• Category Archives Humor

  • Later on

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall                                                                                         Falling Leaves Moon

    Went for dinner tonight at Osaka. I love their sashimi special roll. It felt like cheating on Kate though, since I don’t recall ever having gone there without her. So, I called her. She reported that the romantic Russian composer street house had an uneven first level, a studio that would have required $50,000 to bring up to code, no space to hang art and too many steps. That’s why we sent her out there. No regrets.

    She’s still looking, has her eye on a particular place. She plans to drive around by herself tomorrow, looking at houses, then she and Ann Beck will resume on Tuesday.

    While I waited at the Wings Joint on Friday, I picked up a paper I only read when I’m there, Tidbits. It had some aphorisms called old farmer’s advice. Not sure they’re from old farmers, or farmers at all, but I found a few of them amusing:

    Your fences need to be horse-high, pig-tight, and bull-strong.

    Keep skunks and bankers at a distance.

    Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.

    And, my favorite: Don’t pick a fight with an old man. If he is too old fight, he’ll just kill you.

     

     


    Colorado Humor The Move

  • Not Sure Which Direction To Take? Read the Sign.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer                                                             Most Heat Moon

    So often the real world outstrips the imagination:

    “Motorists on Shepard Road  in St. Paul got an obscene message from an electronic road side sign instead of the information that was supposed to warn them of a flood-related closure ahead.

    Sometime on Tuesday night, a hacker changed the message on the board near Chestnut Street to read “Local Moms Need [a man’s body part].” The vulgar message generated several calls to the city, said Kari Spreeman, a public works department spokeswoman.”

    full blog entry from the Star-Tribune’s Drive.


    Humor News of the Strange

  • CONOP 8888

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane                                                             Emergence Moon

    OK. Here’s what puts Minnesota Whackos in perspective. An actual plan, created in 2009, by our army, to deal with a zombie threat and to preserve non-zombie life. Let it be known right here that I’m relieved. I thought John LaDue, Byron White and the corpse containing RV, with the late addition of the anti-neighbor Zumberge family (see earlier posts if these names are new to you.) had established Minnesota as the current reigning whacko champ.

    But, no. The army is there to create a national whacko moment far exceeding our home grown ones, even though our whackos are above average. Seriously. below from The Situation Report: 

    “”…As its authors note in the document’s ‘disclaimer section,’ ‘this plan was not actually designed as a joke.’ Military planners assigned to the U.S. Strategic Command in Omaha, Nebraska during 2009 and 2010 looked for a creative way to devise a planning document to protect citizens in the event of an attack of any kind. The officers used zombies as their muse. “Planners … realized that training examples for plans must accommodate the political fallout that occurs if the general public mistakenly believes that a fictional training scenario is actually a real plan,” the authors wrote, adding: ‘Rather than risk such an outcome by teaching our augmentees using the fictional ‘Tunisia’ or ‘Nigeria’ scenarios used at [Joint Combined Warfighting School], we elected to use a completely-impossible scenario that could never be mistaken for a real plan.”

     

    “… Under ‘Zombie Threat Summary,’ the plan highlights the different kinds of zombie adversaries one might find in such an attack. They include not only vegetarian zombies (‘zombie life forms originating from any cause but pose no direct threat to humans because they only eat plant life’); evil magic zombies (‘EMZs are zombie life forms created via some form of occult experimentation in what might otherwise be referred to as ‘evil magic’); and also chicken zombies.”

     

    ‘Although it sounds ridiculous, this is actually the only proven class of zombie that actually exists,’ the plan states. So-called ‘CZs’ occur when old hens that can no longer lay eggs are euthanized by farmers with carbon monoxide, buried, and then claw their way back to the surface. ‘CZs are simply terrifying to behold and are likely only to make people become vegetarians in protest to animal cruelty,’ according to CONOP


    Humor

  • Lecture

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samhain                                                                    Winter Moon

    Posted on a facebook page devoted to Alexandria, Indiana, my hometown.  Larry is a local character.

    Larry Maynard was stopped by the Alex police around 2 AM and was asked where he was going at that time of night.

    Larry replied, “I’m on my way to a lecture about alcohol abuse and the effects it has on the human body, as well as smoking, and staying out late.”

    The officer then asked, “Really? Who’s giving that lecture at this time of night?”

    Larry replied, “That would be my wife.”

     


    Humor

  • What Do You Do?

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall                                                                     Samhain Moon

    At Barbette’s last week.  The usual question.  And what do you do?  As always, sorting through the possible responses leaves me with no idea where to start, so I say, “I’m retired.”  With my hairline long ago fully receded and my beard white it seems like the easiest way to deal with a question something like, “What’s your major?”

    Still it leaves me unsatisfied.  As if I’m denying the fullness of my third phase self.  The problem is there’s no handy hook, “Anthropology.”  “Clergy.”  “Organizer.”  No terms like those for gardener, grandfather, writer, apprentice Latin scholar, eternal student.

    And I don’t want there to be.  One of the facets of the third phase I enjoy so much is the freedom to move between and among activities without feeling defined by them.  Of course, I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to do that for the last 25 years or so, yes, but it feels different post-65.

    No easy answer here, I guess.  It will probably emerge over the next few years.


    Humor Retirement Third Phase

  • Seeing Ourselves Through the Eyes of Others

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lugnasa                                                       Garlic Planting Moon

    Just read a very interesting couple of threads on Quora about how persons from other cultures view US culture.   What’s most interesting  to me is the reveal achieved by others, showing us aspects of our common life, aspects we pay little attention to (the most likely reservoir of culture, BTW), for example:

    American culture and society is a naturally high-trust society.

    …religious diversity here has made me realize how many south american customs are rooted in catholicism,

    and on this set of questions on another thread:  What parts of American culture are not easily understood by foreigners?  The list below is a composite from individual answers in this thread:

    The view of American peculiarities depends on the cultural origin of the respondent.

    What is generally found peculiar:

    • Permissive gun laws
    • Lawsuits
    • Euphemisms
    • Individualism
    • Resistance to the metric system
    • Fashion: chiefly ugly footwear

    What Asians find more peculiar:

    • Less filial piety – disrespect for the elderly
    • “Cutting off” children upon adulthood
    • Manners: Small talk, sarcasm, showing off, pitching
    • Protecting individual rights to an extreme
    • Blurry social hierarchy
    • The notion that you can be happy without success
    • “Going Dutch” and tipping in restaurants
    • Drinking ice water year-round
    • Overmedication

    What Europeans find more notable:

    • Manners: Exclamative language and loudness, enthusiasm, friendliness, liberal use of humour
    • Moral contradictions
    • Social injustice: healthcare, unemployment payments
    • Politics: Tolerance for lobbying, the Right Wing, the election system
    • Psychological traits: high trust, self-deprecation, diversity, openness
    • A culture of meetings
    • Sports
    • Subtitles instead of dubbing
    • Restaurants: boxing leftovers, waiting in line

    Note: This list is to be treated as merely an index of motifs found in the answers below and does not attempt to construct a stereotype. Each item here should be read in context with the rationale of the individual answers where it is found

    More on this later.

     


    Family Humor Politics Third Phase US History

  • Disassembled

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc                                         Waxing Bridgit Moon

    Looks like I’ll get a chance to peek into the colonies this weekend.  Got my fingers crossed on survival.  Best guess?  Two dead, one alive.  Very glad to be wrong.

    Got my second Gateway part way disassembled and still not sure I can get at the pint sized disc I stupidly inserted into the DVD drive vertically.  It fell out of the holder, as I could have guessed it would.  Have to get this in though to make the computer recognize the cable to USB cord.  That will shift my old HP printer to the new gateway, making it accessible directly from the network rather than through my old, now terminally ill, Dell.  Once I’ve accomplished that I can bring online the new HP multi-purpose printer.  When that’s up, I can scan in my Ovid commentary and send it to Greg so we can both have the same info.  I need both of these printers working, but there are these other steps I have take.

    On to Latin.  This chapter, chapter 27, contains this section heading:  Adjectives Having Peculiar Forms in the Superlative.  Peculiar forms, eh?  Maximus peculiar.

    More Latin today, some Titian, too, in advance of the walkthrough tomorrow with Patrick Noon, the painting’s curator.  I’m looking forward to this since I haven’t seen the paintings yet.  In the evening there is a lecture on Ukiyo-e prints, another favorite genre for me.  A feast of art education, tomorrow.


    Art and Culture Bees GeekWorld Humor 📎and tagged

  • You Know You’re a Minnesotan If: Jeff Foxworthy List

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samhain                                                Waning Thanksgiving Moon

    from friend, Tom Crane :

    If you consider it a sport to gather your food by drilling through
    18 inches of ice and sitting there all day hoping that the food will swim by,

    If you’re proud that your state makes the national news 96 nights
    each year because International Falls is the coldest spot in the nation,

    If you have ever refused to buy something because it’s “too SPENDY” !

    If your local Dairy Queen is closed from November through March,

    If someone in a store offers you assistance, and they don’t work there,

    If your dad’s suntan stops at a line curving around the middle of his forehead,

    If you have worn shorts and a parka at the same time,

    If your town has an equal number of bars and churches,

    If you know how to say…Wayzata. ..Mahtomedi. .Cloquet. Edina ..and Shakopee,

    If you think that ketchup is a little too spicy,

    If vacation means going “up north” for the weekend,

    If you measure distance in hours,

    If you know several people, who have hit deer more than once,

    If you often switch from “Heat” to “A/C” in the same day and back again,

    If you can drive 65 mph through 2 feet of snow  during a raging blizzard without flinching,

    If you see people wearing hunting clothes at social events,

    If you install security lights on your house and garage and leave both unlocked,

    If you think of the major food groups as beer, fish, and Venison,

    If you carry jumper cables in your car, and your girlfriend knows how to use them,

    If there are 7 empty cars running in the parking lot at Mill’s Fleet Farm at any given time,

    If you design your kid’s Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit,

    If driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow  !

    If you know all 4 seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter, and of course, road construction,

    If you can identify a southern or eastern accent,

    If your idea of creative landscaping is a plastic deer next to your blue spruce,

    If “Down South” to you means Iowa,                If you know “a brat” is something you eat,  &   If you find -10 degrees “a little chilly”,

    If you actually understand these jokes, and you forward them to all your Minnesota friends !!


    Humor Minnesota

  • Tom’s Place

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa                                                        Waxing Artemis Moon

    Back from Tom’s gracious home in Shorewood.  He served corn on the cob, salmon, an egg salad and spinach.  Delightful.  A pileated woodpecker ate from his feeder just as I came in.  What a gorgeous bird.  We ate on the deck of Tom’s unusual housing arrangement.  These are homes with a connecting wall, though quite large on the interior with a long deck high above a sloping yard filled with maple trees and ending at a small pond.  The entrance to the homes are modest affairs with little lawn and a walk-way cum patio after passing through a small gate.  They open up once inside and have the decks facing the back that have complete privacy while fairly close to each other.

    Tom, Ode, Scott, Bill, Frank, Warren and Charlie were there.  We sat outside on unseasonably cool August evening and discussed violence.  It was an interesting conversation.  I’m a little too tired right now to comment.  Perhaps tomorrow.

    Ode brought me copies of the label.  Very cool, copies on label paper.  Gotta test the size of them on a honey jar and their stickiness.

    I did hear this joke from Frank.

    Tarzan, swinging vine by vine, comes finally to the porch of his tree home.  He jumps down onto the porch and says, “Jane, I need a scotch.  No, Jane, make that a double.”  He pauses, “No, make that a triple.”  Jane comes in with his drink, “Honey, you know alcohol doesn’t solve anything.  What’s the matter.”  “Oh, Jane,” he says, “it’s a jungle out there.”


    Aging Friends Humor Woolly Mammoths 📎and tagged