So today an e-mail was sent around our office by the receptionist, it said "Snow White lost her headband in the parking lot. It's on my desk." Obviously someone brought their daughter to work and the girl took off her Snow White (tm) headband and forgot to pick it up again. I understand some merchandising, but a headband? What like Snow White is some kind of athlete, or rock star, or superhero that she has to wear a sweatband on her head? But that got me thinking, what if she was? With a devious grin, I began composing an e-mail...   more »

That subset of Unbecoming Levity readers who bitched and complained noted that articles don't print very well will be happy to know that U-Lev should no longer abuse their printers.  ...   more »

I've heard the expression before, but always applied to inanimate objects and used to mean the same thing as "pooched", "wasted", or my old favorite, "chootched".  Actually the word "pantsed" was first coined in the 1980's and refers to one being humiliated by having one's pants pulled down by a third party in public...   more »

An ingeniously and deliciously rich first-person-shooter, HALO, first released on the XBOX by Bungie in 2001, is a winner. Yes, it is 2004 now and I'm reviewing a game that is 3 years old, but I've never really had a chance to write down why I love HALO so much...   more »

A little brat in my daughter's first grade classroom called her a "dweeb" yesterday. She was largely unperturbed by it. I think it bothered me a lot more than it bothered her, probably because 30 years ago, it was me the kids loved to pick on. I was the outcast. I'll never understand people who are so twisted that the only way they know how to feel good is to hurt someone else. Which of course, reminds me of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal...   more »

Eyeball jewelry a new Dutch fashion trend: Surgeons implant glittering shapes into eye's membrane

Damn that's pretty scary.  Found via reader commentary on PurpleCar.

I fully admit I don't understand piercings, I have a low tolerance for tattoos, and generally dislike any sort of artificial alteration to the human body.

This is just goddamned gross.

"...it's the lightning." Those were the words I said to my kid last night during a nasty storm. I said those words because my Dad always said them to me when I was a kid. There is great truth in them for me... made greater this morning when I read the blog article of Jay McCarthy, a young man who lost his home this past weekend when it was struck by lightning...   more »

I arrived home tonite at about 9:30 PM. (My job is particularly trying lately.) Patty and 'Neya were in the master bedroom watching the new Peter Pan movie which was just ending. The dogs were also in the room, in new beds of their own. You see, my dogs are terrified of thunder...   more »

Last night after a fun evening of playing D&D with my good friends Sarah, Matt, Brian, Jay, Pat, Bob, and Patty I finally got home at about 1 AM. After 20 minutes of playing HALO I realized I was completely zonked, and I crashed on the couch. Then, I dreamt...   more »

Do you collect? I do, but what I collect changes over time. In my lifetime I have collected rocks, bottlecaps, matchbox cars, comic books, celebrity pictures, and Magic: The Gathering trading cards. In addition, you could also call birdwatching a type of collecting (as one maintains a "life list" of bird sightings). I was also into genealogy for awhile, which is the art of "collecting" information about one's ancestors. Why do people collect things? ...   more »