Colin Dullaghan

Swing Away Originally uploaded by This Guy Colin.
There’s a golf net outside my office door, where people can hone their golf skills and attempt to hit acclaimed singer/songwriter Carole King. So far, three people have managed to do it using the chipping wedge, but only once [...]

When I was about five or six, I was really into my shoes. I’m not sure why. I wasn’t sure why then either, but my sister and I were both keenly aware of the adult world’s inexplicable fascination with our footwear – perhaps because they were always having to buy it for us – and [...]

Let me start by saying that I still think you’re really pretty. Not just for your age, either… you really are a knockout, in my book. It’s just that I’ve noticed another car, and I knew the only honorable thing to do would be to tell you myself.
You have seen the 2003-05 Infiniti G35 [...]

Here’s all you have to do: simply add a few choice phrases to every sentence, endowing each thought with rich metaphorical import. Here’s a few Lousy Poetry staples to get you started.
*****
Thank you, YOU CRUEL, UNSORROWFUL HARPY, again for attending this afternoon’s DEW-SOAKED informational session for the proposed collaboration OF LOVE’S SOFT DECEIPT. Attached please [...]

Dear Mr. or Mrs. Lucky SonofaLottery Winner,
Congratulations on your recent windfall in the Iowa Tri-State Lottery. Surely you feel fortunate indeed to have ripped me off accurately predicted the sequence that would be drawn.
As the person who wrote the fortune cookie message with the numbers you played, I am genuinely pissed thrilled at just [...]

I just found something wedged down into the back seat of my car – something which, when pulled out into the light of day, turned out to be a hacky sack.
And while you’d be right in assuming there’s a nice moment where you go, “Hey, a hacky sack!”, you should know that it’s preceded [...]

I am a fantastic writer. I’m the best there ever was; the best there ever will be. Man, if I’d just sit down and write my novel, it’d be WAY better than Hemingway’s, or Faulkner’s, or any of those other authors I’ve never bothered to read.
Mine is the untapped voice of a generation, the [...]

These are the eight most widely used gambits (strategic series of throws) in competitive Rock, Paper, Scissors. The following is excerpted from www.worldrps.com:
Avalanche (RRR)Bureaucrat (PPP)Crescendo (PSR)Dénouement (RSP)Fistfull o’ Dollars (RPP)Paper Dolls (PSS)Scissor Sandwich (PSP)Toolbox (SSS)

May there be something in each period of your life that you miss like an immigrant misses his homeland, but never so many things that you would want to return.

I don’t know what kind of lives people are leading around here, but I noticed about half a dozen condoms in the parking lot outside my office yesterday, along with a half-empty apple juice bottle full of what I’ve decided to just assume is apple juice. All this is just from this weekend. Nobody’s touched [...]

Recently, a talented photographer/illustrator named Jessica Poundstone commented that she enjoys getting inspired to write by the things she reads here.
That’s about the noblest service I can provide, the way I see it, because I personally find writing terribly intimidating and hard to talk myself into. Anything that gives me that shove in the right [...]

I was just thinking about my brain just now, and while I can’t remember everything I thought about, I think it had something to do with my having a bad memory.
It’s awful, actually, my memory. So’s the predicament of having a bad memory. They’re both awful.
Well, not entirely, I suppose – I’m a great [...]

One was responsible for the 1966 Beach Boys masterpiece Pet Sounds, which included the song “God Only Knows”; the other was behind 1996’s All Eyez On Me, and its defiant “Only God Can Judge Me.”
These two compositions, thirty years apart, both invoke a deity, though for vastly different purposes, and it’s up to the listener [...]

When it’s hot, my dog looks like he’s smiling more often.

Last night, while walking up to the restaurant, Penny and I spotted lots of parking spaces closer than the one I’d chosen.
“Look at that!” she said, pulling her jacket snug across her chest. “Why did you park way out here?”
I said nothing, kept walking.
“If you’d just driven up another couple aisles, we [...]

I recently got to interview a guy who’s really good at yo-yo-ing. It was fascinating, of course, but writing the article afterward was difficult because I kept catching myself defending yo-yo-ing and dorky activities in general instead of writing about Mitch.
There’s an essay coming, I’m sure, about the arbitrary nature of “coolness” and the [...]

Magnolia Bud Originally uploaded by This Guy Colin.
The trash is out. The kitchen is clean. The tiny puffs of polyester stuffing that covered the living room floor have all been stuffed back inside Vince’s toy as he sat and stared at me, cocking his head uncomprehendingly. [...]

The more I think about it, the more I think there’s really nothing more pathetic than a grown man standing in his driveway, pleading with a magnolia tree not to bloom until his wife can get home to see it.

It’s six o’clock in the morning and I’ve just said goodbye to my wife, who’s leaving on a weeklong road trip with her family. I’ve waved from the doorstep, watched their car shrink into the distance, lowered my arm and quietly closed the door. It’s very empty here.
But Vince … he’s ready to go. [...]