Category: Silliness

Tough Love

This is a NewMexiKen perennial and today is the day.

Dear Abby,

I recently read your column advising grandparents on “tough love” for grandparents to give misbehaving grandchildren, whose own parents let them run wild. I have followed your advice, and enclosed a picture demonstrating my technique when my grandson just won’t behave while I’m babysitting for his parents. They have told me not to spank him, so I just take him for a ride, and he usually calms down afterward.

Sign me,
Tough Love Grandpa

I’ve posted this on 5/7/05 and 5/7/07

So why not 5/7/09?

1. Shouldn’t it be Jesus comma Christ (that is: Jesus, Christ), rather than Jesus Christ (no punctuation)? Christ is a title right, not technically part of his name?

2. Why is “frigging” acceptable and “f***ing” not? Aren’t words just symbols? So in this case isn’t frigging just a symbol for f***king?

3. There’s a sign I’ve seen a couple of times this week:

SLOW
MY DADDY
AND MOMMY
WORKS HERE

Now, understand I mean no disparagement to highway construction workers. That people drive recklessly through construction zones and endanger workers is an obscenity. And the sign is cute with its attempt to copy a young child’s lettering.

But this particular sign is just wrong. “My Daddy and Mommy Works Here.” Plural noun, singular verb. (Gasp!) Furthermore, do you suppose some kid actually has both his/her dad and mom working on the site? Daddies and mommies might both work there, but “My Daddy and Mommy”? Are we into nepotism in road construction? Doubtful.

Here’s what NewMexiKen suggests:

JESUS, CHRIST
SLOW DOWN
YOU FRIGGING ASSHOLE
PARENTS WORK HERE

Power to the Peeps

Welcome to our third annual Peeps Diorama Contest.

We want you to make a diorama of a famous occurrence or scene or concept. It can be a historic, current or future event. It can be a nod to pop culture. It can be an evocation of an idea or abstraction. The one rule is that all the characters in the diorama must be played by Peeps, those marshmallowy chicks and rabbits plaguing checkout lines in every convenience store this season.

Entry Guidelines for the 2009 Peeps Diorama Contest

Thanks to Nora for the link.

Important stuff

I went to a surprise birthday party last night. I was responsible for bringing two essential ingredients — the cake and the suprisee, my good friend Donna.

She was totally surprised. That or she will be accepting an Oscar for best performance come February.

But that’s all trivia. Far more importantly, I was able to pick up three new Facebook friends.

Is Kansas as flat as a pancake?

Two geography professors did the research.

In this report, we apply basic scientific techniques to answer the question “Is Kansas as flat as a pancake?”

While driving across the American Midwest, it is common to hear travelers remark, “This state is as flat as a pancake.” To the authors, this adage seems to qualitatively capture some characteristic of a topographic geodetic survey. This obvious question “how flat is a pancake” spurned our analytical interest, and we set out to find the ‘flatness’ of both a pancake and one particular state: Kansas.

Improbable Research

Answer: Yes.

It’s Larry Craig “Bobblefoot” Day!

Capitalizing on Senator Larry Craig’s restroom bust, a Minnesota minor league baseball team this Sunday is giving away a promotional item celebrating the Republican politician’s arrest last year at the Minneapolis-St.Paul airport. Dubbed a “bobblefoot” (as opposed to a bobblehead doll), the polyresin giveaway depicts an occupied bathroom stall (the inhabitant’s pants and shoes can be seen below the stall’s panels). When the St. Paul Saints’s “bobblefoot” is shaken, one of the spring-loaded feet taps. The keepsake, which will be handed out to the first 2500 fans attending the Saints’s May 25 game against the Fort Worth Cats …

The Smoking Gun

Click on the link for photos of the “booblefoot.”

Warning: Rant Alert!

Checking the ID of 60-year-old individuals before selling them beer seems to be back in vogue around Albuquerque. It’s happened to me twice in the past few days — at a restaurant and at Costco.

Here’s what I had to say about it two years ago:

NewMexiKen had to show ID last night at the Isotopes baseball game to purchase beer. Now I am 61 years old, have four children in their thirties and six granchildren. I was of legal age 40 f***ing years ago. There is no way, much as I might feel young on the inside, that I look like I could be under 21.

What kind of foolishness requires servers and vendors to check the age of every customer? Doesn’t that obvious overkill actually undermine the legitimacy of the liquor laws? (Sort of like “drug free zones” near schools — drugs are illegal but they’re really, really illegal around schools.)

When I was 17 or 19 I would have had no problem getting alcoholic beverages. I’m fairly certain today’s 17 or 19 year olds have little trouble if they really want it. What mis-guided moron thought up the policy of checking the IDs of grandparents?

And it’s just sad when the waitress or cashier says, “You don’t want me to get fired, do you?” Well, of course I don’t want them to get fired. I want them to quit and look for a job where they are enabled to use some common sense.

And you know what galls me the most? I was buying Michelob Ultra in both instances. (Don’t ask.) I mean that stuff is like making love in a canoe.

You know — f**king close to water.

Raising the quality of insults

Taking a lesson from Saint Francis Xavier, born on this date in 1506 (see here), NewMexiKen has decided to raise the level of the insults I hurl, for example, at other drivers. From now on, instead of “Hey, a**hole,” or “m*****f*****,” or some other Deadwood appropriate language, I am simply going to yell:

“It upsets me to know that at the hour of your death you may be ordered out of paradise.”

I’m Reasonably Confident I Would Beat Ken Jennings in These Jeopardy! Categories

Owen Morris says he Would Beat Ken Jennings in These Jeopardy! Categories.

Read his list, then come back and list your winning categories.

NewMexiKen’s list:

  • The Sweeties
  • I-25 exits between Albuquerque and Denver
  • Location of Albuquerque’s Red Light cameras
  • I-25 exits between Albuquerque and Hatch
  • Costco
  • Peeps

NewMexiKen has corresponded with Jeopardy! champion Jennings by the way, and he really deserves to be beaten.

Via Avelino, who has his list at Live From Silver City.

Darth Vader’s Psyche: What Went Wrong?

Anakin Skywalker, the Star Wars character who became Darth Vader, had borderline personality disorder, psychiatrists report.

The news comes not from a galaxy far, far away, but from San Diego, where the American Psychiatric Association (APA) is holding its 160th annual meeting.

Today, experts from the psychiatric department at France’s University Hospital of Toulouse told the APA’s annual meeting that Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader could “clearly” be diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.

WebMD

Borderline? Didn’t he blow up entire planets?