I Have Some Dreams: A Word on Growing Up
Like most young men not currently employed as astronauts, ambulance drivers, or dinosaur hunters, I have had to revise the dreams of my boyhood. While I once lamented this abandonment of my youthful fantasies, I now realize it was a necessary process as my post-9/11...
Idea Born After 14 Hours of Painful Brainstorming
A new idea was welcomed into the world yesterday after 14 hours of excruciating, intellectual labor. The idea, which popped out of area researcher Jenny Archer at 4:14 pm on Monday, March 14, represents the culmination of nearly nine months of cranial incubation and...
The Beginning of the End: Life After College, Part 1
23 is apparently a pretty good year to be alive. Over the past twelve months, 23 year-olds have won Grammies, been nominated for Oscars, and collected Olympic gold medals. They were drafted to professional sports teams, they parlayed sophomoric Youtube videos into...
Local Female Finally Named “One of the Guys”
WHEATON (AP) – The Talking Mirror has received word that after three years of platonic male friendships, local college junior Sandra Williams is finally “one of the guys.” Sandra received the long-awaited news last week in the form of a flatulent emission made in her...
A Performance Review From my Boss, The Inebriate
There has been another minor victory in my ongoing war to increase TTM’s interests in foreign lands. McSweeney’s has published another of my moderately humorous pieces. Some see this as a shameful betrayal of my matrimonial vows to The Talking Mirror. I see it as...
An Infant Ponders the Tabula Rasa
Gaze upon my beauty and tremble, oh fallen humanity! Look down on my naked form writhing in this sink you call a bathtub and ponder my immeasurable capacity for good or evil. I am all that you are not, all that you once were, and all that you most fear. I am the...
Adult Superstores and Truckstop Subways: A Word on Interstate Travel
As many of you probably do not know, I have recently transplanted my life from the purgatorial suburbs of America’s third largest city (Chicago) to the sun-drenched paradise just south of its second (Los Angeles). Although the Windy City is home to many of my...
Fighting For My Right to Party: A Man’s Attempt at Wedding Planning
This past weekend I had the privilege to participate in the wedding of my best friend from college. It was a beautiful ceremony, a fun reception, and an all-around perfect weekend from start to finish. This, of course, is because the entire thing was planned and...
There Are Two Kinds of People in the World: Those Who Read This Article and Those With Sad, Unfulfilling Lives
For some reason, we humans find it extremely important to know right where we stand in relation to all other beings. From dirt clod to deity, we want to know who can give the proverbial “business” to whom. Pre-renaissance Europe answered this question with the...
Mr. BIV and all his Friends: A Word on Mnemonic Devices
(Note: The mnemonics listed below first appeared on McSweeney’s Internet Tendency and are now part of a bi-weekly series called “Non-essential Mnemonics. You can view them in all their resplendent glory at http://mcsweeneys.net/links/mnemonics/.) Even if we can’t...
What Came First: Happiness or This Article?
Before we begin, let me warn you that this is another one of those articles. You know, the ones where Kent says, “Hey, you know how everyone always says something like this____? Well, wouldn’t it be funny if we used that format to say a bunch of ridiculous things...
Fratboy Chad: Do You Have Any Idea How Cool I am Back at School?
Yo Yo Yo Yo! What up playazzzz?! It’s the Chadman coming at you from sunny Des Moines, Iowa (or, as I like to call it, Des Moines-vegas)! Sorry I haven’t posted much in the last couple months. It’s hard to get an internet connection at bonfire parties, Toby Keith...