This Is Going Too Far!

Recently there was a Terrorist Plot uncovered in New York City. At first you might find yourself saying to yourself, “Self, why is the Smartfella? bothering me with this? This happens all the time. Has he not got better things to get foolish about?”

Actually I hope you don’t have the above mentioned attitude. Just because we are doing a good job of stopping them from blowing us up does not mean that we ought to stop paying attention and assume that we will always be unblownup. I could say what I said in the prior sentence but I won’t because that belongs in a Blog called Seriuosness…Or Is It? and the Smartfella? does not do Serious.

Back to the terrorists…It seems that the defense attorneys are claiming Entrapment. The Smartfella? thinks they have a firm basis on which to make that contention. Here is a quote from the news article…
“The defendants’ lawyers demanded on Thursday in federal court that prosecutors turn over evidence. Among those mentioned were checks of up to $25,000, gifts to the men’s families and an open credit line at a fried chicken store.”

The money I see as a nice neat entrapment. Gifts are right up there with money. The Smartfella? accepts these two as fine police work but Fried Chicken?! That is dirty pool, that is dealing from the bottom of the deck and certainly that is hitting below the belt! It appears our law enforcement officials have gone beyond the pale (whatever that means).

I think these guys just might get away with their dastardly deed once they get into our crack Judicial System and receive their fair trial.

Would I kid u?

We Are Going To Have To Crank It Up, Hazel

Once upon a time there was a small businessman who had a small business in his garage. He was a tinker. He tinkered in lots of different areas. He loved his small business, made small money and his wife Hazel brought him a big sandwich every day at lunch time.

During the course of his tinkering, he invented that Orange and White Plastic Roadside Construction Warning Barrel. I am, of course, referring to the Orange and White Barrels that we see along our roadsides wherever there is road construction going on.

Our little businessman enjoyed his work and he enjoyed the pace at which he worked. He made about seven and a half barrels each day. Any day he got his output up to eight barrels he felt extremely satisfied with himself.

One day he was tinkering away on his third barrel when the mailman came with a delivery that was much larger than the usual amount of mail. Once he started opening his mail, he found himself equal parts shocked and delighted. His ship had come in!

What had happened was that the Planet Earth had discovered his Orange and White Plastic Roadside Construction Warning Barrel. When he had finished opening his mail, he realized that he had received orders for 17.75 billion barrels!

As the size of his good fortune was sinking in, his wife came in with his lunch. Without even looking up he said, “Hazel, looks like expenses are going to go up. We have to call your brother back from layoff.”

Would I kid u?

Looking Good Ain’t Good!

Have you looked at the Obituary Page lately? If you have, you most certainly have noticed that the pictures of the dearly departed all look like they are in great shape. There is reason to be concerned about this situation and the Smartfella? is here to advise you accordingly.
If any of the following has happen to you recently, you need to take action…
· Someone told you, “You sure are looking good!”
· A friend says, “My my! Aren’t you looking chipper today!”
· You go through the guard shack of a fancy gated community to play tennis where you have to show your driver’s license and when the guard returns your license he says, “You have lost weight since your driver’s license picture was taken. Good job!”
If any of the above is happening to you, you are in eminent danger of finding your good looking self on the Obituary Page. I urge you to do something before it is too late…
· Get a friend who really cares for you to punch you in an eye or your nose hard enough to make things swell, turn black and blue and/or bleed.
· Start wearing a patch over one eye.
· Start frowning a lot.
· Spring for some plastic surgery and get several really ugly scars installed on your good looking face.
· Get a tattoo or two.
The third bullet above (about the drivers license) has me completely unnerved because it actually happened to me last Wednesday. I have been having trouble sleeping ever since.
Would I kid u?

I Am Interesting and Special … Or Am I?

We must have a whole bunch of people in our government who’s job it is to change what we call things. Just when we think we know what’s going on, the People Who Change Things go and Change Things.

What am I talking about? I guess it is best to give some familiar examples…
>We used to have a Secretary of War but now we have a Secretary of Defense.
>We used to have Congressmen but now we have Congresspersons.
>We used to have Jungles but now we have Rain Forests.
>We used to have City Dumps but now we have Transfer Stations.
>We used to have bombs that were called Bunker Busters but now we have Peacekeeper Missiles.

The Smartfella? and his wife are into watching TV Detective Shows. I have picked up on a change that must have come from the People Who Change Things which, at first, had me confused but since I am sly, cunning and alert I did figure it out but not without some difficulty.

If someone had referred to the Smartfella? as a “Person of Interest” this is the kind of thing that would have run through my mind…
>I most certainly am a Person of Interest because I am witty, as is evident by my ability to create these highly entertaining bits of Foolishness.
>Of course I am a Person of Interest because I waste a lot of time coming up with these worthless bits of Foolishness.
>I definitely am a Person of Interest because you people who read my mind wanderings spend a lot of time laughing at and/or trying to figure out what the heck I am talking about.

I have finally figured out that a Person of Interest is a person who is suspected of committing a crime. They used to be called Suspects but now they are Interesting People.

What’s next? Since there appears to be a desperate movement afoot to not call anything anything Male or Masculine or He-man, are we on the cusp of having the People Who Change Things redo the title of the person who delivers our mail from a Mail Man to a Person Person?

Would I kid u?

I Made A Good Shot One Time & You Can Bet I Did Not Cry About It

The Smartfella? is a tennis player, of sorts. That being said, it is not strange that I watch the big tennis matches on television, to some degree. Here is the degree to which I watch the big matches…
>I watch every Andy Roddick match.
>Once Roddick loses, I do not watch any more matches, until the finals.
>Even in the finals, I only watch the end of the matches (unless it is shorter than I expect and then I miss the whole thing).

Here is the Smartfella‘s? Fondest Tennis Wish…
>I wish that when the final ball has bounced its final bounce, the winner, male or female (especially male), would not fall on the ground and start crying.
>It has been a long time since I have seen the triumphant champion simply smile, wave and jog up to the net and shake hands with the vanquished opponent.

I can guarantee each and every one of you faithful readers that, when I win a Grand Slam Tennis Tournament, you will not see me on the ground crying, rolling around and getting up to blow kisses to my worshiping, adoring and weeping fans.

Would I kid u?
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Footnote: More Foolishness can be found at… http://www.northfulton.com/1bloglistingsbody.lasso?-token.blogref=6920.112113
AND/OR
http://forii.blogtownhall.com/

If Hugo Is Not Responsible for the Yugo Automobile, He Is An OK Guy ... Or Is He?

On September 8, 2009 the Atlanta Journal Constitution carried the following information on page A3 in the column entitled, World In Brief.

Chavez, director hit Venice Film Festival…"Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez received a movie star welcome Monday at the Venice Film Festival, where he walked the red carpet with director Oliver Stone for the premiere of the documentary "South of the Border." Stone says "South of the Border" is meant to illustrate "the sweeping changes" in South America in recent years as a direct counterpoint to what he sees as Chavez’s depiction as a dictator by U.S. and European media."

The Smartfella? reads the above news brief to say that Oliver Stone believes that Chavez is getting a bad rap by the media calling him a dictator. In other words, Stone is saying he is not a dictator.

Immediately below the above news brief is another news brief which is entitled …
Media: Venezuela shutting them down. This article contains the following quote; "Opponents accuse Chavez of cracking down on dissent by silencing the media, noting the government closed 32 radio stations and two small television stations last month."

Hugo sounds pretty dictatorial to the Smartfella?.

Would I kid u?

If Everyone Were A Hero, Would We Have Any Heroes?

A dictionary definition of the word “hero” is: “A person noted for feats of courage or nobility of purpose, especially one who has risked or sacrificed his or her life”.

Who is the Smartfella? to quibble with the dictionary? He does not, in fact, question this definition but he does have a problem with the way some persons out there use the word. He has been known to get very quibblie (how is that for inventing a word?) when he hears an athlete referred to as a “hero”. He admits he gets excited when an athlete throws a football through a hoop and hits, as they say, “nothing but net”. What he fails to see is the “courage or nobility of purpose” in performing such a feat.

Recently the Smartfella? was reading an opinion by a fellow unimportant person and he saw these words used and it caught his eye and his eye said, “Huh?”… “Political Hero”.

Just what is a “Political Hero”? The foolishness juices have began to flow and here is what is oozing out…
§ Is a “Political Hero” one who created such an well-oiled Misappropriation Machine that his staff can continue to misappropriate at a high rate of efficiency even while the “Political Hero” is off for two weeks on a fact-finding boondoggle to Paris?
§ Is a “Political Hero” one who has missed more votes on more critical issues than any of his fellow distinguished colleagues?
§ Is a “Political Hero” one who has never been late for, much less missed, a single happy hour in his entire career as a public servant?

The Smartfella? likes to think that Washington, Lincoln and Churchill would have been insulted to be called “Political Heroes”. Referring to people of their ilk (he still loves that word) as not wanting to be remembered as “Political Heroes” is one time that the Smartfella? is thinking that he is thinking pretty good.

"Senator, I served with political heroes, I knew political heroes, political heroes were friends of mine. Senator, you are a political hero."

Would I kid u?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Footnote: More Foolishness can be found at: http://www.northfulton.com/1bloglistingsbody.lasso?-token.blogref=6920.112113 AND/OR http://forii.blogtownhall.com/

Let It Go To Voice Mail

When the Smartfella? was still in the working world, he became aware of a modern day phenomena whereby the people who were working around me had developed a habit of sitting at their desks and letting the phones on their desks ring until the voice mail system picked up.

They did not think that there was anything wrong with this technique. When it first started happening, I said something about their ringing phone, they would sometimes look annoyed and tell me something like, “I’m busy”.

I quickly realized that I was “old school” and I backed off. The thing I had difficulty getting my mind around was that they did not look busy. That is, unless you are willing to accept playing solitaire as a part of your definition of “busy”.

Now that I have been in retirement all these years it seems that there is less and less opportunity to talk to humans out there. Actually it has gotten worse than simply, “Let it go to voice mail”. Allow me to give you a recent example…
§ Called and got into a voice mail message that told me the person who’s recording I was listening to was out until the following Monday.
§ His slick message told me to call another person who would help me and he even gave me the other person’s number.
§ I called the other person.
§ She was out of the office till Tuesday and her message told me to call the person whose message had told me to call her.

Now am I just being an old geezer about this or is there a real problem out there?

Would I kid u?

When Pigs Fly … or … Da Swine Flu

Recently the people who raise pigs successfully brought tremendous pressure to bear on the people in our government who are in charge of naming what we call things (otherwise called the US Department of Names).

The pig growers were very persuasive and made the following points…
§ The Swine Flu was hurting their businesses.
§ There were definite signs out there that the eating public was becoming afraid of eating pig meat.
§ The American public, being sly, cunning and alert, were fast coming to the conclusion that the Swine Flu could be gotten from eating swine.

It made no difference that the Swine Flu cannot be gotten from eating swine. The contrary is actually the case. The AP ran an article on August 31, 2009 which reported that the people who run County Fairs around the good ole USofA are having to take preventive measures because there is growing evidence that swine are in danger of getting the Swine Flu from being in contact with people with the Swine Flu.

The American Public, as always, does not want to confused by the facts. They want action! They want someone to do something about something or other.

The people who are in charge of naming what we call things decreed that the Swine Flu was dead and in quick order invented the H1N1 Flu.

What a stroke of genius! Who could be worried about eating an H1N1? Now we can all go eat a ham sandwich in complete confidence that we ain’t gonna be attacked by anything flulike.

Considering all of the above, the Smartfella? did think it was funny yesterday when he heard a intrepid member of our News Media say the following, “It looks like the H1N1 Flu, otherwise known as the Swine Flu, has the potential of becoming a major pandemic this fall”.

It appears this Talking Head did not get the Don't-Call-It-Da-Swine-Flu memo.

Would I kid u?
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Footnote:
More Foolishness can be found at:
http://www.northfulton.com/1bloglistingsbody.lasso?-token.blogref=6920.112113
AND/OR
http://forii.blogtownhall.com/