According to the excessively capitalized and exclamation-point-laden e-mail I received last week, I! CAN EARN A DEGREE! RIGHT NOW! FOR WORK EXPERIENCE I'VE! ALREADY! HAD! Unlike your traditional university which requires students to waste time studying and learning, the people who sent me the e-mail recognize the value of my forced participation in the School of Hard Knocks. Over the years I've messed up assignments, missed deadlines, made bad decisions and (on occasion) backed the wrong horse, candidate, political party, or fashion choice. I'd always assumed those were moments of shame, but now I can see them for what they really were...learning experiences; experiences that entitle me to a Ph.D. in Individual Life Management. All I have to do is submit a one-time processing fee of three-hundred fifty dollars.

I'm a little skeptical. I'm not sure I've had a doctoral-degree's-worth of life experiences. What if they decide not to give me the degree after I send them the check?

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that my wife -- and, in fact, all moms -- qualify easily. In the eighteen-plus years she's been a mom my wife has had extensive, on-the-job training in arts, psychology, chemistry, mathematics, literature, English, emergency medicine, small animal veterinary care, fashion design, and counseling...

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Like this excerpt? Want the whole story? Listen to the audio version by clicking the 'Play' button at the top of this post.

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IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

My new book My Favorite Shortcomings is now available. You can purchase a copy for $6.99 or download the free electronic version. All of the details are available at:

http://libsyn.com/static/shortcummingsaudio/book.html

NOTES: 

• Want to know more about Mother's Day around the world?
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother%27s_Day
• The book Too Many Bunnies really is a classic. If you haven't read it, check out the author's website at:
  http://www.rickwalton.com

Tags: humor essay | funny story | mom | motherhood | mother's day | comedy

Americans have a lot to worry about right now.

There's the mortgage industry which must have switched to an all alcohol diet and decided that it made perfect sense to loan people more money than they would actually earn in their lifetimes. Foreclosure is now the only growth industry in the financial sector and the fastest selling homes feature the words 'Kenmore', 'Whirlpool', and 'Refrigerator' prominently on their cardboard sides.

There's the price of gas which is rising so quickly the entire Theoretical Mathematics Department at Harvard has been hired for the sole task of keeping track of oil company profits. One more increase in the cost of sweet crude and it will be cheaper to power our cars with Chanel Number Five.

Combined, these problems are giving rise to a recession which will stop the U.S. economy the way a concrete barrier stops a speeding car.

There is one bright spot, though. America leads the world in caffeine delivery technology as measured by the total amount of square footage devoted to Starbucks stores. If all of the stores were put right next to each other â I mean even more than they are now â they would cover an area approximately the size of Dallas, only with a faint coffee odor and a Norah Jones soundtrack....

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Like this excerpt? Want the whole story? Listen to the audio version by clicking the 'Play' button at the top of this post.

NOTES: 

• For a very funny take on coffee drinking, I'd suggest you go and listen to Comedy4Cast episode #132. Actually, Clinton is a pretty funny guy. If you haven't been listening to Comedy4Cast you should go back and listen to all of them! But start with episode #132.
  www.comedy4cast.com
• Interested in supporting the 'Fair Trade Coffee' movement? Check here:
  www.fairtradecoffee.org
• Much of the history that I demolished in this essay came from the Wikipedia. You can find the root article on coffee here:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee

Tags: humor essay | funny story | coffee | caffeine | starbucks | comedy

I pity the Presidential candidates. It's not easy being them.

For starters, they live on the road twenty-four-seven. A life of travel sounds exciting until you realize that most of the time they are ending up in desolate, barely civilized places like East Armpit, New Jersey, Rattlesnake Acres, Nevada, and Kansas City. (Special note to readers in Kansas City: Not your Kansas City ... the other one.)

When they arrive they have to pretend to enjoy the local cuisine. Again, sounds interesting until you find out the local cuisine includes Auntie May's special rutabaga bouillabaisse, pig snout sandwiches or haggis. (Special note to readers in Scotland: Not your haggis ... the other kind.)

No matter where they go, the candidates have to pose for photo ops wearing fixed smiles so rigidly indestructible that they can only be removed by specially trained teams of plastic surgeons. The other folks in these photos are always minor local celebrities like the Kumquat Queen, City Mayor or the Vice President of the United States. (Special note to readers who are Dick Cheney: Not you ... the other Vice President of the United States.)...

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Like this excerpt? Want the whole story? Listen to the audio version by clicking the 'Play' button at the top of this post.

NOTES: 

• If you'd like comprehensive coverage of the U.S. Presidential Election for 2008, I suggest NPR:
  http://www.npr.org/templates/topics/topic.php?topicId=1102#/primaries/.
• Did the mention of haggis whet your appetite? Check out this comprehensive web page about the famed Scottish dish:
  http://www.smart.net/~tak/haggis.html
• The Wikipedia defines "spin" as a polite synonym for "propaganda":
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_(public_relations).

Tags: humor essay | funny story | pr | spin | election | comedy

The Olympic Games represent the best in human endeavor. The spirit of friendly competition, the years of training, and the satisfaction of seeing our athletes overcome competitors who live in countries where indoor plumbing is a luxury item. It's a time of special pride for Americans and I'm sure you share my sentiment when I say, "Just how many commercials can they put in one hour?"

Every company in America (and a few from beyond our shores) is planning to cash in on the games. There's an official car, an official swim suit, an official shoe, and an official soft-drink. I'll bet there's even an official nasal spray and an official liquid drain cleaner.

Of course that's not what the Olympics is about. The Olympics is about competition. That means yet another "Dream Team." As Americans it is our duty to watch the U.S.A. basketball team play. It doesn't matter that the results sound more like blood-pressure readings than basketball scores. ("122 over 36--Your systolic is good, but your diastolic is a little low.") It doesn't matter that it's like watching the L.A. Lakers play the Richard M. Nixon Middle School team. What matters is that you get to watch a team whose total annual income is larger than the gross national product of most of the countries they play...

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Like this excerpt? Want the whole story? Listen to the audio version by clicking the 'Play' button at the top of this post.

NOTES: 

• Although I teased about the Olympics in this episode, I really do have great respect for the amateur athletes who work so hard to compete and the many people organize and execute the games. You can learn more about the history and organization of the Olympic movement at its official website:
  http://www.olympic.org.
• If you'd like to find out about the athletes representing the United States this year, check out the U.S. Olympic Team home page:
  http://www.usoc.org/
• Finally, please do consider subscribing to Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing. It's a great podcast and you should also consider subscribing to her free e-mail news letter. You can find info on both at:
  http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com.

Tags: humor essay | funny story | olympics | competition | guys | comedy

I help my wife with the grocery shopping approximately every eight or nine months. That's about how long it takes her to forget what happened the last time I helped her.

When it comes to the weekly run to the Giganto-Mart, we have very different approaches. My wife likes to make a menu, prepare a list, and then stick to it. I, on the other hand, like to make a menu, prepare a list, and then buy whatever catches my eye.

Her approach has the benefit of letting her feel virtuous; she's planning and shopping methodically. My approach has the benefit of letting me feel virtuous (I'm planning methodically) and spontaneous (I'm buying whatever I want!) Sadly, there's no easy way to reconcile our two different approaches. The best my wife can do is hope to contain me.

She usually does this by sending me off in search of a specific item â canned beans, vinegar, boiled snipe â whatever she thinks will keep me occupied for the longest amount of time. The more intense the quest, the less likely I am to be distracted by ... oooh! Look at the new flavors of soda!...

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Like this excerpt? Want the whole story? Listen to the audio version by clicking the 'Play' button at the top of this post.

NOTES: 

• My wife doesn't really send me hunting snipe, but if you're interested in the origin of the phrase, check out this article:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snipe_hunt
• The line about "smart guy" was my homage to the great Steve Martin film Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid. It's not a family film, but it's very funny in its own demented way. You can read more at:
  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083798/
• If you'd like to follow me on Twitter (where I try to post a note or two while I'm writing or producing), you'll find me at:
  http://twitter.com/kevinleec

Tags: humor essay | funny story | shopping | groceries | husband | comedy

There was a time when I didn't fear food. I ate with gusto and abandon (and occasionally a knife, fork, and napkin) without worrying about the consequences. That was before I understood calories.

Like many of the unpleasant facts of modern living â nuclear weapons, greenhouse gases, reality television, etc. â calories were discovered by scientists who meddled in things man was not meant to know. Or, at least, things this man didn't want to know.

Indulging in a fast-food burger and fries became a lot less fun when I realized I was consuming two day's worth of calories and a week's worth of fat and salt.

If the universe was fair, the size of food items would have some correlation to the number of calories they contained; carrot sticks would be toothpick-sized, baked-potatoes would resemble small beach balls, and burgers would have to be borne about on litters carried by six strong men. When you dared to order one of the frothy, creamy, sugary drinks at your local coffee house it would be delivered in a convenient fifty-five gallon drum.

If the universe was fair...

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Like this excerpt? Want the whole story? Listen to the audio version by clicking the 'Play' button at the top of this post.

NOTES: 

• There's a joke in this episode which is a reference to the video game Portal. For his 17th birthday, my son wanted a Portal-themed cake. You can see the very cool cake my wife made at:
  http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinleec/sets/72157604129898070/
• The other part of the cake joke was an homage to the incomparable Bill Cosby. Check him out on his official website at:
  http://www.billcosby.com/
• If you're interested in caloric information for restaurants (and other meals) check out Calorie King at:
  http://www.calorieking.com/foods/
• In this episode I made a joke about the Tokyo subway. If you'd like to get some insight into the real experience of living in Tokyo, I'd encourage you to listen to Scott Lockman's outstanding podcast Tokyo Calling at:
  http://www.tokyocalling.org.

Tags: humor essay | funny story | food | calories | dieting | comedy

I have it on good authority that the furnace repairman will be at my house sometime between the hours of five a.m. and midnight today.

Whether you're dealing with a willful teen or a reluctant machine, the approach is the same â repeatedly flick the reset switch. Except that teens don't have reset switches and the ones on machines appear to be mostly decorative.

Having exhausted my entire repertoire of furnace repair techniques, I broke down and decided I had to call the furnace repairman...

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Like this excerpt? Want the whole story? Listen to the audio version by clicking the 'Play' button at the top of this post.

NOTES: 

• The title of this episode is a nod to Eugene O'Neill's play The Iceman Cometh. There's a good write-up about the play in the Wikipedia at:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iceman_Cometh.
• Want to avoid my fate and try a bit of DIY? Check out the article at:
  http://tinyurl.com/yuotkf.
• When I'm not podcasting, I'm busy planning a BIG surprise for the 100th Episode. Keep listening for details and...to get advance notice, join the Short Cummings Audio Facebook Group.

Tags: humor essay | funny story | home repairs | furnace | technician | comedy

My children and I live in different time zones. They live in Teenage Standard Time and I live in the real world.

In the real world, deadlines have mass and momentum and cannot be ignored. Whenever I get a new deadline it starts making a sound like the music from the documentary film Jaws in which unsuspecting swimmers were viciously attacked by a great white cello player.

Take the annual United States Tax Day deadline. Every year on April fifteenth, I'm required to file a an extensive set of documents and a distressingly large check with the Internal Revenue Service. (Historical aside: The Titanic sank on April 15, 1912 and I think it's fitting that America commemorates this tragic event by soaking the rich...)

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Like this excerpt? Want the whole story? Listen to the audio version by clicking the 'Play' button at the top of this post.

NOTES:

• For the record, let me state that the views expressed in this article in no way reflect on my actual flesh-and-blood children. They both do a splendid job of keeping up with their deadlines...but that wouldn't have been a very funny essay.
• If you'd like to understand Daily Saving Time better (and who wouldn't!), check out the Wikipedia article at:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_Savings_Time
• If you have a teen who needs to get organized, check out Organizing from the Inside Out for Teens at:
  http://www.organizedteens.com.

Tags: humor essay | funny story | teens | teenagers | parenting | comedy

I'm worried about my wife's memory. Just last week she forgot a key ingredient for dinner.

I found her standing in the kitchen, staring into the pantry with a look of intense concentration; the kind of look you associate with a sage pondering the nature of the universe or someone trying to figure out how best to ask a favor.

"Bother," she muttered.

Seeing no reasonable escape, I took the bait asked what was wrong.

"I thought we had some spaghetti sauce," she said.

You see what I mean about her memory? Taking pity, I offered to go to the store.

"So long as you're going anyway..." she said. "Could you pick up a French Loaf and some of those ... whatdyacallits for salad ... crunchy-bready things."

"Croutons?"

"Yeah. Here I'll write you a list."

I refused. It's her memory that's a problem, not mine...

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Like this excerpt? Want the whole story? Listen to the audio version by clicking the 'Play' button at the top of this post.

NOTES:

• You can find some useful Grocery shopping tips here:
  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10944908/.
• For an interesting article on human memory (including some tips on improving your memory) check out the Wikipedia entry at:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory.
• If you're not familiar with the Consumer Electronics Show (mentioned in passing in this episode) check out the official CES website at
  http://www.cesweb.org/default.asp.

Tags: humor essay | funny story | memory | shopping | marriage | comedy

Next week I have to take a personality test at work and I'm a little worried. What if it comes up negative?

Will I be summoned to the HR office where I will be forcibly enrolled in some flashy, pricey character-building exercise like a Dale Carnegie seminar, a ropes course, or graduate school? I kind of like the personality I have, it's everyone else who needs to change.

Especially the machines around me.

Really.

The gee-whiz-won't-the-world-of-tomorrow-be-great crowd can't wait for machines that have human-like personalities all their own. From what I can see, my machines already have too much personality.

Take my cars, for example. I drive a a piece of Detroit iron, American-made with a personality to match. It's loud, abrasive, and completely in-your-face. If I leave the headlights on, it rewards me with a sharp, sustained buzzzzzz; the automotive equivalent of "Hey mac, what do you think you're doing?"...

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Like this excerpt?  Want the whole story?  Listen to the audio version at www.ShortCummingsAudio.com by clicking the 'Play' button at the top of the text.

NOTES:

• When I Googled machine personality I found this fasctinating link:
  http://tinyurl.com/2edbn8from the Seminar in Humanities Computing from King's College in London.
• I write my scripts about six weeks in advance and share them with my family. When he read this, my oldest son said that the ultimate annoying machine personality is GLaDOS -- the psychotic computer in the game Portal. You can read all about Portal and GLaDOS in the Wikipedia:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal_%28video_game%29
  If you want to interact with GLaDOS on your own, order a copy of The Orange Box.
• One of the early experiments in computer personalities was called Eliza. You can learn more about Eliza (and interact with her -- really!) at:
  http://jerz.setonhill.edu/if/canon/eliza.htm.

Tags: humor essay | funny story | personality | machine personality | cars | comedy

This past Christmas my wife gave me a supremely "guy" toy. She did this because, after twenty-two years of marriage, she's given up any hope of ever curing me of my essential guyness.

Early in our relationship she thought she had an outside chance of knocking the rough edges off me. She thought this because I wasn't exactly a fan of organized sports; football had more rules than any one game needed, baseball was less interesting than its scandals, and basketball and soccer seemed like too much work.

Despite my lack of the sports-appreciation gene, my wife found she couldn't really civilize me.

Her one attempt to help me get in touch with my feminine side resulted in a restraining order which requires me to stay at least fifty yards away from my feminine side at all times.

So I'm a guy and to honor that fact my wife gave me a guy toy for Christmas; a self-taught course in miniature helicopter repair.

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Want to get the rest of this funny story or others like it? Check out the whole story and related links at www.ShortCummingsAudio.com.

NOTES:

• The helicopters I mentioned in this essay really do exist and they really are very cool. They are the Spinmaster Air Hogs Battling Havoc R/C Helicopters available from fine retailers everywhere including at Amazon-dot-com by following the link in this note.
• As proof of my thesis that these little copters are guy toys, check out the YouTube video at:
  http://tinyurl.com/2hqxyd
• For the real scoop on THX, check out the Wikipedia entry at:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THX

Tags: humor essay | funny story | rc helicopter | guy | toys | comedy

This time out, our panelists â turned daddy pundits talk about the jackass effect â kids behaving like the TV they watch, discussing the real world with your young kids, we ask the rhetorical question: who is the doctor in YOUR family, we get a book pick that could make this whole episode moot, and we wrap it all up with a post-Christmas mission de-briefing.

You can find the episode at www.101usesforbabywipes.com.

There comes a time in every dad's life when he realizes he's no longer the competitor he used to be. Somewhere along the line he's lost the skills and reflexes of his youth and his kids can beat him. It's the day when he passes the video game crown to the next generation.

I grew up in the late seventies and early eighties; the golden age of arcades. No ghost was safe from me in Pac Man. If Ms. Pac Man had been willing to trade round and yellow for skinny and adolescent, I'd have gone out with her. Figuring out how to get that last Space Invader seemed far more important to me than the national debt, the state of Soviet/U.S. relations, or personal hygiene.

If you squinted a lot and used your imagination, the graphics vaguely resembled real figures the way Jackson Pollock's paintings vaguely resemble actual art. The in-game sound consisted of annoyingly simplistic bouncy music (long before boy-bands made such tunes popular). The games were eight-bit, darn it, and I loved them.

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Want to get the rest of this funny story or others like it? Check out the whole story and related links at www.ShortCummingsAudio.com.

NOTES:

• Special thanks to professional storyteller Harvey Heilbrun for his review of the show on iTunes. You can find Harvey (and book him for a performance) at:
  http://hdhstory.net/
• Lots of people make fun of artist Jackson Pollock and I'm no different. If you'd like a slightly more respectful look at his work, check out his Wikipedia entry:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_Pollock
• For a fun stroll down memory lane (if you're old enough) check out the on-line Video Game Museum at:
  http://www.vgmuseum.com/
• Fortunately, there are video games for us older folks. One of my favorite new games on the Wii system is Endless Ocean. Follow the link to learn more.

Tags: humor essay | funny story | video games | dad | kids | comedy

(http://www.shortcummingsaudio.com/index.php?post_id=246792)

In it, I talked about the Chumby, which is a spiffy little internet appliance from a company called Chumby Industries.  I also posted a review based on my experience as a beta-tester.

I'm pleased to annouce that you can now get your very own Chumby by going to store.chumby.com.  I'm even more pleased to announce that significant improvments in the Chumby have made it a highly desirable device.

You can read my original review and thoughts about the upgrade at:

http://libsyn.com/static/shortcummingsaudio/chumby.html

Tags: announcement | chumby

If I'm the master of my household pets, why was I the one standing in line at the pet supply superstore shepherding two carts through the check-out line? The answer is simple; I'm a pawn of the pet-tech-industrial complex.

In case you missed it, pet supplies have become big business in this country. The mom-and-pop pet shop of yesteryear is gone, crushed under the weight of warehouse-sized megastores which, if they weren't full of pet supplies, could be used to store a spare fleet of 747s, the Astrodome, or one month's worth of redundant and contradictory government memos.

These stores require this much space because they must contain the thousands of mutant varieties of pet food available now. This is food which has been carefully produced in controlled laboratory conditions to appeal to even the most finicky pet owner.

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Want to get the rest of this funny story or others like it? Check out the whole story and related links at www.ShortCummingsAudio.com.

NOTES:

• As far as I can tell, the good folks at Purina don't actually make Baby Chow. However, I was surprised to find out they do make pet-oriented podcasts. Check them out at this link:
  http://tinyurl.com/2yhdax
• Sadly Sony's Aibo is no longer available. You can read about this valiant attempt at robo-pet at:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIBO
• If you like fish, but don't want to maintain an aquarium of your own, follow the link to the Wakiki Aquarium. It's a cool website that even has some webcams!
  http://www.waquarium.org/

Tags: humor essay | funny story | pets | cat | dog | hamster | comedy

The real problem with television isnât violence, or inappropriate content, or news stories which appear to have been invented just before the cameras rolled. The real problem is that kids are imitating the stuff they see between the commercials.

Kids grow up watching ER (now airing its fifty-first âepisode that changes everythingâ) and theyâre just dying to become nurses and doctors. By the time they discover the practice of medicine isnât all trauma and drama, theyâre so buried in education loans theyâll be healthcare wage-slaves for the rest of their lives. The only steamy romance theyâll see is if they get off shift in time to catch the newest ER (which will be the two-hundred-and-twenty-third âepisode that changes everything.â)

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Want to get the rest of this essay or others like it? Check out the whole audio essay and related links at www.ShortCummingsAudio.com.

NOTES:

• The title of this essay is a meme that originated in a cough syrup ad in the mid-eighties. It stared a very serious Peter Bergman who stared into the camera, and declared "I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV." For some strange reason this was supposed to give us confidence in his pronouncements. You can judge his success for yourself by watching the ad on YouTube:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM9ziBfuGvM
• I tortured the English language in the "Eric Blair, Action Essayist" bit of this episode. So, it's only fair that I do something nice for my mother tongue. If you're not already a fan of the incomparable Grammar Girl, check out her show (and all the fine Quick and Dirty Tips podcasts at:
  http://www.QuickAndDirtyTips.com.
• Finally, if you're curious about the real Eric Blair, check out his Wikipedia entry:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Blair.

Tags: humor essay | humor column | tv | career | csi | er | television | comedy

Sometimes I feel like my life is really a movie; you know the kind where there's some kind of cipher and everyone else is in on the secret but me ... The DUH-Vinci Code. It'd probably be a lot easier if people stopped trying to communicate and just talked.

Part of the problem is that words aren't generally reliable in the picking-a-meaning-and-sticking-to-it department. Take the good-old standby âloveâ. This little tramp of a word never met a meaning it didn't like. You'll find it promiscuously applied to everything from the intertwining of two lives (âI love my new puppyâ) to devotion to a favored sports team (âI love the Jazz when they winâ) to favored foods (âI love a good mutton sandwich, especially when the crusts are trimmed offâ.) Next thing you know it'll be snuggled up against a government policy description -- âOoh! I love the penalty-free deferment of survivor benefits for capital gains in designated enterprise zones.â How can you trust a word like that?

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Want to get the rest of this essay or others like it? Check out the whole audio essay and related links at www.ShortCummingsAudio.com.

NOTES:

• Tip of the hat (more like bowing and chanting "I'm not worthy") to Wm. Shakespeare's Hamlet for the title of this episode. If you want to read Hamlet or any of Shakespeare's works, try Open Source Shakespeare at:
  http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/
• Alert listeners among my generation might have caught the reference to the Dustim Hoffman/Terri Garr classic Tootsie
• If you'd like to improve your communications skills -- particularly at work -- you might enjoy reading some tips provided by Inc. magazine:
  http://tinyurl.com/ya5egq

Tags: humor essay | humor column | words | communication | honesty | comedy

I'm flattered that she chose Short Cummings Audio as the first show to review and she said some very kind things about what I produce.

She's planning to do new reviews each week, so I'd encourage you to swing by her site and keep an eye on what's she's saying...

http://thepodcastpreview.blogspot.com/

In my experience, the difference between "Oh look it's snowing" and "Oh no it's snowing" is about thirty-six inches or three days; whichever comes first. Individual flakes are harmless; in small groups they're adorable; in large quantities they are dangerous and uncontrollable ... sort of like toddlers.

Except you never have to use a special shovel to clear the toddlers off your driveway.

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Want to get the rest of this essay or others like it? Check out the whole audio essay and related links at www.ShortCummingsAudio.com.

NOTES:

• If you live in a snowy climate, you might want to check out the tips for shoveling found at:
  http://www.ext.nodak.edu/snow.htm
• Fans of Public Radio's Car Talk might enjoy reading their page of winter driving tips at:
  http://www.cartalk.com/content/features/WinterDriving/
• Finally, there's still time to get in on the TechTalkForFamilies Podcast Scavenger Hunt before the Deadline of 2/5/08. Check out the details at:
  http://www.techtalkforfamilies.com/contest.

Tags: humor essay | humor column | winter | snow | winter driving | comedy

This episode is part of the TechTalkForFamilies Podcast Scavenger Hunt. Check out the details at:

http://www.techtalkforfamilies.com/contest

and then listen to the episode for a special clue!

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Blame it on the monks.

In primitive cultures, nobody had clocks. They didn't have any use for clocks. One guy would ask, âWhat time is it?â and everyone else would hit him with sticks for asking such a stupid question. Then the monks decided they needed to pray every few hours. Somebody had to figure out the meaning of âhourâ and how many âhoursâ made a âfew.â So they invented clocks.

Early clocks were just candles with different-colored stripes. One stripe equaled one hour. If you bought your candles from a candle-maker with a wide brush, an hour might last several âdays.â (âDaysâ had been discovered much earlier by cavemen who used them to separate one night from the next.)

Thinner brushes meant skinnier stripes which, in turn, meant shorter hours which meant less time to nap between prayers. Skinny brushes werenât especially popular.

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Want to get the rest of this essay or others like it? Check out the whole audio essay and related links at www.ShortCummingsAudio.com.

NOTES:

• If you're interested in a somewhat more accurate history of timekeeping, check the Wikipedia article at:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timekeeping
• The names of the prayers in this episode develoved into pseudo Latin. You can read about pseudo Latin at:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipsum
• If the jokes about pyramid building made you yearn for the days the Pharaohs, you might enjoy Joan Collins' Cult Classic film Land of the Pharaohs
• Finally, if you want a shot at the TechTalkForFamilies fabulous prize package, check out the details at:
  http://www.techtalkforfamilies.com/contest.

Tags: humor essay | humor column | time | clocks | scavenger hunt | comedy

Much of human history is concerned with the way that people get from one place to another. Our earliest ancestors traveled on foot, braving the elements, avoiding attack by wild animals and suffering really nasty blisters. Some forgotten genius came up with the idea of riding on animals and things improved. Somebody else (the Phoenicians, I think, but I sorta slept through history class) invented carts and things improved again. Carts gave way to trains and cars and trucks and things improved again. Then human beings invented air travel and things ... fell apart.

Really.

Airplane trips generally begin early in the morning with a drive to the airport through rush hour traffic. Sitting gridlocked on the freeway is actually a good thing because it gives you a chance to prepare for the lines you'll be waiting in the rest of the day.

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Want to get the rest of this essay or others like it? Check out the whole audio essay and related links at www.ShortCummingsAudio.com.

NOTES:

• A couple of notes for this episode:
• If you want to minimize your wait time at security and get through the gate more quickly, you might check out the TSA's traveler's tips at:
  http://www.tsa.gov/travelers/index.shtm
• You'll also find some pretty nifty info for air travelers (including some pretty cool statistical info about lost baggage, delayed flights, etc.) at:
  http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/
• Listeners who caught the reference to 'Oceanic Flight 815' might want to swing by the Generally Speaking Podcast Network (http://gspn.tv) to listen to Cliff Ravenscraft's Weekly LOST Podcast. And, if LOST isn't your thing, you'll find plenty of other good shows at GSPN.

Tags: humor essay | humor column | airlines | air travel | airport | comedy

On the great feedlot of life, I'm just another barbecue-on-the-hoof, passing time mooing and waiting for the day they award me a gold watch and shoo me into the stunning pen. In terms of domestication, I'm at a ninety-two on a ten-point scale.

I realized the full extent of my tractability at the local Super-Ultra-Mega-Mart last week. I urgently had to purchase a few things including bread, Bandaids, Bactine and a new toaster. At the checkout, I swiped my credit card and scrawled something on the electronic pad that might have been my signature or a quick sketch of two worms wrestling.

The computer beeped and flashed a message. âSignature exceeds space available.â

I squinted. Sure enough. I'd drawn outside the lines. âSorry,â I said and signed again, more carefully this time.

It didn't strike me until I was out of the store. I'd just apologized to a computer. A MACHINE! A hunk of junk hardware no smarter than a fifth-grader had called me out and I just stood there and took it.

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Want to get the rest of this essay or others like it? Check out the whole audio essay and related links at www.ShortCummingsAudio.com.

NOTES:

• A few links to things of interest I mentioned in passing:
• If you're a fan of Are You Smarter Than A Fifth-Grader you can check out the show's info (and play a trivia game) at http://tinyurl.com/2atl9y.
• Designer Marc Ecko evidently shares my fascination with the Rebel outfits in Star Wars. You can read about his line of Rebel-inspired clothing at: http://tinyurl.com/2ffmjk.
• The Guardian ran a funny rundown of Star Wars fashion. You can read it at http://tinyurl.com/yowl3c.

Tags: humor essay | humor column | rebel | star wars | middle age | comedy

My life is a blur these days.

Really.

I've traded my reliable (but stodgy) glasses for less reliable (but far more exciting) contacts. Like a lot of guys who try to trade up, I think I may have simply swapped one set of problems for another.

I slipped solidly into geekdom at the age of ten when I was fitted with a pair of black-rimmed glasses that had all of the aesthetic appeal and elegance of a spork at formal dinner party. Years passed and my eyes stabilized until I landed on the big square labeled '40' and I couldn't read any more. The nice eye doctor wrote me a prescription for progressives.

Through a miracle of modern manufacturing, progressives have two different kinds of lenses forcibly melded into one ineffectual whole; sort of like a compass with a whistle in it, a tent trailer, or low-fat, sugar-free ice-cream.

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Want to get the rest of this essay or others like it? Check out the whole audio essay and related links at www.ShortCummingsAudio.com.

NOTES:

• Alert listeners might notice two pop-culture references in this episode.
• The first is in the title, which is a nod to the Children's Television Workshop's science show 3-2-1 Contact. If you're into nostalgia (and remember the series) you might want to read more about it at:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-2-1_Contact
• The other reference is a little older. See if you can catch my homage to The Great Escape. Read more about it at:
  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057115/

Tags: humor essay | humor column | contacts | eyesight | middle age | comedy

When it comes to mathematical ability, nine out of ten experts agree that Americans can easily outperform most single-celled organisms from other cultures. When it comes to competing with actual human beings -- or trained chimps or even well-bred horses -- Americans don't do nearly as well. In fact, they lose six out of seven times which equates to a mere forty-eight percent win/loss ratio.

Like all problems in America, our collective lack of mathematical skills can be blamed on the educational system. This may or may not be true, but it's easy to blame the educational system. In the coming election, look for Presidential candidates to blame schools for poor public health, the sub-prime mortgage crisis, hurricanes, tidal waves, South American deforestation, and the popularity of Brittany Spears. Politicians like to blame the schools because ninety-eight percent of the public (three voters in twelve) will buy it without question.

In the case of Math skills, the problem can be traced back to the one thing everyone hated in Math class â the teacher, Mrs. MacGruder. Not really. What everyone hated was story problems.

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Want to get the rest of this essay or others like it? Check out the whole audio essay and related links at www.ShortCummingsAudio.com.

NOTES:

• There's a gag in this essay about a story problem involving characters named Tom and Ida. I lifted this from the Sheen's Brain episode of Jimmy Neutron. (As an homage...not theft!) You can read more about this very entertaining animated series at: http://tinyurl.com/2w4wng.
• You can watch the entire episode for free at http://tinyurl.com/2wjj5x.
• If you'd like some practical advice on solving story problems, I found an interesting article on the web. Check out http://tinyurl.com/37pfqy

Tags: humor essay | humor column | math | story problems | jimmy neutron | comedy

For over a century, the Nobel Prize committee has been giving an award for literature. The Pulitzer Prize committee has been recognizing outstanding journalistic writing for ninety years. The Christopher Award is a mere slip of a thing at half that age. Other writing awards include the Hugo, the Nebula, the Newbery, the Booker Prize, the Blooker Prize, and the National Book Award.

Yet not a one of those prize committees has ever recognized someone for writing an outstanding Holiday Letter.

This is probably because in the entire history of literature no one has ever written a Holiday Letter worthy of an award.

Summing up the last twelve months of your life in a few dozen words is no easy trick. You've got to hit the high points and give just enough detail to make your friends and relations insanely jealous of how well you're doing. Except, your relations probably know enough of the truth to see through your tissue of lies and if your friends don't, just how close are they really?

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Want to get the rest of this essay or others like it? Check out the whole audio essay and related links at www.ShortCummingsAudio.com.

NOTES:

• If you'd like to avoid some of the pitfalls I covered in this essay, check out the hints at http://www.christmaslettertips.com/
• http://tinyurl.com/2qcwne features a funny (and I suspect fake) Christmas Letter exchange between Martha Stewart and Erma Bombeck.
• I also turned up an interesting news story about obnoxious Christmas letters on MSNBC. You can find the whole report at http://tinyurl.com/2lhgsp

Tags: humor essay | humor column | holiday | christmas | christmas letter | comedy

Psychologists have long known about holiday meltdown. Among the probable causes they cite unrealistically high expectations (maybe Santa will bring me that pony this year), pressure to be perfect (maybe my in-laws will compliment my cranberry-garlic loaf this year), and sheer, simple stress (maybe I'll crack and finally have that breakdown this year). They don't talk about the rash of psychoses that come from the anguish of people who are faced with giving and receiving gifts.

Most of these syndromes don't even have names. In the interest of advancing science, I'd like to suggest a few new diagnoses.

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Want to get the rest of this essay or others like it? Check out the whole audio essay and related links at www.ShortCummingsAudio.com.

NOTES:

• The segements of this essay are based (very loosely) on the style of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. You can read a bit about it here: http://tinyurl.com/74efl
• In the essay I kid a bit about folks who over-wrap gifts. If you want to indulge your inner gillterophilic, you can follow this link: http://tinyurl.com/37e6ey or this one: http://tinyurl.com/3dkej8

Tags: humor essay | humor column | holiday | christmas | psychology | gift | comedy

If you lived through the eighties, you probably remember the highly instructive Mad Max film series in which Mel Gibson played an enigmatic loner who traveled a post-apocalyptic wasteland trying to find a parking space. Just kidding. He was traveling the post-apocalyptic wasteland looking for gas so he could drive his car long enough to find a place to park.

Even at the end of the world, parking spaces will be in short supply.

Which is why I'm deeply disappointed that my son's state-approved driver's education course didn't spend more time on parking. They pretty much stopped at âpark between the linesâ. Comparatively, this is about as useful as stopping sky-diving lessons after Step One, Jump out of the airplane. There's got to be more to it if you intend to arrive safely.

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Want to get the rest of this essay or others like it? Check out the whole audio essay and related links at www.ShortCummingsAudio.com.

NOTES:

• This essay starts off with a nod to Mad Max. If you would like to know more about the film, follow the link to the Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Max.
• Sometimes you hit on an idea whose time has come. It appears I did that in this episode with my gag about "Musical Cars". About three days after I wrote this episode, I saw the Kia commercial with the "Musical Cars". It's pretty funny. If you haven't seen it yet, follow the link to YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7L63i7mfW4
• If you want to buy a copy of Mad Max (Special Edition) on DVD, just click on the link in this sentence.
• Finally, a big hello to all of the Zune users who might be joining the show! Welcome!

Tags: humor essay | humor column | cars | parking | drivers ed | comedy

T.V. used to be just for fun. We watched light fiction like Lucy, or Newhart or the CBS Evening News. We could flip on the T.V. knowing that we wouldn't be troubled by thought. Then PBS came along. All of a sudden, thought was a requirement for watching television. You had to think if you were going to watch intellectual fare like Masterpiece Theatre, Jeeves and Wooster, or Sesame Street.

Home video briefly helped to stem the tide of intelligent programming. A trip to the video store allowed you to rent shows starring comic geniuses like Harold Lloyd, Mel Brooks and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

While rentals were growing more popular, the Federal Government gently encouraged PBS to find ways to survive on its own by thoughtfully reducing its funding each year. The entire annual PBS budget wouldnât cover the catering at Brittany Spearsâ next wedding.

Looking to get its share of the video pie, PBS starting selling boxed set. You can buy Ken Burnsâ The War for a mere $130 -- which works out to approximately fifteen cents per thoughtful hour of entertainment.

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Want to get the rest of this essay or others like it? Check out the whole audio essay and related links at www.ShortCummingsAudio.com.

NOTES:

• Although I poke fun at PBS in this episode, I really do appreciate many of the great shows and my life wouldn't be as rich without them. If you want to show your support for PBS, join your local affiliate station or shop at the PBS store at http://www.shoppbs.org

Tags: humor essay | humor column | tv | pbs | education | comedy

That's right, Zune now supports podcasts!

Either way, this is a great thing for all of the Zune owners out there.  Just click on the link near the top of the right-hand side of the page and you'll be able to receive Short Cummings Audio right on your Zune.  And, as always, it's absolutely free...what could be better?

In my teens and twenties my body and I saw things in exactly the same way; we were virtually inseparable. We had an understanding. I fed it all the junk I wanted, never took it out for any kind of formal exercise and it maintained its trim, teenage shape. Somewhere (I think around my thirtieth birthday) it quietly abandoned our agreement and started to change.

My waist must have been in on the secret because it ballooned up until my belt got too tight. Thinking this was a temporary situation, I switched to a new, larger belt and (just for good measure) a new larger wardrobe. Sure my body was expanding, but I knew it would come to its senses sooner or later.

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Want to get the rest of this essay or others like it? Check out the whole audio essay and related links at www.ShortCummingsAudio.com.

NOTES:

• You can read the Podcast Junky review at http://podcastjunky.wordpress.com/2007/11/05/podcast-review-short-cummings-audio/trackback/
• You can read Podcast Fanatic's review at http://podcastfanatic.wordpress.com/2007/09/16/episode-of-the-week-18-short-cummings-audio-65/
• I accidentally recycled a joke near the end of this episode. Alert listeners might recognize it from the beginning of episode 52. I didn't realize that I'd repeated myself until after I edited the episode. I apologize and I'll try to avoid repeating myself in the future. Also, in the future I'll try to avoid repeating myself.
• I must confess to being a big fan of the Fox series House, MD. So I couldn't resist poking a little fun at it in this episode. If you haven't seen the series, you can find full episodes on the Fox Broadcasting website at http://www.fox.com/house/

Tags: humor essay | humor column | body | eyesight | aging | comedy

You see them on TV all the time; houses which are nicer, cleaner, and more attractive than yours the same way a runway model is more appealing than any member of the 1972 East German Women's Swim Team. The camera lovingly pans around showing scenes of impossible beauty like an elegant kitchen filled with matching dish ware, a living room in which the furniture does not appear to have been purchased at a trailer-park tag sale, and (most incredibly of all) a bathroom in which the towels not only coordinate but are hung neatly on gleaming towel bars instead of being heaped on the floor. When you see a house like that you've just to ask yourself, What do those homeowners have that I don't have?

The answer is simple.

A small army of production personnel including three professional designers and an uptight director known in the television industry as 'Hansel the Fussy'. Before the cameras are even permitted on the property, the house is completely remade from top to bottom.

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Want to get the rest of this essay or others like it? Check out the whole audio essay and related links at www.ShortCummingsAudio.com.

NOTES:

In this episode I threw in a lot of 'off mic' stuff where you could only hear my side of the conversation. The real masters of this form of comedy are the incomparable Bob Newhart and his brilliant contemporary Shelley Berman.

Tags: humor essay | humor column | cat | household | family | comedy

You can read the whole thing at http://podcastjunky.wordpress.com/2007/11/05/podcast-review-short-cummings-audio/trackback/

Thanks, Alex!

This review was the result of an earlier review that I missed on Podcast Fanatic.

You can read that review at http://podcastfanatic.wordpress.com/2007/09/16/episode-of-the-week-18-short-cummings-audio-65/

Thanks Bernadette!

Both of these fine blogs will have a place in the "Friends of the Show" block on the right-hand side of this page.

For three years I had an arch-nemesis who taxed my patience, cunning and intelligence. This would be a whole lot cooler if she stood more than two feet tall and weighed more than more than fifteen pounds. I'm talking, of course, about actress Linda Hunt.

Not really.

I wish it was as impressive as that. My arch-nemesis was a black cat who decided our backyard bird feeder also made a dandy feline feeder.

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Want to get the rest of this essay or others like it? Check out the whole audio essay and related links at www.ShortCummingsAudio.com.

NOTES:

1. In case you're not familiar with the wonderfully talented Linda Hunt you can read her Wikipedia entry at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Hunt.
2. The Scarecrow as described in this essay is a real product and a great, non-violent tool for deterring pests. You'll find it at: http://www.contech-inc.com/products/scarecrow/.

Tags: humor essay | humor column | cat | nemesis | battle | comedy

So, why was I in Barnes and Nobel at 9:55 p.m. frantically searching for a copy of The Crucible by Arthur Miller (the special Dover edition with the deleted scene)? If you don't know the answer, you're obviously not a parent.

My sixteen-year-old son is a tragic victim of the Educational-Industrial Complex. Without regard for his personal feelings, his instructors expect him to learn. In his Humanities and English classes this involves telling him to acquire and assimilate certain great works of literature; The Crucible, Atlas Shrugged, and Dick and Jane Austen. In order to give him time to appreciate the subtleties of these great works, the instructors assign them weeks before he has to read them. Sadly his busy schedule of vital activities like texting, video games, television, and internet surfing makes it impossible for him to remember that he needs the book until the night before it's due.

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Want to get the rest of this essay or others like it? Check out the whole audio essay and related links at www.ShortCummingsAudio.com.

NOTES:

1. Let me thank my son for allowing me to poke fun at him in this essay. Let me say for the record that both of my sons are good students and I'm proud of them. 
2. One of the joys of producing a podcast is that you can use it to poke fun at friends, so I'm dedicating this particular episode to James Sawtelle ... my friend from Louisana and a dedicated and talented education professional. Thanks for letting me take your name in vain, Jimmy!

Tags: humor essay | humor column | school | children | education | comedy

Tuesday, 6:15 p.m.

I'm so excited. We're going to repaint the bathroom and I want to blog the whole experience so that I won't forget a single wonderful moment.

We need to repaint because the original color â the color we've lived with for the last fourteen years â is the exact same shade of yellow as a fading bruise. In the mirror, our reflections have the jaundiced look of recent face-lift patients; all we lack is a row of stitches in front of each ear.

Fortunately, the inadequate illumination over the vanity keeps us from getting a good view of ourselves. Even with four 100 watt bulbs, the mid-seventies industrial grade frosted-glass fixture slows the rushing flow of light to a barely visible trickle and filters out all of best colors. What remains shrouds our faces, casting dark shadows under our eyes and adding to the post-Beverly-Hills-doctor's-visit ambiance.

So long as we're going to repaint, it makes sense to re-grout the tub as well. Disturbing patches of black mildew blotch the formerly white grout. Against the yellow bath tile, they give the whole tub area the appearance of a crime scene surrounded by striped police tape. When I step from the bath, I always expect to leave a chalk outline instead of a bathtub ring.

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Want to get the rest of this essay or others like it? Check out the whole audio essay and related links at www.ShortCummingsAudio.com.

Tags: humor essay | humor column | painting | decorating | bathroom | comedy

It's not easy being honest. Especially when you honestly want to dismember the person ahead of you in the checkout line.

My wife and I dashed out to the new local Gigant-o-mart (recently built approximately 2.6 miles from the old local Gigant-o-mart) for a few vital grocery items; Cheetos, Poptarts, and two skeins of fuzzy purple yarn. Like sprinters approaching the finish line, we dashed to the â10 Items or Lessâ express lane and found ourselves cut off by a pair of women who were not intellectual giants in the area of being able to distinguish between ten and two hundred items. Between its bowed-out wheels and ballooned-out sides, their cart looked like a fat lady with weak ankles wearing a plastic fishnet skirt.

Stuffed inside they had several hundred individual silk flowers; more than the store carried. I suspect they actually brought flowers into the store just so they could take them through the check-out line ahead of us. I pitied the single vase quivering nervously at the front of the cart. The flowers-to-vase ratio was similar to the entrants-to-winners ratio in the average magazine sweepstakes.

As the cashier pulled out the first flower, fumbled to find the bar code and swiped it across the scanner, my wife and I did the most logical thing we could think of. We crossed our arms and stared at the women in the meanest way possible while muttering under our breath about how rude they were.

Really.

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Don't forget to check out the Short Cummings Audio Facebook group at www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5588308571.

Want to get the rest of this essay or others like it? Check out the whole audio essay and related links at www.ShortCummingsAudio.com.

Tags: humor essay | humor column | honesty | dedeit | lying | comedy

Your mission â and you don't have any choice about accepting it â is to go under deep cover and penetrate one of the most ruthless, politically charged environments in the world today ... a typical American Business Office. Should you succeed in infiltrating this complex and frequently chaotic organization, your objective is to accomplish actual work. Be aware that many other agents have attempted this mission and failed.

As part of your cover, we will arrange a vocabulary coach to teach you important business terms such as debenture, venture capital, monetization, potential actualization, actualized potential, next-level thinking, thinking outside of the box, and proactive, forward-thinking, next-level, bleeding-edge actualization strategic productization.

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By way of homage to an extraodinarily talented writer, I played with Robert A. Heinlein's concept about the IQ of a committee. If you'd like to know more about Mr. Heinlein, check out his Wikipedia entry at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Heinlein

Don't forget to check out the Short Cummings Audio Facebook group at www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5588308571.

Want to get the rest of this essay or others like it? Check out the whole audio essay and related links at www.ShortCummingsAudio.com.

Tags: humor essay | humor column | business | meeting | powerpoint | comedy

Stephen King has made himself a wealthy man by writing books that play on people's deepest fears; scary dogs (Cujo), scary prom dates (Carrie), and the scary consequences of meddling with dark forces to resurrect the dead (Harry Potter and the Semetary of Pets). In real life there aren't that many demon dogs, telekinetic adolescents, or cursed burial grounds â even in New Jersey. I respectfully suggest that Mr. King expand his repertoire to include the things that really scare people like mortgages, dental appointments and household clutter.

A lot of my personal clutter starts out in its larval form -- mail.

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Stephen King is a writer of such talent and brilliance that I'm not fit to lick his boots.

Really.

That's why I made fun of him instead.

By way of apologizing, I'll point you at his website at www.StephenKing.com.

Don't forget to check out the Short Cummings Audio Facebook group at www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5588308571.

Want to get the rest of this or others like it? Check out the whole audio essay and related links at www.ShortCummingsAudio.com.

Tags: humor essay | humor column | stephen king | clutter | mess | junk | comedy

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I spent most of this essay making fun of reality TV, so I guess it's only fair that I point you to one of the networks which provides a lot of that kind of programming.  If you're interested, check out Bravo TV for several of the shows that I hinted at in this episode.

Want to get the rest of this or others like it? Check out the whole audio essay and related links at www.ShortCummingsAudio.com.

Tags: humor essay | humor column | reality tv | bravo | contest | election | comedy

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Want to get the rest of this or others like it? Check out the whole audio essay and related links at www.ShortCummingsAudio.com.

Tags: humor essay | humor column | relationship | car shopping | test drive | comedy

When my son was born nineteen years ago, coupons for disposable diapers appeared in my mailbox within the week. The Pampers Network of Spies and Informants was on to me. The military should have used those people for intelligence gathering in Iraq. Not only would they have found the Weapons of Mass Destruction, but they could have sent them Pampers coupons as well.

Realizing that my sonâs bottom was a virtual gold mine, other diaper companies got in on the act. Since I wouldnât need diapers unless I fed my son, those companies passed my address on to formula and baby food companies. Those companies were quick to recognize that my son would be hungrier if he played a lot, so they gave my address to toy companies.

I could chart my sonâs development by the letters I received.

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Want to get the rest of this or others like it? Check out the whole audio essay and related links at www.ShortCummingsAudio.com.

Tags: humor essay | humor column | mail | junk mail | form letter | comedy

For the first time in fifteen years, we bought a new car. It's a good car ... a well-built car ... and, with proper care and maintenance, it might last until we're emotionally ready to face another shopping trip to the dealership.

It's not that the dealer treated us badly. We were greeted as honored guests; welcomed with chilled bottled water and open arms. The salesman acted as though we were the only customers in the world, despite the fact that there was a gaggle of bored-looking people hanging out by the service window. He treated us like Kings.

Which is to say that we had to make important decisions approximately every fifteen seconds.

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Want to get the rest of this or others like it? Check out the whole audio essay and related links at www.ShortCummingsAudio.com.

We did actually purchase a Honda Fit (fit.honda.com) recently. I don't want to sound like this is an endorsement, but the mileage is good and it's a fun car to drive!

Tags: humor essay | humor column | car | salesman | honda | comedy

Nothing gets my heart beating like new technology. Well, that's not quite true â a sweeping vista, a beautiful woman, and an unexpected fall from a great height all rate right up there on the edging-into-coronary-territory scale. Still, seductive new gadgets do about the same for my heart rate as a four-hour cardio session or five minutes of hip-hop videos.

Which is why my new favorite device is my Chumby.

A Chumby is a tiny electronic wonder, a miracle of the modern age, a steroid-fueled, internet-connected alarm-clock-slash-info-center. It is the Arnold Schwarzenegger of bedside electronics; The Awakenator.

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Want to get the rest of this or others like it? Check out the whole audio essay and related links at www.ShortCummingsAudio.com.

I was fortunate enough to be selected as a beta-tester for the Chumby. You can read my full review at http://libsyn.com/static/shortcummingsaudio/chumby.html.

Thanks to everyone who provided feedback on the new music bed.  After considering what you've all said, I've decided to go back to the original.  Think of it as a "New Coke" vs. "Classic Coke" sort of thing.  Thanks, to