Alexander Pope said that fools rush in where angels fear to tread, but I can’t come up with a single place that an angel would fear to tread.
I’ve lived in some really bad places, and I’ve seen plenty of fools rushing around them.
But angels are supernatural, powerful beings. They serve God as his messengers and soldiers.
There’s nothing here that an angel couldn’t handle.
Why they don’t, well, that’s one of those Free Will arguments I won’t get into.
Or perhaps it’s all the power lines. They don’t want to get their big white wings tangled in them.
Tag: cliche
Paint It
Long ago, comedian Steven Wright said “It’s a small world, but I wouldn’t want to paint it.” in his act.
It turns out he grabbed it from a comedian named Chic Murray
Whatever the source, I’m still confused: are they talking about painting the world with brushes and cans of paint? Because that could get expensive, especially if you need to buy primer, too.
Or perhaps paint it as in painting it on a canvas? Cheaper, certainly, but canvas and oils aren’t free.
This is what digital photography was invented to do.
Thank goodness for Google Maps and Street View.
Vicious Circle
Economists say that a feedback loop with detrimental results is a vicious circle, but all the circles I’ve ever known are nice circles.
Perhaps the economists are beating these circles as baby circles and making them grow up vicious?
You know, like how Pit Bulls are really friendly dogs that are great with kids, but got a bad reputation because they get raised to be vicious fighting dogs.
Rhombuses, on the other hand, are rotten little things no matter how you train them, but economists don’t like rhombuses, and circles are easier to deal with because you can roll them.
Chinese Arch
If you built an arch and had every Chinese person line up and march under it at a rate of one person per second, the line would never end.
But why would you do such a silly thing? What good does marching people in a line do?
And even if you managed to build the arch, I highly doubt that you could convince every Chinese person to line up and march under it.
The Chinese have better things to do than march under an arch forever.
They’re to busy planning to jump all at the same time…
Oh no… EARTHQUAKE!
Your Mission
After listening to the tape describe a nightmare Doomsday scenario facing the world, Jim listened to his mission, and then pondered whether he should accept it or not.
Before the tape had self-destructed in a whiff of smoke, Jim had made his decision:
No.
Instead, he went fishing, and caught a pair of trout that grilled up nicely.
Finishing his beer, he turned on the television to watch the news.
Just a tone and a test pattern.
It was on every channel.
Jim figured the new regime would probably hire him.
He hoped that his retirement plan would roll over.
Lover Fighter
Hey, man. I’m a lover, not a fighter.
I don’t want to fight.
Unless you’re smaller and weaker than me. Then I’ll beat the crap out of you.
But if you’re bigger than me, yeah, I’m a lover. I’ll love you to keep from beating the crap out of me.
Until I can catch you off guard, that is. Then I’ll stop loving you, and stab you in the back or run you over with a car.
Of course, then I’ll go to prison, and knowing my luck, I’ll be stuck as a lover.
No matter how much I fight.
Inside Information
Ted’s an Afterlife Coach, helping the recently departed deal with post traumatic death syndrome and other issues.
He likes to say he gets ghosts to believe in themselves.
You’d think it’s hard for him to get paid. Dead people don’t carry cash. Their assets are usually frozen or bequeathed to family or given to charity.
And so few people actually have wall safes full of cash or buried gold coins in the back yard.
But when you can talk to spirits, the dead have plenty of dirt on the living.
Blackmail’s such a dirty word.
Let’s call it “Inside information.”
Who watches?
Who watches the watchmen?
I do. I’m their supervisor.
I keep track of them with this computer. It tells me when they tap their badge against the checkpoints in the bank headquarters.
But it’s not like we do much good walking around. The cleaning crew steals stuff all the time, putting it in their carts.
And employees walk out with thumb drives full of sensitive data.
Oh, and those million-dollar bonuses executives paid themselves after the bailout? The biggest theft of all.
The biggest crimes happen in broad daylight, while my team just walks around an empty building at night.
Glass Houses
People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
Visitors shouldn’t throw them, either.
In fact, nobody should be throwing stones around glass houses.
Are there glass houses? I’ve seen houses with outer walls of glass, but I’ve never seen a house made entirely of glass.
The furniture and carpeting’s not made of glass, right?
Maybe the clever scientists at Corning are working on that. If they can invent fiber optics, they can invent a glass house.
And it would be shatter-resistant too.
Unlike that window you broke playing baseball in the yard.
That’s coming out of your allowance, Bobby.
The Bear
I recently heard an old man say “Some days you eat the bear, and other days the bear eats you.”
What the hell does that mean?
If you eat the bear, it can’t eat you because it’s dead and you ate it.
Unless you just ate part of it, like a leg, a paw, or the tail.
If the bear eats you, it’s very unlikely that you’ll eat it.
Because a bear’s not just going to eat a leg or bite a chunk out of you without killing you.
Besides, bear probably tastes awful.
Stick to cheeseburgers.
Or a salad.