Good places for the Blues: a. highway b. jailhouse c. empty bed d. bottom of a whiskey glass
Bad places for the Blues: a. Nordstrom’s b. gallery openings c. Ivy League institutions d. golf courses
Is That a Primate in Your Pocket? Etc.
A Handful of Editors
It used to be that a handful of editors could decide what was news–and what was not. They acted as sort of demigods. If they ran a story, it became news. If they ignored an event, it never happened. Today, editors are losing this power. The Internet, for example, provides access to thousands of new sources that cover things an editor might ignore. And if you aren’t satisfied with that, you can start up your own blog, and cover and comment on the news yourself. Journalists like to think of themselves as watchdogs, but they haven’t always responded well when the public calls them to account.
A recent American study reported that many editors and reporters simply do not trust their readers to make good decisions. Let’s be clear about what this means. This is a polite way of saying that these editors and reporters think their readers are too stupid to think for themselves.
A Perfect Game
I was reading about a guy, 62 years old, been bowling in the same league for 45 years . . . he achieves his lifelong dream of bowling a perfect 300 game, and then, to make it even more perfect, immediately keels over and dies.
What a way to go! It’s so important to die at the right time if you want to be remembered at your best.
Actuarially speaking, 62 years is not a long lifespan. But let’s say the guy had lived another 20 years — he would have accomplished nothing and probably wasted away in an old-age home.
Who wants to be remembered like that?
Poor guy. Look at him. Would you believe that 20 years ago he bowled a perfect game?
What I Learned Today at Hair Masters
If you look like Larry Fine with one day to live, do not get your hair colored. You’re wasting your time and money and holding up the other patrons.
Why Spending Stimulus Plans Fail
Congress doesn’t have its own stash [of money]. Every dollar it injects into the economy must first be taxed or borrowed out of the economy. No new spending power is created. It’s merely redistributed from one group of people to another.
As you probably learned in school, we founded this country as a free-market economy and viewed government intervention in the market with the greatest skepticism.
The above article is the clearest explanation I’ve seen for why bailouts and “stimulus plans” involving government spending never work.
The latest failed companies hoping for a bailout are General Motors and Ford. I hope Henry Ford — a great American like myself, who is currently whirling like a lathe in his Detroit grave — will pardon me for saying so, but these companies are nothing but engines of mass financial destruction.
According to the WSJ, GM and Ford invested a combined $465 billion between 1998 and 2007.
As of last Friday’s market close, they had market caps of $4 billion (Ford) and $1.7 billion (GM).
They’ve wiped out almost $460 billion of American capital in the last 10 years and now they want more money.
Look — my friend Paul Epps has a sister who spent every dollar she ever had on booze, drugs and abortions. For a while, friends and family members tried to help her by giving her money when she didn’t have any.
Do I have to tell you how that turned out?
I’m not suggesting that executives at Ford and GM spent the $460 billion on booze, drugs and abortions — not all of it anyway — but I am saying that sometimes people who don’t have any money can’t be helped by giving them more money.
Love in the Parking Lot
I stop the car to let a man and woman cross the parking lot in front of us.
The man is fat and hairy. The woman is rubbing his neck affectionately.
I say to my son, “That’s what I need is a woman who worships me, even if I’m a fat, hairy slob. Which I’m not, so I should get twice as much neck rubbing.”
Puppy Cam!
I can still remember so clearly when I was a puppy with all my brothers and sisters.
I can’t believe 35 dog years have gone by so fast!
Good thing I can still keep in touch with them through my blog!
— Lightning 
Sting Operation
What a humanitarian! And what did he do next? Set them free?
Free, free, set them free . . .
With Friends Like That . . .
Ouch! What did he do to people he didn’t like?
I’ve Got an Idea for a TV Show
It would be like Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, but the twist is that instead of fixing people’s homes, we’d sneak around under cover of darkness and give homes an extreme makeover by burning them down, blowing them up, felling large trees on top of them, etc.
For added poignancy, the victims will be cripples, retards, members of minority groups, impoverished people with way too many kids, or some combination of the above.
Now that’s great television!
The Obamas Should Get a Pug
I read this weekend that the Obamas are trying to decide what kind of dog to get when they move into the White House.
I recommend a pug puppy. Pugs possess the heart of a giant. They are brave, intelligent, loving, and excellent with kids!
The AKC took a vote and people said the Obamas should get a poodle.
I hate to say it, but poodles are not very smart. Or brave. But even a poodle is better than a cat.
Cats appeal to single women with low self-esteem, but real Americans like the Obamas should have a dog.
— Lightning
Design Breakthrough of the Week
I saw one of these upside-down bottles at Black Angus the other night . . .
The frustrated diner battling a ketchup bottle is part of our cultural vocabulary, and the solution turns out to be as simple as turning the problem upside down!?
I couldn’t decide if this was a stroke of brilliance or whether we’re all fools for not thinking of it decades ago . . .
Clothing-Optional Voting
LAND O’ LAKES, Fla. (AP) – A nudist community on Florida’s west coast wants to establish the first clothing-optional polling site. The Caliente Resorts, located in Pasco County north of Tampa, has approached election officials about the idea.
Overheard at Florida’s clothing-optional polling place:
Autumn Haikus
On a withered bough
A crow alone is perching,
Autumn evening now.
The wild geese take flight
Low along the railroad tracks
In the moonlit night.
You’re Blocking My View of the Band!
The Handsome Men in Our Family
We’ve got plenty of mirrors in the house, but for some reason, our son has come into our room to comb his hair in our mirror . . .
“What a handsome boy!” his mom says.
I say, “Like his pappy.”
“He’s got me in him too,” she says. “My dad was handsome. And my uncles are very handsome. You haven’t seen them.”
I can’t resist mentioning that her brother, who I have seen, is anything but handsome.
“I don’t know what happened to him,” she says.
No Accountability Without Volition
There is no accountability without volition, you’ve noticed, right? You can’t go “You got to ship that by November 1st and I am holding you accountable.” It doesn’t work that way.
You can’t hold someone else accountable, you’ve got to hold yourself accountable. It’s just like you can’t motivate someone else; you got to motivate yourself. And the more that you motivate people and hold them accountable, the more infantile they become.
We Are Not (Just) Nerds
One thing that I resent about our computer culture is that they say we are nerds and that nerds don’t get along with people. I think that’s just insane. We are not just nerds — we are nerds, I mean, look at us! But we are not just nerds, we are like the priests or something in the Middle Ages, we are the Lords and Ladies of Logic. We are in charge of rationality for our era. We are bringing common sense and good practice and sound judgment and aggregated wisdom and glory to everyone.
That’s our job.
I posted this quote on a blog at work and IT people were calling each other nerds all day.
Good morning, nerd! How’s it going, nerd?
Being a nerd felt like, like being a hero — just for one day.