JonGorey.com

I know some (ok, apparently most ) people hate the cold, and so many eventually leave the Northeast for warmer places. I know this, although I don't understand it. But I guess I'm weird: I love the snow. And fires, and sweaters, and drinking beer by the fire while it snows (wearing a sweater, obviously). Granted, you shouldn't listen to me. I went to school in Syracuse, N.Y., where it snows well over 100 inches a year. Unfortunately that's not hyperbole . (Sidenote about Upstate N.Y.'s lake effect snow: It would be one thing if, like in Boston, the snow just dumped down 1 or 2 feet at a time, and then the next day was sunny and crisp and perfect for skiing and sledding. But in Syracuse, you get those big storms, and then the rest of the time it's just ... consistently gray and lightly snowing. It seriously snows like an inch a day, every day, all winter. It's like living downwind from an active snow volcano.) Anyway. Whatever, move to North Carolina...

I am, and always have been*, a Mac guy. This should come as no surprise — anyone who does anything remotely creative for a living typically works in a Macintosh environment. It's just the way it is. Using Adobe software on a PC is about as fun as, well, using Internet Explorer on a Mac. Around November of 2004, I bought a few shares of Apple stock. (Literally, three or four shares. I am not a big-time investor!) I'd always loved their computers, and now it seemed other people were finally catching on — plus the iPod had taken off in a dominating way; I was even getting one for Christmas. When I got my iPod... well, I certainly loved it. But I also thought it could have been better. Apple isn't perfect, and in my book they've often been guilty of over-simplifying things, sometimes to the user's detriment. In the case of the iPod? There was no freaking "off" button! You had to push the play button and something else simultaneously, which you wouldn't...

Growing up, there was nothing exciting to eat in our house. There was no microwave popcorn or string cheese. There was no soda. There were no cookies, or Pop Tarts, or ice cream sandwiches. Once in a while there were plain potato chips — or on blessed, rare occasions, Doritos — left over if my parents had thrown a party. Friends described our refrigerator as "full of nothing." It was always jammed to (or beyond) capacity — but with broccoli, onions, condiments, raw meats, plain yogurt (ick!), wheat germ, pungent cheese, olives, butter, random leafy things... nowadays that doesn't sound SO bad, but as a kid? There's really nothing you can do with that ingredient list. The only thing that mattered to me in that bleak, crowded fridge, was the gallon of milk. Because when we went grocery shopping, I was allowed to pick out one box of junk cereal. I can't overstate the importance of this decision. My choice would have to serve not only as my breakfast for the for...

No, not quite. But it makes my list of nominees: Apple, Banana, Blueberry, Grape, Nectarine, Peach, Raspberry, Strawberry, Watermelon. Apple Pros: Grows virtually anywhere; incredibly diverse, with a type to fit every taste and every purpose, from homemade pies to boozy hard cider; acts as nature's toothbrush and keeps those damned doctors away; portable and well-sized for a snack; nice to pick in autumn; keeps well in storage. Cons: Kind of plain; can bruise easily or even harbor worms (gross!); seeds contain cyanide, which is like spy suicide poison, so that can't be good. By the way, I just don't get the Red Delicious — does anyone actually like those grainy things? Yeck.  Banana Pros: Plays well with others (smoothies, cereal, sundaes); protective peel keeps chemicals and fellow shoppers from contaminating your food; portable; great for kids; filling and healthy. Cons: Can get bruised and mushy too quickly; slime factor; seems to attract fruit flies in my experienc...

Often, the intent of an analogy is to illustrate a difficult or abstract concept more clearly to someone by likening it to a situation he or she is familiar with: The colonists didn't win at Bunker Hill, but it was a moral victory, because they held their own and inflicted so much damage on the reigning, more powerful champ... like in Rocky .  It's an — perhaps the ? — essential tool to understanding, I think. I love analogies. I love that everything in the entire universe can be compared to something else, creating this beautiful, intricate fabric of connections. I often say to myself, "Everything is like everything else." The analogy proves the simple, elegant beauty of our world. Most of all, I like to make sports analogies. Baseball, in particular. Football makes for great war comparisons, sure, but the subtlety, strategy, and slowly escalating drama of a baseball game offer much more to work with. Is there any situation in life without a symbolic parallel on the...

Like many of you out there, my wife loves cold pizza. I, however, do not. I don't know what my deal is; perhaps my years of suckling at the school cafeteria's teat (it was just as gross as it sounds) left me conditioned to eat a hot lunch each day. But anyway, when we have pizza leftovers for lunch, she's all set, while I'm at the mercy of whatever heat source I can find.  At work, that amounts to a microwave, which in turn amounts to a hot sludge of chewy dough and tomato sauce for lunch. (For the record I still prefer said sludge to cold pizza.) So, here's my question: what's with no toaster ovens? There are like 900 people here! My last workplace didn't have them either. I mean, I get that they're a bit of a fire hazard; I understand why we couldn't keep them in our dorm rooms at school. (Odds of the oft-inebriated populace of freezing-cold Syracuse, NY, trying to stuff socks, hats, limbs, etc. inside their toaster ovens? Alarmingly high.)  But co...