It's been so long since my last story that I believe you deserve an explanation. I have a confession to make: I am not a Klingon. Go ahead. Take some time to let that sink in if you need to. I'll wait. Okay? So, I'm not basing this conclusion on my smooth (if not bulbous) forehead, or my lack of desire to kill Tribbles, or the fact that Klingons (and Tribbles) don't actually exist. No. I'm basing it on the fact that I, Wendy Mitchell, sole author of this column, attended a party for the release of a new Star Trek MMORPG (Massively-Multi Online Role-Playing Game) in February of 2010, almost eight months ago, and I'm just now getting around to writing about it. Now let me explain. more ›

Holding the 'Energem' in my hand, I quickly realized its most striking characteristic: It was possibly the ugliest object I had ever, ever seen. Imagine, if you will, the bottom third of a bottle of Goldschlager, slightly shaken to stir up the little bits of gold. Now take a few random magnets off of your refrigerator, smash them with a hammer and drop them in. Then, head to your local steel plant and pick up a handful of metal filings. Combine those with a few plastic beads and the ragged fabric scraps from your last quilting project. Add a copper coil, and mix everything together inside the bottle so it's all suspended in the liquid. Lastly, imagine that the Goldschlager is actually hard resin, and that it's shaped like a pyramid. That is what an 'Energem' looks like. more ›

'Okay, Wendy, you've rehearsed this. You are Sam. Sam Johnson. Samantha. You're here to learn the fine art of picking up women. You're curious. You're a fan. You saw him on YouTube.' I was limping to the Driskill in the rain giving myself a pep talk. My broken foot and frizzy hair were throwing a wrench in my feigned persona. I'd signed up online for Adam Lyons' Free Pick-Up Artist Boot Camp online, and I had figured I'd use a gender-neutral name and make up my story later. But it was crunch time. The doorman gave me directions to the room without even asking for a secret handshake. more ›

[In the glorious, time-honored tradition of the 'Format-Breaking Episode', I now present: a poem.] I saw the best minds of my generation walk past the window without contemplation. That's what it felt like at first, anyway, as I stood there listening inside the cafe. No Ginsberg, no Kerouac, not even Mark Strand- the first few readers really quite bland. And though I was tempted to leave, I held tight- at the local open mic poetry night. more ›

So I'm not exactly sure what type of people I was expecting to find at Segway headquarters, but when I arrived, I was pleasantly surprised. The guy behind the counter, my fellow tourists, and even Our Tour Guide all looked... normal. No duct-taped glasses, no headgear, no 'Segway Or The Highway' t-shirts. But then, as if to intentionally shatter my delusion, the guy behind the counter announced, "You can go ahead and pick out your helmets." Oh yeah. Helmets. While we were choosing our badges of dorkdom, Our Tour Guide poked her head in from outside. "I almost forgot to ask," she said, smiling. "Does anyone want to ride the 'hot pink' Segway or the one with 'flames' painted on it?" We shook our well-protected heads: 'No thanks.' more ›

'I would see Bill Clinton across the table. He would be eating a banana sandwich. He would talk about... stuff... There would be lurking secret service agents.' "Make sure you frame the goal positively. Don't say I have to quit smoking. Say, I will be happy when I can breathe clearly." 'I will be happy when Bill Clinton is eating a banana sandwich while sitting across the table from me... He will talk about... stuff. There would be lurking secret service agents.' "And make sure it's something you can influence. It can't be I wish he/she would do such and such. It must be initiated and influenced by you." 'Re-frame: I will be happy when I am eating a banana sandwich and Bill Clinton is sitting across the table from me... I will talk about... stuff. There will be lurking secret service agents, but I will make them go away.' more ›

"Spoon bending is a metaphor for change," she continued. "Internal and external changes both start with energy applied to clear intent. Spoon bending shows us that everything is changeable as long we have clear intent." I couldn't help but be distracted by the couple who'd just joined us. The woman held a big wooden staff. Think Moses. Or the kind of thing they ban from festivals. And she was wrapped in a white sheet-like contraption. She had a calm smile on her face- one that signifies either inner peace or really awesome drugs, or perhaps some causally-vague combination of the two. more ›

After all, these were practical folks. Problem-solvers. Puzzle people. How could you be concerned with something as trivial as how much your all-you-can-eat buffet breakfast cost ($20) when code monkeys all over the world were making unauthorized changes to databases on mission-critical servers? When they were creating massive outages and expensive system downtime? When they were causing unfathomable revenue losses? When you could wake up in the morning and read about #ITFail (gasp) after #ITFail after #ITFail? more ›

Here's the deal: Have you ever been in a room full of hardcore computer geeks? You know how they talk in a different language, even though they're still speaking English? You know how it's more confusing than if they were, say, speaking Aramaic? Well... That's kind of how I felt sitting in the living room surrounded by these hardcore football geeks. I mean, sure, I understand football, but this is different. This is work. Pencil-behind-the-ear, squinty-eyed, brain-straining work. Research. Analysis. Statistics. Psychology. Stacks of paper. Extensive Google searching. Limiting beer intake to maintain clarity... more ›

This week, I signed up for a Speed Dating event. It seemed like a pretty fertile subject. What could be more fascinating than a whole bunch of single folks in varying states of desperation and curiosity trying to find true love in four minutes or less? That's kind of like randomly meeting someone on the street... more ›

The girl on his right introduced herself. "I'm today's Word Master," she said. "The word for this meeting is arcane. Arcane means difficult to understand, mysterious, knowable only to the initiate." She pointed to where she had written the word on the wipe board; the applause was deafening. more ›

Believe it or not, Satanists are pretty much just like you and me. This is assuming, of course, that you and me wore black trench coats and played with big foam swords in the courtyard outside my college dorm. Which I did not do. But still. There's more to a person than his or her taste in outerwear or choice of sword construction material. When it comes down to it, the meeting of Satanists, Dark Pagans, Left-Hand-Path Occultists, et al. really wasn't that different from any other meeting of like-minded individuals that I've attended. more ›

Obviously there are lots of folks who never outgrow the spirit realm. Shirley MacLaine comes to mind first, but also some people I actually know and trust. And I've always had a sort of lurking question regarding subject: Are they feeling something I've forgotten how to feel, or do they have skills that I don't have, or are they just plain crazy? more ›

The best thing about doing anything naked is that you're always prepared. It's not like going to the gym, where you have to remember your shoes and, well, your clothes. This became evident earlier this week as I was contemplating attending my first co-ed naked yoga class. I was late leaving work and didn't have time to run home and get ready, so I was on the verge of wimping out until I realized that, quite literally, um, I was born ready. more ›