Dan Poynter

Author's posts

Aug 21

Overheard

“Upstairs noodles?”

Aug 19

woppyjarred

adjective, pronounced phonetically. I learned this word from my wife, who I suppose coined it, as I haven’t seen it anywhere else. It means “at a wrong angle, misaligned, uneven, out of level, out of plumb, and/or out of square.” UPDATE: one of my readers pointed out that woppyjarred appears to be a corruption of …

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Aug 17

Dad’s Volkswagen

As long as I could remember my Dad always drove American cars, so it was a great surprise when my uncle mentioned that my Dad and his twin brother had once owned a Volkswagen Beetle–for a short time. “They were coming around a  long curve on our gravel road. Our neighbor and his wife were …

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Aug 15

Life at the potato chip plant

My Dad told us he once worked at a potato chip plant. My brothers and I were fascinated at the prospect of working at such a magical place. “Did they let you eat any of the chips?” we asked. “They let us eat all we wanted,” he replied. We were completely in awe. “They knew that …

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Aug 13

Mijo

Before you try pronouncing it with any kind of J sound, I’ll tell you: it’s pronounced MEE-ho, and in Mexican Spanish it’s a term of endearment for boys (mija, MEE-ha for girls). I learned the word from my brother. He heard it from one of his Army buddies, who told this story: “When I was …

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Aug 11

Sandcrawler Steve

One of my more comically miserable memories involves Star Wars nerds, and lots of ’em. The year is 1997. My friend Dave calls and says he knows this guy named Steve who was trying to put together a big fat Star Wars convention in Kansas City, and the guy needed artists to help. I had …

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Aug 09

Pettin’ the zebra

‘Pettin’ the zebra’ is a metaphor for being stuffed and mounted, and, more specifically, dead; it was coined by my brothers. They were discussing how unwise it would be to ever attempt to burglarize the house of one of our relatives (the relative in question is a hunter and a taxidermist). While he has a …

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Aug 08

Tennis, anyone?

When my wife and I were dating, she was still playing tennis. She said she had an 85 mile-an hour-backhand. I don’t know jack about sports, so I just filed the factoid away. Anyway, we were out on the court, and I was throwing tennis balls across the fence so she could hit them. You …

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Aug 07

Review: G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Fifteen minutes into the midnight showing of G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra the film burned and broke. That was my favorite part of the movie. No, I’m not kidding. If I hadn’t been there with my children and students I would have walked out shortly after they got it back up and running. I …

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Aug 05

Bustin’ makes me feel good

If you were a big fat huge fan of the original Ghostbusters movie (and, mayhaps, the Real Ghostbusters cartoon), then you will flippin’ love the new Ghostbusters video game. I received the X-Box 360 version as a belated Father’s Day gift, and I have thoroughly enjoyed it (not entirely true–I have enjoyed it to the extent …

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