210611-PSA-Fun With Words

Posted on 11/06/2021 by Grumpa Joe

“Lexophile” describes those that have a love for words, such as “you can tune a piano, but you can’t tuna fish”, “To write with a broken pencil is pointless.”

An annual competition is held by the New York Times to see who can create
the best original lexophile.

This year’s submissions.

I changed my iPod’s name to Titanic. It’s syncing now.

England has no kidney bank, but it does have a Liverpool .

Haunted French pancakes give me the crepes.

This girl today said she recognized me from the Vegetarians Club,
but I’d swear I’ve never met herbivore.

I know a guy who’s addicted to drinking brake fluid, but he says
he can stop any time.

A thief who stole a calendar got twelve months.

When the smog lifts in Los Angeles U.C.L.A.

I got some batteries that were given out free of charge.

A dentist and a manicurist married. They fought tooth and nail.

A will is a dead giveaway.

With her marriage, she got a new name and a dress.

Police were summoned to a daycare center where a three-year-old
was resisting a rest.

Did you hear about the fellow whose entire left side was cut off?
He’s all right now.

A bicycle can’t stand alone; it’s just two tired.

The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine last week is now
fully recovered.

He had a photographic memory but it was never fully developed.

When she saw her first strands of gray hair she thought she’d dye.

Acupuncture is a jab well done. That’s the point of it.

I didn’t like my beard at first. Then it grew on me.

Did you hear about the crossed-eyed teacher who lost her job because
she couldn’t control her pupils?

When you get a bladder infection, urine trouble.

When chemists die, they barium.

I stayed up all night to see where the sun went, and then it dawned on me.

I’m reading a book about anti-gravity. I just can’t put it down.

The Hypocrisy of Death

Why do we ignore friends, sometimes for years, and then go out of our way to attend their wake? I don’t know how you feel about this topic, but I get myself into a tizzy over missing a wake. Over the years, wakes have caused me extreme anxiety. I found that missing the wake of…

by Grumpa Joe

Wanted: Artificial Intelligence Sherriff

Last night I watched a 1975 movie called “Rooster Cogburn” starring John Wayne and Katharine  Hepburn. The plot reminded me of the many westerns I watched in black and white as a kid that involved a stagecoach robbery. Today, while reviewing my American Express charges, I found one for $309. The only large charges I…

by Grumpa Joe

Chasing Villy, Will, Bill

Sadly, my brother Will died this week. From this point on, I guess I can no longer say I am chasing him. He was born seven years before me, and when Mom had me, I finally filled the void left by our older brother Joe. I’m sure by the time I was old enough to…

by Grumpa Joe

Filed under: Education, Humor | Tagged: , | Leave a comment »

Gremlins In the Workplace

Posted on 10/06/2021 by Grumpa Joe

It has been a few days since WordPress suddenly without warning turned half of my screen black. That caused me to panic and waste a lot of time trying to figure out what I did wrong. Even more time was lost trying to make the black screen go away. Evidently a reboot was necessary. If it happens to me today, I will change to a new blogging platform. I’m too old to be wasting time shooting at invisible gremlins in my system.

I. and I spent a nice weekend relaxing in a community some seventy miles north of where we live. It was relaxing until time to come home on Tuesday. I can’t explain why, but the seventy miles took two hours to traverse. I was a stressed old driver at the homecoming.

I spent the entire next day catching up on my desk work. We are in a project involving the Department of Homeland Security and providing them with our personal info is scary. I spent the better part of the day scanning and uploading docs, pages upon pages of docs. To me they ask for stupid things which have zero relevance toward our case. If it weren’t so damned important to I. and I, I’d tell them what I think of their requests.

Leaving for a three day trip every week and a half really changes a lifestyle. I’m learning to pack things like chargers, and computers, passwords, toothbrushes, and razors so that I can try to have a more normal life experience while traveling. My conclusion is that I’m too old and crotchety to be traveling anymore.

The week before I set out to have my driver’s license renewed. I’ve reached a point where I must now do it every two years, and boy did that too years fly bay. I reached the Secretary of State building in Chicago Heights only to find it boarded up and empty. A Google search informed me that last year during COVID a BLM riot caused the building to self ignite and burn. On my way home, I stopped at a new Toyota dealer to check out a new car. It’s been a few months since I looked at a car. The last time it was February and I was at my dealer having an oil change. I spent the time teasing a salesman about buying a car. He gave me a quote which I felt was five thousand dollars too much. This time Ii went to a dealer closer to home, and did the same thing. This time the vote came in five thousand dollars higher than the last one. I’m keeping the Death Star for a while longer. At least until the auto shortage in our country disappears, or I die which ever event occurs first.

Every time I watch the news and listen to our communist president speak I get the urge to shoot the tv. Then I reconsider after I realize I like the tv better than I do this president. If there is anything more that he and his army of comrades can make go wrong they will do it, and do it fast. I give them credit for the speed with which they are destroying our country. They have about a year and a half left before the next election tips the balance of power away from them doing anymore damage.

Sending VP Kamala Harris to Guatemala was a great idea except she didn’t stay there. Her idea to get to the root cause of why people are running away from their country was spot on. Her solution which is to give the powers to be money to solve the problem is stupid. She is giving it to the wrong people. The money should go tot he people who are starving and need it to eat. The best thing I saw on the coverage of her event were the signs telling her to go home. I give them credit for seeing through her plan to make Guatemala the same as San Francisco.

While Kamala is pandering to the Guatemalans good old Biden is stammering his way through the G7 meeting in Europe. No doubt after his visit the entire globe will jump in to take advantage of his weaknesses. China will probably engineer another virus to release on us with a local epidemic. After the damage done by COVID the Chinese will predictably be able to put us out forever. They will probably be assisted in this effort by every one of the 196 countries in the world. After all who wants to follow a loser. The crowd always aligns with winners.

I quitting this piece while I am still getting black words on a white background, and before the Department of Homeland Security sends me another list of dumb questions to answer in writing with documents to prove my answers. I spoke too soon. The black veil of death just dropped on my post. As I began formatting this post with pictures the black screen happened again. Bye-bye WordPress.

I

I

Filed under: Biography, Conservative | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

Rambling Man Annoying and Creepy

Posted on 08/06/2021 by Grumpa Joe

When I was very young I enjoyed listening to the stories of my grandfather. He and his farm buddies often sat under the big willow tree sipping beer and spinning yarns. Most of the time they spoke in Hungarian and I could only decipher words they used most often and generously within their conversation. It was many years later that I learned that these words were obscenities, and curses.

Now it is my turn. I am the old guy who loves to spin yarns except not-one of my kids or grand kids listen. Instead I write the stories and post them onto WordPress to an invisible audience. I’ll never know if the stories I post made a difference in someone else’s life. What I do know is that writing stories about life experiences makes a difference in my life. It is cathartic to spill my heart into the computer chip of my laptop. What does happen sometimes is that I slip up and reveal too many clues of my personal life and a friend will write or call me to ask what I meant.

Slowly my writing has evolved from the third person style of reporting facts to that of the narrative which I hope means I show rather than tell the story. For years I was stuck in the style of report writing which is stiff and boring as hell, but is the style of my profession. At first, I couldn’t even recognize what showing meant. At least now, when I read I can tell when an author is showing, and I really can’t tell when he is telling. Does that make sense? No? Me either.

When I read fiction today, I am mesmerized by the amount of a page an author will devote to psychoanalyzing the character’s thoughts and feelings. I tend to spend time on physical traits rather than inner thoughts. Perhaps if I read another couple hundred books and write another thousand posts I will begin to develop characters that a reader will love.

I’m traveling now, but when I return to my home base I will visit the library to select some new reading. Our library is staffed heavily by women. Nothing wrong with women here. What they often do is select and feature books that are authored by women. Again, nothing wrong with women authors, but I tend to like male authors better. There is much more action and gore in a man authored book than in one written by a woman. That, of course, is only my personal observation and opinion. I have read many fictional tales written by women and have loved them. Many take place in the summer on a beach in a remote area away from people. Most I have read are loaded with love and the emotions stimulated by love. I have nothing against love, but I tend to lean toward action and intrigue. If an author includes love with action and intrigue I will eagerly read the work.

WTF! Suddenly the bottom half of my screen has turned black. Has that ever happened to you? The only way to see what I am writing is to change the background color to white, or to make the text color white on a black background. If this is a WordPress improvement I suggest they pull their head from their ass and shit-can this feature immediately.

I suspect this happened because I am typing on a laptop and inadvertently dragged my thumb across the touch pad while at the same moment I brushed over a magic key which then turned on some super secret feature invented by WordPress to make more money. I’m sorry, but I can’t continue this way. It is super annoying and creepy.

Filed under: Aging, Biography, Characters I knew, Grampa Jim | Tagged: , | 2 Comments »

« Previous Page