Friday, November 19, 2010

POPCORN

BY JIM SZANTOR 
Rhetorical questions, questionable rhetoric and whimsical observations about the absurdities of contemporary life:
  • SZSEZ Travel Tip:  With all the brouhaha about patdowns and body scanners, and with the day before Thanksgiving being one of the busiest travel days of the year, if I were you, I'd swing by the airport a day or so in advance.  That way you can get pre-groped  . . . and make matters a lot easier on your actual departure day.  (You'll thank me later.)
  • Maybe someone will invent a gadget you can plug into your USB port.  Then, in the privacy of your own home, you can stand naked in front of your computer screen and be "virtually violated," sparing you the indignity at the airport itself!  (I'll thank them later!)
  • We've had many memorable Thanksgivings, my wife and I, except during the Carter administration energy crisis.  Turkey Day in '78 was a disaster.  What happened was, my wife misunderstood the President.  She turned the oven down to 68 degrees! 
  • There’s no such thing as a “clean bill of health.”  Everybody’s got something.
  • The bogus rumor about President Obama’s trip to Asia costing $200 million a day . . . underscored just how far ahead of his time Mark Twain was when he said,  a century before the Internet,  "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."--Thomas Friedman in The New York Times.
  • Never eat at a place called Mom's, never play poker with a man named Doc . . . and never write the name of the Bears quarterback in ink.
  • Eye-opener: While the debt-ridden U.S. government shells out for nearly half of all global defense expenditures, our most loyal, stalwart, shoulder-to-shoulder allies--Britain and France--pitch in just 3.8 percent and 4.2 percent, respectively, of the world total. Somebody's getting a free ride, and we're getting stuck with the bill.--Eugene Robinson in The Washington Post.
  • Should have seen this coming: The phone book--or at least the residential white pages--is going the way of the rotary telephone and the phone booth. Verizon, the largest provider of landline phones in the Washington, D.C., region, is asking state regulators for permission to stop delivering the residential white pages in Virginia and Maryland. Instead, the directories will be available online, printed or on CD-ROM upon request.
  • "Blood is thicker than water, and much more difficult to get out of the carpet."--Woody Allen.
  • People who have two or more fairly new vehicles sitting out all night exposed to the elements because their multi-car garage is filled with useless junk should consider counseling or, preferably, electro-shock therapy.
  • Redundancy patrol:  "Continue on," "convicted felon," "pre-order."
  • Ever wonder how some of the “classic” TV shows of the past would have fared if remote controls had been around and there had been more than a hundred channel options?  (“ ‘Gilligan’s What’?  Never heard of it.”)
  • Speaking of television, can the Prison Channel be far behind?
  • Book Title of the Week:  "Wild West 2.0: How to Protect and Restore Your Online Reputation on the Untamed Social Frontier," by Michael Fertik and David Thompson.
  • Jim's Law of Household Finance:  Nothing ever really "pays for itself."  That's about the biggest self-delusion there is.
  • There will never be a Gilbert Gottfried Lookalike Contest.
  • Twelfth entry in the Wisconsin Town I Didn't Know Existed Until I Saw It Mentioned in an Obituary Sweepstakes: Pickerel, Wis. (r.i.p. Nancy Tilleson, Green Bay Press-Gazette, Nov. 16, 2010). Previous entries: Athelstane, Walhain, Duck Creek, Breed, Anston, Sobieski, Amberg, Osseo, Angelica, Brazeau and Waukechon.
  • People who pick up food and actually eat it while still surfing the buffet table should be deported to the most desolate region of Afghanistan.
  • New weather word: When snow flurries are so light that they’re barely visible, they almost look like airborne lint. I call it “slint.” Tomorrow’s forecast: Most sunny, turning partly slinty by afternoon. Chance of slint: 60 percent.
  • Today's Latin lesson:  Ego can't puto Ego ate universitas res! ("I can't believe I ate the whole thing!")

Sunday, November 14, 2010

POPCORN

BY JIM SZANTOR 
Rhetorical questions, questionable rhetoric and whimsical observations about the absurdities of contemporary life:
  • So the Food and Drug Administration now says it will require larger and more graphic warning labels on cigarette ads and cigarette packaging.
  • What rubbish!  Hey, I smoked 3 packs a day for 35 years . . . and there's nothing wrong with my lung!
  • Malaprop of the Century:  "There was this guy on the plane who started choking violently.  But then somebody came up from behind and gave him a Heineken!" (Thanks to SZSEZ field reporter Janice Welzien of Chicago.)
  • Poker has become so popular, young people are even getting into it.  What's next?  The Little League World Series of Poker?
  • So now we're cozying up to India, with President Obama urging that nation have a permanent spot on the United Nations Security Council--at the same time that we're selling warplanes to India's arch-rival  Pakistan.  Interesting to see how that plays out!
  • Headline of the Week I: "Mutant mosquitoes fight dengue fever in Cayman Islands."  SZSEZ's Caribbean bureau will be following this story closely.
  • Headline of the Week II: "Ex-NFL player [David] Meggett gets 30 years in sex assault case."  That's NFL--as in National Felons League, of course.  (If Meggett has a dog, maybe Michael Vick can look after it for him while he's gone.)
  • "Nobody in the game of football should be called a genius.  A genius is someone like Norman Einstein."--Joe Theissmann, former quarterback.
  • Didn't the two-minute warning in football originate before they had clocks and huge electronic scoreboards? If so, why do they still have it? Just another excuse to go to a commercial? (I know, I know--the scoreboard clock "is not the official time," but how far off can it be?)
  • Word of the Week:  "Jackwagon." According to the Online Slang Dictionary: "An insult. Likely coined specifically for the Geico commercial quoted in the following citation. . . .
  • Therapist: "Maybe we should chug on over to Mamby-Pamby Land where maybe we can find some confidence for you, you jackwagon."
  • Or: "A useless piece of equipment, usually military, used to refer to a mule-drawn freight wagon that had been pieced together from discarded or substandard parts and subject to frequent breakdowns. Jackwagons typically were good for only one or two uses, then abandoned along roadsides and in ditches and were often re-cannibalized to create new jackwagons."
  • Lone drawback to losing the 90  pounds I've kept off for four years--having to give up my title: Mr. America and Parts of Canada!
  • When's the last time you heard someone was "in cahoots" with someone?  It's a phrase that seems to be fading away (even if the behavior it denotes isn't).
  • Overheard: "If you rob a bank, it's called a felony; if the bank robs you, it's called a service charge."
  • Frank Rich of the New York Times on the election: "This is a snapshot of a whiplashed country that (understandably) doesn’t know whose butt to kick first. It means that [President] Obama can make a comeback, but only if he figures out what he has to come back from and where he has to go."
  • I've never seen a jogger that didn't look like he or she was in pain.  Tremendous pain.
  • Jim's Law of Urban Survival:  All neighborhoods are safe at 6 o'clock in the morning. 
  • Pretentious Pronunciation Dept.: In his book  "The Accidents of Style," Charles Harrington Elster says pronouncing "homage" as "oh-MAHGZ" is  a "preposterous de-Anglicization that is becoming fashionable among the literati." (Well said, Charles.  Down with such affectatious pronunciations such as "neesh" instead of "nitch" for the word "niche."  I'm just sayin'.)
  • It's gotta be tough being the pope.  You think it's easy going on tour without a book or an album coming out?
  • "He played the king as if afraid someone would play the ace."--British drama review
  • A journey of a thousand miles begins with an ATM.
  • Book Title of the Week: "The Ultimate Dog Treat Cookbook: Homemade Goodies for Man's Best Friend," by Liz Palika. (Damn! Another blockbuster from Liz Palika!)
  • Today's Latin lesson: Non ut illic quisquam nefas per ut! ("Not that there's anything wrong with that!")