Gimme the Gas

Hat tip to Chris LeDuc for this gem. I always loved getting the gas at the dentist's office.

"Is this real life?" Too funny.

Doghouse

To all the guys out there preparing to shop for the wife, mom, or girlfriend, stay out of the doghouse this holiday season.

Enjoy!

Friday Chuckle

Battle of the Network Stars, 1976. Gabe Kaplan, Robert Kaplan, Telly Savalas, a track & field relay controversy, Howard Cosell narrating, cigarette smoking on camera, and a run-off.

They don't make television like this anymore.

Happy Friday. Cheers!

Chuckle

Fix It!

What a depressing week this has been.

Markets are tanking across the world. The stock market in the U.S. is down 40% over the past year. Governments around the globe are trying to step in to solve the credit crisis by lowering interest rates, infusing the capital markets with hundreds of billions of dollars, and taking over interest in banks to help free up money for lending. The cost to us Joe Sixpackers down the road in taxes is going to be enormous.

Meanwhile we are in the final month of a contentious Presidential election, and the campaigns have turned ugly. On one side the candidate that is behind is increasingly turning to character assualts, claiming that the opposition "pals around with terrorists." On the other side, the candidate in the lead released a 13-minute video digging up dirt on the opposition from a scandal that happened 20 years ago. Politics can be an ugly, ugly business, and these last days are certainly going down that path.

So as we watch our retirement accounts, college savings accounts, and savings accounts go in a southward direction and as we listen to our Presidential candidates attack each other relentlessly, laughter becomes imperative.

The "Oscar Rogers" character from last night's Saturday Night Live special sums up what I think all of us want to happen right now. Go the the 4:20 mark. Just "Fix it!!"

Cheers everyone!

Homer Votes

Pre-debate humor for Simpsons fans among us.

Cheers!

La Cucaracha del Infierno

I do not like bugs.

When I was a kid I used to be terrified of just about anything that crawled on six or eight legs. If there was a crawling creature in my room, I simply could not go to sleep as I would imagine its little legs crawling on me as I slumbered. My parents were often called in to kill the vicious creature as I could not bring myself to face the fear of being devoured by something 1,000 times smaller than me.

Over the years I have -- for the most part -- overcome this fear. My first challenge of overcoming this fear was living in a fraternity house in college for two years where let's just say cleanliness was in short supply. You got used to creepy crawlies living amongst 30 housekeeping-challenged guys under one roof.

Then when I moved to North Carolina where I lived in an apartment by myself. One night as I was about to walk out the door to meet Amy (we had just started dating), there was a decent-sized spider crawling under the door into my apartment. I seized this moment to overcome my arachnophobia. I actually tried to scoot the spider with a broom back out the door instead of killing it. But my noble effort was soon thwarted as out poured dozens of baby spiders onto my floor. I was being invaded by a pregnant mother spider looking for a dark, dry place to have her offspring. A bottle of Windex and a size 11 foot prevented me from being on P.E.T.A's mailing list. But hey, at least I was not running scared from bugs like I did when I was a young lad.

As I have gotten older, gotten married, and had 3 kids my fear for the most part has subsided. When you are the man of the house you just take these bug invasion challenges as part of your role. And for the most part I don't even mind bugs anymore.

Except for the dreaded #$%@ cockroach. There is no more despicable creature on earth to me than la cucaracha.

These little hairy-legged boogers have roamed the earth for 320 million years. They were here before us, and they'll be here after we're long gone. They eat anything. They are quick as hell. And they are hard to kill.

I cannot stand cockroaches.

So last night I was awakened at about 12:30 when I felt something crawling in my hair. In my half-asleep stupor I swatted at it only to feel little legs crawling on my neck. As I felt this sensation begin to crawl down my shirt to my back I immediately sprung up out of bed shouting and fumbling for the light, scaring Amy half to death.

As the light filled the room the rotten little vermin scampered under the sheets. Amy shrieked and immediately began demanding that the man of the house take care of this nuisance of a visitor. That's when seven year-old Derek reared his head again.

I was not having any part of that cockroach. I have dealt with snakes, spiders big and small, ants, termites, ticks, fleas, wasps, birds, bees, you name it since my days of being terrified as a kid of bugs. But awakening in the middle of the night to the feeling of a cockroach on the back of my neck catapulted me not into a position where I would seek revenge on the creature for invading my bedroom, but into a stunned fog where I could not bring myself to do anything about it.

Throughout this ordeal my loving wife was shouting at me for my cowardice and berating me to emerge from my haze. There was nothing I could do. She chased that little insect from the pillows to the floor as it dodged shoes and books before seeking shelter in the air conditioning vent in the floor.

I summoned up the gumption to pull the hand vac out of the closet to give to Amy who at this point was completely disgusted and dismayed with my inaction. She removed the floor vent and tried to vacuum up the monster so she could go back to sleep. But la cucaracha proved to nimble and quick. She ended up taping Saran Wrap over the vent and covering it with large, heavy books to secure the room from another invasion. It was a humorous reaction to the situation, but it was much more than I was able to conjure up at 1:00 in the morning.

Amy made fun of me some more, but I didn't care. She even pulled the red cape off the boys' Superman costume in the closet and wore it back to bed. There was no question who had saved the day, and it wasn't me.

Somewhere in the A/C ducts in my house, a conniving little six-legged mutant is plotting his next attack.

I hope for the sake of my manliness that I will be up for the challenge.

SNL

"Katie, I'd like to use one of my lifelines."
"I'm sorry?"
"I'd like to phone a friend."

Funny stuff.

Politico Friday

I was a good boy this week. No snarky comments about the GOP convention from the RutlFarm.

(Did you know John McCain was a P.O.W?)

Well, almost all week.

John Stewart sums up the spinsters' take on Sarah Palin better than anyone.

Cheers!

Skid Marks

Excerpt of the conversation this evening at our house as Owen came out of the bedroom for what I thought was his usual bedtime stall tactic.

Owen: "Dad, I need to go to the bathroom in the green bathroom."

Me, slightly annoyed at the latest stall game: "C'mon Owen, why can't you just use your bathroom?"

Owen: "Because there are skid marks?"

Me: "Skid marks?"

Owen: "Yeah. There are skid marks in the toilet. I need to use the green bathroom."

When I walked into the boys' bathroom with him, sure enough I noticed a remnant that had not been flushed down.

Me: "I suppose you're right Owen. By the way how did you learn what a skid mark is?"

Owen: "A skid mark is when a piece of poop doesn't flush down the toilet."

Me (impressed): "Who told you that?"

Owen: "Ummm, Aunt Mel."

I should have known. I should have known.

It's in the Mail

Hat tip to my buddy Scott K. for this find.

"Postal carrier pleads guilty to delaying mail"

Steven Padgett, of Raleigh, was a veteran mail carrier, employed with the postal service since 1995, and began an Apex route in 2001.

Recently, a utility worker spotted a large amount of mail in postal boxes at his home. The postal service was contacted and agents from the U.S. Postal Services' Inspector General's Office went to Padgett's house. On May 6, they discovered dozens of mail pallets stacked to the top of his garage and filled with third-class mailings, mainly store circulars and coupons.

Padgett had been under pressure to deliver all his mail in a timely manner and began skipping the sorting of junk mail in order to save time, his lawyer Andrew McCoppin said.

Personally I think this guy should get a medal and is welcome to deliver mail to my house any day.

Cheers!

Friday Funny

Hat tip to my buddy Dave O for the link -- hilarious! (Language alert)

Cheers!

Customer Service

In all my frustration against my nemesis Time Warner Cable, I have never reacted by taking a hammer to my local customer service office. Not that I haven't wanted to....

Great story.

"Taking a Whack Against Comcast"

Who among us has not longed for a hammer in this age of incompetent "customer service representatives," of nimrods reading from a script at some 800-number location, of crumbs-in-their-beards plumbing installation people who tell you they'll grace you with their presence between 12 and 3, only never to show? And you'll call and call and finally some outsourced representative slings a dart at a calendar and tells you another guy will come back between 10 and 2 next Thursday? And when this guy comes, pants halfway down his behind, he'll tell you he brought the wrong part?

And there is nothing, nothing you can do.

No Wonder They're the Bungles

The things people do for money. From the "endorsements that famous people should have avoided" file comes this ad that featuring Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer. Unfortunately for Palmer it was in the Sunday edition of newspapers all of Ohio. ;-)

http://www.aolsportsblog.com/2007/05/16/carson-palmer-would-like-to-sell-you-a-hot-dog

Weekly Reader

Back in elementary school we used to get a weekly publication called the Weekly Reader that highlighted current events for young readers. I'm not sure if that still exists anymore in today's highly connected world, but it was a good forum to introduce young people to the things going on in the broader world. So in honor of the Weekly Reader, here are some stories that have caught my eye recently in current events.

Newsweek's cover story this week focuses on the abduction of the two boys in Missouri by a man who worked in a pizza parlor. The one child had lived with his abductor for four years, had a cell phone, access to the internet, and had even come in contact with police about riding his bike. Yet he never contacted his family or revealed that he had been kidnapped. Obviously the hope here is that the abductor is locked away and the key melted. Interesting read into the situation.

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Cincinnati Enquirer columnist Paul Daugherty, one of the better sports writers around, has a different take on the latest Cincinnati Bengal to get arrested. This guy is the -- ahem -- ninth (!!) player on the team to be arrested in the past year, this time for marijuana possession. Daugherty tells fans to get off their high horses regarding their indignation:

We give these people all this money. We tell them how great they are. We tell them to go out for three hours a week and commit pointed acts of sanctioned violence. Then we expect them to act like accountants (or sports writers) when they're done. Right.

Is Joseph at fault? If he's guilty, of course he is. Is it worth getting bent about? Only if you like getting bent. Is it Lewis' fault? Of course not. Is it his problem? Definitely.

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On the political front, there was a story in a conservative online magazine last week that Barack Obama attended a madrassah (a fundamentalist Muslim school) in Indonesia when he was growing up. The magazine then reported that the Hillary Clinton camp was the source for the story, effectively smearing two Democratic presidential front-runners with one unsubstantiated story. Fox News (aka Faux News) then picked up the story and reported it this week. The story had a deja vu quality to it, taking us back to the Swift Boat days of the last presidential campaign. At least responsible media outlets quickly debunked the claims this time around rather than letting the lies spread -- Washington Post and CNN.

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Finally, The Onion still hits it out of the park on the humor front:
Area Family's Trip to New Hampshire Sparks Rumor of Presidential Bid (hat tip to Mr. LeDuc)
Amazon.com Recommendations Understand Area Woman Better Than Husband
J.K. Rowling Ends Harry Potter Series After Discovering Boys

"I know many of you are upset by this news. But Ms. Rowling was tired of devoting herself to something that no longer held her interest—namely, writing books about wizards, flying broomsticks, and candy that jumps. She's a lot older than she was when she wrote the first book. She'd much rather be going to the mall, looking for cute outfits, and talking to the boy with the curly red hair who works at the Hot Sam pretzel shop."

Cheers!

Clown College

YouTube is a fantastic thing. From one of my favorite Simpsons episodes ever....

Should I Get a Dog or Have a Child?

Hat tip to my buddy Mike Mankowski for this one. (Note these are not our pictures -- thankfully!)

Although we once had our dog mutilate a couch like this one, luckily we haven't had boys repaint our house.

Yet.

Cheers!


Dog...




....or Child

Clip of the Week

YouTube clip of the week.

CNN anchor Kyra Phillips left her microphone on while in the ladies room. Her conversation was played over a President Bush's speech about Hurricane Katrina. I'd be interested in what her sister-in-law is going to get her for Christmas.

This could have been so much worse than it was -- like when Lt. Frank Drebin from The Naked Gun left his microphone on while in the bathroom. ;-)

Apparently she had a good sense of humor about it because she followed the performance up with a Letterman appearance where she was the subject of the Top 10.



Top Ten Kyra Phillips Excuses Presented by CNN Anchor Kyra Phillips:

10. "Still haven't mastered complicated On/Off switch."

9. "Larry King told me he does this all the time."

8. "How was I supposed to know we had a reporter embedded in the bathroom?"

7. "I honestly never knew this sort of thing was frowned upon."

6. "Couldn't resist chance to win $10,000 on 'America's Funniest Home Videos."'

5. "I was set up by those bastards at Fox News."

4. "Oh, like YOU'VE never gone to the bathroom and had it broadcast on national television!"

3. "I just wanted that hunky Lou Dobbs to notice me."

2. "OK, so I was drunk and couldn't think straight."

1. "You have to admit, it made the speech a lot more interesting."