You may be thinking “Nigeria Rules” now, dude, but wait till all 86 of your wives have PMS at the same time . . .
Dog Investors
Hi Everybody —
I saw this headline today on an Associated Press story:
As a dog investor myself, I just wanted to assure you that I am not worried. In fact, I’m sleeping like a puppy . . .
The key to investing is taking a long-term view of the market. Stocks are down? It’s a buying opportunity!
Among the stocks I’m currently recommending are
- PetSmart (PETM) – Woof woof!
- Volcom (VLCM), Under Armour (UA) – I see lots of young humans wearing these brands.
- BJ’s Restaurants (BJRI) – I’ve never been but my owner says it’s really good and always crowded!
- Sonic Corporation (SONC) – I love the commercials with the two people talking in the car! So funny!
— Lightning 
Free Advice
At age 18, people care very much about what others think of them. By age 40, they learn not to worry what others think. By age 60, they figure out that no one was thinking about them in the first place.
I’ve messed up so many times because I was worried what other people would think of me.
You’re perfect the way you are. The worst thing you can do is try to be what you think other people think you should be . . .
At the Lakers Game
My son and I went to the Lakers game last night, a pre-season game against Utah . . .
Pre-game
As we were walking in, he pointed out an Asian girl with a spiky-haired Asian guy wearing an Olympics jersey and said, “That guy with the Olympic jersey pulled a hotter Asian woman than you.”
The girl was hotter than my wife is now, but not hotter than she was at that age.
“You don’t know anything,” I said. “Mom was pretty hot.”
“Yeah. Right.”
Game
Pretty good game! The starters played more than I thought they would.
Andrew Bynum is back. He looked good!
Jerry Buss was there. He looked terrible. Thirty minutes before the game, a guy rolled him out in a wheelchair to the end of the court. It took him several minutes to hobble from there to his courtside seat. My son said he had a leg injury. I thought he was just too old.
The girl sitting next to him — his date or his great-granddaughter, I’m not sure which — looked really good.
The Laker Girls totally set the bar for whatever you call these kinds of groups — cheerleaders? Dance teams?
I realized that what’s missing from my workplace is hot girls in extremely short skirts who jump around and cheer whenever something noteworthy happens.
We check in a bug fix? Gooooo team!
Then at halftime — or “lunch” as we call it — they’d change into tight pants and belly shirts and jump around in the new outfits all afternoon.
Good times!
Post-game
On the drive home, my wife called my son’s cell phone. The conversation was focused on exactly where we were and how long it would take us to get home.
“Why does she care about that?” I asked.
“She’s probably up to something and wants to make sure she stops doing it before we get there.”
Dog Buttons
These are OG! I hope my owner buys me one!
Good News, Bad News
First the bad news: ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! THERE’S NOTHING BUT BAD NEWS! THE HOUSING MARKET HAS COLLAPSED! GLOBAL MARKETS ARE IMPLODING! EVERYTHING IS SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL! THE FALCON CANNOT HEAR THE FALCONER! THE CEREMONY OF INNOCENCE IS DROWNED! THE BEST LACK ALL CONVICTION WHILE THE WORST ARE FULL OF PASSIONATE INTENSITY! EVERYBODY PANIC!
OK, now the good news: Hmmm . . . well . . . as long as I have a job, I can make enough to live on . . . I think . . .
Epigram
On love, on grief, on every human thing,
Time sprinkles Lethe’s water with his wing.
[Lethe is the river of forgetfulness. — Ed.]
That was Then, This is Now
Oct 3, 1995
Oct 3, 2008
Raising the Confident Child
I know a guy — let’s call him Goofus . . .
Goofus is dumb. I don’t mean that in a colloquial way. I don’t mean that he’s uneducated. I mean he clearly has a subnormal level of intelligence.
The most striking thing about him though is that he’s completely unaware of his own limitations. I’ve never heard him utter anything but platitudes and nonsense but in his mind, he’s the most interesting man in the world.
So many kids by the age of 12 or so have had their confidence in their own abilities extinguished by parents and teachers, that I really have to give Goofus’s parents a lot of credit.
I’m not kidding. They raised a supremely confident idiot.
Pug Photos on Flickr
Originally uploaded by ♥ellie♥
Originally uploaded by ♥ellie♥
Originally uploaded by whiteribbon
Originally uploaded by lhemmix_ph
Originally uploaded by smeado
Breast Awareness Month
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month . . .
Were you aware of that? Not to make light of breast cancer, but what a waste of a month. I mean, who is not aware of breast cancer? Being unaware of breast cancer is like being unaware of breasts.
Hmmmm . . .
How about this: Breast Awareness Month! More of a fun, celebratory thing instead of the whole downer vibe around cancer . . .
Other Than That . . .
We had a power outage at the office around 8:30 in the morning in the middle of a thunderstorm.
I work with the overhead lights off in my office anyway. The wall behind me is mostly one big window so I get enough light from that.
A co-worker poked his head in the door to say, “Since you work in the dark, you probably didn’t notice the power outage.”
“I noticed the lights went out in the hallway,” I said. “And I noticed that my computer shut down with 12 programs open. Other than that, business as usual.”
Homework Follies
My son just came downstairs for a visit . . .
“‘What’s due tomorrow?'” he says in his Dopey Dad voice.
Then back in his normal voice: “Math and Spanish. (Dopey Dad voice) ‘Are they done yet?’ (Normal voice) Spanish is done. I still have a little bit of math. (Dopey Dad voice) ‘Do you need me to check anything?’ (Normal voice) No.”
Now he’s waiting for a reaction from me, which he’s not going to get.
“I just did your job for you,” he says.
“Thanks!”
Wolves
I read this morning that gay wolves have been put on the endangered species list. Well, of course they’re endangered. They’re gay!
Wait, what — gray wolves? Gray wolves are endangered? I myself am a descendant of the gray wolf. I’m very sad to hear this.
I need to lie down for a while . . .
— Lightning
Mommy’s Water
Roller hockey season is starting up again . . .
I don’t know why but I was thinking about one of the moms from last year’s team — she brought bottles of water to the tournaments, some filled with actual water for her kid, and some filled with vodka for herself.
To the untrained eye, they looked identical. I think she may have filled the vodka bottles to a little less than capacity so she could tell them apart. More than once I heard her saying, “Not that one, honey. That’s Mommy’s water.”
The Life That is Waiting
We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
Getting Behind
Something this morning reminded me of one of my old calculus teachers . . .
He had a signature “joke” that he’d make whenever he or someone in the class mentioned being behind on something:
“I don’t mind getting a little behind once in a while.”
DOUBLE MEANING! GET IT?
No one ever laughed. There were always just a few seconds of ghastly silence.
Man, that guy was creepy . . .
To Kill a Mockingbird
I took my son to the bookstore to buy To Kill a Mockingbird for his English class. They had two paperback editions available — one with a fancy binding for $15.95 and another one for three dollars less.
I pulled the cheaper one off the shelf and my son asked, “Why are we getting that one?”
I said, “Because it’s three dollars less for the same book.”
“I like the other cover better,” he said.
“Gimme three dollars.”
What Do They Do to the Unpopular Professors?
Overheard
