POPCORN

BY JIM SZANTOR 

Rhetorical questions, questionable rhetoric and whimsical observations about the absurdities of contemporary life:

• How come you never see anyone with a pencil behind his ear anymore?
• Why is it that a woman can wear any piece of men's clothing (pants, suits, ties, pajama tops, whatever) and nobody bats an eye . . . but if a man wears any article of women's clothing, people think he's deranged? (I'm just sayin'.)
• My dietitian is extremely knowledgeable.  Very intelligent.  In fact, she graduated Phi Beta Carotene!
• If speed bumps are so effective in mall parking lots, why not put them on the highways?  That's where speed kills, not in front of the Wal-Mart!
• (Speed limit signs don't slow down those idiots who pass you like you're standing still when you're doing 65, so we have to move on to Plan B--as in Bumps.  (As Larry King would say, you'll thank me later.)
• Winter driving hazard nobody talks about:  Ice chunks that fly onto (or perilously near) your windshield--ice chunks that have flown off of vehicles whose owners were too lazy to clear of ice and snow (which, not so incidentally, is The Law in most if not all states).  Hello!
• Memo to lazy drivers in all kinds of weather:  Activating your turn signal halfway through a turn doesn't really help.  What's the point?  We already know you're turning!
• Suggested universal New Year's Resolution: To stop using Google as a verb!  It's a noun, a brand name.  You don't say "I Crested." You say, "I brushed."  Therefore, simply say, "I searched online for . . . ."  Is that so hard?
• "In comic strips, the person on the left always speaks first."--George Carlin
• Name the only two words in the English language in which all five vowels appear in alphabetical order.  (Answer elsewhere in this blog.)
• German discipline run amok: That country's Transport Ministry has told its members to stop writing "der laptop" and call the device "mobiler rechner," as part of a crackdown on English-style words in the German language.   (How do you say idiotic in German?  Answer:  blödsinnig, idiotisch, schwachsinnig.)
• Media Madness: Now that the flood of Year in Review stories has ended: Why do they start so early (in mid-December or earlier)?
• If a president was assassinated on Dec. 19, and the history books were culled from Year in Review archives, the assassination never happened, because the next Review compilers would start working from Jan. 1. Everything from Dec. 19 to Jan. 1 would fall between the cracks.
• What’s wrong with waiting until the year is over? Isn’t there space to fill in January? Why is the run-with-the-herd mentality so strong in the media?  You can bet the same thing will happen next December--take it to the bank!
• Speaking of year's end, why is it that the newspapers always run a photo of the first baby of the new year . . . but never the last one of the old year?  What is he/she?  Chopped liver?
• Two 2010 deaths that got lost in the proverbial shuffle:  that of Morris Jeppson, weapons test officer aboard the Enola Gay, who helped arm the atomic bomb dropped over Hiroshima.  And that of David Warren, who invented the "black box" flight data recorder.
• Slices of 2010 life, Florida style:
• Several people in Miami complained that they got sick after consuming mucus from a giant snail in a religious ceremony.  (Giant snail mucus?  My favorite party dip!)
• A family honoring a relative's dying wish gave him a burial at sea, only to have the body resurface off a Fort Lauderdale beach.
• A Miami attorney said she was kept from visiting her client at a federal detention center because the underwire of her bra set off the metal detector. After she took it off, she said guards wouldn't let her in because she was braless.
• You're at the store checkout counter, and the device tells you to "swipe card now."  Swipe?  Is that the best word to use in a retail context?  How about "Slide card now"?  (If you're thinking whoever designed those things--make that, the "committee" that designed them--didn't think it through as well as they could have, we're thinking alike.)
• Obituary Headline Nickname of the Week:  Ding Ding.  As in Robert C. "Ding Ding" Thomas (7/29/60-12/17/10).  R.I.P. Mr. Thomas (Kenosha News, Dec. 21).
• Thinking about buying a new car.  Got my eye on that new Toyota Recall.  (Hey, they might as well call it like it is!)
• You might be a redneck . . . if you create a dues-paying society and a scholarship fund. That's what a Virginia man did recently, launching the American Redneck Society.
• "I really felt that American Rednecks are an under-served, but large population that could benefit from a formal membership organization structure," American Redneck Society Executive Director Rob Clayton told the Washington Examiner.
• (A $20 membership fee will get you access to retail discounts across the country, and a portion of the funds are set aside for an educational fund for "rural youth.")
• Prominently displayed now at Walgreens:  Flu shot gift cards! For the man who has everything . . . but his health?
• Jim's Low Blow of the Week:  I see where Jane Fonda has released two new workout videos.  She should have done a video about her divorce:  "It Didn't Work Out."
• Quiz answer:  abstemious and facetious.
• Today's Latin lesson:  Quis diligo got efficio per is got efficio per is? A adsuesco assuesco affectus. ("What's love got to do with it, got to do with it? A secondhand emotion.")
  
   

POPCORN

BY JIM SZANTOR 

Rhetorical questions, questionable rhetoric and whimsical observations about the absurdities of contemporary life:

• Coming soon to a bookstore near you: "SZSEZ for Dummies." (Ideal for the hard-to-shop-for person on your Yuletide or birthday gift list!)
• Whew! I'm finally finished with my Christmas shopping--for last year!  Now if I can only get going on 2010!
• Here's what I don't get about the tax bill compromise--specifically, all the "Independents" who are up in arms: If you're not Democrat enough to call yourself a Democrat, how can you get that exercised over a bill that tilts to the Republican side?  If you are that upset, you're really not that much of an Independent, then, are you?  So why don't you call yourself what you really are--a Democrat! (Not that there's any wrong with that . . . .)
• Jim's Yuletide Tip:  Instead of that rather lame "If I don't see you, have a Merry Christmas"--or "a nice" whatever--how about:  "Let me be among the first to wish you . . ."?  Works a lot better. (You'll thank me later!)
• Overheard:  "Santa Claus had the right idea:  Visit people once a year, and do it when they're all asleep."
• I went to my proctologist the other day.  I said, "Doc, I've having some pain."  He said,  "I'll look into it!"  (Wonder what he meant by that!)
• Recent fortune cookie message:  "A new pair of shoes will do you a world of good!" (Whew!  I'm glad my underwear passed muster!)
• "Don't take anything personally.  Nothing others do is because of you.  What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream.  When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering."--Miguel Angel Ruiz.
• Memo to the obese:  Your condition is not just a health and esthetic issue--it's a moral issue, seeing as how gluttony is one of the Seven Deadly Sins.  (Gluttony – excess in eating and drinking: "for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags."--Proverbs 23:21.)
• Large banner affixed to the facade of the local Walgreens: "Flu Shots Every Day."  Geez, I thought once a year was enough!  Must be an aggressive strain this year! Mercy!
• "It's a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn't want to hear."--Dick Cavett
• Obituary Headline Nickname o' the Week:  "Caveman."  As in: Thomas H. "Caveman" Thirion (Green Bay Press-Gazette obituary, Dec. 7, 2010).
• Five favorite T-shirt messages from the What on Earth catalog:
• "If you met my family, you'd understand."
• "Comment loading" (above a progress bar about half loaded).
• "I hate it when my cat thinks outside the box."
• "I have seen the future and I'm going back to bed."
• "I only do what the voices in my wife's head tell her to tell me to do."
• The most frustrating part about being “on hold” is when the music stops and you think your number is up . . .  and it’s just a recorded voice coming on to tell you “how important” your call is to them.  If you’re on hold for 10 minutes, you get that at least 10 times.
• Memo to Corporate America: If our calls are so "important" to you, prove it by increasing your call-center staffing. Then and only then will we truly feel the importance you’re so fond of mentioning. 
• Don’t you also love it that, whomever you’re dealing with will, even if pressed, give you only his or her first name . . . even though they have a full dossier on YOU?
• I think I could stand it if the Sunday night newscasts didn't tell me every week which movie did what at the box office.  For three reasons:  (1) I couldn't give a rodent's tochas, (2) one movie in 100 will be remembered 50 years from now . . . and (3) the people who really care--the bean counters and the principals involved--already know.  So use that valuable airtime for something that really matters!
• Every time I hear of a mudslide or wildfire in the Hollywood Hills, I'm tempted to think it's God's punishment for what the entertainment industry has done to--not for--America.   I'm just sayin'.
• David Brooks of the New York Times on the Republican Party: "If you offered them 80-20, they'd say no.  If you offered them 90-10, they'd say no. If you offered them 99-1, they'd say no."
• Fourteenth entry in the Wisconsin Town I Didn't Know Existed Until I Saw It Mentioned in an Obituary Sweepstakes: Lessor, Wis. (r.i.p. Milton E. Bohm, Green Bay Press-Gazette, Nov. 16, 2010). Previous entries: Athelstane, Walhain, Duck Creek, Breed, Anston, Sobieski, Amberg, Osseo, Angelica, Brazeau, Waukechon, Sugar Camp and Kossuth.
• Faded phrases:  "Bury the hatchet," "wear the pants in the family," "put on the feedbag."
• "Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it."--P.J. O'Rourke. (Obviously, a veiled reference to SZSEZ. Thanks, P.J.)
• Today's Latin lesson: Melior ut tribuo quam ut suscipio.  ("It's better to give than to receive.")

POPCORN

BY JIM SZANTOR 

Rhetorical questions, questionable rhetoric and whimsical observations about the absurdities of contemporary life:

• Notice:  This blog is for Dissenting Adults Only.
• Quarterback names have taken a curious turn:  Donovan, Peyton, Eli, Tarvaris, Troy, Drew, Brett, Aaron . . .   I think when Joe Montana retired they must have retired his first name!
• One of the newspaper ad inserts for the Black Friday holiday shopping blitz was from Radio Shack.  Radio Shack?  You'd think by now--they've been around since 1921 and are listed on the New York Stock Exchange--they could have upgraded a bit, wouldn't you?  To . . . Radio House? Radio Mansion?  Heck, Radio Studio Apartment would be an improvement over Radio Shack!
• What's Wrong With This Picture:  Vladimir Horowitz solo recital CD--$16.99.  That's one man--$16.99. New York Philharmonic CD--$16.99 That's 109 pieces plus three directors/conductors, two librarians, an orchestra personnel manager, a stage representative and an audio director.  That's 117 people--$16.99. This all makes perfect sense, right?
• I'm so old,  I used to eat at NHOP--you know, the National House of Pancakes!
• Speaking of food, if alligator meat (to choose an exotic foodstuff at random) "tastes just like chicken," I'll stick with the chicken, thank you.  Besides, I don't think Gator McNuggets would catch on in the Midwest, do you?
• (You're eating at an outdoor cafe in Brisbane, Australia.  Eating fried chicken.  A homeless aborigine walks by your table, eyeing your plate hungrily.  You offer him a piece of chicken.  He thanks you, takes a bite, smiles and says, "Hmmm, tastes just like crocodile!")
• Just a guess, but after perusing the six or eight huge sections of a Borders store magazine department, I'm thinking 80 percent of those magazines probably didn't exist 8 or 10 years ago.  There are probably more hairdo and nails magazines (!) on the racks today than there were magazines of all kinds in 1960. And they say "nobody reads anymore"?
• Don't know what this says about me, but whenever I see a book, magazine or CD or some such  thing out of place in the rack, I always put it where it should be, the better for someone who is actually looking for that item to find it.  I can't help myself. (Call it Shopping Karma 1.0.)
• "Years ago, fairy tales all began with "Once upon a time . . ."; now we know they all begin with "If I'm elected . . . ." --Carolyn Warner, professor of political science and global studies.
• Appalling news: According to a recent study, 75 percent of Americans between ages 17 to 24  are unable to enlist in the military today because they have failed to graduate from high school, have a criminal record, or are physically unfit. America’s youth are now tied for ninth in the world in college attainment.
• Being the coolest guy at the Senior Center is a lot like being the tallest midget in the circus  . . . or the skinniest kid at Fat Camp!
• People who use leaf blowers instead of leaf vacuums are a puzzle to me.  Why blow leaves around when you can suck them up and mulch them at the same time?  And why not just rake them?  It's more effective, much more efficient--but then again, it does require some exertion.  This is but one reason the Obesity Epidemic marches on.
• I'm always incredulous when the stock market plunges when the unemployment figure moves from, say, 9.6 to 9.61 . . . or stays the same.  What?  The Nervous Nelly investors were expecting a 50 percent reduction overnight?  Doesn't speak well for the intelligence of the average investor!
• Thirteenth entry in the Wisconsin Town I Didn't Know Existed Until I Saw It Mentioned in an Obituary Sweepstakes: Kossuth, Wis. (r.i.p. Wayne C. Herold, Green Bay Press-Gazette, Nov. 18, 2010). Previous entries: Athelstane, Walhain, Duck Creek, Breed, Anston, Sobieski, Amberg, Osseo, Angelica, Brazeau, Waukechon and Pickerel.
• "If everything is an illusion and nothing exists, then I definitely overpaid for my carpet."--Woody Allen
• Factoid of the Week:  The term Baby Boom that you hear most every day of your life was coined in the early 1960s by market researcher Florence Skelly.  (Kind of hard to work into a conversation, but there you have it.)
• Every day I pray at least once to the Patron Saint of Comedy--Saint Shecky.  (Hallowed be his name.)
• Overused Media Word No. 642:  "Pumps."  As in: "The DNR estimates deer hunting pumps about a billion dollars into the state's economy every year."  It never "injects," it never "delivers," it never "thrusts" . . . . No, it always "pumps."  Maybe that's one reason a business writer has never won a Pulitzer Prize?
• Book Title of the Week: "How to Detect Your Own Clone . . . and Other Tips For Surviving the Biotech Revolution," by Kyle Kurpinski and Terry O. Johnson. (Wow!  Another blockbuster by the Kurpinski/Johnson tandem!)
• I'm the life of parties I've never attended.  Vicious animals curl up and purr at my feet. My blog is read on five continents (true; documentable).  I've been called the most interesting man in the world.  And though I don't drink beer often, when I do . . . I choose Dos Equis.  Stay thirsty my friend!
• Today's Latin lesson:   Ego wouldn't vado illic si Ego erant vos.  ("I wouldn't go there if I were you.")

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!")
  

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!")

POPCORN

BY JIM SZANTOR 

Rhetorical questions, questionable rhetoric and whimsical observations about the absurdities of contemporary life:

• I get along with Rodney King, but that’s about it.
•  Whew!  Twenty-eight degrees the other morning.  It was colder than a ticket-taker's smile at the Chicago Theater!
• I'm sure Bram Stoker, in his wildest imaginings, never envisioned he would inspire a dreadfully un-nutritious but apparently very popular children's breakfast cereal!
• Speaking of products, there is a chance someday that Consumer Reports will tout a product we can actually find in a store.  Still looking without success for their top-rated laundry detergent (Tide 2x Ultra Cold Water.  Stores have 37 Tide varieties--but not that one).
• More product choice explosion: I counted 10 different varieties of Crest Toothpaste at a Target store the other day.
• The most inarticulate, no-account people in the universe:  Computer "experts," "IT" people, whatever you want to call them.  Why?  When anything goes awry, it's a "glitch."  Nothing is ever wrong, no one ever admits a mistake, and nothing is ever explained in a plain-spoken manner. They hide behind that catch-all copout word "glitch."
• Memo to TV weathercasters:  Why do you call rain or snow “a rain event” or “a snow event”?  Will refreshments be served?  Are there guest speakers?  Are tickets available?
• I consider myself the poor man's Joe Piscopo.  My best impression is Frank Sinatra Jr!
• There are two types of people in the world:  Those who say "eether" and "neether," and those who say "eyether" or "nyther."  (But nobody says "eyether/or.")
•  "Unwilling to delay until tomorrow mistakes that could be made immediately, Democrats used 2010 to begin losing 2012."  Ouch!  (George Will's opening sentence in his Nov. 4 election post-mortem column in The Washington Post.)
• "I am not a member of any organized party. I am a Democrat."--Will Rogers
• Scary headline: "Young hunters take to the wild/States encourage youths to take up sport by giving them own hunting season" (USA Today, Nov. 2, 2010).
• Details:  Among the states that have added or increased special youth hunting seasons and regulations: Nebraska, Kansas, North Dakota.  Thirty (30!) states have passed youth-friendly hunting legislation since 2004.
• The quote:  Joe Miele, president of the Committee to Abolish Sport Hunting, opposes the idea because he says it encourages youth to take part in an inherently violent activity.  "These youth hunts are a part of the violent culture that we don't need to be breeding. It's unnecessary violence in every case. The world is already a very violent place."
• You know you’ve had too much to drink when you twist the cap off that last bottle of beer . . . and discover it wasn’t a twist-off-cap bottle of beer!  (Ow! Ow!)
• You know you're an old-timer if you remember S&H Green Stamps, the Old Dutch Cleanser girl and the diminutive "CALL FOR Philip Morisssss" guy.
• Soap opera:  Corn on the sob.--Leopold Fechtner
• Eleventh entry in the Wisconsin Town I Didn't Know Existed Until I Saw It Mentioned in an Obituary sweepstakes: Waukechon, Wis. (r.i.p. James F. Esch, Green Bay Press-Gazette, Oct. 28, 2010). Previous entries: Athelstane, Walhain, Duck Creek, Breed, Anston, Sobieski, Amberg, Osseo, Angelica and Brazeau.
• My dentist asked me if I floss religiously.  I said, 'Yes, I floss more often than I go to church." (Next time you go to the dentist,  beat him or her to the punch and ask, "Have we been flossing regularly?")
• Sign on store counter: “Gift cards available—all denominations.”  Wow, how ecumenical!  Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, whatever . . . they will accommodate you.
• What's wrong with this picture?  Your smoke alarm beeps a day or two before it dies, but your car battery dies without a whimper when you're in the middle of nowhere!
• Confession: I was born without the dancing chromosome. When I have to go somewhere where dancing might break out, I always take my personal-injury attorney! That way we can negotiate a settlement right on the spot.
• Book Title of the Week: "Never Eat Anything Bigger Than Your Head," by B. Kliban
• Today's Latin lesson: Alienosuperis! ("Fuhgetaboutit!")
• Disclaimer reminder:  As usual,  I don't always agree with everything I say!
   

POPCORN

BY JIM SZANTOR 

Rhetorical questions, questionable rhetoric and whimsical observations about the absurdities of contemporary life:

• I know a 60-year-old bachelor who almost got married twice.  That makes two near-Mrs.
• Whew!  Just had two days of 50- to 60-miles-per-hour winds. It was so windy . . . that the Brett Favre scandal blew over!
• Olive Garden commercial I'd love to see:  "When you're here, you're family. When you're not here, you're dogsh--!"
• Strike up the bandwidth! Not only has our dollar slipped along with our world standing, but we rank 22nd in the world in Internet connection speed.  Deplorable.
• Speaking of deplorable, I'm still coming up empty in my periodic survey when I ask people:  Who is the president of Mexico?  Who leads Canada (and what is his title)?
• I think the average Mexican or Canadian 5th grader knows Barack Obama is President of the United States, but no one can ever tell me that Felipe Calderon is the president of Mexico and Stephen Harper is the prime minister of Canada.  And these are countries that border ours!  This does not inspire confidence. 
• At any given moment, 15 percent or more Americans are muting a Geico car insurance commercial.  (My favorites: the Abe Lincoln and the pig "wee wee wee" spots. But the woodchuck version is growing on me.)
• I've said it before, and I'll say it again:  You can't get two economists to agree on the color of a Yellow Cab.
• Why do freight trains that derail always seem to be carrying deadly cyanide gas?  Doesn't the popcorn train  ever derail? The paper towels train?  Stevie Wonder could be at the throttle of one of those trains, and nothing would ever happen! But put an ace conductor at the helm of the cyanide train and, five miles out, boom! It's uncanny.
• Book Title of the Week:  "Mushrooming Without Fear: The Beginner's Guide to Collecting Safe and Delicious Mushrooms," by Alexander Schwab.
• Three things I've never done:  Bowled, flown a dirigible, befriended a beekeeper.
• You know you've ordered some bad Chinese takeout when the fortune cookie contains a coupon for Pepto-Bismol!
• Drudge Report Headline of the Week: "Russian bears eating corpses at Russian cemetery."
• Detail: "In Karelia, one bear learned how to open a coffin. He then taught the others," a Russian wildlife official reported, suggesting: "They are pretty quick learners."
• Back story: Seems that summer heat there has impacted their natural food supply, hence the grisly behavior of the Eastern European bruins.
• Don't want to appear heartless, but that "60 Minutes" piece on all of the homeless Iraqi/Afghan War vets didn't surprise me too much.  Let's face it--a lot of these people volunteered for the military because they didn't have jobs--or jobs of any consequence--to begin with.  So what were they expecting when they got home  . . . when the economy had tanked while they were away and the people who never left the country don't have a job now!
• "Our family was so poor, we used to go to Kentucky Fried Chicken and lick other people's fingers!"--comic Lenny Banks
• What's wrong with this picture?  Doctors crow about all the marvelous medical discoveries and techniques research and technology have wrought--yet show me one who takes e-mail?  (A few reportedly are starting to do it--about 10 years after they should have.)  I guess they prefer technology that demands little effort and maximum profit, and e-mail ain't it. 
• Headline:  "Google to bring Dead Sea Scrolls to computer screens."  Reaction:  The scrolls will get about a tenth as many "hits" as the next celebrity sex scandal.  (Odds of the Scrolls "going viral"?  Not good!)
• Don't know about you, but I think one reason newspaper readership is down is because of writing like this:  
• "A judge today issued a restraining order blocking the appeal of an injunction that reversed an earlier court's ruling nullifying a practice that was outlawed by the MacKenzie vs. Dinglehoffer decision, essentially freezing a previous ban."
• Whaa?  By the time you unravel that convoluted locution to try to discern who did what to whom, you've thrown up your hands and wondered anew whatever happened to plain English (and can hear renowned language mavens Strunk and White rolling in their graves).  I think of lot of journalists are frustrated lawyers . . . and write like them!
• You can tell you're an old-timer if you sometimes refer to a train as "the iron horse."
• Gone but not forgotten: Did you know that famed wrestler Andre the Giant was cited and impersonated in the comedy film "I Love You, Man"?  . . . That he was also referenced in the movie "The 40 Year Old Virgin" (when someone quotes a woman he dated "had hands like Andre The Giant")? . . . That he is mentioned in an Eminem song? . . . That he once drank 119 12-ounce beers in 6 hours? . . . That he was also named Most Embarrassing Wrestler in 1989 by Wrestling Observer Newsletter? . . . That when he died (Jan. 27, 1993) he was in Paris to attend his father's funeral? . . . That his ashes were scattered on his farm in Ellerbe, N.C.?  (SZSEZ--your clearinghouse for Andre the Giant Fun Facts, with a little help from my friends at Wikipedia.)
• There will never be a Howard Cosell Lookalike Contest.
• Does Larry The Cable Guy show up a day late for his concerts? 
• Today's Latin Lesson: Qua vos adepto turpis ligo.  ("Where'd you get that ugly tie?")