A Reluctant Critic

A supposed review of The National’s new album, thinly veiling my frustration with my lack of a writing career.

Obama Reads My Blog!

Why all the fuss? My mama is so proud that the President is my biggest fan!

Alzheimer’s Humor

“Everything looks bad if you remember it.”–Homer Simpson

The Summer of 1998

I finally process David Foster Wallace’s suicide, thanks to Tiger Woods and Kobe Bryant.

Eric Holder Responds to Kamala Harris’s Hotness

Eric Holder clarifies: I’m the hottest.

Applaud My Healthy Lunch

I’m eating healthy and working out, with furious anger. Must. Not. Eat. Reese’s. Easter eggs. But they’re on sale now!

Marissa Mayer Uses Her Own Face to Upgrade Yahoo!

More than just a pretty face, but still a pretty face.

The Dreadful Plight of the Upper-Middle Class (Ironic Headline)

Speaking up for the poor saps in the UMC. Sort of. With nested puns.

Pivoting to Leverage Jargon in the New Year

Exhibiting lily-pad-leaping logic to navigate the corporate waters with innovative pivoting.

Lessons from Ikuru

Pesky ground squirrels collide with classic Japanese cinema to further exemplify my short attention span.

On 1K Status

Nothing makes me feel more at home than another inane, self-indulgent, three-minute Jeff Smisek video.

The Trembling Melody of Our Phoniness

If J.D. Salinger finds out I put his picture on Facebook, he’s going to be very angry.

Would You Eat the Deficit-Cutting Burrito at Mittpotle?

A random array of thoughts about taxes and class warfare tossed together to capitalize on the traffic inspired by a much-ballyhooed Presidential debate.

Complaint Regarding “Decorative” Pottery Barn Globe

Navigate our fine earth with a decorative globe! It’s better than using Apple Maps! Zing!

The Biological Fathers of Steve Jobs and Boo the Dog Commiserate

Two fathers who let charismatic spawn escape their grasp drunkenly ponder what could have been.

A Practical Guide to Meditating Poorly

Don’t have thoughts about bad thoughts about hating yourself because you have bad thoughts while meditating.

It’s a Higgs Boson Party, Y’All

I am Gerald. You call me Higgs Boson. Let me help you understand your universe.

Unsafe at Any Address

Just another drop in the bucket of anti-Comcast Internet-based ranting rhetoric. The company is inspirational, truly.

How Do We Know?

I’m confused about how we know stuff, and how Wikipedia is destroying our minds.

The Great Romney/Kerry Stilt-Off

May the most stilted faux-everyman wealthy politician win!

Count Chocula: Not a Count?

Cereal-shilling vampires padding resumes…corporate chicanery knows no bounds.

High Noon at the Ice Cream Parlor

I prove to a teenage ice cream scooper that I can eat a lot of ice cream, which makes me feel like a big man.

Words With Friends Is Destroying My Relationship

I don’t understand why I can’t play QUINCE while she continues to BABBLE.

Lana Del Rey Interviews Rick Santorum

A pretty singer famous for not being talented interviews that poor loser kid that the other kids are setting up for failure, like in “Carrie.”

Just Post This to #Whitewhine

How my time-saving devices eat up all my time.

When I Run for President…

Pointing out other people’s shortcomings is a shortcoming. My mom taught me that.

To Blog, or Not to Blog: The Question No One Cares About

On the ontology of blogging and obnoxious pseudo-philosophical references.

Obligatory Year-End Greatest Hits Compendium

Man I hate these things. Please read The Smatter’s, though. It’s special.

End-of-Year Brain-Flush Column

Cleaning out 2011′s notes and errata, and wishing everyone a more productive and ha-ha-funny 2012.

The Oppressiveness of To-Do Lists

Note to self: Make more to-do lists, and write more blogs about the creative process around said lists.

My Dearest San Francisco…

I still love you, San Francisco. Just take a bath or brush your mangy hair or something. Anything.

The Rarely Overtly Hostile Harry Reid

Really, CNN? Harry Reid is always overtly hostile.

Does Bartleby Know Best?

Is it possible to enjoy unemployment?

The Problem with Passion

Why care about anything? People just get hurt.

Contracts, Tahiti, and You

Let’s Occupy Tahiti. Why not?

At Least It’s an Occupation

When I’m confused, I admit it. And I’m very confused about what Occupy Wall Street (#OWS) hopes to accomplish. I applaud their zeal. In my younger, more idealistic days, I’d be out there myself, loud, unwashed, and certain of my correctness. I applaud their hypocrisy. It takes a special band of jolly roustabouts to decry […]

Here’s a Tip

Tip well, live well.

Department of Corrections and Apologia

The Worst Boycott Ever…My Bad Utilizing the location-alerting power of Facebook, I posted this picture of me waiting in a stupefying line for gelato at San Francisco’s lauded and overcrowded Ferry Building on Sunday. Astute Smatterites will remember this was to be a Weeekend of No Lines, whence our unified front against slow-paced fancy-pants food […]

Against Waiting in Lines for Food

Poorly typed on iPhone by Matt Rhodes Ladies and gentlemen: I have stood in line for a tasty morsel for the last time. All over San Francisco, I see overrated treats commanding ridiculous wait times. Blue Bottle coffee takes Dali-esque melting hours to acquire. The quality of our various ice creams seems to be determined […]

Review of the Audience of “Midnight in Paris”

A Matt Rhodes Joint It’s no secret that San Francisco is brimming with learned (two syllables), smug pricks who are certainly smarter than everyone else in the room and the world, present company included. Thanks to the not-so-subtle obnoxiousness of Woody Allen’s film Midnight in Paris, tourists and local masochists alike can now revel deeply […]

I Love a Charade

The Orange One raises his finger, wags threateningly.

“The National Potato Council Was Unavailable for Comment”

As I boarded my train this morning, The Wall Street Journal greeted me with the unwelcome news that potatoes fried in various all-fat greases are practically guaranteed to make me fatter. As a human, I have an almost sensual attraction to tubers brimming with oil. I was troubled by this shocking revelation. Regular Smatter readers […]

Tending to the Untenable

I have a good memory, thanks to aggressive consumption of omega-3-rich salmon and possibly dangerous herbal supplementation. I’m not sure the FDA reviewing my gingko biloba formulation would do much good, since these are the same folks that also thought Vioxx was just fine for the masses. Anyway, I know for a fact that the […]

A Highly Unconventional and Untimely Review of Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom

I have no choice but to begin this review with a declaration: I hate Jonathan Franzen. Mind you, I harbor only the friendliest flavor of ill will toward Mr. Franzen, that borne plainly of intense jealousy. He has the life I wanted. He was on the cover of Time, dubbed the Great American Novelist. He […]

Birther People and Constitutional Malleability

“You get taken all the time for a fool/I don’t know why you’re so gullible but I don’t mind” –The Strokes, “Taken for a Fool” I have slept much better for the past several nights knowing, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that our dear President was born right here in these United States, in […]

A Walk in the Cloud

We swim in jargon in our professional lives, and in no industry is jargon more tragically opaque than technology, where the Cloud With A Capital C looms large over all inane conversation. The Cloud is everywhere these days, and I’m as guilty as anyone in associating myself with this high-multiple, sleeveless concept. However, we’ve jumped […]

Charlie Sheen Has Nothing to Do With Ireland

“Hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past.” – James Joyce, Ulysses In Ireland, I felt American and ashamed. My knowledge of current European politics is pitiable at the moment, squeezed out by my own selfish preoccupation with my own self (and Charlie Sheen). My summary of the Irish […]

Gmail Ads Reveal: I’m a Cross-Dressing Right-Winger Who’s About to Be Audited

Written by Sean Deveney It’s a little weird, the way my email has taken it upon itself to figure me out. I have a Gmail account, and featured with such an account are Gmail Ads—a short line pitching a product or service, always with a link, that sits above my inbox. If you poke around […]

Questions Andrea Canning Should’ve Asked Charlie Sheen

Could this be the first recorded instance of bad publicity?

What? Me Worry?

I’m worried about the fact that Charlie Sheen doesn’t seem worried at all.