As if the Carl’s Jr. commercials weren’t bad enough, I saw one of those “Celebrities on the Town” shows where “Hef” is getting out of a limousine with his entourage of girls, shambling into a club like a doddering old man in what appears to be a bathrobe, his hair sticking way out in back like he slept on it the wrong way and nobody bothered to tell him . . .
Pathetic — hurry up and die.
When I do my stretching regimen at the gym, I don’t have a self-appointed, jive-talking personal trainer, age 10:
— You call dat a stretch? We got a big problem here.
— Is dat da best you can do?
— What in da name a Jimmy da Jet kind of a stretch is dat?
— Who’s Jimmy the Jet?
— I dunno. Who is he?
My kid got a dog for Christmas — a Pug. His name is Lightning. The dog’s, that is, not the kid’s.
Pugs take the cake for “cute,” judging by the reaction of every woman or girl who sees one.
Oh, he’s so cute! Oh, he’s so precious!
I’ve been reading Bruce Lee’s Tao of Jeet Kune Do, in which he says that most athletes are not willing to drive themselves hard enough, and that only through extraordinary effort can one unlock the potential of the human body.
My dad’s almost 70 now. He’s been a role model to me in terms of aging gracefully, without complaint.
“How does it feel to be 45?” he asked me the other day. “Feel like you’re getting old?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Wait until you get to fifty-five,” he said.
Thanks, Dad!
I’d never seen The Nutcracker — or any other ballet for that matter. It turns out that ballet is just mime with better sets and costumes.
My son had a very nice piano recital last weekend. He played the right notes, he played the quiet parts quiet and the loud parts loud . . . and yet he had never once, to my knowledge, practiced the piece at home without playing it too loud, too fast, and having a simulated nervous breakdown if anything was said to him about it.
I’ve Googled this all day and I can’t figure it out . . .
Links go to iTunes samples . . .
Emily Dickinson was born on this date in 1830. Happy Birthday, Emily!
I died for beauty, but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.He questioned softly why I failed?
“For beauty,” I replied.
“And I for truth,—the two are one;
We brethren are,” he said.And so, as kinsmen met a night,
We talked between the rooms,
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.
Let’s party!
I get about 200 emails a day — 90 percent junk — and 90 percent of the junk is targeted at human weakness, weariness, disappointment, regret and self-loathing.
You say its your birthday? Its my birthday too, yeah! We’re gonna have a good time! I’m glad it’s your birthday! Happy birthday to you!
We gonna party like it’s my birthday! We gonna sip Bacardi like it’s my birthday!
I’m 45 today, probably a lot further from birth than death . . . what a hell of a note.
More Bacardi, please!
My son just said something to me that sounded like
Meesa favo word yall dog homie thats a foul yo in yo face hippie homo bozo ooheehoohaahaah?
I’m not going to respond to that . . .
I’m trying to listen to classical music with a 10-year-old who won’t stop pretending he’s an intergalactic space admiral:
Chopin . . . great composer . . . he was from Earth, wasn’t he?
Marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman. Today’s decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court violates this important principle.
Here’s what’s really undermining the sacredness of modern marriage: soap operas, wedding planning, longer work days, cuter secretaries, fights over money, reality TV, low-rise pants, mothers-in-law, boredom, Victoria’s Secret catalogs, going to bed mad, the billable hour, that stubborn 7 pounds, the Wiggles, Internet chat rooms, and selfishness. In fact we should start amending the Constitution to deal with the Wiggles immediately.”
At a family gathering a few years ago, a couple of my nieces were experimenting with makeup — including bright red lipstick — when one of the maiden aunts told them that girls with red lipstick look like whores.
Well, that made quite an impression on these girls . . . now at any family get-together that the aunt attends, every girl — from high school seniors down to 5-year-olds — puts on the tawdriest shade of red lipstick they can find.
At Thanksgiving this past week, one of the girls added some ghastly white face powder, for the total painted lady look . . .
. . . when public website users perform simple Internet tasks, they’re successful two-thirds of the time on average. In other words, users fail 35% of the time . . .
Six sigma tolerates no more than 3.4 defects per million manufacturing opportunities; in contrast, the Web generates 350,000 defects per million interaction opportunities. The difference between the two quality levels is a factor of 100,000.
The only reason the Web works at all is that people are flexible and persistent enough to try again when their first attempt fails.
The good news, I suppose, is that the opportunity for improvement is virtually limitless.
Thus spoke The Programmer.
My wife estimated the audience as 75 percent gay, which I think, if anything, was a little bit low.
I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all of my friends, will be everlasting punished.
And this is a damnable doctrine.
Darwin’s The Origin of Species was published on this date in 1859.
Have you ever had a house guest — an in-law, perhaps — who thought that your life would be a lot better if you ran your business the same way she does, lived where she does, managed your money the way she does, ate certain foods in certain portions because she does, put on a sweater when she gets cold, and so on?
Well, I have . . .
People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd. Several analyses linked this miscalibration to deficits in metacognitive skill, or the capacity to distinguish accuracy from error. Paradoxically, improving the skills of participants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities.
