Dan Poynter

Author's posts

Overheard: 8 yr old male

“I told my mom that I wanted to learn kite-fighting, but she was in the shower, and through the door she thought I said cockfighting, and she said, ‘Cockfighting is illegal in Missouri!’”

Dude

A few years ago I’m sitting in my office on a July Monday morning catching up on email. Behind me I hear someone enter the stockroom and stop. “Dude.” It was Kaleb. I turned around, and Kaleb showed me how his weekend was, out on the Smithville Lake in an aluminum boat.

Free Wallpaper: Undertaker 1997

In 1997 I went with my friends The Celt, his wife (Mrs. Celt), Tony, and Stickler to my first rasslin’ event: WWF Monday Night Raw is War on October 6 in Kansas City, Missouri. The previous day had been pretty eventful, with the Kane and the Hell in a Cell match making their first appearances in St. …

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Drive on

Working in I.T., I hear a lot of figurative terms for USB flash memory drives: thumb drive, jump drive, zip drive*, flash stick, and memory stick**. My favorite term that I have heard, though, is ‘nerd stick.’ As I have mentioned before, my favorite nerd stick is the Victorinox USB Swiss Army Knife. Both asterisked terms …

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WebEx

Here’s a tip: if you ever have to set up a login for webex.com, you had better be prepared to receive a lot of junk email from them. Jerks.

8 Cardinal Virtues of George Washington Carver

The world is a better place thanks to George Washington Carver, and not just for his brilliant invention of peanut butter. The following is excerpted from a thank-you he wrote to the members of his senior class at the Tuskegee Institute: “…it is needless for me to keep saying, I hope, except for emphasis, that …

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Review: Ladyhawke

Heather and I both remember loving this movie, and we rented so we could watch it with the girls. It was not the best around. The movie was directed by Richard Donner (Superman, The Goonies), so I was expecting better. Matthew Broderick is the only great part about the movie: he is totally natural and …

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Quotable: Washington Irving

“…for those men are most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad who are under the discipline of shrews at home. Their tempers, doubtless, are rendered pliant and malleable in the fiery furnace of domestic tribulation, and a curtain lecture is worth all the sermons in the world for teaching the virtues of patience and …

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Vintage photo of MadMania’s founder, c. 2002

Spring 2002, a long time ago. I was out of work–me and everyone else but two people from my old job were laid off right before Christmas. I’m standing in downtown Kansas City. The photo is super-grainy because we are using a 1.2 megapixel Kodak I got from the aforementioned job. The camera was as …

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Review: Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (movie)

I saw this movie before I had read the book. In fact, I had barely even heard of the book. So I had no expectations going into it, either good or bad. It wasn’t very good. The very first conversation in the movie already seems out of place–stating a situation that already seems to defy …

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