Inspired by the Millcreek School District’s decision to issue miniature baseball bats to its teachers, the Erie School District is now providing lacrosse sticks to its teachers for classroom defense. “We saw what Millcreek did, and we are taking it a step further,” said ESD spokesperson Kate Schellenbach. “Baseball bats are OK, but we feel […]
via Erie School District to Arm Teachers with Lacrosse Sticks — gooferie
The horror.
It seems some deplorable person has absconded with Willard #6, the neighbor’s mooning garden gnome.
A quick recap of the previous Willards:
The first Willard met an untimely demise at the hands of some maniac with a shovel.
Willard #2 was also smashed with a shovel.
Willard #3 was backed over with a car and smashed with a shovel.
Willard #4 was unexpectedly hit with a brick, peed on, and smashed with a shovel.
Willard #5 was pulverized with a sledgehammer and set on fire. (Shovel broke while smashing something.)
Your wondering how I have such intimate knowledge of the tragedies that have befallen the Willards if I had nothing to with it–you ask to many questions.
I don’t even own a sledgehammer. (Apart from that delightful Peter Gabriel song from the 80’s.)
After comfortably adorning the neighbor’s lawn for consecutive summers without incident, it seemed Willard #6 was safe from any acts of malfeasance. But sometimes a neighbor will get a bit too cocky and then unfortunate things happen. Not in this case–but sometimes.
There are some who credit the motion activated lighting and camera the neighbor had installed in his yard for the lack of incidents over the previous two summers. Utter nonsense, whoever disabled the camera before they took Willard #6 could have done so two years ago.
Any number of things could have happened to Willard #6.
He may be decorating the lawn of a thief. He may now be in the possession of some rapscallion children. Maybe he’s being held for future ransom. Perhaps he’s sprung to life and just wandered off.
It’s entirely possible he’s resting at the bottom of Lake Erie because his loudmouthed owner can’t keep his opinions to himself…but I’m just guessing.
If you see this mooning garden gnome somewhere, just keep it to yourself.
My apologies to David Letterman.
I stumbled upon this post, one of the very first of this blog, from many years ago. Do you remember when the world was supposed to end?
In my previous post, I detailed my displeasure with the fact that the world didn’t come a cataclysmic end on December 21st. Not only did nothing cool happen, but even worse, I was forced to finish my Christmas shopping.
I’ve discovered after doing some exhaustive research (Google) there were a myriad of things the Mayans got wrong.
Top Ten Other Things The Mayans Got Wrong
10) Caddyshack 2 will be just as funny as Caddyshack.
9) A man named Isaac Newton will be resting under an apple tree when an apple will fall on his head. He will become so irate that he invents a machine that will be used to systematically destroy all apple trees, ridding the land of the scourge of falling apples.
8) Queen Anne is so taken with Newton’s apple tree destroying prowess, she has him knighted. Although a great honor, he is hampered by the fact that he can now only move two spaces forward and one space over on a chess board.
7) The common folk of 18th century England become so enraged that they can no longer obtain apples, they form a mob and throw Sir Isaac Newton over a cliff. On the way down he has a fleeting thought about something called gravity. Alas, it perishes with him.
6) Without the foundation of Newtonian physics to expand upon, Albert Einstein never leaves his job as a patent clerk. He does however patent the Sham-wow and he becomes filthy rich.
5) In the early 20th century a majestic ship called the Titanic is built, it traverses the seas for centuries. However, the movie Titanic, about a ship where nothing ever goes wrong, completely flops.
Note: The Mayans also go on and on about Siskel but say nothing at all about Ebert. Two thumbs down Mayans.
4) A man named J.R.R. Tolkien will write a few simple stories about some hobbits; nothing much will come of them.
3) A mighty force called the Cleveland Browns will arise. They will win many championships called Super Bowls. At about the same time, there will be a record cold snap in Hell.
2) The shoreline in a place called New Jersey, will become the epicenter for culture and wisdom in the western world. This will happen in the early 21st century and be a clear sign that the end is near.
1) Those Spaniards seem like nice fellows; nothing bad could ever come of our relationship with them.
Mighty warriors of the 21st century.
“Excellent!”
The following happened while I was employed as a quality control inspector at a steel coating plant outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
It was about 6:15 AM as I crossed the plant floor toward the offices. The lights weren’t turned on yet, and though the sun was rising outside, the interior of the building was still a dark tangle of shadows.
In the distance I could see a short stumpy figure climbing the ladder to where the cranes and catwalks are.
I wondered why Jim, the crane operator, would be climbing into the crane so early, and thought it peculiar that he was doing it in the dark. As I looked more closely, I realized that it wasn’t Jim at all; it was the biggest raccoon I had ever seen. (Yes, I mistook a huge raccoon for Jim, if you had ever met Jim, you would understand.) The raccoon then disappeared into the darkness of the rafters and catwalks.
“I’ve seen that raccoon,” Ken, one of the private inspectors, told me. “It comes up from the Ohio River at daybreak and just disappears into the building somewhere.”
Suddenly Rick the foreman, who was sitting at his desk, jumped up, twirled around, and yelled at us, “they ain’t clean.”
“What?” Ken said slightly startled.
“People think that raccoons are clean, but they ain’t clean. People think that raccoons are clean because they wash their food. They wash their food because they ain’t got no saliva; they don’t wash their food because they’re clean.” He stood glaring at us in silence for a moment before punctuating his tirade: “They ain’t clean!”
“Well..” was all that Ken got out.
“And they ain’t smart. People think they’re smart because they’ve got little people hands, but they ain’t smart. They ain’t clean and they ain’t smart.” He then stormed from the office as if he had been horribly offended.
Ken and I stood in a state of bewildered silence. Although neither of us said anything, we knew what each other was thinking: what the hell?
After a few moments, Ken broke the silence,”Wow, Rick really !#@$%# hates raccoons.”
We speculated about what frightful trauma must have occurred to instill such a level of hatred for a furry animal. Maybe as a small child he was attacked by a racoon. Maybe as a teen, a pack of racoon toughs bullied and taunted him. Maybe they knocked the books from his hands as he awkwardly made his way through the school hallway. (Rick had the physical presence of Ichabod Crane, without the grace.)
This is what I think happened: it was prom night, the night Rick had dreamed of since he was a little boy. He had his tuxedo. He had the corsage that he would tenderly pin to her gown. It was his night to shine.
She was a little late, but that’s fashionable right? He paced impatiently as the minutes stretched into hours. Periodically he’d stop to check his watch as he would mumble under his breath, “she’ll be here any minute now.”
“Don’t ask a raccoon to the prom,” his friends had advised. “They’d rather scavenge through garbage cans than slow dance to Bryan Adams songs.”
But Rick was infatuated.
The night came and went without a word from her. Rick’s never gotten past the heartbreak and devastation. Now he has an irrational hatred of all raccoons.
The source of Rick’s heartbreak.
Sydney, Australia: a lovely sister city.
North East, Pennsylvania–The residents of the small village of North East, Pennsylvania received a dose of bad news upon discovering their sister city wasn’t what they believed it to be.
The village was ecstatic when it received a sister city request from Sydney, Australia. “We couldn’t believe our good fortune,” the mayor of North East said.
Upon traveling to Australia to accept the sister city request, officials from North East (the mayor and his life partner Bruce) discovered the request came not from the city of Sydney but from a guy named Sydney who lives in a shack at the bottom of a pit in the desert.
“The disappointment is bitter,” Bruce said of the development, “Sydney, Australia is a metropolis with renown architecture and a thriving art world; Sydney from Australia is a filthy foul-mouthed little man who lives in a pit and scratches his testicles far more than should be necessary.”
“I have genital chiggers,” Sydney explained, “they bite.”
The mayor and Bruce gave Sydney a case of the world-famous Welch’s grape jelly, produced right in North East from local concord grapes.
Sydney reciprocated with a half-full can of Foster’s beer that he poured back into the can from the dog bowl.
“Everything in Sydney’s shack is sticky,” the mayor commented, “absolutely everything.”
While Bruce has returned home from the disastrous trip, the mayor remains in Australia recovering from bites from a highly poisonous eastern brown snake and three types of poisonous spiders.
Sydney keeps poisonous spiders as pets; the snake was just bad luck.
“A kangaroo kicked me in the nuts,” Bruce said upon his return, “it was the best part of the trip.”
Even the cows think you’re an idiot.
Never had greater words of wisdom passed over human lips: Don’t pee on the electric fence.
Well, maybe not great words of wisdom, but to a bunch of young boys about to go ramming through a cow pasture on their way to the woods, they seemed like great words of wisdom. After all, he was an old guy, and old guys know stuff.
Of course, to a group of young rapscallions, this was practically a dare to pee on the electric fence.
Note: As it turned out, far more useful words of wisdom would have been: don’t pee close enough to the electric fence that your friends can shove you into it. Don’t trust your friends: another solid piece of advice.
They may not be words that hold the eloquence of the Gettysburg Address or the weight of Churchill’s address to a joint session of Congress upon the United States entrance into the war, but if you had ever been shoved penis first into an electric fence, you would appreciate their significance.
He also told us not to eat any mushrooms growing on cow crap. He was evidently unconcerned with the myriad of poisonous mushrooms growing everywhere else.
The point is: a few short words of wisdom can save a young man from a lot of misery. Words of wisdom such as:
Don’t eat these mushrooms. Leave the cow crap alone too.
Wouldn’t the world be a better, more navigable place, if people’s names reflected their personality traits and true characters?
Imagine if the highway patrolman could read the name on the driver’s license of that attractive young woman who’s trying to flirt her way out of the ticket, and say, “I’d like to let you go without a citation Miss…Manipulative Little Tramp, but I don’t think I can do that today.”
If Phil, that wonderful guy you just met, who you are convinced will be the perfect husband, had the full name of Philandering Piece Of Crap, wouldn’t heartache be avoided?
If that cute girl who moved into your apartment building had been named Crazy Potential Stalker, none of those restraining orders would have been necessary, and that deadbolt wouldn’t have had to be replaced. (She was 110 pounds of muscle and crazy.)
If Jeffrey Dahmer had been named more appropriately, perhaps fewer young men would’ve fallen prey to his wiles. People tend to not let their guard down around you when your name is Homicidal Flesh-Eating Weirdo.
If some of my aunts bore names like Insidious Hag, Conniving Bridge Troll, or anything with the words wicked or odiferous in them, perhaps I would have made fewer snarky comments about their chunky thighs or their dull-witted offspring…probably not, but perhaps.
Note: it has been brought to my attention that my uncle, Two-Faced Lying Rat-Bastard, is furious with some of the things I have written in this blog. In particular, he is unhappy with my implications that some of my aunts are witches or monsters. As an olive branch, from this point forward, I will no longer imply that some of my aunts are witches or monsters; I will use only declarative statements. I’m happy we could work this out.
If Adolph Hitler had been called Genocidal Maniac, the world may have been slightly more wary during his ascent to power.
Ditto Mao Tse-tung.
Ditto Joseph Stalin.
Ditto Milton Obote.
Ditto Idi Amin.
It’s reported Idi Amin liked to be called:
His Excellency, President For Life Field Marshall Al HADJ Doctor Idi Amin DADA, VC, DSO, MC. Lord Of All The Beasts Of The Earth And Fishes Of The Sea And Conqueror Of The British Empire In Africa In General, And Uganda In Particular.
He should have been called Gigantic Arrogant Penis, or under my naming system: Piers Morgan.
A few examples of people renamed under my system:
Annoying Chick Who’s Frequently Naked in concert.
The list could go on and on, and it may in a future post.
Until next time,
Guy Who Gets Pepper-Sprayed Far Too Frequently For It To Be Reasonable.
As this is the first day of Spring, this post is devoted to my favorite springs.
Spring Theory
This is much like String Theory, a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings.
In Spring Theory, the universe isn’t made of strings, but of tiny little Slinkys.
The Slinky
There was nothing better than getting that classic childhood toy on Christmas morning.
You would rush to the top of the stairs and send it marching down the steps in that classic Slinky way. And as if by magic, that Slinky would transform into a ball of entangled metal by the time it reached the bottom of the stairs. That Slinky would provide seconds and sometimes minutes of joyful playtime.
Good times…and the building blocks of the universe.
The Springtail
The springtail are omnivorous, free-living organisms that prefer moist conditions. Doesn’t that describe us all?
Isn’t it just adorable?
Coffee Springs, Alabama
Coffee Springs is a tiny town in Alabama where, I’m guessing, coffee literally springs up through the ground–how fantastic is that?
Coffee Springs has a population of 228 people who are constantly buzzed on caffeine. The people of Coffee Springs have a hard time sleeping but they get a lot done.
Jerry Springer
Are you feeling badly about yourself? Do you feel like loser or an outcast? Just watch a handful of episodes of The Jerry Springer Show and you will understand what damaged humans really look like.
Unless you’ve been cheating on your paint huffing alcoholic cousin with your other cousin (who dresses like vampire and drinks blood) while raising a child who was fathered by a third unknown party, but if the child’s behavior and appearance are indicators, could very well be a Malaysian yak, you’re probably good.
The propensity to fly into a rage, curse like a sailor, and pepper your speech with double negatives: all helpful traits for appearing on The Jerry Springer Show.
Addendum
Some of my assertions about Coffee Springs, Alabama may not be entirely, by the strictest definition of word, accurate.
But Spring Theory is real.
We’ll show you happy feet.
The zoo is place of learning, a place of discovery, a place to take in the breadth and width of God’s creation. It’s a place where every ten steps you stop and check the bottom of your child’s shoe to ensure that revolting smell isn’t something he’s stepped in.
At these zoos, zoologists separate animals into several basic categories:
So the next you go to the zoo, print-out this list and take it with you. Quote from it generously. I guarantee that everyone around you will stare in wide-eyed wonder at the depth of your knowledge.
Note: It’s not until you get home that you discover that revolting smell is your child.
The axolotl, because I know you think I made that name up.
I may have been Napoleon in a previous life.
I’ve noticed when people talk about reincarnation or previous lives, they’ve always been someone famous or influential or important. They’ve always been Napoleon or George Washington or the guy who invented the ShamWow.
Why is it that no one has ever been a banana slug or Igor the twelfth century serf who mucked out stables, and was crushed by a runaway manure cart?
After much deliberation I’ve come up with my top ten previous lives:
TEN
Big stupid dinosaur–Jurassic Period.
NINE
Small clever dinosaur, eaten by a big stupid dinosaur–Jurassic Period.
EIGHT
Big stupid dodo bird that jumped from a cliff in a fruitless attempt to fly–whenever the hell we lived.
Look at those tiny ineffectual wings, no wonder we’re extinct.
SEVEN
Mayan who first met Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba, and thought to himself: these Spaniards seem nice, I’ll introduce them to my people, nothing bad could come from that–sixteenth century, near the time of the fall of the Mayan Empire.
SIX
Wendall Newton, Sir Isaac Newton’s stupid cousin who laughed when the apple fell on Isaac’s head. Later he ate the apple and choked, it had a worm in it–seventeenth century.
FIVE
Pierre, Marie Antoinette’s advisor and later headless corpse. He advised her: just tell them to eat cake–eighteenth century.
FOUR
Adolph Hitler, but not the infamous one; just a poor lad born at the wrong time in Germany with a very unfortunate name–early twentieth century.
THREE
Raccoon who was shot, but later gained fame as Fess Parker’s hat–mid twentieth century.
TWO
Big stupid tuna fish caught in a net. Later became part of a casserole that Edwina Fornwaller took to a pot-luck dinner. It was dry and not well received–late twentieth century.
ONE
Bigfoot. Spent time lurking just out of sight, and being captured in grainy indistinguishable photographs–whenever.
Here I am on Fess Parker’s head. Don’t I look awesome?
idiotpruf 