This is not a blog.
It’s a website populated by fictional characters, whose writing should not be taken as expressing the opinion of any real person, company or organization.
It’s a work of entertainment. If you’re not entertained, read something else.
Even when the author of a post is a real person, fact and fiction are intermingled, and are not always clearly labeled, so don’t spend a lot of time trying to figure it out.
Let me disclose the gifts reserved for age
To set a crown upon your lifetime’s effort.
First, the cold friction of expiring sense
Without enchantment, offering no promise
But bitter tastelessness of shadow fruit
As body and soul begin to fall asunder.
Second, the conscious impotence of rage
At human folly, and the laceration
Of laughter at what ceases to amuse.
And last, the rending pain of re-enactment
Of all that you have done, and been; the shame
Of motives late revealed, and the awareness
Of things ill done and done to others’ harm
Which once you took for exercise of virtue.
Then fools’ approval stings, and honour stains.
Homicidal Elephant Keeps Killing People In Tourist Hotspot, Official Says — dailycaller.com
This happened in Thailand, in Khao Yai National Park. Since my wife is from Thailand, I ask her,
“Have you heard of Khao Yai National Park?”
“You don’t want to go there,” she says. “Dangerous. It’s full of animals.”
“I just read that one of their elephants has killed three people.”
“Don’t go there. It’s for daredevils.”
Here you see the benefit of talking to the locals before taking a trip. If you just do your research online, you get this:
“Khao Yai is no doubt the best national park in Thailand for regular visitors where it is relatively easy to see some impressive animals.”
Granted, that site is intended to promote tourism so it omits any mention of the animals killing you.
These media layoffs have become pretty routine, to which I say “How long can you be on the wrong side of every story and not expect to suffer any consequences?”
What is the source of our first suffering? It lies in the fact that we hesitated to speak. . . . It was born in the moments when we accumulated silent things within us. — Bachelard, Water and Dreams
Suffering consists in being unable to reveal oneself and, when one happens to succeed in doing so, in having nothing more to say. — André Gide
Some languages are so constructed — English among them — that we each only really speak one sentence in our lifetime. That sentence begins with your first words, toddling around the kitchen, and ends with your last words right before you step into the limousine, or in a nursing home, the night-duty attendant vaguely on hand. Or, if you are blessed, they are heard by someone who knows you and loves you and will be sorry to hear the sentence end.
On this date, January 28, in 1912, Jackson Pollock is born.
My son recently texted me a couple of pictures (see below) and asked “Which one of these is our friends’ 15 month old daughter and which one is Pollock?”
You can click the images to enlarge them if you think it will help you figure out the question.
“That’s a tough one,” I texted back. “They’re both pretty bad.”
It probably won’t surprise you to learn, after looking at his work, that Pollock suffered from severe mental health issues.
He died in August 1956 at age 44 in an alcohol-related single-car collision. I wonder what the inside of the car looked like. Maybe it should have been preserved as his final contribution to abstract art.
He also killed a passenger.
To have to carry your own corn far–
who likes it?
To follow the black bear through the thicket–
who likes it?
To hunt without profit, to return weary without anything–
who likes it?
You have to carry your own corn far.
You have to follow the black bear through the thicket.
You have to hunt to no profit.If not, what will you tell the little ones? What will you speak of?
For it is bad not to use the talk which God has sent us.
I am Speaks-Fluently. Of all the groups of symbols,
I am a symbol by myself.
IYKYK
I’m buying a T-shirt online as a gift . . . now you might say a T-shirt is a cheap-ass gift, but trust me, it’s a cool T-shirt.
The point is, it’s available in multiple sizes: S, M, L, XL, 2XL, 3XL, 4XL, 5XL. Only in America. I seem to remember a time when XXL was the largest size you could get.
What must a person look like to need a 5XL T-shirt?
YOU’RE EATING TOO MUCH FOOD! GO TO THE GYM!
Hi everybody! It’s Lightning! I’m in heaven now but I have Internet so I can still post sometimes.
My owner sent me this picture that he saw online:
Chocolate is bad for dogs but I don’t agree with the rest of the list. Dogs are animals, descended from the gray wolf, and animals don’t need to be supervised when eating.
For Thanksgiving, if you stepped away for 15 seconds, I would jump in your chair, polish off an entire plate of holiday delights and probably empty your wine glass as well.
That said, I was an alpha pug, so I can’t speak for any dogs further down the Greek alphabet.
— Lightning 
Unpopular opinion: The pen is NOT mightier than the sword. Does anyone want to participate in an experiment? I’ll provide you with a pen.
Randy Jones was a local guy . . . local to Orange County. He was born in Fullerton, went to high school in Brea, then pitched at Chapman College in Orange.
As a pro, he was a good player on a terrible team. The San Diego Padres, in their first six years of existence (1969–1974), never won more than 63 games and finished each season in last place in the six-team NL West. They were just barely a major league team.
Jones had two really good seasons for the Padres. In 1975, Jones was 20–12 and led the National League with a 2.24 ERA. He had 18 complete games in 36 starts, back when complete games were an actual thing, and became the first 20-game winner in Padres history. Jones was second in wins and WAR (wins above replacement) (7.5) among pitchers, only behind the great Tom Seaver (22 wins and 7.8 WAR). Seaver finished first in the Cy Young Award voting, with 15 first place votes to Jones’s seven.
His best season was in 1976, when he went 22–14 with a 2.74 ERA. (San Diego won just 73 games that season.) Jones became the first Padre to win the Cy Young Award. From May 17 to June 22, he pitched 68 consecutive innings without allowing a base on balls, tying the 63-year-old NL record set by Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson in 1913.
At the All-Star break in July 1976, Jones’s record was 16–3, a first-half win total that set an NL record that no one has equaled since. He finished the season as the major league leader in wins, complete games (25), games started (40), and innings pitched (315.1).
During his last start of the 1976 season, he injured a nerve in his pitching arm that required surgery, and he was never able to regain his Cy Young form. He was with the Padres through 1980, when he was traded to the Mets, and retired before the 1983 season.
Jones finished his career with a win–loss record of 100–123 (.448) and a 3.42 ERA. He is the only starting pitcher to win a Cy Young Award but retire with a losing record. In 285 starts, he threw 75 complete games, including 19 shutouts.
Some of you may not remember what a doormat the Padres were in their early years. Randy Jones had two great seasons but his legacy is putting the Padres on the map in major league baseball.
RIP Randy Jones
I had a wisdom tooth taken out the other day. The oral surgeon, the first thing she said when she came in the surgery room was “Are those your real teeth in the front?”
They are my real teeth so I said yes.
“They’re not veneers?”
“No.”
“Do you drink coffee?”
“No.”
“Tea?”
“No.”
“Soda?”
“I do drink a lot of sodas.”
“Did you have them bleached?”
“I did a number of years ago. Now I just throw some Crest whitening strips on there a couple times a year.”
“You should be in a toothpaste commercial.”
I don’t know if she was flirting with me. It’s been so long since anyone’s done that that I don’t know what it looks like anymore so I didn’t bring it up.
“What are we doing today?” she asked, while looking over my X-rays.
I think she already knew but I said “Taking out the lower left wisdom tooth.”
“Oh, that’s sad.”
“It is sad. My teeth are like a family. Brother Tooth cannot be separated from Brother Gum.”
She smiled at that . . . then took it out anyway.
German police announced yesterday that they had busted a transnational scheme to sell 20 forgeries of paintings by artists including Rembrandt and Pablo Picasso. Several suspected fakes were seized during coordinated raids across Germany, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein last week.
Authorities allege that a 77-year-old German man led 10 accomplices in the scheme that priced the counterfeits between $465K and $150M.
I don’t know how to paint, unfortunately, but I do know how to use CSS DIVs. How much do you think I can get for this Starry Night forgery?
After my dental appointment, the hygienist asks me, “Do you have any questions or concerns?”
I say, “Oh I’ve got a ton of questions and concerns.” Pause. “Did you mean about my teeth?”
“Those are the only ones I can help you with.”
“Well . . . no, nothing along those lines. Thanks for asking though!”
It used to be that whenever a musical legend died — David Bowie or Prince, for example — I’d post something online to say “And yet all the members of Rush are still alive? How is this fair?!”
I regard Rush as the worst band in the history of music.
Then Neil Peart died and I had to switch to “all the original members of KISS are still alive.” Now that Ace Frehley has died, I’m not sure how to proceed.
Are all of the Bay City Rollers still alive?
RIP Ace Frehley
On this date, Oct. 8, in 1871, the Great Chicago Fire started.
The fire came under control on October 10, leaving an estimated 300 people dead, 100,000 others homeless and more than 17,000 structures destroyed.
As major disasters go, a death toll of 300 is very low. Aren’t there about 300 people killed in Chicago every weekend now?
Did you know? The same day the Great Chicago Fire began, a fire broke out in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, in which more than 1,000 people perished.
The disaster (in Chicago, not Wisconsin) prompted an outbreak of looting and lawlessness. Some things never change.
Martial law was declared on October 11, and lifted several weeks later.
Also, Happy World Octopus Day to those who celebrate.
EINSTEIN’S LIST OF MARITAL DEMANDS
These are more useful than the Theory of Relativity, which no one understands anyway.
