| Random Ramblings by Joe Shockley | |||||||||||||||||
| Musings from a guy with too much free time. | :-) | ||||||||||||||||
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What is this place, anyways? Why, it's an online humor column, of course! If you enjoy sophisticated, high-brow commentary, boy are you in the wrong place! But if you like silly and absurd, I'm your guy (I used those same words proposing to my wife). First of all, forget about that long web address your browser is showing above. To get back here, just type: http://fast.to/ramblings. Or even better, bookmark this site and check back soon. We hope to update this page often. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * This Old Crab House 3/10/98 Far too many people spend all of their free time watching television, even though there are hundreds of things sitting around their house needing to be fixed, improved, and/or replaced. I know this to be true, because I usually spend my entire weekend watching home improvement shows on PBS and cable. Believe me, this isn�t easy to do, what with my wife constantly nagging me to fix, improve, and/or replace things around the house. The best show, by far, is the one where a guy named Norm demonstrates how to make authentic furniture exactly like our forefathers made hundreds of years ago, using only $100,000 worth of power tools. Now, I have a hammer, screwdriver (straight), saw (dull), and a folding pocket pliers that has all kinds of neat tools and knife blades on it, some of which I even plan to use. I got all this for much less than $100,000. In all fairness to Norm, the screwdriver was on sale. But my point is, what other tool could I possibly need? What about a butter knife, you're probably wondering. Well, that's a good point. I do use a butter knife from time to time, mostly to poke at, pry on or unscrew things, and occasionally to spread some butter onto toast. But even including several butter knives (they tend to break easily -- it's good to have a back-up, as I�m sure Norm would agree), the total still comes in at slightly under $100,000. Rather than spending $100,000 on power tools, I suggest that you simply go to Pier One and buy all kinds of brand new old-looking furniture. You could even tell people you made it yourself, proudly showing off your folding pocket pliers as proof of your handiness. Just be careful not to hurt yourself. One third of all injuries to adult males involve folding pocket pliers. Of course, buying furniture at Pier One would probably not make a very good television show, even for PBS. Someone making an armoire using a pair of folding pocket pliers and a butter knife -- now, I'd watch that. Next to home improvement shows, cooking shows are my favorite. I'm always looking for interesting things to do with squid -- like anything other than eat it. I'm not sure why cooking shows feature squid so often. Maybe no real people will buy it, so the squid industry unloads all of it on the television cooking shows at a big discount. Cooking shows also use a lot of crab in their recipes. Being sophistcated urban gourmets, my wife and I recently decided to try a crab recipe we saw on a cooking show. It's not all that difficult to make if you know your way around a kitchen. You just take some cooked crab meat, dip it in some cocktail sauce, and eat it. You may want to write that down. The only problem with the recipe is that crab meat is expensive. To save some money, we purchased a product called imitation crab meat, which is flavored with 'imitation crab flavoring'. Imitation crab flavoring may be one of the greatest and most useful technological achievements of the twentieth century, right up there with sheep cloning. Sure, they use real pine oil to make Pine Sol, but for fake crab meat, they invent imitation flavoring. I can't wait to see a package of Kool Aid with "imitation crab flavoring" on the label. The truly amazing thing about imitation crab meat is that it tastes almost exactly like something other than crab. I�m not sure how this is accomplished, but I bet patents are involved. And possibly butter knives. |
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| If you thought that was weird, read on: | |||||||||||||||||
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Lick This! 3/01/1998 You�ve probably been wondering, "What is the small eastern African nation of Tanzania doing to help keep alive the memory of Jerry Garcia, famous drug addict who also, I believe, had a band?" Well, wonder no more! The Post Office of Tanzania has released the Limited Edition Jerry Garcia commemorative postage stamps. According to a recent advertisement I saw, these stamps are "legal for postage in Tanzania" as well as "about four times the size of a regular U.S. postage stamp"! For only $9.95 plus $3 postage and handling, you get a sheet of 9 of these stamps, a numbered certificate of authenticity and a copy of the pocket guide, "99 Little Known Facts about Jerry Garcia". This is all absolutely true, by the way. Rumors that licking one of the commemorative Jerry Garcia stamps will cause a "far out trip" are completely untrue, and were reportedly made up by this journalist in a juvenile attempt at sensationalist humor. In fact, the only ill effects likely to accompany the use of these stamps is that your letter will get returned to you, unless you happen to be in Tanzania when you mail it. But that�s OK, because only an idiot would try to mail one of these stamps, given that they will soon be almost worth their weight in paper, ink and glue. According to the advertisement, "Collectors are already predicting that in the very near future these Jerry Garcia stamps will be far more sought after and be more desirable than the United States rock �n roll stamp series featuring Elvis and Buddy Holly, the most popular commemorative postage stamps of all time." Forget about putting money into that IRA or 401K. Just snap up all the sheets of Jerry Garcia commemorative stamps you can! Unfortunately, you�re only allowed to buy six sets, but that should be plenty to support you in your old age, provided you�re as dedicated to your health and longevity as Jerry Garcia was to his. Actually, I�m a little worried about Tanzania. It happens to be one of the poorest countries in the world. Instead of selling these highly valuable stamps for such a nutty low price, why not just hang on to them until they go up in value! If Tanzania played it�s cards right, it could end up as one of the richest countries in the world. In the Encyclopedia Britannica, under natural resources for Tanzania, it would say "world�s leading producer of valuable Jerry Garcia postage stamps, which are legal for postage in Tanzania and about four times the size of a normal U.S. postage stamp." Because I�m a hard-hitting news reporter who�ll do whatever it takes to "get the story", I decided to use my formidable network of international contacts, not to mention my impressive computer skills, to engage in extensive and highly tax-deductible research into this topic (OK, actually I typed the words "Garcia", "stamp", and "Tanzania" into a web search thingie on my PC and hit enter. Same principle.) I was shocked and stunned! This had more to do with spilling coffee into my CD-Rom drive than with anything I found out about Tanzania�s stamp industry. But what I did find out, upon regaining control of my motor-skills, is that Tanzania also has actual postage stamps, presumably much larger than normal U.S. postage stamps, commemorating Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and Woodstock (the rock festival, not the bird). This information made me wonder just what Tanzania was up to. When I then found out that Tanzania is an increasingly important heroin shipping country, helping to satisfy the drug needs of the United States, it all started to make sense. I wonder when the desirable and sought after Timothy Leary stamp will be released? When it is, I�m hopeful that it will be legal for postage in Tanzania, not to mention about four times the size of a normal U.S. postage stamp. But I wouldn�t recommend licking it. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * I hope you enjoyed these columns. Next posting is planned for 3/20/98. | |||||||||||||||||
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