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November 11, 2005

Artists have to take risks. At some point in his or her career almost every artist will make a major shift away from their usual style and do something completely different, potentially alienating most or all of their audience. I’m not an artist. But I am risking an almost certain lawsuit over copyright infringement for bringing you the first ever Mad Libs(tm) Freethinkers Anonymous. That’s right: you and a friend (or you can play by yourself) can fill in the blanks to create your own Freethinkers Anonymous edition. Have fun!

So last (day of the week) I had to go to the dentist. Even though my dentist has hot (beverage) and a big jar of chocolate-chip (plural noun) in the waiting room, which is a perfect way to guarantee (adjective) business, I still dread going there. Sooner or later the dentist is going to (verb) me with a 27-inch (noun), and I knew it was coming because this time I had to have a (noun) filled. I sat back in the chair which, in spite of looking like an overstuffed (noun) still feels like a medieval torture (noun). At least they gave me nitrous oxide, which now comes in flavors. You can choose (flower), or (ice cream flavor), or (brand name of an industrial solvent). And they let me watch (television show) while I was (verb ending in -ing) gas, so after a few minutes not only was a feeling no (noun), I was living in the world of (cartoon character). Then the dentist came to (verb) my tooth. "Open wide," he said, from about three million (units of distance) away. At this point I was so full of (noun) I thought I was on the other side of the (noun) wondering what my dentist was doing to that poor (Yiddish expression) in the chair. Then I said, "Hey, that’s me!" Then I could swear he said, "Open wider. We’re going to try an cram (say ‘that scoop thing jai alai players use’–that’ll be hilarious) in your mouth." Why do dentists always (intransitive verb) and (comma splice)(dangling participle) with (run on sentence)?. But I (verb). After he stopped doing what felt like deep-sea (verb ending in -ing) in my (noun), he took the gas mask off my (noun) and left me to take a (noun) in the chair. It was finally (preposition)! So I went out and celebrated with cotton candy and (beverage), even though my face was still (adjective) for hours.

Holiday Stuffing

November 4, 2005

Nigel Tufnel, lead guitarist of Spinal Tap, once explained that there was an environmental consciousness behind the large cardboard package their CD came in. People should recycle, he explained, so Spinal Tap was giving them a big piece of cardboard to encourage them to recycle it. I think there’s a similar mindset at work behind the annual deluge of holiday catalogs. At a time when people do so much of their shopping on the Internet, why is it I get more and more catalogs every year? I haven’t even done my annual review of catalogs yet, but I can tell you right now that most of the 273 pounds of catalogs I’ve gotten since Halloween are going to be recycled. At least the catalog companies have the decency to wait until reasonably late in the year, unlike the stores which now start setting out inflatable Santas the day after Easter.

Whatever the catalogs contain, though, they’ll never top the ultimate item I saw several years ago. The item was an electric nose hair clipper which, by itself, is fairly innocuous. It was the bright yellow starburst with the words "Makes a great stocking stuffer!" that caught my attention. What do you get someone as a large gift when you’ve put a nose hair clipper in their stocking? Elective plastic surgery! "Hey Al, now you can remove those wires sticking out of your shnoz, and deal with those hideous growths on either side of your head! Merry Christmas!" And Al is left thinking, "Growths? Does he mean my ears?"

Honestly, giving someone a nose hair clipper for Christmas – or any time, for that matter – is like giving your wife a mop for her birthday. It’s like giving someone with chronic B.O. a case of deodorant. Maybe they’re not aware of the problem, but there are a lot of nicer ways to point it out. And have you ever considered that maybe that person is trying to grow their nose hair? Maybe they want to braid it and put beads in it. I’m sure there are people somewhere in the world who do that, maybe in one of the remoter regions of Los Angeles.

Besides, the inside of your nose is not a place you really want to stick anything with electricity. If you’ve ever tried trimming your nose hairs you probably know the exquisitely excruciating pain of accidentally yanking one of them. Once you’ve experienced that kind of pain you’re ready for anything. You go to the dentist and say, "Hold the Novocain!" You’re even ready to have your eyelid pierced without anesthetic. Are there people in this world who pierce their eyelids? I’m sure there are – in Los Angeles.

Enjoy this week’s offerings.


A drunk was proudly showing off his new apartment to a couple of his friends late one night. When they made it to the bedroom, they saw a big brass gong next to the bed.

"What’s a big brass gong doing in your bedroom?" one of the guests asked.

"It’s not a gong. It’s a talking clock," the drunk replied.

"A talking clock? Seriously?" asked his astonished friend.

"Yup," replied the drunk.

"How’s it work?" the friend asked, squinting at it.

"Watch," the drunk replied. He picked up the mallet, gave it an ear-shattering pound, and stepped back. The three stood looking at one another for a moment.

Suddenly, someone on the other side of the wall screamed, "You idiot, it’s three o’clock in the morning!"

One Wild Ride

October 21, 2005

This is true: Hollywood is working on a film about the Bell Witch. If you’ve never heard of it, the Bell Witch was neither a bell nor a witch but (at least according to the story) a very powerful poltergeist that harassed the Bell family in Adams, Tennessee, from 1817 to 1821. The haunting more or less ended with the death of John Bell, the family’s father, although according to the story the spirit returned a few times after that.

Was there really a spirit? That’s a matter of some debate. When I was growing up every kid I knew had some variation on what would happen to you if you went into a dark bathroom at midnight, closed the door, and turned around three times while saying, "I hate the Bell Witch". According to some you’d see her in the mirror, others said she’d appear and scratch your face, and a few believed you’d drop dead, which was a great way to get out of doing homework.

Once during a sleepover a group of us dared one kid to act out the Bell Witch ritual. He went into the bathroom, we heard him chant, and then he screamed for six whole minutes before he came out laughing at us. We all agreed it was a great joke after we’d gone home and changed our underwear.

But I digress. I worry that Hollywood is making a film about the Bell Witch because they’re going to screw it up. They’ll have a big name cast and the spirit will be a computer-generated mist with big green eyes, silver fangs, floppy ears, and a wacky Jamaican accent. It’ll be about as scary as a pair of pants draped over a chair which, admittedly, can be extremely terrifying in your dark bedroom in the middle of the night, but are not frightening at all in a movie theater, unless you happen to be sitting next to a guy who insists on taking off his pants during the previews, and even then you can still change seats.

But I digress. Also John Bell will have a series of "visions", which will just be blurry rapid-fire images of an eyeball, bubbles coming out of mud, and maggots on a piece of baloney. And it’ll be good baloney – not the stuff that’s pre-sliced and sealed in a plastic pack with a yellow back. It will be the kind of baloney that you have to ask the guy at the meat counter to slice for you – the kind that’s spelled "bologna" even though you still pronounce it "baloney".

But I digress. The blurry-image technique is something Hollywood stole from independent films. Independent films can usually be distinguished by their low budgets and the fact that they all have at least one character with bad teeth and bad hair who always wears a polyester suit and is obsessed with periwinkles. People who make independent films claim their "preserving their artistic integrity", which sometimes means they haven’t learned there’s a place for bad lighting, shaky cameras, and really, really, really bad acting, and that place is most often the cutting room floor. I’m not saying all independent films are bad. There are some great independent films. And sometimes Hollywood makes great films in spite of its efforts to strangle anything that might not appeal to everyone from the ages of five to a hundred and five, which usually produces films that everyone but Gene Shalit hates. You’ll find a lot of people both in Hollywood and making independent films who claim they’re "preserving their artistic integrity", which is a lot of baloney. Not bologna.

But I digress. The sad thing is no one makes movies whose sole purpose was to make a quick buck, films that lacked any delusions about artistic integrity but were still good (such as the original "Little Shop of Horrors"), or that were so bad they were good (such as "Re-Animator") – films that became cult classics. Here’s an odd fact about the new Bell Witch movie: it’s being filmed in Romania. A story about a poltergeist who’s called a witch is being filmed in the shadow of the castle of Vlad Dracul, who’s called a vampire even though he wasn’t – but that’s another digression. Hollywood being what it is the final film will of course be "The Bell Witch Meets Dracula". If it only loses three million dollars (which Hollywood calls "a blockbuster") it’ll be followed by a sequel, "The Bell Witch And Dracula Meet The Wolfman". And that will be followed by "The Bell Witch, Dracula, And The Wolfman Team Up To Scare Abbott And Costello." I predict it will have good chances of becoming a cult classic, at least until it’s turned into a theme park ride.

I’m So Hip I Can’t See Over My Pelvis

October 14, 2005

I was a geek in high school. It’s taken me a long time to be able to say that proudly. For a long time I was in denial. I even did some un-geek-like things as a teenager, like being a Boy Scout and trying out for the golf team. Still I was the only Boy Scout in my troop who could find fifteen edible plants within twenty feet of the campsite, and I’d even eat them for a dollar. As for the golf team, I tried out for it. And didn’t make it. I was too humiliated to even think about trying out for the croquet team.

But I digress. At least I wasn’t a nerd. Most people don’t realize that "geek" and "nerd" aren’t really synonymous. They may be subtle, but there are differences. In spite of what movies try to tell us high school, like the rest of life, is not really a place where everyone can be easily pigeonholed as sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wasteoids, and dweebies. I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by John Hughes films, since none of us ever came out of a day of detention, a long-distance trip, or a prom invaded by vampires with our lives significantly improved. If high school had a plot it was "Lord of the Flies" one day and "Gilligan’s Island" the next, and there was a time and place where jocks, metalheads, and even nerds and geeks could be equals. I think it was behind the greenhouse, before gym.

But I digress. The major difference between nerds and geeks is one of degree. Geeks dress up as their favorite Star Trek character for Halloween. Nerds dress up as their favorite Star Trek character for casual Fridays. Geeks played Dungeons & Dragons. Nerds insisted on being called "Viklas The Orc Smiter" even when they weren’t playing Dungeons & Dragons. Geeks play video games. Nerds write video games. And while nerds tend to be socially inept, geeks are generally a little more, well, ept. Not that I’m knocking nerds. Several decades ago nerds started playing around with these things called "computers" which would eventually enable them to take over the world. Nerds, in spite of having been social outcasts, are responsible all those cool technological devices that everyone not only wants but in fact needs to avoid being a social outcast. Nerds belonged to the math club, and went on to become highly paid engineers or scientists – professions where they’re labeled "eccentric". Geeks flunked math, but usually compensated by acing English, and often went on to professions where they’re labeled "weird" or "about to be fired".

Geeks aren’t necessarily shut out from success, though. Successful geeks write bestselling books and direct movies. Geeks design special effects and creatures for science fiction movies, and geeks play the roles of creatures. Or at least they did before nerds and their computers muscled in and figured out how to replace actors with pixels. But I digress. Looking at history I realize geeks and nerds have always been with us. Thomas Edison was a nerd. Edgar Allan Poe was a geek. Benjamin Franklin was both, because only a nerd would fly a kite in a thunderstorm, and only a geek would write an essay called "Fart Proudly". DaVinci was a geek because he painted the Mona Lisa. I know he also designed an airplane and a submarine, but if he’d been a nerd those designs would actually work. In fact the geek-nerd dichotomy is everywhere. Whole-wheat bread is geeky. Vitamin-fortified white bread is nerdy. Lime Jell-o is nerdy. Black cherry soda’s geeky. All Chinese food is nerdy – except moo shu. All sushi is geeky – except California rolls. Pudding is nerdy. Ice cream is geeky. DVDs are geeky. Video on demand is nerdy – although it wasn’t that long ago that DVDs were nerdy and videotapes were geeky. Latte is nerdy. Capuccino is geeky. Making a gourmet meal from scratch is geeky. Getting expensive take-out is nerdy.Shakespeare in the park is geeky. Shakespeare on film is nerdy. Liquid soap is geeky. Body gel for men is nerdy – in spite of what the commercials tell you. Geeks know I’m parodying Lenny Bruce right now. Nerds know exactly which items I stole directly from Lenny Bruce’s bit. Pretzels are nerdy. Chips are geeky. Great Britain is nerdy, and so are all their prime ministers – except Churchill. Canada is geeky, and so are all their prime ministers – except R.B. Bennett. And we all, no matter how cool we were in high school, have a geek or nerd inside of us. So be proud and embrace your inner geek or nerd. Just don’t embrace them too much – they’re uncomfortable with physical contact.

Brought To You By…

September 30, 2005

I’m thinking of getting some sponsors to earn a little extra cash. In a world where a box of cereal strategically placed in a movie will earn the producers an extra fifty-thousand bucks, I can’t help thinking that I could get a piece of that action myself. Not that I’m greedy. I’d be perfectly content with twenty-five thousand bucks. And it doesn’t just work for movie producers. Athletes get paid ridiculously high amounts of money for wearing corporate logos all the time. The corporations then take their logo, slap it on some cheap shoes and t-shirts made by people who are paid 47 cents a month, and people like you and me pay ridiculously high prices to dress like athletes, which, technically, is us paying companies to use our bodies as advertising space when it should be the other way around.

Race car drivers seem to have the best deal. Every available piece of real estate on their bodies and cars is covered by some product placement. Not that I’m knocking race car drivers. If anything they’re smarter than anybody else because they’re taking better advantage of the system, and all the money the corporations spend is pretty much wasted because it’s impossible to read an ad when it goes by you at 200 miles an hour. If corporations want to really get their money’s worth they should stick ads on the backs of chess players. Endorsements seems to be the biggest cash cow for public figures. Maybe if I get a few I can be a public figure too. Admittedly I’m the type of guy who, if I made my money from commercials, would have a love-hate relationship with them. I’d be like Alfred Hitchcock who would complain during the segments of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" about the sponsors who sent him a big fat check every week. That attitude, to me, made Alfred Hitchcock the coolest guy in the world. Well, that and the fact that he directed "Rope".

It’s occurred to me, though, that if I become a public figure maybe I won’t need to do endorsements. Lately a lot of famous people have tried to earn extra money by copyrighting their catchphrases so anyone who says, "You’re fired" or "That’s hot" or "We can still be friends" will have to pay them money. Heck, even "catchphrase" has been copyrighted as the game Catchphrase(c), made by Parker Brothers(tm), a division of Hasbro(R), Makers of Quality Games (cos(A ± B) = cosAcosB sinAsinB). The only thing I have to do is come up with a catchphrase. As the other examples prove, it doesn’t have to be original, or even all that catchy. It just has to be something I use frequently enough that I can justify claiming it’s my own. But I digress.

Enjoy this week’s offerings.


Two women were playing golf. One teed off and watched in horror as her ball headed directly toward a foursome of men playing the next hole. The ball hit one of the men, and he immediately clasped his hands together at his groin, fell to the ground and proceeded to roll around in agony. The woman rushed down to the man and began to apologize. "Please allow me to help. I’m a physical therapist and I know I could relieve your pain if you’d allow me," she told him

"Oh, no, I’ll be all right. I’ll be fine in a few minutes," the man replied, still in pain, in the fetal position, still clasping his hands together at his groin.

But she persisted, and he finally allowed her to help. She gently took his hands away and laid them to the side, she loosened his pants, and put her hands inside. She began to massage him. She then asked, "How does that feel?"

He replied, "It feels great, but my thumb still hurts."

A Close Shave

September 23, 2005

So a shaving razor company has now introduced a razor with five blades. My only question is, What took them so long? I could ask some questions like, Why do we need this? or, Does it really take thirty-seven recycled steel cans to make one of these things? but those questions would make too much sense. Several years ago the first razor with two blades was introduced – the idea being that the second blade would get whatever the first one missed. It was a back-up, a wingman, a co-pilot. But that wasn’t good enough. Guys weren’t getting that prepubescent smoothness, and rather than admit that after years of acne and scraping our faces with a sharpened piece of steel, not to mention just aging, we’re never going to be baby-faced again, it was decided that the wingman needed a wingman, or a co-co-pilot. Going from three blades to five blades was kind of like kids on the playground skipping from the double-dare to a triple-dog-dare – it’s a slight breach of etiquette, but obviously acceptable in such portentous matters as shaving or pinging the P.E. teacher in the back of the head with a rubber band.

At least most guys are shaving again. In the Nineties, for some inexplicable reason, the trend was to shave every part of the face except the spot under the lower lip. Apparently all of us who grew up watching Scooby Doo looked at Shaggy and said, "That’s the look for me!" It was not unlike Hitler looking at Charlie Chaplin and saying, "Hey, great moustache!" But I don’t really want to imply that there’s any resemblance between Hitler and Shaggy, aside from their shared love of giant bratwurst sandwiches.

Then there were the Seventies, when it was either clean-shaven except for long sideburns and a perm (a look which probably cost Gerald Ford the election) or the rough, rugged, completely unkempt Grizzly Adams type who lived in the woods and ate boiled pine needles.

In the Eighties, of course, the hip look was "I haven’t shaved for three days". Guys would go for weeks looking like they hadn’t shaved for three days, mostly through a combination of careful grooming and touch-ups with mascara. The Eighties were a time when a man wasn’t really a man unless he wore makeup. One night when my friends and I were all still underage we bought some alcohol without getting asked for our IDs solely because we had touched up our adolescent peach-fuzz faces with mascara. Some of us had less fuzz than others, of course. I, for instance, looked like Ed Wood, only without the angora sweater.

But I digress. Technically, though, it wasn’t alcohol, because we bought wine coolers. In theory wine coolers were an Eighties fad of wine watered down with fruit juice – which should be "juiced", but that means something completely different. In practice wine coolers contained about as much alcohol as an Amish wake, which is probably why the mini-mart clerk sold them to us. Either that or he was a fan of "Plan 9 From Outer Space".

But I digress. In conclusion, shaving with five blades might seem like a good idea, but it’s about as effective as trying to get drunk on wine coolers. If you need to shave with five blades maybe you should just stop trying and instead invest in a book of recipes for boiled pine needles.

Enjoy this week’s offerings.


IN PRISON…..you spend the majority of your time in an 8X10 cell

AT WORK…..you spend the majority of your time in a 6X8 cubicle

IN PRISON…..you get three meals a day

AT WORK…..you only get a break for one meal and you pay for it

IN PRISON…..you get time off for good behavior

AT WORK…..you get more work for good behavior

IN PRISON…..the guards lock, unlock and open all the doors for you

AT WORK…..you must carry around a security card and open all the doors for yourself

IN PRISON…..you can watch TV and play games

AT WORK…..you get fired for watching TV and playing games

IN PRISON…..you get your own toilet

AT WORK…..you have to share with some idiot who pees on the seat

IN PRISON…..they allow your family and friends to visit

AT WORK…..you can’t even speak to your family

IN PRISON…..the taxpayers pay all expenses, often with no work required

AT WORK…..you get to pay all the expenses to go to work and then they deduct taxes from your salary to pay for prisoners

IN PRISON…you spend most of your life inside bars wanting to get out

AT WORK…..you spend most of your time wanting to get out and go inside the bars

IN PRISON…you must deal with sadistic guards or wardens

AT WORK…..we call them managers


NOW, GET BACK TO WORK!

Coming Soon

September 16, 2005

What’s usually the best part of a movie? The trailer. What’s usually the worst part of a movie? The movie itself. I can’t tell you how many really good trailers have been ruined by the lousy films they were promoting. And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a really, really, really good trailer and thought, "I wouldn’t watch that movie if you paid me to, but wow! what a trailer!"

This gave me an idea for the ultimate movie: it’ll be just a trailer. If people will pay ten bucks to sit through an hour and a half of a really bad film, why won’t they do the same to see 73 seconds of something really great? I’ve even got the perfect script. It opens with the camera moving downward through clouds, maybe some light snow. With subtle violin music, or possibly children singing eerily, the camera closes in on seven people of different ethnicities, fashion styles, hair colors, and genders standing in the middle of a dark street. Then comes the voice-over, done by a man whose voice is so deep snakes can hear it: "Coming soon: Seven strangers trapped in a cave have made a discovery that could change the world." Cut to a close up of a moderately attractive blonde woman who says, "Has anyone seen my platypus?" Cut to a montage of various people running, a brief clip of a car chase, and a clip of a platypus cutely putting its paws over its eyes. During the montage the voice-over continues: "Under the most desperate circumstances we often ask ourselves the most important questions." Cut to a completely new scene of the blonde woman in a sunny park standing next to a desperately unattractive man who looks like he combs his hair with a fork. The voice-over continues: "And sometimes we find love where we least expect it." The blonde woman says to the man, "Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it." Cut to a clip of a large building exploding. This is followed by a montage of people running down a street, climbing up ropes, running through dark tunnels, holding their hands over their ears while screaming, running through hallways, and line dancing, all of which is accompanied by a harsh, rapid drumbeat. The voice-over continues: "And in the end they’ll all discover the true meaning of Christmas. From the producer of a film most people liked, and from the director of a couple of films that did well at the box office comes a film that will redefine movies forever: Trailer."

All that will be followed up with a few snappy quotes from critics, like, "Hector Rosenblatt of the Des Moines Free Press calls it staggering," and "Gene Shalit raves, ‘It’s Trailer-ific! I can’t wait to see the whole thing! I just did?’" And if you think that sounds great, just wait until the DVD comes out. It’ll include a making-of documentary, commentary by the gaffer, and a sneak-preview of the trailer for Trailer 2: Caving In.

Enjoy this week’s offerings.


Here’s a prime example of "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus" offered by an English professor from the University of Phoenix:

The professor told his class one day: "Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate right. As homework tonight, one of you will write the first paragraph of a short story. You will e-mail your partner that paragraph and send another copy to me. The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story and send it back, also sending another copy to me. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on back-and-forth. Remember to re-read what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. There is to be absolutely NO talking outside of the e-mails and anything you wish to say must be written in the e-mail. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached."

The following was actually turned in by two of his English students: Jennifer and Paul.


THE STORY

(first paragraph by Jennifer)

At first, Jennifer couldn’t decide which kind of tea she wanted. The chamomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Dave, who once said, in happier times, that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Dave. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So chamomile was out of the question.

(second paragraph by Paul)

Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Dave Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Jennifer with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. "A.S. Harris to Geostation 17," he said into his transgalactic communicator. "Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so far…" But before he could sign off a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship’s cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the cockpit.

(Jennifer)

He bumped his head and died almost immediately, but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. "Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel," Jennifer read in her newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously excited her and bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth, when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspaper to read, no television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things around her."Why must one lose one’s innocence to become a woman?" she pondered wistfully.

(Paul)

Little did she know, but she had less than 10 seconds to live. Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu’udrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dim-witted wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace Disarmament Treaty through Congress had left Earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anu’udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive explosion, which vaporized poor, stupid Jennifer.

(Jennifer)

This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic semi-literate adolescent.

(Paul)

Yeah? Well, my writing partner is a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium. "Oh, shall I have chamomile tea? Or shall I have some other sort of FRIGGIN’ TEA??? Oh no, what am I to do? I’m such an air head who reads too many Danielle Steele novels!"

(Jennifer)

Jerk.

(Paul)

Bimbo.

(TEACHER)

A+ – I really liked this one

Bazaar of the Bezier

September 9, 2005

So my computer got ‘upgraded’, which is a technical term meaning ‘stuffed with a lot of unnecessary new bells and whistles that make it more complicated and harder to use’, and now I need a new screensaver. Why is it that everything in computers gets upgraded about every twenty minutes but we’ve been stuck with the same screensavers for ten years? The choices are a corporate logo, pipes, stars, or the marquee. Marquees are really annoying, especially when people have long messages that creep along at about two inches an hour so you spend twenty minutes staring at somebody’s screen just to see that their marquee says, "I’m away from my desk right now but will come back when I feel like it." That’s always a comforting thing to see when you come into an emergency room.

Oh yeah, there are also "beziers". What the heck is a bezier? Apparently it’s a dancing line, but it sounds more like a Victorian undergarment. Remember the old days when elevators were operated by guys who wore uniforms with brass buttons and miniature ottomans on their heads? They’d call out what was on each floor: "First floor: housewares, antiques, lamps, Second floor: Tim Curry in a green hospital gown, Third Floor: corsets, jodhpurs, and beziers." Do you remember those days? Me neither. It was before elevators were upgraded. That was back when ‘upgraded’ meant ‘made easier to use and more efficient so some poor schlub with an ottoman on his head gets put out of a job’. But I digress. For the longest time I had a screensaver that was made by the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence folks. It was a groovy idea. It downloaded information from radio telescopes and, when your screensaver was running, scanned it looking for aliens saying, "Can I borrow a cup of sugar?" Remember the old days when a new family would move in next door and your mom would go and ask to borrow a cup of sugar, which was code for "Would you like to sit around drinking screwdrivers for five hours and complaining about your husband?" Do you remember those days? Me neither.

But I digress. I know the chances of the program actually finding anything are about a billion times greater than the chances of four pat royal flushes on a single deal, but it made me feel good. I was helping the SETI program, harnessing the power of apathy, which is the most common element in the universe after hydrogen and stupidity. But I digress. I was going to reinstall the SETI screensaver, but, as you might have guessed, they upgraded it to the point that it’s now functionally useless. Where I used to get a complex looking screen of shifting colors as a broad spectrum of wavelengths was scanned that was a great conversation piece, now I get this message: "Unable to connect. Will retry in 278 hours, thirty-seven minutes, and forty-three seconds." It’s worse than a marquee. Fortunately I’ve found a way to create my own screensaver using pictures I choose. It’s simple and straightforward. And it doesn’t take very long, so I’d better hurry up and do it before the next upgrade.

Obesity For Dummies

August 19, 2005

Obesity is on the rise, but what’s the cause? Flipping through the talk shows I hear the usual suspects being blamed: junk food, the sugar industry, bad parenting, the Internet, Abbie Hoffman, genetics, or video games. Each of the people who address the issue claim it’s only one of these causes even though common sense says that, like most things, it’s a large and complex issue that doesn’t have a single cause and doesn’t have a single shot-in-the-arm fix. People on talk shows fix on a single cause partly because "It’s a large and complex issue" makes for a lousy soundbite, and partly because they’ve got a book to sell, usually a variation on "Get Rid Of Abbie Hoffman And Get Tighter Buns In 30 Days".

So I’ve decided to write my own book. I blame store mannequins. Why mannequins? For one thing clothes never look as good on you as they do on the mannequins. Common sense says that you should accept that you’ll never have the body of a mannequin but at least you have genitals, but the odd thing about common sense is that it’s so rare. The fact that no one has a mannequin’s body, I’ll argue in my book, leads to stress, which leads to overeating. No one else is blaming mannequins, so I figure I’ll be a popular guest on talk shows. The other reason I’m blaming mannequins is they give me the creeps. They have those weird fingers that look like they’re playing the harp or picking prickly pears. As a kid I was terrified of mannequins. The headless ones were bad enough, but the ones with the creepy lifelike eyes really got to me. I thought there must be a room somewhere in the mall where children who wandered away from their parents were taken to have their eyes removed and put into mannequins.

Eventually I got over it when I saw a "Twilight Zone" episode about store mannequins who want to be real people. There’s nothing scary about mannequins wanting to be real people. What’s terrifying is real people wanting to be mannequins. But I digress. The only bad thing is that in writing this book I’m going to have to do research on mannequins. I might even have to go and live among the mannequins for a while, and who knows what that could lead to? Maybe it’s because they don’t scare me like they used to, but I think I’ve noticed a decline in the mannequin population. I could become an advocate for saving the endangered mannequin. Sure, I’ll set out to write "Down With Dummies" but end up with "Mannequins In The Mist". And what could possibly be the cause for the shrinking mannequin population? I think I’ll blame the obesity epidemic. It’ll make a good soundbite for the talk shows.

Enjoy this week’s offerings.


In order to more easily affect the efficiency by which people can call in excuses please refer to the following matrix and begin using the ID Code associated to each excuse. This way, rather than trying to make up something unique the caller can more quickly inform the manager of their deficiency.

ID #901

If it is all the same to you I won’t be coming in to work. The voices told me to clean all the guns today.

ID #902

When I got up this morning I took two Ex-Lax in addition to my Prozac. I can’t get off the john, but I feel good about it.

ID #903

I set half the clocks in my house ahead an hour and the other half back an hour Saturday and spent 18 hours in some kind of space-time continuum loop, reliving Sunday (right up until the explosion). I was able to exit the loop only by reversing the polarity of the power source exactly e*log(pi) clocks in the house while simultaneously rapping my dog on the snout with a rolled up Times. Accordingly, I will be in late, or early.

ID #904

My stigmata’s acting up.

ID #905

I can’t come in to work today because I’ll be stalking my previous boss, who fired me for not showing up for work. OK?

ID #906

I have a rare case of 48-hour projectile leprosy, but I know we have that deadline to meet…

ID #907

I am stuck in the blood pressure machine down at the Food Giant.

ID #908

Yes, I seem to have contracted some attention-deficit disorder and, hey, how about them Skins, huh? So, I won’t be able to, yes, could I help you? No, no, I’ll be sticking with Sprint, but thank you for calling.

ID #909

Constipation has made me a walking time bomb.

ID #910

I just found out that I was switched at birth. Legally, I shouldn’t come to work knowing my employee records may now contain false information.

ID #911

The psychiatrist said it was an excellent session. He even gave me this jaw restraint so I won’t bite things when I am startled.

ID #912

The dog ate my car keys. We’re going to hitchhike to the vet.

ID #913

I prefer to remain an enigma.

ID #914

My mother-in-law has come back as one of the Undead and we must track her to her coffin to drive a stake through her heart and give her eternal peace. One day should do it.

ID #915

I can’t come to work today because the EPA has determined that my house is completely surrounded by wetlands and I have to arrange for helicopter transportation.

ID #916

I am converting my calendar from Julian to Gregorian.

ID #917

I am extremely sensitive to a rise in the interest rates.

ID #918

I refuse to travel to my job in the District until there is a commuter tax. I insist on paying my fair share.

Wing Nut

August 11, 2005

I put together a lawn cart. If you’ve never done this you’re probably thinking, "Big deal." If you have done this then you know that, say, climbing Mt. Everest is easy. We had to get a lawn cart because the wheelbarrow I normally use is being held together by rubber bands and chewing gum. I could have used duct tape, the wonder material that some old buildings are now completely made out of, but not even duct tape will blow up the tire for me every time I need to haul things in the backyard.

What did I learn from putting together the lawn cart? The first lesson is that any equipment that has both "Some assembly required" and "No tools necessary!" printed on the box will consist of approximately 83,000 separate pieces, 9,000 of which will be left over when you’re finished. The second lesson is that "No tools necessary" means you will need: (1) a hammer, (2) a wrench, (3) a ruler, (4) a socket-wrench set with both metric and English measurements, (5) a thesaurus, (6) an oxy-acetylene torch, and (7) a degree in engineering. I’m just kidding about the degree in engineering. I just like to imagine all my engineering buddies from college who laughed at me for studying English trying to put together a lawn cart. I’m sure after reading step 1 of the instructions they’d all realize they might as well have studied underwater basket weaving. I, on the other hand, have read Faulkner, so instructions like, "Insert polar 2mm screw counter-clockwise to 3 inch wing-nut beside axle vector" are no problem. The only problem with a degree in English is that, unlike engineering, I learned to think for myself so I lose hours contemplating things like screws.

Have you ever noticed that a screw is basically just a frilly nail? You don’t need to be an engineer to know that a frilly nail is better because it’s more secure and can tolerate being made fun of by regular nails, but why do there have to be two kinds of screws? Are philips head screws better than flat head screws? And if so, why do they even make flat head screws? Who was Philips, anyway, and why did he have to undermine the security of screws by dividing them? But I digress. Another lesson I learned is that all tools are absolutely necessary. For instance, the oxy-acetylene torch is needed for removing the assorted screws, wing-nuts, bolts, washers, locks, wickets, prongs, and thingamabobs from their plastic casing. Even though they all come in a single package the manufacturer has he lpfully divided them up into sections marked Step 1, Step 2, etc. And even more helpfully the manufacturer designed the package so that once you get it open every single piece will come flying out at once and scatter themselves across the driveway.

But I digress. The hammer is for hitting yourself in the head when your frustration level reaches the level that it’s unbearable. The wrench, ruler, and socket wrench set will, believe it or not, actually be used in putting the item together. And the thesaurus is for looking up colorful euphemisms when you realize that, for the third time, you’ve attached wicket B to washer 5.6QL with bolt M and wing nut ~7 when it should be the other way around. Also you’re supposed to only use wing nut %7 with wicket B. Fortunately my degree in English taught me lots of colorful euphemisms so I don’t even need the thesaurus. I’d like to see one of those engineers try and get by without one.

Enjoy this week’s offerings.


WOMAN’S PERFECT BREAKFAST

She’s sitting at the table with her gourmet coffee. Her son is on the cover of the Wheaties box. Her daughter is on the cover of Business Week. Her boyfriend is on the cover of Playgirl. And her husband is on the back of the milk carton.

WOMEN’S REVENGE

"Cash, check or charge?" I asked, after folding items the woman wished to purchase. As she fumbled for her wallet I noticed a remote control for a television set in her purse.

"So, do you always carry your TV remote?" I asked. "No," she replied," but my husband refused to come shopping with me, and I figured this was the most evil thing I could do to him legally."

UNDERSTANDING WOMEN (A MAN’S PERSPECTIVE)

I know I’m not going to understand women. I’ll never understand how you can take boiling hot wax pour it onto your upper thigh, rip the hair out by the root, and still be afraid of a spider.

WIFE VS. HUSBAND

A couple drove down a country road for several miles, not saying a word. An earlier discussion had led to an argument and neither of them wanted to concede their position. As they passed a barnyard of mules, goats, and pigs, the husband asked sarcastically, "Relatives of yours?" "Yep," the wife replied, "in-laws."

WORDS

A husband read an article to his wife about how many words women use a day… 30,000 to a man’s 15,000. The wife replied, "The reason has to be because we have to repeat everything to men…" The husband then turned to his wife and asked, "What?"