BY JIM SZANTOR
Rhetorical questions, questionable rhetoric
and whimsical observations about
the absurdities of contemporary life
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--I was a teenage professional
kickboxer.
--Why don't they just have Florida,
Ohio and Pennsylvania vote for president and be done with it?
---I see Hillary Clinton has
resurfaced on TV, largely to plug yet another book (as if the country is
hungering to know just a little bit more about her). I think I've finally put
my finger on what her wardrobe reminds me of: Indoor/outdoor carpeting!
--"To live only for some
future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not
the top."--Robert M. Pirsig, author of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values."
--Magazine renewal notices
that say "Last Chance" really mean that there are two more coming.
Maybe more.
--I have only some of my
computer files stored in the so-called cloud, so you could say I'm only partly
cloudy.
--"The more original a
discovery, the more obvious it seems afterwards."--Novelist Arthur
Koestler
--jimjustsaying’s Newspaper Obituary Headline Nickname of the Month: “MacDaddy.”
As in, William S. “MacDaddy” Skadden (Door County Daily News, Sept. 5,
2024). R.I.P., MacDaddy.
--I'd pay a princely sum to
see Donald Trump on "Dancing with the Stars."
--jimjustsaying’s Party Ice-Breaker of the Month”: “Say [actual
partygoer’s name here], did you know that Cheetos are sold in more than 36
countries, but the flavor and composition are often varied to match regional
taste and cultural preferences--such as Savory American Cream in China and
Strawberry Cheetos in Japan?” (Kind of hard to work into a
conversation, but there you have it.)
--Snack Food Find of the
Week: Larry the Cable Guy's Fried Dill Pickle Tater Chips. (Full
Disclosure: Larry and I go way back. Heck, I knew him when he was
Larry the UPS Guy!)
--When is the last time you
ordered--or made--French toast? And what's so French about it anyway.
Did they invent bread, milk and the egg?
--I've never liked anyone who
had "the III" after their name.
--I'll come right out and say
it: "60 Minutes" is a shadow of its former self without Mike
Wallace and Andy Rooney.
--As a baseball player, I
actually "went deep" once, but more often than not, I went shallow.
But that was before I launched my short-lived kick-boxing career . . . .)
(Hilarious way to take in a
Major League game: Tune in the game on TV with the sound muted but listen to
the Spanish language radio station play by play.)
“Un drive profundo al centro, el jardinero central mira hacia arribay¡ se
ha ido!”(A deep drive to center, the center fielder looks up, and it's gone!)
--Memo to all sports
announcers (especially radio guys): No one has ever complained about a play-by-play
announcer giving the score too often.
--Baseball bucks: The latest figures show that each player
receives a check for between $20,000 and $60,000, depending on tenure, usually
on the first day of spring training. That’s
their share of the MLB licensing fees, priced into every team shirt, cap and
jacket that fans can’t get enough of.
And all of them get $117.50
per day meal money when they are on the road.
But many actually spend only a pittance of that (usually on breakfast),
as the clubs provide food in the clubhouse after every game.
--Redundancy patrol:
The umpires will huddle together to come up with a
ruling."--Milwaukee Brewers analyst and language mangler Bill
Schroeder. . . . "They were teammates together in the minor
leagues."--Unknown New York announcer on a Sirius-XM radio broadcast of a
Cubs-Yankees game.
--Good news and bad
news: The good news: My blog got a huge plug on “GMA” the other
day. The bad news? It was on "Good Morning, Afghanistan"!
--I haven’t played pool since
1979, or about the last time “Saturday Night Live” was actually funny.
--I’m allowing myself one
ethnic joke per year: Jewish guy to his Mexican wife: "Oy vey,
Maria!"
DRUDGING AROUND: Male staffer says FEMALE senator forced him to
perform sexual favors . . . Animal sacrifices surge in NYC; chickens and pigs
mutilated in twisted rituals . . . Firefighter accused of starting deadly
forest fires so he could be “hero” . . . 1 in 4 say they won’t have kids due to
finances . . . Snoring “cure” one step closer . . . Self-medicating gorillas may
hold drugs clues . . . “Snowflakeism” Gen Z hires are easily offended, not
ready for workplace . . . Italy opens door to chemical castration for rapists
and pedophiles . . . Prince Harry spotted at grungy NYC tattoo parlor . . . Parrots
overwhelm town with screeching, poo and power outages . . . Montana man to be
sentenced for unthinkable crime against sheep. (Thanks, as always, to Matt
Drudge and his merry band of aggregators.)
--When's the last time you
saw a kid playing marbles—or jacks?
Skipping rope? Playing hopscotch?
You’d almost think they’d been banned!
(And if they were, that would probably goad people into doing them
again, if in fact they knew what they are? Taking time out from TikTok, one
presumes.)
--Tennessee Williams and
Tennessee Ernie Ford: Discuss!
The Regrettable Rules of
High-Tech Happenstance (per PC World
magazine).
1. The likelihood that any digital device will fail is directly
proportional to your need for that device to work properly.
2. Your laptop will wait to die until just after your warranty for the system
has expired. The encouraging news is that taking out an extended warranty
of one year will likely extend your machine's life by exactly that length of
time.
3. Voice-mail messages always break up and become unintelligible just as
the caller is leaving his or her call-back number. Note that this rule
applies only to important calls that you absolutely need to return.
4. "While supplies last" is a synonym for "until the guy
right in front of you buys the last one."
5. You know the next great version with all the features you really
want? It won't be released until right after you've bought the previous
version. (And if you decide to wait for that next great version, it will be
delayed. Probably for a long time. Or maybe forever.)
--Memories are made of . .
. what?
As one neuroscientist put it,
“When we retrieve a memory, we also rewrite it to some degree, so the next time
we go to remember it, we don’t retrieve the original memory but the last one we
recollected.”
Instinctively, we believe in
the accuracy of these revised memories, treating them as entirely factual when
they may be far from it. Simply put, for those who demean themselves, memories
can be both inaccurate and unfair.”—Philip Chard
--You know you're getting old when everything
dries up or leaks!
--I saw a recent documentary
on Michael Jackson, and it's a good thing he wasn't convicted of those child
molestation charges. I mean, who was going to hold his umbrella for him
in prison? (And those outfits he wore. He looked like one half of a
Russian ice-dancing team.)
--There will never be a Whoopi
Goldberg Lookalike Contest.
--Media Word of the Week (a
word you only see in print but never ever hear a normal person use in real
life): "soupçon."
--Why you're running
late: According to a study cited in the Wall Street Journal, traffic can
slow even without heavy volume, because of driver reaction time. Even when the
number of vehicles shouldn't tax a road, "a small perturbation—such as a
slight deceleration by one car—can ripple through the cars behind them, as they
brake in reaction."
Japanese researchers
assigned roughly two dozen drivers to cruise along a closed circular track at
about 20 miles per hour. After some time, a jam developed, and the cars within
it ground to a halt--even though no one ahead of them actually stopped!
--Tattoo on right arm:
"See other arm."--Demetri Martin
--The question: What are
public hugging, selling chewing gum or forgetting to flush a public toilet?
Answer: Real crimes with big fines in Singapore (according to news reports).
--I think the car dealer lied
to me. "All the bells and whistles"? I've counted five
bells--but no whistle! I'm taking it back!
--When did car names go off the track and away from such stellar monikers as Thunderbird, Firebird, Cobra and Mustang? . . . Now we're in the era of Aveo, Traverse, Flex, Element, Azera, Borrego, Sedona, Evora, Outlander, Cube, Murano, Kizashi, Yaris, Venza, Passat, along, of course, with the alpha-numeric soup of A6, RL, TL, Q5, STS, CR-V, LX, RX and MKS.
How long before they run out of names . . . and start naming vehicles after body parts? ("Hey, Ralph, still driving that Kia Kidney?" "No, Bob, I got me a new Pontiac Pancreas. It was between that and a Mitsubishi Mitral Valve.")
"The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop."--P.J. O'Rourke
Today's Latin lesson: Ego don't teneo ultum super professio tamen Ego teneo
quis Ego amo. ("I don't know much about art, but I know what I
like.")
Many thanks to Barb Dwyer,
this month’s Popcorn intern.