Thursday, July 14, 2016
Mrs. Malaprop Goes Out For Dinner
Tuesday, August 04, 2015
The Roads Taken
I Never Met A Country Road I Didn’t Want To Drive.
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Tuesday, September 23, 2014
September Haiku
Summer near its end,
painted ladies' last dances
among marigolds.
Thursday, June 26, 2014
"Long Time Passing . . . "
With Apologies To Pete Seeger:
"Where Have All The Middle Eastern Democracies Gone?
"Gone To Graveyards Almost Every One.
"Oh, When Will We Ever Learn?
"When Will We Ever Learn?"
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*On second thought, Pete probably wouldn't expect any apology.
Saturday, May 24, 2014
Tradition
(IN PROGRESS)
Thursday, May 01, 2014
A Slam Dunk
Sterling Job, Adam Silver.
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*Made it perfectly clear that the NBA is not the National Bigotry Association.
Not Strictly By The Numbers
I Once Dreamed Of Becoming A Theoretical Mathematician, But My Theories Just Didn't Add Up.
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*Especially the one that asserted that pi was neither infinite nor finite.
Saturday, March 22, 2014
Lessons Learned From Real Life (#2)
If You're A Doctor Who Has Been Prescribing Viagra To One Of Your Patients For A While And He Suddenly Dies, You Must Not Under Any Circumstances Go To The Funeral Home And Try To Assure His Widow That It Wasn't The Viagra That Killed Him.
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*Otherwise, you might have to suffer the utter humiliation of hearing her respond, "What Viagra?" [A true story]
Who's Handicapped Here?
Businesses And Offices That Don't Don't Place Their Handicapped Parking Spaces Nearest To Their Front Doors Deserve A Good Whipping, Preferably With A Stout Cane.
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*Or perhaps to be run over with a wheelchair, repeatedly.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
How Often, You Ask?
How Often Do I Renew My Magazine And Newspaper Subscriptions? Oh, Periodically.
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*And when do I plant my annuals? About every year, of course.
Monday, March 10, 2014
The Defense Is Restless
The Lawyers For Oscar Pistorius Aren't Very Optimistic About The Outcome Of His Murder Trial In South Africa Because They Know Their Client Doesn't Have A Leg To Stand On.
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*And the former Olympic runner apparently doesn't have the stomach for it either (he threw up in court this week).
Friday, March 07, 2014
Noses Like Bloodhounds' Have They
Police Busted A Marijuana-Growing Operation At The Edge Of Our Town This Week. Some Friends Of Mine Intend To Go Out There And Sniff Around For Any Additional Evidence.
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*All in the interest of assisting local law enforcement, of course.
Sunday, March 02, 2014
Lessons Learned From Real Life (#1)
Before You Ask Someone When Her Baby Is Due, You Had Better Make Damned Sure She Is Pregnant.
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*Otherwise, you will have to contend with a very angry, very large woman.
Saturday, March 01, 2014
Of Helen Jean Nugent, Belated
Short Without Ever
Being Small, Epic Haiku
Of The Human Kind
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*Sorry, Helen Jean, wherever you are now; it shouldn't take a year to come up with a mere seventeen syllables.
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Oh, The Irony!
The Supreme Irony Is That The Worst Night For Business At The Ruby Tuesday Restaurants Is Almost Always Tuesday.
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*What? Was Ruby Saturday already taken?
Harold Ramis (1944 -- 2014):
He Isn't Too Likely To Get A Very Warm Welcome From The Ghost Community.
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*And they won't have the slightest idea whom to call to bust him.
Friday, February 21, 2014
Grabbing The Word By The Tail
For Those Who Do It Well, Copy Editing Can Be Its Own Reword.
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*It's that personal satisfaction of making the word your oyster.
[Due credit must be given to a third party who told a mutual friend that copy editing is "a rewording experience," and said mutual friend (W. A. B.) then repeated it on his blog. Now, I have "reworded" it again into a form different enough, I hope, to avoid calls from either party's copyright lawyers.]
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Memorable Moments In Movie Dialogue Revisited (#1)
PETE: "Do NOT Seek The Treasure!
DELMAR: "Pete, We Thought You Wuz A TOAD!"
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*Set in a darkened movie theater somewhere in Mississippi in 1937.
Monday, February 17, 2014
Father, Forgive Thee Not . . .
The Cover-Up Of Child Abuse By Catholic Priests Is A Classic Case Of A Failure To Ex-Communicate.
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*And the church shouldn't be waiting around to hear it from Strother Martin.
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Hoosiers Need To Hurry Up And Grow Up
When You Look Up immaturity In The Dictionary, I'm Pretty Sure There Will Be A Picture Of The Indiana University Basketball Team Next To It.
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*Watching them play Purdue today was like watching an eight-year-old kid try to compete with an NBA player in a slam-dunk contest.
Valentine's Day:
With All The Holidays Honoring The Deaths Of Men And Women, Large And Small, It Is Rather Nice To Have One That Merely Celebrates Those Who Live And Love.
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*Love doesn't really make the Earth go around, but it can make it stand still every so often, which is definitely worth celebrating.
Good Night, Little Miss Marker
There Were Plenty Of Cute, Precocious Kids Before Her, But Shirley Temple (1928) Raised The Standard To New Heights.
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*Even the sternest of movie critics couldn't resist hopping aboard her Good Ship Lollipop.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Whether To Curl, Or Hurl?
Curling Is An Olympic Sport Native To Scotland. Hurling Is A Non-Olympic Sport Native To Wayne's World.
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*If it were to become an Olympic event, college fraternities from the U. S. would sweep the medals, both team and individual.
[NOTE: It should not be confused with the actual non-Olympic sport of hurling native to Ireland.]
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Keeping Up With Keeping Up
It Would Be Much Easier To Keep Up With The Joneses If There Just Weren't So Darned Many Of Them.
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*Personally, I'm just trying my best to keep up with the Sipowiczes.
Saturday, February 08, 2014
Breaking Olympic News, Literally
I Am Suitably Impressed With The Triple Lutzes The Olympic Figure Skaters Have Been Performing Thus Far, Though None Has Quite Matched The Triple Klutz I Pulled Off In Our Kitchen In November.
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*The orthopedic surgeon who repaired my hip fracture gave me a perfect 10.0 on that one, because I really stuck the landing.
Thursday, February 06, 2014
The Cat's Final Word
I Asked The Cat To Bring In The Newspaper From The Driveway This Morning. The Cat Replied With A Look That Said, "If You Wanted Somebody To Fetch Stuff For You, You Should've Bought A Dog."
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*And promptly resumed its mid-morning nap.
Wednesday, February 05, 2014
Love, Actually?
Love, It Appears, Couldn't Even Keep The Captain And Tennille Together.
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*It had to be all that muskrat love, which never sounded all that endearing to begin with, unless you were a muskrat.
Monday, February 03, 2014
Groundhog Day 2014
Peyton Manning Emerged From His Hole, Saw The Giant Shadows Of The Seahawks' Defense, And Crawled Back Inside, Predicting Twelve More Months Of Waiting For Another Super Bowl Ring.
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*To Manning, the day must have seemed too much like the old Bill Murray movie, with the Seahawks singing "I Got You, Babe," instead of Sonny and Cher.
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Less Than Standard Time?
Indiana's Now On Marriage Saving Time: Remember To Set Your Clocks Back One Full Century.
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*And wait for the snickers that will be resounding from the rest of the 21st century.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Pete Seeger (1919 -- 2014):
(Sung To The Tune Of "Joe Hill")
"I Dreamed I Saw Pete Seeger Last Night
"Alive As You Or Me.
"Says I, 'But, Pete, You're Six Hours Dead.'
"I Never Died," Says He.
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*To be sung wistfully, and eternally.
Monday, January 27, 2014
Garble In, Garble Out
Speaking Baby Talk To A Baby Is About As Pointless As Speaking Pig Latin To A Pig.
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*In either case, all it does is make the speaker look foolish and annoy the baby and the pig.
Sunday, January 26, 2014
BU Petering Out?
Butler University's Switch To The Big East Basketball Conference Is Starting To Look Like A Graphic Demonstration Of The Peter Principle.
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*So far, the Bulldogs seem to have promoted themselves to their own level of inadequacy. (But time will ultimately tell.)
Thursday, January 23, 2014
A Bit Of Nun-sense
Mother Superior Scolded The Convent's Newest Nun, "Your Attire Today Is Just Not Appropriate, Sister Kerri, But I Will Overlook It This Time. Just Don't Make A Habit Of It."
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*Mother Superior made it quite clear, however, that she expected something more convent-ional in the future.
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
A Fishy Tale, Revised
Give A Man A Fish, And He'll Eat For A Day.
Teach A Man To Fish, And His Wife Will Never Forgive You For It.
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*Just one more excuse for him to hang out with his buddies instead of cleaning up the garage.
Friday, January 17, 2014
The New Roswell
I Felt A Lot Better About Roswell, New Mexico, When It Was Just The Subject Of Myths About Space Aliens.
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*Although one somewhat comforting thing that came out of the school shootings there this week was the fact that a bad guy with a gun was stopped by a good guy without a gun.