In Micah and Isaiah, spears are bent into pruning-hooks and swords into plowshares, but in Joel they are bent back.
I guess they didn’t have enough metal to maintain a reasonable inventory of both.
These days, we’ve got lots of metal, but it’s always good to recycle.
Plus, who really needs plow-shares or pruning-hooks these days? Instead of bending swords and spears into them, you can make good money selling weaponry to some Renaissance festival role-player.
Sure, you might need to dull the edges a bit or encase them in a hard resin for safety, but that’s easier than bending.
Tag: cliche
Unoccupied
It’s Tuesday. Time to visit John’s money.
I insist on meeting my broker in person.
Traffic’s bad. There’s protestors.
They call themselves “Occupy Wall Street.”
So, I get out, and they cheer.
“YOKO!”
Looking around at these wannabe revolutionaries, I mumbled that these fools couldn’t topple a government, let alone a tower of Jenga blocks on a wobbly kitchen table.
Whatever.
“Fight the power!” I said, and they cheered.
How many of these people hating bankers and lawyers for “not making things” actually make things themselves besides FB updates and noise?
Pathetic.
I get back in my limo and leave.
Short Daily Devotion
I saw a sign on the church door that said “Short Daily Devotion at 8” and walked in.
Standing there at the podium was a midget in a cassock, and he was silently praying to empty pews.
Then, he noticed me come in the door, and looked up.
“Come in!” he said. “Come in!”
I walked in, took a seat at a pew, and he said “Come on up to the front row so I don’t have to shout, please?”
And we prayed. For two hours.
Sure, I could have left, but I didn’t want to be short with him.
The Closet
Like every other geek, my closet is stuffed full of old computer junk.
There’s all kinds of other junk in there.
Worn-out toaster.
Busted microwave.
A VCR.
And it’s all piled up, waiting to come crashing down on the next poor dumb sap who opens the door too quickly.
I could invite over an enemy, tell them there’s something for them in the closet, and they open it…
I’d tell the cops it was an accident. Or a suicide.
Hey, I’ve got some of their handwriting still… I can scan it in.
Now, where’s that scanner…
Ah, in the closet!
The Bottom Line
He started as a software programmer, making cool games that sold millions of copies.
Now, as the CEO of his own software company, he was all about the bottom line.
Which was bottoming out.
“MAKE ME THE NEXT KILLER APP!” he shouted at his programmers.
So, the programmers worked up code that linked a phone’s motion sensors, GPS, and traffic data.
Whenever the driver of a car was in heavy traffic and going very fast, the phone would make a horribly distracting noise that would cause the driver to crash.
They installed it on the CEO’s phone.
Without telling him.
Idiot Box
Some people call television “The Idiot Box.”
I find this to be a shallow and ignorant description of the televised media.
It’s also insulting to my own product: “Idiot In A Box.”
There’s not much to it. It’s just an idiot in a box.
I got the idea for it from my retarded little brother, Fred.
He liked to sit in boxes.
And watching him in there was highly entertaining.
Unlike television, with Idiot In A Box, you don’t need signal, cable, or Internet to get content.
Just the idiot. And a box. Maybe some oatmeal.
Oh, and diapers.
Enjoy!
My Unfair Lady
If the rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain, where does the rest of the rain in Spain fall?
My elocution tutor didn’t know. He just wanted me to repeat this phrase and didn’t want me getting off tangent, digging through the library for meteorological tables from the Iberian peninsula.
When I was done with Professor Higgins, I asked Doctor Odd about the rain in Spain.
He laughed. “When I am done with my Doomsday Cannon, it will rain fire and death upon Spain!”
I asked my parents if we could go to Paris instead of Madrid this year.
A Tiger In Bed
Things didn’t work out.
We fought, we broke up, and she gave me a kitten her sister rescued.
Although it makes more sense to say “She gave me to the kitten.”
That little rat acted like she owned me.
So, one day, the girl comes back.
You know, to “check on the kitten.”
We wind up in bed.
She’s on top, yelling YES YES YES.. and then screaming.
Kitten was on her back, claws dug in deep.
The girl yelled at me, got dressed, and got the Hell out.
The cat cleaned her claws, curled up, and went to sleep.
Curse The Darkness
Someone once said that it’s better to light a candle than curse the darkness, but they didn’t have their house burn down because the candle set their drapes on fire.
Oh, sure, I tried to blow out the flames, but they spread too quickly.
Tear down the drapes and stomp them? They were on fire! What do I grab?
I did manage to blow out the candle, though. But then I needed it to find the fire extinguisher.
I tried to light it off of the drapes.
Nope.
So, my house burned down, and my hand’s got hot wax burns.
We are not alone
Fred hated everyone and lived alone.
He shopped online and had everything delivered.
He never answered his phone, doorbell, or email.
Every so often, he’d have to go out for something, like doctor or dental checkups. He’d get in the taxi, go his appointment, and come home as quickly as possible.
He wasn’t unhappy.
He just hated people. And liked being alone.
The SETI@Home program on his laptop flashed.
It analyzed signals for extraterrestrial life, and it appeared to find something.
Fred smiled.
Not because there was life out there, but because it meant more life for him to hate.