“Would you consider yourself to be technical?” I remember the question vividly. I paused before answering and focused my attention on a painting hanging in my aunt’s living room. It was my second phone interview with a second recruiter who I would never meet in person. I...
In the strange new world of eSports, where childhood dreams of getting paid to play video games are made reality, “gaming houses” have become the norm. It’s more Silicon Valley than National Lampoon’s Animal House; the premise sounds like an updated version of Real World: Five gamers...
Lately you’ve been going through a few changes. Your brain is now registering salad. Your circulatory system is around 70 percent coffee. Your hormones are all over the place, telling you it’s late and you’ve got work in the morning. Please don’t be alarmed: This is all...
Keith Lippa — bald, tan and a touch paunchy, shoulders slightly hunched underneath a red polo and pair of khakis — ambles into Hiro Sushi, a nondescript Japanese restaurant in Richmond, Virginia. He settles into one of the many empty black booths for what will be a welcome break from his...
In case you’re just checking in for the first time this week, we’ve rounded up our picks of the best stories from the last few days for you to peruse. We know, we know, we’re amazing. Podcast: Dinosaur Fights! Ever wondered if a T-Rex and a Triceratops...
Kenneth Tam is an artist who (among other things) makes videos of men — men that he finds on the internet and then pays to do awkward, intimate, absurd things on camera. These videos are amazing. For one of his most recent projects, Breakfast in Bed (which is currently...
There has never been a time in my life when I wasn’t competing. I played T-ball, soccer and basketball as a little kid — eventually getting into tennis and even a little tackle football with friends. My family would play Trivial Pursuit, Connect Four, Sorry! and Life, and that’s...
The timing was almost unbelievable. About 18 months ago, I found out my dad had been cheating on my mom. About six months later, my husband found out that his mom had been cheating on his dad. How my husband and I each found out was indicative...
The facts don’t lie: Trying to make friends as an adult is terrible. People often want to talk about the finish of various craft beers; the jokes you make more often than not have the word “fistula” in them; everybody who’s nice to you at the gym...
After Adam died, I started listening to dubstep. I think my grief registered in a way where the only viable option to make myself feel better was to slowly blow out my eardrums with Skrillex and Knife Party. His wasn’t the kind of stereotypical death you see...
Last fall, economist Angus Deaton won a Nobel prize for discovering that $75,000 was a magic number. Specifically, a magic salary: It’s the “happiness plateau,” his studies concluded, above which further increases will have minimal impact on a person’s day-to-day sense of well-being. When Deaton and psychologist...
My grandfather was a Dick. I mean his name was Dick. Technically, his name was Richard, but all we ever called him was Dick. So, yeah, my grandfather was a Dick. Not a big Dick — he wasn’t an exceptionally large man, 6 feet tall — but a Dick, no less....