City Museum – Funhouse Mirrors
City Museum – Funhouse Mirrors
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Tag Archives: Humor
End of the Year, Not the World
Three Mayans walk into a bar. They are all dour faced. Trying to cheer them up, the bartender says, “Come on guys, it’s not the end of the world.”
I worked a half-day today and now I am off for the rest of the year and shortly after I got home Dave made it home too, his overnight stay at a Motel 6 not withstanding. Rey arrived not too long afterwards. He is spending the night here on his way out to Colorado and his grandparent’s house. Anne worked until three and now too is off for the rest of the year. This was also her last day of teaching the fourth grade as a long-term substitute. She still has a little bit of grading yet to do and a boatload of Christmas booty. I picked her up after school and shuttled her to the doctor, so she could have the pins taken out of her hand. All-in-all it was a pretty good day.
The movie with this post was made with the iPhone app, Action Movie FX. Dan introduced me to it yesterday. It took top honors this year as the best app for the iPhone. The app is free and lets users shoot short scenes that are then enhanced with special effects such as falling rocks and vehicles and various missile attacks. That’s Anne’s car that gets blown-up in the movie. Does this mean I have to buy her a new one, to replace the one that I blew up?
No Eye Deer
The Merced River with the Upper Yosemite Falls in the Background
What’s the difference between beer nuts and deer nuts?
Beer nuts are $4.29, but deer nuts are always under a buck.
I was in Starbuck last morning. I was in line to place my order, when I saw a uniformed police women waiting for her beverage to be made. I looked at her, but I didn’t want to eyeball her, but she looked like the police detective from last week’s trial. Someone, who I definitely don’t want to meet again. She had the same height, weight, hair and face as that detective, but she was in a Clayton police officer’s uniform and the detective was a county cop. I related this episode to my friend, whose nom de guerre is the Perma-Bear and he had a scary thought, “Maybe she is her sister?”
Two lawyers were out hunting,
When they came upon a pair of tracks.
They stopped and examined the tracks closely.
The first lawyer announced,
“Those are deer tracks.
It’s deer season,
So we should follow the tracks
And find our prey.”
The second lawyer responded,
“Those are clearly elk tracks,
And elk are out of season.
If we follow your advice,
We’ll waste the day.”
Each attorney believed himself,
The Superior woodsman,
And they both bitterly stuck to their guns.
They were still arguing when the train hit them.
I don’t understand why people tend to get their undies all in a bunch at this time of year. I understand that it is the end of the calendar year, but their will be a 2013. Maybe, everyone is holding with the Mayan calendar’s end of the world prediction. If so, then there will be a lot of people doing some emergency Christmas shopping on December 22nd. No, this end of the year angst is perennial.
Some of it is business driven, books must be balanced. Some of it is driven by the frenetic activity burgeoned upon us, by the ever flourishing holiday season. Note, I did not attack Christmas here. I think that the end of a calendar year psychologically causes us to hold ourselves to account, both real and unreal. I’m not saying that taking stock is a bad thing. Quite the contrary, but I am arguing against taking ourselves to the stocks. I hope my humor has helped, but ultimately, I have no idea, my dear.
When I breezed into the office last morning, I overheard my boss posing the following joke. I got there too late to hear the send up, but I thought that it was still worth relating. I’m sure that it was his response to some question that he could not answer. I thought that it was funny.
What do you call a deer with no eyes?
That TV Guy
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Transported to a surreal landscape,
a young girl kills the first person she meets,
and then teams up with three strangers to kill again.
That TV Guy, also-know-as Rick Polito, is the author of this one-sentence summation of the movie classic, The Wizard of Oz. Written circa 1998, this is arguably the funniest one-line synopsis of a movie. Dogmomster first clued me into his humor, when she reposted on Facebook, a George Takei repost. I enjoyed it when she introduced me to it and then some time passed. Last weekend, I happened upon Pacific Standard’s article on the same subject, “The Wizard of Oz in One Sentence“. This article gave me Mr. Polito’s name and with a little googling, I found both his Facebook page and website. I won’t plagiarise any of his many other movie summaries, so check them out for yourselves.
I love The Wizard of Oz. This wasn’t always the case. As a child I would gleefully sit before our family’s TV and even though with our set, more than just the first ten minutes of the movie was in black and white, I marveled at its magic. That is until the monkeys showed up. At about this time, I would scurry to my bedroom, but I could still here the movie’s soundtrack, as the rest of my family enjoyed this classic film. Somehow I always found my courage or maybe the lion’s and caught the movie’s climax, when the wicked witch became undone.
You cursed brat! Look what you’ve done! I’m melting! melting! Oh, what a world! What a world! Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness?
I always enjoyed Judy Garland’s rendition of the opus song, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, with her beautiful contralto voice. Ashleigh Grace has posted on Soundcloud a great cover. You can play it below. Check it out.
Scopitone
Scopitone was a 1960s era type of jukebox featuring a 16 mm film component. Scopitone films were a forerunner of modern music videos. The first Scopitones were made in France. I became aware of these videos through my brother-in-law Carl. He first showed me them last September while we were busily preparing to travel to Lopez Island for Robyn’s wedding. I don’t know if Carl was nervous about traveling there, but I was. We watched his Scopitone music videos, as a sort of pre-game warm-up exercise. He later sent us the DVD. “Pussy Cat A Go Go”, performed by Stacy Adams and the Rockabily Boys, was the first video on the disk. Yes it is plainly misogynistic, but it is also a product of it’s time, plus it’s French. The second video, “What I Say”, by Sylvie Vartan is not sexist, but it is even more French, Est ce Que Tu Le Sais.
Bathroom Humor
Pike’s Place Public Restroom Mosaic
I immediately loved the humor in this public works artwork. It advertises this particular Pike’s Market public restroom. All the way on the right, a father is rushing to the bathroom, carrying his infant child with arms outstretched. Presumably the baby is already a leaky vessel, hence his hurry. On the left-hand side of this tile work is another father with another child, his knock-kneed son. Here too time is of the essence. Center stage in this mosaic is a mother and daughter pair. Each one is portrayed with one foot popped, this also speaks of haste. Is there a common theme here? Finally, all the way on the left is this restroom’s maintenance man, toolbox in hand, this is the guy that keeps everything else moving.
It was no laughing matter in our bathroom on Sunday afternoon. After spending all week having our main sewer line replaced, I was in no mood for any additional plumbing projects. Our toilet had another opinion though. Its ballcock had been steadily showing increasing signs of senility. Our hard water takes its toll on all plumbing fixtures. As failing patients tend to do, it went quickly at the end, right after we returned from our Riverlands adventure.
After we got home, I almost immediately turned around and headed out again to Home Depot. Per Anne’s instruction, I bought a dual flush system. This system has one lever with one water drop on it and another with two water drops on it. Number one and number two, get it? Getting the old ballcock off was difficult a bitch, even with Anne’s helping hands. Afterwords though, getting the new hardware up and going again went lickety-split.
Maybe I made a poor choice of terms there? I guess that plumbing, is like child rearing, a job that you never get finished with. Anyway, I think the Pike’s Market photo is the more arty choice, rather than a look down shot of our toilet tank’s new hardware, but that’s just me.