Category Archives: Humor

Humor, Social Media, Social Rules, Technology, Uncategorized

Social Media Avatars

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*At the risk of being shot, this is tongue-in-cheek.

I woke up this morning to a flood of avatars on Facebook.

Some are great, some are humorous, some are realistic. Some, however, are as far from reality as an alligator playing banjo on Mars.

As someone who has done a lot of photoshop or alternate pictures for years, I knew the day would arrive when Facebook would drop a bomb of avatars to its site. It was inevitable.

We’ve endured the misuse of softening filters for a couple of years. They have their place. Mostly, though, they obscure reality. It can cause grief when people use them and don’t realize they look a bit ‘off’ when using them. We have to pretend their baby isn’t hideous, so to speak, even as we wonder whether they’ll win the Halloween costume contest without the use of a mask.

Maybe I’m being judgmental. I love pictures – and I’ll take them any way I can get them.

The avatar fad that just exploded onto Facebook is a good thing overall. Anything that distracts people with a bit of fun or interest can’t be a bad thing.

It’s just that we all collectively share the same observations when people aren’t being realistic. If my avatar isn’t balding or fails to have a gut, it’s not realistic. It’s true I could simply use a Danny Devito gif to represent me, but that leaves him without a good one to use for himself.

Song: Do You Want To Date My Avatar?

The above song is old by modern standards. It did, however, predict the rise of avatars.

Because I knew she’d like it, I made a png cutout of her avatar so that it would include a bulldog, a symbol that best represents what she’s all about.

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To be an idiot, I made a George Clooney png avatar for myself. When people compare me to others, George Clooney is somewhere around the 5,000,000,000 mark on the list of my possible doppelgangers.

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Now that I’ve contradicted myself, I have to go make a mass of crazy avatars and pictures for other people. Some will challenge their notions of reality.

Biographical, Humor, Jimmy, Springdale, Uncategorized

A Dart In The Foot

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Capture

Years before the interstate crossed western Springdale, my cousin owned a big chunk of land where the Springdale Convention Center, Denny’s, and La Quinta now stand. (Little did he know how valuable his land would one day become.) He had one of the region’s largest machine shops there. (If such things matter for the story, he technically was ‘the husband of a 1st cousin 1x removed.’)

Along the road, his parents, Goldie and Ellis, owned a house, followed by a trailer and another little house further down. Pasture framed the property in a large “L.” Like much of the area, it was rural and Highway 412 was a slender ribbon known as 68. 48th Street cut across the highway, uninterrupted by the interstate like it is now. It’s interesting that Springdale is now reconnecting across that area with Gene George Blvd. On our side of the highway, 48th Street was a narrow road to almost nowhere. Close to the road stood several massive oak trees, a couple of them towering high about the landscape. There were pear and apple trees dotted all over the property, as well as a couple of walnut and pecan trees, one of which almost literally killed me, but not for the reason you might imagine. That’s a story for another day. My cousin Jimmy and I both narrowly avoided being blinded near there, which is also a story for another day. My family lived in two trailers and a very small house on the property.

I don’t remember how we ended up in the jon boat sitting in the grass near the trees in front of Goldie’s garage building. It was there for a while, so you had to careful about jumping into it without inspection. Otherwise, you might find yourself jumping right back out with a snake or other critter attached to you.

My cousin Jimmy found a few large darts somewhere. Time has stolen the details about where they originated. While they weren’t the infamous lawn darts that came later, they were larger than standard throwing darts that we’ve all tossed and hit the wall accidentally with, even as we tried to conceal our errant misses.

More than once, I said, “Watch out with those darts, Jimmy!” He was younger than me. He was also was protected by a strange force field of superiority. He was almost Kevin Costner untouchable. Jimmy laughed and threw another one with even more recklessness. It thudded into the wood bottom of the boat. “Darn it, Jimmy, you better not hit me!”

Jimmy stepped several steps further back and, without pausing, launched the heavy dart high into the air, in a long parabola of unknown destination. Naturally, I did the only thing possible: I covered my head and winced. I doubt Jimmy expected me to duck.

It turns out I didn’t need to concern myself with being hit in the head with the dart.

It landed directly on the top of my foot, impaling my left foot almost all the way through. I had a Jim Carrey moment, one in which I stared at the heavy dart impaled in my foot. My brain was taking a bit of a break to process this.

Suddenly, my foot cramped.

Jimmy’s face made an absurdly round “O” as his mouth fell open, as I writed a little bit in agony.

For once, I believed he didn’t intentionally do the thing that just happened. That is what happens when you indiscriminately toss heavy darts above people’s heads, though. That’s a helpful note if you find yourself indiscriminately tossing darts high into the air around other people.

All at once, the pain of the large dart being stuck through my foot reached my brain and I screamed like someone put a firecracker in my open mouth.

Jimmy ran away, already hollering that I was beating him, when in reality I was sitting in the boat with a dart stuck in my foot. I pulled it out without thinking very long about it. It took several seconds for the hole to begin oozing blood. I did not run after him. For the time being, I didn’t care if he had season passes to Dogpatch and free ice cream for me.

After several minutes, I hobbled around the trailer on the backside and tried to go inside. “You better not get blood in here, you little sh!t,” Mom told me between puffs on her cigarette. I went back outside and around to the front of the trailer. Dad was sitting there with Uncle Buck.

My Dad, often the comedian, yelled “Bullseye!” at me. I assumed Jimmy finally admitted he threw a dart into my foot. I still didn’t see Jimmy.

Uncle Buck, in the role of a caring human being, told me to wash the wound out.

“Nonsense,” Dad opined. “Put some ash on it.” Dad unsteadily stood up and with his drunken swagger approached me. He grabbed charcoal out of the burn pile and motioned for me to approach. He smashed it in his fist and rubbed it on top of my foot. I stood perfectly still, hoping his attention would shift so that I could get away. I knew better than to flinch or cry. “Bullseye,” Dad repeated and laughed.

I hobbled away. I found Jimmy a few minutes later sitting on a low branch of one of the apple trees between Goldie’s house and the rear of the machine shop. I didn’t hit him. He was Jimmy – and Jimmy did only what Jimmy did best. I think he found it difficult to relax if I had a dart in my hand, though.

Health, Humor, Medical, Uncategorized

¡ Doh !

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Did you know that being generally unhealthy makes you more prone to other diseases and infections?

A team of researchers in Switzerland spent 19 years investigating the link between underlying health issues and onset diseases. On March 23rd, 2018, Dr. Wayne Kerr was inventorying the medical literature section of Barnes & Noble in Lucerne. Suddenly, he found it, the proof his team spent 19 years and millions of dollars investigating. He stood up, screaming for one of his research team members, who was also in the store.

As Dr. Leigh King ran up to him, Dr. Kerr held up the book he discovered:

“No Sh#t, Sherlock: A Field Guide For Discovering The Obvious.”

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P.S. I wrote this after reading someone’s post on social media. His post was rather smart, a fact that amplified my mirth at the idea floating around in my head as a result…

Did you know that being generally unhealthy makes you more prone to other diseases and infections?

A team of researchers in Switzerland spent 19 years investigating the link between underlying health issues and onset diseases. On March 23rd, 2018, Dr. Wayne Kerr was inventorying the medical literature section of Barnes & Noble in Lucerne. Suddenly, he found it, the proof his team spent 19 years and millions of dollars investigating. He stood up, screaming for one of his research team members, who was also in the store.

As Dr. Leigh King ran up to him, Dr. Kerr held up the book he discovered:

“No Sh#t, Sherlock: A Field Guide For Discovering The Obvious.”

Biographical, Humor, Springdale

The Whole Hogg Episode

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In the 90s, I worked at Cargill in Springdale. Much of the work was dehumanizing. Oddly enough, the proximity and close quarters also made it possible to interact with a wide swath of people. Despite the brutality of the job, some of us managed to make use of our shared time there. We shared jokes, insulted each other with the skill of a French sailor, and learned each other’s language. The racists lurking among us didn’t. They despised the fact that Latinos willingly applied to work the line jobs. As many faults as I had with the job, I was able at times to see the job from the viewpoint of someone who would have worked any job, even with gritted teeth, for the rest of his or her life. I was lucky to get the job. During the annual layoff at the end of the year, I signed up to work on the other side of the plant instead of drawing unemployment, with the goal of seeing what other jobs were available. It turns out, a lot were. I never returned to the Jeffrey Dahmer side of the facility.

I started on the turkey evisceration line. It is nothing like you would imagine. Unless you are imagining a bloody, violent mess, in which case, bingo! you’re right after all.

On Fridays, it was common for the supervisors to walk down the interminably long line of employees as we worked with vacuum guns, scissors, knives, and bare hands. We wore high boots, smocks, plastic aprons, and a variety of other things to make us as uncomfortable as possible. As they walked, they would go through their pile of checks and find each employee’s corresponding check and put it in our pocket. Some people would have them placed in the back of one of their boots. This was usually a strategic mistake, as the work environment was filled with water, blood, and an assortment of internal organs that shouldn’t be flying around.

Based on the moisture component, I was one of those who objected to the check being put in my boot. In my case, I didn’t care if the supervisor wanted to lift my smock and find an outside pocket to jam the check into. It didn’t threaten my fragile masculinity.

At this point, I’d like to mention that it was ludicrous that checks weren’t handed out on our hour-long break. That’s an argument for another day. Many women didn’t appreciate the check system at all, for obvious reasons.

Back to the story… some supervisors would ignore your request and jam the check into your boot despite your objections. Given that you’re standing in front of a fast-moving line filled with increasingly stripped-down recently deceased turkey carcasses, it’s hard to step away from the line.

One supervisor, in particular, was named Robert Hogg, with a double ‘g’ in his surname. For whatever reason, I loved yanking his chain. Looking back, he was comparably great as a supervisor. The fact that he didn’t hang around as long as many spoke highly of his character. Robert and I engaged in a tit-for-tat game of oneupmanship about many things. One thing I liked about him was that he could issue an edict from management and simultaneously acknowledge the absurdity of it – while letting me know I needed to do it, regardless of how stupid we agreed it was. I could respect that. I still do.

After a couple of Fridays of Robert trying to jam my check into the back of my boot, I hatched a foolproof plan…

It’s worth noting that I was prone to zaniness when I was young. I would wear mismatched shoes, my shirts inside out, or draw and paint on my clothes. Anything I could do to cause a bit of commotion or eye-rolling was something I was interested in furthering. As an example, one of my fondest memories was after we had a big meeting regarding drug use and policy. There were hundreds of us working on the evis side of the plant. I entered the bathroom and opened 4 or 5 packets of sugar alternative. I wiped it all over my top lip and across my nose. As I exited, one of my conspirators literally screamed, “Hey, you have something under your nose!” Naturally, about half the heads in the breakroom turned to look at me, some managers included. I pretended to be caught off guard and wiped crazily at my nose and sniffed loudly. After an awkward pause, most of the breakroom laughed. “I picked a bad week to stop snorting cocaine,” I said. (One of the managers took the time later to seriously inform me that while he thought it was a great prank, that I should take appearances into consideration before doing anything similar in the future. “Have you seen my face? I asked him. My question didn’t help, now that I think about it.)

Before the next Friday, I went to a flea market and bought some pants and then a variety of safety pins. I cut the pockets off the pants and then sewed all the pockets closed. During our first break, I cut my boots down to ankle height with a pair of scissors.

After our first break, Robert steadily went down the line, inserting paychecks. As he neared, it was difficult for me to keep a straight face.

Robert lifted my smock and started to put my check into my boot. Which weren’t there. Rather, they were cut too low to put anything there. He then pulled my smock higher to expose my pockets.

“What the…” he started to say.

He looked around the sides and noted I didn’t have pockets at all. Finally, it dawned on him that my pants were inside out. I had used safety pins to create belt loops to hold my belt (and pants) up while I worked.

Robert laughed for several seconds.

“Okay, you got me!”

It’s still a victory I count as one of my fondest.

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P.S. When this ID card was printed, I only had 1 legal name, like Cher or Madonna. People often called me other names, ones unbecoming for polite society.

 

Humor, Sports, Uncategorized

A Wildly Accurate and Inaccurate Post About Badminton

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Many of us, especially those of us whiter than a bleached bag of rice, played badminton in our backyards when we were younger. Let’s admit it: we didn’t know what we were doing. Like a game of Monopoly, we made up the rules as we played. We ran into parked cars, brick walls, and probably smacked each other a few hundred times with the rackets. Sometimes, we even hit each other accidentally.

Whether badminton is a sport is obvious. The intensity with which you argue about this question itself serves as a reliable indicator whether you measure your ice cubes, watch the Harry Potter series with Klingon subtitles, or really ‘feel the burn’ when you walk fast to the garage for another 6-pack of spritzer water.

Joking aside, some matches have recorded hit speeds of 200 mph. Moreover, many people don’t know that the intensity of competitive badminton greatly exceeds that of tennis and typically requires twice as much distance covered per match.

If you already know the correct spelling for the word “badminton,” it’s likely that you also eat ketchup on your mac and cheese, not that there’s anything wrong with that, you psycho.

(Trivia Break) Gerbils can detect the smell of adrenaline in human sweat.

The game was invented in India in the 19th century after Lord Valdemort (no relation) noticed several of his servants waving swatters around in the boudoir. One of the servants accidentally threw a stuffed finch from the bedside display and the others began to swat it playfully back and forth. Although they broke several thousand dollars worth of vases and had to be put to death, the game was born. This entire paragraph is wildly inaccurate.

Despite my aversion to sharing facts, the name of the game owes its origins to the estate of the Dukes of Beaufort on which it was developed, rather than the once-popular theory that two drunk ladies intentionally kept pronouncing their illnesses incorrectly.

(Trivia Break) The Canary Islands were not named after birds, which I am certain most people don’t know. It derives its name as it passes through Spanish and Latin for “dogs.”

It’s no accident that the first 3 letters of the word cleverly telegraph the amount of fun you’re going to have while playing. While some people claim to enjoy playing, some people also like to eat raw hamburger and watch “The Bachelor.” People can’t be trusted.

The word “badminton” itself is offensive enough, but factoring in ‘shuttlecock’ and ‘racquet,’ and you have a guaranteed chuckle for anyone under 15 years of age.

While reading about it, I saw that formal badminton games are played indoors, while casual games are played outdoors.

Again, though I detest facts, competitive badminton is played indoors due to the fact that light winds can affect the shuttlecock as it flies. Whether those light winds are meteorological or gastrointestinal is a subject each family will debate on its own. Thanks to Aunt Maude for the chili.

The disadvantage of playing outdoors is that one runs the risk of other people observing you trying to play.

To my surprise, I discovered it is a summer Olympic sport. I presume it’s played as a literal reenactment of the movie “Dodgeball.” It’s the only explanation that makes sense.

When badminton first became an Olympic sport, over one billion people watched. While I like to joke about it, worldwide it is one of the most popular spectator sports. That still blows my mind, like discovering that you’re 14% more likely to die on your birthday than any other day of the year. (It’s true, by the way.)

A regulation badminton court is 20 X 44 feet, while the net is supposed to be 5 feet in the air. (And presumably connected to the ground, if you were wondering.) Attempts to replace the regulation net with a complex series of barbed wires were rebuffed, despite many advocates for watching the game demanding that barbed wire would result in a more entertaining game, much in the same way that baseball would be more enjoyable to watch if spectators could randomly fire pistols at those playing.

Even though you will think I’m making this up, a traditional shuttlecock or birdie consists of 12-14 duck or goose feathers – and those feathers are required to be from the left wing only of the bird, no matter what the bird might have to say about it.

Quoting from the official rulebook, here’s how the game is played:
1) Each participant should be motivated to play out of sheer boredom 2) Each player should have his or her own mosquito swatter or approved racquet 3) Alcohol or epilepsy help the game 4) Score is kept by constantly arguing about where the net is, how big the play area is, and how afraid you are of your family members. 4) The winner is declared when someone runs facefirst into a car parked too close to the net.

Sports Illustrated tried to do an article of the “5 Most Interesting Things To Happen In Badminton” and could only find one answer: “Nothing.” Not wanting to offend the Badminton World Federation (BWF), which coincidentally is a real thing, the editors instead ran an article mocking lawn bowling, which appeased badminton fans.

Given the competitive disadvantage of many sports, the truth is that a young person could do worse than attend a school with a competitive badminton team. If you can get a scholarship for bowling, Cornhole, fencing, rifle, water polo, and skiing, badminton is a great alternative. (All of those are real, sanctioned sports in the NCAA, if you thought I was joking.) For those considering playing badminton in college, you’ll be able to visit overseas, where badminton is incredibly popular.

One actual theory as to why it’s not as popular here sounds strange: sports that don’t utilize spheroid objects tend to fare worse both in participation and viewership. You might laugh at me to admit this, but this theory made me think way too long about the intangibles of this sort of fact.

In closing, badminton is a very physical sport. It’s much more popular than most Americans realize. Also, even though it’s totally unrelated, if you earn $20,000 a year, you are actually in the top 5% of wage earners in the world. That’s not made up, either.

P.S. I know this post is about badminton; if you read closely, though, you discovered a couple of crazy facts along the way. In closing, the average human body contains just enough fat to create 7 bars of soap.

Biographical, Humor

Not My Houseshoes

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In August of last year, Dawn and I stayed at a hotel in a small town. The first room they put us in had an unusual issue with the plumbing. Like everyone does, we animatedly discussed the minutiae of our initial problem. The clerk wasn’t exactly convincing in her portrayal of ‘interested.’ In her defense, she was stuck without a maintenance person – an all-too-common problem in hotels today as businesses reduce labor and stretch support staff needlessly thin. Dawn was much more patient than I was. I was hoping she’d unleash me and allow me to pull shenanigans. She vetoed any fun response. I took a picture of her sitting and watching the door, waiting for the promised visit by the clerk/involuntary maintenance worker. She took care of all the interaction with the clerk. Later, I agreed she was right. My involvement would have been a more exciting story, though. Of that, I’m certain.

I’d like to confess that she could have rightfully murdered me at that point, and I would have agreed I had it coming.

Part of being married is to know when to alternate whose turn it is to be either indignant or creatively bitchy. It’s an art.

We ended up moving to another room.

We checked all the plumbing first. Once middle age arrives, only a fool fails to prioritize the usability of every bathroom within a mile.

Because we’d already changed rooms, we laughed and said we’d keep this one even if we found a corpse under the bed. (Last year, there was another well-known story that included an undiscovered corpse under a hotel bed, by the way. I wish I could get THAT lucky. What a great story, if a terrible weekend.) Like everyone else, I have some great “terrible room” stories. At least 6 of mine involve Brinkley, Arkansas.

Because we’re married and set in our ways, I navigated around the bed to ‘my’ side on the window side. As I stopped near the bedside table, my feet bumped my houseshoes on the floor. Then it occurred to me that I didn’t have houseshoes and that even if I did, I wouldn’t have brought them. I prefer to run my bare feet across the unimagined nastiness of the hotel carpet.

Not wanting to alarm Dawn, I didn’t say anything about the houseshoes. I did tell her about the t-shirt in the drawer. I didn’t tell her about the half-full whiskey bottle behind the curtains or the weird lettuce and unknown meat sandwich in the closet. Instead, I decided I’d tell her later. I did check the sheets like I was searching for lost treasure, though. We often bring our own comforters, pillows, and box fan, precisely because we aren’t savages.

(Note: I’m no longer amazed about how much alcohol there is in a dry county.)

I do wonder about the hotel and what other goings-on we missed while we stayed. Since I chose not to tell Dawn about the houseshoes or other nonsense until the next day, I laid in bed and itched, imagining that the sheets hadn’t been cleaned in months.

It’s a small price to pay. Just as one doesn’t return food at a restaurant, it’s equally valid that you never change rooms twice at a hotel. You’re better off sleeping in the garbage bin behind Walmart at that point.

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P.S. Regardless of grammar, “houseshoes” is correctly spelled, even if it’s not.

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You’ll note that the bed is unmade. One of the first things I do is pull all the covers and sheets we don’t use off the bed and neatly fold them. I also place them in a clean space and put a notecard on them, indicating that they are “clean” and not used. While I know I’m not the only weirdo who does this, I do laugh when I imagine what the clerk or housekeepers think when they see that an unused room needs the bed made again. Dawn and I are also guilty of leaving the room exceptionally tidy when we depart.

Death, Humor

Ashes To Ashes To Box

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“I’m going to save a lot of money on the receptacle for Aunt Melinda’s ashes, X!” She seemed genuinely excited.

“How so?” I asked.

“My Aunt Melinda was a clairvoyant, seer, and psychic,” Susan told me.

“Okay, I still don’t see how her being a psychic will save you money,” I told her.

“Look here.” She help up her phone for me to see the image. “FedX makes a medium box.”

Humor

A Favorite Dumb Prank Of Mine

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Two weeks ago, I bought an excellent frame. It was marked down to $3, which seemed like a mistake. It was at Walgreens. I felt like I found a free bag of money.

On the way home, it occurred to me that the frame deserved a home worthy of the bargain I paid.

I printed a picture of someone I know and trimmed it to fit exactly in the frame. They’d be mortified to know their picture was used. (It’s not the first time I’ve used their picture for this kind of nonsense.)

The next day, I took one nail and a screwdriver with a hollow reservoir for the screw tips. I put the nail inside and brought the most excellent frame with me.

I hung the picture in a conspicuous place, using the screwdriver base to push the nail into the wall.

I’m not going to say where.

But…

It’s still there, proudly hanging exactly where I placed it.

I’ve done this many times before.

For whatever reason, I’m proud of this one.

These covid times demand more nonsense.

There’s a problem, though. I now have the urge to see how many of different people I can get on the same wall before getting caught; or rather, caught and asked what in blazes I think I’m doing.

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In years past, I did this sort of thing often. It’s one thing to replace the pictures on the shelf at the store, another to ignore cameras or people watching you as you hang one. I once put two pictures on the desks of bank employees with at least 20 people milling around.

I wrote this last week but posted it because a friend sent me a similar prank that went viral.

° Also – there are now TWO pictures on the wall in the place which shall not be named. °

 

 

Biographical, Humor, New Word, Opinion, Personal, Privacy, Social Media, Social Rules

High School Picture Vanity? (The Picture Rule)

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Do I have your attention with this horrible picture? Is it completely real or photoshopped? Who knows! Who cares? It’s more or less me back in 2005. I’ve posted it before. It makes me laugh, precisely because it makes me look like the “before” picture for both the South Beach Diet and John’s Guide To D-I-Y plastic surgery.

I enjoy the posts about people complaining (gatekeeping) about people posting their high school pictures. It’s true that it doesn’t “help” current seniors. Let’s be honest, though. High school pictures don’t seem to help anyone. Except comedians. We all love a crazy high school yearbook picture. We can’t help it.

They do, however, remind us that our idea of hairstyle and fashion was never as great as we’d imagined. This is the case of every graduating class in the history of… well, history.

I know it’s not an ironclad rule, but I distrust anyone who is truly upset about anyone seeing their high school pictures. Not only are almost all of them available online, but they are precisely the pictures more likely to survive the next 300 years because they are public and otherwise in the hands of so many other people. They are copied, indexed, and even included in genealogy websites.

What am I saying? You’re screwed if you don’t want people to see your pictures from school.

Years ago, I scanned and archived several years of Springdale High School’s yearbooks. I also uploaded them to all the relevant SHS FB class pages, for everyone to share and enjoy. It look me 100+ hours. It was a huge way for all of us to get acquainted again, whether we liked it or not!

By the way, a huge number of yearbooks are available on classmates. Get a free account and start looking. Other websites carry college yearbooks, too.

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The Picture Rule: If you’re complaining about the existence of your high school pictures, you’re probably at the mercy of either an exaggerated vanity or a profound scarcity of a sense of humor.

P.S. I have almost never been stymied finding EVERYONE’S yearbook picture, not to mention the address you lived at when you were 7. Your life is an open book, no matter how badly you want to stick it under the bed where no one will ever find it. The more you want to hide your pictures, the more likely your brother-in-law is passing it around secretly via text, email, or DM.

P.S. Redux: If you are desperate to find someone – or a picture of them – let me know and I’ll get enough details to sleuth them out in the interest of both lovingkindness and transparency.

Love, X