Hey Dog What’s Up?

Writen by Lance Winslow

Well, recently I have gotten in with the really hip crowd and they are so cool. The first thing that happened is they gave me a nick-name; Dog. They say “Hey Dog What’s Up?” Then that is my cue to say; “Nutten, whaaaaz up wit u?” Pretty cool isn’t it. Now my old friends at the golf course do not understand how cool this is. And they have kicked me off the board at the corporation for this type of slang talk. At work they now sensor my emails, but all in all I am pretty happy with my new friends.

You see I am dyslexic and it is awfully nice to be called “God” you see? As a matter of fact I have not been called “god” since my college days when I dated this girl “Kim” she use to say “Oh god, oh god” all the time, which was pretty cool too, but that decades ago before my recent holiday belly bulge and diet failure. Well those were the days when my dog got up without Viagra.

I was thinking about getting a real dog and name him God so when my friends emailed my on my new Motorola Razr video flip cell phone, well we both could be very happy about it when they emailed to say; Hey Dog What’s Up? Apparently my new group of friends have more than one God in the group so maybe they are more into the Greek Gods than the modern religious cults. I just hope they are into the Greek Thing, if you know what I mean, much more than that. Think on this in 2006 Dog.

Lance Winslow

Your Sense Humor - Try Exercising It

Writen by Cy Eberhart

You have a your own private workout gym for your sense of humor. A place to keep it toned and healthy. It’s your imagination. And the good news is that if you know how to worry you know how to use your imagination. This means you have no reason not to start your humor exercises right now.

Worry is nothing but your imagination in chains. Humor is your imagination freed. There is no restricting your imagination. With it you can see yourself flying like a bird, slaying dragons, being President of the United States., zipping around like Peter Pan. It’s your imagination that allows you to “see” yourself and your situation from other than the usual point of view. Most importantly your sense of humor needs your imagination.

But how do you bring the two together? By practice! That’s the way you learned to talk, to walk., to ride your bike, to swim. So it is with imagination and humor. It’s practice

And it’s not difficult. A former editor of a humor magazine once wrote, “Day and night the staff thought funny and nothing else. We looked over everything for the joke that might be in it. Consequently, we came up with one-liners, laughable incongruities and cartoon ideas…” (emphasis added)

That’s the way, you let (not force) your imagination to explore situations for the “joke that might be in it.” Not all of the time. Not 24-hours a day like the magazine staff did. That was their job. But you can practice enough to be proficiently aware of the humor in your living.

One humor workshop leader, Virginia Tooper of California, included a “humor walk” activity in her Humor Therapy session. Her groups took to the streets looking at the common and the ordinary through new sets of eyes by “thinking funny.” This is nothing more than letting their imagination key off of objects and events that met the eye and waited for something to show itself.

Try the humor walk yourself. You can do it any time, on the street, at work while walking down hallways, around home, standing in a line.

Signs are good to practice on. One I once saw in the post office: “Over 40,000 pieces of mail delivers on time every day.” My mind added, “And 80,000 pieces delivered late.” Not a side splitter but good enough for a little self pleasure.

Using this humor-walk idea in a workshop of my own, a couple came back to the group carrying a flyer promoting membership in a church hymnal society. The copy on the flyer included the word “hymn” extensively. When the woman read aloud with we listeners construing “hymn” as “him,” the comic effect was rollicking. In fact, we had to take a recess too give time to recover from our laughter.
By giving yourself permission to purposefully think funny, you will be well rewarded no matter where you are.

Being open and alert to humor does not mean closing yourself off to your other sensitivities. The sense of humor does not monopolize your system. Just as you can use your sense of sight, sound, and touch at the some time,so can you your your sense of humor in conjunction with other needs.

You can be in that heavy meeting, understand the seriousness of the deliberations, and at the same time see humor in it. Because of that you have freedom to be more responsive to the issues than you have been before.

It’s too bad that common belief has it that humor is incidental to the important matters of life; The truth is that our mind and body need humor. Without it life cannot amount to much. It becomes but a dull routine, with pitifully small rewards for the labor involved. Life without humor must surely be hell.

Lord Houghton said that the sense of humor was the “just balance” in the faculties of man. So remember to keep that balance in whatever you do. Live your life with humor. You’ll be richer for it. Imagination and practice is all you need.

(c) 2006 Cy Eberhart

As a hospital chaplain Cy Eberhart, (now retired) was a firsthand witness to the entire spectrum of human emotions: personal successes and failures; the deepest despairs and the great peaks of joy. Two questions remained foremost in his mind: How was it that some could find inner strengths that brought courage and hope and others could not? What was to be learned from these experiences that would have a positive and creative effect for daily, routine living?

His lectures, writings, workshops, book In the Presence of Humor and his living-history performances of America’s famed humorist Will Rogers offers some of the answers.

Pick On Somebody Your Own Size

Writen by Tim Knox

Unless you’ve spent the past few weeks living in a cave that isn’t wired for cable, you’ve undoubtedly heard that Mattel, Inc. is going to redesign their most popular toy, the Barbie Doll. So what, you say? Consider this: Mattel sells 20 Barbie Dolls per minute throughout the world. The average American girl owns 10 Barbies. If you lined up all the Barbies ever made, standing them head to toe, they would circle the earth seven and a half times. And finally, despite constant pressure from that bum, Ken, Barbie is still a good girl.

So why would Mattel want to tinker with what is obviously a pretty good thing? Political correctness, my friends, that’s why. In the words of a company spokesman, Mattel is going to make Barbie, “a more realistic role model for the little girls who play with her.”

Barbie, a twelve-inch plastic doll, is a role model for little girls? I have two daughters and that’s news to me, though I’m sure RuPaul’s therapist has been aware of it for years.

Here’s what’s in store for the newly-designed Barbie: she’ll get a wider waist, slimmer hips and a smaller bustline. Her toothy smile, oversized eyes and big hair will be replaced with a closed mouth, straighter hair and a normal nose. In other words, imagine Christy Brinkley going in, David Brinkley coming out. I think the term for this kind of thing is “reverse evolution.”

I never really thought about Barbie being a role model before, but a lot of other folks certainly have. Barbie’s been catching a ton of flack lately from feminist groups who say she represents “unrealistic goals that little girls can never obtain.”

One particularly radical women’s group, WHINER, which stands for, “Women Hoping INsanity Equals Reality,” has gone so far as to call Barbie, “an anorexic, bleach-blonde bimbo with enlarged breasts and a hooker’s smile.” Several members of this same group were arrested last month after sneaking into a taping of “Wheelof Fortune” and making lewd remarks about Vanna White’s wardrobe.

Two other members are under investigation for allegedly stalking former Baywatch actress Pamela Anderson Lee, who they say is, “an anorexic, bleach blonde bimbo with enlarged breasts and a hooker’s smile.” Hmm, why does that sound familiar?

I still find it hard to believe that little girls will pin their hopes and dreams on a plastic doll, no matter how cool her wardrobe may be. But if Barbie were for real, would she be such a bad role model for little girls to have?

Meet Barbie, a 36 year old, successful, single woman who owns a Dream Home and drives a convertible Corvette. She loves children and animals, has lots of neat friends and sees life as an adventure. By all accounts, her virtue is still intact. She has never had an abortion or a child out of wedlock. She doesn’t do drugs, doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke. There is a man in her life, Ken, but she does not depend on him for her happiness. Barbie is her own woman and she makes her own way. And yes, she does have a really cool wardrobe, but that doesn’t mean you won’t find her at Wal-Mart every now and then.

Is Barbie such a bad role model for little girls? Not in my book. I’d rather have my daughters looking up to Barbie than Madonna any day of the week.

If there is any part of Barbie that needs work, it’s her feet. I’m amazed that the members of WHINER, who all reportedly wear work boots with flannel socks, haven’t been screaming their heads off over the fact that Barbie’s heels have never touched the ground.

“We must do something about this before our little girls become obsessed with walking about on the balls of their feet like ballerinas with leg cramps! Everyone knows that the stiletto heel was invented by a man! Come on, WHINERs, join me in my fight before it’s too late! Somewhere out there is a Payless Shoe Store that must be shut down! Let’s gooooo…”

Morons. Or is it “moronettes?”

If they redesign Barbie to make her more realistic, who’s next, my old friend GI Joe? At least Joe’s a guy, bringing him into the 90s should be fairly easy. Just give him love handles and a pot belly, put a little less hair on his head and a little more on his back. Take that scar off his cheek and stick it where it will reflect his recent vasectomy operation. Redesign his pistol-grip right hand so that it accommodates a can of GI Joe beer and stick a GI Joe Camel cigarette between his teeth. The new GI Joe no longer comes with a gun, however, a threadbare recliner and a remote control that needs batteries are included. Nagging wife and kids are extra.

Barbie’s facelift (or face-lowering) is just so much more politically correct, fake doggy-doo. Next thing you know they’ll be marketing a “Single Mother Of Nine Living On Welfare” Barbie. And the “I Do The Same Job As Ken But Get Paid Much Less” Barbie. And don’t forget the “You Can Tickle Me For Fifty Bucks” Barbie.

Enough already. Little girls don’t associate dolls with society’s ills. Bored grown-ups do.

If only they had toys of their own to play with.

The Recuay Culture of Peru: [400 BC-800 AD-Ancash, Region]

Writen by Dennis Siluk

The Recuay Culture is one of several fairly advanced pre-Inca societies of the first millennium AD in Peru, such as the Moche and Nazca. Best known for advanced ceramic art and stone cutting, the Recuay people were farmers and herders, whom lived in the Callej

Palestinian People Want Their Own Nation

Writen by Lance Winslow

The Palestinians want their own homeland and nation. They want a place of their own. Who can blame them? Unfortunately they have not been good neighbors to Israel, as they have sent suicide bombers into the country to kill innocent people.

Israel must now secure a 300-mile radius barrier around their country to protect them, this leaves no place for the Palestinians to go. I propose building them a nice country within Zimbabwee where they can go and not be bothered.

You see, the Palestinians voted into office Hamas, The International Terrorist Party, by a margin of 65% so they have already voted with their hate to continue to use terrorist acts in Israel to kill innocent people. Therefore they the area called Palestine and the so-called Nation State called Palestine and the so-called people who use the name Palestinians are indeed sponsoring international terrorism.

We cannot support the sponsoring of International Terrorism and Israel has a right to defend its self and I suggest they get real busy doing that in a really big way ASAP. We must consider all sides of this issue and the recent history and the Palestinian people have been about the worst possible neighbors you could ever have. The neighbors from hell in fact; so, consider this in 2006.

Lance Winslow

Hot Weather: Keeping It All Together

Writen by Pamela Beers

Hot weather is great for going to the beach. We’re having a run of steamy ninety-degree weather in Rochester, NY, motivating me to go to the beach almost every day. I bring a good book, cooler of bottled water, chilled fruit, fresh veggies, and my favorite fold-up lawn chair; parking the chair and myself where I can people watch. When it gets too hot I go for a swim in Lake Ontario. After a refreshing dip I dry off, read for a while, and go back to people watching.

Most of my observations have sited some interesting beach garb, which includes various shapes and sizes that fit into (or out of) bathing suits. Men’s bathing suits are fairly simple and usually conservative in color. They wear trunks, jams, or Speedos. In my opinion, generic swim trunks are most flattering on men, with jams being my second choice. No man, no matter how fit they are, should ever wear a Speedo in public.

Women’s swimwear, on the other hand, is a different story. There is much more variety. I see bikinis, tankinis, maillots, thongs, sarong-type swimwear, and skirted bathing suits. They come in every color imaginable. Some are solid colors, while others are floral, striped, polka-dotted, and checked. Bikinis and thongs are out for most women unless they are body builders.

In order to contain the body parts of the many females I see on the beach, I realize that the bathing suits need some heavy-duty material to keep those parts from going south. On the tag of my new bathing suit it says that the bathing suit manufacturer uses spandex, which is the same rubberized material they put into girdles. I’m sure they do this to keep women’s bodies squeezed into one place for long periods of time. Some of these manufacturers are probably related to the Marquis de Sade.

Take a look at the word spandex. If you change the letters around a little you have the word expands.

There are two reasons bathing suit manufacturers chose the word spandex and continue to use it in their swimsuits. The first reason takes into consideration the thoughtfulness of the manufacturer…it’s to oblige weight fluctuation. As I put on weight over the winter, the spandex accommodates my changing shape. I call it my winter expansion program. Bathing suit manufacturers are well aware of the program and market accordingly.

Bringing us to reason number two. Manufacturers are well aware that after prolonged use, especially in a chlorine pool, spandex loses its elasticity. It’s not pretty after that. Gravity takes over and everything migrates toward the equator. At that point, it’s time for a new bathing suit, which is exactly what the swimsuit manufacturer’s plan was all along.

As I continue to age, my winter expansion program and the laws of gravity make spandex a necessary requirement in my swimsuits. The fact is my bikini days are over, folks. I gracefully accept that fact as I continue to thoroughly enjoy the summer. Yes, it is hot, but the beach is great. I’m reading some excellent books, eating my fresh fruit and veggies, and drinking plenty of water to keep well hydrated. But I have to tell you, I’m getting a special kick out of watching people on the beach trying to keep it all together with spandex.

Enjoy the summer!

Copyright © 2005 by Pamela Beers. All rights reserved.

Pamela Beers is a freelance writer, educator, and horse trainer. She embraces life, enjoying it’s simpler moments. You may visit her website at http://www.pamelabeers.com

The Bomber: Readers Beware

Writen by Pamela Beers

My family calls me “The Bomber”, not because I’m into explosives, but because I have the first pair of Bausch and Lomb aviator sunglasses ever made, making me look like an air force bombardier pilot. I also love bombing around town in my pickup truck.

They also call me “bomber” because I can be a curmudgeonly old coot at times, at which point, it is probably a good idea to stay out of my way. One of those times is when I hear marketing hoopla that makes me want to grab someone by the throat and watch them turn blue.

Readers beware. Words can lure us into a delusional sense of reality. It is called false advertising. Words can glamorize, sensationalize, and mesmerize. Changing the name or intent of something is one of those luring techniques used as an advertising strategy that is right up there in the b. s. category and I don’t mean Bachelor of Science.

Business answering machine messages are tops on my b. s. list. They are part of a business’ overall image, making it important to mean what you say on your message. How about the message that states, “Your call is important to us.” There are times when it seems as though I’m on hold for twenty years, especially when I’m trying to get an answer from my HMO (make that thirty years). By the time they get back to me, it’s time to make funeral arrangements.

I remember when the words “house trailer” were replaced with “mobile home”. Now they’re called manufactured homes. “Mobile home” sounds better to me, giving me a sense of freedom. The words “mobile home” make me want to get-up-and-go, appealing to my spirit of adventure. Manufactured home, on the other hand, sounds like it was thrown together yesterday with spit and toothpaste. I get the feeling that the down draft from a sixteen-wheeler would blow it into another County.

I live in a cozy, two-bedroom townhouse (meaning small), with an honest message on my answering machine that says, “leave a number, I’m writing and don’t want to be bothered”; which is probably why I only have two friends, one of which is my cat, and a loving family who affectionately refers to me as, “The Bomber”.

Copyright © 2005 by Pamela Beers. All rights reserved.

Pamela Beers is a freelance writer, educator, and horse trainer who enjoys poking fun at the establishment. You may visit her website at http://www.pamelabeers.com

A World in Love with Jokes

Writen by Justine Eaglestone

Judging from the listings on the major online bookstores, the whole world is in love with jokes, and books of jokes to such an extent, well, almost as much as it loves Paris Hilton. But what jokes exactly? We did a random search on several sites and came up with some interesting results. Using the keyword “jokes”, it was an eye-opener when a single site found 54540 books involving jokes listed in its database. This was kind of strange in a way.

When last did you check out a friend’s book shelf at their place? We are prepared to bet that books of jokes did not feature much, if at all. Most likely there were relationship books, car manuals, sports books, glossy novels, a gift books, unopened textbooks. Perhaps there was a ragged cartoon book at the end of the shelf and one in the bathroom.

So what are all these listed joke books exactly?

At the bottom of the price range ($1) we found Spongebob, Rugrats, Dumb and Dumber Garfield and hundreds in the 101 Jokes series: 101 Vacation Jokes, 101 Telephone Jokes, 101 Pet Jokes - you get the picture. Some jovial publisher obviously figured out also that the entire world loves a good joke or more than a hundred preferably. It is interesting too that so many of the books of jokes in this price range are aimed at kids. Books containing “Children’s good clean jokes” is a recurring theme here.

At the $15 level the joke books are more adult (O’Brien and Fitzgerald Walk into a Bar: The World’s Best Irish Jokes) and edgy (the “Extremely Gross Jokes” series). And here’s a joke for you. Our search threw up “The Joke” by Milan Kundera. Funny huh? Then there is the fabulously interesting title “The Jokes of Sigmund Freud: A Study in Humor and Jewish Identity” by Elliot Oring. Not a joke book to take to the pub perhaps but you can feel the laughter well up even so. Then I came across the title “I Give you Texas! 500 Jokes of the Lone Star State”. I have always had a yearning to live in Texas although I know very little about it. I reckon Texan jokes should tell me all I need to know. So I got sidetracked and ordered the book.

Of course there is a dark side to the joke industry - the academics who Take It All Very Seriously. Consider the title “Rationale of the Dirty Joke: An Analysis of Sexual Humor”. This kind of title should not really be thrown out by a search for jokes. It’s not fair and it’s not funny. At the top of the price range ($100 and more) there were interesting discoveries, such as an album of 50 saucy not blue postcards from World War II. My grandpa had some of those. Published in Poland in 1931 was “I Laugh at You”, in Yiddish, by Joseph Tunkel. Mr Tunkel left Poland in 1939 when the laughter stopped. For $300 you can have David Henry Thoreau’s “Cape Cod” in two volumes, reportedly Thoreau’s sunniest, happiest book. It bubbles over with jokes, puns, tall tales, and genial good humor, the bookseller says. If you are prepared to stump up $77 500 dollars for a laugh, you can have the complete autograph manuscript of Chapter 23 of “A Tramp Abroad” by Mark Twain. It was the most expensive that came up under the search term “jokes” on Abebooks.

The bookseller supplies a painstaking description of the item (revisions, repairs, smudging, fingerprinting and all) and says: “The subject of the chapter is, in large part, reminiscence from Twain’s days as a printer’s apprentice. Nicodemus Dodge, a seeming yokel from out of town, is hired at the printer’s shop where the young Sam Clemens is working. The locals hope to make Nicodemus the butt of their jokes only to find (as Twain notes in a phrase that was ultimately deleted), that they ‘had fished for a sardine and caught a whale’ “.

The old jokes are often the best.

©Copyright 2006 - Justine Eaglestone

JUSTINE EAGLESTONE is a journalist brick-and-mortar bookstore owner, online bookdealer and booksite specialist. See her blog at http://search-book-sites.blogspot.com and website http://www.abillionbooks.com

Exactly What Does "Stand Down" Mean?

Writen by Tom Attea

While we’re certain that the phrase “stand down,” which we hear with unaccustomed frequency in reference to our someday departure from Iraq, has a long and venerable history, we still cannot help but be niggled by what appears to us the apparent illogic of the postural invocation.

While we are not certain about the general experience of the human race, we are at least in regard to ourselves, pretty well convinced that the idea of “stand” is strikingly at variance with the positional adjustment required to achieve the state of being “down.”

Although we may be a bit perverse in our preference or conditioning, it seems to us that when we “stand,” we greatly increase the likelihood that we will more nearly approximate the position usually described as “up.”

We certainly understand that there is perhaps a subtle resistance in the military and the White House to associate our adjustments to military and diplomatic events with any term that so flagrantly flirts with the negative connotations that lurk within the word “down.” Yet it still seems to us that logic is on our side and that it would not be irreparably incriminating to refer to the adjustment in terms of our departure from Iraq as “standing aside,” while we allow the Iraqi army to “stand up.”

If we’re being entirely unreasonable here, we apologize, but our sense of postural propriety tends to intrude from time to time on our capacity to be deaf to its more flagrant abuses.

Tom Attea, humorist and creator of NewsLaugh.com, has had six shows produced Off-Broadway and has written comedy for TV. Critics have called his writing “”delightfully funny” and “witty” with “good, genuine laughs.”

10 Things I Hate About Hairdressers Talking

Writen by Russ Egan

I went in for a hair cut today, and something very common happened that happens everyday in every country in the world: the hairdressers began talking to me. While this may seem polite at first, it quickly gets annoying (thankfully my hairdresser is rather good). There are 10 reasons for this, and I’m sure that you have thought about some of them yourself.

1. It is my life - The most common question I am asked is: what are you going to do with your life? I haven’t decided yet. And if I had, I wouldn’t be sharing my goals and dreams with a complete stranger, no matter how good their cutting skills were.

2. This is not a social outing - If I wanted a conversation I would approach a complete stranger, and would not be paying them. And if I was paying them I would expect a drink in return (barman are great at solving problems).

3. They have a job to do - They are getting paid to cut hair, and not to have a social life, although that seems to be a perk to the job nowadays.

4. It’s dangerous - The tool of their trade is a pair of scissors, and if they are distracted by a riveting conversation, well, who knows what could happen.

5. Shoddy job - Again, a distraction is taking place, and whether this results in half an ear gone, or a bad haircut, you know that your money has been wasted.

6. It’s damn annoying - Hairdressers ask the most repetitive, dull, and boring questions. The conversations revolve around what might happen, what has happened, and what the star signs have predicted.

7. Shallow - I am not calling hairdressers themselves shallow, merely the conversations. If, pray to God, a conversation turns political or some other serious direction, then the most common and pathetic opinions are voiced, and usually not by the customer.

8. Unachievable - When I have a chat with someone, I don’t have a pair of scissors hovering above my head. But at a hairdressers, I do, and because of that I don’t want to move my head around too much.

9. Uncomfortable - Talking about your own life is plain annoying, but talking about someone else’s is disturbing. I hate to say it, but I don’t care about your eating habits, or your weight problems.

10. Someone else - The only thing worse than having a hairdresser talking to you while they are cutting your hair, is when they are talking to someone else. One hair cut I had was with an apprentice, who spent most of your time talking to your boyfriend. Not the most comfortable position to be in.

As you can see, I have put a lot (a little) of thought into this list, and by now my rage has subsided. However, I am sure that it will return the next time I go to a hairdressers, for the chit-chat is inevitable.

Russ Egan
http://s-bend.blogspot.com