Ken Jennings has Some Very Big Shoes to Fill — If you’ve ever seen older women blush and fan their faces at Colonial Penn commercials, you’ve had a small taste of society’s love for Alex Trebek. In the wake of his death from pancreatic cancer last November and the news media tributes that memorialized him, it’s easy to get the…

The immensely stupid story of Garfield EATS and the founder who learned little. — It’s not uncommon for businesses to fall head-first into memehood. After an ironic incident where Amazon used an image of Bernie Sanders to promote its fee-laden payment service, the lines between promotional and humorous images continue to fade. Still, PR departments seem a bit lost on the limits of “post-irony.” …

Appeals to decency won’t mend the great divide — Joe Biden officially won the Democratic primary on June 6th, smack in the sticky middle of the summer’s racial justice protests. Though he was leading in the state primaries, the timing still felt odd. In the midst of a furious fight against systemic, violent racism, summer voters chose a fabulously…

It’s really, really, dark before the dawn — Happy New Year, dear reader! If you’ve arrived at this article, that means that you’ve had the privilege of surviving 2020 without being killed by the coronavirus, the police, or the flaming world around us. Momentous a privilege as that is, the pandemic rages yet, and our daily cases are…

How to stay safe as spam gets smarter — I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. I was already getting into bed just before sunrise, and as my head hit the pillow I figured one last round through my email accounts for the day would help lull my mind to sleep. The very last account I checked…

I remember walking into a Michael’s to buy paint back in October. To my horror, the craft store had engaged in a slimy and desperate corporate strategy I unaffectionately refer to as “pulling a CVS.” …