POPCORN

By Jim Szantor

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

• As our population continues trend older and older, I boldly predict the newest must-have Apple device:  iDefibrillator.
• If you ever have a star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame, you'll be in elite company--that is, if you considered being one of 2,600 (at last count) to be elite company!  
• I simplified my gift-giving to the grandchidren this year:  Batteries for everyone  (toys not included).
• And I sent a calendar to my insurance agent--just to see if she had a sense of humor.  (Jury still out.)
• Best quotation recently discovered:  "You never realize you have a reputation until you find out you're not living up to it."--Classical pianist Jose Iturbi (the only classical pianist to earn two gold records).
• Why is everyone suddenly using the word "agency" this year?   Last year, it was "dystopian."
• Point to ponder:  During many of the peaks and troughs of history, the people living it didn't fully realize what was unfolding:  Societal change builds slowly, and the events only are added up in retrospect.--Axios AM by Mike Allen
• Gas pump shocker:  No, not the lower price; I knew that driving in.  It was while filling up during a blinding snowstorm and seeing the pump display ask, "Car wash today?"  Er, no, but thanks for the comic relief.
• The money you may have saved at the pump recently could be used to pump quarters into the formerly free air-hose machine.  Who do we blame for that--the Arab Air Cartel?
• It is appalling to encounter the number of gas stations without working air pumps (especially in winter); sometimes even the coin-operated ones are hard to find.  
• jimjustsaying's New Rule:  All stations with non-working air hoses would have their gas pumps automatically shut off and all electricity shut off in their "convenience" stores until said service was restored.  
• I recently saw a guy in one of those store, someone who looked like he had never been to a dentist in his life, paying $73.45 for a carton of cigarettes.   Figuring that lasts him about a week, that's an annual outlay of about $3,800.  But the dentist?  Can't afford that.  (Might have the commonplace fear of going to the dentist . . . but apparently no fear of lung cancer.)
• “Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed.”--Comedian Michael Pritchard
• All-Overrated Club:  Ellen DeGeneres,  Amy Schumer,  Whitney Cummings.
• I had this dream recently:  It was 2070, Mars was just colonized . . . and Lesley Stahl was still on "60 Minutes."  
• Headline I just saw:  "EX-NFL Punter to WWE."   (WWE, I learned, stands for World Wrestling Entertainment.)  Headline I'm waiting for:  "Ex-pro wrestler nominated for  the U.S. Supreme Court."
• There will never be a Michael Jackson Lookalike Contest.
• Faded Phrases:  "Don't take any wooden nickles. "  "It takes one to know one."  "Don't cut off your nose to spite your face."
• Death, as they say, took no holiday in the literary world in 2018, with such luminaries as Tom Wolfe, Phillip Roth, Charles Krauthammer, V.S. Naipaul and Harlan Ellison departing this mortal coil.   R.I.P., great writers.
• Parking-lot mystery: It's 10 degrees, and there's plenty of room inside the warm fast-food restaurant, but more often than not, there's someone (invariably a guy) eating in his car or (usually) truck, with the engine running, polluting the air and wasting precious fuel.   As they say in Standup Land:  "What's up with that?"
• Overheard: "I love asking kids what they want to be when they grow up, because I am still looking for ideas."
• It's a tossup as to who gets lied to the most--doctors or policemen.
• ("Yeah, doc, I have a drink once in a while, but that's about it."  "No, officer, there's nothing in the vehicle you need to be concerned about.")
• (A gendarme of my acquaintance, commenting on the latter, said: "It cracks me up when I ask if there's anything in the vehicle I need to be concerned about, and there's a long pause, and they say:  "I don't THINK so." (In other words:  Did I put my incriminating stuff  under the seat or did I leave it at home.)
• Why do stores with double doors almost always have one of them locked?
• Speaking of doors,  here's an actual sign on the door of Brooklyn pawn shop:  "Closed due to death in family." (Penciled in below:  "Not Sam.")
• Today's Latin Lesson:  Totum in cuius bove cornu est.  ("It all depends on whose ox is being gored.")

POPCORN

By Jim Szantor

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

• Decency in politics and civility in society haven't disappeared.  Why, they're as easy to find as your local neighborhood Radio Shack.
• It looks like the construction industry people didn't get the memo about the end of the construction season.  And, of course, they've never explained why there are miles of lanes barricaded off when nothing resembling construction activity is in evidence.  I guess they've got us over a barrel . . . .
• Gender-reveal parties: If there is a social aberration that defines the "Dancing With the Stars"/head-to-toe-tattoo generation, that would be it.  (Here at the seniors' home, I'm advocating a Surgical Scars Reveal Party.)
• Stop the World  department:  Now we learn that there are mini-bars in the back of Ubers!
• "[A] traveling minibar without the alcohol  . . . is in about 12,000 ride-share vehicles; passengers who catch a ride in one that’s equipped with the box can buy snacks and energy drinks  . . . ," reports  Bloomberg's Kate Krader.  "The boxes are stocked with about a dozen products, which vary but could include Korean beauty masks and last-minute electronics such as iPhone chargers."
• Korean beauty masks?
• From a Nov. 17 Kenosha (Wis.) News story headlined "1 dead, 3 hurt in home invasion":  "[Police said] it wasn't clear whether it was a drug deal gone wrong or a drug-related robbery."
• Right.  As opposed to legal, church-sponsored drug deals.  Do drug deals ever go right?  You mean, when you get your tainted heroin without overdosing and the price is--like, you know, man--right!
• Drudging Around (or actual story links from the Drudge Report, Nov. 17):  "Dog Acccused of a HATE CRIME," "Walking Backwards Boosts Your Memory," "Number of Witches in USA on Rise," "Woman Sues Hospital for Resuscitating Her," "Report: 1/3 of Workers Would Prefer Robot Boss," "School Bans 'Expensive Jackets' Due to 'Poverty Shaming'," "How Kevin Spacey Vanished Off Face of the Earth," and last but deservedly least, "San Francisco Sidewalks Graffitied With Feces."  (Must be all that diversity they're so proud of.)
• Chicago newspaper headline:  "Walgreens opens a drug store without a pharmacy."  No word yet if McDonald's is opening a franchise without hamburgers.  But don't rule it out.
• Just finished reading a magazine article about "The colonization of space."  Yes, good idea.  Now that we've repaired all of our crumbling infrastructure, fixed health care, solved all the Earthly environmental problems and eliminated our huge federal deficit, what better place for our tax dollars than outer space?   
• I'm not Mr. Anti-Science, or Mr. Anti-Exploration, but  . . .  someone who has trouble feeding the  family or paying the rent shouldn't be in the Bentley showroom.
• Life was simpler when we didn't have to keep track of charging cords, user names and passwords  . . . and the time and date of the next Gender Reveal Party.
• Early Bird wish for the New Year:  To not contract a disease that will end up being named after me or have the next international villain look like me.  (I once knew a guy whose life changed when his "twin" broke into the news:  Some guy named John Wayne Gacy!)
• jimjustsaying's Suggestions for "Dancing With the Stars" spinoffs:  Seeing as "Bowling With the Stars" has already been done, how about:  "Wood-Carving With the Stars"?  Or . . . "Oven-Cleaning With the Stars"?  Or, more earthily:  "Barn-Mucking With the Stars"?  Check your local listings, as they say, to see if any of these ideas take wing.
• Attention all Spanish-speaking people:  What have you got against the letter "J"?  (It's "Hayzooss," "Hozay," "Halisco," etc.   I wonder if you ever listen to my favorite form of music--hazz? (I'mjustsayin' . . . .)
• Newspaper Headline Nickname of the Month:  "Poogie." As in Orion "Poogie" Reynebeau, Green Bay (Wis.) Press-Gazette Obituary, Nov. 21, 2018.
• jimjustsaying's Revised Rules of Thumb:  Never eat at a place called Mom's, never play poker with a man named Doc, and never ask someone a question you wouldn't want posed to you. 
• jimjustsaying's Do You Really Want a Driverless Car? report: Although 99 percent of routine driving skills have been relatively easy for robots to achieve, the last 1 percent haven't--and those are crucial for safety and consumer trust.
• According to Gene Loup of Loup Ventures: "For those  who love to drive and dread the thought of an autonomous car: You’ll have your chance to drive, but it will become a hobby, like horseback riding. And you’ll have plenty of time to prepare for your horseback ride on the way to the track—in your self-driving car."
• jimjustsaying's Redundancy Patrol:  "Free bonus," "absolutely free," "icy cold,' "each and every," and "fit together." 
• You don't hear much about think tanks anymore.  Did these people stop thinking . . . or did they get tired of tanks and moved on to something else?  Tents?  Cubicles?  
• "Each generation thinks it invented sex."--Author Robert Heinlein
• jimjustsaying's Party Ice-Breaker of the Month:  "Say [actual partygoer's name here], did you know that dolphins have the ability to put only half their brains to sleep at a time, known as unihemispheric sleep, and that migratory birds are thought to sleep-fly and sharks sleep-swim?"
• Failed Restaurant Franchises Hall of Shame:  Beefsteak Charlie's, Red Barn, Horn and Hardart, Burger Chef, Lum's, Steak and Ale, White Tower, Minnie Pearl's Chicken, Sambo's, Henry's Hamburgers, Naugle's, Chi-Chi's, Bennigan's, Ponderosa and Bonanza Steakhouses, Bob's Big Boy, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Doggie Diner, A&W Drive Ins, Po' Folks, Country  Kitchen, TCBY, Tony Roma's, and Blimpie Subs and Salads.
• I wonder if they're ever going to hold a Donald Trump Look-Alike Contest?  The contestants could hold a convention at a place that looks a lot like Mar-a-Lago.
• Today's Latin Lesson: Cur quae cadunt in area semper est aliquid sub virtualiter inaccessibilis evolvere? ("Why do things that fall on the floor alway roll under something virtually inaccessible?")

POPCORN

By Jim Szantor

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

• Pre-peeled hard-boiled eggs are the greatest thing since sliced bread.  
• (Eggs have been around for eons but I guess the world of egg technology lagged several centuries behind.  I'm thinking Apple technology beat it to the punch (and is much more lucrative.)
• I'm glad my car uses regular gas, but I was tempted to use the Premium pump the other day to get some of that Pumpkin Spice gasoline they're featuring.  (Already got my pumpkin-infused flu shot.)
• It really is getting hard to find something that isn't labeled Pumpkin lately.  I understand the Texas Death Row prisoners are going to get pumpkinized lethal injections in October.  (I guess that would put a very macabre twist on the disclaimer "For a limited time only.")
• Speaking of products, I'm investing in a company that's working on a new remote control:  With a push of a button,  it would administer painful electric shocks to Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and that ubiquitous Flo from Progressive.  (Also in the running: The Geico gecko, whom I am relieved to learn is not a protected species!)
• One of the reasons I don't watch "America's Got Talent" and "Dancing With the Stars":  Half the time the camera is on the audience or the judges instead of the performers.  Wow, such sorely needed, indispensable information!  Directors: Keep the camera on the performers; if people like what they're seeing, a frown from some celebrity isn't going to change their minds, is it?
• jimjustsaying's Party Ice-Breaker of the Month:  "Say [actual partygoer's name here], did you know that Florida is the flattest state in America?"  
• In descending order of flatness: Florida, Illinois, North Dakota, Louisiana, Minnesota, Delaware, Kansas.  
•  And if you thought Alaska, California or Colorado were the most mountainous states in the country, you'd be wrong.  Those states also contain extensive plains and relatively flat valleys. 
• Our mountainous state?  West Virginia, although its highest peak, Spruce Mountain, is only about 4,864 feet in height.  (Thanks to WGN-TV's Tom Skilling, who IMHO stands tallest among the meteorologists of America, for that valuable information.)
• "You can pretend to be serious; you can’t pretend to be witty."--Actor-playwright Sacha Guitry
• Aviation question:  When has the fabled "black box" ever prevented a calamity?  It can't prevent bad weather or prevent pilot error, so what good is  it?  What went wrong is usually not that much of a mystery.  But I guess the FAA and the NTSB have to justify their existences somehow by making it look like they're doing something vital and constructive.   
• “It’s great to see Roseanne back in the spotlight. Technically, it’s two spotlights, but you get the idea.”--Katey Sagal
• All overrated club:  Ellen DeGeneres, Joe Buck and anyone whose name follows the label Rapper.
• Drudging around:  "Hillary's Popularity at All-time Low," "Founder of Rehab to Celebs Accused of Sex Assault," "Study:  Dogs Get Depressed When Owners Overuse Smartphones," "Officials Disturbed By Decapitated Goats in Georgia River," "Brothel Owner Expected to Win Election Despite Death," "Students Sick with Kangaroo Meat in School Chili,"  "Traffic Accidents Rising in States That Legalized Pot," and "Parents Planning 'Pox Parties' to Immunize Kids." (Thanks to Matt Drudge and the guilty pleasure known as The Drudge Report for these titillating click-bait gems.)
• There's all this talk about straw polls regarding the mid-term elections.   What do straws have to do with politics?  Are people throwing straw hats into the ring now?   When did that start? 
• Speaking of elections, herewith jimjustsaying's Media Word of the Month (a word you encounter only in print or electronic media and never hear any normal person use in everyday life--unless they're reading from a news report):  Hustings.  As in: "As the campaign begins in earnest, candidates will again take to the hustings."
• Getting old and slightly annoying:  Calling any update or revision of something 2.0 Soon to be followed, no doubt, by "3.0."  Oh so clever.
• You Never Know What's Going On Next Door department: "Officials Find More Than 250 Snakes, Alligators And Skunks In Montgomery County (Pa.) Home."  (Yeah, the reptiles are not going to be odorific enough, so throw in some skunks for good measure!  Good plan.)
• jimjustsaying's Word That Should Exist But Doesn't of the Month:  Squatic Diversion: (n. Any pretend activity that commands a dog owner's attention while the dog relieves itself on a neighbor's lawn.)--"More Sniglets," Rich Hall and Friends.
• Three Things a Woman Would Never Say (per Maralee Moody):  
• 1.  "Could our relationship be more physical?  I'm tired of being just friends."
• 2.  "Go ahead and leave the toilet seat up.  It's easier for me that way."
• 3.  "Do these pants make my butt look too small?"
• Stupid Product Warning of the Month:  On Aveeno Bath Treatment:  "For external use only."
• Actual Newspaper Correction (Lifetime Achievement Award?):  "The crossword puzzle that should have appeared in today's Tribune appeared instead in yesterday's, together with the answer to the puzzle that should have been printed yesterday.  Therefore, the puzzle that should have appeared yesterday is in today's Tribune, together with the answer to Wednesday's puzzle.  The puzzle for today and the answer to the one that should have been printed yesterday are reprinted.--Lewiston (Idaho) Tribune  (per "Still More Press Boners," Earle Tempel)
• 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.")

POPCORN

By Jim Szantor

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

• Political strategist and forensic blood-spatter expert:  Two occupations that no kid ever fantasizes about!
• If Norman Rockwell came back to life today, do you think there's anything he'd want to paint?
• Does Anderson Cooper have two first names . . . or two last names?  Discuss!
• To the lady who wrote in:  Yes, there is a reason why surgeons wear light blue scrubs.  It seems that when scrubs were first introduced, they were often white--but soon fell out of favor because they gave off a bright glare under bright operating theater lights. A lot of manufacturers switched to blue or green after that.--Quora Digest
• Three bad ideas for a business:  Just Cufflinks.  Just Umbrellas. Just Shoelaces.
• I noticed, ahead of me at a stoplight, a Chevy Avalanche.  Now, how is that a good name for a vehicle?  Who signed off on that?  Has anyone ever benefited from an avalanche?  What's next, a Toyota Typhoid?  A Honda STD?  
• I wonder how many people have text-messaged while having surgery under local anesthetic?  Don’t laugh;  somebody’s probably doing it at this very moment.   (Send me a Tweet from the surgical suite?)
• Headline of the Week:  "Amazon to sell Christmas trees. "  (Still on the drawing board, I'm thinking:  Curbside pickup on Jan. 2???)
• “When it’s 100 in New York, it’s 72 in Los Angeles. When it’s 30 degrees in New York, in Los Angeles it’s still 72. However, there are 2 million interesting people in New York—and 72 in Los Angeles.”--Neil Simon
• You're an old-timer if you can remember taking glass soda bottles back to the store for the deposit money.   (You're a young person if you have never seen a glass soda pop bottle.)
• I don't care what anyone says:  We didn't have erectile dysfunction ads in prime time when Mr. Rogers was alive.
• Let's see if I've got this right:  "KIds under 3 eat free."  Senior sodas, senior coffee.  Where's the middle-age break?  No wonder the middle class can't get ahead--they're locked out of the discount loop.
• Quiet as its kept, my wife and I are in the running for heavy TV exposure next spring:  "Naked and Afraid, Senior Division."   (Always wanted to get naked in the steaming jungles of Botswana!  I'm sure there's an all-but-invisible but heavily poisonous insect with my name on it.)
• Why is the Mute button the hardest one to find on any remote control?  It's in a different place on every model.
• Obituary headline:  "Pharmacist and master cribbage player."   Cribbage.  Now there's a game for the Facebook/Twitter/Buzzfeed Generation!
•  "Death and taxes and childbirth.  There’s never a convenient time for any of them."--Novelist Margaret Mitchell
• Combine  hydrogen peroxide, oxalate estes, butyl benzoate, dimethy phthalate and fluorescent dyes (anthracene derivatives, lumongen Red 300), and what have you got?  Glow sticks, of course.   (Kind of hard to work into a conversation, but there you have it.)
• When researchers at Bell Labs and Hughes Aircraft actually began producing laser light in the 1960s, they never imagined that its first mainstream use would be scanning bar codes at checkout counters.
• "He who is not contented with what he has would not be contented with what he would like to have."--Socrates 
• Three TV shows I never watch:  "Project Runway," "Total Divas," and "Babe Winkelman's Outdoor Secrets."
• jimjustsaying's Word That Should Exist But Doesn't of the Month:  Buyercade.  n.  That plastic or rubber bar that separates your items at the checkout from the others.
• Political speech I'd love to (but probably never will) hear:  "Win or lose, I promise to have all of my campaign signs and posters taken down the day after the election."
• Drudge Report headline:  "People have sex in airports to pass time."  Comment:  Well, you've already got your shoes off . . . .
• Memo to anyone who purchased the "Leave it to Beaver" boxed DVD set:  You either have too much time on your hands or too much money or very questionable taste in pop culture.   (Not my Guilty Pleasure, either.)
• Today's Latin Lesson:  Et vectigalia solvere singulis tractandis justo.  ("Just pay separate postage and handling.")

POPCORN

By Jim Szantor

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

• Little-known biographical fact about me: I was a herpetologist for the CIA.
• They're saying it's looking like "The Year of the Woman" in politics.  In the Catholic Church . . . not so much.   I mean, what's the hurry?  No problems whatsoever with the status quo.  Total transparency and not a scintilla of scandalous or criminal behavior.  So therefore, by all means keep the men in charge.  What could go wrong?  Women can wait a few centuries longer.
• Speaking of politics: Has anyone leading in a political poll ever said, "I don't believe in polls, and the only poll that counts is on Election Day"?  No!  Only the also-rans say that.  If they magically bounce up in the polls, suddenly the refrain is revised.  
• Someone asked me what I thought about Russian oligarchs, and I said:  "If they're endangered,  they should be protected, and poachers should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law!"
• When in doubt, attritute any impressive-sounding quotation you just uttered to Benjamin Franklin, George Bernard Shaw or H.L. Mencken.  (In a pinch, you could also use Will Rogers or Sir Winston Churchill.)
• I think our new neighbor has a giant inferiority complex.  She subscribes to Mediocre Homes and Gardens.
• Sight never seen:  A white bellhop in an old black-and-white movie.  (Jerry Lewis doesn't count!)
• "They say the universe is expanding. That should help with the traffic.” Comedian Steven Wright.
• Summer is so almost over that all of the newspaper columnists have already written their annual "Don't let the summer slip away" columns.
• Sudden thought:  I can't remember ever seeing a Starbucks commercial on TV (or heard one on radio).   I guess they're so busy printing money that they don't have the need to do one (or the time to produce one).
• Speaking of Starbucks, they have more "laptop hobos" than McDonald's.  Something tells me these hobos aren't hopping freight trains . . . at least not on a regular basis.    (One possible reason:  No Wi-Fi service in a boxcar!)
• Redundancy Patrol:  "False pretenses,"  "protest against," "final outcome."
• jimjustsaying's Party Ice-Breaker of the Week:  "Say [actual partygoer's name here], did you know that Robert M. Pirsig, author of the best-selling and influential "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values," once wrote technical manuals and ads for the mortuary cosmetics industry?" 
• "A neurosis is a secret you don't know you're keeping."--Critic Kenneth Tynan
• jimjustsaying's Word That Doesn't Exist But Should of the Month:  Tabalongs:   Those plastic mini-barrels or paper packets you find in pill bottles, ostensibly to absorb moisture.  
• Overheard: "In a few weeks my 4-year-old grandson will be starting preschool."
• No, he won't.  He'll be in school, but there's nothing "pre" about it.  He  will be in a room with a teacher, other kids, a blackboard, has to raise his hand to go to the bathroom and won't be able to leave until a bell rings, so that's School, whether it's Totland, the Sorbonne or the Massachusetts of Technology.  The only "pre" part is when he rubs the sleep out of his eyes and wolfs down the Pop-Tart.  Because when he clambers out of the minivan and disappears into that building, he's in School.  The only difference between that place and Harvard is the curriculum.  (Show-and-tell/oral exams.  Finger painting/spreadsheets.  Etc.)
• Do people still hang wallpaper?  Do they still make it?
• People with Ph.D. degrees who list it after their names at all times whether relevant or not are truly odd human beings.  How many of them of the proverbial certain age were basically "professional students" who stayed at school just to avoid the draft?  I'm just emphatically sayin'.  I can play the clarinet, saxophone and flute,, but I don't list "clarinetist-saxophonist-flautist" after my signature.  I held the rank of staff sergeant in the Air Force but don't list Staff Sergeant (Ret.) after my name.  
• And why do we call those people "doctors" anyway, when most people think of that title as that of an M.D.?  Why not Academics?  Yet another quirk of the language.
• jimjustsaying's Top 10 Signs That the Population is Aging More Than We Thought:
• 10.  New fed stimulus plan--Senior Discounts out; Senior Surcharge In!
•   9.  Disney breaking ground on new GeezerLand theme park.
•   8.  Nursing Home Triathlons (1 lap around the lobby, 10 seconds on the exercise bike, 30 minutes in the bathtub)
•  7.  Newest must-have Apple product:  iDefribillators! 
•  6.  Can you say Viagra Gummy Tabs?
•  5.  Playboy's Playmate of the Century:  Betty White
•  4.  Angelina Jolie does a commercial for Depends
•  3.  Folks over 110 eat free at all participating Red Lobsters!  (Void where prohibited.)
•  2.  Coming soon to a mall near you:  Gap For Granny.
•  1.  Your oldest son comes to you on Saturday afternoon and says:  "Dad, can I have the walker tonight?"
• Quote for the ages:  New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet wants this quote he once got included in his obituary.  Baquet was a kid reporter in his hometown of New Orleans when he met up with Edwin "The Silver Zipper" Edwards and asked the Louisiana gubernatorial candidate's reaction to a poll that said he had a healthy lead.  "The only way I lose this election," Edwards told him, "is if I'm caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy."--The Poynter Morning MediaWire
• Speaking of media, here's a memo (to print media, especially):  Just say "bar" or "tavern." "Watering hole" wasn't all that clever to begin with and has been overused to a nauseating extent.  And not that many people order a round of water!  
• Poker has become so popular, young people are even getting into it.  What's next? The Little League World Series of Poker?  ("I'll see your Skittles and raise you three M&M two-packs.")
• jimjustsaying's Word That Doesn't Exist But Should of the Week:  Tacangle: n. The position of one's head while biting into a taco.--"Unexplained Sniglets of the Universe," Rich Hall and Friends.
• Today's Latin Lesson:  It's nostrum parum specialis.  ("It's our little secret!")

POPCORN

By Jim Szantor

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

• I think Stormy could refer to both the porno actress in Donald Trump’s past and the state of his relationship with his wife.
• And now there’s a former Playboy model in the picture.  Somehow I can almost hear Hillary cackling up a storm in the background.
• I can't help myself.  I'm always drawn to the As Seen On TV product sections in any store that has one.  I mean, how can you pass up a Red Copper 5-Minute Chef or the Billy-Bob Instant Smile Comfort Fit Flex Cosmetic Teeth (One Size Fits Most, Comfortable Upper Veneer) or the the Spatty & Spatty Daddy Last Drop Spatula, two piece Set (6" and 12"), as seen on "Shark Tank"?  There's some stuff you simply can't pass up!                        
• I don't care what anyone says:  We didn’t have school massacres every other week when Mister Rogers was alive.
• “It is always a risk to speak to the press: They are likely to report what you say.”--Former Vice President Hubert Humphrey
• Memo to TV weathercasters:  Why do you call rain “a rain event”?  Do I need a ticket? Will refreshments be served?  Are there guest speakers?  
• Headline:  "Google to bring Dead Sea Scrolls to computer screens."  Reaction:  The scrolls will get about a thousandth as many "hits"--if that--as the next celebrity sex scandal.  (Odds of the Scrolls "going viral"?  Not good!)
• jimjustsaying's Lifestyle Tip of the Week:  Never enter a relationship with someone who's just out of (or just going into!) the Federal Witness Protection Program!
• 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?  A blind man 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.
• You can tell you're an old-timer if you sometimes refer to a train as "the iron horse."
• 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! 
• I blindsided my dentist.  I saw her at the grocery store and asked, "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.
• 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 back then?  (“ ‘Gilligan’s What’?  Never heard of it.”)
• 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!
• Every day I pray at least once to the Patron Saint of Comedy--Saint Shecky.  (Hallowed be his name.)
• Recent fortune cookie message:  "A new pair of shoes will do you a world of good!" (Whew!  I'm glad my underwear passed muster!)
• My favorite T-shirt message from the What on Earth catalog:
• "I only do what the voices in my wife's head tell her to tell me to do."
• How come you never see anyone with a pencil behind his ear anymore?
• 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.)
• 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!
• Has anyone ever seen Jennifer Aniston and Gwyneth Paltrow in the same room?
• There are two kinds of stores in America:  Those who hand you your coins and those who slide them down to you in a metal chute. 
• (And clerks who hand you your coins, bills, receipt and coupons in one mishmashed tangled lump should be beaten over the head with one of those This Counter Closed signs!) Whatever happened to counting out change, coins and bill separately?  Do these people enjoy this treatment when they are on the other side of the counter? Do they do this in Japan?
• Did you know that crossword puzzles are not found in Chinese or Japanese publications?  The nature of their languages makes such construction impossible. 
• jimjustsaying's Translation Service:  Trattoria--the code word for "overpriced Italian restaurant."
•  "Give me chastity and continence, but not yet."--St. Augustine
• Today’s Latin Lesson: Fines finium may adicio. ("Restrictions may apply.")

POPCORN

By Jim Szantor

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

• I’m a long way from Hawaii, but I’ve stopped turning on my Lava Lamp in solidarity with the volcano-beleaguered populace.
• All those who thought Rudy Giuliani was this big of a doofus before he hooked up with Donald Trump, raise your hands. 
• I don’t know about you, but hardly a week goes by without my having to order a product online--a product that used to be available in stores but now isn’t.  (“Sorry, we don’t carry that anymore” is an all-too-common refrain . . . and ownership wonders why revenue is down!)
• A friend of mine needed a personal item or two while in Cancun, so he went—where else?--to La Tiendas de Familia Peso. (That's Family Dollar to us gringoes.)
• If I had just escaped from prison and wanted to be totally ignored, the first thing I’d get would be a red flag.  Because this much we know about these horrendous school or workplace massacres:  Warning signs of all sorts (weapons caches, ominous tweets, terroristic boasts, etc.) are roundly ignored.  My long-lasting freedom would be assured with a red flag.
• I hate to bring up Afghanistan, but are we in the 17^th year of the war . . . or in the first year for the 17^th time?  And how many people could find it on a map?
• jimjustsaying’s Party Ice-Breaker of the Week:   “Say [actual partygoer’s name here], did you know that eyes of guppies are normally a silver color, but they turn black when the fish get angry?”
• It has come to this:  Football can’t decide what is or isn’t a catch,  and baseball can’t decide what is or isn’t a proper slide.  You’d think the games originated in 2017!   
• And it seems as if everything in baseball is sponsored these days:  "Here's the Brewers starting lineup, brought to you by Milwaukee-area Chevy dealers." . . .  "Let's set the Brewers Pepsi defense for you." . . . . "This call to the pen is brought to you by . . . ."
• (What's next?   "This between-innings Announcer Bathroom Visit is brought to you by Quilted Northern, the official bathroom tissue of the Milwaukee Brewers . . . .")
• Speaking of the Brewers, it seems like the Polish sausage has dominated the mid-game/between innings “races” so far this season at Miller Park, but keep in mind--there's a lot of sausage yet to be played!
• "The other day I was thinking, ‘I just overthink things.’ And then I thought, ‘Do I, though?’"--Comedian Demetri Martin
• Prediction: Sometime in the coming weeks you're bound to hear some geriatric hippy proclaim that "Woodstock changed the world."
• Really?  Far as I can tell, the day it ended the Soviet Union was still an oppressive communist nation, Third World children were still starving, and Howard Cosell was still an obnoxious, insufferable oaf.  I don't think three days of naked hippies smoking weed and slogging through the mud at Max Yasgur's farm to music they probably couldn't really hear very well changed much of anything
• Why do we say “cold and damp” in the fall/winter and “hot and humid” in summer?  Why the difference in terminology?  Is there an official line of demarcation? After all, we're talking about the same phenomenon--moisture in the atmosphere.  So is it "damp" at 59.9 degrees or lower and "humid" at 60 and above?  Until otherwise notified, I’m going with “hot and damp” this summer--and "cold and humid" next winter!
• My chiropractor alluded the other day to "muscle memory."  Unfortunately for me, I have muscle Alzheimer's!  (That may not bode well for the healing process.)
•  All-overrated club: Angelina Jolie, Joy Behar and Larry David.
• Mark my words, someday "Winnie the Pooh" will be on Broadway.  They've done just about everything else, from "Peter Pan" to "Spiderman."  So it’s just a matter of time.  (And I think former N.J. Gov. Chris Christie would be the leader in the clubhouse to play Eeyore.)
• You're not a celebrity until you've been on the cover of People magazine, been a clue or an answer in the New York Times Sunday Crossword Puzzle or been mentioned in an least one edition of jimjustsaying.com
• Aren't these police funeral "shows of solidarity" getting just a wee bit over the top?  I'm sure the sorrow is as sincere as it gets, but do we need hundreds of law-enforcement personnel saluting for the cameras while the pipes are piping?  The death of a Fond du Lac, Wis., officer saw this play out in funeral/memorial services in not one but two towns!
• The obvious problem: Who's minding the store? That would be officers from nearby towns--personnel not all that familiar with the territory they are temporarily "covering"--leaving several towns shorthanded and inadequately protected!  Wonderful.  And this at a time when most police forces are not at full strength, for whatever reasons (retirements, suspensions, firings . . . .)
• I abhor these tragedies as much as the next guy, I'm strongly against gun ownership, and if I won the lottery, I'd buy a bullet-proof vest for every police officer who needed one.  I'm just put off by these mawkish, gratuitous public displays that put the public at risk. 
• If you look up news accounts of police/firefighter fatalities from decades ago, I doubt you'll find evidence of what we're seeing today.   The deaths were just as tragic, but the aftermath much less grandiose.  (Similarly, did football players of the pre-TV era do end-zone dances when they scored a touchdown?  Once again the media has become part of the event instead of the fly on the wall.)
•  “People who don't make it think their lives would be rosy if they did, and those who do make it are startled to find they still have all their old problems, plus a few new ones, and begin to wonder if they'd be happier if they hadn't made it."--Dick Cavett in "Cavett."
• Mailing lists are like roller coasters--it's far easier to get on one than off of one.
• "If one is neither a lender nor a borrower, as Shakespeare had Polonius advise, one probably cannot buy a house."--Joe Queenan, Wall St. Journal
• Today's Latin Lesson:   Evado meus gramen!  ("Get off my lawn!")