Mike O'Connell

The biggest movie on Netflix right now is Old Dads, directed by and starring Bill Burr. Gen X dads butting heads with Millennial dads? That’s got the potential for comic gold, right?

For better or worse old Bill gives us some sappy moments and dare I say “enlightened” wisdom interspersed among his 20th century eye rolls.

(Pause for reflection.)

But the eye rolls are the funniest parts. And I would rather hear 102 minutes of Bill Burr standup than what was basically your average 21st century movie. I didn’t need a morality play; I just wanted to laugh.

I’ve already been to enough sensitivity trainings. I don’t need one run by Bill Burr.

War and Peace, The Great Gatsby, Don Quixote…

get ready to add one more to the list.

It’s the latest from Jeff Kinney, the greatest social critic of our time.

(Pause for effect.)

Still thinking?

(Pause.)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid?

Yeah, the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” guy.

Book #18 in his series hits the shelves October 24, though somehow my local library snared a few advanced copies and has made them available already. There’s a waitlist about 200 names long, but I don’t really think about the 199 names after mine.

Literally couldn’t put the thing down, and as a favor to the rest of Loudoun County it’s back at the library already.

Oh, did I mention it’s for me, not my nine-year-old?

Yeah, Franklin likes the book too (he was the one who turned me on to the series), but that’s not the reason I left work early Monday to get my hands on a copy.

Damn the book is great, and somehow they keep getting better. (Kinney puts out one a year like clockwork–a scandal-free Woody Allen). The new one is called Diary of a Wimpy Kid: No Brainer, and without giving too much away it’s pretty on point as far as criticism of our current state of education. I always find myself having sympathy with the adults in these books, but this one I side with the young’uns at the expense of the grownups. Grownups with Pollyannish ideas to raise money or cut expenses in our schools. If you haven’t been in a public school recently, selling naming rights and accepting corporate sponsorships sounds pretty ridiculous… until you find out those bridges were crossed long ago. (Haven’t tried all the ideas in the book yet, but I worry now some school administrator is going to pick up this book and not see it as satire.) Kinney nails the actions of all grownup actors: teachers, parents, school administrators… and demonstrates again and again (with hilarious consequences) the old cynical business maxim that the solution to any problem… becomes the new problem.

Do yourself a favor and grab a copy of Diary of a Wimpy Kid: No Brainer. Just don’t take it too seriously.

Sad part is, the really dumb ideas have already been tried.

I don’t think anyone really knows the origin of Friday the 13th superstitions, but I discuss a few with my guest today on Math and Musings.

Of course we discuss unusual food items as well, and the usual tangents that do occur as a matter of course.

It is, after all, math… and musings.

Until a year ago I had never heard of Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

Until last week I didn’t even know how to spell it.

Apparently the term really is peoples, so if we’re celebrating their day it’s really peoples’. The day of these peoples.

(It’s Presidents’ Day and Veterans’ Day all over again, and I’ve written about those two so many times I can’t even link a definitive answer.)

Dangling an apostrophe off the edge like that is the most dangerous form of punctuation there is, but I believe in this case it is apt.

Didn’t know you were getting a grammar lesson in addition to the history lesson.

Of course there are some agencies still calling this holiday “Columbus Day.” (They don’t know Columbus has been canceled.) I get trying to whitewash Coumbus, but if you really wanted to draw attention to this you should have deleted the holiday altogether. That would have made people notice. Would’a pissed ’em off too, and would have brought about the greatest outpouring of Columbian appreciation since 1492.

Hey, how come it’s Columbus Day and not Columbus’ Day?

Guess it doesn’t matter now.

After four weeks in this NFL season there are only two teams with undefeated records.

And two teams who haven’t won a game.

One of those latter teams, the Chicago Bears, plays tomorrow night down the road from me against my hometown team, the Washington Commanders. Formerly the Football Team, formerly the blankety-blanks.

Here’s to keeping the Bears’ streak intact, and my hometown team celebrating this upcoming holiday weekend.

For those of you keeping track, it’s now called Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

How appropriate.