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Welcome to Javalinaville

04 June 2024 • by Bob • Arizona, Humor

Javalinas are a nuisance in my neighborhood because they knock over people's trash bins and scatter garbage through the streets, and this is especially true when people wheel their cans out to the curb a tad bit early (as I often do). After a recent peccary rampage through our residential rubbish, one of my neighbors quipped "Welcome to Javalinaville," which served as the impetus for the following parody that is sung to the tune of Jimmy Buffet's "Margaritaville."

Dogs Versus Cats, The Sequel

17 May 2024 • by Bob • Humor, Dogs

Several years ago I wrote a blog titled "Dogs Versus Cats" in which I described my preference for canine species versus feline species. When a friend recently shared the Newsweek article titled "Map Shows States Where Dogs Are More Popular Than Cats,"^[1] I learned that I am not alone in my preference, albeit within certain geographical regions.

However, what was interesting about the Newsweek article was the distribution of pet preferences when compared to political leanings, which reminds me of a story from my college days.

I had a professor who was a little younger than most of the students in her class, and she was the sole Liberal in a classroom full of Conservatives. One day during a break, the topic of discussion between the other students and me was dogs. The professor walked over to our group and asked what we were talking about, and just for fun I said, "We're talking about dogs, but you wouldn't understand because you have a cat." I had a 50/50 chance of guessing correctly, but it obviously resonated with her because she asked, "How did you know that I have a cat?" Without missing a beat I said, "Because you're a Liberal, and everybody knows that all Liberals have cats and all Conservatives have dogs." She looked shocked and asked the other students if that was true, and they thankfully jumped on board with my deception and agreed with my fabrication.

What was great about this deceit, however, was that it didn't end there. A few days later my classmates and I were discussing the latest release of a software title for the PC, and as the professor walked up to our group she asked what we were talking about. I replied, "We're talking about a new software program, but you wouldn't understand because you own a Macintosh." Once again I had a 50/50 chance of being right, but that joke also hit its mark because she asked, "How did you know that I own a Mac?," to which I responded, "Because all Liberals use Macs and all Conservatives use PCs." That statement isn't remotely true, but nevertheless my classmates backed my story and our poor professor wandered off once again with a seriously warped view of reality.

I don't know if she ever figured out that we were just playing around, but I still got an "A" in the class.

FOOTNOTES

1. Giving credit where it's due, the Newsweek article uses maps and data from an article by Zippia titled "Dog States vs Cat States: States with the Most Dogs."

The Weekend Safety Brief

15 May 2024 • by Bob • Military, Humor

Throughout my eight-year tenure in the military, the "Weekend Safety Brief" was a common feature during each Friday's close of business formation, which took place before soldiers were dismissed for the weekend. Despite every attempt to be unique, I realized as I heard the disparate words from dozens of commanders, they usually said pretty much the same thing: "don't do something stupid and stay out of trouble."

With that in mind, the following summary briefing evolved over the years, which seemed to say everything that needed to be said:

"Don't add to the population.
Don't subtract from the population.
Don't do anything that will get you on the news or in jail.
If you end up on the news, own that sh** so you'll be talked about for years to come.
If you end up in jail, establish dominance quickly."

When The Tables Have Turned

15 April 2024 • by Bob • Parenting, Humor

I cannot overstate the accuracy of this image from Peter Conrad Comics...

(H/T Scott Hanselman)

Seasoned Stories of Sailing Ships and Swirling Seas

07 February 2024 • by Bob • Humor

As he boarded his venerable longship, the mighty Viking warrior, Rudolph the Red, readied his sturdy craft to sail the turbulent waters of the North Sea. Once again, the fierce leader and his men would reign terror over the poor, unsuspecting villagers of the British Isles as the Vikings pillaged their way through farms and fields of Scotland and England.

As the crew completed their final preparations for the perilous voyage, the rugged chieftain leaned over the bulwark of his vessel to kiss his wife goodbye, and he said to her, "Tomorrow, we shall be victorious in battle. But today, we sail forth into a storm."

As she cast her gaze toward the sun as it slowly rose above a clear horizon, she asked her husband, "How can you be so sure?"

"Because," he replied, "Rudolph the Red knows rain, dear."

POSTSCRIPT:

I will admit that I saw the punch line from this brief bit of humor several years ago, and I chuckled when I read it. However, I couldn't find the source of the original pun, so I decided to write my own story, albeit with some AI-generated artwork. This illustration of Rudolph the Red was generated by the application at http://bing.com/images/create, where I asked it to create "a 3d image of a viking with red hair on a ship that is sailing through the rain." I think the image fit my story rather well.

What You Least Expect

12 January 2024 • by Bob • Humor

No one expects the Muppet Inquisition! Amongst their weaponry are such elements as surprise, farce, ruthless puerility, and an almost fanatical devotion to Jim Henson!

Power Tip for Remote Workers

14 December 2023 • by Bob • Humor, Work

Always remember to double-check that your microphone is muted before you start brushing your teeth during a meeting.

Cursing by Keyboard in the Early Morning

20 July 2023 • by Bob • Poetry, Humor

If, like me, you were ever forced to read Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," here is my 21st-century homage to his most-famous work:

POSTSCRIPT:

While I admire Frost's usage of iambic tetrameter throughout this poem, I thoroughly dislike the rhyming scheme that he employed. Nevertheless, my trifle of a poetic offering is more or less a form of parody, so I tried my best to stay true to Frost's pattern.

When in Rome

27 April 2023 • by Bob • Humor, Travel, Marriage

Let me tell you a funny story that I heard about the train station in Rome:

Once upon a time, there were two travelers in the Roma Termini who were on their way back from a long day in Pompeii, and they were changing from the cross-country trains to the metro. They had passed through that same station earlier that day, and one of the travelers noticed that the path they took through the station seemed unnecessarily long. However, he also noticed that there was another path they could take through the station, which seemed as though it would reduce their walking distance by hundreds of meters. When this first traveler suggested that they take a different route through the station, the second traveler said she didn't want to take the risk that an alternate path might take them too far out of their way. The first traveler said that he was 99% sure that his suggested route was shorter, but he couldn't guarantee his suggestion with 100% certainty, so the second traveler wouldn't yield.

Unbeknownst to the first traveler, the second traveler had an ulterior motive for her unwavering skepticism: they had been traveling all day in the hot sun, and she needed to use the little traveler's room, so she didn't want to waste a bunch of time wandering through a train station if the first traveler was mistaken. However, the second traveler didn't say that she needed to use the little traveler's room, so the second traveler seemed to the first traveler like she was being overly difficult for no discernible reason, while the first traveler probably seemed to the second traveler like he was being an insensitive schmuck.

With a not-so-subtle tone of exasperation, the second traveler told the first traveler something like, "You can do whatever you want, but I'm going to follow the route that we used earlier." The first traveler took the second traveler's statement as a challenge, so he left to pursue his shorter path through the station - which worked out exactly as he had expected - and because he was also more than a little exasperated with the second traveler, he boarded the metro without the second traveler.

The first traveler pouted all the way back to his hotel, where he arrived around a half hour before the second traveler. However, the reason why the second traveler arrived later wasn't because she needed to use the little traveler's room; she boarded a different metro car because she had the first traveler's metro pass, and she spent that half hour unsuccessfully searching the metro station in a desperate attempt to find the first traveler, which delayed her departure. However, unbeknownst to the second traveler, the first traveler had put aside his sulking long enough to buy a one-way ticket on the metro to get back to their hotel.

The moral of this little tale? Don't be so secretive when you need something, and don't act like an insensitive schmuck when your traveling companion doesn't agree with you.

Nothing in that story has anything to do with my wife's and my recent journey to Rome, of course. We always made it safely back to our hotel. Perhaps we arrived together. Perhaps we didn't. Perhaps one of us arrived a half-hour after the other, but that doesn't mean anything, does it?

The Joys [sic] of Aging

25 April 2023 • by Bob • Humor

I often tell people that I could have cut an arm off in my childhood and a new one would have grown back without so much as a scratch.

These days I cut myself shaving and think, "Wow - that's gonna leave a mark..."

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