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Things that make you laugh...

Keith&Co. said:
A discussion of cake-toppers reminds me of

Oh, wow, 32 years ago.

The three stores we checked did not carry individuals. They were all pairs, and our choices were white couples or black couples. No option to construct a mixed set.

I had supplies for painting role-playing figures, so we picked a couple and I painted her coloring in.

I hope to make it to my grave before the wife finds out that the best match was Werewolf Brown.
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Don't worry; If she does find out, you will be in that grave VERY shortly thereafter. ;)
 
Keith&Co. said:
A discussion of cake-toppers reminds me of

Oh, wow, 32 years ago.

The three stores we checked did not carry individuals. They were all pairs, and our choices were white couples or black couples. No option to construct a mixed set.

I had supplies for painting role-playing figures, so we picked a couple and I painted her coloring in.

I hope to make it to my grave before the wife finds out that the best match was Werewolf Brown.
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This is the sort of story to write in a diary or something, for the kids to find & read after you &/or Bride are gone. Family History at its best! Please please please discreetly make note of it!
 
I find it highly amusing that most of the cars parked at the gym are parked as close as possible to the front door of the gym.

I notice only because I'm in the habit of parking farther away from the front door of public places on purpose. Part of this is driven by contempt for those weird people who will circle endlessly trying to find the closest parking space (they waste more time looking for a parking space than it would take to walk from a more distant parking space), and partly because I just like getting a little bit of extra exercise. It's a weird personal quirk I've had since I started driving as a teenager long ago.

Consequently, I'm kind of primed to notice this particular behavior (people who park as close as possible to the front door), and in the case of a gym at which you pay a regular fee for the privilege of getting extra exercise that people deliberately avoid a bit of extra exercise.
 
Why Would You Walk?

The other day I was in a little nearby town called Etna waiting to bring home one of my children from a piano lesson when a car stopped outside the local post office and a man about my age popped out and dashed inside (and left the motor running - something else that exercises me inordinately). He was inside for about three or four minutes, then came out, got in the car and drove exactly 16 feet to the general store next door, and popped in, engine still running.

And the thing is, this man looked really fit. I'm sure he jogs extravagant distances and plays squash and does all kinds of exuberantly healthful things, but I am just as sure that he drives to each of these undertakings. It's crazy. An acquaintance of ours was complaining the other day about the difficulty of finding a place to park outside the local gymnasium. She goes there several times a week to walk on a treadmill. The gymnasium is, at most, a six-minute walk from her front door. I asked why she didn't walk to the gym and do six minutes less on the treadmill.

She looked at me as if I were tragically simple-minded and said, "But I have a programme for the treadmill. It records my distance and speed, and I can adjust it for degree of difficulty." It had not occurred to me how thoughtlessly deficient nature is in this regard.
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There's a thread in Politics, a woman in Kansas was not born in a hospital, so her birth certificate was not issued by a hospital. Now, she's applying for a passport, the birth certificate she had isn't sufficient for a passport. It's from the courthouse, not a more typical source.

I wasn't thinking too much on her case, until the guy in the next cube tried to get a passport. He doesn't have any problem in getting one, but he's gobsmacked that one of the items on the list of appropriate forms of ID is a 'circumcision certificate.'
He, and almost everyone else in the room, had no idea that such things existed, much less how one would have any bearing on getting a passport.

In the context of the Kansas woman's travails, it seemed obvious to me. If someone was born at home, with a midwife, rather than in a hospital. So they did not get a hospital-issued birth certificate. But if they're Jewish, the Rabbi would show up 8 days later to snip the boy, leaving a crisp Snip Cert behind, all dated and signed.

Just don't look inside the envelope stapled to the form... But this would provide a record of the birth in that it was 8 days before the ritual snippification.

So I explained my supposition to my coworkers.

Now everyone in Training thinks I'm Jewish.
 
The following has been attributed to the late Douglas Adams, and stolen from Facebook by me. I have no clue whether some or all of this actually originated with Adams, but I suspect the end part has been added by a different writer at a later date:

Australia is a very confusing place, taking up a large amount of the bottom half of the planet. It is recognisable from orbit because of many unusual features, including what at first looks like an enormous bite taken out of its southern edge; a wall of sheer cliffs which plunge into the girting sea. Geologists assure us that this is simply an accident of geomorphology, but they still call it the "Great Australian Bight", proving that not only are they covering up a more frightening theory but they can't spell either.

The first of the confusing things about Australia is the status of the place. Where other landmasses and sovereign lands are classified as continent, island or country, Australia is considered all three. Typically, it is unique in this.

The second confusing thing about Australia is the animals. They can be divided into three categories: Poisonous, Odd, and Sheep. It is true that of the 10 most poisonous arachnids on the planet, Australia has 9 of them. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that of the 9 most poisonous arachnids, Australia has all of them.

Any visitors should be careful to check inside boots (before putting them on), under toilet seats (before sitting down) and generally everywhere else. A stick is very useful for this task.

The last confusing thing about Australia is the inhabitants.

A short history: Sometime around 40,000 years ago some people arrived in boats from the north. They ate all the available food, and a lot of them died. The ones who survived learned respect for the balance of nature, man's proper place in the scheme of things, and spiders. They settled in and spent a lot of the intervening time making up strange stories. They also discovered a stick that kept coming back.

Then, around 200 years ago, Europeans arrived in boats from the north.
More accurately, European convicts were sent, with a few deranged people in charge. They tried to plant their crops in autumn (failing to take account of the reversal of the seasons), ate all their food, and a lot of them died.

About then the sheep arrived, and have been treasured ever since. It is interesting to note here that the Europeans always consider themselves vastly superior to any other race they encounter, since they can lie, cheat, steal and litigate (marks of a civilised culture they say), whereas all the Aboriginals can do is happily survive being left in the middle of a vast red-hot desert - equipped with a stick.

Eventually, the new lot of people stopped being Europeans on 'extended holiday' and became Australians. The changes are subtle, but deep, caused by the mind-stretching expanses of nothingness and eerie quiet, where a person can sit perfectly still and look deep inside themselves to the core of their essence, their reasons for being, and the necessity of checking inside their boots every morning for fatal surprises. They also picked up the most finely tuned sense of irony in the world, and the Aboriginal gift for making up stories. Be warned.

There is also the matter of the beaches. Australian beaches are simply the nicest and best in the world, although anyone actually venturing into the sea will have to contend with sharks, stinging jellyfish, stonefish (a fish which sits on the bottom of the sea, pretends to be a rock and has venomous barbs sticking out of its back that will kill just from the pain) and surfboarders. However, watching a beach sunset is worth the risk.

As a result of all this hardship, dirt, thirst and wombats, you would expect Australians to be a sour lot. Instead, they are genial, jolly, cheerful and always willing to share a kind word with a stranger. Faced with insurmountable odds and impossible problems, they smile disarmingly and look for a stick. Major engineering feats have been performed with sheets of corrugated iron, string and mud.

Alone of all the races on earth, they seem to be free from the 'Grass is greener on the other side of the fence' syndrome, and roundly proclaim that Australia is, in fact, the other side of that fence. They call the land "Oz" or "Godzone" (a verbal contraction of "God's Own Country"). The irritating thing about this is... they may be right.

TIPS TO SURVIVING AUSTRALIA

Don't ever put your hand down a hole for any reason - WHATSOEVER.
The beer is stronger than you think, regardless of how strong you think it is.
Always carry a stick.
Air-conditioning is imperative.
Do not attempt to use Australian slang unless you are a trained linguist and extremely good in a fist fight.
Wear thick socks.
Take good maps. Stopping to ask directions only works when there are people nearby
If you leave the urban areas, carry several litres of water with you at all times, or you will die. And don't forget a stick.
Even in the most embellished stories told by Australians, there is always a core of truth that it is unwise to ignore.

HOW TO IDENTIFY AUSTRALIANS

They pronounce Melbourne as "Mel-bin".
They think it makes perfect sense to decorate highways with large fibreglass bananas, prawns and sheep.
They think "Woolloomooloo" is a perfectly reasonable name for a place, that "Wagga Wagga" can be abbreviated to "Wagga", but "Woy Woy" can't be called "Woy".
Their hamburgers will contain beetroot. Apparently it's a must-have.
How else do you get a stain on your shirt?
They don't think it's summer until the steering wheel is too hot to handle.
They believe that all train timetables are works of fiction.
And they all carry a stick.
 
Also sounds like Bill Bryson, who wrote a terrific and funny book about traveling through Australia. Although I don't recognize that particular passage, it sounds like what he would write.
 
It reads like Douglas Adams for a while, but then there's a change to a different voice, although I couldn't pinpoint exactly where the change occurs.

James Brown said:
Also sounds like Bill Bryson, who wrote a terrific and funny book about traveling through Australia. Although I don't recognize that particular passage, it sounds like what he would write.
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It does, now that you mention it.
 
I think Tallest Son is trying to squick me out. Tonight's conversation.

Tall: I bought an oversized dildo, and I'm trying to sell it. Do you think 30% down is too much?
Dad: Wait, what?
Tall: [repeats the premise and the question]
Dad: Why a down-payment? Why not just sell it all at once?
Tall: The person I'm selling to doesn't have enough spare cash to pay that much.
Dad: (wondering how i got to be an authority on financing sex toys) Um, well, are you going to want it back if she doesn't pay in full?
Tall: Fair point. (Toodles off to work out more of a lay-away plan with the mysterious her)
Dad: (makes new entry in the Things I Sure As Shit Never Asked _MY_ Dad About journal....)
 
Keith&Co. said:
I think Tallest Son is trying to squick me out. Tonight's conversation.

Tall: I bought an oversized dildo, and I'm trying to sell it. Do you think 30% down is too much?
Dad: Wait, what?
Tall: [repeats the premise and the question]
Dad: Why a down-payment? Why not just sell it all at once?
Tall: The person I'm selling to doesn't have enough spare cash to pay that much.
Dad: (wondering how i got to be an authority on financing sex toys) Um, well, are you going to want it back if she doesn't pay in full?
Tall: Fair point. (Toodles off to work out more of a lay-away plan with the mysterious her)
Dad: (makes new entry in the Things I Sure As Shit Never Asked _MY_ Dad About journal....)
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What is it that makes a dildo "investment quality". Was it just the size?
 
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