We’ll all be happier when AI eats our homework and we should all be nervous about liberals on the warpath, along with other thoughts you won’t be able to unsee this week… Maybe just this once. The driver who picked us up at the airport is very excited about his future. He’s lost 61 pounds so far on Ozempic, which is good for his diabetes and also good for walking on his new knee. He feels better and he looks better, as proven by the photo he showed us, and life is great. As soon as he gets the second knee replaced, he plans to get back to traveling and enjoying his rediscovered mobility. Next stop, he says, is Chicago, for deep dish pizza. Clearly, all that hard work and suffering deserves an award. An eighth deadly sin! I see that former Trump fixer Michael Cohen admitted to submitting an AI-generated court filing included a slew of fake citations, and I wasn’t surprised. Nobody checks their work anymore and nobody ever questions anything that comes out of a digital device. GIGO is the one immutable law of computing, but we’re about to see a zillion disasters as people sign off on AI documents they’ve never read and action plans they’ve never considered. Well beyond pride and envy and greed, sloth is the deadliest of sins. Well, it's not gonna kill me, maybe. Speaking of sloth, a friend and I were commiserating about how hard it is to get anyone to revisit their assumptions about anything. This is a big surprise to nobody, of course. We give things a glance, make up our minds and move on, devoting our energies to more important matters like telling online strangers how to live their lives. I’d make light of it, but it’s survival instinct at work. We decide something isn’t a threat, so we stop paying attention. Owning themselves. I was at a dinner the other night with a bunch of people who were complaining about immigration. Too many people are coming in, we have no systems in place to handle the surge, the immigrants have no interest in assimilating, they should turn around and go home, etc. Did I mention most of these people are liberals? Never means never. There are a couple of companies that keep sending me emails with all kinds of incredible offers and they refuse to stop. I’ve hit unsubscribe a million times and sometimes send them to the spam folder, but they keep sending new messages from a seemingly unending array of email addresses that I haven’t blocked yet. And I can’t help but wonder, what’s the point? It’s not like I’m suddenly going to forget the carpal tunnel I developed in my fruitless efforts to block them. What genius in the marketing department decided it was a good idea to recruit people to the Never, Ever, Ever, Ever list? Okay Genzer. It was once a mark of aging to start sentences with, “When I was your age,” but the newest batch of oldsters are people who begin a recollection with, “Back in the day…” Gen Z is rolling its eyes at you, Millennials, and I’m schadenfreuding like crazy. Would we notice? Speaking of Gen Z, I’m a little bit nervous now that they’re old enough to run for Congress. With their work ethic, it’ll be nothing but recesses and live-texting from hearings and absolutely zero work getting done. On second thought… She aged since then. Speaking of second thoughts, I really regret responding to those clickbait stories on Facebook last year. Now my feed is nothing but hilarious stories about texts gone wrong and invitations to ogle women who have been dead for 50 years. Even worse, I’m not getting any videos of cats playing the piano. Maybe I should get into that whole clickbait thing by promising nude photos of cats playing the piano instead of a Dad Writes subscription if you click here.
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Yes, the best wine is the one I’m drinking now and the best day is the one I’m living now and the best movie ever is the one I’m watching now, but the best time of my life is already long past. Of course, pretty much everything in my life is long past, even if I can still buy green bananas. I was reminiscing the other day and it occurred to me that the best years of our lives go by without us realizing we’re at our apex. We’re too busy with the day-to-day, the striving, the deadlines and detritus, so we miss the moments we should savor the most. I’m enjoying my life now, looking forward to what comes next, planning for the future, even as I look over my shoulder every so often for the Reaper’s hoodie…and all is right with the world, more or less. I wouldn’t want to go back and relive my childhood or high school or college or pretty much any other time of life…but there is one period I think I’d leap through time to experience all over again and that’s my 40s. It goes without saying that this doesn’t apply to everyone, but I’ll say it anyway to avoid hate mail and legal action. For a huge number of us, especially the people who decide to raise kids, the fifth decade is the absolute best and for many reasons:
Don’t panic if you’ve hit 50 and you forgot to savor the past ten years. There’s plenty to look forward to and no urgent need to jump off the roof. If you’re still in your 20s or 30s, though, make a note to savor every moment when your golden decade arrives. Trust me, it will be gone in a blink. Yeah, you thought the best days were when you got your first real six-string, but you were wrong. Feel free to argue, though, right after clicking here to subscribe. Quotidian miracles, the Ticketmaster Tax, and the inflation that wasn’t are all on our list of gripes this week. And how are you doing?
Turns out AI is just like us, after all, and the guard rails are off for pretty much everything. It will look great in the future, though, because only the survivors will be left to tell the story…
We'll be living life without guard rails in 2024, so click here to subscribe and come along for the ride. Maybe it’s the wassail or the eggnog or the vodka-scented candles, but I’m feeling really confused about so many these days, including…
Be sure to have yourself a merry little Christmas, and be sure to click here for the best present of all, a subscription to Dad Writes. No lumps of coal for you, baby. You know what the problem is with advice columns? The first two issues are obvious, of course: People write in about some urgent issue and the advice arrives months later when it's too late to do any good. Worse, it's pretty clear the the people asking the questions are too dense to benefit from the advice. Dear Aunt Esmerelda: My neighbor is upset that my dog is leaving gifts in his flower bed when he should really be grateful for the fertilizer. How do I get him to be happier when Poopsie visits? Dear Aunt Esmerelda: My son is a Navy Seal who is often away on secret missions. How can I get the Navy to schedule him to be home for my birthday? Dear Aunt Esmerelda: My niece has a peanut allergy, so I put some peanut butter in her turkey sandwich to help her develop some tolerance. Now she’s in a coma and my brother is making a big deal about it. How do I get him to drop the restraining order? Yes, the questions are entertaining, but the answers are the archetypes for missed opportunities. Instead of starting the replies with, “Dearest Idiot,” the advice columnists almost always express sympathy and try to comfort the people who are too far gone to be reached on this planet. “Perhaps your neighbor doesn’t appreciate the close relationship you have with your dog. I agree that the Navy and America’s enemies should both be more considerate when it comes to family. Give your brother time to recognize your good intentions, and maybe for his daughter to come out of her coma…” And there we have it, the biggest flaw in advice columns: too much respect. Contrary to the popular myth spread by consultants everywhere, there are stupid questions and there are bad ideas. It would be a truly healthy development if advice columnists called out their correspondents for both transgressions. Clearly, it’s time for the Dad Writes help desk, where we suffer only wise people and set the fools on the true path to enlightenment. We’re drawing our inspiration from Bob Newhart, who set the standard for all psychology, psychiatry, and consulting today. We’ll build on his groundbreaking technique, but we will never stray far from the words of the master. Your wedding is in three days and you’re sending me a question now? Too late for that, but here are some ideas for divorce court. You poisoned your niece and you’re not in jail? This would be a good time to move to another country. If you're gonna let your dog roam around without a leash, let your neighbor poop on your lawn to even things out. See how easy that is? Advice columns would be much more entertaining and educational if we avoid all the “respect” and “courtesy,” especially when those considerations are 100% undeserved. Our new column is going to be so refreshing for readers, and very therapeutic for me. I can’t wait to hear from the first doofus with a question. Now that Dad Writes is new and improved with free advice, you’ll definitely want to click here to subscribe for our amazing wisdom. |
Who writes this stuff?Dadwrites oozes from the warped mind of Michael Rosenbaum, an award-winning author who spends most of his time these days as a start-up business mentor, book coach, photographer and, mostly, a grandfather. All views are his alone, largely due to the fact that he can’t find anyone who agrees with him. Archives
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