When the major claim to fame of your local school board is burning books, you have a self-righteous-moralistic-toad problem. In 1973, a 26-year-old English teacher at Drake High School in Drake, North Dakota, gave his sophomore students a reading assignment — Kurt Vonnegut’s 1969 novel Slaughter-House Five. Slaughter-House Five is an admittedly odd duck. It [...]
Archive for the ‘Miscellanea’ Category
Into the Coal Burner
Posted in Miscellanea, tagged Books, Opinion, People, School, Society on April 10, 2012 | 3 Comments »
Make It Cry
Posted in Miscellanea, tagged Food, Humor, Miscellaneous, Society on February 7, 2012 | 2 Comments »
Diner slang, the colorful lingo used by cooks and waitresses to communicate orders, dates back to the mid-1800s. You would expect cultures everywhere to dream up clever ways to describe food orders — to say “pin a rose on it” instead of “add a slice of onion.” But no, diner slang is strictly an American [...]
Life on the Treadmill
Posted in Miscellanea, tagged Animals, Life, Nature on January 3, 2012 | 4 Comments »
Being retired, I am free to range far and wide at leisure, often on errands of little importance. I’ve been known to drive 20 miles merely to drop off my recycling, eat lunch, and purchase dog treats. My life of indolence is well-earned, mind you. I paid my dues — all those years as a [...]
The Odd Gecko
Posted in Miscellanea, tagged Life, Memories, Musings on October 8, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Back in 2007, I was shopping for a piece of southwestern furniture. Specifically, a small side cabinet. Southwestern furniture is an alien commodity in my part of the country, so I went online. Before long, I found a promising website — a furniture manufacturer in El Paso. The prices were good, and the designs were [...]
From Aardvark to Zamboni
Posted in Miscellanea, tagged Humor, Miscellaneous, Opinion on July 25, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
As I pointed out in recent posts about funny people names and funny place names, some words are inherent knee-slappers. Having done people and places, I now drop the third shoe – things. Here is a highly subjective list of words that strike me as amusing, some because they sound funny, others because of the [...]
From Abbottabad to Zimbabwe
Posted in Miscellanea, tagged Humor, Miscellaneous, Opinion on July 10, 2011 | 1 Comment »
According to students of comedy, the funniest sounds in the English language are the plosive consonants. I’d never heard of a plosive, either, so I looked it up. Plosives are sounds that start suddenly with a burst of air — the letters b, d, g, k, and p. In the play The Sunshine Boys, one [...]
Dr. Marie et al
Posted in Miscellanea, tagged Humor, Miscellaneous, People on June 22, 2011 | 2 Comments »
I’m Sorry, I haven’t a Clue is one of those daffy game shows on BBC Radio in which witty panelists play word games before a live audience. One game they play on the show is Straight Face. In it, the panelists, one at a time, are given a word to say out loud. If anyone [...]
Vain Words of Empty Tongue
Posted in Miscellanea, tagged Humor, Miscellaneous on May 18, 2011 | 2 Comments »
A few years ago, when my retirement was looming, but not yet announced, I cracked open a fortune cookie and found this message: I’m not one to pay attention to fortune cookie messages and other omens, but this one certainly gave me a feeling of satisfaction. The slip of paper immediately went up on the [...]
Out of Oredr
Posted in Miscellanea, tagged Humor, Miscellaneous, Society on May 14, 2011 | 3 Comments »
I present herewith a special selection of spelling and grammar errors I discovered locally — in Jefferson and other places I frequent on my daily rounds. I certify that all photos were personally taken by me. No image-Googling was involved in the preparation of this post.
The Importance of Proofreading, Patr 3
Posted in Miscellanea, tagged Humor, Miscellaneous on April 28, 2011 | 1 Comment »
One last batch of entertaining typos — entertaining because they were made by someone else…
