Great article. Anesthesia is one of the three “essential” modern scientific advances, the others being antibiotics and vaccines. Everything else is gravy.

Please don’t take this as any kind of racial aspersion. Is there a particular reason that Indians seem to be so prevelant in the field? Is it something cultural?

For me it’s always been: “Count backward from 100” “one hundred...n....shlerble....zzz”

“ it’s probably a good idea to stay away from enabling iCloud Music Library until the problems are ironed out.”

I hear you! Plus, it loosens your tongue and makes you less inhibited so less wary of making mistakes in the second language.

But still, it’s (a bit) sleazy. Why not just make it expire unless you manually renew it? Maybe to catch the few people that aren’t paying attention, you think? Even if it is technically their fault?

I’ve often thought Swedish was the closest language to English. Watching something like “The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo” I can almost pick up what they’re saying half the time. Like it’s only a little bit more removed than The Swedish Chef.

After several years of “dabbling” in Category III Hebrew (the wife is Israeli), I’m convinced that the biggest obstacle to becoming proficient in a foreign language is...your native language. As long as you’re still translating into English (no matter how quick), you’re lost. I always feel “so close” to the point of…

Risk? How could a Risk game last for weeks? Long before then, the number of armies on the board becomes so large that one player eventually gets power hungry and the intricately interlocking treaty system breaks down resulting in total war out of which only one player can emerge. Just like the real world!

Old-timers (like me) will understand this.

One late night in college a bunch of meathe^H^H^H^H^H^Hfootball players came in to the common room of our dorm and turned THE ENTIRE MACHINE over so all the stuff fell out, and then proceeded to toss bags out to the mostly stoned and hence eager crowd. Looked like feasting piranhas. Good times.

My favorite Madeline Albright interruption story: She was making a speech in the Czech republic, and a translator was translating her English words into Czech. She repeatedly interrupted his translation and told him “that’s not what I said” until finally she told him to sit down and proceeded to give the speech in…

All of this can be learned from watching a single episode of “The Rockford Files”.

Hebrew version of “Bless You” meaning “To [your] health”. Like “Gesundheit”.

I assume “credit card’s minimum balance” should be “credit card’s minimum payment”?

A good plan is to pick an aisle or window seat in a row where the other end of the row is already full. That leaves just the middle seat in your row empty. This discourages people in parties because they would prefer to sit together with someone else in their party.

L’Brioot!

Kid in grade school told me to repeatedly say “Grapefruit” when you want to stop a sneeze coming on. And it works.

I managed to squeak in under the limit and cancelled my original order and then ordered again at the lower price.

I managed to squeak in under the limit and cancelled my original order and then ordered again at the lower price.

They lowered the price on the Roomba after I ordered it this morning for the previous GoldBox price of $399??

They lowered the price on the Roomba after I ordered it this morning for the previous GoldBox price of $399??