A Blog of the Ridiculous and Sublime, by Mark Sackler
“The hardest thing to understand in the world is the income tax.”–Albert Einstein
“The income tax has made more liars out of Americans than golf”–Will Rogers
“Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors…and miss.”–Robert Heinlein.
Hahaha. I can laugh now. It’s April 16. It’s all over….except the crying.
“Anybody who finds it easy to make money on the horses is probably in the dog food business.””–Franklin P. Jones
Mark’s Spitz
My wife is a great surgeon. You know how I can tell? She is the one that is always asked to carve the Thanksgiving turkey. We figure, if she can spay a dog or cat, she should be able to cut up a bird.
The one thing she is not generally asked to do is prepare the Thanksgiving dinner, for reasons the following story will illustrate.
We had been married for three years, and were living in our first apartment after her graduation from veterinary school. It was just the two of us and our first dog, an affectionate and lively spitz named Doodlebug.
Cheryl was actually making some semblance of effort to be a wife as well as a vet. One afternoon on her day off she decided to make brownies. Dinner? She made reservations; when I got home from work, we went out. The cooling brownies were left on the kitchen table sharing half of a large round serving plate with some store-bought chocolate chip cookies. (Keebler, Nabisco? Whatever.) The table was, she thought, out of the dog’s reach, so the goodies were safe, and we left.
The table was out of the dog’s reach. BUT, the chair left slightly out from the table was within reach, so that Doodlebug could jump up on that and then reach the plateful of fun. She did. And she ate every single one of those mass produced cookies and did not so much as sniff my wife’s brownies. When we got home, there was the plate: the cookies on one side were gone, crumbs and all. The brownies were untouched. My wife was devastated–and I laughed so hard it’s a miracle I did not crack three ribs. Amazing. Our dogs will eat just about anything, including cat poop, horse poop and their own poop. What they won’t eat is Cheryl’s brownies. Now you know why we eat out a lot. Bon appetit!
“Technology is anything that wasn’t around when you were born.”–Alan Kay
Image credit: Andy Singer
http://www.andysinger.com
Gee, the world hasn’t changed all that much in my lifetime, has it? It’s not like people were still communicating with smoke signals in my infancy. Let’s see–what didn’t exist when I was born? Color TV. Stereophonic sound. Jet airliners. Solid state circuitry. NASA. Computers smaller than a log cabin. Ouch! Mark! Don’t remind yourself how old you are. See folks, technology has me talking to myself. I know… I know… that’s what blogging amounts to in the first place. Now, back to the salt mines…
“Quantum mechanics is magic.”–Daniel Greenberger.
Image credit: Matthias Giesen http://matthiasgiesen.wordpress.com
Quantum mechanics. Niels Bohr said if you’re not shocked by it, you don’t understand it. Richard Feynman said nobody understands it. Albert Einstein said god does not play dice. Stephen Hawking said god does play dice and sometimes he hides the results. I say who the hell cares, as long as they give me fodder for my blog. Or my wife’s horse. Or my accountant’s newt. It all fills space, thus proving the vacuum is not empty. Isn’t physics fun? [Note: vacuum is one of the few words in the English language containing “uu.” But it’s not as cool as muumuu, duumvir or menstruum, proving that linguistics is fun, too.]
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”– Carl Sagan
Ponder this. If Carl Sagan had not existed, would we have to invent him? If I didn’t exist, would I have to invent me? If Spandex didn’t exist, would we have to invent fat people in trailer parks to wear it anyway? [This is where you figure I either need psychiatric help or at least have to get outside more in the winter.]
If there is anything I have learned in my ten months or so of blogging, it is that there are people out there in the blogosphere who are almost as warped as I am. Case in point: Essa Alroc, who won the most recent BLAHS just reciprocated by featuring me on her blog. In keeping with my habit of shameless self-promotion, I now present you with that interview. Warning: the combination of her craziness and mine could cause your computer to explode.
“I don’t want to achieve immortality through my works. I want to achieve it through not dying.”–Woody Allen
“I’m very pleased to be here. Lets face it, at my age, I’m very pleased to be anywhere.”–George Burns
I’ve had enough of it for now. I’m calling a moratorium on in memoriam memeranda, momentarily. (Try saying that five times fast.) So if you are planning on dying, please have the courtesy to hold off for at least a few weeks. My attention now turns back to the living, at least while I’m still breathing.
“On my tombstone just write: ‘The sorest loser who ever lived.’–Earl Weaver
It’s all over but the shouting. Fortunately, I can’t hear you scream on the internet as long as my volume is turned down.
Essa
In a hotly contested battle, 529 ballots were cast, at least 400 of them by voters other than me. Essa edged out Clotilda by a nose, even though I am pretty sure her nose is not the favorite part of her anatomy. Congratulations Essa. Or condolences, depending on how you view the BLAHS. As for Clotilda and Sooz, I hope you are not sore losers. Your followers tried, but could not out-stuff the ballot box.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.
“A difference of opinion is what makes horse racing and missionaries.”–Will Rogers
With just about 24 hours to go, it’s neck and neck in a tight three-way race. (And remember girls, not only is ballot box stuffing permitted, I also accept bribes.). I’ll attempt to close the voting at 5PM EDT Sunday Feb 3, which may not be easy as I am presently in a far distant time zone and don’t even know if I will have internet access. At any rate, if you missed the initial post and want to know what all the commotion is about, you can review here. If you don’t have a clue and are too lazy to do the research, don’t worry. This is like a real election: you don’t have to know squat to vote.
Ciao.
“If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.”–Emma Goldman
If this election changed anything it would probably be ignored, which wouldn’t change anything. Anyway, we are nearing the mid-point in the hotly contested vote to bestow a BLAHS in the category of outstanding lady blogger with an attitude. It appears that Essa Alroc has pulled out to the early lead, thanks to her followers taking to heart my encouragement to stuff the ballot box. Richard J. Daley would be proud. Voting ends this Sunday afternoon EST, or sometime around then, assuming I remember to close the ballot box and name a winner. You can vote here, or on the original post. Or you can hack poll daddy and give new meaning to the term voter fraud.
I'm not the most interesting man in the world, but I might have the most cluttered mind.
The Millennium Conjectures™ 