Russian reporter murdered by the state. When I observed to a Bulgarian friend that Russia seems to be sinking back into its old fascist state by breaking one inviolable law at a time, he remarked that it always was that way and always will be that way. Whatever things we may dislike about our Congress or President, thank goodness they don't murder us for saying so.

Police chief ousted for telling his staff to lose weight. We live in overly sensitive times when the freakin' police can't take name-calling. Sure, there was probably more to his dismissal than just the one memo, but that job demands fitness and he said nothing unprofessional.

Bill Murray attends student party. I'm not a big fan of his, but even I can acknowledge that he is sometimes the coolest man on Earth. This smells staged but it's a neat story anyway.

Kevin Federline: "If you want to hate me, cool, hate me." All right. I'm not a big fan of his, and I'm ready to acknowledge that sometimes he is the uncoolest man on Earth.


Logical Operator

The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »

Crying in Baseball

Kelly and I won tickets to see a Tampa Bay Rays game in a deluxe suite last night. We've been excited about it for weeks, looking forward to a good game, good seats, and good food, all paid except the parking. What we got was a let-down. Go »

Modern Music

Sadness is not when one of your favorite bands (Smashing Pumpkins) puts out their final album in MP3 format only and you miss it because you don't want to get into file-sharing. Sadness is five years later, when you happily stumble across a website with the entire thing available for download and you finally learn how heinous and unpublishable the album was all along. Go »

Where the Hell I Have Been All Year, Part III

This is a long story of interest only to friends of mine and people who really want to spend fifteen minutes reading about my life, but I've been promising to reveal this secret for the better part of a year and the time has come: Kelly Lee and I were a couple again this past spring. I kept it secret because A) it was difficult to tell the friends who had supported me during her breakup that we were dating again and B) for the duration of the relationship I didn't know where it was going and I wanted to know this before I said anything. Anyway, this story is solely my point of view and may not be fair to hers. Go »

New Baby Upstairs

WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH WAAAH... Go »

401.8

Most people wouldn't find anything to celebrate in weighing four hundred pounds. But when you're above that and working your way down, and that number is as high as your scale will go, it's a good milestone to cross. I've weighed more than this for at least four years (how long I've had the scale), and it feels good to know that I've dropped whatever weight I've put on during that time. Go »

Dumb Question

Why is it called "word to the wise" when you're telling someone who doesn't know? Go »