The picture above depicts exactly how I imagine these being consumed/read by you and your loved ones, You take turns reading all 161 outloud with the rest of the listening family roars with laughter.
It's really presumptuous of me thinking anyone would want to read ANY of them.
But if you want to browse, I put my favorites in bold. I set out to do a top 20, but I began to even bore myself and stopped at about a dozen.
Happy New Year!
• We used to snobbishly brag how we never watched TV. Now we speak almost exclusively in movie reviews.
• A friend just posted she and a buddy have been stuck in I-95 gridlock for 3 hours. Haven't moved an inch. I said it'll be tolerable until one or the other begins to consider the Donner Party option. Question: If you had to resort to cannibalism, would you rather consume a chum or someone you despised? Would you prepare the meal differently?
• Mallberg ahoy! I always thought the perfect crime would be to become a contract snow removal guy and then the day of the first big snow getting drunk with an adversary in his or her car. Then you entomb the vehicle in the mallberg snow with the passed out victim inside. Crime would go undetected 'til the April thaw. It's a very Edgar Allen Poe sort-of crime. And, yes, I realize I should not suggest scot-free crimes against willing drunks in a forum where my wife could see them, but the idea is too strong to conceal like, say, a car deep in a random mallberg.
• I can forgive "tea" with its two additional letters because they differentiate it from "tee." But I become furious any time logic demands I type "queue" with its FOUR useless letters for a word that sounds like Q. My advice: just use line instead. That's your Q-tip for the day.
• “Ozark” is a Netflix story about a couple whose ambition is to make money by perpetuating evil. A story about couples whose ambition is to make offspring to perpetuate the species is “Noahzark”
• I wonder if at the end of our lives as time runs out how much we'd give to have back all the time we wasted hoping some unpleasantness would end. What would we trade for all those hours we spent watching the clock, hoping a dreary class or day at work would finally end. I imagine it's a very poignant regret for many. Not me. And nothing will get me to sit through "The Irishman" again.
• I’m unfamiliar with the procedure, whether it involves either a seamstress or an exorcist, but I have to imagine when one "darns" a sock one is condemning the sock's soul to heck.
• Anytime I hear someone in charge say it's time to "re-think" a misguided decision, I automatically assume zero actual thought went into the original decision.
• Being a scholarly rabbit must be one of nature's most frustrating circumstances. Even your very best ideas are dismissed as hare-brained.
• Nutritionists ought to have a term for the unnecessary fats we foolishly add to our diets when we kill off the last slice of pizza so we can’t eat it later and the term ought to be “kamikaze calories.”
• Peter Dinklage is a terrific actor and I've heard him speak movingly about the challenges prejudices adults of his stature must endure. It is wrong for me to say I empathize yet still wonder if he gets upset when a prominent director calls and says he's on their short list.
• Reuters scare headline: "White House warns Russia could hit chip industry." Now, I normally stay out of current affairs, but this is one threat I cannot ignore. This is my open letter to Putin from me : You can close our embassies, embargo our trade, but if you think you can get the U.S. of A. to back down by signaling your intent to menace our bowls of Lay's, Pringles, Utz, etc. -- you're right! Uncle! Uncle! We'd rather you mess with our computers than our chips. At least wait until halftime is over …
• The time management experts may argue the point, but killing two birds with one stone must be considered an act of fowl play.
• We live in a time many prepper parents teach kids how to kill, and how to look out for #1 for when the world goes to Hell. They fail to realize that if it wasn’t for parents teaching children to love, share, be kind, and work together Hell would already be here.
• Calling any film about statues a motion picture is blatant fraud.
• From my purely second-hand knowledge of the tawdry endeavor, the originator of the term “one-night stand” must have had a very unsatisfying experience. A really good one-night stand should involve very little standing. And it should include brunch and most restaurants don’t start brunch ’til 10 a.m. so toss the one-night part, too.
• The war isn't even a day old and my naiveté has already emerged. The first big headline of the war is, "Russians Take Chernobyl After Fierce Fight." They're fighting over Chernobyl? It's the most radioactive place on the planet. It's like Columbus and Cincinnati fighting over Dayton. Why bother?
• I’m convinced the timeworn military maxim about generals always fighting the last war is dead wrong. There'll never be a "last" war.
• It must be challenging being married to a periscope. Nothing but mood swings. It's either up or it's down.
• I turn 59 today. I think it's time to begin lying about my age. Not to seem younger. No, I'm thinking of telling people I'm 76. That way people will marvel how great I look for my age, that retirement agrees with me & how never seeing me work the last 15 yrs now somehow makes sense.
• In honor of the preposterous NFL Super Bowl custom, it's once again time to share our phone numbers in Roman numerals. Mine’s DCCXXIV CMLXI MMDLVIII. Call me!
• If I ever have any success, I'm convinced it'll be because I enjoy strong grassroots support. Yet I can't help but wonder how much of my grassroots support comes from people who connect supporting me to supporting a guy who has a principled reluctance to ever mowing his lawn.
• The only thing that could make curling more oddly compelling is if were contested on a deep lake atop thin ice.
• It may never come up but if it one day does, I'm sure you'll be grateful: The plural of yeti is yeti, although yetis is acceptable.
• I once strenuously exercised in pursuit of what are known as "six-pack abs." Years later, here I am with a nice, round, beer belly I'm comfortable calling "my keg abs." I guess I realized I've never been anywhere where the dude who brings a six-pack is more popular than the man who brings the keg.
• We just spent $10 billion to send the James Webb telescope 1 million miles away from Earth so it could see the stars. I realize that the observation will risk me being labeled a near-sighted old fogey but, consarnit, I can remember when I could see the stars from my back porch. #lightpollution
• Val was rattled this week after seeing a picture of her late mother from when she was 4 years younger than Val is today. Her mother appeared much older. Told Val she shouldn't be surprised. She works very hard at eating right and remaining fit, has a natural beauty and, in fact, looks better today than the day we met. And if I saw her in a bar today, there'd be only one thing that would prevent me from hitting on her. What's that? I'm a happily married man.
• It should come as no surprise but, given our sedentary natures, most standstills have become sit stills.
• The exclamation point is to punctuation what the erection is to the male ego. The more you expose it, the more likely it begins to bore those it was intended to thrill.
• Told the kids one of the best ways to get ahead is to ignore the advice of mediocre adults. They pretended not to hear me ... I know. I have only myself to blame.
• To my everlasting shame, I remember in my surly youth seeing an old man limping in front of me, impeding my stride. I remember with a mix of exasperation and disdain thinking, "What's WRONG with you, old man." Much time has passed and today the only time I think such contemptuous thoughts is when I'm looking in the mirror.
• How empty would your house be if all the glasses, towels, tools, and whatnot were suddenly returned to the bars, hotels, employers, and neighbors you stole/borrowed them from when your ethics were less rigorous?
• I’ve run my own websites, zoom called 'round the globe, etc. Trust me. I'm tech competent. If that's so how come after I've successfully weighed, paid, and bagged 12-items or fewer, I look around at the people in the self-scan line behind me like I'm waiting for one of them to hand me a football to spike.
• I wish there was a superhero whose power was the ability to call a square dance so seductively that battlefield soldiers would -- yee! ha! -- drop their weapons and commence to dosey-doin'. This would give Freedom Fighters the chance to swoop in and declare victory or -- boy! howdy! -- enlist in the shin dig.
• I’m so messed up that when someone introduces me as "good people," I can't tell whether they're flattering my character or talking in code to inform others about my multiple personality disorder. Part of me thinks it's the former, another part of me thinks…
• I’m so vain about my influence, if someone ran into my office and in a panicky voice told me a zombie horde was here to "pick my brain," I'd prepare notes on an array of interesting topics and tell her to let them in when she hears the tea kettle whistle and not a second before!
• Facebook is the perfect venue for keeping up with friends we really ought to just call but never do for fear that if we did call they might answer
• In what was one of life's cruelest ironies, we spent an unbroken 2 hrs/ 40 mins listening to a man talk about his artistic career. With no regard for our interest or the endurance of our collective bladders, he talked and talked .. The irony is the man was a .. MIME! Swear to God
• I wonder how much money you have to have in your IRA before you can with a straight face say, "It's only money." I'd never insult money so cavalierly. Guaranteed, no one who's ever said, "It's only money," has ever googled how much he or she could get on the black market for a spare kidney. I'll save you the trouble: ballpark, $65,000.
• What is it about human nature that when we verbalize the common, conversational ice-breaker, "So, how you been?" the response we dread hearing the most is the one that involves them actually and thoughtfully telling us how they've been.
• I know this is going to cause many people to label me as prejudiced, but to me they all look alike. They all sound alike, they exhibit the same behaviors, and it’s hard to tell one from the other. I'm not talking blacks, Jews, Chinese, etc. I'm talking superhero movies. Seen one, seen ‘em all.
• True gender equality will remain elusive until someone invents a public toilet seat that renders moot the whole seat up/seat down puzzler, one the average male can figure out before he either urinates all over the stall or himself.
• I asked daughter, 15, to imagine what it was like to be forced to talk into phone where everyone could hear me. The static I had to put up with when my parents busted me ordering beer and buying dope for the weekend kegger. Who can blame me for splitting for Vegas when I turned 12?
• Studies show typical woman needs just 5 seconds to decide if she'd sleep with a man she just met. I believe it takes men longer, but only because men, being practical, are factoring in scenarios where he and the woman must engage in the process of repopulating the entire planet.
• One of the unmentioned benefits of having a smart phone is the reduction of embarrassing "senior moments." Now, instead of feeling defeated by memory loss, we just look up the answer. That is if we can remember where we put the damn thing ...
• I guess the reason it's customary for adults to ask graduates what they intend to do with their lives is because deep down we're fearful they might turn the tables and ask us what our lives have done to us.
• I’m troubled by the words we use to describe our state of sleep. We can be either "wide" awake or "sound" asleep. One's dimensional, the other makes me think of noises. Is it possible to be narrow awake or noiselessly asleep? I'd say I was going to sleep on it but that's unlikely.
• After going dark in recent years, Ringling Bros. announces its big comeback. The elephant in the room is that there will be no elephants in the room.
• I find myself being oddly drawn to friends -- not based on character or behavior -- but on how game- appropriate their names are for Wordle. So sorry, ARCHIBALD TERWILLIGER, you go straight to voice mail if I sense OSCAR BRANT might call.
• Starting today, I shall begin to refer to the fast food wrappers, stray receipts, old magazines, etc. that litter my vehicle interior collectively as "carbage." Not to be confused with cabbage, although I've found some of that back there, too.
• Because I enjoy testing the tolerance of inanimate objects -- and I'm including humans -- when I say "inanimate" -- tomorrow for my first Wordle guess I'm typing in the letters LBGTQ to see if my computer explodes.
• I’ve learned from bitter experience that, although mashed, baked & circular gum may resemble a potentially lucky penny, the gum is much more difficult to lift off the city sidewalk and ultimately it is barely worth the free chew.
• That I can't recall ever having spent any quality time at a popsicle stand, yet have blown hundreds of them, leads me to believe I have some serious commitment issues.
• Okay, NASA announces a life-extinguishing asteroid will strike the earth in 8 minutes. And that's it. We're cooked. What would you do with your 8 minutes? Pray? Hug loved ones? I blame Mom's hyper-parenting but I'm pretty sure I'd brush my teeth and put on some fresh underwear. Then, what the heck, maybe rob a bank.
• I’ll never understand the voluntary insanity of busting your ass for 5 days straight only to wage war with nature on the 2 days you're given to relax. We've reached a stage where we return to our Monday toils in need of 2 precious days to relax. We're all weakened by our weekends.
• Proving once again I'm unworthy of staying in nice places, I spent 2 minutes jumping up and down on a stationary disc trying to get it to register my weight before I realized I was jumping up and down on the roomba.
• ”He speaketh with forked tongue," was once one of the most stinging insults a native American could utter against the White Man. It meant he was a liar, incapable of telling the truth. What does that make me? I confess to fibbing, to shading the truth, to sometimes embroidering fact with fancy. I speaketh with sporked tongue.
• Damsels lead lives fraught with peril. Damsels are always in distress. Just once I'd like see a damsel in, say, a laundromat.
• The best diagnostic proctologists are crack investigators.
• On this Father's Day, I confess to being uncomfortable watching racy movies with our daughters. I don't like excessive profanity. Violence makes me queasy. And I leave the room once the sex goes beyond the consensual dry hump. Fuddy-duddy? No. Fuddy-Daddy!
.• I covet the grandfather clock at the place we're staying. So much I've thought of stealing it. But it's big, it's heavy and moving it would be a lot of work. I think I'll just steal a watch. I'm but a small time thief.
• While is one of our most nimble, yet undefined words. You can be a good while, but not a bad one. You can take a while, but you cannot give one. I've never encountered a nice while but our days are strewn with meanwhiles that aren't mean at all. Idlers like me can while away the hours but we can't while them back. The definition is hard to pin down. It should come as no surprise: Turns out while is wily.
• It roams the scenic countryside at leisure. It foregoes reliable sustenance in favor of a roll-the-dice existence. Its sole function is to keep itself energized enough to scavenge another day. God help me, I have the brain of a free-range chicken. And that I take the time to reason out how my brain is like that of a free-range chicken is ample evidence that I have the brain of a free-range chicken.
• I remain confounded by how so many Americans allow themselves to be roiled by petty division. We all love America.And at one time or another, regardless of party affiliation, every man, woman and child has stood up and declared themselves to be John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt.
• Before the great thinning, I used to be vain about my hair. Then for a while I was proud of my broad shoulders and trim waist. Then there were days I’d fancy that women admired the firmness of my dancer’s butt. Much has changed. It dawned on me the other day, the element of me I most want people to notice is that I wear nice shoes. Sad, isn’t it? What was once the whole package is now embarrassed about everything ‘cept what’s below the ankles.
• There ought to be an award show celebrating candy-covered chocolates if for no other reason we could look forward to promos announcing, "It's once again time for the M&Memmies!"
• For many humans, there is no other condition that suffers as precipitous a drop in value as that of our virginity. Its possessor spends years guarding it, preserving it, taking pride in maintaining it. Then one maybe drunken night the virginity is lost. No one looks for it. You never hear of sone finding a huge pile of lost virginity and hauling it down to the pawn shop to swap for, say an old guitar.
• I’m aware we live in a time many prepper parents teaching kids how to kill, segregate, and how to look out for #1 for when the world goes to Hell. They fail to realize that if it wasn’t for parents teaching our children to think, share, be kind and work together to solve big problems Hell would already be here.
• Told friend a new acquaintance could be described with what’s becoming my least favorite word: He’s “very Conservative.” Oh, he said, you dislike Conservatives. I told him I’m fine with Conservatives. And I’m fine with Liberals. It’s the verys that scare me.
• Nutritionists ought to have a term for the unnecessary fats we foolishly add to our diets when we kill off the last slice of pizza so we can’t eat it later cause we know it could kill us and the term ought to be “kamikaze calories.”
• It’s a running joke that it'll never happen, but Keith Richards will one day die. My fear is on that day I'll not only struggle to mourn Keith, but will also have to deal with the news that my favorite band will henceforth be known as "Mick Jagger & The Mick Jagger Orchestra."
• Having access to thousands of streaming channels makes me feel like a Sultan with a harem with dozens of nubile women. It's excessive. Many of the offerings are mediocre. Wouldn't I be better off with that one special channel? Okay, four or five might be agreeable, but that’s just the Sultan in me talkin’.
• Today is July 9, 2020. It is a day some men and women will remember with great honor and affection. For today, women will deliver children and men will become fathers. Someone today will learn that they’ve beaten cancer. And we may not know it for years but someone somewhere today will achieve — Eureka! — the breakthrough that will unshackle us from our unsustainable reliance on fossil fuels. Me? I’ll fart around the office until about 4 o’clock when I can head down to the bar without risking scandal. Oh, and I’ll Wordle.
• Reports that 43,591 women elected to have some breast reduction procedure, while 301,599 sought (breast enhancement). Being a proponent of efficiency I have to wonder if someday the market may respond with some sort of swap along the lines of "Need-A--Penny/Take-A-Penny …"
• With my new book I set out to write something that would withstand the test of time. I vowed to work like a maniac until the final draft shown for submission. But then with war/pandemic/Global warming/etc., I realized our time may soon be up. So I'd work till lunch then shoot pool.
• After spending yet another hour in the gym this morning I've concluded there is a multi-million dollar industry staffed by men and women whose sole purpose in life is to produce song-after-song-after-song they know I'll find revolting.
• If I ruled the squirrel Kingdom, I would have universal mandatory class 7 times daily, every day, and the lesson would never vary: "Remember, it's never a good idea to pause in the middle of a busy hiway to engage an oncoming driver in a staring contest.”
• Climate change alarmists fret heatwave is causing the roads to melt. I told them the roads in France are melting because they're made of ice cream! Then I did a little research and learned French do NOT make their roads out of ice cream. They make them out of … road! Uh oh …
- I think one of the problems of combatting Climate Change is our focus on global warming. Yes, the earth is too hot, but the sun is way, way hotter. I propose we fight global warming with solar cooling. How much ice would we need to dump on the sun to lower it, say, 5 degrees?
• Don’t ask why I was looking it up, but my research reveals that all mammals fart. Skunks are mammals. My question: What is the skunk etiquette when a skunk cranks out a really foul fart in a roomful of skunks? If you call a skunk with really potent farts "Stinky," is it insult or accolade
• Who on Earth would have ever guessed the GOP would be so happy over something that makes Dick Cheney so sad?
• Until someone shows me a real guy with a solid gold penis, I refuse to believe there's such a thing as the Midas Touch. It's not that I don't believe in alchemy, it's just that I know guys never know when to stop.
• If my calculations are correct, at some point tonight someone will watch a partisan news program and will descend into an imbecilic state from which he'll never recover. And when that happens 99.99 percent of American adults will be able to wear an "I'm With Stupid" shirt with diagnostic accuracy.
• I was flattered and a little taken aback when a 20-something girl I know as an friendly acquaintance asked if I'd take her to our church. I without hesitation said yes, even though my attendance lately has been spotty. I've since tried to figure out why me. Then it hit me. She presumes me and God are on a first name basis! And we are. But then again, aren't we all?
• We’ve become a nation so hyper-devoted to the protocols of bodily hydration I fully expect the CDC will one day begin to list the number of people on dry land who drown themselves as a leading cause of death.
• I’ve come to believe Mr. and Mrs. Dumpty were two of the world's worst parents. Leaving an egg baby in such a precarious position is bad enough, but whose idea was it to name the Dumpty kid, Humpty? Did they even have the conversation, "Hon, we can't name him Humpty or he's doomed to become a nursery rhyme. Let's go with Phil or Burt." In their defense the Dumptys were just a couple of egg heads. And egg backs. Egg butts. Etc.
• Heard a song that referred to "the world's oldest profession" and it got me thinking: What did the 1st prostitute" earn for the intimacy? And what did the 1st John tell his Cavepals. Maybe, "You won't believe what that babe in cave 8 will do if you give her a handful of roots.”
• It is not my wish to appear controversial or provocative in a social media forum where so many others seek respite, but this must be said: The greatest single side of rock music from the vinyl era is not "Sticky Fingers" Side 1. The greatest single side of rock music from the vinyl era is "Sticky Fingers" Side 2.
• In the near future, doctors will begin offering an elective surgery that will involve suturing phones into users' palms to prevent misplacement or dunking them in the toilet. Early hipster users will be mocked when they're the 1st to be seen on their knees with a finger stuck in a wall socket. That will pass as popularity rises and pretty soon we'll all be crowded along the wall ridin' the lightning ...
• Calling a man or woman "unflappable" is an admiring compliment denoting grace under pressure. But it must mean the exact opposite to our avian friends. Calling a fellow bird "unflappable" must mean a bird is forced to hoof it. I don't know what to think if a penguin calls another penguin "unflappable." Penguins seem so cheerful so it's unlikely to result in fisticuffs, but that's a whole 'nother story.
• My insecurities are so vast I've begun to prop up my ego by finding petty ways in which I'm more skilled than many of America's greatest figures. For instance, George Washington was a charismatic leader, a pillar of American greatness, but I'll bet I could kick his pantalooned ass in a parallel parking contest.
• If the publishing industry were at all honest about its definitions, it would announce a new category for a highly popular fiction genre. Classy books that are well-reviewed but earn squat (books like mine) would still be called literature. But the successful books we all agree are trash would be called LITTER-ature.
• How’d my Gbg.-Hempfield Library go? It went great! How many in attendence? Uh, well, 4. It gets worse. I was one of them. Wait. It gets worse still. Two of them were library staffers so listening to me yap was like goofing off. That means just one person took the time to hear me talk. So what did I do different? Nothing. I gave the same talk with the same passion as if I were addressing 400. So it's all good. At least until the end when I spend about 90 interminable seconds basking in an ovation of throngs only I can see. Lesson? If you can't be a true success, having a powerful imagination helps one -- and I mean one -- overcome so many of life's little disappointments
• Call it a hunch, but something tells me one of the big '23 news stories will be astrophysicists announcing that voracious black holes are now ignoring regular shaped galaxies and are instead consuming only the galaxies that are Pringle-shaped.
• NASA hits Volkswagen-sized asteroid 6.8 million miles from Earth. Whew! Now if only someone could do something to make me feel safer every single time I set foot out my front door.
• There are talented writers who succeed on the strength of their stories. They earn movie deals and adulation. They are famous. Then there are writers who earn big bucks scandalizing the best-seller lists. They are infamous. Then there are guys like me. My books earn squat and acclaim elusive. I am unfamous.
• Hearing people judge those who attend hurricane parties always cracks me up. This is Planet Earth 2022. Climate change, drought, injustice, partisan rancor -- and most of us remain by choice oblivious to it all. It's one big Hurricane Party and we're all standing in line while the bartender cuts citrus fruit garnish. Party on.
• The Metric System has been the dominant unit of measurement in England since about 1680. The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964. Pete Townsend wrote the hit single "I Can See for Miles" in 1966, one year before setting foot in the USA. Question: In the 1st draft of the song, did Townsend try the lyric, "I Can See For Kilometers and Kilometers and Kilometers …"
• John Lennon was killed in 1980. George Harrison died in 2001. Paul McCartney is 80. Ringo Starr, 82. I'm not wishing any ill on either, but if the actuary tables are to be believed The Fab Four will one day soon have a heavenly reunion. I have to think there are already lines forming at the ticket windows.
• I drink too much. Laugh too loud. Lie to dodge tedious tasks. And at the end of another week when it could be argued my greatest achievement was not dunking the phone in the toilet, I forgive myself my sins. Indeed, I put the human in humanity.
• I was stuck at an interminable red light wondering about all the things that take so damn long. Things like waiting for the computer to boot up, TSA lines, and getting stuck on IT hold. Our busy lives are consumed by mini-eternities. Want to know something that goes by like lightning? Sixty years.
• It’s sadly ironic that in a day when social media creates disposable "stars" that light pollution is resulting in the visual obliteration of actual stars in the heavens.
• Reuters headline reads "Russians attack Ukrainian cities during rush hour." They still have rush hour? Traffic on the 4s? Beep 'n' creep? If ever a situation called for suspension of rigorous work duties, I'd think "Sovereign Country invaded by Russian Army" would top the list.
• One of the many oddities of my existence is that by most demographics I'm considered working class, yet few would consider what I do to be actual work and if I have any class at all it's not readily apparent even to me.
• Say what you want about their leadership abilities, but if nothing else at least TRUMP, BIDEN and PUTIN would make dandy Wordle first guesses.
• What salient fact on one of the day's biggest stories did nearly every news organization get wrong? They all declared Alex Jones was ordered to pay "nearly $1 billion" in damages. Pardon, but it was $965 million. That's not nearly a billion. It's off by $35 million. That's a lot.
• Some have suggested I'd sleep better if I stopped worrying about things over which I have no control. I get it. I can't stop wars, reverse climate change, etc. But it could be 50k years from now & I'll still be fretting about kids running w/wrong crowd. And we'll be in Heaven!
• I read because I'm convinced the more I have in my mind the less I'll have on it.
• Seeing a vivid rainbow over Latrobe this morning reminded me of the Sunday school lesson that the phenomena was God assuring that everything's going to be all right. It's good to know on these days when so many feel truly godforsaken, like He's Holy Ghosted us.
• I’d like to one day report on malfunctioning picnic ware litigation so I could without exaggeration describe it as a real basket case.
• My fear isn't that when the robots show up they'll take over my job. My fear is that when the robots take over my job no one will notice I'm gone ... Wait. The whole premise is absurd. C'mon! Me? With a job? Who am I kidding!
• The Swedes must cleanup in the fish Olympics. I mean, who's their competition? They are the only nation that has organized their fish in the whole pescatorial realm.
• That scientists say Earth is 4.5 billion years old only adds poignant urgency to the timely challenge of reversing Climate Change. Anything that's 4.5 billion years old and still seem too young to die is bound to be pretty special.
• Women age distinctly; men uniformly. As a woman ages, she becomes more individual -- her hair color, her laughter, her manner of dress -- all put her in sharp relief from other women. All men age the same. We lose hair, gain weight and generally stumble thru life w/ the bewildered expressions of men who mistake the sliding glass patio door for open and repeatedly slam into the invisible solid. If we lived to be 120, we wouldn't be able to walk 50 feet without someone confusing us for their Uncle Burt.
• We revel in the misfortune of less fortunate. We gloat when our hatreds provoke irrational acts. We care not who's killing whom as long as our pack can elude blame. I fear we're becoming a nation that behaves as if 50 percent of us were raised by wolves. The other 50 percent? They’d be the wolves.
• I read because I'm convinced the more I have in my mind the less I'll have on it.
• I suggest we Pennsylvanians reshape our borders -- put some wiggles in 'em -- so we don't appear on maps like the state most likely to be used as the dead battery gauge when the USA starts to run out of power.
• You can convert a home. You invert a fraction. You can subvert a good idea. You can transvert a landscape, and you can pervert an innocence wholesome and pure. Question: How come I’ve never seen, felt, heard, smelled or been invited to enjoy an illicit little vert. What is a vert? It can do so much yet it remains to me cloaked in mystery. Its humility may nevert be surpassed.
• Referring to men & women whose exercise goal is to strip their frames of any excess weight as body "builders" is fraudulent. They're not body builders. Now, me, I've spent the last few years adding enough closet space to my posterior it's surprising the township's not after me to staple a permit to my ass. Now, THAT's body building
• I realize the observation will cause some to think me ignorant at best, xenophobic at worst, but I was surprised to read Saigon has a thriving Chinatown neighborhood. Isn’t that like Cleveland having a busy Canadatown neighborhood? Sure, they’re distinct nationalities, but wouldn’t the differences be of interest to just a few anthropologists. It’s certainly an indication of the international popularity of the Chinese culture. It also has me wondering if most major Chinese cities have their very own Chinatowns or if that would take redundancy to absurd levels.
• That catbird means an advantageous position matters far less to me than the potential hybrid that results the day we mingle their DNA. Do you want as a house pet a cat that can fly or a bird that snoozes the day away cozied up on your lap? I'd go with the flying feline. And while we're at it, what would the titmouse look like if it looked like its component names?
• This is the time of year when I always begin to wonder if the nation of Turkey has a national bird. Could it be that obvious? Of course I'm the same guy who thinks a 3rd world African nation must have great take-out food just because the country's name is TO-GO.
• News that Buffalo is getting walloped with 5-feet of snow has me thinking that Buffalo should be renamed Uninhabitable. Even buffalo can't live in Buffalo.
• I know to some patriots the charge itself is practically seditious, but the Founding Fathers got it all wrong when they called the place where the legislative branch does business the "House of Representatives." It would make more sense to call it, "The Big Room of Morally Shady Mostly White Men Whose Positions Bend According to the Latest Campaign Contributions.”
• I understand the mostly snobby reasons it's never mentioned alongside classic scenes from "Godfather" or "Citizen Kane," but one of the most compelling scenes in all American film is the hanging of Jake Spoon.
• On this day we as a nation should vow to never again say Happy Veteran's Day until we're certain we've done everything we can to ensure every veteran is happy.
• ”These kids today do nothing all day but stare at their stupid phones," say in unison the cranky old men who do nothing all day but stare at Fox News.
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• Doctor suggests I not drink my Wild Turkey straight, so I now drink bourbon & water. I drink water from 7 am to 5 pm. I drink bourbon from 5:01 to 10 pm.
• I vow to never describe anything as being cute as a button until someone shows me an actual button that any reasonable observer would consider cute. Describing a button as cute is like describing a utility poll as charming. The two are functional and should never be considered “cute."
• I know I'm in the global minority, always an awkward position for an aged Caucasian dude, but cheering for either team in the World Cup leaves me feeling like I'm cheering for the Metric System. It doesn't matter who I root for, tomorrow when I wake up we'll be back to measuring miles in miles, gallons of gas in gallons and football will resume being football.
• I think we've reached a point where our morality is low enough and our insistence on being entertained high enough that if Mick Jagger today announced on Instagram that, "Yeah, you got me. I am Satan," most of us would be perfectly cool with it. In fact, we'd rather hear him say that than hear him say he was releasing another solo album.
• Overheard a college student say she was meeting friends at 10 pm. Why so late, I asked. A nearby Penn Stater said, "Don't you remember college? We all went out at 10 pm." See, there's the problem. Where I went to college, by 10 pm. we'd already been out for 7 hours. Remember standing in line on frigid nights and looking through the bar window and seeing a group of guys who looked like they owned the place? That was me and my gang. We were Bobcats and it was Athens, Ohio, the drinker's Disneyland.
There oughta be a litmus test for the number of times a lazy reporter can declare a non-scientific judgement a litmus test
• Our daughter is studying ancient times in the hopes of becoming a future historian, an aspiration that I believe must involve some sort of time travel. I imagine we’ll one day be sitting down to watch a program and she’ll just before our eyes disappear. Her mother will scream in terror. Me? I’ll seize the abandoned remote!
• Happy Birthday, Valerie Glenz Rodell! I can describe you as loving, sweet, diligent, youthful, understanding, sexy, prudent, encouraging and patient enough to await the day my elusive ship’ll some in. How all those positive words can accurately describe your character and I can still declare you as my wife of 26 years honestly amazes me. If we all got what we deserved on our birthdays, today you’d hit the Powerball jackpot. And I’d get squat. I already hit the jackpot the day we met.
• I dreamt last night a female zombie approached and asked if she could pick my brain. Not thinking, I instinctively gave her the finger. She mistook the gesture for a compromise offer and now whenever I have to do basic math or carry the 7, I must remove foot wear. I thought about complaining about her snack, er, snap decision but figured I'd better bite my tongue.
• You might think it’s all just profane nitpicking, but I’d rather be called an “effing a—hole” than just your typical garden variety “a—hole.” Being an “effing”anything at least hints at some baseline social skills.
• I pity the people who reside in austere newer homes so tightly constructed they don’t make a peep. Our 50-year-old home coughs, creaks, sighs and sniffles. The floors groan, the cupboards squeak, and when the old furnace rattles to life (thank God) it sounds like a veteran stage actor clearing his throat just before the curtain rises. My favorite sound? I love hearing the fireplace damper being pulled open. Sounds to me like the wheels of an old steam locomotive as they begin to grip the rail. But my all-time favorite sound is the distinctive rattling of the warped old floorboards when the legs of the crib began to bounce on them, signaling that one of our babies was awake, hungry and eager for another day full of play, laughter and songs so joyful I imagine even the house had fun.
• I consider it yet another degradation of once-proud men, but I'm upset how what I once called "the family jewels" somehow became "my junk." From jewels to junk in three short decades. SAD!
• Which is more confounding? That you’ve become the person you are today or that the person you’ve become today is the exact same person you used to mock when you were the person you used to be.
• I live in a house with 3 sassy women. And I'm under a constant barrage by boneheads eager to engage me in provocative political and social arguments. I hold my tongue so much it's a wonder my fingertips don't have tastebuds.
• I read because I'm convinced the more I have in my mind the less I'll have on it.
• My father died in ’04; mom in ’17. Their memories flicker fainter each year for our daughters, 22 and 16. It’s a pity. I wish on their tough days they could recollect how the faces of these two people lit up when they saw their beloved grandkids — and stayed brilliantly illuminated whenever they were blessed to be in their presence. I wish I had a pill — just one pill — that would restore all our memories. Not of childhood, but of infancy, when our every expression, sound or gesture provoked pure delight. The pill would remind us of what perfect love, security and hopefulness feels like. One pill. One dose. I’d prescribe it to America.
• This is the time of year married men begin to envy leaves. Leaves get blown at least once a year.
• Being a student of communications, I have a lot of questions about what to me is one of the most fascinating methods of all-time. I'm talking the smoke signal. What were the parental controls ("Look away! Look away!")? Did shifting winds lead to historic misreads ("I can say with near certainty the Indians won't attack today, Gen. Custer.)?" And how many petty annoyances do we still share some 200 years later, ("Can I bum your lighter? It's asking me to change my password ... AGAIN!")?
• I sometimes fear my drive for ceaseless originality is weakening and I'm destined to reach back for the greatest hits. But I always conclude I'm being too hard on myself. I sometimes fear my drive for ceaseless originality is weakening and I'm destined to reach back for the greatest hits. But I always conclude I'm being too hard on myself.
• I sometimes fear my drive for ceaseless originality is weakening and I'm destined to reach back for the greatest hits. But I always conclude I'm being too hard on myself. I sometimes fear my drive for ceaseless originality is weakening and I'm destined to reach back for the greatest hits. But I always conclude I'm being too hard on myself.
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