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Postcards from The Pug Bus

Lifting a satirical leg on popular culture

Persons in the Ether

Question of the Week

Passion or stability?

Mavis Drouk, emotional escrow officer

Believed to be near Harrisburg, PA

Stability. Passion is what people choose when they still believe a staircase can be made entirely of sparks. Stability may not sing outside your window, but it does remember where the insurance cards are.

Rufus Clenn, freelance thunder consultant

Last reported west of Tulsa, OK

Passion, obviously. Stability is just boredom wearing shoes with arch support. I want life to arrive late, smell faintly of lightning, and explain nothing until several lamps have been broken.

Nora Vell, deputy curator of small regrets

Possibly sheltering in Eugene, OR

Passion is useful for beginnings, stability for the paperwork afterward. I prefer both in moderation, which is another way of saying I would like to be ruined briefly and then driven home safely.

A chrome toaster performs on a brightly lit stage under a spotlight with glowing neon music notes rising from the slots, humorous concept image for ai music.

Tonight’s encore requires a surge protector..

Technology

AI Music: When Toasters Top the Charts

philmaggitti tech satire 6 months

The future has arrived, and it appears to be powered not by inspiration but by code snippets written by caffeinated interns who once dreamed of… Read More

Sony software llustration of an angry gatekeeper holding a barred gate locked with a DRM padlock, symbolizing control and restriction of music playback.

Sony as the self-appointed warden of your music, guarding every one of your 100 precious plays.

Technology

Sony Software Will Limit CD Plays (Tech Satire)

philmaggitti tech satire 8 months

Editor’s Note: This relic from our digital catacombs proves that some jokes never go out of date, even when the jokes were on us. Consider it… Read More

In tech satire Bill Gates dressed as a preacher, holding a glowing laptop with a cross on the screen as binary code rains from a golden sky, satirical tech sermon vibe

Bill Gates delivering the gospel of Windows, one patch at a time.

Technology

Tech Satire from the Bible Belt (Microsoft Buys Christian Software)

philmaggitti tech satire 8 months

Editor’s Note: This relic from our digital Bible Belt catacombs proves that some jokes never go out of date–unlike Internet Explorer. Microsoft may have moved… Read More

Captcha dressed as a bandito, brandishing a rifle.

"Stop right where you are."

Technology

Captcha: The Digital Inquisition

philmaggitti 8 months

Before you may enter this website, O mere mortal, you must prove your humanity. Not with kindness. Nor with empathy. But with a sacred trial… Read More

man reading Holter monitor results on computer screen

"You had what for lunch?"

Technology

Your Heartbeat Offends Me

philmaggitti 9 months

(Twenty-four Hours of Cardiac Shame Play-by-Play) The Holter monitor, created by Dr. Norman J. Holter, is a portable ECG device that records every single heartbeat… Read More

a plate filled with a mass od food in a lot of different colors

"You gonna finish that?"

Technology

Fighting the Ten Most Common Side Effects of Neurochemical Meds

T.J. Eckleburg top ten lists 9 months

Drowsiness (The Couch Siren’s Song)Never leave home without a flask of enchanted coconut water blessed by a hydration shaman. Chew gum infused with the tears… Read More

“Coffee! Because anger management is too expensive.” (Unknown)

Technology

Hot Coffee vs. Cold Brew: A Tale of Two Caffeines

philmaggitti 9 months

(By someone who hasn’t blinked in days. ) There’s a battle brewing in the kingdom of caffeine. A schism deeper than oat vs. almond milk,… Read More

two telemarketers siting at a desk looking at their scripts

"Is this a good time to talk about ...?"

Technology

Jobs Only AI Wants to Do

philmaggitti AI 9 months

(Originally printed in Inferior Design, Nov-Dec, 2024, the Magazine of Jobs No Human Should Ever Perform) We humans once held forth–and still do in some… Read More

The Pug Bus Breaking News

The Pug Bus Breaking News requires no email address, no mother's maiden name, no first pet's nickname, and no DNA sample. You simply mash the link below and read.

Deliver It

⚡ Scholars at the Royal Institute for the Advancement of Obvious Things have concluded, after eleven years of exhaustive inquiry, that people who speak at great length in meetings do not thereby become more correct. The findings have been submitted to a committee for review.

⚡ It has been determined by authorities in several jurisdictions that the phrase "I just want to be honest with you" reliably precedes the portion of the conversation one would most prefer not to have. Legislation is pending.

⚡ The Bureau of Perpetual Reassessment has announced that this is not, in fact, the most divided the nation has ever been, a distinction that continues to belong to a prior era when the disagreements concerned rather more consequential matters and people occasionally died over them.

Adverse Effects

The following lines of prose cleverly arranged as poetry may induce brief clarity, misplaced certainty, and the sense that something has already been decided without your approval ...

By seventy you know which doors you walked past without opening,
can name the rooms you never entered,
hear the echoes anyway.

Read It All

By seventy you know which doors you walked past without opening,
can name the rooms you never entered,
hear the echoes anyway.

The years do not accuse.
They simply pile up like newspapers you meant to read,
each one carrying news that is no longer news.

You think: I should have said that differently.
I should have stayed. I should have gone.
The mind is efficient this way,
filing the same cases under the same wrong headings,
finding them again at 3 a.m. in perfect order.

What surprises is not the weight of it
but the patience —
how regret waits,
how it has nowhere else to be,
how it sits across from you at breakfast
and asks for nothing,
knowing you will offer it everything
on your own.

The body slows.
The catalog does not.
You carry the unlived lives
the way old houses carry
the smell of people who are gone —
not haunting exactly,
just present,
just there,
just refusing
the simple courtesy
of leaving.