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msockol

  • Oh La La

    Ah, French. The language of love. A colleague of mine had a French girl friend, and one day at work, I overheard what sounded like a provocative conversation in the Gallic tongue.

    "Sounds romantic," I noted.

    "Not really," he said. "We were going over tonight's grocery list."

    [...]
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    Posted: July 11, 2009, 12:48am EDT

  • It's a Family Affair

    I guess I'm a bit of a traditionalist at heart. I miss Washington's Birthday.

    Since 1948, historians have consistently ranked three presidents among the country's best--George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt. Ironically, if FDR's mother delayed delivery for another 48 hours, all three men would have been [...]
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    Posted: February 18, 2008, 12:00am EST

  • It's Only Rock and Roll To Me

    You could say my teenage son is a connoisseur of video games. Not only does he play them, but he also knows every detail about them--from voice actors to the individual histories behind the production companies that make them. As a result, in both conversation and deed, I have been [...]
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    Posted: December 24, 2007, 11:15am EST
    by msockol

  • Warning Labels

    For me, common sense as we know it ended the day I saw a TV commercial in which a volcano spit out a Jeep. I didn't mind the fact that the Jeep drove away from the carnage after landing on the ground. I was simply amazed that the legal department' [...]
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    Posted: December 16, 2007, 5:46pm EST
    by msockol

  • Standing Pat

    Ms. Pat Russo
    Chief Executive Officer
    Alcatel-Lucent
    54 rue la Boetie
    Paris 75008, France

    Dear Pat,

    Happy holidays. I hope those French lessons are going well.

    Sorry to bother you while you're spending all your time these days trying to save your company (and your job), but' [...]
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    Posted: December 04, 2007, 11:06pm EST
    by msockol

  • It's My Party (and I'll Cry If I Want To)

    In 1864, Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, took the unusual step of selecting a Democrat, Andrew Johnson, as his running mate. It was a cagey move. Lincoln had been impressed with Johnson's administration of Tennessee as a wartime governor, and he created a National Unity ticket with an eye towards a' [...]
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    Posted: November 24, 2007, 1:16pm EST
    by msockol

  • Friday on My Mind

    On the surface, Holmdel has probably seen better Fridays than the one that played out last week. In a hard fought contest, the Holmdel Hornets lost its semi-final match up with Rumson-Fair Haven, and earlier in the day, a spokesperson with Alcatel-Lucent confirmed that Preferred Real Estate had failed to [...]
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    Posted: November 18, 2007, 4:04pm EST
    by msockol

  • Rocket 88

    In college, I spent most of my senior year growing a red beard, which I reluctantly shaved off to perform in a community theater production in Savannah, Georgia. Frankly, it was getting too hot to wear that beard anyway.

    Roughly ten years later, I tried to grow it back, [...]
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    Posted: November 16, 2007, 9:30pm EST
    by msockol

  • Ain't No Mountain High Enough

    Number of comments: 1
    During one of the final days of the campaign, after weeks of crisscrossing various neighborhoods throughout Holmdel, Janet Berk and I walked up a steep hill to ring the doorbell of a house. A woman answered the door and gave us a bemused look. "If the two of you were" [...]
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    Posted: November 13, 2007, 10:39pm EST
    by msockol

  • The Reason Why

    At the height of his popularity and facing a flawed incumbent, Senator Ted Kennedy doomed his presidential quest when he could not offer a clear and coherent reason why he wanted to be president in a national TV interview with correspondent Roger Mudd in 1979.

    Ironically, only eleven years [...]
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    Posted: July 02, 2007, 9:56am EDT
    by msockol

  • Act Naturally

    Sodas, like Coca Cola and Pepsi, are simply bad for you, even if they don't contain pesticides, as a recent news reports from India claim. So what about the so-called antithesis of cola beverages, the Uncola?

    7UP began earlier this year an extensive marketing campaign emphasizing that it' [...]
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    Posted: August 06, 2006, 12:48am EDT
    by msockol

  • Radio Killed the Video Star

    Number of comments: 1
    Superman returned this week to a world in iconic upheaval. Bob Dylan delivers surprising coherence as a disc jockey spinning old cowboy and blues records, and failed radio star David Lee Roth sings bluegrass.

    Dylan has been doing his radio gig on XM radio for about two [...]
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    Posted: June 30, 2006, 11:45pm EDT
    by msockol

  • Release Me

    Number of comments: 2
    I was manning the assignment desk at a TV station in Texas, when I received a call from a public relations agency in New York City. The woman on the phone asked me if I had planned to cover a local event described in a press release she had sent [...]
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    Posted: June 14, 2006, 10:13pm EDT
    by msockol

  • Body Language

    I was away at college when my father rented space in his building to a martial arts instructor. As part of the deal, my brothers and parents received free karate lessons. I believe they stopped taking classes shortly after my mother caused one black belt student to collapse from an [...]
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    Posted: May 19, 2006, 6:15pm EDT
    by msockol

  • Bumper Crop

    Number of comments: 2
    Researchers from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced this week that distracted drivers cause 80 percent of all highway collisions.

    The culprit--as usual--seems to be the poor lamented cell phone. It seems no one can talk into one of these devises without crashing into something. Other notable [...]
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    Posted: April 19, 2006, 9:14pm EDT
    by msockol

  • Lost in Space

    While on his honeymoon, my father got lost and had to ask a state trooper what state he was in. The trooper was not clever enough to say bliss.

    I rarely get lost while driving, or if I do, I have never been shy about asking the locals where [...]
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    Posted: March 16, 2006, 10:53pm EST
    by msockol

  • Snap, Crackle and Pop

    Number of comments: 2
    I do a lot of the grocery shopping in the family. In today's monster sized supermarkets, you can lose yourself for a few hours, forget your cares, think deep thoughts and gobble up as many free samples as you can find.

    Here I was standing in the cereal aisle,' [...]
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    Posted: March 04, 2006, 8:52pm EST
    by msockol

  • Girls Gone Wild

    In the days leading up to Valentine's Day, many major magazines, newspapers, and web sites participated in a publicity blitz to offer helpful hints to hapless men regarding the best gifts to buy the woman in their lives. Chocolates, flowers, and jewelry still dominate most lists, but today's Wall Street [...]
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    Posted: February 15, 2006, 10:33pm EST
    by msockol

  • Time's Up

    Number of comments: 1
    With enough repetition, an old advertising slogan can become a source of comfort. Campbell Soup? Why, it's mmm, mmm, good. Oops. Did you accidentally spill that soup and need to catch the drip before it hits the floor. No problem. Reach for that Bounty paper towel, since it's the quicker [...]
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    Posted: February 08, 2006, 10:02pm EST
    by msockol

  • Extra Crispy

    It comes down to this. A breakfast cereal will patrol center field and the prodigal son returns. For a franchise that defines the term "Greek Opera," one would still be challenged to find another off-season like the one Red Sox fans have just endured. Mercifully, spring training begins in just [...]
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    Posted: January 28, 2006, 8:31pm EST
    by msockol

  • Showing Some Muscle

    Number of comments: 1
    One of my friends in high school once bought a 1970 Dodge Challenger. Most of these muscle cars contained a slant six engine capable of only 145 horsepower, but this orange monster must have packed a much larger powerplant, since I can still remember the loud rumbling noises that spilled [...]
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    Posted: January 18, 2006, 10:15pm EST
    by msockol

  • Sweet Music

    In 1970, one of my childhood friends got the coolest Christmas gift I ever saw-- a complete Bruins hockey uniform with skates, pads, stick, and best of all, Bobby Orr's number 4 jersey. My favorite player back then was Gerry Cheevers, who used to draw scars on his goalie mask' [...]
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    Posted: January 08, 2006, 10:02pm EST
    by msockol

  • The Irony of It All

    Somewhere in between all the self-congratulatory banter between Al Michaels and John Madden on the final broadcast of ABC Monday Football, it became clear to me that advertising agencies must be making a lot of money creating commercials that sell irony instead of products.

    My father and I sat [...]
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    Posted: December 28, 2005, 9:38pm EST
    by msockol

  • Idiot's Delight

    Our puppy fractured her shin a few days ago, and now she drags around a yellow cast on her back leg. Titina appears unaffected by this impediment, and when we take her outside, we spend half the time trying to keep her from running all over the place.

    Titina [...]
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    Posted: December 22, 2005, 11:46pm EST
    by msockol

  • London Times

    I returned to London for the first time in twenty years this week, and once again remain fascinated by how two people can reconstruct a common language into uncommon idioms.

    Linguistically, Americans and Brits resemble children who use the same set of Lego blocks to build identical toy towers [...]
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    Posted: December 17, 2005, 6:57am EST
    by msockol

  • Holiday Special

    A traffic jam can be a lonely place without a radio to keep you company. So recently, I found myself listening to one conservative talk show host lamenting that the term "Christmas" would soon fade completely away as more people chose the adjective "holiday" to describe everything associated with the [...]
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    Posted: December 15, 2005, 6:15am EST
    by msockol

  • In My Life

    Number of comments: 1
    I had been looking forward to this evening for several weeks. The New England Patriots were on national television, and while they had been slumping after a fast start, they were poised to finally beat the Miami Dolphins in their home stadium for the first time since 1966.

    The [...]
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    Posted: December 08, 2005, 6:03am EST
    by msockol

  • Land of the Free

    The term "free agent" becomes an oxymoron every year the baseball season ends.

    With the winter baseball meetings beginning this week in Dallas, let's consider for a moment one of the lesser signings overshadowed by the tens of millions of dollars bestowed upon relief pitchers B.J. Ryan and Billy [...]
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    Posted: December 05, 2005, 6:00am EST
    by msockol

  • The Great Unwashed

    I was browsing through the latest edition of Atlantic Monthly the other day, and was shocked to discover that women are cleaner than men. According to the intrepid researchers at the American Society of Microbiology, women are more likely to wash their hands after using a public restroom than [...]
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    Posted: November 30, 2005, 9:00am EST
    by msockol

  • For Adults Only

    The season came to a depressing close for the local high school football team last weekend, as they lost to its traditional Thanksgiving Day rival.

    It was a strange year. Midway through the season, the team's coach tried to kick off the squad an alledged malcontent who apparently used [...]
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    Posted: November 28, 2005, 9:30am EST
    by msockol
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