Phone Call from God

I recently had a conversation with a friend who's husband is dying of cancer.  He's currently at home but had a two week stay in the hospital where according to her, he was a bit "loopy" for awhile.

This is how the actual conversation went..

VE:  So how's Bob

Friend:  He's back home, but he really got a bit loopy for while

VE:  Loopy?

Friend:  At one point he was fixated that he'd received a call from God

VE:  Probably an important call to answer 

Friend:  He just kept going on about it and we couldn't figure out where it started from

VE:  I'm sure God has everyone on his contact list, you know.  Perhaps it was just Bob's time to receive a call from God.  Or perhaps he butt dialed...

VE thinking:  Does God have a butt?

Friend:  Then I finally put the pieces together.  He'd received a call from his friend who is a born-again Christian and in his confusion he'd thought that he was God.

VE:  Wow, talk about putting somebody on a pedestal.  Good thing that person didn't suggest too much on the phone.

Friend:  Yeah, another friend dropped by and told him he should get some medical marijuana to ease the pain.

VE:  I see where this is going...

Friend:  Yep, he fixated on the marijuana and kept asking his doctor where the marijuana was.  He wanted his marijuana now!

VE:  He should have called God back and placed an order...

Things Old People Don't Do

It occurred to me the other day that I don't see any older skateboarders.  You know, 40 to 60 year old people out there on skateboards grinding up the local skatepark or cruising down some mountain hill.

Why is that?  Oh sure, you'll say it's just a kid's pursuit.  Like Legos.  But look at all these grown men that play with Legos?

You have to have a lot of Legos to make this (and money)

Or perhaps "you'll break a hip"!  Trust me, people in their 40s to 60s don't think they'll be breaking hips yet.  It's only those in their 20s that think people of that age will break a hip.  And sure, you might do that but it doesn't prevent that age sector from doing all kinds of other risky or youth-oriented pursuits.  They still surf.  They still snow board.  Have you ever caught the front edge of a snowboard?  I have.  It was not a soft landing!

Adults still watch cartoons.  They still eat sugar cereals (they just don't admit it).  They still sneak candy.  They still get fast food.

I was quickly trying to think what else I don't really see older adults doing that kids do.  They're out at the roller rinks and ice rinks.  They're at the arcade places.  They hang out at the malls (probably not in the same way, but still).  Many still live with their parents (although it might be that their parents live with them now).

Then it occurred to me.

That's right.  Icee's.  Adults don't buy Icee's (unless they have to share with their kids).  They'll buy every kind of soda known to man, they'll sneak the fruit drinks when there isn't anything else, they'll get a snow cone at the fair, but I never see them buy an Icee.

So...what else can you think of that they don't do anymore...the gnomes want to know!

How to recognize and avoid the Tom Cruise Jumping Syndrome

Hello.  He is Tom Cruise and he does have "Tom Cruise Jumping Syndrome".  And while it is hopeless for Tom, you can recognize the signs early and through a lifelong monetary contribution to my shameless ploy to suck every last dollar from you, you can prevent this debilitating disease...

Watch the early warning signs....

• Scientology
• Extreme narcissism
• A growing collection of angry and confused ex-spouses
• Saying dumb things in public

If you or a loved one has "Tom Cruise Jumping Syndrome", seek media whoring help immediately.  The most effective treatment known today is to continually star in action films without plot.  This seems to contain the disease to only occasional episodes which can be explained away with the help of made up religions.

Thank you for your contributions to this awkward disease...

Oh those Sochi Winter Olympics

I watched the opening ceremonies for the Winter Olympics but for some reason, it was painful.  Sure, I liked the cool projection effects they did.  But the opera singing, the ballet and the classical music covering the 2 billion year old history of Russia was just too much for me.  I felt like I was trapped in a performance of the Nutcracker.

Instead, I seem to be just like everyone else; trapped in this sad fascination with all the things wrong in Sochi.  Get on Facebook and you’ll see what I mean.  There are endless posts pointing out every flaw over there.  In fact, the national news said that there are more people following a compilation of those problems than there are on the official Olympic site.  We really are pathetic!

Then again, how can you not make fun of the bathroom stuff?

Or how about that one with the mirrored ceilings above the stalls.  Why don’t they just put in hidden spy cams like in the USA instead?

And then there was the missing ring...right out of a Tolkien novel if you ask me...

 But I have to keep coming back to the bathroom blunders.  How about this one...

Maybe the extra chairs are for judging the crap like an Olympic event.  “He got a 9.5 on color but only a 7.0 for taper on that poo…”

Of course, even when they try and correct their embarrassment, they just add to it...

 I don't blame the athletes for suffering...

And it is unfortunate that some topics ruin some eventful performances...

Not since George Bush was President have I had so much comedic material...

Airline Makeover

I'll be flying internationally again in May.  That's right...the wifey-poo and I are off to Spain and Morocco. 

The flight was a bargain.  It was free thanks to billions of dollars thrown on to credit card so I could scrape together enough points to go for free.  And if we'd wanted to go business or first class for free off points, I would have had to pay off the national debt to have enough points for that!

Airlines.  It just gets worse and worse, doesn't it?

Let's see just how that "free" works...

The tickets are free, but don't forget about paying the fees and taxes.  Now there are three certainties in life:  Death, taxes and airline fees!

Oh, and let's not forget they charge for luggage now.

Carry on?  No problem; I travel light.  Oh, wait...that's right.  I can't bring my fingernail clippers.  So unless I feel like gnawing off my fingernails and toenails while I'm over there....forget carry on.  Ok, wait, sure, I could buy one while I am there and then just give it to the homeless guy the ramp to the airport before I leave.  Even still, I'm burdened with a stupid expense.  And let's not forget liquids.  Unless I want to ration my shampoo down to a droplet per shower, I'll likely exceed the 6oz limit during my two week stay.  The point is...by the time I give up these restrictions only to buy them over there, I might as well pay the luggage fee anyway.  They've got you!

Food.  Of course they're going to charge for food.  They can't do it on the really long flights thank goodness but we have to bring food anyway because the taste and nutritional value of airline food is right up there with my local movie theater serving hot dogs that have been turning on the rotisserie for the last 5 hours and would really be beef jerky if there were any meat in them in the first place.

Seats.  Have you heard they'll be charging for seat choices soon?  That's right, unless you want to roll the dice and spend 8 hours in the seat against the bathroom wall that doesn't recline and has people standing next to you needing to crap in that bathroom so they're farting in your general area by all means, you'll have to pay for that seat choice.

If I have to pay more and/or pay extra; they need to come up with improvments.  Cars have all kinds of innovative improvements these days:  seat warmers, navigation, movable headlights, auto-braking, etc. etc.  What have the airlines given us?  Here's what I want:

1.  I want a security entrance rating.  The higher the rating, the less hassle going through security to my gate.  Why not?  We can do it with credit.  If I have a proven high enough rating, I should be able to walk through, flashing my id and picking boogers out of my nose while I flick them at the security personnel.  No stripping down.  No special technology scanners that find a Tic Tac stuck in my change pocket.  No isolating the shoes from the laptop from the belt from the shoes from the metal in your pockets.  Then, as scores get lower or riskier, those different measures come in.  The lowest scorers can just go straight to the isolation rooms for a good cavity search and mental questioning torture.  It'll be motivation to earn a higher score.

2.  They need to redesign these planes.  Have you seen how rides in amusement parks enter from the side so that like 50 people can get to their seats simultaneously and not have to be funneled through the entire plane while some idiot goes too far and tries to back up the line.  No, planes should open from the side and allow us to board in right where our seat is.  We can built droid devices to deliver our Federal Express mail and you're saying you can't come up with this on an airplane?

3.  Sleeping horizontally.  On long flights where it is obvious that people will sleep, planes need a design where every other seat rises up and then can fold flat for a bed, allowing more room for the other seats to sleep horizontally too.  I mean come on, I shouldn't have to buy one of those stupid neck pillows to keep my head from tipping over into the guy next to me.  I should have to use advanced Twister moves in order to find a way to sleep.

4.  Cone of Silence and Smell.  I don't want to smell that overweight salesman that had to actually run to catch the flight and is now paying back everyone sitting around him for his lack of proper planning.  I don't want to hear that baby crying.  Give me a way to shield all that noise and odor without plugging into my ipod and dousing the area with secret shots of air freshener.

Yes...travel needs an entire makeover....

Secret Songs you don't admit to Playing

You do it...

Oh, come on...admit it.

Remember that scene in "Tommy Boy" when they are in the car trying to sing "It's the End of the World" by REM but neither of them actually know the words so one of them changes the radio channel and on comes a Carpenter song.

They both eye each other sheepishly, "You can change it if you want".  "No, you go ahead and change it".  And the next thing we see is both of them screaming "Don't you remember you told me you love me baby..." to the song on the radio while tears roll from their eyes.

It's a classic scene if you haven't seen the movie.

And so damn true.  

So fast forward to the other day in the car and I'm screaming out the words to "Very Last Day" by Peter, Paul and Mary with the volume cranked way up while the wifey-poo sinks down in her seat hoping nobody pulls up beside us at the light.

Now this isn't just a folk song, this practically a gospel song about the Judgement Day.  I'm not even religious and yet I just love to belt out that song.  It's not one I can just listen to.

I know...its highly embarrassing.  And that's just it, isn't it?  We all secretly like or sing these songs that we probably wouldn't admit to.

I grew up listening to some odd music that I find comforting to listen to now.  The album "Aladdin" by Rotary Connection is likely one very few have heard and yet I know exactly one side of that album by heart.  I happened to find it out on Amazon one day and got the digital version....just for me.  Another obscure band I know well is "It's a Beautiful Day".

Peter, Paul and Mary was always playing at our house when I was a kid.  And I'm so familiar with those songs that I used to sing them to my kids to go to sleep when they were young.  They love them...and as such, they've now got memories of those very same songs; whether it is Stewball the racehorse, the Lemon Tree, Puff the Magic Dragon or more obscure ones like Rocky Road.

One song by Peter, Paul and Mary has changed for me from when I was a kid.  It is a beautiful old folk song called "Long Chain On" and here are the words:

One night as I lay on my pillow
Moonlight as bright as the dawn
I saw a man come a walking
He had a long chain on

I heard his chains a clankin'
They made a mournful sound
Welded around his body
Draggin' along the ground

He had a long chain on
He had a long chain on
He had a long chain on

He stood beside my window
He looked at me and he said
I am so tired and hungry
Give me a bite of your bread

He didn't look like a robber
He didn't look like a thief
His voice was as soft as the moonlight
A face full of sorrow and grief

He had a long chain on
He had a long chain on
He had a long chain on

I went into my kitchen
Fetched him a bowl full of meat
A drink and a pan of cold biscuits
That's what I gave him to eat

Though he was tired and hungry
A bright light came over his face
He bowed his head in the moonlight
He said a beautiful grace

He had a long chain on
He had a long chain on
He had a long chain on

I got my hammer and chisel
Offered to set him free
He looked at me and said softly
I guess we had best let it be

When he had finished his supper
He thanked me again and again
Though it's been years since I've seen him
Still hear him draggin' his chain

He had a long chain on
He had a long chain on
He had a long chain on

And then it occurred to me.  What is the one word you can change to the main chorus of this song to turn into a much different kind of song?

Yep...it's never been the same since...

So...fess up...what do you secretly sing or listen to when nobody is around?

Ch..ch..ch..changes

I've been playing around with a few things here lately.

No, I'm not juggling the gnomes.

No, I haven't redesigned Monopoly to Obamaopoly yet...but don't tempt me.

I gave my photo an small update.  Gone is the Howdy Doody box.  I mean, come on, how many people really know Howdy Doody anyway?  When was the last time you saw Howdy?  I mean, he's never called me up so why should I give him free advertising.  No, we've moved to something more appropriate.  A gnome.  And let's just say the gnome wasn't happy about the photo shoot either.

The second thing is that I'm playing around with Facebook.

Yes, that's right.  I now have a Fantastical Nonsense Facebook page.

http://www.facebook.com/fantasticalnonsense

It's currently got a staggering single post.  Get over it...there will be more.  It's an adjunct to my blog.  If you are a long time reader, you might find stuff you've seen.  You might find original stuff there not found on here.  You might find you're sick of me after I get going with both.

I am not a big Facebook user so bear with me.  It's interface is only slightly above that of iTunes on my usability and "make sense" scale.  And iTunes is very low on that scale...

But if you like nonsense, please pass the word...and I'll continue dishing it out...

Snowbound

It snowed for three straight days here.

I know…you’re from some part of the world where that’s nothing.  You make snow igloos that are as big as your house.  For six months of the year you don’t know if you have grass on your property or blacktop.

Of course, you’d be facebooking/tweeting/blogging/texting/talking about your weather phenomenon if it hit 114 degrees next week.  It’s all a matter of perspective.  They wouldn’t be writing about that in the middle of Australia.

In Portland, we see real snow that lasts more than 24 hours about as much as you probably see people doing their taxes on paper using a slide rule.

We usually get this light dusting that begins to melt as soon as it stops snowing.

Don’t get me wrong, we’re not like Honolulu or Los Angeles seeing snow.  We can drive an hour from Portland and see all the snow in the world.  Mt Hood has the only summer skiing in the USA for a reason.  Crater Lake Oregon averages something like 600-700 inches per year.  Holy snowflakes, batman, that’s a lot of freakin’ snow.

And when there is snow here, the city shuts down.  Every channel sends their flunkies out onto the streets to cover the “blizzard”.  I guess that’s journalism hazing; a long standing tradition.

They’ll cover nothing else during the news.  But the reality is, that’s all I want to watch when it snows here anyway.  They add in something like news of a meteor on its way to end the world or the discovery of miniature unicorns that excrete gold and I flip the channel because all I want to watch is snow.

As the wifey-poo says, “Snow…it’s so pretty”…turn off that other stuff, I want to hear more about how much snow there will be.  I want to watch it out the window.

That all works when it snows and then clears off 24 hours later.  On those rare years that it actually dumps for more than one day, I realize what nearly everyone else that has to live with a lot of snow knows:  It gets old very quickly.

Yep, shut in the house for three days, I’m already over the romance of snow.  My favorite take out Thai restaurant is closed.  Getting to the store isn’t an option.  It’s not that I can’t get there, it’s that they’re out of everything I want because everyone else thought it was the end of the world, panicked, and bought out all the essentials.  Of course, none of the resupply trucks can make it in because these are the same people stranded on the roadways trying to get back home.  It’s a vicious cycle…

So, we’re tired of TV, card games and snow shoeing.  Turns out you can actually only have so much sex in a day unless you’re under 25.   We get an A for effort though.  Yes, snow just makes me go stir crazy if it lasts beyond 48 hours; I'm not used to it.

Guess I’m just the endless summer kind of person….I’m okay with that.

Apples to Apples

I'm not an Apple lover.

No, I'm not talking about the fruit.  They are yummy.

I'm talking about the company

No, I'm not talking about the company that the Beatles started.  I like the Apple record label.

I'm talking about the Steve Job's Apple company

Everyone else seem to love them!  And granted, I like their looks and style.  I like having an ipod.  I just don't like their function.

Everybody raves about how simple they are.  Maybe I just like things complicated.  No, that's not it.  No, it's more like the metric system....it's simpler, but I'm so conditioned to using inches, feet, etc. that the metric system confounds me to use in practicality.  Same goes for driving on the other side of the road.  Sure, I can do it, it's just easier for me to not to have to.

Same goes with Apple stuff.  I'm so used the the Microsoft side of the world, I can't deal with doing anything on an Apple product.

So easy to use Apple stuff?  Let's review...

So...with the old Ipod Nano players, who's idea was it that to reboot you had to simultaneously press two different buttons that weren't designed for that at the same time?

Really?  It would be too hard to have an on/off switch?  This whole secret two-button concept is more simple?

Ok...even Apple must have had to deal with that because they reduced the size of the Nano players after that and did add an on/off button to the device.  Only problem is that now the damn player is so small, I continually lose it.  There's a reason people mount these into a watch band.

Then there is the ipod classic.  Why is it that I can't shuffle my damn playlists!!!!  You added that to the new ipod nanos!  Really?  You add a shuffle function but only do it for the entire library on the device.  Yeah, that's more simple.  That's like going into an ice cream store and having one option:  Vanilla.  Oh but wait, Apple says, you can have that Vanilla on many colored stale-tasting cake cones!!!!! Wohooo....

And then we get to iTunes.  The joys of the worst interface known to mankind.  Whatever idiot designed this should be forced to use it for eternity.  I swear I can never figure out how to move things around from my ipods to my library and vice-versa with playlists etc.

And then we move on to the laptops and desktops.  The whole notion of a mouse without a right click irritates me.  Yes, more simple, but not more convenient.  Anyone that wants to argue the virtues of simplicity in using Apple computers needs to come over to my house and set up the house printers that are on the network to use new ip addresses on the wife-poos Mac because the router died and had to be replaced.  Sheer terror to set up!  

In the end, the only thing simple about them is the realization that they are not my cup of tea (and I don't even drink tea).

Ever Had One of Those?

You know those days when

- You wake up when you want to

- You eat what you really want...and feel good about it

- You do exactly what you want to do

- With exactly who you want to do it with

- For as long as you want to

- Then you relax before bed

- And sleep blissfully the whole night through

You know those?

Yeah...me neither...