Colin Dullaghan

In India, there are reputed to be people – I think they’re called Jainists – who abide by a solemn oath to harm no living creature. You can see them, I’ve heard, shuffling slowly through the streets with brooms, carefully sweeping the sidewalk before them to avoid inadvertently crushing any insects that may be lying [...]

“They should have more books on fireworks.”
“They should have an all-day pass to ride The Beast.”
“They should make a pill you can take so you don’t get sunburned.”
When I was little I was full of requests. Everywhere I went it seemed like there was something that just wasn’t right, some rule about [...]

Robynne Originally uploaded by This Guy Colin.
For the past few weeks now, we’ve had a new neighbor. At first she didn’t know what to make of us – or of Vince, especially – but now I think she’s decided we’re okay. When it’s warm we let [...]

The disclaimer on this tube of L.A. Looks Styling Gel informs me that this product was not tested on animals.
I don’t see why not.
Surely there are legions of fuzzy little lab rats and bunnies who would benefit from the “wet look,” and I say a little spiky, fresh-from-the-shower style would suit them well. Get in [...]

I see that the street outside my office is a school route. In the morning, then again at noon and three, we’ll notice a bright yellow object scroll onto the window, then glance over just in time to see the end go by. Some are long, some short.
In here, the length of the bus means [...]

For about a year and a half now, I’ve worked in a basement. It’s a nice basement, I’ll grant you… the former home of a local winery, and comprehensively renovated with galvanized steel sliding doors and suspended plexiglass walls and recessed halogen lights and the whole bit.
But it’s still a basement. From where I sit [...]

So now that I’ve made a list of a hundred personality quirks of my own, I was wondering: do you think a writer would have to do the same for the major characters in his/her novel?
I don’t know, but it sounds difficult, which is usually an indication that it’s right.
Could some of you who are [...]

71) I cannot see a stray dog without instantly becoming sad.
72) I’m one of those people who doesn’t think marketing affects me, and I know everyone thinks that, but I find the delusion extra funny in my case since I write advertising for a living.
73) I’m a pretty good tipper, I think – almost always [...]

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41) My conflict-resolution strategy: 1. Figure out who cares least about the outcome. 2. That person compromises.
42) I’m usually the one who cares least.
43) Those little rye chips in the Chex mix – the kind no one likes? I like ‘em. Banana runts too.
44) I once wrote a paper about the origin and history [...]

…As we draw ever closer to revealing a hundred facts about Mr. Colin Dullaghan…
*****
25) I got this thing for palindromes. No one knows why. Yhwsh onk enoon.
26) I aspire to one day “overdub” something. I don’t fully understand all that’s involved in this process, but it definitely sounds magical and impressive.
27) Lately I’ve been [...]

11) A turn of phrase can earn my respect. My friend Geraldo, while ranting about the hospital bill he got after receiving treatment for a near-fatal spider bite on his eye, said later he couldn’t believe how much they charged “just for saving my hapless ass.” I bet I’ll remember that twenty years from now.
12) [...]

My friend told me a while back that folks online are in the habit of making lists of their attributes – even going so far as to enumerate them, from one to a hundred.
“A hundred?!” I cried. “Where does anybody come up with that many? Maybe those folks are different, but two, three dozen [...]

So you may have heard we made a change here in Indiana. I guess now we’re… well, we’re saving daylight is what we’re doing, though I haven’t quite understood exactly how.
The main thing is that we have to get up earlier and pretend like it’s not really earlier. Once we’ve set our clocks forward [...]

Recipe for happiness (for me at least):
1. Little tiny camera2. Big giant hard drive
I’m a happy camper because I have an old Canon Digital Elph and a new Lacie firewire drive, which can hold something like 71 thousand digital photos from the Elph. In my case, it’ll be slightly fewer, since I also take little [...]

Now, this didn’t happen to me or anything, or even a friend of a friend, but I’m fascinated to hear if it’s ever happened to anybody else.
Okay, so: King Kong.
Pretty exciting. You got dinosaurs fightin’ monkeys; that’s some stimulating filmmaking.
But did you pee your pants? Were you actually, literally, so overcome by the thrill of [...]

I really like our coffee maker, and the ingeniously handy mechanism by which I can dispense coffee directly into my mug, with no time-consuming pitcher-filling/pouring steps to slow me down, but I do have one complaint.
Seeing that black stream of caffeinated goodness streaming from the nozzle each morning always makes me remember two things:
- I’m [...]

So Yamaha, much to my dismay, sells this thing in Europe but not here. It’s called a Tmax, I’m told, and it’s one of an increasingly popular (but not here) sub-category of vehicles called “superscooters.”
Sure they look a little peculiar, but as a motorist I’m intrigued by anything that can go 100 mph on the [...]