JonGorey.com

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...

Those sly rascals at Dunkin Donuts just up-sold me! For those of you not familiar with the shame and disillusionment associated with Excessive Buzzword Exposure, "up sell" is markety-speak for making me buy more than I was initially going to. There's a big sign up by the register offering any number of wonderful treats — five munchkins, a raspberry danish, those toasted home fry things — for "just 99 cents" with any drink purchase. "What a DEAL !" I exclaimed to myself. And I promptly added three chocolate and two cinnamon munchkins to my medium coffee. I had been prepared to buy 2-3 munchkins, because I wanted a little sugar rush — it's a big day here after all (I shouldn't even be writing this, but I'm about to crack, so give a fella a break, huh?) — which only cost 25 cents each. And yet the idea of five for a buck! So enticing! They got me to spend an extra 50 cents... and like it. I walked out feeling like they did me a favor! Now t...

So, like, we're in the middle of summer? When did that happen? What was this, the fifth nice day we've had since April? I'm way behind on my summer fun! Anyway — let me just say that I love our president. And it feels great to say that. Also, the Red Sox (and my fantasy team, for that matter) are somehow in first place as of the midsummer classic. It feels great to say that too!

Well, it finally happened — I woke up this morning with over a hundred dollars charged to my bank account from a random grocery store in Brooklyn, N.Y. That's just swell! The amazing thing is I had a voicemail from Bank of America waiting to tell me about all this. They froze my account and everything before I even know it happened, and will reimburse me for the fraudulent charge. Good on them! I'm thinking this is direct a result of running our Saturday night bar tab at J.J. Foley's on my debit card instead of a credit card (see where responsible money-management gets you?). Not that the bartenders would have done anything with the card, but at the end of the night I left the paid check in the leather billfold thing right on the bar, and the place was SLAM-crowded. We could barely squeeze ourselves to the exit. Who knows who could've yanked the receipt out of there, and sometimes (way too often, really) those credit card slips have all your card info on them, even the...

My wife's birthday is today (happy birthday, babe!), and as we were driving in to work this morning, the perfect birthday gift hit me... except, it was a little late for that.  If I were a more awesome husband, with more (ok maybe  some is the word) discretionary income, I would have secretly booked a trip to someplace fabulous for the weekend, sorted it out ahead of time with her coworkers and boss, packed a bag for her, and kept it all hush hush until we hit the exit ramp on I-93 where one lane goes to her office and the other one goes to Logan Airport. And I'd have just veered off toward the airport, giving her a little panic attack about how I finally did it, after all these trips I took the wrong turn and we're going to be late for work and oh my, and then I'd turn to her and say, "We're not going to work today!"  Wouldn't it be great if I were more awesome?? Alas... I am not. I dropped her off at her office. Y'know, so she can earn the money...

This article in the N.Y. Times  details the latest textbook publishing vendor to collapse as the industry continues to flounder. It was a small shop in New York, and my alma mater Houghton Mifflin (ugh, fine, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt ), probably their biggest client, allegedly stopped paying them, so they stopped paying their employees. More likely, they just weren't paying them quickly enough. That's sort of what happened when I worked at ill-fated Publicom, Inc., a vendor in Cambridge that closed down without ever paying me and many other employees our last few paychecks. (Luckily, I was like 25 years old and able to handle free time and unemployment checks with a certain grace. If that happens now I'll be S.O.L.) The interesting thing is how well this article (sent to me by Gina, who's still in the business) sums up the work I used to find so difficult to explain to friends and family members: "The opening pages of any respectable textbook include pictures of d...

There used to be a CompUSA on Market St. in Brighton when I lived in the area, and while it was good to have a giant, cheap, computer/gadget superstore nearby, it also made for the single worst retail customer service experience ever. You couldn't find one helpful employee in there to save your life. (You could find, now and then, an old, strange weirdo guy, who may or may not have worked there, who wasn't helpful at all.)  Well, since they closed the joint a few years ago, it's just sat there dying like a beached concrete whale, pretty much sucking the will to live out of anyone within 200 yards of the thing. But last week, a construction crew showed up and started ripping up the roof and excavating the parking lot. Now we're talking! They must have finally found a viable business to take over the site — what will it be? A new Whole Foods or Trader Joe's ? A decent restaurant or a bar? A Newbury Comics ? (For the love of God, maybe an actual T station, please?) ...