Short Cummings Audio

In late 2009 the scientific community went gaga over the discovery of a tool-using octopus. Well, actually there was more than one tool-using octopus, but since no one in the scientific community could remember whether the plural of octopus is octopi, octopusses or octo-pods, they decided to just report on one of them. The slimy critter [...]

If they made a movie about my professional life, it would be called Kevin Cummings and the ‘To-Do’ List of Doom. Each workday I start with a nice clean sheet of note paper which I sully with an ugly list of tasks I have to accomplish. This would be tolerable if I could just finish each [...]

In late 2009 Consumer Reports evidently ran out of new products to test. What other explanation could account for their decision to conduct a phone survey to find out what annoys people the most? The answer to that question is obvious. Phone surveys….except that wasn’t one of the things they asked about. The researchers called people and asked [...]

When my wife and I went out to breakfast, the waitress asked if we were on our honeymoon. This was a reasonable question as we were eating breakfast in Niagara Falls, Canada which which attracts honeymooners the way a bus accident attracts personal injury lawyers. Pretty much everybody you meet in Niagara Falls — including [...]

Really. It was my fault. If I didn’t want to answer highly technical questions from random strangers, I shouldn’t have worn my red fleece vest to the home improvement center. The disaster that happened the day I wore a white shirt and black tie to the Buy More electronics emporium should have been a [...]

Sponsored by: www.GotoMyPC.com/podcast If you have a job, you probably have a job description. This allows your manager to keep you centered on the tasks which are vital to maintaining a mission-centric focus for your forward-looking organization. It is also useful when your manager wants to evaluate you, discipline you, or assign you a completely random [...]

Sponsored by: www.GotoMyPC.com/podcast I remember running across the schoolyard; carefree and laughing as I engaged in the ritualized combat of games like “Tag,” “Capture the Flag,” and “Avoid the Bullies.” Well, actually, they weren’t that carefree. In fact, I remember spending a lot of time being out and even more time trying to wipe grass stains [...]

Sponsored by: www.GotoMyPC.com/podcast The main problem with film reviews — as far as I’m concerned — is that they tend to be abused by people trying to promote the films. Filmmakers and film reviewers are locked in an unhealthy symbiotic relationship like sharks and remoras, lichens and trees, and American Idol judges and contestants. It’s a [...]

Sponsored by: www.GotoMyPC.com/podcast I’ve been thinking a lot about loss lately. Maybe it’s because fall is turning to winter; maybe it’s because I’m getting older; but most likely it’s because my favorite toaster just shuffled off it’s electric coil. Really. You have to understand that this was no ordinary toaster. This was an extra-ordinary toaster, a [...]

Sponsored by: www.GotoMyPC.com/podcast I love this time of year, when Christmas tiptoes stealthily into the stores. You know how it is. At first it’s just a candy cane or two and then an ornament or maybe a small string of lights. It’s so subtle it would be easy to miss. Not really. Christmas lands on retail stores some [...]

Sponsored by: www.GotoMyPC.com/podcast I live in northern Utah which meteorologists describe as having an arid to semi-arid climate. Unlike some parts of the county where the weather never changes — I’m looking at you Southern California — we have definite seasons. If you start keeping track in July, the seasons are hot, hotter, hottest, too hot, [...]

Sponsored by: www.GotoMyPC.com/podcast With our sons grown and out of the house, my wife and I have completed our legally-mandated term of active service as parents. We find ourselves sliding giddily into the category of empty-nesters. We have the freedom to do what we want, when we want. Travel planning no longer requires us to consider [...]

Sponsored by: www.GotoMyPC.com/podcast Who doesn’t love a trip to the zoo? Well, probably the animals for whom it is a one-way trip, but that’s not really the point. The point is that you get to spend a happy, lazy day eating junk food and wandering past neat rows of tiny cages containing permanently trapped animals. As you [...]

Sponsored by: www.GotoMyPC.com/podcast After an extensive examination, the doctor concluded that my wife wasn’t right in the head. Aside: my wife is glaring at me with a look that could blister the paint on a battleship. In the interest of avoiding incineration, let me provide a some context. The doctor in question is my wife’s oh-toe-lair-in …. auto-lauren [...]

In this age of heightened security, I’ve heard that the authorities might be monitoring the telephone conversations of ordinary citizens like me. If they are listening in on my cell calls to my wife, I have two words for them. Good. Luck. Really. Our conversations are non-linear in the same way that tires are non-square, fish are [...]