If It Was Really Stupid, Then I Claim Full Responsibility

Accept this as fact: There are people who wish the United States harm out there in the world. Some of our teenagers give these people hope that they will see the good ole USofA become a footnote in history because they are observing how our young people “think”.

One such teen recently hauled a baby grand piano onto a sand bar in Biscayne Bay and set it afire. He and his fellow like minded friends then watched it burn up (or down, if you prefer down to up). When he was asked why he did this he gave two replies that prove that he is not the next Einstein...

• He said it was cool.
• He said he did it for the sake of art.

Think this is crazy? The craziest thing is others tried to claim responsibility for his cool/artistic endeavor. Can you believe that? Instead of issuing statements denying responsibility these mental midgets were rushing in to claim “credit”.

Thank goodness that our boy genius was forward thinking enough to have videoed his Foolishness. He showed his video and the world then gave him the recognition that he so rightfully deserves.

-----------------------------------------------

Then there is the other side. One student in a prestigious art school said, "I want to meet him. I thought it was beautiful. It was poetic."

Could I be wrong? Is it possible that I am so logical thinking that I can’t distinguish foolish eyesores from ugly art?

Would I kid u?

Bad Guys Always Get What’s Coming To Them ... Unless They Have A “Good” Lawyer Or A Stupid Judge ... Or both

 

In bullet format here is what I read in my newspaper on 1/28/11 (my sage comments will be in bold)...

• This was a Bank Account Takeover Scheme ... Otherwise known as people stealing other people’s money.
• Six schemers victimized Chinese, Korean, Laotian and Vietnamese residents in California, Oregon and Washington ... Does not sound like it was a spur of the moment thing.
• The scheme was conducted from November 2008 to April 2010 ... Does not sound like it was a spur of the moment thing.
• The victims were contacted by phone and told that they had unpaid bills with telephone or utility companies.
• Using the personal information gathered from their victims, the defendants ordered bank checks and added themselves as users on victim’s credit cards ... Does not sound like it was a spur of the moment thing.
• The schemers then spent $500,000 of the victim’s money on everything from Louis Vuitton purses to a daschund ... This is the first sliver of sympathy on my part for the schemers. If they go to jail, who is going to care for the little doggie?

The following 4 bullets are not true and were made up by me...

• The schemers were given very harsh sentences.
• They were all sentenced to 35 years in prison.
• They have to pay back the $500,000 plus interest.
• They have to put the daschund into the Louis Vuitton purse and personally deliver it to Barbara Streisand the day before they report to the hoosegow to begin serving their 35 year sentences.

The following 4 bullets are the actual sentence that was handed down to one of the schemers yesterday...

• She was sentenced to 6 months of home confinement ... No this is not a misprint. She was not sentenced to jail. She has to stay home. (I am sure an exception will be made so that she can go to her Pilates classes).
• This harsh sentence is followed up by 5 whole years of supervised release ... What is that?
• If you think she plead guilty to a whole bunch of charges, you are wrong. She only plead guilty to a single count of Mail Fraud ... I wonder if she was laughing out loud as she told the court, “I plead guilty”.
• Well she certainly had to pay back all that money. Right? Wrong! ... She has to pay back $50,000. That’s quite a bargain! That’s like a mugger saying to a muggee, “Give me that $500,000 in your pocket. What? You only have $50,000? Ok, you owe me $450,000. Here is my address. Bring me $50,000 a week for the next nine weeks.”.

Have you finally come to a full realization why I have no need to make up my Foolishness...Or Is It?. I just have to keep reading my newspaper and I will never run out of silly things to tell you about.

Would I kid u?

Texting While Doing Anything Else

Introduction: This Foolishness...Or Is It? was written last night. This morning’s newspaper tells me that one of the two legislators I had written about has backed off on his proposed legislation (Arkansas). The other is charging ahead (New York). Since he is doing so, this posting is still relevant and certainly ought to be read by all clear thinking Americans.

I have ranted before about those of us (too many of us) texting while driving. We are now passing laws to try to protect the dumb from doing the stupid. Am I not being plain enough? Let me put it this way, texting while driving a moving vehicle is dumb. Those of us who do this are the stupid.

There is an elected official in New York who has proposed legislation to stop us from walking and texting.

I think Walking is not the same as Driving. Can you believe I said that? We have a major epidemic of stupid driving in this country and this legislator is worried about that lady in that shopping mall the other day that walked into a fountain while texting and got wet.

This legislation is in the process of getting Foolish. Here is some of the silliness...

• Anyone walking with two ear pieces in their head (one in each ear) will be considered in violation. A single ear piece is OK.
• This legislation is only proposed to be enforced in cities with a population of 1,000,000 or more.

Now I could stop this Foolishness...Or Is It? right here and now and it would be complete. It has exposed more of the Foolishness that surrounds us all. I could be done... But am I?

I have thought about the above bullets and I wish to expand and clarify...

• What is this about only being an issue in cities of 1,000,000 people and more? Are not those who live in small cities in as much danger as people who live in large cities? Ignoring small town walker’s safety is unconscionable!
• A determination as to what the walker is listening to will have to be made before the Ear Piece Police can swoop in and make the appropriate life-saving arrests...
•    Classical Music is soothing and an aid to concentration while hard rock music is mind muddling and a hindrance to walking. We need only be concerned with hard rock music.
•    What about Talk Radio? Does not opposing opinions cause the Liberal to get excited when he hears Conservative commentary and the Conservative get excited when he hears Liberal commentary? Either opinion contrary to the walker’s strongly held beliefs could contribute to dangerous walking.
•    Obviously our Federal Government is going to have to invest 10 or 20 million dollars to develop Ear Piece Penetrators to ascertain exactly what the Ear Piece Equipped Walkers of America are listening to.
•    Another bunch of millions will have to be invested in Segways for the Ear Piece Police to get around on to do their ear piece penetrating.
•    Actually the Segway expense will have to be doubled so that, once a potential violator is zeroed in on, there may have need for another Segway on the other side of the listener, if the single ear piece is inserted on the opposite side. This increase in expense may cause the provision in the bill for single ear pieces to be scrapped. Our Federal Government certainly would not want to get carried away with this enforcement policy... Or would it?
• As an alternative to Segway Monitoring we could always use our extensive satellite system to monitor walkers. Some may object to this diversion of our satellites to endangered walkers. I am sure that cooler heads will prevail by saying, “The heck with terrorists! This is important!”.
• As is usually the case, there will have to be exemptions. The most obvious and sure to be universally accepted exception will be NBA Basketball Players. These American Tattooed Heroes are always shown walking into the arena before the game with ear phones on their well paid ears. There will certainly be no objections to this exception because they are tall and important and we are neither.

Would I kid u?

At First I Really Panicked!

I saw an Internet Teaser Headline that I thought was really going to capture the attention of all of America but I was wrong. The headline was...

Panda Loses Weight

Because of the obsession we all have for the center attraction of our zoos the Chinese Pandas, I had real fear that this Internet Teaser Headline meant Zing Goo Po (or whatever our Atlanta Panda is named) was ill. Since Pandas have not been known to go on diets, losing weight would surely have to have been the result of some kind of dire illness.

I breathed a sigh of great relief when I read the article and found out that it was a story about a baseball player named Pablo Sandoval (nicknamed “Panda”) who is losing weight for the upcoming baseball season. Google him if you want to learn about his ongoing struggles with his weight. There are lots of articles about him being fat, losing weight, going on a diet, going off a diet, etc.

I know Pablo’s fatness is of great concern to the San Francisco Baseball Fans but a sick Panda anywhere is big and ongoing news in the city in which that particular Panda takes up residence. It has been this way in all of the cities in which I have lived.

If Atlanta’s Panda were ill, we would not have heard anything about the Australian Floods, the Arizona Shooting Aftermath, North Korea’s Bomb, Iran’s Bomb, Brittney Spears and such until that cute little fella was fully recovered.

----------------------------

It’s not just Pandas. In Atlanta we had an obsession with a Gorilla named Willie B. who died in the year 2000. I remember that when he died a radio commentator said the following, “He was a great Ambassador for all of Gorillakind”. You think I made that quote up, don’t you?

Our obsession with Willie B. continued after his passing. In doing my research for this posting, I looked him up in Wikipedia. It was worse than I thought...

• More than 8,000 people attended the memorial ceremony held in his honor.
• The zoo now has a life-size bronze statue of him on permanent display outside the Gorilla exhibit.
• His remains were cremated. 80% of his remains were kept in a bronze box in the bronze statue at Zoo Atlanta and the other 20% were flown back to the African jungle.

You also think I made these 3 bullets up don’t you? When will you learn that I only make things up when it is absolutely necessary? It is not necessary to make up foolishness when foolishness abounds in the world around us.

Would I kid u?

More: If I had any kind of significant city wide readership in Atlanta, do you realize how viciously I would be attacked for having made light of Willie B.? Sort of makes me glad you are the only person reading this Foolishness...Or Is It?.

Still More: Some are being critical of President Obama saying he did not get much of anything out of the visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao. To that insinuation I say Hogwash! Don’t these people read the newspaper? In today’s paper it plainly states that China has granted an extension to the Washington D.C. Zoo to keep their two pandas another 5 years. What more could we ask of a president of these United States?

Eye/Hand Coordination Skills – Good News & Bad News

Dear Reader, through your mind’s eye gaze with me at a very common scene in a modern American household...

• Modern parent is looking at modern child with a puzzled look.
• Modern child is playing video games ... all day long.
• The puzzled modern parent says to the other modern parent of the video game playing modern American child “Is this doing our child any good? Might it not be better if all this effort were devoted toward a text book of some kind?”
• Other parent who is really modern says confidently, “Don’t worry. What you are witnessing is Eye/Hand Coordination Skills being developed to the very highest of levels right before your very puzzled eyes.”
• Puzzled parent says, “Oh, I see.”
• Puzzled parent withholds any further comment for fear of being overheard by the modern child and damaging modern child’s self esteem.

The Good News is there are jobs out there for workers with well developed Eye/Hand Coordination Skills. These trained specialists are being hired by the CIA to Operate Unmanned Aircraft over in the Middle East to blowup bad guys.

The Bad News is America is developing 37,000,000 such highly trained workers and the CIA has 27 positions for such workers.

Would I kid u?

The News Media Will Tell You Darn Near Anything

 

A few people bought my book. Are you one of the few? Buy it here: World's Greatest Bathroom Book ... Or is it?

 

The News Media has no respect for me. They think I will believe anything they report.

I just heard them tell me that Rhode Island had a massive budget deficit.

If they told me that Rhode Island had a mini budget deficit, an itty bitty budget deficit or even a minor budget deficit, I would have believed them in a heartbeat.

I draw the line at this one! Come on News Media, this is little Rhode Island. There is nothing massive about Rhode Island. I just don’t believe ya!

Would I kid u?

I Just Became Rich In 93 Minutes & 1 Second

It came to me in a flash (that’s the 1 second referred to in the subject line above). I then spent 93 minutes calling the heads of the news departments at NBC, CBS, ABC, the AP, Fox, CNN, TNT, Reuters, MSNBC, CNBC and a couple of others. The brilliance of my proposal was seen immediately and was accepted by them as a real concrete way to save a lot of money.

I proposed a substantial remuneration in the form of 5% of all the money my brilliant idea would save them in the next 25 years. They accepted my payment plan as quickly as they had accepted my original money saving idea. That’s it. I am rich!

Did I forget to tell you exactly what was my Brilliant Money Making Money Saving Make Me Rich Idea? I apologize. Here it is in all its brilliant simplicity...

• I was watching the news broadcast on TV today about the floods in Australia.
• I said to myself, “Self, that looks like the pictures of the floods in Iowa last year”.
• That’s when it hit me.
• The news organizations spend millions of dollars every year sending cameramen all over the world to take pictures of one disaster after another.
• The pictures they send back all look the same as the last similar disaster.
• What they need to do is build up a video bank of all the various disasters that we see over and over each night on TV: Floods, Fires, Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Rabbits Attacking Presidents, etc.
• Then when one of these bad things happen again they just go to their computers and pull out a stored video of that particular type of happening and send it out over the airways for all of America to be amazed at or saddened by.
• They have then saved the expense of salary for the travelers, meals, airplane tickets, worn out equipment replacement, shirts and baseball caps with logos on them, etc.
• I get 5% of everything they save.

I just got a phone call I got from a cameraman from NBC. He told me that he was going to sue me. I assumed that he was suing me because he was losing his job. I was surprised when he told me that he was suing me for Nifty Idea Infringement. He said he had been putting my brilliant idea into actual practice for 32 years & I had stolen it from him. My idea was his idea.

I offered him 2% of my 5%. He accepted. Now we are both going to be rich.

Would I kid u?

You Are Right, If You Think...

You Are Right, If You Think ... that I am tired of and don’t quite understand our ongoing fascination with and adoration of...Celebrities (Celebs).

I have vented about this at least once before...
Click here: http://forii.blogtownhall.com/2009/05/18/what%e2%80%99s_wrong_with_us.thtml

My dislike of our obsession with Celebs does see some hope in the future ... Cartoons.

Have you noticed the proliferation of Cartoons in the movie theatres and on television? Cartoons are an expanding entertainment phenomena. They are the wave of the future. What this means to me is that, one day in the not too distant future, Celebs Will Become Extinct.

At present we are told...

• This voice is Tom Hanks.
• That voice is Meryl Streep.
• Tom Cruise is the voice of the wizard with the bad limp.

Can you honestly tell whose voice it really is? I can’t. How long will it be before those Hollywood Big Wigs will say to themselves, “We can save a lot of money by not getting Tom, Meryl or Tom to do these voices in our cartoons. We’ll just go into a nearby Jack in the Box and get a burger seller who can read pretty well. We will save a fortune!”

Yea, I know they call them Animated Features but, whatever they call them, the Big Wigs will save themselves a lot of money and the Scourge of the Celebs just might be on the way out. There is light at the end of the tunnel.

Would I kid u?

How Do They Know Before They Know?

My uncanny ability to make things up is finally putting me in good stead (whatever that means).

My wife thinks that one of life’s greatest pleasures is the Morning Newspaper. The other day she asked me to stop and buy the Sunday Morning Newspaper on Saturday Night.

As I handed over my $2 I found myself wondering about how was it possible to buy the Sunday News on Saturday Night? At that moment it hit me like a ton of bricks ... They Make It Up!

I said to myself, “Self, that’s what you do. You have been writing your Foolishness…Or Is It? blog for years. Every time you issue a posting, you make things up” … Or do you?

I called my local paper to offer my services as a News Fabricator of Saturday Night Sunday News and they said they were about to call me and offer me that very same position. They said they had heard of me and had the highest respect for my ability to come up with facts before the facts have, in fact, become facts.

If all goes well this may be the beginning of the end of Foolishness…Or Is It?. In the future I just may be too busy for such silliness… Or will I?

Would I kid u?

Rewriting History … Again

I see where the Governor of New Mexico is hankering (that’s old west talk for yearning to) pardon Billy The Kid. The Smartfella? always finds himself hankering to understand why his fellow man gets himself all tangled up about such things. Such happenings always bring up questions in my puzzled mind…

• Why bother taking the time to hanker to to do it?
• Should not the governor be devoting his time to more pressing issues?

If little Billy is actually pardoned, it seems just as logical to consider other equally silly actions that ought to follow right behind…

• Should we not forgive Ivan the Terrible for being terrible?
• Once little Billy is pardoned should we not then declare that the 21 people he killed did not become dead?
• Should not the descendants who were not born of the 21 people who were not killed then be given compensation for the life that they did not lead?

As an aside…

In doing my extensive research for this Foolishness, I spend 20 minutes reading a site on the Internet about Billy the Kid called Fact vs. Myth. This was, at the same time, very enlightening and confusing. I found out that everything we know about little Billy is not true, starting with He Was Not Little…

• He did not kill 21 people.
• He was not ugly.
• He lived to a ripe old age (probably on a Brussels Sprouts Farm with Butch Cassidy & Elvis).
• He did not have a bad temper.
• He had a good sense of humor.
• He was not a big time cattle rustler.
• He did not join Jesse James’ Gang.
• He did not kill his first man because that man insulted his mother.
• He was not chubby.
• He was not left-handed but was ambidextrous and primarily right-handed.
• He was not illiterate.
• He did not shoot a man in a hotel for snoring too loud. 
• He did not drink too much.

Heck, this guy was a saint! The least the Governor could do would be to change his name to Billy the Adult.

Would I kid u?

Little Spaces Mean A Lot

I recently bought a dress shirt from Wal-Mart that was made in China. It really looks as nice as one of those shirts that cost 5 times as much which is sold in that store that advertises every week on TV. You know the one where you buy sports coat and you get 5 shirts, 3 sweaters, 4 pair of pants and 1 kitchen sink for free.

There is one problem with the shirt. It takes a herculean effort to drive any button on the shirt through to the other side of the hole.

The problem is that there is a severe shortage of Button Hole Space in China. This is the main reason driving China to be so aggressive. They are fully prepared to go to war to acquire more hole space. This, of course, is the primary reason for their current massive military buildup.

If we, as a society, would donate our excess hole space to some international do-good group and have them ship it over to China, they might like us more and we could save a lot of lives in the future.

Or maybe we could just send them a lot of small buttons.

Would I kid u?

Don’t They Have Anything Better To Do?

Is there an answer to the subject question of this Foolishness…Or Is It?  Yes there is an answer. It is a very loud and emphatic, You bet there is!. The problem is I seem to be the only person who knows that answer.

What the heck am I talking about? Again it involves our elected representatives. I hope I’m not getting into a rut here but the Foolishness just keeps flowing out of the Halls Of Congress. Please, allow me to explain…

My research tells me that, during the reign of the Congress that just concluded, our representatives took valuable time to issue hundreds of Congressional Commendations (they do this during the reign of every congress). I tried to research just how many had been promulgated during 2010 but I could not pin it down. A few days ago I heard a Talking Head say that it was 700 but I could not verify that figure on the Internet. Therefore, I will not say it was 700 because, I may be Foolish, but I try to be accurate about my Foolishness. Let’s just say it was a whole bunch.

What I did find out while doing my research was Congress Commended such silly things as (three examples)…

1. A female Little League baseball player who did good.
2. Any number of people whose major accomplishment in life appears to have been that they lived long enough to become old.
3. Acknowledged the man who established the first bakery on Saipan after American troops successfully defeated Japanese forces in 1944.

The problem is the cart is before the horse here. If these Commendations were something that happened at the end of a Congressional Session after all important business had been concluded, I would not have been inspired to concoct this Foolishness. The sad news is we just concluded a congressional Lame Duck Session that was cram packed with really important legislation.

Somewhere back in the prior eleven months that this congress was in session they found time to do umpteen Congressional Commendations. Then at the very end of the session they got around to a whole bunch of the “really important” stuff. This really important stuff was hammered together in a wild, cantankerous, finger pointing filled, up against the Christmas Break and full frenzied couple of weeks.

If you are one who spends his day watching the ESPAN channels and you see a member of our 9% Approval Rating Congress step to the podium and say, “I rise today in recognition of…”, use those words as your signal to take a nap, got to the rest room or go get a beer. If you stay in your chair, you are going to waste your time watching one of our members of congress waste his time.

Would I kid u?

If We Could Get Rid Of This Guy, We Could Afford Anything!

I saw an ad in today’s newspaper for a Hearing Aid Device. Here is what the ad promised:

• You will be able to hear pins drop.
• It is so small it is barely visible.
• It has an Advanced Micro-Chip that gives you remarkable sound quality.
• You will be able to hear every sound loud and clear.
• You will be able to listen to TV and hear everything.
• It is great at the movies and in live theaters.
• You will hear all of nature’s sounds.
• You will be able to participate in conversations without missing a word.
• You will be able to hear what others are saying – even if they are far away.

Does that sound (read) great?

Must cost a fortune! Cost is the reason for this Foolishness…Or Is It?. This wonderful hearing aid cost only $9.95 per ear!

Too hard to believe? The advertiser has a very good explanation why it is so cheap…

“We cut away unnecessary middlemen and sell directly to you.”

There you have it. This is the reason why things cost so much. It is the evil middleman! This dastardly fellow has taken the cost of hearing aids from $9.95 to $3699.99 per ear! That’s quite a markup!

If we could just get our 9% Approval Rating Congress to hold some hearings and pass some laws about this awful situation, we could all be happily watching really inexpensive Big Screen TVs, using I-Thingies of all kinds and feeling the beat of life-saving New Heart Valves for mere pittances.

Would I kid u?

I Get All My “Inspiration” For Blog Postings From The Newspaper … Or Do I?

This time I got my Foolishness from this night’s TV news.

It seems the Senate is wrestling today with an Omnibus Spending Bill that is just under 2,000 pages long.

Remember Obama Care? It was 2,700 pages long.

The Stimulus Bill was more than 1,400 pages long.

I just got the following information online from Political Hotsheet of October 10, 2009… “It should be noted that spending bills routinely exceed 1,000 pages, as do some other bills. President Bush's 2007 budget bill was 1,482 pages long.”

This one is easy…
I propose that our Congress pass and our President sign into law a bill that stipulates that spending bills must be less than 1,000 pages.

Do you think I need be more specific? OK I will be more specific…
I propose that our Congress pass and our President sign into law a bill that stipulates that spending bills must be less than 12 pages long.

Congress might just go for this if the proponents of the 12 Pages & No More Than 12 Pages Bill would point out that bills of this size would ensure that they could all be at Happy Hour when the bell rings … Every Day!

Would I kid u?

Wal-Mart ... Guilty Again

If you read the newspaper on a regular basis you will see many articles that tell you that Wal-Mart is an evil beyond comprehension. Almost every time they want to open a store there are articles about how the new store will be awful for the neighborhood, the environment, the traffic flow, the health care of the employees (especially The Children), the trees, the migration path of the caribou, etc. Then, when the store opens up, it is covered up with shoppers eager to save money.

I am not just pecking this out for finger exercise. I have a solution to propose...

• The federal government ought to take an active roll to minimize the footprint of Wal-Mart.
• Our Government should buy a huge track of land to accommodate all the stores that Wal-Mart will build in the next 50 years.
• Then all of the next 50 years stores could be built in one location.
• I'm certain each of you have already seen the benefit to our society by taking this bold action...

o Only one neighborhood will be negatively affected.

o The environment will only be damaged in one location.

o Traffic patterns will not be disrupted anywhere but this one location.

o The health care of the employees would still be an issue but I have faith that our 9% Approval Rating Congress is chomping at the bit to address this problem because it directly affects The Children of the employees.

o Trees would only have to be removed in this one area and, if we selected a location in the middle of Death Valley, this issue would become mute.

o I also have faith that our 9% Approval Rating Congress could find an area that would not interfere with the migration path of the caribou.

Being as sharp as I know all of you to be, you are probably thinking to yourselves that I have missed out on where the Federal Government will get the money to finance this huge undertaking. I've also have that covered...The Tobacco Tax. This is where Congress already gets a lot of its money.

I do see the fallacy of depending so often on the Tobacco Tax. We, as a society, are smoking less and this tax revenue source is drying up. I propose to counter this decrease in tax revenue by collecting five cent per cigarette from people who used to smoke but are now guilty of trying to smoke less and preventing our rulers from collecting a tax on what they were smoking when they were smoking. Makes sense to me!

Would I kid u?

There Is More To Football Than Big Guys Playing Football Games

I am in the middle of reading the New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton’s book entitled Home Team. While I am enjoying his book greatly, this is not a pitch for you to buy this book. Is a simply a recommendation that you read Chapter 19, Do Good.

Go into your local book store, stand in the aisle and read this single chapter.

It will make you feel better about the world in which you live.

Would I kid u?

Are They Making These Things Up?

I have already written a blog about Exit Polls which questioned how they report such minute detail about how we voted immediately after we voted.

This one is just as silly and just as unbelievable. It’s about Black Friday Shopping Statistics.

                     

A mere two days after we survived Black Friday we are being told…

• Sales were up .3%.
• Total sales were $10,690,000,000 (always amazes me that such reported numbers come out to exact round figures).
• There was a 2.2% increase in Floor Traffic.

Let us think about these numbers a bit…

• Less than 48 hours after we started charging through the doors of retailers all across the good ole USofA they know that we bought $32,070,000 more stuff than the prior year.
• With regard to that $10,690,000,000 total sales figure, please do not lose track of the fact that this is Ten Point Six Nine Thousand Million Dollars.

As for the Floor Traffic… How could they possibly know that there was not a 2.1% or a 2.3% increase in floor traffic but an exact 2.2% increase? I also think this is why the parking lots are so full. There must be a bureaucrat following each one of us in and out of all the stores we trafficked into.

Imagine how we could stimulate the economy if the Numbers Counters would release these Traffic Followers from their assigned duties and told them to go shopping instead of following us around all day.

I want you to know that I did my part to contribute to the total sales of $10,690,000,000. I am now the proud owner of a 50 Pack of CD-R Disks for which I paid $4.99.

Please do not add a comment to this blog posting telling me how proud you are of me for my purchase. I am more than glad to do my part to contribute to our economic recovery during this dire economic situation.

Would I kid u?

Safe, Secure And Protected From Everything

It gives me a great sense of security to know that “they” are looking out for me at all times. On the other hand, there are times that I wish “they” would leave me to my own devices (whatever that means).

The other day I was sitting in a nice quiet restaurant waiting for my nice quiet lunch to arrive and I took note of the following...

Contents Under Pressure, bottle may burst or cap may blow off causing eye or other serious injury. Be sure to always point away from face and people, especially while opening.

I have never been attacked by a soda pop bottle and now that I have wasted my time reading this warning you can bet I will never be attacked by a soda pop bottle in the future.

----------------------------

It was many years ago as I was assembling a bicycle on Christmas Eve when I first became aware that “they” were looking out for me (and my son).

I had just laid out all the parts on the floor. There were about 50 parts to be assembled into what was to become my son’s new bicycle. I opened up the instructions and the first two entries on the Assembly List were the following warnings...

I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. THIS IS NOT AN EXAMPLE OF MY CREATIVE FOOLISHNESS.

Warning #1... This product must be assembled by a competent person.
I looked behind myself and found no one back there, so I went ahead with my project.

Warning #2... This product must be assembled before use.
Having already laid out the 50 parts, I already knew that they had to be assembled.

----------------------------

Are you ready? Here comes the official start of my Creative Foolishness...

Nerf Balls were invented to keep our little ones from hurting themselves (bent fingers, black eyes, broken finger nails, bruised chest tissue, etc.). The question facing us today is... Is there still child endangerment lurking in Nerf Balls?

Is it not possible that a little American could get his family scissors and cut the Nerf Ball into pieces small enough that he could try to eat the little tasty looking nerf ball pieces and get them caught in his little throat and choke his little self to death?

The way I see it the Little People Protection Association of America* (LPPAA) ought to organize a nationwide effort to get all Nerf Balls removed from harm’s way. In every home they ought to be placed on a high shelf out of reach from small people. Then and only then will our little ones be Safe, Secure and Protected.

Will little Americans miss their Nerf Balls? I’m sure they will but this action is being recommended for their own good.

In the future, the fathers of America can periodically lift up their children and let them gaze upon the Family’s Nerf Ball. As a matter of fact, Child Lifting to allow Child Gazing ought to be a Federal Law. That ought to do it.

Would I kid u?
* The LPPAA National Convention is held every year in Las Vegas on the first weekend of July. Free admission can be obtained by bringing a dangerous child toy for analysis by the Top Shelf Committee.

I’m Determined To Worry About Something Else

We all know that we are required by Federal Law to worry about lots of different things. There is some speculation inside the Beltway that this Federal Law does allow us to select what we worry about. Others say that we do not have this prerogative and we do, in fact, have to worry about everything… Or do we?

The latest big worry that has been directed my way is…

There Is Lead In Some Reusable Cloth Bags

“TAMPA TRIBUNE November 19, 2010- Besides causing learning disabilities in children, the toxic chemical lead is especially good at making green inks look greener and yellow inks yellower.

That's the most likely reason why recent tests commissioned by The Tampa Tribune found elevated lead levels in elaborately decorated grocery bags sold at Winn-Dixie and Publix, according to executives in the promotional merchandise manufacturing industry.”

Now I probably do not know what I am talking about (so what’s new?) but I have decided that this is one worrisome thing that I am not going to worry about…

• The amount of time that my cantaloupe is going to spend in my Elaborately Decorated Reusable Cloth Bag is probably about 20 minutes (time it takes to drive home from the grocery store).
• In my uninformed opinion, I believe that it will take a lot longer than 20 minutes for those evil thingies inside that leaded bag to leach into my unsuspecting piece of fruit.
• My uninformed and Foolish opinion goes a bit further and says that it would probably take about 52 years of being wrapped up in my Elaborately Decorated Reusable Cloth Bag for my cantaloupe's skin to be penetrated.

OK, I got carried away in my third bullet above… Or did I?

Would I kid u?

Donuts Or Christmas – They Are Very Much Alike

It was fun to watch that old Dunkin Donuts Commercial where the chubby, bleary-eyed man stumbles out of his bedroom and, while wiping his eyes, he says, “Time To Make The Donuts”.

The same thing happens every year with the Christmas Shopping Season. The people who feed us our thoughts have in their word processors articles that predict for us every year how bad the Christmas Shopping Season is going to be. They just change a few “facts” in the article and change the date and publish it to us and there you have it, We Are All Worried About How Bad It Is Going To Be...again

We worry about...

• Do we have a personal obligation to spend more money than we thought we were going to spend or even more than we have in order to keep the economy going?
• These articles cause us to be greatly concerned about the children of the Christmas Retailers who depend so much on the Christmas Buying Frenzy for their continuing ability to buy stuff for themselves.
• If there really is a Santa Claus, how could he allow this to happen?

Then Christmas comes and goes (it does this every year) and, if (as so often happens) the Christmas Shopping Season turned out to be not as bad as predicted or absolutely bonkers good, we read about it on Page 42 of Section C of our newspaper.

Would I kid u?