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Tuesday, January 21, 2014

On Being Out of Fashion...


As I age disgracefully, I find there are things I want to do that have nothing to do with how cool anyone thinks they are. When I got myself lured up to the Pacific Northwest to aged hippie country, I discovered that a lot of my long-haired brethren from the 60s were here too and that the ones who moved to Seattle and Olympia were mostly raging liberals.

Out here amongst the trees, however, there are a surprising lot of long-haired conservatives, all heavily armed with everything from homemade knives and assault rifles to longneck banjos. Feeling right at home and a little irritated at the growing bald spot on top of my head, I decided to let my hair grow out.

The wife has long been my barber, due to the fact that I'm too cheap to pay $15 for a haircut. In recent years she's developed an essential tremor in her hand. I don't know what's essential about it, but that's what the docs say so who am I to argue.

The upshot is, I let my hair grow out. A lot of older guys on TV and even some younger ones had begun sporting pony tails, so I figured, why not. So I began a race to see if I could grow my hair out long enough to braid into a sailor's cue in the back before my remaining hair fell out.

It's a race at this point, but one thing fun came out of it - it boosted my acting career nicely.  Now when the youth department at the church need a Moses or some wild-haired minor prophet for a dramatic skit, I'm the go-to guy. I may even check out some community theaters and see if they need a Merlin or a Ben Franklin for some play or other. Might be fun. I've always wanted to do Scrooge on stage.

At any rate, now that my hair is growing out, I discover that pony tails for men are out of fashion again. As was explained to me, "That's soooooo 2009."

Ah, well, I'm doomed it seems to be out of step with the rest of the world. My computer's operating system will no longer be supported after April. If I update my operating system, I'll lose all my most useful programs AND I'll have to learn how to use Windows 8 or something equally horrible and probably have to upgrade my computer which I can ill afford at present.

I'm a teetotaler conservative, living in a state that just legalized marijuana and deregulated liquor stores, a Christian in a part of the country that's pretty much atheist or Buddhist or neo-pagan, a conservative in liberal hell and poor where the cost of living is somewhere around that of Palm Beach or Abu-Dhabi.

I should be at all surprised; it was inevitable that his was coming.
When I was a kid, I was a skinny nerd in a class full of bullies and underachievers most of whom were bound for prison. From there I went to a Christian school where I was the only agnostic up until they gave up on me, at which point, I perversely got myself baptized.

My best summers have been when I worked on staff at summer camp, where my skills were actually up-to-date and useful.  I had friends who were a lot like me and if they weren't they didn't care that I was a bit odd. Girls even liked me for the first time in my life.

Approaching age 60, however, I find it's just me and the missus stranded out here amongst the Douglas firs and the roving bands of deer and psychotic squirrels. And me without a banjo!

I think God's messing with me. I suspect it's for my own good.

Tom

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Science Proves Women Out Talk Men................Duh!

 A "shocking" new study came our recently stating that women talk more than men - a LOT more. In fact, women speak 285% more words than their male counterparts. The study found women spoke some 20,000 words per day, while men spoke a paltry 7,000.

I really wasn't terribly surprised, though I wouldn't say that around my female friends and relations (something that would probably up their share of the word count for the day significantly). Another study I saw showed that women talk a LOT about their feelings and their relationships (and their feelings about relationships). Men talk about stuff and doing stuff.

Some girls at summer camp once wanted to know who the staff guys were interested in, so they hid outside the shower to listen to our secret guy conversations. They hid in the bushes for a half hour, learning a lot about water skiing, football, motorcycles and cars before they finally gave up and left. To their surprise and disgust, they discovered that guys don't talk about the same things that girls do. This fact is often a source of great disappointment to most women after they are married. They want desperately to talk about all this feeling/relationship stuff and men just don't have anything to say about that. This could account for why they out talk us almost 3 to 1. After a while we learn to shut up and let them get it off their chests.

One handy tip for you guys, though. Don't try to help or give advice. Just listen and make sympathetic noises. Women don't want us to solve their relationship problems or fix their feelings. It doesn't take too many times before you figure out what a death trap trying to fix her problems is. Sadly, though, for us guys, fixing things is pretty much all we bring to the table.

So after a while we learn to say "Uh-huh" and "I'm so sorry" a lot and find something to do with our hands to keep us from going nuts while the wives are talking about relationships and their feelings and their feelings about relationships. Nothing wrong with that. It's how we achieve balance in a relationship.

(c) 2014 by Tom King

Thursday, January 09, 2014

Three Out of Four Teenagers Disobey Federal Exercise Guidelines


I'm shocked, shocked I tell you!

Three out of four teenagers do not obey federal daily exercise guidelines according to a recent Fox News report..

I'm shocked!

I mean teenagers disobeying the government. What is this world coming to!

Isn't the federal government getting a little crazy with all these guidelines even for a Democrat run government? I mean really. What's next? It seems like they have guidelines for everything.

After the recent government funded Stanford University Study, I expect a new set of federal guidelines to come out soon that will require all new toilets to come with a foot rest so you can comply with the Surgeon's General's new federal guidelines for assuming the state-approved pooping position. They even released diagrams which I shall not share here. There is a limit to the level of interference in my personal business that I shall tolerate.

Reminds me of a joke I heard yesterday. The NSA came out with a statement Monday, denying that it was installing cameras inside the toilets of every American household. In a totally unrelated press release, the director of the NSA issued new federal guidelines calling for Americans to, quote: "...get more fiber in their diets for crying out loud!"

Assume the position, folks! We are well and truly...................... Well, we all know what's coming.  Let's just ask ourselves, why else would the government be so concerned that we know HOW to assume the position?
(c) 2014 by Tom King


Friday, January 03, 2014

Here's a commercial space venture for you...


You know what would be cool?


How about if in 2017, when the Chinese land an unmanned probe on the moon to collect and return soil samples to Earth, the crew of an American private commercial moon base were to sneak over and put fortune cookies in the spacecraft's sample box with fortunes that say things like, "The moon is NOT made of green cheese." and "We'll have the Moo Goo Gai Pan, the fried Won Ton and the Poo Poo Platter" and "Does that come with fried rice?"

Greatest prank EVER!

© 2013 by Tom King


Uncle Tom's Ten Sure Fire, No Fail, New Year's Resolutions

I am so tired of making New Year's resolutions that I give up on before the month is out. So, this year I have decided to set measurable, attainable goals for myself. After much thought, I have come up with ten things to accomplish in 2014 that I am certain I can manage.  They are:

  1. Take more naps. (All the magazines say naps are good for old people).
  2. Eat more fattening foods (I'm learning to bake).
  3. Take the dog for more walks (She gnaws on my ankle if I don't).
  4. Be more obedient when my wife tells me to do stuff (She has a cast iron frying pan and is not afraid to use it).
  5. Work harder for less money (Thank you Mr. President).
  6. Waste more time on the Internet (Can't afford to do much else).
  7. Write one more chapter of my memoirs by year's end (I just cut and paste junk I write on Facebook into a Word document called "Toms Memoir")
  8. Download more free stuff off the Internet (I can't afford to pay for it, even at Walmart prices).
  9. Drink more water (the diuretics I'm taking kind of guarantee I have to do that unless I want to turn into a colorfully dressed sandpile). 
  10. Gain weight (My diet seems to work that way - not sure why).

Betcha I keep every one of those resolutions by April!


© 2013 by Tom King