Elemental Wry-ku

Periodic'ly*
I sometimes wonder who died
And made carbon King?

I've got LOTS more to say on this topic.  Suffice it to say, Why Carbon?  It's SIXTH!  Why not Argon?

Ever hear Toyota try to compare the Beryllium footprint of the new Prius vs. a Hemi?  They won't.  Know why??  No dif! Take Carbon out of play, and there's no edge. 

I learned this from my oldest son.  It's like the schoolyard bully.  The biggest kid is bound to challenge the skinny kid to a punching contest.  This happened to my son.  He was the skinny kid.  Nay:  The skinny clever kid who, at age 6, had the presense of mind to say, "I got a better idea.  Let's have a running contest."  The bully agreed, and promptly lost. 

Carbon... oh, how original.  Please.  Helium is way more fun, it's ahead of Carbon in the batting order and it's a noble gas! 

So the next time Larry David's ex-wife comes walking in your direction, be the skinny clever kid.  Tell her why her canteen made from a recycled 747 wing can't compare with the Strontium footprint of a bottle of water.  (Or even its water footprint, but that's a molecule. I digress.)

Read the chart above.  Pick one.  Get thee to Thallium before someone else does.  Own it.  I've got a charcoal grill to get to. 

* Appealing to the judges for a little poetic license on this one.

Daktari and My Grams

Maybe it really is a jungle out there. 

There seems to be no END to what the pampered class will do to protect themselves from the suburban jungles out there. 

Whatever happened to crusing Route 66 in a ragtop Delta 88?? 

Today's commuters have heated-and chilled-leather seats, entertainment systems with satellite radio and TV, GPS guidance systems and more.  Rear cameras have replaced mirrors.  And you can't get a decent bumper sticker on the back bumper these days without screwing up your reverse radar.  

Still, nothing...  NO-THING comes close to evoking the suburban jungle like the armament you can slap on your SUV these days.  Remember Daktari?!?  Dr. Marsh Tracy.  Careening across the African wild in his Jeep, treating the sick lions and beasts of the Wameru, and saving them from the ever-present poachers.  This man feared naught. 

But by today's standards, Daktari was a sap.

Take a look at his vehicle.  What's missing?  Good Lord, it's as plain as the nose on its face...  No grille guard! 

How did he keep the brush away from his headlights?  How did he nudge the errant pachyderm out of his way?  How did he protect himself from errant lacrosse sticks or tee shots?? 

The grille guard sprang from the lineage of the roll bar and its cousin, the locomotive cow-catcher.  It's a survival necessity.  Don't traverse the globe without it. 

Nothing projects fierce rough-hewn brawn like the grille guard.  Dr. Marsh Tracy didn't understand this.

Thankfully, today, there are Doctors who do understand.  They're our fearless periodontists and podiatrists.  They're the plastic surgeons who know how to keep the rhino in rhinoplasty... in their Volvos, BMWs and Lexus SUVs. 

They know. 

And I want to pay special tribute to the "Daktari of Danbury" I saw this morning, on his misison, no doubt, to deliver his daughter safely to her prep school.  There I was, travelling at a safe speed and distance from other cars when suddently he appeared from out of nowhere, looming in my rear-view mirror, filling me with a sense of... of...

GRAM!!!!

Why say what I can show...

On your right:  What his car looked like. 

On your left:  The "cat" glasses my Grandmother used to wear.

There is nothing more I can do to this man that his own lack of self awareness hasn't already done.  I just wanted to thank him for reminding me of my sweet, sweet Grams!

Real stories that would be rejected at The Onion: Vol. 1.

"Man accused of walking on I-291 with fake breasts"

Associated Press, June 30, 2008

MANCHESTER, Conn. - A Manchester man has been arrested after he allegedly strolled along Interstate 291 wearing nothing but a thong, fake breasts and a wig.

Police say they received several calls about the man, which prompted an hour-long search over the weekend.

Police said they found the suspect Saturday fully clothed and collecting cans behind a business in Manchester. Police said they also found a wig and fake breasts in the man's car.

Forty-two-year-old David Gebhardt is charged with disorderly conduct and simple trespass. He's free after posting $2,500 bail.

Dwight wants you to know...

To learn more about it... go to Leezer's.  And when you go, stay and read awhile.  Because the more you know...

Fernsprechen ze Deutch?

My phone speaks German to me. 

Okay, that might not register as high on the Richter scale as "I see dead people," but it's all I've got.

So I've got this phone at work.  It looks like the one pictured here.  Apparently, I hit a certain combination of buttons that I cannot now recreate or undo... and ever since then, my fernsprecher sprechens Deutch.  [As if I didn't have enough problems working the damn thing when it spoke English...]

It's not like I'm a Teutophobe or anything.  Yes, I took four years of French in school, which may be what's behind my initial feeling of surrender.  But hell, I drive a Volkswagen, for crying out loud.  Why didn't meine gondel ever throw me a "liebchen" now and then??  I might have liked that.

So now, when I hit the button to send my calls directly to voicemail, the screen reads:  "Anrufschutz ein."
"Forward" has become "Umleitung."
And my new favorite... "Transfer" has become two sentences:  "Gesprach umlegen; rufnummer eingeben."

Yeah, baby!  This has opened a whole new world to me. 

Fahrvergnügen was never like this!

A thing of beauty, but useless in a fight

Into a Belfast pub comes Paddy Murphy, looking like he'd just been run over by a train.  His arm is in a sling, his nose is broken, his face is cut and bruised, and he's walking with a limp.

"What happened to you?" asks Sean, the bartender.

"Seamus O'Connor and me had a fight," says Paddy.

"Why, that little sh*t, O'Connor," says Sean,  "He couldn't do that to you, he must have had something in his hand."

"That he did," says Paddy, "a shovel is what he had, and a terrible lickin' he gave me with it."

"Well," says Sean, "you should have defended yourself.  Didn't you have something in your hand?"

"That I did," said Paddy.   "Mrs. O'Connor's breast... and a thing of beauty it was, but useless in a fight."