Category: Recently probed (and potentially sore) subjects

Ned’s most recent columns… Yep, that about sums it up.

You can’t swim with one hand on your woggle

square Bad swimmer copy I wasn’t born to swim. This became evident early in life after habitually swimming into the side of pools, then immediately sinking headfirst to the bottom. A number of factors can be attributed to my being hydro-challenged, beginning with the fact that I can’t actually breathe under water.

This traumatic realization was made one morning after watching Aquaman on T.V. and then, as a test to ascertain my level of super powers, trying to inhale running tap water from the kitchen faucet. The experience was a wake-up call, and forced me to admit that the closest I’d ever get to being an underwater super hero is if “dog paddling” and “consuming large amounts of pool water” qualified as special powers.

Needless to say, I wasn’t exactly waiting for a call from The Super Friends. Continue reading You can’t swim with one hand on your woggle

Screaming children and a 50-foot snake; welcome to Uncle Ned’s day care

Unce Ned's day care I have a good friend who is a child care provider. So when she found herself in a bind, I told her I’d be happy to watch the kids for a couple of hours; eight children, all under the age of four.

I did this yesterday.

Today, I’m writing to you from a locked treatment facility for the emotionally disturbed.

Being a parent, it’s not like I didn’t know what to expect.

I was prepared.

I came with a plan.

I had ideas for things to do.

And, if all else failed, I came with a bungee cord large enough to wrap all eight of them together in the middle of the lawn. Continue reading Screaming children and a 50-foot snake; welcome to Uncle Ned’s day care

Often, the Easter Bunny wears boxer shorts

Easter dad in boxers Soon, in the wee hours of the morning, something magical will happen in backyards all across America as, one by one, each of them is visited by …

You guessed it! A half-naked father hiding Easter eggs.

That’s right, the same fathers who were stomping on the roof with sleigh bells Christmas Eve will be out in the yard in their boxer shorts with an arm load of colorful eggs not long after sunrise.

Their mission?

Keep this tradition alive while trying not to step in anything that could elicit a response deemed inappropriate for Easter morning. Continue reading Often, the Easter Bunny wears boxer shorts

The latest from The Door…

Welcome to another installment of The Door of Shame, Blame and Brilliance, a weekly feature highlighting some of the most memorable newspaper moments clipped and taped to our newsroom door by journalists since as far back as 1970.

The Door’s objective is to be a beacon, guiding us into the jagged rocks of journalism.

baseball-colon1 Today’s entry was posted two years ago, by yours truly, after spotting it in the Los Angeles Times. The headline illustrates why — on many levels — I prefer to watch sports on television…

My apologies in advance for being a dork

Yep, that's me. With a big Wiener-mobile. Being a dork...
Yep, that’s me. With a big Wiener-mobile. Being a dork…
This photo really has nothing to do with this post, other than to provide documentation that, yes — I am a dork. I say this because, thanks to several followers, I was alerted to the fact that my last five or six posts never appeared in any tagged categories in the general “freshly pressed” pages available to everyone. After doing some research, I discovered that my dorkness had indeed extended beyond my personal being and into the settings of my blog’s “publish” settings. That said, I want to thank everyone for their encouragement to get things like “My Review of a Book That Doesn’t Actually Exist,” “Spring Starts Once You’ve Mowed Over Your Hibachi,” and a few others out to the general WordPress population. So when you begin to see a series of repeats in your mail boxes, rest assured it’s not because I’m losing my mind.

Ok, that could be part of it too, but mostly it’s because I’m a dork.

Need help deciding on a vasectomy? Don’t ask a man

Hammer and eggs There’s a scene in the movie “Jaws” where the Mayor of Amity Island explains how yelling the word “BARRACUDA” won’t get much reaction on a crowded beach. “But if you yell ‘SHARK’ you’ll have a panic on your hands…”

Keeping that in mind, you’ll have some idea of the reaction you get from most men if you change “shark” to “vasectomy.” This was the first word out of my radio this morning. And yes, it caught my attention. Apparently, March is the busiest month for vasectomies — and tomorrow is the busiest day of the year for this procedure.

Maybe it’s a result of March Madness compromises reached between husbands and wives, or a subconscious tribute to the start of baseball season. Whatever the reason, when I had mine 10 years ago, it was also in March. The decision had nothing to do with basketball or baseball, and everything to do with weeks of campaigning from my ex-wife.

Because she had a degree in social work, my ex-wife was trained on how to approach sensitive subject matter. That’s why I was allowed to discover, with no pressure from her whatsoever, that my new place mat at the dinner table was actually a medical brochure titled:

So, You Want To Have a Vasectomy?

True, we had talked about this subject before. Continue reading Need help deciding on a vasectomy? Don’t ask a man

Laughing at cows can be harmful, especially while playing bingo

Cow Patty bingo As you probably know, national “Be Kind to Animals Week” is almost here. And just when Florida was beginning to re-gain a small measure of respectability by working hard to draw absolutely no attention to itself, it is once again in the national spotlight.

I’m talking, of course, about the controversy surrounding Cow-Patty Bingo.

For those who might not be familiar with this activity for reasons of sanity, we’ll just take a moment to cover the basics.

First, you need a cow.

Second, you need a REALLY BIG bingo card.

OK, not really. But you really do need a cow, preferably one that has just eaten a lot of fiber — like, say, a 55-gallon drum of granola. Next, you need a large field or yard (such as a neighbor’s) that can be divided into numbered grids. Once you have the cow and the grid, it’s time to start selling squares. This requires finding people who think that poop is entertaining. If you know anyone who watched Jersey Shore, that would probably be a good place to start. Continue reading Laughing at cows can be harmful, especially while playing bingo

Spring officially starts once you’ve mowed over your hibachi

Tall grass and hibachi The official start of spring is almost here. I know this because I received a Sears catalogue depicting what appears to be an all-American family taking time off from its busy modeling schedule to cook hamburgers on a brand new stainless steel grill large enough to accommodate an entire side of bull elk. As you would expect, children were in the yard squirting each other with water toys and running barefoot over a perfectly manicured lawn which, judging from the size of the family dog, must be self-cleaning.

Mom was nearby, well oiled and laying on a lawn chair in her bathing suit, still recovering from her recent Victoria’s Secret lingerie shoot in the Bahamas.

Around the Hickson household, spring starts out a little differently. I was reminded of this yesterday as I stood in our back yard, waist-deep in weeds, swatting at a mosquito with a rusty spatula and trying to remember the last time I saw our hibachi. Each year, I promise myself I won’t begin the spring by embarrassing our entire family.

And each year, a search and rescue team finds me whimpering somewhere in our back yard, surrounded by weeds, laying in a fetal position next to our lawn mower. Continue reading Spring officially starts once you’ve mowed over your hibachi

Don’t worry: tougher tax laws still let you depreciate your ostrich

IRS and ostrich It used to be that when the IRS discovered you’ve been claiming a child who is actually a 50-pound Labrador retriever named “Billy,” everyone would have a good laugh. Not any more. The Treasury Department says it will be cracking down on “aggressive tax deductions” filed by U.S. taxpayers in order to keep the federal government from being bilked out of hundreds of millions of dollars — money that could otherwise be spent on important federal programs, such as the Government Shutdown Caribbean Getaway Fund.

As a service to our readers, several of whom are actual U.S. taxpayers, we thought we’d contact some of the brightest minds in tax law in order to clarify what we can still get away with. Unfortunately, everyone was too busy working on the Osbourne family’s latest tax returns to help us so, as responsible members of the news media, we were left with only one option:

Forget taxes and talk about The Bachelor!

Just kidding. We rolled up our sleeves. Got on the Internet. Made phone calls. And eventually came up with some real-life tax claims you should NOT make unless you want to end up in jail, or worse, on the computer screen of a humor columnist trying to meet a deadline. Continue reading Don’t worry: tougher tax laws still let you depreciate your ostrich

My review of a ‘Twilight’ book that doesn’t actually exist

Eclipsed Sunset cover So let’s say you’re a HUGE Twilight fan. And let’s further say you’re looking for a good book for summer when suddenly, and without warning… BAM! you stumble across a review about the new Twilight book YOU DIDN’T EVEN KNOW WAS BEING RELEASED?!? How could this HAPPEN?!? Who is RESPONSIBLE?! Why was there nothing in my Twilight Fan Club email?!

That was the catalyst for my “review” of Eclipsed Sunset, the latest book in the Twilight series which, as it so happens, doesn’t actually exist. My friend Sara, who is the editor and a contributor at Gliterary Girl, posted it this morning at 8 a.m. London time.

Didn’t you hear the screaming?

Unlike this post, there was no such introduction.

This could be fun… Continue reading My review of a ‘Twilight’ book that doesn’t actually exist