by Kevin Burton I was on the road playing beep baseball when the e-mail notifications about the first blind Barbie doll came pouring in. And I mean they poured in, from every quarter. I thought, that’s a story. But then I realized, I had no idea what to think or say about it. …
Category Archives: hobbies
“Fantasy Football Anthem” Tells The Truth
by Kevin Burton All love to Kevin Rowland and to Dexy’s Midnight Runners, makers of Come On Eileen. All love to Eileen, all love to Johnnie Ray, all love to bib overalls. But I may just have a new all-time favorite song. It’s called Fantasy Football Anthem, and it’s by Holderness Family …
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She Did The Mocking, I Did The Drafting
by Kevin Burton In business, you have to give a report to the CEO from time to time, so she knows what’s going on. It’s called being accountable. And this is serious business. So it was Thursday that the CEO of the Burtons’ fantasy football company paid a visit to the Mock …
Of Long, Long Trains And Trains Under Water
by Kevin Burton “There’s something magical about train travel for just about everybody,” writes the Interesting Facts website, “whether you’re an engineering nerd, a hopeless romantic, a world traveler, or an easily excitable 8-year-old.” The longest train ride I have taken so far was (round-trip) from Wasilla, Alaska up to Denali National Park. …
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God’s Impetuous Child Lives At My House
by Kevin Burton I actually did this, I promise. Neither Winston Churchill nor any other learned observer from the past, present or future, would have called this “my finest hour.” I bring you this, even though there may be somebody reading Page 7 for the first time today. Sheesh. There was a …
Scrabble Words And “Y” As A Proud Vowel
by Kevin Burton Merriam-Webster promised me a list of Scrabble words without vowels, but delivered a bunch of words (with one exception) with the letter Y in them. Y is a vowel, a card-carrying vowel. The fact that it has a part-time job as a consonant does not change that. The venerable dictionary …
Playing Musical Instrument Good For The Brain
by Kevin Burton I’m still hanging on to a notion, planted by a Steely Dan song. If you know some of that Steely Dan imagery, that sounds kind of dangerous. Let me explain. I love Steely Dan and I love “Deacon Blues.” I have judged the United States as a nation because …
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Songwriting School, Class In Session
by Kevin Burton International Songwriters Day was observed yesterday and I’m staying on that theme. This post is a service to all you songwriters, or really any kind of writers, out there. But who am I kidding, it’s also to keep my head in the game and stoke those musical fires again. …
My Shifting Sports Team Allegiances
by Kevin Burton Time and location, location, location, can change even the most fervent loyalties when it comes to sports fan allegiances. On ESPN’s Pardon The Interruption, Tony Kornheiser talks about the New York Mets as “the team of my youth” to differentiate it from his current favorite, the Washington Nationals. That is …
Karaoke Machine Inventor Dies At Age 100
by Kevin Burton Shigeichi Negishi, the inventor of the world’s first commercially-available karaoke machine, has died in Japan at age 100, according to National Public Radio. Never knew the man, but boy has he filled up my Saturday nights. You take a character from Billy Joel’s Piano Man who is“sure that I …