Tag Archives: happiness
Nip and Tuck
If wishes were horses, Huntsville’s Brookside Street SW would get a new coat of fresh pavement.
Do you know how to optimise restaurant seating while keeping overall wait time down at the same time?
Do you hike to out-of-the-way waterfalls after a major storm?
Questions haunt my thoughts that look back 1000 years from now.
Beanpole Twist ‘n’ Shout
Lord, have mercy, it was a fun time last night.
Smacking boot heels on old wood floors.
Accordion, washboard, guitar, drums, bass…like an ol’ bayou Saturd’y night getdown.
‘Memberances of N’awlins, crawfish boils, jazz fests, New Year’s Eve on the Riverwalk, ESPN settin’ up for the national championship.
Louisiana hot sauce or, when that’s not available, habanero squeezin’s on the chicken sandwich at Beauregard’s, the ever resourceful Antonio givin’ us the extra onion rings.
Dance lessons a’fore hand – “just remember, it’s not the exact steps that counts, it’s keepin’ time with your partner that makes it zydeco!”
One, two, three four. Five, six, step back.
My partner – my rational, logical engineering wife – dissecting the steps ’cause we already know how to keep time. This ain’t work, honey, it’s the weekend! 😉
Sippin’ whiskey from a flask – Bushmills Black Bush. A little Sprite for the missus. A swig of ginger ale for her male.
My, oh my, does the zydeco bring out the bee-yout’uhful ladies?!
Like the cream o’ the crop, they were, a’dancin’ with their beaus or choosin’ more experienced partners to learn a new move or two to spice up their relationship on the dance floor and off.
I felt like someone wound my clock back, and we were back at the ol’ Chicken Shack down by the river, a jug of hooch bein’ passed back and forth while bodies spun ’round and ’round like the storm clouds that swept past over and over again.
Lightnin’ never strikes the same place twice unless the dance floor’s on fire, my grandpappy used to say.
Reckon he’s right.
Zydeco lessons at the Eagles Club tonight, folks. Don’t miss it!
A nod to Jessica at Arby’s, the behind-the-scenes folks at Lowe Mill, and Yuri Ozaki, whose quiet happiness blesses us all – may your country find peace during this difficult recovery period. Cat, we’ll fill up on Happy Tummy the next go-round.
Take a day off, then my wife and I are hittin’ the dance floor again, this time shufflin’ our feet to swing music.
No offense to you bowling fans but between drinkin’ beer at the bowling alley or hoppin’ on the dance floor with my wife, I’ll take the parquet.
Or is it butter?
One day, our dancing will be as smooth as such.
More future news for you to use…
- Two years from now, all new government employees will not be eligible for pension and will get no more than 10 days off for holidays.
- Current government employees who did not save sufficient personal funds for retirement are out of luck – your pension has just been reduced by 50%, including all retirees backdated to the last 10 years, and will be reduced another 10% every quarter for the next year.
- From the end of the following year to the end of the fiscal year after that, employees with more than 20 years working for the government will be given a lump sum of $20,000. Employees who’ve worked less than 20 years for the government will be given a handwritten sign that reads, “Will work for food”.
- New government motto: “If you don’t like this government, go off and form your own.“
- Government-based medical care has been reduced to the issuance of a home emergency medical kit, which includes a box of adhesive bandages, a bottle of aspirin, a tube of antiseptic ointment, a placard that states, “We feel your pain, but realise there’s always someone who has it worse off than you do,” and a list of phone numbers for out-of-work medical personnel willing to examine/operate on you and/or your family/dependents on a low-cost cash basis (at your own risk, of course).
- Government subsidies are only available for those motivated and inventive enough to write a proposal for a business idea that has already been proven to be unprofitable without government support (including most art and pure science projects).
- Convicts will be given consideration for parole after their work in prison factories has shown to increase the bottom line in a meaningful, measurable manner.
- Because of the elimination of all government-based social services, private industry is not allowed to enforce a mandatory retirement date.
- Workers may quit their jobs any time they feel they have put away enough for living a life without depending on benefactors such as the stalwarts, titans, giants, and creative minds of industry who sacrificed themselves for the sake of society in order for you to have that cushy job you constantly complained about.
- Public educational institutions have been converted to youth-based work study programs. Children have the option of learning under the youth-based work study programs or the prison factory system.
- Young vagrants who have refused to work for either system will be rounded up and recycled for food sent to our off-world colonies.
- Vagrants past the age of eligibility for the work study/prison factory system will be given the choice of going into the medical guinea pig program or accelerated reeducation system (in either case, automatically giving permission for their personalities to be erased), the latter making them eligible for the benefitless government or private industry job. They, too, may opt to become off-world menu items.
- As always, dissidence is an official function of society – unapproved dissidence qualifies you for vagrancy status.
- If you question the validity of any of the above news items, you will be classified as a vagrant – unlike what your former liberal educators may have told you, there are no exceptions to these rules: win, lose, and die.
Anything you say can and will be used to improve the efficiency and profitability of the species’ primary functions.
If you believe any of this has been written in a sarcastic or satirical tone, it is clear evidence that you are in the middle of your accelerated reeducation process. Your personality is now disappearing before your eyes.
Welcome to the new you!
Paving the way with flint flakes
Getting more physical. Conspiracists say it was alien ships that kidnapped our ancestors and deposited them in unpopulated areas of the planet – any way you row the boat, you still gotta catch game and eat it.
Crunching the numbers. Does your talent languish?
A nod to Geraldine Ferraro.
Steppin’ Razor
Dripping gutter drumming out a reggae beat.
Wondering why it takes so long to train one species to see clearly.
‘Tis what is – no need to worry. Everything is gonna be all right.
A word of remembrance to Don Hill, pillar of his community and of his time.
Do we know the impact our outreach makes on those we never meet again?
In Gettysburg, “the enemy was defeated here.” Defunct golf courses are put to rest.
Do you see strange bumps and places on your body/face that happen to coincide with tiny particles of radioactive material blowing across the globe?
What if we produced for you a conservative, compassionate, female U.S. presidential candidate who is one-third European*, one-third Native American* and one third Hispanic*?
[*Exact location of genetic heritage to be decided by polling and popular vote]
Would you accept a genetically-arranged test tube baby trained to understand all aspects of life, from haute couture to subsistence farming, who exhibits the perfect traits of a humble yet politically-savvy candidacy and will ensure that 7+ billion of us are given equal opportunities to succeed, however we wish to define the pinnacle of success for our capabilities, without taking from the selfish haves to feed the selfish have-nots?
What if we figured out a way to turn every member of the species into a caring, socially-aware, fully-assimilated being?
Well, let’s wake up from that dreamy scenario and look at real life.
Let’s look into vehicles with blacked-out windows. Let’s examine the contents of rental trucks.
Let’s see what’s really going on.
And have fun in the process.
This blog entry brought to you by members of the Subcommittee On Compliance, Kickbacks, Irrigation, Toxicity, Terraforming, Oncology, Mememaking and Entertainment (SOCKITTOME). “Iliad Dusk” just didn’t sound right.
Now, back to the game currently in progress.
Flipcharts
Adding up the statistics of all the websites and blogs my team has hidden across the globe, we reached a daily average of 65,000 views today!
Of course, that’s nothing compared to major news sites, celebrity videos, facebook updates or twitter feeds, but we are happy with our low-key approach to viral influence.
Our whole point of existence is not to make people aware we exist.
Makes us wonder if we should start taking ourselves seriously.
Why start now, right?
One of our Czech programmers created a comedy sensor that detects when our funny bones have lost their sense of humour.
Our overcrowded hallway of unemployed superheroes was buzzing with excitement but that’ll happen when the Green Banker’s Lamp is upset that he’s not getting the attention he used to garner before the global economy relapse of 2008.
Of course, he challenged the Green Hornet and the Green Lantern to a three-way duel.
We’ll report the results of their old-fashioned showdown as soon as they reach an agreement about how to get the Funny Bone Dullness Sensor to react to bored superheroes fighting over the right to be famous for being famous for making a moose say vamos.
Census data revealed that 1 out of 6 Americans are American, which, coincidentally, lines up with previous census data that revealed 5 out of 6 Americans are also American.
We can’t wait to see the final report that reveals 100% of Americans are 100% American.
Star light, star bright, is that the last we’ll see and hear of Stardust (the satellite, not David Bowie or Katie Perry channelling the memory of Ziggy Stardust)? If you go coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs, will you go gaga for Lada Gaga going country? Somebody, gag me, please, before I violate the STUPID Act again!
= = = = =
And last, but always least, I realised tonight, after nearly 25 years of marriage, my wife has never (well, rarely) seen the aspect of my personality that comes out when she’s not around, that is kept at bay because I agreed to hide my wild, quasi-dark side away from her relatively normal, socially-even personality. Years of practicing suppression for her sake have been years of practicing suppression for her sake.
More on that last paragraph at a later time. My days of multiple dance partners will have to wait until another out-of-town business trip. I left my wild side in Ireland, didn’t I? In other words, the personality-at-home maintains itself for now. Is that the definition of love?
I want to live but I don’t yet know how, I tell myself. [If I can’t lie to myself, who can I lie to?]
In upcoming news…
Reminder: April 1st is National Male Pattern Baldness Awareness Day, which kicks off the 3-day telethon to raise money to continue spreading the awareness in hopes that a cure will not be necessary once Female Pattern Baldness Awareness Day is universally accepted.
Politicians fulfilled their promise and posted legislation five minutes before they voted and approved new rules that classify investigative journalism, or any activity that resembles such, as a federal crime under the Stalking, Terrorism, Usury, Peering, Investigation and Dependency, or STUPID Act.
Paparazzi were rounded up by the thousands and crammed together in tiny Gitmo Bay cells. Celebrities cheered, not realising how much free advertising they just gave up in exchange for privacy.
TMZ cried foul. The whole staff was arrested on grounds that protesting the potential of getting arrested is suspicion of violating the STUPID Act.
Grocery store magazine shelves were declared illegal and destroyed.
Students with webcams and mobile phones, with or without builtin camera, were placed under house arrest for violating both the stalking and dependency clauses of the STUPID Act.
Crowds gathered outside jails to celebrate the arrest and immediate conviction of bankers under the usury clause of the STUPID Act.
Lobbyists, PAC owners and payday loaners have retained all available lawyers not busy representing parents, children, mobile phone carriers, bullies, astronomers, PIs, police detectives, CSI employees, television executives, PC software company employees, scientists and quality control inspectors.
Meanwhile, Qaddafi has put the belongings of the Lockerbie Bomber for sale on the Terrorism Hero auction site to raise money to protect his shrinking empire.
Amenandjihad kept silent one more day, waiting for his spy network to identify future denizens to serve as important peons supporting the new United States of Arabia that will incorporate itself as the latest embodiment of the Ottoman Empire, hoping to rival the EU and the USA for a domestic market that serves the networked BRIC empire.
Political pundits are taking bets that after a female takes office in 2012 whether the former ruler will offer to serve as prime minister of the new USA.
The Committee set up a 3D chess set to commemorate the anniversary of the creation of the character of Spock on Star Trek.
DNA scientists were able to prove the genetic relationship between Michael Schumacher and the Busch brothers.
Steve Martin and Joan Rivers announced they secretly married at the funeral for Elizabeth Taylor, setting a new standard in Hollywood entertainment. We’d post exclusive video of the wedding but officially say we know nothing about its existence due to our patriotism and dedication to obeying the STUPID Act.
All I want is the American Dream
All I want is the American Dream.
All I want is the American Dream.
All I want is the American Dream.
In bright, graphic detail, preferably.
All I want is the American Dream, white picketing fencesitters not allowed.
Dang it all if lunch isn’t here again. My stock picks will have to make gains on their own without my news manipulators waiting on my next mandibular move.
Have you ever watched a stained glass window come to life through colour filter manipulation behind the silica framework, solar and other visible rays playing tricks on your eyes?
I chased a lizard through the woods and shot it with a photographic freeze frame. It ran and hid beneath a stone overhang.
Is that what you call communing with nature?
Are you playing hookie with your Arduino, too?
Were your formative years spent conforming to others’ ideals or forming your own?
Head over to makezine #25 and see if you’ve still got an idea forming in your ideal thoughts.
And remember, I don’t care about your religious preferences – I just want the freedom to market my products to appeal to your buying habits which align with an open/free market economy.
treetrunkdings 