Small & Big

Peaceful Warrior was great! Thought provoking and all that. I got free tickets and you can get them too, but only for shows happening this weekend. More info at: Win free movie tickets .

It has been suggested by those close to me that, in everyday conversation, I overuse the word crap . "Puke-green is a crappy color. My under-700-square-foot crappy house. My drawing got crapped up. Poison ivy is the crappiest. My day got crapivated. These crappy socks have a hole. There's a crappy hole in my socks. There's a crappy hole in my crappy socks, crap!" Is it my fault that "crap" is so pleasurable to say, so evocative? There's the initial crack of a "k" sound, a short open mouthed vowel, and the kind of emotional finish that comes only from spitting out a "p". Other people must think so too because the word crappa goes back to Middle Latin, spoken in Medieval times. That's some noble pedigree. Sir Thomas Crapper, the person who commonly gets credit for inventing the word, marketed an English toilet under his name in 1861 because he wanted in on the crapwagon. (See also: www.theplumber.com and What's in a word? ) Yu...

I lied. You can't win them because these tickets are being given away free to anyone who wants 'em. Live in the present moment and download your free tickets for the movie Peaceful Warrior at www.peacefulwarriormovie.net/freewarrior or stop by a Best Buy store ( website ). You can get up to 10 passes for a opening weekend, happening March 30 through April 1, 2007. Peaceful Warrior is based on Dan Millman's book Way of the Peaceful Warrior . The story centers on Dan, an Olympic Gold Medalist, who serendipitously meets an old gas station attendant, played by Nick Nolte, who helps him answer the question of how to be happy living in the moment. By the by, if you're interested in the meditation/now thing, a true seated theater-meditation is to be had at Into Great Silence ( website ). The movie's about Carthusian monks, considered one of the world’s most ascetic monasteries. It's a non-moving movie on the physical level but it very much moves on the inner. P.S. ...

No time to write anything today, but here are links to the most popular thingies I've posted thus far. Enjoy! 18 Reasons Not To Go To Work Today – You get 19 reasons for the price of 18 Writing Humor One Edit At A Time – How do I do it? Separated At Birth? Stephen Colbert And My Cat – Har har! How My Cat Is Unlike Stephen Colbert – Har-dee-har har! What's Under The Hood – Warning, contains a medical term for human anatomy, which is why it's so popular, I suppose Ponderous Chapped Lips – You wouldn't believe how many people Google "underarm licking", which isn't really central to the story Wishing you a wonderful day. Or night. Heck, I hope both are glorious for you!

At 1:30 p.m. a big juicy blueberry plops into the yellow cotton sofa pillow and pops. Purple berry goo smears round until the thirsty fabric sponge sucks it up like a health shake, leaving a burp of a stain behind. A perfectly delicious blueberry lost and an annoying stain gained. Cussing is of no help. Blinking, I see that the stain has smeared into the top hat profile of a real gentleman. Tidy beard, formal jacket, and everything. No matter which way I turn the pillow I can't help looking at this high class work of art. His dapper golden eye glares down at me even when I put the pillow on the floor. High art or not, he besmirches a cozy pillow. His refined upturned nose points away whilst I politely dab his purple face with a myriad of cleaning products, none to his taste. Despite the indignity he's holding up well. Too well. Sunbeams invitingly caress the pillow, warming it to a yellow-mellow. As lightness thaws his formality it dawns on me that we live together now. He'...

The next assignment in my quest to become a more competent, compelling, and kooky humor writer as mentioned in I Can Learn To Be Funny? is to decide who’s my most favoritest humorist and then snag 25 quotes. After much deliberation between Phyllis Diller and Dave Barry, I chose the latter. Not because Ms. Diller is any less funny, but because she’s all about the perfect one-sentence joke. My style is more about telling a story. Let me rephrase that: writing a story. I can’t even talk to myself in the mirror, let alone to a crowd of humans. So I’m going with Writer Dave’s work. “But what about Mark Twain,” you ask. “His quotations have comprised most of your lists up to this point. Wasn’t he the consummate humor writer?” Beloved reader, you have been reading my posts! Now I know for sure that I have two readers, including myself. To answer your insightful question: Yes, but our beloved Twain is dead. The fact that Mr. Barry and I live at the same time (and in the same country) makes h...

Rivlets of what look to be stale coffee spill down the refrigerator door, long ago transformed into rust. Bumpy layers of paint slopped on to cover the mess have rusted through too, if that's possible. The once white refrigerator I inherited with the house bravely soldiers on, refusing to be stood out behind the barn with a cigarette in its mouth and shot. The freezer door up top squeaks when I open it. The backdraft odor is a stale pent-up Ice Age—pork chops, popsicles, and lasagna from the ancient summer of 1983. Glacial ice sheets have expanded another quarter-inch toward the yellow garden corn. If I was wee small and lived in there I'd be concerned. I pitch a softball sized clump of bagged green peas into the ice hole. It hits the rear of the freezer with a satisfying bullseye thump and I slam the door shut. "Clunk, clunk, clunk." The freezer has learned a word. Or a cough. The broken sound enthusiastically turns into a death rattle and, because I'm so empathe...

Okay, what I realized from this exercise is that I don't know the difference between a joke and a quote. So here are 25 favorite quotes. Or jokes. SEX I believe in making the world safe for our children, but not our children's children, because I don't think children should be having sex. — Jack Handy Bisexuality immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night. —Woody Allen (b. 1935) DEATH When you die, if you get a choice between going to regular heaven or pie heaven, choose pie heaven. It might be a trick, but if it's not, mmmmmmmm, boy. —Jack Handy LAUGHTER I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out of my nose. —Woody Allen (b.1935) CYNICISM A cynic is just a man who found out when he was about ten that there wasn't any Santa Claus, and he's still upset. —James Gould Cozzens (1903-1978) GOSSIP Gossip is just news running ahead of itself in a red satin dress. —Liz Smith Gossip, n.: Hearing something you like about someone y...

Over the course of this afternoon gravity has cajoled, lured, then tugged billions of snowflakes down from a solid gray sky. Instead of appreciating the strength of this attraction I find myself remembering the advice a high school English teacher once gave me, back in the 1980s. During class there was the Robert Frost poem, then Jack London's short story, To Build a Fire , about a man, a dog, and their ill-fated stroll over the Klondike tundra at -50°F. “You’re stranded in the frigid, freezing wilderness,” the teacher asked the entire class, “and to survive, you’ve got a choice between eating snow and drinking cold running water from a stream. Which do you choose?” Silence. “Running water. Always drink the water. Melting snow into water causes your body to burn extra calories to do it. Water, even freezing cold water, takes less energy for your body to process. In the freezing cold, you’ll survive longer on water than on snow.”...

Phew! Twenty-five jokes have been posted since this exercise was first announced in I Can Learn To Be Funny? Am I funnier yet? I dunno. But my brain does feel more creative than usual, and in a joyful way. I'm gaining a greater appreciation for well worded phrases, even those that aren't humorous. Here are the jokes on display; all sorted, labled, and numbered for you. (Although in terms of how much I prefer each joke the numbers mean nothing, zip, zilch.) Admission is free. Clicking to each joke below also includes all sorts of commentary by moi—so if you don't want that, go no further. Warning: Enjoy! 1) Blood types and aging — by Phyllis Diller 2) NASA and the race for scientific advancement — by Anonymous 3) Button holes, losing — by Steven Wright 4) Vacuums vs. lawn mowers — by Roseanne Barr 5) Birthdays are good for you — by Anonymous 6) Sears Tower, falling, dummies — Jack Handy 7) Complaining — Woody Allen 8) Muggers and c...

I base most of my fashion taste on what doesn't itch. —Gilda Radner ( Wikipedia ) I concur. What's nice about this joke is the word itch . Complaints about clothes usually go from the bruised feet, bunions, and corns to the expensive price tags to the transatory styles. I don't expect the line to end with itching. Oddly, itching and scratching have never been fashionable. In some circles expensive price tags and temporary trends are sought after, but bunions and corns? Hmmm, that gives me an idea. Fashion designers: After Earth's population perfects their "beautiful" look with plastic surgery, ugly will be super In . Make a name for yourself right now by breaking away from the fashion pack. Embrace what you help create! Turn hammer toes into glamor toes! Stick a bowtie on a bunion! Adorn a corn! Click here for more info about this joke collection thing.

Mr. Coffee goes bad. Real bad. This mugshot shows he got himself into some hot water. His crime? All I can legally repeat is that it involves coffee, coffee, a mug collection with one too many Christmas motifs, and coffee. Notice that the martini olive has been cruelly stabbed. I didn't have time to break the wine bottle and turn it into a weapon so I just put a crack in it. Mr. Coffee's prisoner number translates as "coffee" (c=3, o=15, f=6, etc.) because "coffee cartel" takes too many numbers. This is my drawing for the Illustration Friday ( IF website ) assignment, this time to illustrate "Wired". Click it for a bigger version.

There are 24 hours in a day. This is one of those truisms you learn when you’re eight, like “You put your tongue on that frozen pipe there’s gonna be trouble,” and “You eat that entire bowl of cashews there’s gonna be trouble.” Time differs from salty nuts and metal pipes. It’s less digestible, less huggable. Is that why something odd happens to the natural order of 24–hour days? Let's recap. Hours were first detected thousands of years ago by antique Egyptian scientists. On a sunny morning in 3,500 BCE they invented paper, pyramids, mummies, sand, and—according to select historical records—alien spaceships. After a leisurely siesta the Egyptians rounded up 24 tidy chunks, nicknamed them hours and called it a day. Ancient Egyptian executives later expanded the 24–hour system into the vertical marketplace: sundials, clocks, watches, Playgirl calendars. This is how history comes down to us today. Perfect, right? Who would trifle with timely refinement? With ancien...

We owe a lot to Thomas Edison—if it wasn't for him, we'd be watching television by candlelight. —Milton Berle ( Wikipedia ) A world without electricity would be a different world indeed. We'd be getting our monthly light bills from the candle utilities. What's nice about this joke is that it's based on a cramped world view devoid of science; that a world without electricity is the same as one with. Only without. Click here for more info about this joke collection thing.

I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened. —Mark Twain, a.k.a. Samuel Clemens ( PBS and Ken Burns ) Ain't that the truth for us all. Twain, the mustacheod ex-riverboat captain, has a fine way of dressing up the phrase, "Don't worry about it". This one's a keeper because it spits straight into mopey territory, hits that comma there, and rebounds into a delightful remark about the human experience. A master writer of his caliber doesn't have to use a funny word like spittoon to accomplish his noble task. Dang, I just used spittoon . Click here for more info about this joke collection thing.

Q: Why did the chicken cross the road? A: To get to the other side. —Unknown (and in hiding) A chicken lays down plain old common sense. Yes, I yelp it to the world: I have always, always enjoyed this joke! It's as funny today as when I was in kindergarten, only more so. This is the kind of joke a Snidley Sourpuss might make up. He'd grumble, "You expected a magic answer, an exciting answer, even a funny answer, didn't yah? Well there's no such thing." That is the joke's dirty little secret—the teller uses trickery to feel superior. Especially five-year-old comedians. Enough about theory, philosophy, and mathematics. Let's not over analyze a good thing. Click here for more info about this joke collection thing.

I'm not like other people. Pain hurts me. —Daffy Duck ( Wikipedia ) Working backwards: 1) Hurting is intrinsic to pain. There's no pain that does not hurt. In the hurting department, people are the same as Daffy. 2) Of course Daffy is not like other people. He's a duck. 3) Daffy's not a duck. He's an animated cartoon character. Deep humor evolves, like peeling a duck-shaped onion. Click here for more info about this joke collection thing.

I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals. —Sir Winston Churchill ( Wikipedia ) Even if Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill hadn't been the United Kingdom's Prime Minister during WWII and the winner of a Nobel prize for literature, I'd still say he was a man of action and choice words. He shows great strength by publicly declaring a preference for the lowly pig. (And so far in advance of the mid-1980s miniature pot-bellied pig craze, too.) His simple yet profound oinker argument convinces me to move Porky Pig up a notch on my Warner Bros. scale. Maybe not Yosemite Sam level, but still. In a backwards way Sir Winston compares people to pigs, saying we both like to have our backs scratched, to root around in rich brown earth for truffles, and to spend hot sunny days wallowing naked in the mud. I know I do! Click here for more info about this joke collection thing. Young Winston Churchill image from Library of Congress .

Maurice’s cunning helped him evade that hungry field sparrow, and in doing so he discovered something new: his special affinity for flowers. He decided to go for it. He attained his Master’s Degree in floral arrangement from Chicago School of Flower Design. Today Maurice owns and manages a successful retail floral operation behind the shed there, to the left of the plastic green leprechaun. This is my drawing for the Illustration Friday ( IF website ) assignment, this time to illustrate "Hide". Click it for a bigger version.

What's another word for thesaurus? —Steven Wright ( website ) If words and their synonyms are grouped into something called a thesaurus, it's pretty ironic that the word "thesaurus" itself doesn't have a synonym. It's almost a syn. (Hee hee!) Steven Wright's calm style of humor has a habit of displaying our own language idiosyncrasies back to us. He's got his work, employment, crop, job, function cut out for him. Since Tyrannosaurus and Brontosaurus have already been used, when I discover a new dinosaur I'm naming it Thesaurus. (Speaking of "the saurus" reminds me: Who decided on the word therapist ? It reads as "the rapist". Seeing as the profession is based on helping to heal personal suffering, perhaps a name change is in order. May I suggest a more inviting name like theconvict , thereferee , or, on the smooth cuddly side, thepuppy ?) Click here for more info about this joke collection thing.

This is my drawing for this week's Illustration Friday's ( IF website ) assignment, this time to illustrate "Communication". Click it for a bigger version. What? Good and bad communication—it's all about the stuff inside. I'm learning that if the clerk behind the store counter is rude to me, it's because he's having a bad day (or a bad life). How I give out and receive back is about my outlook and health. (Hey, when the body's feeling good, it's easier for me to be nice to others. And myself.) Being aware and following this practice helps inoculate me against catching the "nasty virus": being nasty to others. Now, the "nice viruses", those I go out of my way to catch.

Swaddled in a red flannel blanket and sprawled across the entire davenport—which, I have since learned, is referred to as a sofa by everyone not raised around my grandmum—I accidently watch Shallow Hal a third time. The first time, I laughed when Rosemary asks snide Mauricio about his beloved jacket with, “Is that a Members Only jacket?” He smugly answers “Yes it is.” and she cuts him down with “So what are you, the last member?” The second time I despised the movie, listening to it over a godawful soundtrack of roaring jet engines and a commercial air conditioning system. The third time, today, I laugh when Tony Robbins and his banana hands exorcise Hal’s shallow demons. How did I miss that laugh before? Banana hands?! Hah ha! Was it too new, then too annoying, then just right? Or too hard, too soft, then just right? Either way, it proves Goldilocks’ Third Time’s The Charm rule. Me and my flannel blanket, we’re lo...