Bob Dylan says that the answer is blowin’ in the wind.
So, I figured that the stronger the wind, the better the answer.
That’s why our think tank leases offices in an airplane manufacturer’s wind tunnel.
I haven’t heard a single dumb idea since we moved there.
Of course, I haven’t heard anything since we moved there. The wind tunnel is deafening, and we wear earplugs for protection.
I tried to set up a whiteboard, but it kept getting blown over.
Maybe moving to the wind tunnel isn’t the answer.
Aha! That’s the answer!
The wind tunnel works after all!
Tag: silly
When it rains…
Mother used to say “When it rains, it pours.”
I’d walk out to the patio and say “Mom? That’s just Grampa on the roof with the hose.”
Mother never said much about that. It was bad enough that Grampa lived with us, making a scene at every meal, accusing Germans of poisoning his soup…
“That’s meat loaf, Grampa, not soup.”
“DAMN THE KAISER!” he’d shout, diving under the table.
The stories he’d tell me, well, they were magical. Tales of… well… I mean… magical stories…
Okay, fine. I ignored the crazy old coot.
Pass the meat loaf… I mean soup.
The Evening Hunt
I used to have trouble sleeping.
Yeah, I tried everything. Mattresses, high thread count sheets, pills, diets, exercise, music…
And pillows. So many different pillows. Piles and piles of pillows.
Different shapes, different materials.
What the hell is Space-Age memory foam? Smells like tar, feels like a marshmallow.
Awful.
That’s when I prayed.
All day, all night.
Days. Weeks. Months.
And then, my prayers were answered.
Standing there, an angel said “How can I help you get to sleep?”
I whacked him with a rock, plucked the feathers from his wings, and stuffed them into a pillow.
Never slept better.
If I had a hammer…
If I had a hammer, I wouldn’t hammer in the morning, evening, or all over this land.
Instead, I’d rent that hammer out to laborers who don’t have their own tools.
With the profit, I’d buy some more tools, like saws and wood planes and socket wrench sets, English and metric.
Then, if someone wants to hammer out danger or warning, they can do it with my hammer, as long as they put down a deposit first.
As for hammering out love between my brothers and my sisters, forget it. My whole family’s nuts.
And they never return my tools.
Saving Throw
We’re having a fundraiser at work for the American Heart Association.
Make your own Ice Cream Sundaes.
Ice cream for heart research, right?
Makes as much sense as candy bars for Diabetes or strobe lights for Epilepsy.
I’m on a diet and can’t eat ice cream. But I love it so much.
So delicious.
So tempting.
NO! I cannot do this!
I must not give in! Stay strong!
I must make my saving throw against ice cream.
Work… work… work… do not think about the ice cream… work… work…
Then, I realize it’s time to go home.
Saving throw made.
The Lantern
Biff was into The Green Lantern.
Really into it.
Wore green underwear, a green shirt and a green cape.
His older brother Joe laughed at him as he ran around, pointing his ring at everything… the dishes… the cat’s litterbox…
“The Green Lantern doesn’t have a cape, retard.”
Then he’d grab Biff and yank his underwear up.
Biff would run to his room, crying.
Then, he’d sit on the roof outside his window and wishing… wishing…
One morning, he was helping an old lady cross the street, when a speeding cab ran them down…
Yep. A Yellow Cab.
Poor Biff.
The Dormant Clown
Dr. Potts released The Clown Virus last week.
Most people died mid-transformation, horrible grins on their pale faces.
But some survived, and now they roam the streets looking for the few remaining bottles of seltzer water, red rubber noses, and joy-buzzers.
A kind of social hierarchy has developed: The floppier and bigger the shoes, the more powerful the clown chieftain.
Then there’s the rare unexpressed carriers like me.
Potts had developed what he thought was an antidote foam, but it’s no cure. It just keeps the virus dormant.
I spray it into the pie-tin, and smack myself in the face.
Spotlight
Jim was the finest actor I ever saw.
Guy was brilliant. Could do any role at a moment’s notice.
If he didn’t already know the script by heart, you could hand it to him, he’d flip through the pages, and was ready.
The problem was, he didn’t like the spotlight.
No, I’m not talking about the attention and fame and all that stuff.
He literally didn’t like the spotlight.
He and the lighting director fought all the time about it, and it took a clever arrangement of houselights to light the stage.
He also wore a lot of white suits.
It’s a thin line between love and hate
It’s a thin line between love and hate.
How thin is it?
Well, are you familiar with John Waters’ mustache?
Yes, the guy who did Hairspray and Cecil B. Demented. You know that thin black mustache he has?
Yes? Good. Okay, well, it’s about that thin.
Oddly enough, it’s also rather thin in terms of how sparse it is some days.
Which is why John Waters has to fill it in with an eyeliner pencil sometimes.
Because when it comes to his movies, you either love them or you hate them.
And for convenience, his mustache makes a handy reference.
Honorary
I’m not very smart.
Sure, I’ve got me a college degree. It’s up there on the wall somewhere.
But there’s no way I’ll ever get a masters. Or a doctorate.
Now, my brother, he’s smart. Got all of those and more. When he’s not inventing things that make everybody’s life better and easier, he’s collecting honorary doctorates by the truckload.
That’s when I decided to collect honorary Academic Probations and Expulsions.
I just got back from England here Oxford and Cambridge condemned me, and this week is a run through the East Coast for Princeton and Yale.
Call me, Harvard.