I wish I were an evil genius. My wife says I don't qualify ... on either count. Which is exactly the kind of snippy comment I wouldn’t have to tolerate if I were an evil genius.

Take a look at a really good, top-level evil genius like Goldfinger or Dr. Drakken or that guy who invented the shrink-wrap on CDs. With their success in the art of evil, they have entire staffs of thugs and minions and henchmen to keep their various other thugs, minions and henchmen in line. As a middle-manager I'm not allowed to have a single minion, let alone a henchman or thug. (It turns out that HR has all of these fussy rules against job descriptions which include the words "kill", "maim" or "at the whim of your supervisor".)

Still, it's kind of fun to daydream what it would be like to be the head of an evil organization........

If there’s a better way to spend a Saturday morning than hiking halfway up a mountain and crawling into a hole in the ground, I don’t know what it is.

Honestly.

Don’t you think if I’d have had a better idea I would have been doing it? Instead, one recent Saturday found me standing halfway between heaven and earth getting ready to crawl into...well, into a really dark place.

The dark place in question is a popular Utah tourist destination called Timpanogos Cave. It is conveniently located a dozen or so miles up a winding canyon road. Tourists who are brave enough to drive to the Visitor’s Center are rewarded with the opportunity for a mile-and-a-half hike up the mountainside to the cave entrance. You would think that a tourist destination would have been better planned; like Stonehenge which the druids thoughtfully constructed right beside a major highway.......

Last week I realized that I can spend an entire day on the telephone and never have to speak to an actual human being.

Really.

After I'd returned a half-dozen voice-mail messages with tag-you’re-it-style replies, I tried calling to check on an order I'd placed and got to play Phone Menu Cryptography. It's the game where the computer on the telephone gives you a menu of mysterious and useless choices and you have to puzzle out which one will get you closer to your goal of talking to an actual human being. Indiana Jones, Robert Langdon and Benjamin Franklin Gates combined couldn't have worked their way through the process in anything less than a week. I gave up in a mere four hours reasoning that I'd feel foolish if I was still waiting on the phone when the package arrived.

This whole phenomenon of replacing unsatisfactory person-to-person interactions with unsatisfactory person-to-machine interactions started with the phone company. They used to have real people to talk to you. They were sometimes rude and insensitive, but at least they were real people......

It's gotten so that I'm afraid to turn on the TV. Every time I do, they're waiting for me; enticing me with promises of new and interesting relationships, exotic locations, and complicated plots. I'm speaking, of course, of the new Fall TV line-up and I just can't get involved in another series right now.

When I was younger, television was just for fun. I could pick up a new show mid-season, have a good time with it for an episode or two, and then drop it in favor of a new show.

Comedies – shows like All in the Family, Three's Company or C-SPAN – always had the same basic plot even though the cast changed over time except for cartoon characters like Fred Flinstone and Tip O’Neil. You could count on TV to be as solid and stable as the dollar.....

When a couple makes the sad decision to get divorced, a nice judge helps them divide up their property. If they choose to stay married, they get no such help and have to settle ownership on their own.

You would think that dividing up property with your significant other would be simple; stack all of your worldly possessions out on the lawn and take turns claiming them the way you chose-up sides in kickball.

"I choose ... DVD player!"

Of course, your beloved couldn't let a choice like that go unanswered and would immediately say, "I choose fifty-two inch plasma TV with HDMI, 1080p, 1040EZ, and EIEIO for enhanced color..." Before you could protest, she'd add, "...and all of the cables."

Sure, after that you'd get to claim your video-game console, but it just wouldn't be the same without the big screen to play it on. Maybe the answer is a pre-nuptial agreement which specifies how the property will be divided during the marriage....