Category: Misc

Our 30th Ana(versary)gram!

I can’t let 2016 escape without noting that this was the year Cheri and I celebrated our 30th anniversary. Three adventure-filled decades ago, we committed ourselves to making our union “as a fortress for well-being and salvation”. That’s how Baha’u’llah describes it in the Prayer for Marriage. That, for us, has been the way it…

December 28, 2016
One Word: Antigram

An antigram is an expression formed by rearranging the letters of another expression to mean its opposite. For example, “fluster” rearranges to spell “restful”. Other classic examples: “listen” = “silent”; “antagonist” = “not against”; “earliest” = “arise late”. The word “antigram” is short for “anti-anagram” – an anagram being any word or phrase formed by…

December 22, 2016
Are Russian Hackers Interfering With Gary’s Anagrams?

For some time, I’ve suspected foreign agents of covertly tampering with my anagrams. Why? Maybe so you’ll vote for competing anagrams by my Twitter buddy Christopher Davis (@TweakYourPC). Maybe just to stir up vandalism. Who cares? Point is, our CIA is now “confident” that the letters in “This anagram was HACKED by Vladimir Putin” rearrange to spell…

December 12, 2016
A Grumpy Old Anagram!

A favorite quote of mine, from the 1993 movie Grumpy Old Men: “The first ninety years or so, they go by pretty fast … Then one day you wake up and you realize that you’re not eighty-one anymore.” – Burgess Meredith These words are spoken in the movie by the “Grandpa Gustafson” character (Meredith). I…

December 9, 2016
It Never Goes Without Saying

Some things just go without saying. But here’s a funny thing about each one of those things: Whatever goes without saying always becomes, sooner or later, the single most important thing that must be said. Let’s therefore try an experiment: Let’s each think of something that just goes without saying. And just say it. How…

December 7, 2016
How to Fact-Check Gary Matthews (or Anyone Else)

One thing I love about today’s Internet is how easily you can fact-check anything I say. Don’t believe me about something? Fine! Fire up Google (or any other search engine). Type in the topic. Seconds later you’re studying it in Wikipedia, watching it on YouTube, reading all about it in respected news outlets and academic…

December 6, 2016
Why Gary Matthews Shuns Politics

There aren’t many people for whom I’ll cheerfully take a bullet. One of them is my friend Tim. He’s among the smartest folks I know. He has really good instincts. His opinions matter to me – a lot. The following note from Tim thus caught my attention: “I’m happy to receive emails about points of view.…

December 4, 2016
How the Post Office Could Have Saved Itself

The US Postal Service had the chance, early on, to become a provider of email. This was during the Internet’s early days. Few people at that time foresaw the importance email would attain. Neither, it seems, did the Postal Service. In fact, the Postal Service saw email as a threat, not as an opportunity. If…

December 3, 2016
Me and Automatic Doors

Someone once predicted that automatic doors would never catch on. Oh, yeah, that someone was me. It just proves how awful is my track record as a predictor of trends and technology. I don’t recall where or when I saw my first automatic sliding door. Hospital? Library? Grocery store? Being a kid, though, I remember…

November 28, 2016
Did We Just Trade Away the Internet?

Did we just trade away the Internet? It sure looks that way. Don’t take me too literally. We’ll always have something called “the Internet”. It just won’t necessarily be the real Internet, the one we’ve come to take for granted. By which I mean the open Internet – the one featuring a precious jewel called “net…

November 26, 2016
One Word: So

Reader Paul Ruff notes that “so” is replacing “like” as the all-purpose, meaningless word with which to start a sentence. We used to hear conversations such as: “Like, I’m going skydiving tomorrow.” “Like, wow, that’s awesome!” “Like, without a parachute!” “Isn’t that like, dangerous?” “Like, I’m using Google Cardboard, silly.” Today it seems we’re more…

November 21, 2016
Uncharted Waters

Of all the post election punditry I’ve read, one insight especially stood out to me: The critics of our new president-elect took him (a) literally but not seriously. His supporters took him (b) seriously but not literally. A thought occurs: What if it turns out we should have taken him (c) both literally and seriously,…

November 17, 2016