Every Monday stop by for jokes, links to stories you might have missed, amusing photos and video, and more. Contributions and suggestions are welcome and encouraged. Click on the "Email Me" link on the right to contribute.
Joke of the Week: Good Things to Know, contributed by "K"
Birds of a feather flock together and crap on your car.
A penny saved is a government oversight.
The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right time, but also to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.
The older you get, the tougher it is to lose weight, because by then your body and your fat have gotten to be really good friends.
The easiest way to find something lost around the house is to buy a replacement.
He who hesitates is probably right.
Did you ever notice: The Roman Numerals for forty (40) are ' XL.'
If you think there is good in everybody, you haven't met everybody.
If you can smile when things go wrong, you have someone in mind to blame.
The sole purpose of a child's middle name is so he can tell when he's really in trouble.
There's always a lot to be thankful for if you take time to look for it. For example I am sitting here thinking how nice it is that wrinkles don't hurt.
Did you ever notice: When you put the 2 words 'The' and 'IRS' together it spells 'Theirs'.
Aging: Eventually you will reach a point when you stop lying about your age and start bragging about it.
The older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for.
Some people try to turn back their odometers. Not me, I want people to know 'why' I look this way. I've traveled a long way and some of the roads weren't paved.
When you are dissatisfied and would like to go back to youth, think of Algebra.
You know you are getting old when everything either dries up or leaks.
One of the many things no one tells you about aging is that it is such a nice change from being young.
Ah, being young is beautiful, but being old is comfortable.
First you forget names, then you forget faces. Then you forget to pull up your zipper. It's worse when you forget to pull it down.
Long ago when men cursed and beat the ground with sticks, it was called witchcraft. Today, it's called golf
Stories you might have missed
1. Reaction of Cubs fans
(Note: your humble blogger is quoted early and often. This is an AP story that appeared in almost every paper in the country.)
2. Who is voting for John McCain?
(You have to watch this video to get a feel for Obama's actual chances in the South.)
3. Britney's ex plays the sex tape card
(Allegedly, all she's wearing is a pink wig. Remember when she was a mouseketeer?)
4. Sarah Palin nude on the north side of Chicago
(Creepiest part of this story? The artist says his daughter was the model for Sarah's body. Ew.)
5. National Review Online: "I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, "Hey, I think she just winked at me."
(And he's not joking around either. He's totally serious. It gets even better after that: "And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America.")
Video of the week: More starbursts ricocheting...
Photo of the week: Now that's a Halloween costume. Contributed by "B"
READER RESPONSE
Regarding Suburban Man: Older parents, younger children
"Does hiring a 20 something babysitter every now and then to ”run” the kids count as a valid suggestion? Well, ok, if not - here are some other ideas that kind of work in our house:
Engage the older sibling(s) to do the “dirty-work”. We tell our 9 year old that she is preparing for her babysitting career by taking care of her 5 year old brother. I get to supervise from the park bench while she “runs” her brother around the park. This only works during the times that they are not fighting with each other (about 5 minutes total on a good day in a one hour park visit).
Engage them in an activity that you can still actually do like bike riding. They ride slower than I usually do (amazingly) so it isn’t very much exertion to go on a bike ride in the neighborhood. However, this plan backfired when I took the older one on the Chicago lakefront path and she realized most people ride much faster than Mom. She decided she needed to be a speed demon and keep up with the racers and young folk. I could barely keep her in my sites. In retrospect, it didn’t work as well as I had planned.
Plant your garden on a rooftop deck 3 stories away from the kitchen. You can send the offspring up to pick tomatoes, peppers, herbs, whatever and they get to climb the stairs. However, it can be a problem when 1) they don’t come back because the sand box or other such diversion got their attention or 2) they bring you back the wrong herb or worse, the leaves off some inedible plant; nice green, unripe tomatoes or totally squished peppers or tomatoes because they also decided to bring some toy down from the deck. But, heck, they still went up and down those stairs and got some exercise and I didn’t have to do it.
Put the sprinkler out and let them run through it several hundred times as you watch from a nice lawn chair.
Take them to the local children’s museum if the weather is bad and let them run it off in the various exhibits designed to tire them out while you watch and take a picture or two while they are having fun.
If none of this works, hope that the 20 or 30 something neighbors are outside and playing with their kids – especially if they don’t mind a few more….oops, that won’t work for me – there are no under-40 parents in our neighborhood! In fact we have a few 50 something parents with young kids. We all just share the workload depending on who can bend, run, ride or whatever on that particular day and keep our sense of humor about the whole thing. The kids are keeping us young (I think)."
--J
"I had my last child when I was 39 and he is now 12. Try playing basketball, biking, etc. at 52. He knows all my tricks so I have to think of something else."
--T
"I was 32 when I had my last one, and they are now 13 and 15. I actually (kinda) miss those semi-active days, because now I swear I spend the entire afternoon driving home from work, only to cart kids around all evening. I can barely straighten up the last time I get out of the car. Aaaaah, the sedentary life. It’s only a couple of years away for you…."
--M
"Let me tell you about the opposite end of the spectrum.
My son was an accident which happened in the middle of college. I managed to finish and get my degree, but let's say the first two years of school were much easier than the last two. As a result, my son grew up with a primary parent that was younger than his friend's parents. High school is just around the corner for you, Rick, and the things they come up with will make you think you raised an idiot. More accurately, that THEY think YOU'RE an idiot. It will be worse when Sean is in high school, because you'll be a decade older than you are now. My condolences.
One thing in your favor is that you have boys. They are less complicated. Girls will mess with your head. They'll come up with elaborate stories and use all their friends as accomplices. It takes some thought to come up with excuses when you're a girl. All moves are carefully thought out and planned, like a game of chess.
Boys are more basic. They will LIE right to your face and the thing is, you KNOW it, because there's no way in Hell that the school "forgot" to mail his report card three semesters in a row, or that the beer can in your trunk walked in there by itself, or that your son slurring his words and praying to the porcelain God "must be coming down with the flu." He smelled like Hot Damn schnapps, so as my sick little bit of revenge, I've been buying cinnamon flavored Crest ever since because I know he can no longer tolerate the taste. I'm mean that way.
Sometimes they don't bother to lie. You ask they a question and they shrug. Who broke the door? "I don't know." Who lost the remote to the TV? "I don't know."
I believe that the younger parent catches onto the lies more quickly, because it wasn't that long ago that we were using them on our parents. The older parent is more gullible. I think it's because they're just too tired. Most of my friends in high school were babies of their families. Their parents had them in their late 30's/early 40's and by the time their youngest child was in high school, they were exhausted. Or senile. Or just didn't want to deal with it any longer. My parents were younger. I got away with nothing. Meanwhile, my friends gleefully took advantage of their parent's advanced age by breaking curfew and getting into all kinds of trouble that I was never around for because I had to be in by 11:30.
So, my advice? Caffiene. Make sure you are WIDE awake when they start to drive and come home with fresh dents in the car. Or smell like a brewery. Or start minimizing the computer screen as soon as you walk into a room, so you won't see their MySpace page or know who they're talking to on AIM. I may be younger than most of his friend's parents, but I am definitely not stupid, and the good thing is, he's very well aware of that. I overheard him say to a friend once, "Right. My mother's never going to believe that. She's too smart." It was a proud day for me."
--A
