I am a husband, writer, and teacher exploring what it means to cultivate mental silence.

The Flop House...by way of Reconcilable Differences

This is my second blog post with my own domain name, powered by Squarespace. I’m really happy with my decision to “go independent.” I’ve enjoyed looking at the analytics that Squarespace provides and am overall very pleased with the entire Squarespace experience. The support I’ve received has been really nice too. I’ve had to have a few chat sessions with the support team and they’ve been super helpful.

This week’s post…and the 3 that will follow…all come from some writing I’ve been doing throughout the week. I initially thought about putting it all together into one big post but decided against it late last night. I like how each of these ideas is coming together “on their own” so with that…here’s this week’s post!

The Flop House…for those who don’t know…is a podcast about bad movies. That’s what you’ll find when you search the webpage for this incredibly funny podcast. The hosts Elliott Kalan, Dan McCoy, and Stuart Wellington spend the better part of 2 hours taking apart a bad movie. I’ve tried to listen to this podcast in the past…recommended by Merlin Mann and John Siracusa from the Reconcilable Differences podcast but for some reason it did not stick. While on my recent winter break I heard an interview Merlin and John did with Dan McCoy and thought…I need to give this a second listen. As is typical with podcast listening one needs to figure out where to drop in and start. Are you going to be a completion-ist and start from episode 1? Are you going to go on the recommendation of others and start with an episode they think is good? Or are you going to just jump in and start with the latest episode? I chose the later of the 3 and started with episode 300…their most recent episode. I then went back to 299 and then moved forward again to episode 301 where they discuss the recent Star Wars movie. One of the cool things about listening to podcasts is that…over time…if they are really good…the content becomes not as much a reason for listening as much as the voices of the hosts. Right now I’m really finding Elliott Kalan’s humor to be particularly funny. Dan and Stuart are great but Elliott has this amazing improvisational manner about him as he surgically weaves his way through the conversations! I strongly urge any of you out there who are not already listening to give this podcast a try as it has brought me great joy as of late!

Refraining: Not to be or to be?

Rainy day haiku…