Chris Rodell
Satirist

Chris Rodell's Blog

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May.22.2013

Dietary thoughts on weight gain & cannibals

(692 words) I like to ask fitness fanatics if tragic circumstances required it which part of themselves would they eat first. This is particularly fun with vegetarians. Yes, self-cannibalization gives new depth to the old you-are-what-you-eat adage. I’m spending a lot of time thinking about...

May.21.2013

Our wills, our ways; prayers for Oklahoma

(661 words) Val and I are in the process of updating our wills. All we have to do is sign them. The attorney who’s doing them is our friend Chuck. I see him practically every day at The Pond for either lunch or Happy Hour drinks. So now after about a month of the documents gathering dust in his...

May.20.2013

Bravo! Our night at the symphony

(667 words) My wife prepared me for a night at the symphony by assuring me I’d be enthralled with the conductor. “Oh, he’s magnificent,” she said. “Very charismatic.” She was correct. Daniel Meyer, artistic director of the Westmoreland Symphony Orchestra, is all that and more. Heck, his...

May.17.2013

"Cheers!" to ballpark beer innovation

(725 words) I lied in yesterday’s post. I said my friends and I were going to Altoona. In fact, Altoona, was not our ultimate destination. Instead, we went to the future! And we discovered it has a great big hole in the bottom of it. I’m one of those guys who is frustrated by mankind’s lack of...

May.16.2013

Priorities: Work or cheap beer baseball?

(834 words) I’m becoming convinced God won’t let me succeed because my story would be a terrible example to the youth of America. And in a pop culture landscape dominated by people like Kim Khardashian, the Duggars and Lindsey Lohan that’s saying something. But each of those examples has...

May.14.2013

The blessed need to read

(664 words) Reading is maybe the one passion that’ll ensure you’ll never need friends while assuring you’ll always have as many friends as you wish. That’s one of the arguments I’ve holstered for the next time I engage our 12-year-old over the need for her to turn off the TV and pick up either a...

May.13.2013

Podcasting a blog that really delivers

(701 words) The most common complaint I hear about this blog has nothing to do with content, length or clumsy construction. No, it has to do with delivery. “Yeah, I signed up for the e-mail notification and it never comes through,” yet another friend said just the other night. “What...

May.12.2013

A son's Mother's Day lament

(717 words) The woman sounded alarmed. She called to tell me she thinks Mom, 80, is really slipping. “She asked me to take her to the dentist the other day,” she said. “I told her to meet me in the lobby. When I got there she smiled and said, ‘Do I know you?’ She wasn’t joking.” That Mom’s asking...

May.10.2013

The $45 million ATM withdrawal

(661 words) I’m generally a law-and-order guy, but if you’ve developed a computer program that will let us purge ATMs of $45 million and you need a money mule, please get in touch. No masks, no guns, no threats. Just walk away with big bags full of money. My kind of crime. It’s like someone’s...

May.08.2013

Norwegian TV going up in smoke

(701 words) We have reached the point where our quality television outstrips the number of viewable hours we have in the day. Some of our favorites: “Breaking Bad,” “Justified,” “The Walking Dead,” and “Dexter.” It’s yet to crack our line-up, but I know many people will say “Mad Men” tops that...

May.07.2013

Love toys in ol' Latrobe

(739 words) Our 6-year-old is at the precocious age where reading aloud is a joyful affirmation of her growing intelligence. She blurts out storefront signs and asks questions. So any day now I’m sure I’ll have to explain what they sell inside the new store on Rt. 30 with the big “Love Toys” sign...

May.07.2013

Tweets of the (last) month!

Not exactly a bumper crop from last month’s 8days2Amish, but I think a few of them sparkle. Try and guess which one’s my favorite. Answer at the end . . . Oh, and because I feel like a round-up post like this is cheating, I’ll be posting something fresh around noon. It’s about selling sex...

May.06.2013

Stink bug star wars

(751 words) I was pleased to see my daughters have inherited my lifelong passion for star-gazing. This became apparent when Josie peered skyward and said, “It looks like the Big Dipper. There’s the handle and there’s the ladle.” She was right. It looked just so. Then about five minutes later she...

May.01.2013

America needs an all-gay NFL team

(685 words) I had two questions when I heard that Jason Collins of the NBA was coming out as the first openly gay athlete: Who is Jason Collins and who gives a crap about the NBA? Only in the numbskulled realm of professional sports could this possibly be hailed as big news. But yesterday...

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Apr.30.2013

Taking my worms to elementary school

(762 words) As I spent much of the weekend up to my elbows in warm, wet worm poo, it occurred to me I’d make a really great God. Well, at least a really great worm god, and for the sake of worm humility let’s keep the great worm god all lowercase. I’ll do anything for my worms. As I do every year...