HipNerd

I live in Los Angeles. As I was getting ready for work, I got a call from my grandmother, who lived in New Jersey, about the attacks. I don’t think she even said what was going on, just something like, “Turn on the TV, there’s something terrible happening in New York.” I turned on the TV and had a minute or two of cognitive dissonance as I saw only one of the two towers standing. The idea that one of the World Trade Center towers was gone was too strange, and I quickly put the thought out of my mind. A minute later I saw a replay of the building falling.

I remember the days that followed as feeling really strange. All the media concentration on the attacks, and how it was nearly the only thing that even friends and family talked about for a few days straight, made all the predictions of “the death of irony” and how “the world has changed forever” almost believable.

The day after the attacks, I saw a car driving around the streets near my work, horn blaring, with an American flag flying out the window, and a big, hand printed, cardboard sign on the back that said something like “U.S.A. TIME TO KICK ASS!” and I thought, “Oh, this is going to turn ugly soon.”

A year later (nearly to the day), my son was born. And, while my personal life has changed considerably, it seems the world has not.

Dave Arneson, the co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons, is dead at the age of 61. His influence went beyond D&D to include computer games.

The Hip Wife said recently, “You can’t say anything bad about Obama, or I won’t have sex with you anymore.”

(From the old HipNerd blog, originally published on April 1, 2007)

Growing up, my parents always referred the gluteal area of one’s anatomy as the tushy or tush. (Note to ZZ Top: Tush rhymes with “push”, not “much”.) However, my wife’s family calls it a po-po, which has become the standard in our household. (Note to ZZ Top: rhymes with Santa’s jolly laugh, “Ho-ho.”) The Hip Wife was doing some internet research on the origin of the word, and found the lyrics to this song, Feet Up (Pat Him On the Po-Po), which rocketed to #14 in the charts in 1952. When she tried to read them to me, she could not finish due to tear inducing laughter. The Hip Wife’s family (and now ours) seems to be unique in the use of this word for one’s behind, could Feet Up be the origin of this strange word?