I’m a little late getting to this (okay, a lot late), but
for about another day you can buy the humor anthology My Funny Valentine as an e-book for just 99 cents. A great seasonal
read and a fun gift:
Speak of the Devil: Just Blame It On The Groundhog
The Only Good thing about Groundhog Day is the movie:
Speak of the Devil: Just Blame It On The Groundhog: Some links to see to first of all. At our joint blog, we have a Without A Word post for your consideration. At AngryParsnip's blog, ...
Speak of the Devil: Just Blame It On The Groundhog: Some links to see to first of all. At our joint blog, we have a Without A Word post for your consideration. At AngryParsnip's blog, ...
It' So Cold ...
SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK
You’d think
this weather would be perfect for “it’s so cold” jokes.
You know:
It’s so cold I saw a dog frozen to a hydrant.
That’s an old one – let me try to
come up with something of my own:
It’s so cold hot wings are being
sold on Popsicle sticks.
It’s so cold the weather made me reminisce
about some of my ex-girlfriends.
It’s so cold, Miley Cyrus put her
clothes on.
Or this one that I just came up
with: It’s so cold politicians are starting to look warm and friendly.
Now you know why I don’t do
stand-up.
They’re probably all variations on
jokes someone already came up with. Besides, this being Indiana, it could be in
the 50’s when you read this. But as I wrote it the temperature was minus 15, so
I think I’m justified in saying it’s so cold they canceled Cleveland. The whole
city. They just canceled it. And
nobody else noticed.
I did some research for this column
(shut up, I did), and came across
such things as it’s so cold I saw a politician with his hands in his own
pockets, and it’s so cold I saw a gangsta pull his pants up. But my heart
really wasn’t in it, because it was so cold the truth becomes ridiculous
without the need for exaggeration. For instance:
It’s so cold that boiling water thrown
in the air turns instantly to snow.
Next question: What fool would go
out with boiling water in that weather? I hope it was some weatherman getting
paid to go out, show it’s too cold to go out, and tell people not to go out.
On a related note, it’s so cold The
Weather Channel named this storm “Winter Storm &#$%*@!”
It’s so cold salt and other
chemicals put on roadways to melt ice stopped melting anything. But that’s
okay, because nobody could get past the snow drifts, anyway.
It’s so cold the Chicago Zoo had to
keep their penguins and polar bears indoors.
Even inside, the penguins asked for
extra blankets. The polar bears demanded their fish be fried.
It’s so cold officials in Minnesota
closed some entertainment venues: Specifically, ski and sledding hills, and ice
rinks.
That’s hard core. Or, hard ice
core.
It’s so cold that it got into the
single digits – in Atlanta, Georgia. Atlanta residents haven’t shivered so much
since they heard Sherman was marching their way.
It’s so cold antifreeze could
freeze.
Well, not right here, but in Minnesota
it got down to minus 36. Prestone antifreeze freezes as minus 34. So far as I
know, there is no antifreeze antifreeze.
However, we Hoosiers aren’t out of
the frigid woods: vodka freezes at minus 16.51 degrees. It’s so cold, the cold
can’t even drive you to drink.
In Canada, it’s so cold that it’s
actually warmer on Mars.
But it’s okay – Canadians are used
to it.
Also in Canada, the severe cold has
caused some “frost quakes”. That happens when the temperature drops so much, so
fast, that ice causes the earth to crack open. The same thing happened in 2011
in Ohio and Indiana. This helps me with the screenplay I’m writing for the SyFy
channel, which I’ve titled: “SnowTornadoIceQuake Shark Attack”. I know what
you’re thinking: Sharks? Hey, I’m out for the ratings, so I’m having some
teenage snowboarders in bikinis jump the shark.
Ratings Gold.
It’s so cold that in Green Bay
people are grilling beer.
Apparently this happened at a
football game tailgating party, where it was so cold the beer froze and had to
be set on the grill to thaw out. In related news, a nearby fan received a
concussion after he asked someone to throw him a brat.
And now you know why I don’t go to
football game tailgating parties.
It’s so cold that I filled my
column up with twenty-three repetitions of “it’s so cold”, because my chilled
mind couldn’t come up with anything else.
Okay, how about this: It’s so cold
that when I came in from shoveling snow I climbed into the refrigerator to get
warm.
Oh, here’s one: It’s so cold people
were getting frostbite while thinking
about going outside.
No?
Well, I’m too cold to care.
Fifty Authors from Fifty States: Lynda Frasier’s Home in Arkansas Under the Waterfa...
Fifty Authors from Fifty States: Lynda Frasier’s Home in Arkansas Under the Waterfa...: I moved my family to Arkansas in 1999 as part of a transfer with my company. I lived in Texas, and loved the state. But I grew up in Penns...
Dad 1; Cancer 0
Let’s interrupt this despairing
parade of horrible weather to bring some good news:
My Dad has been declared cancer
free! Yay!!!!
They’re going to continue to check
him every couple of months, which is normal, but for right now it’s nice to
catch a break. I don’t know what the recurrence
rate is for this particular cancer, and I’ve decided I don’t want to know; for
now it’s great that he’s beaten it.
Speak of the Devil: From Russia With Psychotic Financiers
Speak of the Devil: From Russia With Psychotic Financiers: Before we get things started, some links to look at. Over at our joint blog, we've got another Snippet Sunday post set up. And since ...
Murphy Proves Winter Prediction
SLIGHTLY OFF THE
MARK
Well, it didn’t work this time. My
system didn’t work, and as a result, the Blizzard of ’14 was all my fault.
I know what you’re thinking: “Mark,
can you be so egotistical as to brag that you affected the weather?”
People, it’s not bragging when it’s
a bad thing. It would be like somebody bragging that they take drugs and commit
crimes. Maybe that was a bad example, considering it’s not unheard of for
people in Hollywood to commit Charlie Sheenisms.
If I claim to have brought on spring
singlehandedly with my mind, then you can stage an intervention. Meanwhile, the
fact remains that the Blizzard of ’14 was directly caused by Hunter’s Law of
Inverse Lousy Predictions Squared.
As far as I know it wasn’t
technically a blizzard where I live, by the way, although it was declared that
one county to the west. “Blizzard” just sounds cooler than “snowstorm”, in the
same way “tornado” sounds cooler than “straight line winds”. There’s something
oddly human about insisting you have the worst weather, which I guess is kind of bragging about bad things.
“You may have a few drifts, but our
blizzard buried semis! By the way, my gallstone was way bigger than your
gallstone and my boss is way meaner than yours. And our snow is colder.”
Anyway, for the last ten years or so
I’ve been predicting a bad winter. Not for this year – for all those years,
every year. “It’s gonna be a bad one this year,” I’d say. “I feel it in my
gut.”
And every year, that feeling in my
gut turned out to be from gorging myself every December on Lions Club citrus.
We kept having mild winters,
instead. (“Mild” sometimes meant ice instead of snow. It’s all relative.) This
is because of Hunter’s Law of Predictions, which states, “Mark Hunter isn’t
very good at making predictions.” It’s a simple rule.
And I was happy with that, because,
as all 14 of my regular readers know, I hate winter. I hate winter so much that
I’m only going to live around here in the summertime after I’m rich, which
should happen any second now. So every year I said “This is the year they’re
going to name “The Godzilla of Winters”, and every year I was wrong. (The
Godzilla of Winters breathes sub-zero snow, instead of fire. Also, he slides
over Tokyo with giant ice skates.)
But I forgot the flipside, Hunter’s
Law of Inverse Lousy Predictions, which reads:
“Whenever Mark Hunter is right about a prediction, it’s something
bad.”
For instance, I correctly predicted the most
recent economic recession. I correctly predicted that China was going to start
flexing its military muscles and mess with its neighbors. I correctly predicted
that my lawnmower would either not start in the spring or break in early summer
… every year since 1988.
To make matters worse, there’s also
Hunter’s Law of Inverse Lousy Predictions Squared.
HLILPS, which is pronounced “Hlilips”, clearly states: “If Mark Hunter makes a
prediction because he wants to be
wrong, sooner or later he will be right”.
It gets complicated. The weather example
is that I predict weather from the tenth level of Hell (which is where they
keep the deep freezes, ice cream supplies, and politicians with frozen hearts).
The original law – Lousy Predictions – kicks in, and so we have (relatively)
nice weather.
But then, sooner or later, someone or
something figures out I’m messing with them. Karma, Murphy, Mother Nature, Al
Gore, whatever. Then the Law’s inversely square part kicks in, and I’m left
holding the bag. By which I mean, I’m left holding the snow shovel.
It’s
a given, at that point, that I’ll be suffering from my chronic back
pain, sinus infection, and tendonitis just when the driveway is yelling “shovel
me!” I’ll remember that my boots aren’t insulated, my gloves are too thin, and
that even at 5 degrees I can sweat under my long underwear, a situation that
ironically can lead to hypothermia.
I’ll also be reminded that there are a
lot of great people out there, personified by whoever used a snow blower on my
sidewalk after our first storm, and whoever else has been running a snow plow
through my driveway after every snowfall so far this season.
Much as I still hate winter, that kind
of thing makes me feel a lot better.
And who could have predicted that?
Release date set for The Notorious Ian Grant
Whiskey Creek Press has set the release of The Notorious Ian
Grant for October, 2014. Holy cow, that’s just nine months! I finished filling
out the Title Information Form and Art Information Form yesterday, so the next
step is well underway.
I'm writing some short stories in the lead-up to the book’s release, showing how the
title character came to the odd position he’s in at the opening of the story.
Those will be posted for free, and I’m toying with the idea of having Ian
encounter some characters from TV shows along the way—a shout-out to my past as
a fanfiction writer. Hopefully they’ll be as fun as the book itself.
Slip Slidin' Away
We were given a huge chest freezer yesterday (Thank you Charis and Vince for helping us move it!) Fearing someone might slip on the ice while we were moving it inside, I shoveled and scraped and cleaned the sidewalk and driveway pad until there wasn't a speck of ice or now left.
Now it's snowing. I can't help feeling responsible, somehow.
Well, between the shoveling and freezer hauling I hurt my back, to the new snow can just stay there and get comfortable.
Now it's snowing. I can't help feeling responsible, somehow.
Well, between the shoveling and freezer hauling I hurt my back, to the new snow can just stay there and get comfortable.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)