Life'll Kill Ya!

Quite a flippant title for a post like this one, even I think. But, I'm not to terribly concerned about what people think most of the time.

This past Sunday/early Monday morning, my mother delivered some heavy news to me. She's been having trouble concentrating on mental tasks to the point that she got lost on her way back to her office, but she had gone no more than two doors down from it. She's been diagnosed with an auto-immune disorder, but it hadn't been narrowed down. Rhuematoid Arthritis is one she knows she has, as well as fibromyalgia, but she had been awaiting blood tests (ANA - Anti-Nuclear Antibody patterns) for a while.

Those blood tests came back this past week. It came back as having a strong indicator for scleroderma. I did some research on the disease, and it commonly hardens the skin on the hands to the point where the hands become useless. That's bad enough, but up 'til that research, the only information I had to go on was what I learned about Bob Saget's sister roughly ten years ago. Well, I don't know how else to say this, so I'll be blunt -- or, as blunt as I've been before. My mom may well be screwed. It's now my mission to try to convince her to get out and enjoy this life as best she can while she can. Even if this blood test (which she's told me is not completely conclusive yet) turns out that it's really indicating a different kind of problem (something she's described to me as being 'multiple connective tissue disorders), then she's still going to have to put up with life restricting pain. That is something that's going to grow to the point that she would not want to get out and go. I wouldn't blame her for that. I just want to see her get out and do all the things she's always wanted to do before anything robs her of her mobility.

But, then again, I don't know what would be worse for her; memories of things she will no longer be able to do, or regretting that she didn't do anything while she had the chance. All I can assume is that her personality is similar to mine (lots of people of varying degrees of credibility have said so), and urge her to get out and experience life. Don't wait for the regrets. That's the way I'd go about it.

The Humpday Quote of the
Week!

From the President of the United States
To the lowliest rock and roll star
The doctor is in and he'll see you now
He don't care who you are
Some get the awful, awful diseases
Some get the knife, some get the gun
Some get to die in their sleep
At the age of a hundred and one

Life'll kill ya
That's what I said
Life'll kill ya
Then you'll be dead
Life'll find ya
Wherever you go
Requiescat in pace
That's all she wrote

-----Warren Zevon from the album and song "Life'll Kill Ya"

Celebrating English Humor for The Next Few Months

In last week's Humpday Quote, I lifted (completely from memory!) an exchange from the movie Yellow Submarine. Today is going to be one from Scooby Doo, but I think the writers of that show captured the spirit of this long-gone comedian very well.

So, now it's time for!;

The Humpday Quote of the
Week!

(The Mystery Machine is driving slowly down a snow covered road. They come to a stop when they notice an older car sitting atop a tree stump with two men dressed anachronistically standing near it trying to keep warm. Velma sticks her head out the passenger window...)
Velma: Have an accident?
Stan Laurel: No thanks. We just had one.

The Humpday Quote of the
Week!

John: Hey Ringo, I just had the strangest dream.
Ringo: I warned you not to eat on an empty stomach.
-----from the movie Yellow Submarine.

I Heard the News Last Night, Aw, Shut Up!

With each day that passes, I learn more and more why I don't watch any of the news channels anymore. It's not that I don't want to know what's going on in the world. I really do want to know. However, with all the coverage of sports and celebrity gossip, who the hell has the time to sift through for the genuinely important stuff? Even on the unimportant stuff, newspeople seem to be missing the point.

Here's a great example: The story (I didn't want to have) seen was about Paul McCartney playing the half-time show at the Superbowl this past Sunday. There was a guy (whose name I didn't bother memorizing, and whose face I'm erasing from my memory) talking about how far backward we had slid as a society that we had to shelve cutting edge performers like Janet Jackson to get some has been like Paul McCartney to play a big event like a National Football League game. He and his interviewer were going on and on about how Janet was outside the mainstream of our culture, and Paul wasn't. I think both artists should be offended by that. One of the things the Beatles never were is mainstream. Those guys came along and wiped the landscape clean for a 'new wave' of artists. And, I do mean artists. I.E., musicians. Don't call the only two Jacksons making headlines 'musicians' in my presence. (And,please don't call them 'talented.' Sure, they're great at dancing and dressing provocatively ... But, isn't that sort of thing best suited for Las Vegas?) I won't say anything to you, but you'll know what's going on if you see me reach for a bottle of Excedrine.

As far as I'm concerned, Paul rocked his 62 year old ass off. I'm exactly half his age, and I wouldn't be able to do a show like that! If anyone thinks the 'old man' is shy of controversy, just keep in mind with whom he's worked. If you factor in the interview he gave in the hours leading up to the Superbowl, you'll understand that he still isn't shy of controversy.

He promised something;
Paul: I guarantee that there will be no 'wardrobe malfunctions' in my show.
Interviewer: Really? How is that?
Paul: I'm going to do the show naked.

If that doesn't demonstrate that he still has a 'bad attitude' towards stodgy people in authority, I don't know what will...

An End to the (Now Weekly) Hiatus

I'm going to finally break down and write about something I've been dying to comment about. I'm sure most of you have seen what I'm going to talk about. I have had the devil's time of figuring out whether I wanted my writing to show up in this particular search, but now I just don't care. I've had too much fun watching these little 15 second spots on TV for several months now, and they keep getting funnier each time I see them. The potential for someone to get ahold of these ads and exaggerate the hell out of them is ... Enormous...

I don't know if I even want to mention the name of this product, or even its tagline. Allow me to merely say that this product helps boost the confidence and ego of a supposedly typical man. Allow me to also say that these spots contain a lot of items that are "longer than they're wide."

(Yes, I did quote from an old Melanie song! In fact, I even know that singer's last name; Safka. Prettier and much more talented than Janis Joplin, the only thing that kept Melanie's career from really taking off is that she had the great misfortune of outliving a lot of her contemporaries. More than likely, she's out playing somewhere, but I'll never know about it ... Unless I look in some search engine ... Which I might do right now. Sure enough, she is!)

Anyway, back to the story:

Today as I was watching Star Trek the Next Generation, the latest ad for this product came on. Apparently, I missed this one when it first came out. It was set at a Christmas party, and the first thing I noticed was a recurring character (yes! a recurring character in an advertisement!) dressed as an elf, holding a striped, candy cane looking thing labeled "North Pole." The other recurring character, presumably the Elf's husband, wheeled up in an office chair. The setting was, of course, an office party. They were smiling maniacally as usual, and surrounded by revellers smiling, but not quite the same way as those two always seem to be. There is also at least one man and one woman in those commercials that are, indeed, frowning.

"So, (the husband) does the buddy thing and tells (shriveled sausage friend) about (this amazing product.)" (Short stack man) holds (the amazing product's) brochure up to his face, hiding his mouth. His eyes pop open wide, he lowers the brochure, revealing (you guessed it!) a demonically manic smile where a frown once was!

A scene with more phallic symbols of disproportionate size fly across the screen
and we can assume that (short stuff's) ... Erm ... Stuff isn't so short anymore. This pleases his companion to no end, whose smile is now as manic as (the knowing buddy) and (his wife.)

That's the commercial in a ... Sorry, I can think of no way of saying "that summarizes the advertisement" without saying it this way; ... Nutshell....

I might just order a couple of bottles of this stuff just to throw it away. I just want to send a message to that company that I enjoy the 15 seconds of purely entertaining innuendo. I'm amazed that they can even advertise this product without using a lot of banned words. These people deserve an A+ in my book.

*** ** *** ** ***

And now it's time for!

The Humpday Quote of the
Week!
(Yes! I think I will return to the original format this week, and for a few weeks following! Just don't expect anymore font colors. I've run out of ideas for those.)

Time wounds all heels.
-----Groucho Marx