Yes! No! Maybe! No! Yes! I Don’t Know!

 

BY AND LARGE TERRE HAUTE (THAT’S FRENCH FOR, “I CAN’T MAKE UP MY MIND.”) is a quiet town that lives life one day at a time – except when it comes to making decisions. The civic power structure of this town can never make up its mind about anything. I’d hate to go to lunch with Terre Haute; it would never be able to pick what to eat.

Whenever the City and its elected officials, are called upon to make a decision it must first go through a lifetime of hemming and hawing. They will make up their minds and then immediately reverse themselves and go back to square one. It is as if the City is being run by a collection of squirrels who are trying to cross the street.

Maybe I Need A Hobby

IS THIS THE FUTURE? ARE THESE THE THOMAS EDISONS OF TOMORROW?

I was flipping through the 237,812 channels on our TV the other day. There I found much to be ignored. I suppose that someone, somewhere, on some combination of medications might find some of these channels entertaining or informative. Me? I really have my doubts that “Ancient Aliens” built everything from the Pyramids of Giza up to and including the Astrodome.

But I did find one program that was both fascinating and appalling at the same time (Other than the Evening News). It was something called “Battlebots” or “Robot Wars,” or something like that.

Hey, Herbie! Look Behind You!

 

I DON’T DO SELFIES. I ALREADY KNOW WHAT I LOOK LIKE. Why compound the issue? There is a big enough supply of pictures of me out there floating in the ether.

A few years ago my wife, the lovely and much more photogenic, Dawn, and I toured the National Parks of the Southwest. We took pictures of the Grand Canyon, Antelope Canyon, and the rest. We did not take pictures of ourselves. I saw her there and she saw me – that was proof enough.

Fashion, Fashion, Who’s Got The Fashion?

I HAD A HORRIBLE SHOCK TO MY SYSTEM last Friday morning. Someone I’ve known and trusted posted pictures from the Gucci Summer 2019 Men’s Collection. High Fashion at 7 AM, before my coffee or my Blood Pressure Meds, is a dangerous thing. Having my loved ones nearby pulled me through.

I don’t know if the fine folks at Gucci have “Substance Issues,” a severe misandristic bent, or a just plain lack of taste. Or maybe they hate their models. I guess it doesn’t matter.

My Very Own Award Show

WE HAD THE OSCARS ON THE TV A FEW WEEKS AGO. I didn’t say that we actually watched it, just that we had it on the Tube. Of all the films nominated for an award I think we had seen…One. And I didn’t care for it all that much.

It is Springtime and we are hard into the Award Shows Season as well. Various Organizations and Industries are stumbling over themselves to put on a show of overwhelming Self-Congratulations. Heavy-Duty exercises are being done to facilitate better the patting of one’s own back.

Say No More

I WAS DOING SOME MISCELLANEOUS RESEARCH THE OTHER DAY. “Miscellaneous” in the sense that I was just hopscotching around looking at this and that with no particular goal in mind. While I was roaming about I bumped into a compilation called, “Famous Last Words.”

About 90% of the listed “Words” were noble, erudite, and sounded more like Press Releases than someone’s actual farewell statements. I would think that in reality most people’s real “Last Words” are grunts, simple “I love you” declarations, and expressions of surprise like, “Uh, Oh,” or “What is happening?”

Throwback Thursday From Feb. 2015 – “And The Award Goes To…”

Throwback Thursday From Feb. 2015 – “And The Award Goes To…”

I WAS JUST RANDOMLY TIPTOEING through the Internet the other day when I came across a news item that made me stop.

“Police say a 55-year-old southwestern Michigan woman who died after accidentally shooting herself in the head in January was adjusting a handgun in her bra holster at the time.”

I’m familiar with the practice of carrying a concealed weapon, but I would think that you would want the gun to be easily accessible. But, then again, I wasn’t there to see just how accessible things were with her. I’m glad I wasn’t there. I would have called the 911 emergency line, but I think I might have had trouble explaining what happened.

You Want Me To Stick That Where ?

I BEG YOUR PARDON. DID I HEAR THAT RIGHT?

Ear Candling? Yes, I did hear you correctly. You were asking me about Ear Candling. Someone I know was asking whether or not they should try Ear Candling.

For those of you who are already completely lost, let me explain.

Here We Go Again

 

WELCOME TO THE NEW YEAR. We made it. We have survived 2017 – a year filled with many good and wonderful things and a few that should make us all ashamed.

Now that we are alive and over the hump of the Holiday Season I hope that we are all determined to make this year one to remember with smiles and not cringes. That’s my hope anyway. I’m going to try to do my part.

Here’s Looking At You, Kid

 

IT MAY HAVE SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME, but who would want to get a tattoo on their face? It seems to be a permanent response to a temporary thought. And its gotta hurt.

Getting tattooed, at least in Western cultures, used to be solely in the realm of sailors and cheap crooks. Not any more. These days millions of people get a little butterfly or whatever inked on their body usually in a location where only a lover or a doctor would ever see it. However, there are people who just don’t know when to say “Enough.”

The idea of getting facial tattoos still remains largely in the prison/criminal gang subculture. There are others who get facial “tats” who are not criminals. I would put them in the file drawer under “I didn’t know I could drink that much” or just plain “Nuts.”

“Picture If You Will…”

THE EARTH IS A BUSY and often confusing planet and sometimes things just look out of place to me. It’s kind of like when you rearrange your furniture. Until you get used to the new configuration you’re likely to stub your toe on that chair that wasn’t sitting there last week. A few of these oddities came to mind recently.

We attended a funeral recently and as we were at the cemetery for the graveside service I looked down. There in the grass by several headstones was a golf ball. A golf ball? That just seemed to be terribly out of place. True, there was a hole nearby, but…

Throwback Thursday from Oct. 2015 – I Told You This Was A Bad Idea

Throwback Thursday from Oct. 2015 

I Told You This Was A Bad Idea

WELL, I NEVER THOUGHT THEY COULD PULL IT OFF. I was right. Today was the day at St. Arbucks when the baristas were planning to dress up as the customers. It was supposed to be a real laugh riot. It wasn’t.

First of all, I never expected The Boss to give her imprimature on the whole idea. “Dress up like the customers? I don’t think that is a good idea.” But she did give it her OK. Something I’ll bet she now regrets.

I thought that it would be a bad idea because there are some customers around here who are just a tiny step away from an extended visit to the Thorazine Hotel, and seeing someone looking like them staring back at them from across the counter might be enough to push them over the edge.

I now know that I shouldn’t have worried about that because, as they say in the closing credits of most movies, – “Any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, is strictly coincidental.”

When I walked into the Chapel earlier this morning I was met by one of the crew wearing a tee-shirt and blue jeans and sporting what was planned to look like a white moustache. The moustache was painted on. I didn’t say anything because, at first look, I was concerned that the white stuff on her upper lip was some kind of medication.

Did she burn her upper lip? If so, how? Perhaps I shouldn’t ask. She might be sensitive about it, being so obvious.

It never occurred to me that it was part of a costume meant to look like one of the Drive-Thru customers. My bad. When I asked The Boss about it she told me that she thought it looked like an application of “Nair” –  there in an effort to get rid of the gal’s real moustache. Ouch.

It was several minutes later when one of the other members of the crew began to berate me.

“You’re not wearing a Hawaiian shirt!” she snarled at me.

“It’s 50 degrees out there and raining – of course I’m not wearing a Hawaiian shirt.”

That was when I was finally informed that today was “Customer Costume Day” at St. Arbucks. You could have fooled me, and they did, I guess.

As far as I am concerned it all looked more like, “We All Dressed in the Dark Day” at St. Arbucks. Is how they have dressed today what they think we, the customers, really look like?  I’ve always felt that I have a bit of dash and flair in my wardrobe, and not like I’ve been Dumpster Diving after a nice three-week camping trip in the City Park fighting with the squirrels over loose chestnuts.

So far today the barista who is allegedly dressing like me has not shown up for work. At least I don’t think so. I see no Hawaiian shirts, no baseball caps, no remarkably outstanding example of Machismo and Adonis-like good looks.

I won’t be surprised if the “other me” doesn’t show up. After all, who wants to go out in a cold, rainy, blustery day while trying to maintain a persona like mine? I have enough trouble keeping the Original together. I just can’t envision some amateur trying to do it.

Uh-Oh, she just showed up. This is one brave girl. She dresses impeccably, as you can tell. The only problem is – she is so slim that she makes me look like The Hindenburg. For those of you under fifty – look it up.

Next year I will suggest that the crew at St. Arbucks all dress up like The Boss. I think that would be fun – if The Boss doesn’t fire them all, that is. If she does fire them all, then it was a bad idea and I will disclaim any knowledge of it.

What Is That Up There?

EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE SOMETHING NEW COMES ALONG that makes me sit up and take notice. It is not often mind you, but when that something shows up I will be the first on my block to applaud.

The latest thing that has grabbed my attention is one of those things that can be both amazing and annoying – DRONES – those flying gizmos that seem to be everywhere.

Drones are being used by everyone from the Military, to Sports teams, to every Techno-nerd in town. I don’t have a drone and I don’t want one. It is like tattoos – I can appreciate the skill it takes to make them, but I’m not going to get one just to follow the fad.

Flattery Will Get You Nowhere

SOME THINGS JUST NEVER SINK IN: The concept of a Beer Milkshake, Pauly Shore, People who believe that the earth is flat.

The Beer Milkshake is just not feasible without my gag reflex going into overdrive. Pauly Shore – I don’t know where to begin while sober, and the whole Flat Earth movement??? Well, maybe if I lived in Kansas, but…

Last night we were sitting around and my wife, the lovely and Tele-visually adventuresome, Dawn, had the TV remote in her hand. Somehow she located a program discussing the resurgence of the belief that the Earth is not a globe, but a disk whizzing through space like a Frisbee. My digestive tract slipped into Neutral and my brain into Reverse.

I Won’t Dance, Don’t Ask Me

I LOVE PEOPLE. THEY ENTERTAIN ME NO END. And they do it all without really trying. Anytime – Anywhere – There is a circus going on.

I offer up last Sunday as a prime example.

On just about any Sunday as soon as church services are over the people are out of there like the place is on fire. BUT… You mention that there is some free ice cream being served in the kitchen and it quickly turns into a prairie dog killing stampede. I almost got run over. I don’t know if it was the words “ice cream” or the word “free” that got them all moving. I suspect both.

Blinded By Science!

THERE IS NEWS…AND THEN THERE IS NEWS.  The following doesn’t really qualify as any kind of news above a 7 pt. font.

Flash from the PBS NewsHour of January 3, 1914:

“Dogs poop in alignment with Earth’s magnetic field, study finds.”

How’s that for a headline?

This thunderbolt of journalism comes about as result of a study published in a journal called “Frontiers in Zoology” – not an item currently found on our coffee table.

In This Sign You Shall Fluff Dry

I POPPED INTO THE NEIGHBORHOOD LAUNDROMAT the other day to take care of a few of my “nice and frilly” things when I saw a handwritten sign taped to the wall,

“Free Wi-Fi! Enjoy your time with us.”

Well, I thought that was the most sociable thing I’d ever seen in a laundromat. Most of their signs are of the “Do this” or “Don’t do that,” variety. I remember seeing a sign in a laundromat years ago that said,

“Do not put children in the dryers!”

Always sound advice I would say.

While I was waiting for my things to finish drying I overheard a woman speaking with the young lady behind the service counter. The woman had also seen the sign on the wall and had a question.

“What is this free ‘Wee-Fee’ and how do I get some?”

What Is This Stuff?

TO QUOTE THE FOUNDER OF THAT GREAT INSTITUTION OF HIGHER LEARNING – FABER COLLEGE, “KNOWLEDGE IS GOOD.”

Knowledge is that which is universally agreed upon to be really good “Stuff”. And it is better to go through life with good “Stuff”.

Monday, Monday – Can’t Stop That Day

MONDAY MORNINGS JUST AREN’T THE SAME AS THEY USED TO BE. When I was a kid Monday morning used to start on Sunday when there was a scramble to make sure that all my homework was finished. I’d had all weekend to do it, but it would be Sunday evening before I’d even look at it.

When I finished my education and got into the real world where people actually paid you to be somewhere on Monday morning things got rougher. How rough depended on how stupid I was over the weekend.

Flarp

IF I SAY THE WORD “FLARP” TO YOU WHAT COMES TO MIND? If you are over the age of 12 probably nothing – I hope. Unfortunately, it does carry a very specific meaning to me and I can blame several children and one adult for that.

“Flarp” is a product that is gloriously described as “Noise Putty.”

Indeed.