Now, where would you find this komodo dragon?

Bob and Ray are definitely worth listening to. Their most famous skit is probably this interview about the komodo dragon, though the Slow Talkers Association of America is a close second. Though you don’t hear as much about them nowadays, they inspired many of today’s best comics (or in some cases, the parents of many of today’s best comics). Interestingly, Bob Elliot is the father of Chris Elliot, one of the creative forces behind the mid-90’s box office juggernaut “Cabin Boy.”

Update: The link for the komodo dragon no longer works; luckily, I’ve found an alternative.  Who would have known that NPR was more reliable than streamguys.net?

Summer Reading

I wrote this while (avoiding) finishing my Master’s degree. It’s a bit dated now, what with everyone agreeing about how much George Bush has messed up things and all, but I was happy with it at the time, and always wanted to put it in some kind of public forum. Enjoy…

***

One of my favourite summer rituals is choosing a summer book to read. For a graduate student like me, there is something indescribably luxurious about picking a book and reading simply for the fun of it. Not to deconstruct, demythologize, or defend it, but simply for the pleasure of reading.

This summer, I turned to an old favourite – the American Declaration of Independence. I’m sure I’m not the only one. Though admittedly it’s a bit old, and arguably more of a short story than a book, it’s still got everything you could want in a light summer read: heroes, villains, colourful characters, all packed into a heart-warming story of triumph over adversity.

Monkey-tees and the basketball

By popular demand, the Monkey-Tee, once again written by my brother. If we had been a boy band, he would have been the funny one. I would have been, I dunno, the mathematically-inclined one, perhaps.

My funny brother

My brother Andy is a seriously funny guy. For instance, he wrote a piece in the North Shore News the other day that managed to capture the holiday magic of an annual ritual in the Prest family. As an added bonus, it sort of mentions me by name.

As for me, most of the stuff I write isn’t so funny. Instead, it uses sentences like “…insofar as such states may experience limited, though persistent and highly disruptive outbreaks of violence, which in turn an only be understood in the context of broader and ultimately more fundamental questions regarding the underlying fragility of the state.” Leacock, it ain’t. Though I suppose Leacock wasn’t funny all the time, either. Anyways, kudos to my bro for finding a way to get paid to write entertaining stuff.