Past Articles

I worked for the Daily Hampshire Gazette from 1986 through 1995, and one of the suggestions I often used to make was that we sell the unsold space for a discount after deadline. Don Nunes, the ad director, called them “remnant ads,” where house ads would usually run. We did […]

I woke up this morning after one of those dreams you keep thinking about. It was about my prep school reunion, and the sadness of saying good bye to all of those old chums. But then I cracked open the laptop and eventually landed on Google Video. What a treat! […]

Like many dispirited single women, Maria Headley feared that her taste in men was sabotaging her quest for love. The bookish, intellectual types she favoured seemed to offer nothing but awkward coffee dates and graceless passes – never romance, nor the spark she craved. Such serial disappointment, she concluded, could […]

Today was an adrenaline day. One of my first orders of business turned out sour: The plumber, who also turns out to be the Inspector, insisted we have a grease trap in our cafe’s sinks. So that means some sort of vertical drilling up through the apartments and breaking through […]

Paul Theroux’ book “The Pillars of Hercules” has been by my bedside for months. I picked it up again this morning and read this passage about the author’s descent from a ferryboat from Bari Italy, to Durres, Albania. “Knowing so little in advance, I had mentally prepared myself for anything […]

Today while the snow fell in Holyoke, we watched Sunday Morning on CBS. The lead piece was about the wisdom of crowds, how time after time, a large group of people can be wiser than any single person. One example: a crowd in olden days guessed the weight of an […]

Read Paul Shoul’s new story on GoNOMAD about Bilbao and the chefs he met there.

Cow Escapes Meat Plant, Dodges SUV, Train in Montana: The AP had this story today. “A cow that escaped a slaughterhouse dodged vehicles, ran in front of a train, braved the icy Missouri River and took three tranquilizer darts before being recaptured six hours later. News of the heifer’s adventures […]

The LA Times’ Dave McKinnen chronicled the change that has put private tennis clubs on the extinction list. “Lindborg’s story is a familiar one. During the sport’s peak in the mid-1970s, developers couldn’t build private clubs fast enough to satisfy the public’s urge to whack a fuzzy yellow ball. The […]

Horrific people exist who want to kill us. This is what it must be like in Israel, with Sharon just about dead and a mother who celebrates carnage. Bokertov.typepad.com had this. “Whatever, who is, in the words of the Associated Press, the “mother of three martyrs.” She is also a […]

I remember when I used to work for men who had to make quick decisions, and they never did. It frustrated me. Now that I am running these companies, I also have to make the quick snap judgements. Now, decide, spend, save, compare, put-out-fires. Delegate. Well I am good at […]

I had a dental appointment last week when it snowed. The doc called and we set up a later time, and I settled in for some drilling. After a while, he stopped, and went away. I asked the hygenist sitting next to me if that was it. “No, no, there’s […]

Stop reading for a moment. Flip this over. Notice that the backside of your morning newspaper is utterly unencumbered by cords, plugs, telephone jacks or USB connections. The Miami Herald had this take on newspapers today. To hell with Bluetooth technology. We were wireless long before wireless was cool.Marvel at […]

Here are some fascination prognostications by Sally Hofmeister in the LA Times today. “Google will unveil its own low-price personal computer or other device that connects to the Internet. Sources say Google has been in negotiations with Wal-Mart Stores Inc., among other retailers, to sell a Google PC. The machine […]

Some teenage soccer players and their parents saw more sights than they wanted when they stayed at a hotel where about 200 swingers were having a New Year’s party. The AP ran this story today, from Orlando. “Paul Camporini brought his wife, seventh-grade daughter and eighth- grade son from Safety […]

The Sun featured a big story about a brewing scandal at Lunar House, where immigrant status is greatly affected by looks. “A Lebanese girl came into the office in a foul temper asking for one of the guys who worked there. He had recently moved to another department. “She told […]

The long lunch break, the two- or three-hour siesta that typified Spanish life for centuries, has been permanently shortened for government workers, dropping to an hour to keep pace with child-care needs and schedules in the rest of Europe. Instead of working from 9am until 7 or 8pm with a […]

The Seattle Times Danny Westneat just published a column on the most popular stories of the year. While journalists would prefer to highlight their investigative work or their hard hitting corruption probes, the readers have a more prurient view. In the top five most popular stories, four concern a man […]