This is the flag of Slovakia. Get nice and familiar with it, Medal Podium. GateHouse — I don’t write about sports very often, which is too bad, since we as a nation are running pretty low on providers of completely superfluous sports commentary (maybe we can get some of you guys on a cable TV show or something), but nevertheless I am here to report the SPORTS SHOCKER OF THE WEEK, one which will melt your face, light your mustache on fire and make it seem like you’re being punched ... Read Full Story

This image contains information about the apocalypse, or something. Island Packet — ‘What do you think about this 2012 madness?” Paul Mitchell asks me via the newsroom’s instant-message system earlier this week. Paul Mitchell is a line of high-end hair care products, but he also is an actual human person who works in the newsroom. At one time Paul, being of a considerably younger vintage, failed to correctly identify Bruce Springsteen on the television. Illogically, we’re friends anyway. The ... Read Full Story

This sort of satisfying resolution will never take place at my house. GateHouse — All I wanted was cable. Silly, empty cable. All I wanted was to establish a new service, to have the cable company ship over a guy named Ray in an aging van to plug the one wire into that box thing and have that be that. This is what I desired and believed possible, having completed this quest successfully many times over the years. Time was, this was not a terrifically difficult proposition, because cable was ... Read Full Story

Well I hope it's a long wedding, because it's going to be a short honeymoon. Island Packet — Have you ever actually sat down and read the instruction manual to a Black and Decker 12-cup coffee maker? I mean, ever really taken it in, absorbed it deeply? Because it’s phenomenal, and not just because it apparently wields the power to score you one hundred thousand dollars. AMERICAN dollars! Which I know is worth about $3,550 now, but it’s still cool. I don’t think I’d ever truly considered the p... Read Full Story

America used to look exactly like this. GateHouse — As is generally the case with most critical holidays, the important negotiations regarding my Halloween took place in a Target — specifically, in the throughway between the G.I. Joe toy aisle and, if I am not mistaken, Dish Soap, categories that pretty well illustrate my own journey through life thus far, come to think of it. Over the previous weeks, the Little Man had whittled his list of costume ideas from approximately 3 million down to t... Read Full Story

Jake "The Snake" Roberts, who could put an end to this whole thing in about two minutes. Island Packet — Well, everything seems to be under control around here. Swine flu is getting good and vaccinated, at least among you chirpy, vivacious Younger People. Windows 7 is out, giving us Mac people another great many reasons to direct smug, self-important smirks at each other (try it, it’s fun). The Balloon Boy’s weird parents will soon be given over to torture, as they should be. Yep, e... Read Full Story

Pictured: Mountie (Non-Sexy Variety) Island Packet – I am not a very good-looking woman, which I think is the primary reason I’m having trouble coming up with a decent Halloween costume this year. (It’s also the main reason I kept getting turned down for sororities, not that I’m still bitter about that, stupid Zeta Tau Alpha, I hate you so much.) Indeed, if you have visited any costume stores lately, you might have noticed that they look less like costume stores and mo... Read Full Story

How is it possible that I am in the positive of decrying people who hate the Bee Gees? Effing Cheney. GateHouse — So it turns out that using music as a means of torture – which is an idea that all music fans have entertained, if not implemented, many thousands of times, mostly depending on how long they’ve been in high school and how many Color Me Badd tapes they currently own – is considerably less funny when you learn that music has actually been used to, what’s the ... Read Full Story

Mike Ness, pictured here rocking faces off. Island Packet — For a number of extremely appropriate reasons, the music of Social Distortion serves as a particularly effective antidote — or at least an accompaniment — to adolescent-era small-town near-panicky Friday night restlessness, which is why theirs was generally the first cassette Aaron Bradshaw would snap into his tape deck on our regular, mostly pointless semi-excursions into northwest Indiana nights (usually the one with “Ball and Chai... Read Full Story

Home Depot is like way all over these guys. GateHouse — In this world there is sadness, and there is gloom, and there is being a fan of the Ohio State Buckeyes, and of course there is the choking, gasping sensation you wake up to every morning knowing that you’re the kind of bargain-bin consumer-mall legless burrowing lizard who would cajole your easily nauseated 6-year-old into being an unknowing hood ornament for some goop-brained balloon-based plot to hoax yourself into a reality tee... Read Full Story