In my last post, I wrote about a terribly misleading postcard. While doing some research about truth in advertising, I came across some interesting examples.
They needed to clarify this because people were walking into
this Iowa store hoping to catch a train to Grand Central
Station.
At last, no more embarrassing questions to the store workers
asking if they carry the XXXL Depends adult diapers.
I called this number and told them they had won a million
dollars from the king of some nation they’d never heard of. All I needed was
their credit card number for a “transaction fee.”
Yes, that’s the reason a lot of men go to the gym—to see
ugly women.
Do the watches tell time, or do you have to look at them?
I was once told the same thing by two muggers.
Figures, I had them come to my house at 11:00 last
Monday.
Little known fact: "Dutch's" was the original name of Walmart.
This is what I’m looking for in a lawyer.
Strangely enough, this was posted outside a hardware store.
Part of a less-than-successful chain owned by the brothers “Yu,” “Soon”
and “Your Mom is.”
Ah, the power of what music can do when added to the right video.
We were watching some old family movies the other night and we came across this scene.
Here is the set up:
Our 3rd child, Amy, had a habit of falling asleep anywhere she could. On this night, I saw she had fallen asleep at the top of the stairs. With video camera in hand, I turned on the “night vision” (which is why everything looks green) and recorded my daughters sleeping. When I got to the youngest, well … you’ll see.
In the "Logical Song" by Supertramp, a lyrics says, "There are times when all the world's asleep, the questions run too deep for such a simple man." I'll admit, many a night I've been in bed pondering the answers to various questions. I recently came across a list of some of the deeper questions, and I thought I'd share them in this blog.
If you know any of the answers, I'd love to know what they are!
"If the police arrest a mime, do they tell him he has the right to remain silent?"
"If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to see it, do the other trees make fun of it?"
"Why is there an expiration date on sour cream?"
"Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song?"
"If a parsley farmer is sued, can they garnish his wages?"
"If you ate pasta and antipasto, would you still be hungry?"
"If the black box is never hurt in a plane crash, why don't they make the whole plane out of the same material?"
"When I erase a word with a pencil, where does it go?"
"What do little birdies see when they get knocked unconscious?"
I recently had to travel to Wilmington, North Carolina for a business meeting. Wilmington is on the beach and so my wife decided to come with me, along with my 4 daughters. They got to go to the beach, I got to go to a meeting. Ah, the joys of being a dad.
The trip was roughly 2 1/2 hours each way. On the way back, my wife and I got a little goofy and started coming up with some variations of famous quotes. Most of these are really fun when you are tired and what we call "sleepy silly".
"Revenge is a dish best served with a side of hash browns."
"Rome wasn't built on a weekday."
"I regret that I only have $1.87 to give for my country."
"A bird in the hand is frankly kinda creepy."
"Give me Liberty, or really, not so much."
"Yippie Kai Yay, Mother Teresa!"
To finish, here is an (almost) famous quote from a previous US President.
Did you know there are four states in the USA that have outlawed billboards? It's true! Vermont, Alaska, Hawaii, and Maine have all passed laws making billboards illegal. However, that leaves forty six more states to display these marketing tools.
And after reviewing the following billboards, I can understand why the four states listed above banned them from their borders.
What's not shown here is that there are signs like this every 3 meters.
But what if I don't want to be on the menu?
I'm all for keeping things in perspective, but really?
What's not listed here is that they have 4 shooting ranges.
Actually, we could use more of these around my town.
I can't remember the last time someone asked me how I'd like my moose to be cooked.
And then there are the situations where billboards are placed next to each other with unfortunate consequences.
Well, one out of three is correct.
But what types of change are we talkin' about here?
. . .
And finally, for all those that don't believe that faith proceeds the miracle:
In honor of that holiday that has become yet another reason to get plastered, here is my favorite Saint Patrick's Day story:
Two men are sitting at a bar, celebrating Saint Patrick's Day. One of them turns to the other and says, "You look familiar for some reason. Do I know ya?"
The other man responds, "Ya know, you look familiar to me too. Where ya from?"
"I'm from North Clover Town," the first man says.
"No foolin'! I'm from North Clover Town too! Where did ya go to school?"
"I went to Saint Mary's."
The second man looks shocked. "No foolin'! I went to Saint Mary's too! Who was your teacher?"
"Her name was Sister Constance. I swear I still have bruises on my knuckles from her ruler."
Examining his own hands, the second man says, "Oh, aye! I still remember that ruler!"
"We must have gone to school together! When did you go?" the first man asked.
As the second man starts to count on his fingers to figure out how long ago it was, the owner of the tavern comes up to the bartender and says, "All right then lad, I think the O'Dooly twins have had enough to drink."
Now remember, Irish is not the same as Scottish. Need a friendly reminder? Watch the clip below:
There was a time when computers weren't in almost every house. It's true! I'm almost ashamed to admit we have 3 now. What did people possibly do before computers? Well, for writing letters and such, we had these devices called "typewriters". This next statement will show how old I am: in High School, we learned to type on typewriters. The semester I took the typing class, I broke one of my little fingers playing sports. It was fairly early in the semester and I wore thing honkin' big cast. Instead of learning to type using all four fingers and my thumb, I only use the first three fingers and thumb on each hand. It's weird, but, it works for me. When you made a mistake while using a typewriter, it could be a painful process. Some of the more advanced type writers would "white out" the character you mistyped. Other times, we had to physically insert a little sheet of white out. Either way, it was a mess. I recall getting an invitation to a cub scout event that had been type written on a 3 x 5 card. It said the event started at @:00 pm. @:00 pm? When was that? I freaked out, telling my mom that I think they invented a new time. She assured me that it was 2:00 pm because the "@" symbol was above the "2" on the typewriter. Of course, that brought up the next question: what the heck is the "@" symbol? She patiently explained it was short for the word "at". My little mind back then works very much like my mind now. So, someone took a two letter word and converted it to one symbol? Why would they do that? It's not like they were abbreviating the word "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious". (Although maybe they should create a symbol for that word). Next time my mother had the typewriter out, I asked her if there was more funky (we used the word funky because this was in the 70's) symbols like the @. In fact there was. # was number. $ was dollar. % was percent and so on. Again, this was before computers and the internet so I couldn't just look up where the symbols originated. It remained a mystery. Just last night, my wife noted how the symbol @ was all but unused until email addresses came about--now you see it everywhere. And she's dead on. What's also a trip is that on my smart phone, there is a "shortcut" for ".com" -- it's ALT B. I wonder what's next. To wrap up this blog, here is a little quiz. Try not to look at the very bottom of the blog for the answer. This quiz will determine if you are a computer nerd or not. After you read the questions, think of the answer in your mind. Here we go:
What is 5 plus 1?
What is 10 minus 4?
What is 2 times 3?
What is 4 plus 2?
What is 7 minus 1?
What is 6 times 1?
What is the first vegetable that comes to your mind?
Okay, this is the part where you see if you are a computer nerd or not.
If you answered carrot, you are a computer nerd. Why? Because the symbol above the "6" on a keyboard is the "^", also known as the carrot. By the way, how do you capture a rabbit? Easy, you hide behind a bush and make the sound like a ^.
In the movie "The Princess Bride" (which, by the way, was a major inspiration for my book The Hidden Sun) there is a great scene where Buttercup and Prince Humperdinck are to be married. The "Impressive Clergyman" that performs the ceremony has one of the many memorable lines in the movie. It can be viewed below:Often my blogs are inspired by something I've seen or experienced which then leads my mind to ponder on the subject. For this blog, it came from a picture from a recent trip to a certain fast food restaurant. The part that got my attention was the "3 - 12 years old can play. Parents too!" You could read this that if you were a parent between the ages of 3 and 12, you are allowed to play in the play area as well. Granted, I do not know of any parents that are under the age of 12. However, my wife and I did get married at what many consider to be a very young age. I was 22, she was 19. In the part of the country where I grew up, this wasn't all that unusual. However, when I moved to Connecticut, I discovered how truly rare that was. There were people that insisted that it would never work out between my wife and I. I'm happy to say that 19 years later, we are still going strong--but it wasn't by fate or dumb luck. It's taken a lot of hard work. For five years we tried to have kids, but to no avail. Then our sweet Kelley came along and we were delighted! 18 months later, beautiful Emily joined our family. Another 18 months after that, and our darling redhead Amy came along, and now my wife and I were outnumbered. At times, it felt like we had triplets. It took 3 more years before our creative, silly Stephanie completed our family. Stephanie just turned 8. It's almost hard to believe. But as my wife and I talk (which we do often) we've realized something. The only way our marriage has survived for this long is because both of us are dedicated to it 100%. In addition, we are always communicating about our dreams, goals, concerns and such. If there is something bothering one of us, the other is there to support and help them. Now, this isn't to say that I believe all marriages will work out. As I stated above, I believe both people have to be 100% dedicated to the happiness of the other person. A successful marriage can't be held together by one person. Also, I don't believe that everyone will find their spouse in their early twenties. And if it is later in life that you find your spouse, that doesn't mean there was anything wrong with you. Some things are worth the wait. I, personally, have been blessed with a wonderful wife who forgives me of my shortcomings. She makes me want to be a better person. At the same time, I want to her be happy, which means I can't be selfish, and I must give up some of my freedom to do so. However, the rewards for doing so totally outweigh any perceived freedom I've surrendered.
