About George

Hi, I'm George Waters.

I'm what they call an "award winning" humor writer. I write a weekly humor column for newspapers, as well as funny freelance essays for other publications and Web sites. I live in Southern California in a flat, baking valley named for San Gabriel who, by all appearances at least, was a saint. I have a wife, a school-age daughter and son, and a rat terrier (rhymes with "rat Perrier") named Skipper. He is not named Skipper due to any nautical expertise (although he knows his way around a jib), but rather because when he walks at high speed his hind legs actually skip like a happy, recently-promoted middle manager. Some day I will post a video of it here.

I invite you to visit my full-on column-oriented Web site, georgewaters.net. I built the whole site myself using my mad html skills, some Javascript and an adze. Even if for no other reason, you will want to visit the site because it has a page where you can give me back the hair I had in high school. Do it now, it's not like you're getting any work done anyway.

This blog exists for one reason: I could no longer hold back the urge to inject the world's English lexicon with the phrase "Wa Blog." Continents of trees have been felled for less.

Anyway, thanks for visiting, or whatever it is we say these days when we're not "Twittering," "faving" and "poking" each other. You could add this site to your favorites, but then you would have to remember to come back all the time to see what's new, and if you are like me, you can't even remember where you left your sunglasses. So I recommend subscribing to The Wa Blog. It's free. That way, my stuff comes right to you. Which is the same line I used to woo my wife.

If you would like to know where "Wa" comes from, here is a brief explanation...

The Origin of "Wa"

Wa!

Blog!

What is it good for...

Absolutely nuthin'!

(If you don't get that, it means, sadly, you were born too late. Being a child of the '60's during the Vietnam War, I have a certain affection for this song).

But what is the origin of "Wa," you ask, because you are sitting in your cubicle pretending to work? It's funny the things that stick. In college, my friends, like all college students overburdened by the requirements of studies and lifting multiple cases of beer, wanted to lighten their load in every way they could. So to make their lives that much easier, to reduce the burden of pronouncing both syllables in my last name, my friends took to simply calling me "Wa" (pronounced like "saw"). I don't remember exactly which friend coined it, but chances are it was Ted.

Coincidentally, the word "Wa," in Japanese, means harmony and balance. In fact, "Wa" even refers to specific things which are Japanese. For example, "Wafuku" means Japanese-style clothes. Ironically, in college, even though my friends did not know anything about Japanese-style clothes, they shouted "Wafuku!" at me a lot.

So it is that I name my blog "The Wa Blog." You may not know that "Wa Blog" is also part of the lyrics to the five-note musical theme which the alien spacecraft in "Close Encounters" plays to communicate with earthlings. The full five notes go like this: "La la loo WA BLOGGG!"

"Wa Blog!" is also a great thing to blurt out loudly in a meeting if anyone asks your opinion of the sales projections. Or randomly on a first date. Seriously. I could use the exposure.

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Other derivations of Wa:

You Gotta Have Wa, a very entertaining book about the word "Wa" and the sport of Japanese baseball.

The Japanese symbol for Wa

Wa state