ve created a foundation through which to study it. I’m going to try to get it...
by Mark O'Brien | Apr 7, 2015
In the past, we’d have said the younger of my two younger brothers, Ben (to protect his privacy, this is not his real name), is mentally retarded. In these enlightened times, we’re more likely to say he’s intellectually disadvantaged, synaptically challenged, or...
