The Lighter Side
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If there is one card game that has been played across the rural pubs of Ireland for generations, it is 25. Late at night you can still spot local men crowded around tables with pints, slinging cards quickly and collecting their winnings. It isn’t as common as it should be though–it’s a dying part of
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Fulton County walked a fine line. The press and the public demanded a mugshot and full booking info just like any other accused criminal. But there had to be pressure. Of course there was–almost certainly from powerful and wealthy players. Release the info, but his team gets clearance first. If you doubt for a second
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Wizards, goblins, werewolves, fireballs, banquets, swords, and poltergeists. The wild world of fantasy literature is as varied as it is magical. Yet there has been a persistent vision of dividing the genre along two general, somewhat vague classifications: “High fantasy” and “low fantasy.” Let’s just admit right now that these labels, to which I’m curiously
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ALTERNATE TITLE: “Your Mother’s Just Tired” My mom has dementia. We live an ocean apart, but thanks to video chat it feels like I am sitting in her bedroom up close, witnessing my mother’s mental decline. She knows who people are, but she loses all concept of dates or times, hatches zany schemes, has forgotten
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Back in ye olde days of the most recent Christmas season, I randomly had a calling, as if from some powerful ethereal force, to launch Stardew Valley and start a new farm, finally playing the game through ’til the end. Then praise be to the gods of mistletoe and cookies, I discovered that by sheer
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Welcome, friends to a fantastical dinner party of your own making and imagination. Yes, it’s time to play a grand game and intellectual exercise, somewhat akin to the lunchroom game of Stranded On a Deserted Island. However, instead of imagining implements of survival, escape, and spiritual fulfillment, you are being asked to host a grand
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I’ve finally cracked it, people–the previously inscrutable code of cat archetypes. Cat-kind has long been deliberately enigmatic. Such a nature is what makes them endearing, yet dangerous companions/overlords. I have spent forty years (yes, I confess this to you in the name of science) observing cats in their natural elements: Blankets, laps, sunny windows, keyboards,
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The ol’ pub game of darts is the sophisticated gentleman’s game of precision and gentility refined over many generations…no, just kidding. It’s just simply the best game you can possibly play over a pint. Or gin. Or rum. Or pretty much anything. It’s fun, global, and it gives you something to do when the booze
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Confess it now, I am registered as a Democratic voter in America. And if you’ve ever loved a sports team that consistently chokes in the playoffs, then you understand what it is like to support a party that struggles with its conscience so acutely. For every apology and resignation, for every political bean that wobbles
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I have a very special story for you about Star Trek: Voyager and how my life inadvertently imitated a holodeck fantasy. Gather ’round. The tale of my holodeck-style adventure starts not terribly long ago when I moved my little family to Ireland. One night shortly after our move, my husband and I lay in bed,
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Remember when Craig’s List was a legit thing? There was a time not so long ago in a galaxy not so far away that Craig’s List was a legit and kinda safe place to find bargains in your community. It was, like, 2008. I remember it well. See, I had a toddler back then, so
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As a consumer, student, employee, and citizen, we all get a little screwed sometimes. An important measure of any institution–be it a business, school, or whatever–is how they try to rectify a mishap or misdeed. In spite of that truism, the cold reality is that your reaction to getting screwed is the critical catalyst that
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Brought to you by It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia…and Boss Hog. UPDATE, September, 2021 In honor of the glorious ongoing pandemic, I have uploaded new and improved Rules and Cards. Collect them all! If you’re reading this, you probably are familiar with the notorious cure for boredom that was conceived by the assholes from It’s
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Parental LEGO freedoms are vital part of our society. It’s summer vacation right now and I couldn’t be more thrilled that my daughter is rifling through my old-school 1980s red plastic LEGO briefcase and assembling new sets. But she is a pain in the ass. I say this with love. I can spend my entire
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Some weeks are harder than others. Tuesday The weeds are everywhere in the gravel driveway. I’ve jammed my fingers into the pebbled earth to rip their roots, but there are just too damn many. I had to arm myself with a spray bottle of vinegar and lemon juice and spritz them, plant by plant. Hunched
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Sometimes the universe sculpts an entire day out of mockery and disillusionment. Today I was asked to herd cattle for the first time in my life, which is a very Green Acres experience for someone who has only seen a real living cow up-close at the zoo or (once or twice) at a petting farm.
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A card game for 3-8 players that is good for a quiet evening at home, or some time ’round the campfire. Many years ago I went on a camping trip with a friend’s family to a remote cabin in the Canadian wilderness where you could see the stars at night and smell the fish during
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Okay, RPG fanatics, it’s time to play one of my favorite time-killing games, “The D&D Alignment Game”! Which of your favorite characters falls into which Dungeons & Dragons-prescribed boxes? I think the most fascinating aspect of categorizing the Game of Thrones characters is how passionate every character is. It was surprisingly hard to select a
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Thinking of visiting Ireland this year on vacation? Getting around in a new country can be tricky, confusing, and startling. Don’t panic. This is why I have assembled the following guide to help you navigate the unfamiliar roads of the Irish countryside*. It is based on my wisdom gleaned from living here for just under
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Political correctness and cancel culture are the poison-tipped swords pointed at the armor of the average American asshole, for the asshole is on a great, noble quest larger than that of humor, cruelty, or domination. Assholes stand behind a great bulwark of free speech in order to assert their basic human rights. And in the
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She trembles. She bites her lips and feels shaking all over. She is a beaten dog who is filled with righteous fear and a sudden articulated need to vomit or evacuate her system through other orifices. She shakes and hesitates, and has traumatic flashbacks of the terrible times that came before. And she fidgets her
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If you were stranded on a desert island and could only play one favorite workplace lunchroom game…it would have to be the ol’ desert island scenario. There you are, you poor bastard. You’re stranded on a very tiny desert island for what you can only assume is an indefinite amount of time. A few concessions
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Surf City here we come, indeed. I grew up listening to 1950s and 1960s “oldies” music on the radio and records and cassette tapes. It all seemed really normal since it was my mom’s favorite, until I realized that she was born in 1955, which means that she was still worshipping music from her preschool
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Some months ago I started spasming over what was a series of condescending and creepy ads put out by TD Ameritrade and their “green room”, which, in many ads, appears to be little more than a “beaver trap” for Mr. Beardy and the two cockroaches presumably living in his face rug. So I created a
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Because I’m a fancy pants, I can say that I drained my bank account dry to fly across the ocean and sit at various cafes around Luxembourg, Belgium, and Germany not long ago. Food and drink were gorgeously abundant, but none were so surprising as the popular drink, the Hugo. If you’re pretending to be
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If you watch a lot of television, especially CNN, as I do, then you know the bearded TD Ameritrade douchebag. He patronizes women, telling them that their life savings is a fortune (….ha, as if! Watch him try not to giggle at their poorness). He therapizes stay-at-home moms condescendingly and, I assume fraudulently, because who the
Katie Using Words 