• Tag Archives Humor
  • “Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.” Victor Hugo

    I’m back.

    Luckily – I’ve worked so many hours this week……

    Anyway.

    A short timeline – I staggered awake yesterday, and set out in search of a breakfast place in Austin. I picked The Omelettry. I was not disappointed. It was pretty much the quirky like diner type of place (cash only) that I would expect to find in Austin. Excellent food. I had a Popeye’s Favorite (spinach and bacon) Omelette and a side of ginger pancakes. The pancakes were great – although ended up weighing like cement on my drive back to Corpus. Before the comedy show I did go to Antonio’s Mexican Restaurant. No great shakes – Migas con Fajitas was pretty good although the place was deserted.

    Back to Corpus I went. These road trips have really made me detest fast food. Really. Rather than leave and get home earlier, I stopped for a sit down at Jason’s Deli. Had a really good Chicken Panini – the bread was not greasy with butter as most panini sandwiches are. Protein in belly, drove back to the office. Got home at two am this morning.

    I just watched the Mitch Hedberg DVD, and while it was short, I did find the uncut version of his TV special really interesting. The set of material that he had prepared for the special itself – was pretty much bombing. It wasn’t until he pretty much said, “Well, that was it for the special, I’ll keep telling some more jokes for editing”. That’s when he really started to flow.

    Austin has got a lot of funny comedians (and comediennes) – the show was a lot of fun, my throat hurts from laughing – which is always a good sign.

    Time was well spent discovering things about Austin. I can’t wait to go back.


  • “East bound and down, loaded up and truckin’ a’we gonna do what they say can’t be done” Jerry Reed

    Well, I made the sprint home since it was still daylight, and the zombies don’t come out until after dark (obviously).

    Some random statistics (all approximated as I did not have an official statistician onboard).

    Miles driven: 1200 (give or take a few hundred)
    Hours in the vehicle: 22
    Days out: 2
    Average amount of time excessively above the speed limit: 80%
    Number of times I wished I would be ticketed for going 20 miles over the speed limit (as to be fired instantly from my job): 5
    Number of times I intentionally sped 20 miles over the speed limit: 2
    Chance of someone checking the satellite log on the vehicle to scope how fast I was speeding: 0 (give or take 10% – we just upgraded the system)
    Chance of me losing my job if someone does check the log: 50%
    Number of bugs splattered on the windshield: 45 (give or take)
    Number of times I attempted to use the onboard wipers and misting to clear said bugs: 4
    Number of times this cleaned anything: 0
    Number of law enforcement vehicles seen during entire trip: 15
    Number of times I was nearly run off the road: 1
    Number of Poppyseed Kolaches consumed: 2 (it would have been four – lesson learned is if there is a bus parked next to the czech stop, don’t bother stopping)
    Number of times I thought about sex: Every seven seconds. See?
    Number of CD’s I had with me: 8
    Number of times I listened to Imelda May: 8
    Number of times I listened to Brian Setzer Orchestra: 12
    Number of times I listened to American Idiot: 47 (approximate)
    Number of times I wished that my Chris Isaak CD case wasn’t empty (where IS that disc?): 7
    Number of Home Depot/McDonalds/KFC/Burger King/Lowes/Designer Outlet complexes passed during the trip: Uncountable. More fuel for my theory that I could go to Iowa, and it will look just like Texas.
    Number of BBQ joints passed: 13
    Number of times I got odd looks because I was singing along with a CD: 4
    Number of times that I said “God-Dammit” because someone was going slow in front of me: 17
    Number of times I believed in “God”: 0
    Number of haircuts: 1
    Number of times regretting getting a haircut: 3

    Main thing learned from this trip:

    DO BILLBOARDS WORK? JUST DID!!!

    I think that’s about all I’ve got.

    I’m pretty tired now.


  • “I’m getting too old for this….” Danny Glover in every lethal weapon movie

    SNAFU! FUBAR! SNAFU! FUBAR! SNAFU! FUBAR! SNAFU! FUBAR! SNAFU! FUBAR! SNAFU! FUBAR! SNAFU! FUBAR!

    But really folks. It’s not just SNAFU. It’s not just FUBAR. I shall now dub this trip SNAFUBAR.

    SNAFUBAR!!! SNAFUBAR!!! SNAFUBAR!!! SNAFUBAR!!! SNAFUBAR!!! SNAFUBAR!!! SNAFUBAR!!! SNAFUBAR!!!

    My happy little ass woke up this morning at 5am to begin the lengthy drive to Corpus Christi. Made it to Corpus around one. Left around three after convincing the helpdesk it wasn’t our problem. Found out about forty minutes later (after driving away) that I would need to go back because they’re complete idiots and couldn’t grab me before I left.

    So I’m in Houston. Sorry – I forgot the camera, it was either the camera or the coffee – and we all know which way that willow would bend.

    I’ll be here (briefly) tonight and tomorrow morning while I get some estate stuff done (briefly) then I drive back to Corpus. SNAFUBAR!!!!!

    Then, I’m feeling pretty tired as of RIGHT NOW, so I’m probably going to have a layover in Austin Saturday night. I can’t handle eleven more hours of driving in one day. This should give me a nice chance to hang out…..before driving back to Austin on Tuesday for GirlOnTop‘s FPIA show. Be there or be square people!!!

    SNNNNAAAAAFFFUUUUUUUBBBBBAAAARRRRR!!!!


  • “By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

    Oh, it’s gotten so crazy around here.

    *looks over shoulder*

    *hushed tones*

    I can’t discuss it now.

    Speaking, however, of appropriation, I stole a funny line/quote from Andrea’s post on Heartless Doll’s “Pantylines” and incorporated it into my wordpress header. I seriously, SERIOUSLY thought about using Comic Sans*, but I knew that would go over like a…….uh…….something that wouldn’t go over very well.

    😉

    *Extra bonus pizza if you can name the font I used.


  • “When you sell a man a book, you don’t sell him 12 ounces of paper and ink and glue – you sell him a whole new life.” Christopher Morley

    I’m back from the store.

    Pet Peeve: People who EAT while at the grocery store. I don’t know why that bugs me, but there was a dude walking around chowing down on a corn dog. A CORN DOG. Mind you, this was the (dare I say it) nice Kroger that I usually go to. I don’t usually see rednecks eating corndogs and shopping for groceries.

    Why the hell is there no non-fat milk at the store on Friday nights??

    Is there a non-fat rush for the weekend? I got a quart of 1% and a quart of 2% (with OMEGA 3 added).

    Total shout out to my friend Monica. She knew I was down as I’ve had a lot happen recently and so she sent me the best gift of all – BOOKS. I don’t know how she did it, I haven’t talked to her in about 15 years or so, but she picked the perfect books for me.

    Here they are:

    villan_colbert

    I’ve been wanting to read the Stephen Colbert book. (I like the show, but I enjoy reading his kind of authoritative/commanding humor rather than watching it. Much like Saturday Night Live, I only seem to enjoy it when they start laughing at their own jokes on camera.) SO, Perfect Book #1. Totally my type of dry, deadpan humor.

    Perfect Book #2 is “How to be a Villain”. Totally my style, it’s a primer on how to be a villain (and I suppose take over the world). I can’t wait to start wearing a pencil-thin moustache. Hee-hee-hee. Whoops. Good thing that book teaches you how to laugh like a villain. “Hee-hee-hee” may not cut it.

    I honestly don’t know how she picked the perfect books. But she did. They did their job and they’re lifting my spirits so I thank her.

    There is probably one more thing I can write about today – but I may wait until tomorrow as it’s pretty funny. I’m drinking an excellent mocha (I have finally sussed the De Longhi out) and I’m going to go watch “Burn After Reading” and possibly “The Spirit”. I haven’t heard anything about The Spirit, but I’m looking foward to B.A.R. So the funny story may wait until tomorrow.


  • “Nothing in the universe can travel at the speed of light, they say, forgetful of the shadow’s speed.” Howard Nemerov

    Now that I’ve sufficiently napped, and had time to get something to eat more substantial than Kolaches and Vodka – several things I thought of that I remembered:

    * At the show, I was sitting dead ahead (or dead forward or right in front of…..you get the picture) of the mic – at the end table. Originally I was in the last chair before you hit the reserved section. This other guy is sitting across and two seats down from me (I’d draw a diagram but I’m feeling extREMELY lazy right now). There’s about 5 seats open, two or three to my left and two or three to his left. This girl comes up and she asks me, “Are you going to be using those chairs?”. Not one to pass up an extremely good setup, I say, “Only if I decide to lie down”. For some reason she finds this Hi-Freaking-Larious. So she says, “Oh you’re funny, maybe you should be onstage!” (!) Okay, now, I’m occasionally amusing, but that threw me a little – not to mention that it made me think her comedy standards may be far, FAR lower than my own. Which brings me to my next point – that girl…..

    * is the girl who snort/laughed throughout the entire show. Yes, she was at my table. It was mildly hard not laughing at her laugh, especially when she found something funny that only got a mild chuckle out of the rest of the table. We’d chuckle, she’d snort, we’d laugh (and everyone else around us) would laugh at her laughing. It was kind of like she was a laugh multiplier. She should probably hire herself out to struggling comedians. Joke bombs, mild chuckle from crowd, she snorts, crowd laughs. WIN! I think even the first comedian said something to the effect (after she snorted),”That’s going to be the best joke all night”.

    * The guy who I was originally sitting two seats down from, and after the snorting girls gang showed up, and I had moved in front of the guy, his two friends showed up. I’m going to give a disclaimer RIGHT NOW. I have absolutely NO PROBLEM with gay people. AT ALL. It’s a FREE FREAKING COUNTRY. Do what you want to who you want to. With that out of the way, these two friends of the guy across from me were gay. Not crazy gay, but one of the guys had his arm around the other guys shoulder all night. Okay, there’s the setup. Again – no problem with gay people. Gay is AOK.
    NOW, the situation that occurs when you’re sitting across from an obviously gay couple, at a comedy show, is that some comedian is going to whip out some gay jokes. Well…..that definitely happened. I don’t recall the comedienne’s name, but she started with her bit about her gay dad/uncles/relatives and the “dick broom” joke. All well and good. Well, kinda.
    See, even though homophobic comedy (which I don’t necessarily recall hers being specifically) is targeting a general audience, and is a generalization of a minority, blah, blah, blah, I tend to see things in terms of comedy. It’s a lot like the generalizations that black dudes have big dicks (myth) and all white people can’t dance (not a myth, just kidding, myth). It’s the “common ground” theory – which is why broad based comedy works well. SO, whereas I’m not taking offense at these jokes (primarily because I’m not gay), they would stiffen up a little bit.
    Now here’s the thing for me…..in order to not appear totally insensitive, I couldn’t really laugh loudly at the gay jokes – in fact our entire table was pretty quiet (except for the occasional snort) during “gay joke time”. That kind of sucked. Again, I have no problem with people’s lifestyles – and if something is funny, you should laugh. Perhaps I’ve said enough. (Lastly though, one of the gay dudes had a really thin black 80’s tie – I’m a sucker for a thin tie)

    * The dude who had the (gay) friends, ordered his food. I recall being a starving high school/college student….but he’s asking the poor server what drinks (soft drinks) and did the bacon and mushroom cost an extra dollar? (Yes – and then he declined). His gay friends got soft drinks too. I felt so bad for her I tipped her extra EXTRA well to make up for it. That’s the kind of guy I am. LOL. “Hey lady, you’re not going to get tipped by these douches, so I’ll tip for them.” HA!

    * Lastly, I do need to mention that Andrea is really cool – she’s as funny as you would think she would be from reading her writing (run-on-sentence? or just confusing). She got me in for free, and all her bits went over really well. (Except maybe throwing props for the Mavs. 😉 ) I don’t recall all of them at this moment, but I do remember really liking the camel cigarette bit.

    AND LASTLY FOR THIS POST:

    BECAUSE I KNOW IT’S KILLING YOU –

    Here’s what I got at The Container Store.

    I was originally looking for a battery organizer (my drawer full of crap is not doing it for me), but apparently I just couldn’t find it (probably an online only item). Somehow, the Container Store is very soothing to me….organization usually is. So I passed by that Pet Hair Lifter. I HAD to pick THAT up.

    My tremendous decision to get beautifully colored plum/maroon furniture was not properly thought through in regards to cat hair.

    containerstore

    The butter containers, I can’t explain. I don’t even know. I did need a sugar container though.

    >>>>NEWS FLASH<<<<

    That stupid cat hair thing works like a freaking charm! It’s AWESOME!!! And only 6 bucks!!!


  • “I would guess it was spur of the moment.” Steve Ryan

    Ahh….I’m so well rested. HA!

    I’m operating on about 6 espressos and four hours of sleep.

    Congratulations to Andrea for her advancement to the next round of FPIA.

    I made a road trip of it (last minute planning) and had a blast. It was well worth the drive.

    Racetrac (Collins/I-20): Fueling up for the haul.
    1

    Driving: I-20
    2

    Sanity:
    3

    Did I do this on purpose?
    4

    Brief foreshadowing on I-20
    5

    The essential building blocks of life: Water and Coffee (not ranked in importance)
    6

    TCC – after they drilled a gas rig into one of the fields….
    7

    Sheriff presence kept me from photographing the actual sign on I-20 splitting off onto I-35.
    8

    Rounding onto I-35S
    9

    Miller brewery down 35 – smells like bread/yeast
    10

    Huh. Blue skies ahead!
    12

    Tony the crippled tiger:
    13

    Heyyyy. What’s that up there?
    14

    Darn it. Thanks to the rain-x on my windshield, the drops looked like a swarm of sperm crawling up the glass. Creeepy.
    15

    Ha! Made it to Austin, so where’s the first place I go? Containerstore!!! They didn’t have what I was looking for *gasp* but I picked up some stuff anyway.
    16

    Here’s one of the Randall’s that I visited when I worked for the Deployment group at Safeway. I wandered in and used their bathroom. Also took a moment to phone my mother and find out about her ….uh…thing that’s happening.
    18

    Okay, so here’s where I stalled in taking a bunch of pictures. As much as I wanted to fully capture the experience on film, I didn’t want to be “that guy” who was taking pictures of everything in the world just so that I could post it to my silly little blog. Knowing that I was bumming a free ticket off Andrea before she was to go onstage, I didn’t want to stress her (or any of the other comics for that matter) out by taking pictures of everything that wasn’t nailed down. Sooo….I left the camera in the car. Note: I got EXACTLY the last parking space in the lot when I arrived.

    Watched the comics perform, Andrea rocked a great set and I watched a few more comics when it started closing in on 10:00pm. It was closing in on the tipping point for me. Either I was going to hang out, or head back home. I had already had err……quite a few vodkas…..so I knew I’d better get on the road to sober up. That’s right isn’t it? Caught up the the GirlonTop and chatted for a bit before taking off.

    I actually ended up leaving before she was announced as moving up to the next round – so I’ll be looking forward to hanging out longer when I find out what day the next round is. I’ll probably take some time off and get a room rather than drive back at night (again).

    So, back in the car, I did get some pictures, but as my last drink was a double (!) things get progressively shakier.

    Last Spot in the Lot:
    19

    I was there! Honest!
    20

    Drunk Dually Driving:
    21

    Pit Stop at the Czech Stop – ordered two Czech “Specials” and a Poppyseed Kolache. Mmm. Poppies!
    21a

    Last shot of the Miller sign (inbound). By this point it was probably 12:45am. I’d been awake since 5:30am the previous morning, and had driven about six hours total – so I was pretty wiped out. (And almost sober. WHOOPS!)
    22

    Since I got to Austin so much earlier than the show, I did get to drive down Guadalupe/Lamar and get more of a sense of what Austin is actually about. People always told me that I would fit in better there, I never believed them. I guess I hadn’t been to the right places.

    Looking forward to going back soon……