IT Insights Blog — This American Life

About this time last year, intrepid TestOut account manager Wendy Edwards used some MoonPie snack cakes as a promotional giveaway at a conference. For those of you not in the know, a MoonPie is sort of like a jumbo s'more, only frozen in time instead of fresh from the campfire. The basic blueprint is two graham crackers (cut round), with a marshmallow pattie between them, with the whole thing dipped in chocolate. It probably either sounds delicious or repulsively sweet.

Does anyone else remember the days when most (if not all) of the things that you could "subscribe" to were printed on paper and delivered either a) to the front porch (or the driveway, the rosebush next to the picture window, the low-hanging branches of the maple tree on the front lawn — it's hard to aim things from a bicycle seat or the back of a station wagon), or b) to your mailbox? Newspapers, magazines, catalogs, or maybe the latest selection from Book of the Month club.

Every U.S. IT Insights Blog reader within the sound of our keyboard has doubtless already completed and filed his or her federal income tax return. It would be plain irresponsible, after all, to wait until the last second to square things up with Uncle Sam. No doubt if we were to drive past the local post office after 11 p.m. tonight, there would not at all be an unusually long queue of vehicles waiting to use the all-hours mail drop to be assured of getting an April 15 postmark.

Today is March 29, a date that commemorates one of history's more unusual reigns of terror. New York City's Mad Bomber resurfaced on March 29, 1951, after an almost decade-long hiatus patriotically declared in observance of America's involvement in World War II. It isn't your average sociopath who commences whatever twisted mission he has set out for himself, then decides to recognize the greater societal good, publicly announces a truce, and actually follows through.

There's a marker in Riverside, Iowa, declaring the tiny rural town to be the "future birthplace" of Captain James T. Kirk. Yes, that Captain James T. Kirk. The official town motto is "Where the Trek Begins." There's even a Star Trek Museum, the Voyage Home Riverside History Center. All of this apparently goes back to a book written by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, The Making of Star Trek, in which Roddenberry asserts that Kirk was — or, you know, will be — born in Iowa.