Monthly Archives: December 2025

by

Calm Discussion

Say what you will about Charlie Kirk – and many have – but he championed discussion and debate, not dismissal and censorship.  He had much to say – but he always listened.

SPEAKER DROPPED FROM LOCAL MENTAL HEALTH EVENT

An American speaker was invited to a local symposium, titled, SEE ME, HEAR ME – THE UNHEARD VOICES.  Enough people complained about his social and political opinions, that the invitation was withdrawn.  The irony lies heavy upon the ground.

Beware the zealot!  The true believers are the worst.  The average person’s psyche is a spider web.  Pull on the right thread and you will get the desired result.  Praise them, and they will like you.  Ridicule them, and they will hate you. The greedy can be bought, timid can be frightened, smart can be persuaded, but the zealots are immune to money, fear, or reason.  A zealot’s psyche is a tightrope.  They have severed everything else in favor of their goal.  They will pay any price for their victory, and that makes them infinitely more dangerous.

by

’25 A To Z Challenge – S

It’s tough, sittin’ around doin’ nuthin.  You’re never sure when you’re finished.

While you’re sitting around on your assets, not doing much, here are a couple of words about not doing much, for you to study.  Scrim is a piece of loose-weave cloth, used in theaters to either create the illusion of solidity, or of haziness, depending on the lighting.  Therefore….

SCRIMSHANK

1885/90 British slang, origin uncertain
to avoid one’s obligations or share of work, especially in the military; shirk.
American: to goldbrick

And its cousin….

SCRIMSHAW

a carved or engraved article, especially of whale ivory, whalebone, walrus tusks, or the like, made by whalers as a leisure occupation.
The act of doing so

*

This is MY definition of ‘Griffonage.’

Thanx for stopping by and reading this post, which my friend Eric Idle helped me compose.

by

Fibbing Friday #296

Pensitivity101’s questions last week were originally posted by Frank aka PCGuyIV in 2019 when he and she alternated as hosts.
His post is no longer available, but the questions are great so she recycled them. Thanks Frank.

1. Why was January chosen to be the first month of the year?

January was chosen because after the blinding hangover fades, it has to go uphill from here.

2. Why does the Chinese New Year not start until February?

The Shen Yun tour schedule isn’t complete until then.

3. What’s the point of eating black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day?

A lot of people imbibe a little ‘hair of the dog’ to take the edge off.  Eating something that looks like the dog threw up, reminds you why it’s necessary.

4. Why do we make New Year’s resolutions?

Because we are so gullible that we can fool ourselves into believing that we’ll actually change our bad habits.  Believing this is one of our bad habits.  Change is inevitable – just not from the break room vending machine.

5. What will Santa Claus be doing now that Christmas is over?

3 to 5!  😮  How do you think he got that ‘naughty’ list??  “He sees you when you’re sleeping.”

6. According to tradition, in the Twelve Days of Christmas, the 1st day is Christmas, itself. So what is the 12th day known as?

Rehab relapse

7. Why are so many of the gifts listed in the song, The 12 Days of Christmas, birds?

Because the redneck relatives keep arriving late, as they get bailed out of jail, and not one of them thinks to bring so much as some Cole slaw, or a butter bean casserole.

8. What earthly event marks when an angel gets its wings?

Distracted driving with a cell phone

9. What happens on the Winter Solstice?

The Election Monitor General sees his shadow, and we get four more years of Trump.

10. How did the tradition of the Yule log originate?

From a Charmin Ultra-Strong tissue TV advert

by

Medical Humor

I’m not too keen on taking pills.  When my doctor prescribed some medication for high blood pressure, I asked if there were any side-effects.
He said, “Yes, longevity.”

***

I’m pretty sure my body is not a temple.  It’s a haunted house.  It’s slowly falling apart.  It makes strange noises, and it’s inhabited by the spirit of an old guy who’s always mad at something.

My wife says I’m unsophisticated and uncultured so; to prove her wrong, guess where I’m taking her.
Hint: It starts with B, and rhymes with “wallet.”

***

In one of my blog posts, my computer’s Auto-Correct changed ‘Joseph of Arimathea’ into “Joseph of Aroma Therapy!”

***

My daughter volunteered as an assistant monitor for the Great-grandson’s first swimming trip.  When her child’s towel went missing, an irate mother demanded, “What kind of juvenile delinquents are in class with my child?”
The daughter replied, “I’m sure it was taken accidently.  What did it look like?”
“It’s white,” said the parent, “and it says Holiday Inn on it.”

***

Dieter, and his grandfather Peter, were sitting on the side of a mountain in Bavaria.  Grampa Peter said, look down there at our village.  I helped build most of those houses, but do they call me Peter the house- builder?  NO!  Look at the church.  I climbed up and finished the spire, but do they call me Peter the church-builder?  NO!  See the stone wall where the road runs near the river.  I dug out and mortared most of those stones myself.  Do they call me Peter the wall-builder?  NO!  ….but I fuck one pig!!?

***

I just had another colonoscopy.  I asked the doctor to write me a note for my wife, stating that my head wasn’t up there.

***

WebMD is updating its server because of a virus.  Well, they think it was a virus, but it could also be malaria, kidney failure, a heart murmur, gallstones, or even appendicitis.

***

by

Fibbing Friday # 295

Penstivity101’s theme last week was Say What?

1. What is a palava?

It was a city in Crimea where a bureaucratic blunder wiped out The Light Brigade.

2. What is a Pavlova?

We have finally convinced the Americans that our toque, a knit hat which can unroll all the way down to the jaw line, or neck, is not a ‘beanie,’ so they have begun calling it a Pavlova.

3. What is meant by purge?

An election campaign in Russia, Iran, or North Korea

4. What is meant by purse?

That’s the ‘duck lip’ thing that beautiful influencers do.

5. What is a crash?

It’s what a university/college student does, after studying all night, to write a four-hour exam.

6. What is a crèche?

It’s the descendant of a forked branch that you jam under one armpit, after you discover – with your little toe…. in the dark – that someone moved the coffee table.

7. What is a symbol?

5000 years ago, it was a hieroglyphic.  Nowadays, it’s an Emoji.
We have come so far.   😮

8. What is a cymbal?

It’s a type of Czechoslovakian sausage ‘thingy’ that resembles Scottish haggis, but not as appetizing.

9. What is lichen?

She is the current star of the Shen Yun Chinese traveling circus – a lithe and limber, little acrobat, scarcely larger than a spring roll, who dangles and twirls from a long silk ribbon.

10. What is a lychee?

He is Lichen’s father, and stage manager of the Shen Yun troupe.

by

’25 A To Z Challenge – R

 

It all began long, long ago, in the forested slopes of the Swiss Alps.  The population had become numerous enough, that one particular Germanic family/clan needed to be known apart from any other clan, so the government assigned them the surname of ROETZ, an Old German word meaning “roots,”  celebrating their sylvan heritage.

Fast forward a thousand years….  OOPS!  Touch the brakes.  Slow down a little.  You’re coming in a bit hot – don’t want you to slam into Woke, or Cancel Culture.  A branch of the family tree broke off and blew across Europe, ending in London, England.  It wasn’t long before entitled, colonial British spelling and pronunciation had reduced it to

RITZ.

One scion of the family made good, and made enough filthy lucre to open an exclusive, expensive hotel in 1909.  Soon, other rich, fancy Ritz hotels were built.

In 1934, in the middle of the Great Depression, NABISCO, the National BIscuit Company began advertising a small, round, rich, flaky, buttery cracker called Ritz.  It was marketed so that ordinary folk could have “a bite of the good life.”  They are great on their own, but their true fame is that any garnish/topping can be added – cheeses, jellies, oysters, pâté.  After almost a hundred years, they are still America’s favorite cracker.

by

Fibbing Friday #294

 

Questions from Pensitivity101’s newsletter last week:

1. What does HG represent on the Periodic Table?

It’s a new movie rating.  I think it stands for Hurling Guaranteed.  It is applied to the likes of all Adam Sandler comedies???.

2. Which actress said “Fasten your seatbelts; it’s going to be a bumpy night”

That was Mae West, right after her, “Why doncha come up and see me some time.”

3. What is the coloured part of your eye called?

I called the one in my right eye, Cassiopeia.  I was going to call the one in my left eye Iris, but I thought that might confuse people, so I named it Guinevere.

4. Which is the currency of Laos?

I just checked, and it’s still called Laos – so that’s current, unlike Burma, which became Myanmar, and Siam, which changed to Thailand, but kept the cats.

5. Which book was about a band of rabbits?

Hunting And Trapping Monthly

6. Which mountain range separates France from Spain?

Spain has the Cantabrian Mountains between them and Portugal, to help keep out the smell of fish.  They call the range between them and France, the Sinranas – which, in English, means no frogs.  They have a gigantic engineering project, trying to jack them up a little higher.

7. Which African country was once called Abyssinia?

Another country changing its name??!  First it was called Rastaland, until that was declared unwoke, then it became East Jamaica mon.

8. Which song did Paul McCartney write for John Lennon’s son?

Little Sir Echo

9. Which 1960s film finds an astronaut making his way through a strange and hostile environment?

Don Knotts’ The Reluctant Astronaut

10. Who wrote the Little Mermaid?

That was my cousin, Morton.  He says that he just emailed her, but the cops said that it was sexting and harassment.  His therapist called it piscophilia, and increased his treatment schedule.

by

J U X T A P O S I T I ON, Too

Once upon a time, I published a post about

JUXTAPOSITION

a word which has come to mean the vivid, visual disorientation of viewing two, very different things, beside, or near each other.  The examples I gave, were a tiara on a pig, and a Rembrandt, hanging in a Port-A-Potty.  I was recently exposed to a Canadian case in point.

I had to take the wife to an Oral Surgery and Maxillofacial Clinic, 75 miles away, in Canada’s dark, dirty, dingy, rough and none-too-ready steel city.  When we finally arrived, after navigating the bewildering downtown maze of one-way streets, I was suitably impressed with the magnificent little edifice.

It was relatively brand-new – perhaps 5 years old.  It was clean, and neat, with swaths of well-polished glass, shiny stainless steel trim, and Carrera marble.  You’ll have to take my word for it, because I could not locate any online external images of the place.  It’s almost as if they are ashamed of their neighborhood, and don’t want to scare off any potential customers.

I can’t say that it’s in a ‘Bad Neighborhood.’  It’s about normal for this place.  The street in front looks feels like it’s maintained by the Ukrainian Paving Company.  Cheek by jowl with, and across the street from it, are an ‘Adult Theater’, tattoo parlor, Payday Loan Company, cannabis dispensary, Moe’s Cavern dive bar, and Bob’s Pizza (Hiring delivery drivers.)

I stayed at a motel in a neighborhood like this, north of Detroit, and it had an armed security guard, but this is Canada, where guns are banned – except for criminals – and muggers have to say please, thank you, and sorry.

Ten years from now – or twenty – gentrification will have set in, and it will be surrounded by doctors’ offices, and spas, and tony salons, but right now, it sticks out like the only unsore thumb.

***

(continue last year’s anti-Festival Of Conspicuous Consumption Christmas rant here)

Canada’s celebration of Yuletide commercial excess continues to match, and even exceed, the USA.  Local radio stations and store Muzak play-lists switched to All Christmas All The Time back at Thanksgiving – but that’s CANADIAN Thanksgiving, in late October.

I was recently in a store where I heard Driving Home For Christmas, and thought, “It’s your own damned fault.  If you hadn’t got yourself on a terrorist watch, and No-Fly list, you wouldn’t have to drive.”

by

F*#king One-Liners

I like to surround myself with people with extensive vocabularies….
….but still say fuck a lot.

If you crossed a fish with an elephant….
….would you get swimming trunks?

Fibonacci’s Soup ingredients….
….Yesterday’s soup – Day before yesterday’s soup….

If at first you don’t succeed….
….try twice more so your error is significant.

An expensive laxative will give you….
….a run for your money.

I have a joke about statistical analysis….
….but it’s mean.

Nothing tops….
….a plain pizza.

Why don’t people from India play soccer?….
….Because, when they go in the corner, they open a store.

The guy who invented the wind chill factor died….
….He was 87, but felt like 75.

Did you hear about the stockbroker who got electrocuted….
….when he shorted Tesla?

I am a bad influence….
….but DAMN, I’m fun!

I wrote a joke about the number 288…
….but it’s two gross.

I gave my History teacher a gift….
….but she didn’t like the present.

I have an economics joke….
….but there’s no demand for it.

Age is not a number….
….It is clearly a word.

I’m not old.  I’m only 39*….
….*plus shipping and handling

I woke up this morning, and nothing hurt….
….I thought I was dead.

I asked Siri a question about my life expectancy….
….She changed the subject.

Sign in store window, No Help Wanted….
….I’m going to apply.  I’d be great!

An Ampersand walks into a bar, and is served a free beer….
….A customer says, “Wow, he must be some kind of special character.”

I’m going back to the 80s….
….Anybody want anything?

If a grocery store has a section for health food….
….then what is the rest of the store??