Category: Humor

Do You Act Your Age?

hourglassI had a birthday the other day.  (Years ago, I lied to Mark Zuckerberg, so nobody’s really sure when it was.)  Anyway, I kinda got to thinkin’ about getting older (notice, I didn’t say “old”) and discovered nobody really knows anything about it.  Basically, we travel along the road of life and all the signposts are either torn down or written in Babylonian.  So, at the end of the day, none of us really knows where we’re going, ’cause it’s all unfamiliar territory.  So, I decided to draw a quick-and-dirty map.

Shakespeare got it wrong: there are really only five stages of life.  They are Kid, Teenager, Young Adult, Adult, and Adult Plus.  So, in each of the categories, select the attitude that most closely resembles yours, and you’ll get a pretty good idea of where you are on this journey we call life.

AGE

Kid – I’m this many!
Teenager – Boy, when I get older …
Young Adult – Age is just a number.  I know a lot of totally old people who like to PARTY.
Adult – We never had/did stupid crap like that when I was young.
Adult Plus – How the hell did this happen?

WEEKEND LEISURE

K – I played some games, had my special lunch and a nap, watched TV, had a story and went night-night.
T – Nothing!  Just hanging out with my friends.  God! Why do you always have to give me the 3rd degree?  This place is like a prison.
YA – PARTY !!!!!!
A – I worked my ass off for this Christmas/ birthday/ vacation/ dinner party/  (fill in the blank) and now we’re going to damn well enjoy it!
A+ – I played some computer games, made a sandwich, took a nap, binge-watched The Killing and fell asleep reading my book.

FOOD

K – Grandma, I like pizza, too.
T – Chicken and stuffed peppers, again?  How come we never get pizza?
YA – Let’s go get a pizza before the PARTY.
A – I’m way too tired to cook.  I’ll just pick up a pizza on the way home.
A+ – Let’s get a pizza and see what’s on Netflix.

FRIENDS

K – Tommy and Shafir and Gemma and Mrs. Windouffer and Barnsy and Bunny and Megan and ….
T – Everybody hates me.
YA – My BFF is Stacey. We PARTY all the time, but I’m — like — totally friends with everybody — except Emma; she’s such a bitch.
A – If you don’t count family, we don’t have that many close friends.  Maybe Jake and Trina or Paul and Sasha from work. But have you ever noticed when you know a couple, there’s always one that you like way more than the other one?
A+ – Yeah, we have friends, but it’s so much nicer just to come home and relax.  Besides, once Edna takes her bra off, you need a team of horses to get her out of the house.

FAMILY

K – There’s Mommy and Daddy and Daddy’s new friend Ryan and my stupid sister and Barnsy the dog and me
T – This family sucks.
YA – I should call the parents more often, but mom’s always going on about grandchildren like I’m some kind of a brood mare.  I’ll call next Friday before the PARTY.
A – I spend so much time taking the kids to school and ballet and soccer and band practice.  And then there’s grandma’s grocery shopping and dad to his doctor’s appointments and every other “come-get-me” emergency.  I should just get my chauffeurs’ license and go into business for myself!
A+ – I love her dearly, but it was only supposed to be temporary after she broke up with Rashir.  If Audrey doesn’t get her head on straight pretty soon and move out of the basement, I’m probably going to kill her.

I Call Bullshit (Movie Edition)

film 1

This is movie season and I love movies.  However, movie people — writers, producers, directors and such — keep making storyline mistakes that just drive me crazy.  And these aren’t those little esoteric anachronisms that Internet nerds wet their pants over.
(“In Back To the Future, are we expected to believe that Marty McFly can play a Gibson ES 345 guitar in 1955 when they weren’t even produced until 1958?”  Guys!  Relax!  You’ve already accepted the premise that Doc. Brown built a time machine!)

No, it’s not dumb crap like that.  It’s major plot devices that are just plain wrong — good old-fashioned, common-sense wrong.  And I’m 100% certain that movie people know they’re wrong, and they either think the rest of us are idiots, or they don’t give a tinker’s dam what we think.  Let me demonstrate.

Defibrillators do not revive the dead.  Any first year medical school student will tell you that when the patient’s little beep machine goes flatline, the guy’s dead.   End of story.   Nailing him with 50,000 volts isn’t going to bring him back to life; it’s going to cook him!

There is no oxygen in space — none.  Therefore, regardless of how many times you hit the alien ship with phasers, lasers, blasters or proton torpedoes, it’s not gonna explode.  Explosions need oxygen.  Without oxygen, you’re breaking Einstein’s First Theory of You’re A Dumbass.

Airport security doesn’t work that way.  You cannot leave your car parked at the front door of a major international airport and go running across the concourse, chasing the girl of your dreams.  If — IF? — the cops don’t shoot your ass, the best you can hope for is you’ll be tackled by two (or more) burly security guards and get a Full Monty cavity search at what’s commonly called an “undisclosed location.”  And they’re definitely going to tow your car — and probably blow it up in a controlled explosion.

Nobody gets that high.  I don’t care what Seth Rogen says; smoking marijuana will not leave you passed out on a beach, in a different town, holding a koala bear and wearing nothing but a hockey helmet and your girlfriend’s underwear.  Smoke that much dope and you’ll end up hopelessly interested in the length of your toes.

Computer hacking doesn’t work better if you type faster.

I’m no expert, but having sex with your bra on has got to be uncomfortable.  Plus, how horny do you have to be not to take 5 seconds to unhook a bra — especially given the obsession our society has with breasts?  (Just sayin’!)

And there are tons more.  Don’t even get me started on what guns can and cannot do.  But my very favourite is:

Anybody who’s ever driven to work in a major urban centre will tell you a high-speed car chase through the streets of London, Paris, New York, Los Angeles or Lincoln, Nebraska is impossible — not just improbable — impossible.  There are too many cars and not enough roads.  In fact, the average speed in any major city is under 15 kilometres an hour (10 mph in the USA.)  Now hear this, James Bond, Jason Bourne and Ethan Hunt: if you’re at all serious about getting away from the bad guys, try a bicycle!

10 Side Effects Of Being A Writer (Plus 1)

writer4I have spent half my life writing for money.  I truly believe I’ve got the best gig in the universe.  However, there are some serious drawbacks.  So, for all those people who think that touching pen to paper is a worthy way to spend their time, here are some of the evil side effects of being a writer.

1 — You must take an involuntary vow of poverty.  Unless your name is J R Rowling, Stephanie Meyer or that soulless word whore, E.L. James, you’re going to be poor.  The reality is 99% of all writers make less money than Bulgarian shepherds.  If you’re content with that, great: if not, buy some sheep.

2 — You spend a lot of time (A-LOT-OF-TIME) alone.  Political prisoners in China have more human interaction than writers do.

3 — You never actually get a vacation.  You just go to work in a different city.

4 — You learn to like all kinda weird crap like cold coffee, warm Pepsi, celery, carrot sticks and the gooey bits in the middle of Oreos.

5 — Every person you meet has a “fantastic” idea for a novel that would “really sell.”  All they need is someone to “help” them write it.

6 — Over the years, you become a fountain of useless information.  Unfortunately, by the time you’ve amassed this trivia encyclopedia, you’re too damn old to go on Jeopardy.

7 — You pray for rain.

8 — You discover everybody’s a critic.  Your family, your friends, acquaintances, the woman who recognized you at the gas station, the guy whose email isn’t even close to coherent, people you’ve just met, people you’ve never met, people you’re never going to meet. In fact, put words on paper and it’s open season on your ego — get used to it.

9 — You become an absolute expert at avoidance behaviour.  My personal favourite is still Spider Solitaire.

10 — You spend more time worrying about things like the difference between “only had” and “had only” than you do about buying a car.

And the worst (or best) evil side effect of being a writer:

11 — If you’re not very, very careful, you’ll start having more fun with fictional people than you do with real ones.