Stuff I Think About

I gotta admit, I have a really good life. I'm retired but I keep myself busy with lots of projects and activities. My biggest project is keeping myself amused. And that is a full-time job. A lot of the time the world is just not funny enough on its own to keep me going, so I have to amuse myself. These are some of the things that pop into my head as I try to get through the day:

>> If you're reading a news story about the economy and unemployment and it starts getting too depressing, if you substitute the word "topless" for the word "jobless" it makes things funnier. Not better, just funnier.

>> Everybody knows Andy Rooney, the "irascible curmudgeon" (nice for "cranky old goat") correspondent on CBS' 60 Minutes news magazine. I don't understand why he is still on television. He is at least 3 decades past his "sell-by" date. Curiously, if you subtract 3 decades from his present age you get uncomfortably close to my present age, so what does that tell me? I hope I can live long enough to become a caricature of myself.

>> The other day it dawned on me that the difference between the words "perpetuate" and "perpetrate" is only one letter. When I first realized that I thought it was really clever but now not so much. Since they both mean sort of the same thing, to extend the life of something, can't we get rid of one of them? I've calculated that the amount of brainpower we'd save dealing with only one word instead of two would keep Fox News going for 10 years. On second thought, I really don't want that to happen, so we're keeping both.

>> Favorite comedienne Lily Tomlin says in her stand-up routine, "If olive oil comes from olives and corn oil comes from corn, where does baby oil come from?" The humor there lies in a deft swapping of "source" for "intent". That is, olive oil "comes" from olives but baby oil is "intended" for babies. Point is, nothing takes the funny out of something faster than analyzing it. Remember that next time someone insults you. If you make them explain it it will NOT be funny or effective. This is the voice of experience.

>> This is the land of the free and everyone is in favor of personal freedom and doing whatever you want, blah blah blah. But seriously, for the love of God can we pass a law permanently outlawing eating contests? Every July 4th it's a hot dog eating contest. I really can't think of any set of circumstances that makes gluttony entertaining or acceptable. To watch a bunch of people, who are mostly overfed to begin with, stuffing their faces with food is just plain revolting. If you take into account the number of people in the world who are dying of starvation at any given minute, plus the number of Americans who are obese, it makes eating contests somewhat of an obscenity. Get rid of eating contests. They might have gone over big at midwestern state fairs in the early part of last century, but they have no place in the world today.

>> Fox News Channel: "Fair and balanced." HAHAHAHA! That never fails to amuse me.