3501. You know how when you�re watching a game show and there�s some guy who thinks he�s some trivia know-it-all watching with you, and he declares in his most cavalier, sure-of-himself voice possible that the question is easy and then proceeds to answer the question, only to find out that he�s dead wrong about it? You look at him, grin from ear to ear, and shake your head at him. Oh, goodness, that�s one of the best feelings in the world right there.
3502. I don�t make very many guarantees in life, but I will make one here.� The kid who says �zoom zoom� in the Mazda commercials is going down as one of the most annoying figures in pop culture history.
3503. If you listen to rock �n� roll with me, be forewarned.� The one thing that bugs me the most about people listening to rock is when they whistle to electric guitar solos.� Goodness, sing along off-key, tap your feet loudly to the beat, but don�t whistle along with an electric guitar!� Guitar solos have to be sung!� Whistle to a trumpet, sax, or flute solo, but, for goodness� sake, not an electric guitar solo�
3504. Have you ever given any thought about who composes those four- or eight-bar instrumental phrases that introduce and transition between scenes in a TV sitcom? Just like porno soundtracks, somebody has to do them, right?
3505. Recently, another cashier in my aisle at my local wholesaler handled an order totaling $814.26, pretty much all in groceries.� Now, after that order, you�d expect a barrage of about $40-$50 of coupons to come out� but, no. The customer pulled out one coupon.� For $2. Yes, an $814.26 order, and one coupon worth $2. That�s all. Yes, money saved is money saved, but that was the most pointless coupon, considering the order, that I have ever seen.
3506. Did you hear about the dumb sports fan guy who got a satellite dish on his East Coast house to get the western stations because he thought he could see the games three hours earlier?
3507. You know those mega-stacked guys pictured on the covers of health and fitness mags? I don�t want to look like them. Sure, I�ve got nothing against keeping in shape, but you don�t look good with biceps and pecs as big as trucks. You look damn awkward, and you�re drawing attention to yourself.� You can be in supreme fitness and not look like you�ve been inflated past full.
3508. I think that a good way to gauge a potential date is by the way they act at a snack vending machine. If they walk up to it, put their money in, and choose their selection right away, that�s good.� They�re assertive and know what they want.� If they stare at it for a few minutes and have indecision even after they put the money in, that�s not so good.� They obsess over small decisions and aren�t very confident. If they try to shake it or tilt it violently or to reach up into it, it�s an automatic negative.� They�ve got issues with kleptomania and you can�t trust your wallet or valuables around them.
3509. Sure, I�m all for wearing the jersey of your favorite basketball player and/or team. But, sometimes, it just goes too far. At basketball games, I have seen it: fat guys wearing the tank-tops.� There should come a time where they realize that they aren�t supposed to do that. In fact, I shall go so far as to say that I firmly believe that the Founding Fathers had the �fat guy in tank-top clause� in the first draft of the Constitution, but the scribes were too drunk the night they were going to recopy that part, and thus completely left it out due to a technicality.
3510. There is a Rock Paper Scissors national championship.� It actually has a website.� On it, they claim that there is an actual strategy to Rock Paper Scissors. This is unbelievable and dumb; it is literally luck. There is no way to figure out what your �opponent� will do from history.� It is a 50-50 shot whatever you throw out there� that�s why it�s been used as a random decider!� Unbelievable. No way.
3511. Just in case you were wondering, that last Thought contained the first occurrence of the word �scissors� in the entire list.� Not that you care, but it took 104,110 words before the word �scissors� came up in the whole Thoughts. By comparison, the word �penis� has (before this Thought) occurred in some form 51 times in the list. Not that any of you males would want to think of the words �scissors� and �penis� in the same train of thought, of course� but, just thought you�d (yeah, sure; really�) like to know anyways.
3512. I have a hard time dealing with it when people say things like, �How can you worry about your petty little problems when there are people [starving/being tortured/living in hovels/suffering] in this world?�� Don�t get me wrong, there are awful things going on in the world.� But that doesn�t mean that we should just shut out our own problems altogether.� Ours are not unimportant issues; in fact, if we abandon problems closer to us before we solve them, then it isn�t possible to try, even, to tackle more wide-scoping ones. We have to take care of our own problems and the problems of our family and friends, or we have no basis on which to build our own solutions for the problems of the world.
3513. I recently saw the cover of a trashmag on which was printed, �What shocks a man in bed!� Well, I don�t have to flip past the cover; I already pretty much know what shocks a man in bed.� Well, if they�ve got, like, a toaster, or something, near the bed, and if it�s a waterbed, and it bursts, like right as he�s taking a bagel out of the toaster or some food of the sort, I know that�s gonna be pretty shocking in bed.
3514. I think they should make a show about the collective viewership of �American Idol�.� They should call it �Americans Idle�.
3515. On the cover of a recent tab was printed stories proclaiming a way to �banish your pain forever� and a �government end times cover-up�.� I don�t think there�s much worth to banishing your pain forever if the government is trying to cover up the fact that the Apocalypse is coming soon anyway.
3516. On a recent (as of this Thought) episode of �Jeopardy!�, one of the categories was �Canada�. One contestant said, �Let�s do Canada for $400.� I�ll leave that double entendre without comment; none is needed.
3517. William Shakespeare was one of the greatest writers of all time.� How do I know this?� Well, of course, it�s because he often has his own category on �Jeopardy!� I believe that you know you�ve made it only when you have your own category on �Jeopardy!�
3518. Have you ever noticed a pattern in who plays the vicious male lead in pretty much any made-for-Lifetime movie? They�re the poor saps who are so desperate for work that they would debase themselves willingly like this. It�s true almost without fail.
3519. I have received more concrete evidence that I am not of right mind.� Give me the straitjacket and the men in the white coats right now; I spent about two minutes trying to harmonize with the low, constant hum of a compressor.
3520. The kind of authors I have the most respect for are not in sci-fi, history, romance, or the classics. They�re the ones who write children�s books. It is extremely difficult to write those things effectively.� It�s something that requires an incredible imagination, yet also a sense of the ridiculous and an ability to write very simply, all the while also having to make the stories somewhat meaningful.� How many normal fiction authors can you name? A whole litany of them, I�d bet. How many children�s authors can you name? I�d bet you have to think really hard after Dr. Seuss and Beatrix Potter, maybe Chris Van Allsburg. And children�s books are just as mainstream�
3521. Smorgasbord huggermugger? Huggermugger.� Smorgasbord; smorgasbord huggermugger smorgasbord! (I had to oblige a request to use those words in a Thought.� Sorry.)
3522. Have you ever been so zoned into your own world that you use a window at a public place as a mirror, for you to fix your hair, your clothes, and the like, and then suddenly realize that the people going by can look in the window and think you�re some kind of weirdo?
3523. Whenever I drive by a wastewater treatment facility, and I see those big, round tanks with the bacteria in them, I often see those rings that lifeguards use to toss out to a drowning victim that are hooked onto a fence on the tank.� I find the thought of someone having fallen in that tank and having a need for that ring both slightly entertaining and extremely disconcerting.
3524. Four words that will produce pronounced revulsion and/or convulsive laughter if ever attempted: sock puppet porno re-creation.
3525. Do you think that if the local weather reporters spent as much money researching the weather as the station did throwing in those myriad cheesy graphics, animations, and sound effects, they might actually have a better chance of getting the forecasts reasonably correct?
3526. Apparently, there has been some �scientific research� done that shows blue halogen lights to be less irritating to oncoming drivers because of the color.� It is also rather apparent that the scientists who did this research never actually looked at these headlights before coming to this ridiculous conclusion.
3527. Have you ever noticed how cool it sounds when Eastern US radio personalities say the letter W? I have always been fascinated with how quickly they can say it, in reciting call letters and Web addresses, and yet how well they can enunciate it.
3528. Have you ever taken a drink of regular soda, but tilted back your head, held the soda in your mouth, and let the fizz bubble and pop out of your mouth and hit you in the face? Boy, that�s a neat feeling. Then again, I am easily amused� keep that in mind before you think about this too much.
3529. On the cover of a recent tabloid was written a headline proclaiming a car that runs on beer. Well, sure, there�s the novelty of it all, but you�d be lucky to buy a pint of beer that costs less than a gallon of gasoline.� So, sure, but I�ll pass on that one, thanks.
3530. It seems that, every time there�s a notable birth or pregnancy, some newspaper or magazine will use the headline �Oh, baby!�� Perhaps it�s too much to ask for those types of magazines to come up with something creative, so I�ll refrain from comment here.
3531. Human children leave home, for the most part, to go to school and/or to find a career. If they�re in good stead with their parents, they�ll keep in touch and occasionally come back to visit.� Obviously, lesser animals, pretty much without exception, do not ever have that opportunity to be reunited.� This raises a rather interesting question here: do the parents of these animals ever wonder how their children are doing when they�re grown up and away?
3532. Here�s a little peculiarity of English vernacular that strikes me as not to make sense. How does the phrase �I beg your pardon�, used to ask for forgiveness for wrongdoing, come to mean �I can�t understand you�? I don�t get the connection here.
3533. I have, on certain occasions, seen printed on some gossip mags the phrase �breaking news�. Okay, they had to write the story, edit it, typeset it, print it, bring the magazine issue to publication, and send the issue into circulation.� I would hardly describe the news as �breaking� when we see it. Hell, I wouldn�t even consider it �news� anymore.
3534. Why was the dumb guy crawling around the roof during happy hour looking confused? He was told that the drinks were on the house.
3535. Here�s one of my favorite things to do at 2AM.� I find a channel with a hip-hop, punk-pop, or rap video playing.� Then I switch to another station, the one with the video on recall. Every fifteen seconds or so, I switch back to the video channel, and yell at the screen, �Are you done yet?!�
3536. Sure, �2001: A Space Odyssey� was this great and well-directed film, but I think the picture was missing something. It would have been a nice touch if Stanley Kubrick had thrown in a monotone yet peppy cover of Paul Simon, retitled �You Can Call Me HAL�.
3537. Okay, fine. So �You Can Call Me Al� was out nineteen years after �2001: A Space Odyssey� was released.� See, I was just checking to see if you were paying attention. Besides, that movie was set in the future, right? If they were that good, they would have known that �You Can Call Me Al� would already have been released by the time the plot in the movie would be happening.� Right?
3538. Sure, I would date a European woman, but there�s one exception.� I wouldn�t go out with a woman from southern France. Why?� They have a reputation for being Toulouse.
3539. When you take out paper money, have you ever paused to wonder what the chances are that the bill you�re holding at any given time has ever been in the thong band of a stripper?
3540. Helpful gambling tip: always play blackjack against a masochist.� You�ll hardly ever lose; it�s very difficult for them not to say, �Hit me!�
3541. Isn�t the phrase �pick and choose� redundant?� You can�t do one without the other�
3542. A trend in chatting has made its way to real life.� People have taken to spelling �Thanks� with an X, as in �thanx�, or even �thnx� or �thx�. People have gotten so lazy and slang-oriented that they cannot take the second or so longer to write �thank you� or even �thanks� anymore�
3543. Speaking of chatting, I also find those acronyms everyone uses disturbingly annoying. OMG, I�m jost tired of them all, LOL. IMHO, they�re vastly overused, frustrating, and, most of all, awkward.� BTW, they�re even making their ways into actual live verbal exchanges. OMG, plz stop, K?� Thx.� CUL8R, TTFN. BRB.
3544. After some experiences, people way it �went by too fast�.� Others have people saying that it �dragged on too long�.� It�s funny, you never hear people say that things �lasted just about the right amount of time�.
3545. You wonder why most everyone has some sort of back problem when they get older? Perhaps if the schools we all go to/went to would invest in some chairs that don�t have those hard backs and aren�t awful for our own postures and backs, we wouldn�t have to put our bodies through unduly awkward and uncomfortable stress for years upon years of our youth, and we wouldn�t have to put up with the consequences we suffer later in life because of repeated improper bodily stress.
3546. If James Brown got a minor injury, like a paper cut, do you think he would scream �Ow!� suddenly, like he did in his music?
3547. My experiences with grocery products as a cashier have inspired me to suggest a band name for any potential Greek-ancestry winner of �American Idol�: Feta Chunk.
3548. It�s happening more and more often in the �music� industry and it never ceases to amuse me. Rappers are somehow actually trying to sing in their own tracks.� Hah. I appreciate the effort (well, not really, but anyways�) but, with all due respect (Well, I don�t have much respect, but anyways�) there�s a reason why you rap and don�t normally sing.
3549. It�s nice that all these companies are bragging about how tightly their cling wrap product seals in the freshness, but it would certainly help their cause if they didn�t make it so damn hard to tear a sheet out without either wasting an amount of the roll every time or making it wrinkle and cling to itself, making it that much more useless.
3550. The Wet Floor Theorem: at least 40% of non-Spanish-speaking American adults over the age of 30 will know what the Spanish phrase �piso mojado� means simply because they see it on those little signs in public places that they put over a wet floor.
3551. Instead of an election, here�s a more entertaining way to determine the President of the US. Organize the entire citizenry over age 35 in the country into one massive game of musical chairs, say, on one of those massive steppes in Montana. We might not get the most qualified candidate, but at least we�ll get the one with the fastest reflexes, most determination, and best luck.
3552. If you don�t like musical chairs as a determiner of a President, I guess you could cull the one with the strongest arms, most fleet feet, and best reaction time by having one huge dodgeball competition.
3553. Harking back to the Tommy Tutone Law of Ignorance (Thought 3333), we have a similar percentage of people satisfying the Fine Young Cannibals Law of Mystery, in which the only lyrics pretty much anyone knows in �She Drives Me Crazy� are �she drives me crazy/like no one else� and �I can�t help myself�.
3554. On a recent (as of this Thought) tab cover was printed a story proclaimed to be a �world exclusive�. On the cover of the magazine directly above it on the rack was printed the very same story.� No comment needed.
3555. I see human personalities like the words in the word search.� Some are forward, really easy to spot.� Some are in there backwards (no explanation needed). Some are diagonal down, so it takes you a little while, but they�re still relatively easy to figure out.� But there are many, as I am, that are wedged in there, diagonal, up, and backwards, far from the edge, the last ones you find, if you ever find them at all.
3556. Another recent tab cover announced a �secret government operation� that decoded a �Doomsday warning after 20 year study�.� Wow� it took them 20 years to figure out the Doomsday warning?� They got kinda lucky, didn�t they?� Doomsday could�ve come during that 20-year period they were working on decoding the message.� Yeah, that would�ve kinda sucked, wouldn�t�ve it?� �Hey, I finally figured it out!� Doomsday is�� [THUD!] �Oh, damn��� (By the way, I�m not a gull.� I know this is a fake story.)
3557. Sometimes people ponder some visual creation and ask, �Is it art?�� There�s no concrete response to something like that. I don�t think it�s the onus of the creator to declare if it�s art; the job of the creator is to proffer a work and let the audience debate or decide among themselves.� I could put 15 pairs of old blue jeans in the dryer with a ballpoint pen in each pocket, let the dryer run, and have all the pens splatter all over the dryer wall, but is the result art?� I don�t know; I don�t care.� You should decide yourself.
3558. How frightfully appropriate is the name �Uranus� for a planet nearly full of gas?
3559. It�s strikingly apt that American car horns honk in the key of F, considering what word drivers often utter while honking that horn.
3560. I�m not an extraordinarily political person, but I get enraged � inflamed � whenever I hear some political figure arguing for some law against gay marriage. They argue that it would redefine �traditional values�. Well, first, if you�ve read this List, you know how I feel about tradition.� Just because it�s tradition does not make it okay. Furthermore, last time I checked, gays � oops, excuse my un-PCness, pardonnez-moi! �Same-sex people� � can love each other. And also, last time I checked (again), most people don�t marry in government buildings. They marry in churches.� Religious buildings.� It�s not the job of the government, it�s the decision of individual sects. So butt the hell out of it.
3561. It�s been famously postulated that an infinite number of monkeys typing for an infinite time will eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare.� Similarly, if you give one monkey a typewriter for ten minutes (let�s give it the benefit of the doubt, here), the monkey will produce the lyrics of a Britney Spears song.
3562. People keep calling ruses worn with age �the oldest trick in the book�.� But there can be only one �oldest�, right? So what is, in fact, really the one single oldest trick in the book?� And what�s the book we�re talking about here?� And can I be enlightened of the contents of this book so I�m not a victim here?
3563. Is a turtle without its shell homeless or naked?� Well, seeing as how a turtle�s shell is not clothing, it�s not really possible for a turtle, or any animal besides a human, to be naked.� Oh, well, it was a dumb attempt at a rhetorical question anyway.
3564. I�m tired of hearing people use the phrase �which begs the question��� to mean �which raises the question�.� �Beg the question� most certainly does not mean �lead to the question�. It means �answer the question by simply restating the premise of the question�.� It�s one of the most awful misuses in English.
3565. So the customer says to the waiter, �Hey, there�s a dead fly in the bottom of my soup bowl!� To which the waiter replies, �Excellent! The pesticides are working!�
3566. I�d like to nominate for Most Annoying Person You Can�t Hear Award that guy or those guys who jump up and wave excitedly and make weird faces on the cameras in the background while sports or news broadcasters are speaking.� Bonus points if they�re waving frenetically while talking on a cell phone.
3567. Here�s one for all you math/retail sales geeks out there.� What do you call bar code lines that neither intersect or are parallel? SKU lines.
3568. �God Bless America�. Goodness, I hate that song. [gasps] Oh, no, I must be unpatriotic! I don�t like a song about America?! Well, actually, I think that the vastly underrated and undersung �My Country �Tis Of Thee� is so much better of a song, so much less annoying, so much more reverent.� All that song �God Bless America� does is offer religious intonations and talk about how good the country looks.� �My Country �Tis Of Thee� pays reverence to the sacrifices of men for our freedom and the hard work and bravery of pilgrims to uncover frontier land. Leave it to America to favor a song of superficial beauty rather than positive internal qualities.
3569. Look.� Just because we use the words �men� and �guys� vis-�-vis �women� and �gals� to describe a general group of people doesn�t mean that it�s �a symbol of male dominance in society� or some femspeak propaganda bull like that. �The general term for the human species is man.� �Man� is not a term for a male in this sense.� It is a term for people.� There is no association between the two meanings.� I will use �manmade�, not �person-made�. I will use �to a man�, not �to a person�. I will use �men� when referring to our soldiers, not �people�.� It is a part of our language, and you should not question it on the basis of ultrafeminist nonsense.
3570. It was often said that Bill Clinton was the first sitting president to be impeached. Don�t you think the adjective �sitting� was a bit too literal in that situation?
3571. People and greeting cards tell you on your birthday that �you�re a year older now.� So just then do they become a year older? They don�t age at all during the rest of the year, and just jump up a year every year on their birthday? That�s what it sounds like.
3572. Ever wonder what cashiers do and talk about when business is dead?� It should be filmed.� Some of it is absolutely hilarious.� It can�t be explained, you�ll just have to trust me.
3573. Efficiency experts are hired by companies to increase productivity.� But what if these efficiency experts don�t work efficiently in determining what can increase efficiency?� Wouldn�t that be counterproductive?
3574. Could the term �counterrevolutionary�, with a little wordplay imagination, be construed to mean �pertaining to a Lazy Susan�?
3575. I can�t decide which is more tasteless: porno or caffeine-free diet cola.� I find it rather odd to be thinking about porno and diet soda in the same train of thought.� That�s the only way I could think of to tie them together.
3576. During my time as a cashier, someone was about to purchase a bag of salad-ready lettuce, but she held back because she said that it was �a little bit scootchy�. Scootchy?� I didn�t know that lettuce could be scootchy. I don�t even think it�s a word. But, apparently, whatever scootchy is, it�s not a good thing for lettuce to be.� Scootchy Lettuce� that�d make a good band name though�
3577. You know those �prayer handkerchiefs�, offered by some ministries, that are claimed to perform miraculous recoveries? What would happen if you ordered one to try and cure a bloody or runny nose?
3578. People are often asked what their �turn-ons� and �turnoffs� are.� Would you believe me and be able to fathom the irony if I say that my biggest turnoff is sex and my biggest turn-on is abstinence? I wonder how many people would say that�
3579. Have you ever noticed how the random, almost toneless, oft nonsensical songs that little kids sing improvisationally can adapt remarkably well to the punk rock style?
3580. Gambling is a sin according to Christianity, right?� So how come so many parishes sponsor bingo nights and trips to casinos? Churches really shouldn�t be profiting from gambling events, I�d think!
3581. I wonder whether there are any vegetarians who are devout Biblical Christians. If there are, they�re all hypocrites. In the Bible, slaughters of animals for feasts were done, and condoned, quite a lot, and often for the greater glory of God were they made. So slaughters of animals for food are perfectly honorable.
3582. The reason most people anti gay marriage give for holding such a position is that it would �destroy the sanctity of marriage�.� Okay, they would say that two people in love who happen to be of the same sex cannot share sanctity, but they would say that two people who marry in a Las Vegas chapel, some of whom are not sober at the time of the wedding, some of whom hardly have been with each other, many of whom do not truly love each other enough, have a more sacred (and legal) bond?� Maybe I�m missing something�
3583. It makes me wonder why more people don�t request their soft drink not to have ice in them when they�re ordering at a restaurant.� It comes out of the fountain cold, ice takes up volume in the container, and the drink gets more watery as the ice melts.� The only reason these businesses do this is to use less drink per glass or cup and thus make more profit.
3584. Pretzels were invented to give German schoolchildren who learned their prayers a reward. Now, pretzels are given to any old drunk guy at a ballpark who can dig $3 out of their pocket in time for the pretzel guy to catch them as a reward.� Funny how times change.
3585. I hear of these businesses whose totally honorable purpose is to run errands for and to transport elderly people. But what they call this type of business really bugs me: �adult day care�.� Day care?� Calling it that makes it sound like you�re treating perfectly capable older people like they�re little kids.� Don�t you think that�s rather insulting?
3586. If you�ve seen the Grand Canyon in person, you gaped in awe at its grandeur, majesty, and utter enormity. Then you get a glimpse at the Colorado River.� It�s puny! It can�t be more than only a tenth of a mile wide. But the friggin� canyon is a mile deep, over 270 miles long, and an average of ten miles wide! I liken this to going into this huge mansion, everything in it wrecked, totally run through, and you find nobody home but for a tiny puppy, standing there wagging its tail furiously, acting totally aloof compared to what it just accomplished.
3587. You know those signs at the gas stations with the prices on them?� You know how some of them rotate?� What I�d really like to see is for someone to change the price number placards while the sign is whirling.
3588. Proposed new slogan for a German pub: �The Bock Stops Here�.
3589. On a stamp? Made the cover of Time magazine? Appeared on a �Law and Order� episode? Forget it.� You only know you�ve really made it in life if your face has appeared on a mass-distributed Pez dispenser or bobblehead doll.
3590. I have quite possibly found the most futile quadrennial events in the United States. It is the naming of the Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Mississippi and Alabama.
3591. You know what I think of cell phone ringtones if you�ve read the List.� But I�ve heard the kicker.� On a train riding down to Grand Central Station in New York, someone�s cell phone went off to the tune of �We Wish You a Merry Christmas�. Ooh, festive.� Right.� Except it was in the middle of July!
3592. I saw something in a Toys-Я-Us in Manhattan that convinced me of something that I�d suspected for a long time. I saw a beagle made from Legos in giant scale suspended from the ceiling.� That in itself wasn�t so bad, until, well, let�s just say that I noticed that it was a Lego boy beagle.� Yes, sirree, just as I thought.� Those guys are a buncha perverts over there.
3593. You know, if I didn�t know well enough, I would be very afraid to go to New York. I hear about these �straphangers� all over the place, and, if I weren�t the street-smart, citified, urban, cosmopolitan, with-it, ultra-suave, gelled-up fly guy that I just may be if you tilted your head at just the correct angle, I would think that �straphanger� meant a derogatory term for a sadomasochist.
3594. You know that practice of holding your breath as you go through an underground or underwater tunnel? This is how you can tell the dumb guys getting off the Chunnel.� They�re the ones purple-faced and wheezing, disoriented.
3595. Here�s a little experiment that some cashiers should try.� If a guy comes into their line and asks if they can make out a check, inform them that the store cannot accept checks from guys named Randy or Fred.
3596. You hear all the time about things that can �add years to your life� or �take years from your life�. One question.� How do you know, ever, that that�s happened?
3597. The Siamese twins became best friends from birth.� After that, they were inseparable.
3598. I�ll tell you who needs to be muzzled, leashed, and sent off to a remote Peruvian jungle. It�s that parents who swear around, or, worse yet, at, their own young children.� Goodness, that�s low.� What kind of influence are you on your impressionable children if you just keep cussing within earshot of them?� And then you yell at them when you hear them say bad words?� No wonder that kids have such awful mouths, as you parents complain. The kids learn the words from the parents! And the ones who pick it up from other kids are just learning it from those who picked it up from their parents. So I�d advise you hypocrites to stop cussing like that!
3599. We have the Year of the Dragon, Cat, Rat, and such, on the Chinese Calendar.� I�d like to propose an addition to this calendar: the Year of the Blue-Footed Booby.� Hey, why not?
3600. Proposal for new FOX comedy: �When People Hold Varied Objects In Such A Way As To Resemble Penile Appendages�. Oh, wait� never mind. That title wouldn�t work.� It�s too much to ask for FOX to come up with a sentence with perfect grammar and that kind of elevated vocabulary.
3601. Entomologists have recently announced a very odd discovery of a new species of gnat.� The weird thing about this bug is not so much that it appears only in the summer; what�s odd is that the only bites observed from this insect have been up under people�s shorts or skirts.� For that reason, the scientists have labeled this species the �pervert bug�.
3602. People describe the distinctiveness of the smell of the interior of a new car.� But you can blindfold me, lead me to a shower with a newly outfitted curtain, and, believe me, I�d know exactly where I am.
3603. I find it fascinating how a certain set of similar actions can be described with four different words distinguished by only a single vowel sound.� Squash, squish, squush, and squoosh.� They�re all describing something squeezing or compressing something else. And what�s even more odd is that those four words all describe different kinds of squeezing. �Squash� is when a large object crushes a helplessly smaller one.� �Squish� is when a solid object runs over a semisolid thing, usually making an icky mess. �Squush� is when a compressible object that shouldn�t be compressed, like bread, is squeezed.� And �squoosh� is a cross of �squush� and �squish�.
3604. More and more supermarkets and other retail stores are resorting to self-checkout lines as an alternative to cashiers. I have no idea why customers of these stores are obliging.� Let�s see� you do the work of scanning the items, bagging the items, and tendering the transaction� or you have someone else do those things for you? And wouldn�t you rather have the human touch instead of the impersonality of a machine? And wouldn�t you rather have someone else deal with scanning errors instead of having a machine yell at you and having to wait for some human to figure out what�s wrong with the damn thing?
3605. Wait� did I just use up six lines of notebook college-ruled paper to spout out the subtle differences between squashing, squishing, squushing, and squooshing? Did I really spend all that time doing that?! Maybe I�m losing my mind here� maybe it�s already lost�
3606. You know all those philosophers who claim that what we call �reality� is all illusory? What would they call magic? Is that an illusion of an illusion? Does that cancel out and leave magic to be real? Or is that just something way too philosophized for anyone to comprehend?� I�m a little perplexed here�
3607. You heard about the Greek Games, a national fraternity/sorority Olympic-style competition of typical college Greek activities?� I�ve got a suggestion of a new medal event: verisimilitude of cucumber fellatio. Except I�m not quite sure how many of these people would quite understand �verisimilitude�.� But because the word �fellatio� is in there, that�d be enough to convince �em, I�d think.
3608. The cartographer had been working on his new elevation detail map for weeks.� When he finally finished his project, he leaned back, and sighed, �What a relief!�
3609. Have you ever noticed how people walking while listening to music on portable radios look strikingly similar to pigeons when they bob their heads to the beat?
3610. The Presidential National Conventions have really lost their luster.� All there really is at those things is a bunch of rhetoric. I propose name changes for these events. The DNC should be called the Let�s Brag About What We Think We Can Do In The Future Even Though We Have No Idea If We Can Ever Do It Convention, and the RNC the Let�s Drink Beer And Shoot Things And Spout On About The Good Old Days Convention. Not as catchy, granted, but much more specific and accurate.
3611. At what point does something stop being �brand new� and start being just �new�? What�s the difference?
3612. Politicians often cite a �hope for the future� as a part of their campaign.� Can you have hope for any other time but the future?
3613. Blink 182 has acquired so many blind, unquestioning fans of its leadership in the let�s-all-sound-the-same-as-each-other-even-though-we-wear-the-punk-label movement that � you know, I�ll bet you � they could release any old detritus and their fans would automatically get behind it.� Oh, wait� never mind�
3614. If you�ve read the List, you know (Thought 3604) that I�m particularly annoyed with self-checkout lines. But, I do admit, one thing would have alleviated the whole annoyance of the process.� How about John Wayne as the automated voice? �That�ll be� four� ninety-nine, pilgrim�� That would�ve been something�
3615. I�ve got a quick suggestion for Hollywood directors that would lead to a huge hit. Consider an amalgam of the Russell Crowe hit �Gladiator� and the Robin Williams smash, �The Birdcage�.� Just think of the possibilities�
3616. It�s commonly said that our personalities are defined by our environment.� I disagree.� Humans are generally proud of their individuality, despite my railing against their tendency to act like lemmings.� Our personalities are defined not by our environment but by how our environment isn�t. We see what�s going on around us and, as much as humans seem to go along with it, we do not, more often than not, go along. We pull away from influences reflexively throughout our lives.
3617. Upon leave-taking, some people say, �We�ll see you later.�� We? Who�s �we�?� Is this the royal we?� There�s only one person here!
3618. I never really get why some people address complete strangers as �buddy�.� A buddy is a friend, or, at least, an acquaintance. You shouldn�t call me �buddy� unless you at least know me.
3619. With all the fad diets going on, I�ve decided to jump in the fray with one of my own. I�m calling it the �Don�t Eat As Much Food Diet�. Here�s how it works. �You take the amount of food you normally eat daily, and you subtract some food from that.� You eat the remaining amount of food, and � here�s the kicker � you don�t eat the subtracted food. It�s guaranteed to make you lose weight!� Guaranteed!
3620. The esteemed dinner guest was feeling very tired.� He was so tired, in fact, that he fell asleep.� He fell straight forward, right into his salad ni�oise.� Twenty minutes later, he woke up, everyone at the table staring at him. Boy, did he have egg on his face�
3621. You know, I�ve noticed that people generally act rather tense or serious around me if they don�t know me. I think that�s true of most any strangers. And I kinda wish that would abate a bit. Why is there this tacit thing among strangers where they�re afraid to joke with someone? It�s okay!� Goodness, no wonder everyone�s so wound up and rushed. No one trusts their sense of humor anymore.
3622. The definition of a dumb guy is one who makes mental notes all the time but can never read his own handwriting.
3623. Whenever I�m ringing out at a register the parent of kids who are being annoying, whiny, bothersome, or such, I say, �Have a good day�, as I always have done.� But, those times, I feel kind of ironic saying something like that. It hardly looks like they�re going to have a nice day with their kids acting like that.
3624. Have you ever noticed how just about any picture on a Heimlich maneuver poster could just as well be stills from a porno movie?
3625. I would find it damn apt and funny if Hugh Hefner were ever to wear an �I�m With Stupid� T-shirt with an arrow centered on the shirt and pointing straight down.
3626. On a recent cover of Cosmopolitan magazine was printed the promise of a pictorial described as �Yum!� Guys in nothing but boxer briefs.�� And women complain that guys objectify them too often?
3627. Speaking of �cosmopolitan�, I�ll bet you that at least half the population of the US will think that word to mean only an alcoholic drink or the magazine title. They have no idea what the basic English definition of this word has been and is.� And if you don�t know, I�m not telling you, so you can look it up yourself.
3628. There should be a new motto of the Winter Olympic Games: �Peace, Love, and Curling�. We all know that if there be one thing in the world that there should be more of� it�s curling.
3629. We all know the adage, �necessity is the mother of invention�.� So how appropriate is it that the inventor of the light bulb, Thomas Edison, was afraid of the dark?
3630. In honor of the Swedish, I am going to add a soft J (as in the J in �Johann�) to the end of my first name and to the beginning of my last name.� And I, Timj Jcroce, suggest you all do the same. Just for the sake of the Swedish�
3631. Would it be too horridly appropriate to call a list of household chores for a porno star his �to-do list�?
3632. I once saw in a retail store a parent operating a child restraint system.� Basically, it was, plain and simply, a kid in a harness attached to a leash � that�s right, a leash � onto which the parent was holding. Goodness, if you�re gonna treat your own damn kid like that, you might as well put the kid in a freaking kennel while you shop.� They�re children, not pets!� Really. Treat your children with more respect than that. Honestly, now�
3633. On the cover of Star magazine was posed the question, concerning a celebrity couple, �Has their 3-year union gone sour already?� [pause] �Already�? For the love of God, it�s a Hollywood marriage! Three years for one of those things is an arrant miracle!� �Already�� hah�
3634. On a case of 36 Pepsi cans was printed, �50% more than 24-pack!�� Really.� If you have to inform your target customer demographic that 36 is 50% more than 24, you�re not really catering to the smartest buncha people, are you, now?
3635. Here�s a little experiment to see if you can get something out of someone.� Greet them over the phone, �Hello, FBI, we�re placing you under arrest�, and see if they let anything slip before realizing the FBI wouldn�t do that.
3636. Cheesy restaurant pick-up line: �Hey, can I violate your health code?�
3637. See, my theory about these cleaning machines they use in many stores is that at least half of them function almost purely to make it appear to the customers of the store that the store they�re in is being kept scrupulously clean.� They don�t actually make the stores really scrupulously clean.
3638. I swear to you with every fiber of my being that I have seen a therapeutic aid called the Miracle Ball. On the back of the package (umm� Freudian slip�) proclaimed that you should �Touch the Miracle Ball!� Uh� touch what?� You sound like a desperate dirty old man there�
3639. COX-2 inhibitors are a group of drugs which reduce joint and tissue inflammation. Wouldn�t it have been ironic if Viagra were also a COX-2 inhibitor?
3640. I�ve seen square dancing and square dance calling plenty before, but I will not be impressed until I see chaos-theory fractal pattern dancing.
3641. I would be duly impressed if the IOC were to combine Greco-Roman wrestling and curling into one Olympic event.
3642. How do you know your town is getting desperate in its conservation efforts?� They�ve put out an ad campaign on local TV featuring the tagline of �Why waste water, pee in the shower!�� Not only that, the ad�s got the slogan being spoken by an animated dancing chipmunk.
3643. There�s an Olympic event called �men�s coxless pairs�.� Say that out loud. Doesn�t that sound like a contradiction in terms?
3644. If you are an Olympian in the event of men�s synchronized diving, I congratulate you. You have quite possibly � no, check that, quite certainly � found the single most homoerotic Olympic competition in existence.
3645. I know why George W. Bush started that war with Iraq in 2003.� No, the real reason wasn�t that he thought Iraq had WMDs. That was just a cover.� Bush realized, �N-now, wait a durn minnit here. �Iraq� has a Q.� Ya cain�t have a Q an� not have a U.� That ain�t right.� Let�s bomb �em buggers.�
3646. Occasionally, I draft in my mind potential Thoughts railing against the FOX network.� After almost every one of those drafts, I conclude, �Come on. Don�t you think you�ve ranked on FOX a bit too often?�� Then I invariably will pause, and think, �Hah.� That�s not possible. FOX?� Merciful empathy?� They passed �deserving of merciful empathy� long before Jerry Springer, Cops, When Anything Attacks And/Or Misbehaves, Baywatch� oh, never mind, it never deserved merciful empathy.�
3647. I always find to be a curious phenomenon when you tell someone an interesting bit of trivia, and they find it rather or particularly stimulating, but you could tell the same person the same bit of trivia about three weeks or� so later, and one of two things invariably happen. More likely, they�ll�ve forgotten completely and act really interested again.� But if they do remember, they�ll do so vaguely, and forget it was you who told them.
3648. It bugs me to high Heaven when I hear people use the expression �That�s retarded� when they get indignant about something.� To be blatant here, I think that�s pretty demeaning and insulting.� For the very vast majority of people who are mentally retarded, it isn�t their fault � they were born with it.� They can�t help it.� They work a whole hell of a lot harder than you do just so they can learn the basic skills they need to survive and live independently, and they sure as all hell don�t deserve you demeaning their condition just to express your indignation over some petty thing.
3649. I just have to declare that any clothes with text embroidered on the backside, designed for you to stare at their butt to read what�s written on the clothes, are a desperate cry for attention or a sad attempt at being chic.� They should be outlawed sheer on the basis of their annoyance quotient.
3650. D.C. pols have justified a sky-high tobacco tax on the pretext that it would �discourage habits from continuing�.� Hah. That�s a good one.� Higher tobacco prices are not enough to discourage smokers, because they�ve got a strong enough habit that money will eventually not become an object for them.� Let�s see. Taxes paying� government workers� higher taxes� tobacco habits� more money� even more money� stronger habits� Aston Martins� leather interior� more tobacco lobby gifts� five-star hotels� room service� more paychecks� expensive hookers� hmm, they said they had honorable intentions�
3651. On the cover of an issue of Teen People was printed the promise of �598 ways to: flirt with your crush, look supercute, deal with mean girls, get good grades.� I will say nothing more but this: look at the magazine title, look at the items on that list, and notice which one is listed last.
3652. I am announcing the inaugural selection for the E.F. Book Club.� It�s �That Ain�t Lemonade� by I.P. Yoffen.
3653. Did you hear about the dumb guy who tried to stage a boycott of Taco Bell?� He saw a sign for the chain with its slogan, �Yo quiero Taco Bell�. He became enraged because he thought that was a gangsta insulting a gay guy and then pointing out a Taco Bell to him.
3654. It should seriously not be allowed for a female to ask anyone, especially a guy, to guess her weight or age. That question requires all the skills of diplomacy one has in their entire capabilities to wriggle out of that situation with head still intact.
3655. On the cover of an issue of Redbook is asked the question, �Too busy for sex?� What the hell kind of excuse is that? Is that situation ever the case even?
3656. You might have heard the adage, �a miss is as good as a mile�.� But tell that to both the team that lost the title on the last-second play and the team that finished last by a light year.� There will be two completely different responses.
3657. Words of the wise: be wary of any guy who refers to his fly as the �easy-access window�.
3658. I would like to do some research, because I want to know if there is a country or a culture in which the term �monkeyface� is considered a compliment.� If there is one, I�d love to move there. I�d like to call someone a monkeyface completely guilt-free. Call it a lifelong goal.
3659. Would it be too horridly inappropriate to say that the transient man with erectile dysfunction has nowhere to hang his hat?
3660. Composers of really cheesy instrumental music everywhere can find solace that, even though their music may not receive much attention elsewhere, they will always have gymnastics competitions to showcase their work.
3661. Ads for fairs and carnivals often advertise �face-painting for the kids�.� So who says some of the older people won�t want to have it done too?
3662. The way PC language is running rampant, I would not be surprised to see the term �standup comic� fall victim. There are some funny people in wheelchairs, you know.� That�s dis-crim-i-na-tin�.
3663. I have been witness to and a part of the Piecemeal Party Phenomenon.� Someone who really likes an hors d�oeuvre, at a party, that no one else is eating will take only a little bit at a time and keep coming back to it, each time trying to take the piece(s) of food as discretely as possible so as not to make it conspicuous that he/she is intending to eat the entire platterful.
3664. Do you think that a National Carpentry Skills competition would involve a tournament with a bracket?
3665. Having been in a marching band, I can attest to that the main purpose of the warm-up before a marching rehearsal is not actually to warm up on one�s instrument but to figure out how to play the theme from �Zelda� and the opening bass line to �Play That Funky Music� on it.
3666. The Law of Uncertain Hours: 90% or more of any given group of people will not be certain entirely of when any particular store or food place opens or closes on any particular day.
3667. Flight attendant pickup line bound to be unsuccessful: �Can I set your tray table to my fully upright and locked position?�
3668. I�m on a roll with these, let�s have another one.� �Can I use your cushion as my flotation device?�
3669. Okay, I promise, I�ll stop after this one.� �Can I serve you my complimentary in-flight beverage?�
3670. The optimist is someone who keeps talking at a table full of people in the hopes that someone might listen to what he�s saying.� But the cynic is the one who keeps talking at a table full of people, knowing full well that no one at the table is listening, but still not giving a damn about it.
3671. While you empty the contents of your pockets at night before you go to bed, have you ever encountered something in your pocket and wondered how it got into your pocket over the course of the day?� That�s a rather odd feeling.
3672. Some of you may refer to it as �real life�.� But I refer to it as �that annoying, repetitive clicking noise that wakes you up in the middle of the night that makes you go find out what it is and take care of it before you�re able to go back to bed.�
3673. The talented plaster artist often seemed to have his way with the ladies.� Why?� He always made a good impression.
3674. The aspiring art major in college who had a thing for painting nude models went to Italy for a year to study a broad.
3675. In my view, having a good sense of humor but not using it too often is one of the biggest possible wastes of personality that any person can possibly exhibit. You can tell this habit pretty easily if you listen to them for a while, and, unfortunately, it happens way too commonly.
3676. Potatoes are very good conductors. This led a group of dumb guy scientists to perform an experiment which proved, to their extreme dismay and puzzlement, that orchestras have a very difficult time starting, never mind keeping in time, with a potato sitting on the front of the stage.
3677. If Heaven were a nightclub, God would be the house deejay, St. Peter the doorman, Jesus the bartender who patiently listens to people�s problems, Pontius Pilate the bouncer, and Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John would be in charge of advertising.� Moses would lead the conga line.
3678. If I were ever to put out my own line of automobiles, I would teach those car companies a lesson for using so many different letters for their models by naming my debut model the Crocina QVZZTopM2?55LXPPABCDEFG2525Zə!�BBBBBBBBBthatsthewayuhhuhuhhuhilikeit(73�)PJ.
3679. I�ve always wanted to know something about butter and cream cheese.� How many pats are in a dollop?� How many dollops are in a shmear?� Which is bigger, a shmear or a glom?
3680. Parigoriacheilophilia.� It�s an extremely common affliction in the US. No, it isn�t a real word (yet), but it very well should be. I derived it from Greek, and, literally translated, parigoriacheilophilia is the obsession with lip balm.
3681. It was fine for a while, but now�s the time for �the wave� to stop in arenas all across the sports world and beyond.� It�s overstayed its welcome and gotten really annoying.� Sure, people go to stadia and arenas to have fun, but they did pay to see a competition.� And if they find a need to have to resort to that to entertain themselves and not let the sport do it, they really aren�t getting their money�s worth for what they paid for.
3682. �The other night� typically means �the night before last�.� Same with �the other day�.� But now people use it to mean any time in the recent past.� You went to the movie a couple weeks ago, but you still tell people it was �the other night�.� They got married a month ago, but you went to the wedding �the other day�.
3683. I simply must add to my list of most fun words to say the word �rodomontade�.
3684. People know there�s a fine for jaywalking, but no one cares; they do it all the time. I�m convinced that if they made the punishment for jaywalking the death penalty, people would still do it because they know they wouldn�t get written up.
3685. You know what we need on television? �Law and Order: Jaywalking Unit�.
3686. I guess that we shall never find an answer to one of the great sociological and behavioral mysteries that humankind will ever encounter: why it is that humans find such fascination and delight in peeling off their own scab tissue.
3687. One of the coolest in proportion to its disgustingness of its meaning words to say in the English language: �mucocele�.
3688. Game show plunger ringing-in techniques were rather undeveloped and crude starting out, but, due to the growth of technology, they�ve improved hand-over-fist.
3689. My bet is when news programs break the story of the nearing Armageddon, at least a quarter of the American population will initially dismiss it as another WWE world championship tag team match.
3690. I have another prediction for Armageddon.� In the climactic battle between good and evil, built up for thousands of years by religious groups, Satan will ultimately lose.� Not necessarily due to God�s superiority, no. He�ll quit five minutes in, thanks to a pesky and annoyingly painful hangnail on his right pinkie.
3691. I assume nudist colonies don�t play strip poker.� So what do they play? Dress-up poker? Come on, there are some questions that just beg to be answered, you know?
3692. George W. Bush used September 11, 2001 to drum himself up as a hero in times of immense chaos and struggle for the United States.� Even he should have had the brains to admit that he himself was not the reason for his stalwart image; it was that he happened to be in the right place at the right time. Anyone who had an ounce of sense and tact about him (well, actually, less than an ounce in his case) would have appeared a hero to Americans.� Let�s face it; had Al Gore been elected President, it would have been the same way.� Hell, if a marmoset were President, it would�ve been the same way.
3693. You know what they say: if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck, what is it? George W. Bush.
3694. Contrary to popular dumb guy belief, to �look out for number one� does not mean to duck to avoid someone trying to urinate on your head.
3695. If you give a man a fish, he�ll eat for a day.� But if you teach a man to fish, you will give him countless opportunities and excuses to exaggerate and lie that he will treasure sincerely and use for a lifetime.
3696. The next time someone asks you how you�ve lost weight, tell them a wormhole developed in your alimentary canal above your stomach.� You eat just as much food as before, but, since you have a kink in space-time inside your esophagus, not that much of it actually gets digested, but, instead, appears in a parallel universe not too long after you put it in your mouth.� It�s sort of a weird, tingly feeling, but you get used to it eventually.� And you hardly ever have to go pee.
3697. If every statement on an Opposite Day is contrary to the truth, then how do you declare that a particular day is Opposite Day?� Wouldn�t it be a contradiction to say so?
3698. Here�s how dumb and pathetic my high school was.� There was some test done to reveal that the air quality in the school building was a bit substandard. So the students stage a walkout to protest.� And when I glanced out the window, what were a lot of students doing?� They were smoking.� They were protesting that the air in the school was bad for them, so they went outside and smoked some cigarettes.� It�s generally not a good idea to stage a protest and directly contradict the reason for the protest while you�re protesting.
3699. I�d estimate that about � of the females who wear T-shirts saying something on the order of �Foxy�, �Sassy�, or the like are doing so not so much as a declaration of their looks and personality but as a desperate cry for attention accompanied by a very serious case of denial.
3700. The RIAA is running a brilliant scheme.� They�re releasing a couple singles ahead of the albums to get you to buy the albums. But you get the album, and it�s got the catchy one or two hits on it, but the rest of the album is processed filler junk. Everything else is just something to take up noise space.� So they�re essentially making you pay exorbitant monies for one or two hits. How many times have you heard someone say, �I bought the CD just for the one song, the rest is awful.�?� Exactly.� That�s so the RIAA can squeeze as much moolah out of you with as little work as possible. Brilliant.
3701. Isn�t it rather ironic that Microsoft engendered a whole new wave of office productivity with its Microsoft Office software package, but undid about half of that productivity with its inclusion in Windows of Minesweeper and Solitaire?
3702. I have seen T-shirts which read on the front simply �Like, totally awesome!!� in all caps. That�s it� I surrender, I don�t care anymore. My hands are raised in truce. Valley girls can take over the world, for all I care now� there�s no use reasoning with airheads� hell, they could take over the universe, for all I care� it�s all going to pot anyways, at least we have an excuse now� take anything you want, hair dryer, conditioner, brush, lip gloss, just leave me with my dignity� please�
3703. People talk about communicating or interacting �with one another� as if one could communicate or interact with oneself.
3704. If any of you genetic engineers have some time on your hands, I�d really like to see a mutant goose with six wings, three eyes, and the dance moves of Paula Abdul. You�d be a real hit at any club.
3705. Here�s my definition of a twisted sense of humor.� A patient has surgery to amputate an arm, and, at the first follow-up appointment, the surgeon plays a tape of �The Hokey Pokey� and �The Chicken Dance� as the patient walks in.
3706. You know, I think Kenny G is so special that his music doesn�t even belong in the jazz or easy listening section of the music store.� He merits his own section, apart from every other section in the store. In a storage room in a remote, uninhabited jungle in Bolivia. Yes, he�s that special.
3707. Have you ever found yourself strangely staring at the faces of people whom you�ve always seen with facial hair and trying to picture what they�d look like without it by mentally erasing the hair as if your brain were a graphics processor?
3708. Do you feel at all weirded out when a dog stretches out its owner�s leash and arm just to sniff you, or do you take it as some sort of odd compliment?
3709. In countless lyrics, the singer declares that they�d climb the highest mountain, swim the deepest sea, cross the most oppressive desert, walk a thousand miles, and so forth, just to see their beloved again.� Sure, these are quite romantic sentiments, but it�s a pretty safe bet that the singer will never actually have to do those things simply to be reunited with their true love. So it�s pretty easy for them to say they�d do it just for that extra romantic quality to their lyric.
3710. Oh, sure, silence may be golden. But watching someone make a complete jackass out of themselves by spouting out when they should�ve kept their mouth shut is more valuable than gold; it�s absolutely priceless.
3711. Years of research and inquiry have been done on the subject, but, to this day, no conclusion has been made on how the hell Donny Osmond could have possibly been a teen idol. No one seems to know how it happened.
3712. You know those guys at guard posts in Britain who are trained to stand still and not change facial expression? They must make for interesting dinner conversation with their wives.� �Hi, honey, how was work today?�� �I just stood there.�� �Anything happen?�� �Nope. Well, my feet fell asleep.� �Hear any good jokes today?� �Not funny�!�� By the by, I wonder if they ever wear that hat around town just for kicks�
3713. Those British guards prompt another interesting question here.� If they see something� umm, arousing, are they allowed to adjust themselves, or do they have to just stand there with a painfully obvious lump in the crotch of their pants as if nothing�s happening? Somebody had to ask that question�
3714. A wedding reception is quite possibly the only thing that can turn a perfectly stable individual into a flailing yet vaguely rhythmic maniac barely in control of their own motor skills, with the exception of alcohol.
3715. Overheard in the New Orleans City Hall the first day of Lent: �Sure, we can do little, if anything, about the tradition of flashing on Mardi Gras, but, in retrospect, I admit that it might not have been such a good idea to donate those beads and bottles of wine to the convalescent homes.�
3716. Any debate about the legalization of marijuana is bound to be fun.� But if parties are chosen carefully, it can turn into an out-and-out slugfest. I suggest the head of the DEA on one side and the editor-in-chief of High Times magazine on the other. Better yet, get the editor stoned before the debate.
3717. You know those rock bands whose material consists mostly of alternating directly between really calm singing and really loud, guttural screaming? �All I can say about those bands is this: sheesh, take some Prozac, dude! Really�
3718. When Ram Jam released their single �Black Betty� in 1977, the band and song were subject to a call for boycott from the NAACP and CORE claiming that the song was demeaning to black women.� Apparently, the NAACP and CORE did not realize that the song �Black Betty� was written by Leadbelly, one of the most prominent black folk blues artists of the 20th century.� Oops.
3719. How many times have you heard said �Life is too short�?� I�m tired of hearing that.� Don�t believe it. Life is not too short. The reason many people say that life is too short is that they won�t have enough time to do everything they want to do. Well, if that�s the case for them, I think they�re not active enough, because seven or eight decades sounds like an awful long time for me to do all I want, with time left to spare for me to do things I think of that I want to do.� Anything that one doesn�t get to doing in their lives that they wanted to do should be due to bad planning, not lack of time.
3720. When you relay to someone an interesting bit of trivia, they usually ask your source. Almost every time we say one of two things: �I heard it somewhere� or �I read it somewhere�.� Not only that, the asker nearly always accepts that answer as sufficient. Why does that happen?
3721. This is a fantasy of mine. I want to walk into the lobby of the headquarters of Elle magazine in October wearing a white dress shirt, white pants, sandals with socks (white socks, of course), a beanie hat, and one white polyester glove, and laugh and point at everyone who stares at me agape.
3722. While George W. Bush was looking for those weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, I don�t think he realized the grandest irony of his presidency: the biggest existing weapon of mass destruction against the United States was his own ego.
3723. What�s the difference between a day-care center and Congress?� A day-care center is full of whining and screaming three-year-olds who pout and stomp off into a corner if they don�t get their way, and Congress� uh, that�s a good question, what is the difference?
3724. Politicians are the only people who would have the gall to kiss babies during campaigns, then turn around once they get the job and tax their parents for having them.
3725. Some of us Christians denounce severely quite a lot of music for having references to sex and violence in its lyrics. No, no, no, you can�t say that! Granted, rap is rampant with explicit sex and violence, okay.� But rap isn�t music, anyway, so that doesn�t count.� But you cannot denounce songs for referring to sex and violence, then turn around and praise the book we believe in, even though it contains plenty of mentions and stories of sex and violence. You cannot have it both ways like that.
3726. You ever wonder what it feels like for a housecat to stand on that conveyor belt and run itself through one of those automated car wash thingies?� So have I�
3727. Would it be too hideously inappropriate for Trojan to come out with a line of condoms for� umm, well-endowed males and call the product Trojan Horses?
3728. When I�m in a particularly vindictive mood at a four-way intersection with right turn on red, and there�s someone at the corner to where I�m crossing waiting to turn, I like to slow down to a snail�s pace just as I almost get to that corner and make them wait just a little longer than they expected.� As you may know, I love to play on people�s tendency toward impatience, and that�s a perfect way to do it.
3729. It would be very embarrassing for your cellular phone to ring in church while you�re going up to receive Holy Communion.� It would be even more embarrassing if your ringtone were Marvin Gaye�s hit �Let�s Get It On�.
3730. On a sign in front of a church I saw the message, �When you�re on your knees, you cannot stumble.� Words to live by, courtesy Monica Lewinsky.
3731. You know the expression, �You haven�t lived until you�ve�� skydived, skied in the Apennines in January, tried Grandma�s rhubarb pie recipe, things like that. I�ll tend toward the less philosophical and say that you haven�t really lived until you�ve been conceived and sat in your mother�s stomach for a few weeks.
3732. The trend in advertising is rather disturbing, and it�s getting more and more rampant. Why do more and more product or business ads on TV have absolutely nothing to do with the products or businesses themselves? I do not understand what the point of that is.� If you want them to remember what you�re about, why do your commercials have nothing to do with what you�re about?
3733. If you want a night of unadulterated laugh-out-loud entertainment, go to IMDb.com and peruse the filmography of Ron Jeremy.� The film titles of his pornos will prove to you, once and for all, that the naming of porno flicks is an art form in its purest sense.
3734. Want a painful but really effective way to stop a bloody nose?� If you�ve got some styptic pencils handy, stick them up your nose. It�ll really sting like hell, but the blood will be gone in no time.
3735. Linguists should focus on a relatively unnoticed but very real dialect I call Dentish. Dentish is what comes out of people�s mouths when they try to talk for a certain period after their jaws have been numbed by a dentist.
3736. Given the state of modern society, I think that the best justification for not doing a certain thing is not that it isn�t the most rational thing, not that it isn�t the safest thing, not that it isn�t the most financially sound way; the best reason for not doing something is that everyone else is doing it.
3737. I have seen a serious commercial featuring a white rapper (strike one) in a Mets uniform top (strike two) rapping about wrestling (strike three!).� I don�t care what the Bible says; the Apocalypse has already come, and that ad was its harbinger.
3738. People talk all the time about how they wish the �good old days� would come back.� I say, to hell with the old days.� Sure, you can reminisce all you want, go ahead.. But now is now for a reason; it isn�t then anymore. You can�t go back to the old days (and who said they were all good anyway?).� Every generation has its own problems; they�re no more or less than those of any other generation.� So treat the old days like they are: nice to remember, but completely outdated.
3739. On the day that I am writing this, the Boston Red Sox have clinched the World Series title for the first time in 86 years.� Nothing more is there to say; I felt that I must commemorate this occasion in a Random Thought. The �1918� chant of Yankees fans, which was much more annoying to me than it was mocking, is no longer applicable.
3740. Look at this word: zooplanktivory. It means �the consumption of zooplankton�.� Remember this word. It has automatically become the most supremely cool word in the English language as of the moment I write this.
3741. Have you ever been riding a tour bus with a movie screen on a long trip down a highway, and you pass a similar tour bus with a movie playing in it, and, in the few seconds you saw what was on the screen in the other bus, tried to figure out what the movie is?
3742. Why does the �revered king� character in almost every Middle Ages-set movie wear a very thick white beard?
3743. People say that a person dressing and looking entirely different than their surrounding group is just �expressing their individuality�.� No, no, no.� Those people could give more of a damn about their individuality.� Let�s call a spade a spade, here, these people want attention.
3744. We all know the kindergarten adage, �If you can�t say anything nice, don�t say anything at all.� But we also know that other kindergarten adage, �Honesty is the best policy.�� I would rather be told what I�m really like, so I can change or temper myself, than be thrown an empty �filler� compliment or not be told anything whatsoever.
3745. Guys, here�s the lady to avoid. She tells you off the bat, �I like you, you remind me of my father.�� Then you ask her why, and she says, �Well, unless you�ve padded your crotch tonight��
3746. Could you say that the innovation of the overnight express mail system was literally pushing the envelope?
3747. Could you also say that there should be a national women�s crew sorority named Rho Rho Rho?
3748. And while we�re at it, how about a future urologists� fraternity, Pi Eta Eta?
3749. The conspiracy theorist in me is convinced beyond doubt that there exists a single album of cheesy world music tracks which is used by every game show whenever a contestant wins a trip to a foreign country.� No matter what game show it is, if some schlub wins a trip to Italy, they�re going to play the same damn peppy accordion song every time.
3750. One of the biggest advantages of surrounding yourself with people you don�t know, or people you�ll never care to acquaint yourself with, is that you can pass gas while with them, and you�d be the last one they�d even think to accuse.
3751. I commiserate with the backup singer and their plight.� That must be a thankless job.� You don�t get nearly as much as the lead singer, and you hardly ever sing a full sentence.
3752. You know how sometimes people sneak up behind a friend of theirs, cover their eyes, and ask, �Guess who?� I�d like to see what would happen if someone did that to a complete stranger, just to get a reaction out of them.
3753. Old chemists never die; they just evaporate out of solution.
3754. Thanks in great part to Instant Messenger, life as we know it has degenerated from the quest for ultimate happiness to the quest for the ultimate away message.� It�s gotten quite ridiculous, to be blatant here.
3755. What�s the difference between Michael Jackson and a plastic bag?� Well, not that much, actually, if you think about it�
3756. The Law of Consumptive Visibility: you are less likely to eat or drink something up more quickly if you can actually see how much of it is left.
3757. I don�t claim to have the reflexes of a cat, but you should really see me with the remote control when an Old Navy commercial comes on.� I�m on that mute button like a friggin� puma.
3758. You know how they have lawnmower races?� Well, the top speed of a Zamboni is 9 mph, and it has an engine that�s just begging to be souped up.� And there�s an ice sheet in the Antarctic that�s just begging to be useful.
3759. Here�s an interesting practical joke to play on Antarctic penguins.� Bring a Zamboni down to the Antarctic.� (You can race it, too, if you want!)� During the night, when they�re not at their usual spot, run the Zamboni over the spot of ice a few times to make the ice extra smooth and extra slippery. The next day, watch and see how good the penguins� traction really is.
3760. �Here�s an interesting practical joke to play on Antarctic penguins.�� There�s a sentence you don�t hear every day�
3761. If I ever have the means, I�d like to invent a technology in voice-activated cell phones in which, if someone within earshot yells an insult, the cell phone automatically dials the number of someone you don�t really like.
3762. For couples battling infertility, I think I�ve got an explanation for their inability to conceive. The guy�s sperm is gay. It�s not that one of the sperm doesn�t happen to reach the egg, it�s that none of the sperm ever really have any desire to meet the egg. They just want other sperm.
3763. I think conflict resolution within the U.N. is rather boring.� It�s lost its flavor, really.� I�ve got an idea to liven it a bit.� Instead of a debate or otherwise formal exchange, I suggest a Dance Dance Revolution contest. That�s right, a dance-off, baby. Winner takes all.
3764. There�s a psychological affliction affecting at least a third of males in northern North America and Europe that explains the odd sexual behavior in the human species. I call it �penis grandeur�.� It�s the tendency to think that one�s penis is bigger or otherwise more visually adequate than it actually is, accompanied by their partner�s gullibility to believe that it is such.
3765. Sounds like, and should have been, an ancient proverb: Do not permit the woman who rages to zip up the man�s fly.
3766. A group of dumb guys was recently seen cupping their ears near a flock of pigeons. One of the dumb guys with confused looks on their faces was asked to explain this odd behavior, and he replied, �I�ve heard of �pigeon English�, but, hell, this ain�t even close to English�
3767. If pigeons could indeed speak Pidgin English, do you think that they�d say that extreme stereotyping is called �humanholing�?� Or is that just another Ron Jeremy film title?
3768. As part of one of my English classes, we were studying the effect of phosphorus on the chemistry of a lake. A heading on one of the sections in our notes was �P in lakes�.� Coincidentally, read aloud, this could also be a heading in a story of a beer-drinking fishing trip.
3769. I�d venture to say that at least a third of college students sitting in the front row of a lecture hall with a whiteboard that have blank looks on their faces have those looks not because they�re confused, bored, or tired; they do because they are, unintentionally or otherwise, getting buzzed off the scent of the dry-erase markers.
3770. The Law of Divergent Complexity: the more complex the solutions offered to a relatively beginner computer user for a mysterious problem, the more simple the solution will actually be.
3771. Here�s a clue that your marriage is probably not going to last.� Right before the wedding party starts to walk down the aisle, a boom mike is lowered from the ceiling of the church, and Michael Buffer grabs it and screams, �Let�s get ready to rumble!�� Then the organist starts to play �Get Ready 4 This�.
3772. What is the state of society becoming when Eminem tries to sing, and it still becomes a hit?!
3773. I have for a long time believed that fundamentalist Christian beliefs are fatally and irreparably paradoxical. They believe every single word the Bible says and pronounce it perfect.� Well, they say that the Bible was written by God with the human as His instrument.� Okay, that may be true. But the Bible was not written in English, or, likely, any other language still in use today. The Bible had to be translated somehow. Plus, as fundamentalist Christians believe, humans are imperfect.� Therefore, it was impossible to translate the Bible without flaw or bias. So the Bible they believe in now, which they take as perfect, is actually very humanly flawed.
3774. Sure, you can inconspicuously pick your nose in public.� But it takes a master of subtlety and subterfuge to adjust your wedgie while at the altar in your wedding.� Surely that�s happened to a bride or groom somewhere�
3775. If you want comic relief, don't look at the faces of rock drummers while they drum. No, you need only watch the faces of people who think they're rock drummers while they drum.
3776. Every Christmas season, I have one simple request. Unfortunately, though you'd think it'd be easy to fulfill, it never gets done. I don't ever want to hear the song "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer". Please? Do I, or does anyone, really have to hear such an awful song in a joyful time?
3777. I've always wondered about those businesses whose names are displayed on the buildings with each letter individually lit, and whether any humorous consequences would come from any of their letters' burning out. Then I drove by a building in Hartford, CT, for a business called "Hartford Self Storage". The first 'S' was burnt out, providing what looked like a solution to the timeworn question of what Santa does with his employees the majority of the year.
3778. Can it be said that one using echolocation has a sense of porpoise in life?
3779. I think that a good strategy for males to build some self esteem is to install a really tall toilet in their bathroom. If you're used to using a really tall toilet, then, chances are that wherever else you'll go will have a shorter toilet, and you'll feel that much taller peeing in a much shorter fixture that you're used to.
3780. What is a "sense of purpose", anyway? I'm not so sure it's as useful as it seems to have one. Life is such a mutable thing that the sense of purpose in life has become not so much like driving on a route to a specific destination; it's become more like driving on a route just so you can feel like you've gotten to some destination, to be able to say you've gone someplace, anyway. It's an accomplishment in life not necessarily to have followed your own deepest desires, but simply to have done something important enough to be able to say that you have done something important enough.
3781. It is a curious phenomenon among groups of people on a bus that, if the Beatles song "Yellow Submarine" plays on the speaker, almost the entire bus will sing along to it. However, the bus will be at least ten times louder during the refrain as they are during the verses and bridge.
3782. Rejected biology Master's thesis: "The Colon: That Ain't No Punctuation Mark No More".
3783. The Law of Crime Drama Sliminess: at least 80% of the time, a character particularly portrayed as sleazy or an obvious jerk is simply there to distract the viewing audience and is not the guilty party in their episode.
3784. I remember this distinctly -- I found it hilarious that homophobic George W. Bush spoke all the time at rallies and in political speeches about the execrable unsanctity (not that he'd use those words, certainly; they're four syllables long) of gay marriage and how staunch he was in promising to remain that way. Oh, right, like he really needed the Southern vote, huh?
3785. Here's a news flash from God to all you believers out there. "I am certainly there to protect you and offer you forgiveness for wrongdoing, but I'm tired of being used as a backboard who's just there when you do something really wrong. I gave you free will, but I also gave you responsibility. I am God; do not stick me way back in your mental bank only to use me for your Rainy Day Forgiveness Fund.
3786. You know how school cafeterias sometimes serve that so-called "mystery meat"? I don't think it's called such because they want to surprise you; it's more that they don't know what it is themselves.
3787. I really think it would be interesting and entertaining for New York City Ballet to perform an interpretive dance representing an average episode of the "Jerry Springer Show". Without props.
3788. I know I like to rank Tom Green, but I do admit that he has done two good deeds for the good of the universe. First, he advocated for careful attention to testicular cancer. And second, he retired the video for "The Bum Bum Song". If you've never heard "The Bum Bum Song" -- just a mild suggestion here -- let's keep it that way.
3789. If I were ever elected to a legislative office, my first goal as lawmaker would be to push through a bill expressly requiring all future bills to include both the words "gigundo" and "mondo" in their texts.
3790. It always makes me laugh when I hear these hired groups singing cheesy radio jingles, and they've got the backup singers doing these really exuberant, overly done background vocals. Guys, jeez, there's a reason you're just a backup singer for a radio jingle here, tune it down a but, for Pete's sake.
3791. Your baby is crying incessantly and loudly, and you shake the rattle or toy at him to try and calm him down. Alas, to no avail, the baby won't be quiet. You wonder why it isn't making him settle down. I don't know, maybe it's that you're shaking something loud right in his face?!
3792. I'm sorry, I must get this off my chest. When you mean "ordinary", it's "everyday". No space. When you mean "daily", it's "every day". With a space. This was way too annoying a mistake for me to let go.
3793. I think that Major League Baseball should start calling its pennant the "gonfalon" again, as it had been called in the old days. Why? I don't know, I just wanted an excuse to put the cool word "gonfalon" in a Thought.
3794. I hear the word "bumbling" used as an adjective all the time. But how come I hardly ever hear people use "bumble" as a verb? Why do I care so much? I don't know; I guess, just like last time, I wanted to finagle the word "bumble" into a Random Thought.
3795. Finagle... tee hee hee... what a silly word... heh, I just said "finagle"...
3796. If I have one hope for the future � just one � it is that, one day, the Pope will stand up, in front of the world, and deliver a rousing sermon in which he uses the phrase "Mac Daddy".
3797. Upon the creation of the last, very inspirational Thought, I asked myself quite possibly the most ridiculous question I have ever researched: "Is 'Mac Daddy' one word or two?"
3798. Want some revenge for embarrassment? Here's a good idea. Try putting some starch in their deodorant container. Or, better yet, try Vapo-Rub.
3799. You know how you're carrying a big clump of dirty laundry in your hands, and one small thing, like a sock, falls out, you go to pick it up, and half the pile subsequently falls out of your arms? I don't know what, but I think God is trying to tell you something there.
3800. In the spirit of self-effacing humor, I think the design on the state quarter for Florida should have been a hanging chad, instead of a Spanish galleon, space shuttle, and sabal palm trees.
3801. I think that someone with an adventurously prankish streak about them should go about installing The Clapper to the set lights on a Broadway musical stage to override the computerized system. After someone in the show does a number, the lights will go nuts...
3802. Did you hear about the anesthesiologist who starred in the Broadway play? He was a real knockout.
3803. Here's an interesting prank to play on a sleepwalker. Lead him carefully out an open door, then quickly close the door and lock it. Bonus points for him if he makes it back in the house still asleep.
3804. It's a mystery to me why George W. Bush has kept calling America a democracy. If he'd have started to call it a republic, which it is, that'd be one less syllable for him to worry about.
3805. The United States is called a "representative democracy", apparently. It's an oxymoron; a democracy means that there aren't representatives. People vote directly on leaders and laws. What is so poisonous about the word "republic"? Call a spade a spade...
3806. How else can you "gather" but to "gather together"? It's a bit redundant...
3807. The Law of Haughty Chirography: the taller the longest strokes of one's signature are, the more important he thinks he is compared to how important he actually is.
3808. It used to be "... and the rest is history." Now, everyone says, "... and the rest, as they say, is history." When did we decide to stop just saying that and start saying that we say that? I never got this phenomenon.
3809. I could really do without any adult Caucasian male who has a Spanish nickname. It just doesn't work.
3810. For all the dumb things that President George W. Bush did, at least let it be known that he was a groundbreaking figure in American history in one respect. He is almost certainly the first American president to still believe in Santa Claus upon taking office.
3811. If Jay Leno's voice were overdubbed with that of a chipmunk, would anyone notice?
3812. If you're struggling to put your kids to sleep constantly, may I suggest a healthy dose of nitrous oxide? Works every time. Uh... I mean...
3813. Really, with all the money Donald Trump has had, wouldn't you figure that he could have gotten a toupee that looks less obviously like a toupee? I mean, you might as well stamp "Welcome" on it and wipe your shoes on it, you know? Really, now...
3814. Six little words from Mrs. Spears that could have saved the entire music industry, if she had used them prudently and repeatedly: "What is that incessant racket, Britney?!" If only she'd known...
3815. On second thought, maybe those words would not have done much good. I doubt highly that she would have known, ever, what "incessant" meant.
3816. Here's a tip for you to create the most offensive, un-PC athletic team you can without resorting to vulgarity, slurs, or nudity. Name your team the Little Doggy Euthanizers, with their mascot a guy in a giant, gloomy, slowly walking veterinarian costume with a giant syringe.
3817. If any PETA officials read that last Thought and even find it a bit funny, never mind laugh at it, I will be both sufficiently refreshed and more than slightly agape.
3818. When describing this list of Thoughts, I am often tempted to use the noun "randomimity". I know it's not a real word, but isn't that such a cooler word than "randomness"?
3819. They've been talking about renting out ad space in the form of tattoos on the exposed skin of athletes. But if you're really looking for the prime, absolute premium ad space, start renting out the butts of porn stars. Think about it. You know those ads will get a closer look, if you know what I mean.
3820. This is a big peeve of mine. The word "route" does not rhyme with "bout". It rhymes with "boot". Please say it right, it's really getting quite annoying.
3821. I'd like to see a computer virus the only function of which is to e-mail everyone on your contact list telling them that they have a virus too. Bonus points if tech support lines are clogged because of this.
3822. Every year, I hear about people who vandalize or steal lawn ornaments. Lawn ornaments? I'd like to know the thought processes of those people, really. "Hey, I feel like pulling a prank today. I got an idea. Let's go trample someone's cheap plastic wire Santa!" "Whoa, that sounds awesome! Count me in!" Of all the things to vandalize...
3823. Any artist in the mid-1960s would have killed to be an opening act for Jimi Hendrix. But, as Jimi Hendrix was on the rise, he was once an opening act... not for Led Zeppelin or anyone like that, but for the Monkees. Yes, Jimi Hendrix once opened for the Monkees. Let that sink in for a minute.
3824. Why is it that every time a big group sings �Happy Birthday�, at least one schmuck has to sing in an awful quasi-operatic voice, and at least one other schmuck has to try to harmonize with all the others?
3825. Whenever I watch an ad for toilet paper, no matter how peppy the jingle is or how upbeat the ad is, I can�t seem to get it out of my head that the ad is selling stuff you use to wipe yourself. Especially when they use words like �absorbent�.
3826. On a completely different yet spookily coincident topic, remember when we were four years old, and among the worst insults anyone could call you was �poopyhead�? Just to give Robert�s Rules of Order a little more �lan, I think that British Parliament should require that its members address every member of the Prime Minister�s cabinet, as well as each other, with the title �Poopyhead�.
3827. I�d be willing to bet a reasonable amount that you have seen the words �British Parliament� and �poopyhead� in the same sentence not more than once in your lifetime before reading the previous Thought.� Bonus points for you, you�ve just seen that happen twice in a matter of seconds!
3828. Surely, in all the years of popular game shows, there has been at least one contestant who was at the time or had been a prostitute.� Imagine the mini-bio: �Hi, my name is Jodie.� I�m a housewife from Los Angeles, and I also like to engage in reprehensible and repulsive sexual activity for money.� Now let�s go win some big bucks!� Yay!!�
3829. Captain of the All-Historical-Leaders-Whose-Last-Names-Sound-Like-Search-Engines Team: Benjamin Netanyahu.
3830. Captain of the All-Historical-Leaders-Whose-Last-Names-Sound-Like-Hair-Care-Products Team: Benito Mussolini.
3831. Could you say that a hungry cow anticipating feeding time is waiting with bells on?
3832. In almost every alphabet book � I�d venture to say the proportion is about 90% � the word they use on the X page is either �X-ray� or �xylophone�.� I think it�s about time that children�s authors start getting more creative than that.� I suggest a word like �xenophobia�, with a picture of a bunch of people shielding their eyes from someone obviously from another country, or �X-rated�, with a teenager staring googly-eyed at a computer screen with drool dripping out of their mouth.
3833. I presume you�re familiar with the Type A (tense) and Type B (laid-back) personality classification.� Unfortunately, I don�t think that those two categories cover everybody. I also suggest a Type X personality, which means that the person is too freakin� weird to figure out whether they�re a Type A or Type B.� About � of the people I hang out with are Type X people.� Yours truly is one too.
3834. What do you call ten politicians on the ocean bottom?� A good contribution to the Save the Children Fund.
3835. Did you hear about the book on cooking spices which just recently came out?� Yeah, well, it�s about thyme!
3836. It never ceases to amuse me how people attempt to encase an entire meaningful conversation within the time space of a single elevator ride.� It never works. (I stress the word �meaningful�.)
3837. Many have worked for their fathers or fathers-in-law in the past and now.� Here�s hoping that none of those fathers or fathers-in-law are pimps.
3838. This world would be a much better place if some of the world realized just one thing: certain people just do not look good in a cowboy hat.� It just doesn�t always work.
3839. How do you classify someone for whom you cannot predict when they�ll be predictable?
3840. Am I the only one out there who is instantly enamored by the smell as soon as I walk into a convenience store? Or am I just weird like that?
3841. So this exorcist snuck up behind me, and yelled really loudly, �Boo!�� I turned around and said to him, �Sheesh, you really scared the hell out of me!�
3842. I have not, to this point, ever seen the movie �Spaceballs� in its entirety, but I can aver that it is the most justifiable movie that has ever existed, nonetheless. Why?� Because I know that it makes a complete mockery of �Star Wars�.
3843. I came across a website via a search engine (but didn�t dare enter it) entitled �Masturbate for Peace�. Rarely has a site concept made me stare at a wall speechless and subtly shake my head, but that one did it. Really, need I say anything more?!
3844. Wouldn�t it be supremely cool to design an umbrella with which one can take a running leap on a windy day and sail through the air?
3845. Some people say that God is the Way, the Truth, the Light, or something like that. Well, I say that God is the Pillow. Why?� Well, why not? Pillows are nice things, so I don�t think He�d really object to being called that.� So that�s that � God is the Pillow.
3846. Some people have entertained the notion that God has been female.� I say that can�t be possible.� If God were a woman, the world would be subject to intensely ravaging disasters at about the same time every month.
3847. Before George W. Bush, I didn�t think it was possible to elect, never mind reelect, a president with a lower I.Q. than that of an average American � and that�s saying something. But if there�s one thing I�ve learned about America, it�s that Americans have a disturbing habit of one-upping (or one-downing, if you would) their own level of stupidity, time and time again.
3848. You know that span of time after a fit of heavy laughter, where you let out that decrescendoing sigh and just stare at each other having completely forgotten the path of the conversation? That ranks up there with the most awkward conversational moments.
3849. Can we please abolish the phrase �if you put your mind to it�?� It�s a phrase that�s only used when people can�t really think of anything inspiring to say.
3850. A good sign that your child won�t make it through medical school: he calls you in his studies and asks you, �Is general anesthesia what they use in Army hospitals?�
3851. A man calls his buddy, distraught, saying, �Why did my girlfriend fall asleep during my marriage proposal speech?� He replies, �My guess is that you weren�t engaging enough.�
3852. One of my biggest peeves while at a sporting event is listening to certain hecklers. Oh, I don�t mind the good ones. But some people have to understand that heckling is an art form.� Either heckle well or don�t heckle at all.� Come up with something better than, �Hey, number five sit down! Your mom is� really fat!�
3853. If you�re thinking about making something a tradition, keep this in mind.� It�s less important to keep a tradition than it is to avoid looking like a jackass while keeping a tradition.
3854. Punch line of a dirty strip poker joke: �I may not have had a good hand, but she sure knew I had the kicker!�
3855. Hollywood has made countless �epics� about meteorological disasters, historical figures, and the like. They depict disastrous hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes; they depict the lives of people who affected the world with their deeds for or against humanity.� But no �sweeping Hollywood epic� is complete without� a love story. Oh, yes, Hollywood cannot resist making a sap job out of anything, of course, because sappy love story means �anyone can identify and/or sympathize� means more dollars.
3856. Constantly, I�m hearing movie promos throw around the word �epic�.� I say that�s an awful self-righteous claim. No, no, no.� An epic is the �Iliad�, the �Odyssey�, or the Eddas of Iceland. An epic is most certainly not any movie with a big soundtrack that�s over two and a half hours long. They�re not even comparable, really.
3857. They can build a machine able to fly into outer space, take pictures, and beam them hundreds of millions of miles back to Earth, but I�ll be damned if the shower doesn�t act all weird every time the toilet flushes.� Go freaking figure.
3858. Come to think of it, I think you could put on a pretty damn entertaining puppet show using only bathroom maintenance products.� Think about it. Two plungers, a toilet brush, and a couple hand soap dispensers, and you�re one creative spark away from �genius dramatist�.
3859. I see so many wacko animal activists, which got me thinking.� Why shouldn�t I be a wacko plant activist? You know, if I see a PETA activist carrying wooden furniture, I can run at them, like a banshee with a brown spray can, screaming, �You tree killer!� You know how much sap that tree had to lose just so you can have comfortable furniture to sit on or lay on?!�� See how they like it�
3860. Most of us use the phrase �wail like a banshee� or (incorrectly) �run like a banshee�. But, stop and think.� I bet you that at least � of all of you who use that phrase have no idea what a banshee exactly is.� (And it�s not an animal�)
3861. It�s an arrant mystery to me why there aren�t a lot more modern pop and movie stars than there actually are. I know plenty of good-looking people who can�t act, dance, or sing well; they�d fit perfectly anywhere in the music or movie industry.
3862. In the great scheme of life, I give the genetic edge to those who can wiggle their ears without touching them and those who can touch their tongues to their noses. Those are the most supremely cool genetic quirks imaginable.
3863. Those who are able but are so lazy that they take the elevator to go up or down one floor of a building ought to be tortuously pecked by a flock of starved mutant crows.
3864. Anybody over the age of 21 who still uses stickers to decorate things either has a wonderful sense of youthful exuberance or really ought to have their head examined. The former is possible, and good, but the latter is much more likely.
3865. If the Vienna Boys� Choir were to do a Christmas program of novelty songs, do you think that they might replace �All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth� with �All I Want For Christmas Is My Testes Back�?
3866. Please explain this to me. If a female grows up wanting to do typically male activities, oh, that�s okay, she�s just a �tomboy�. But switch that around, and the boy �ought to get checked out�, there�s something �very strange� about him. Why that double standard?� Why shouldn�t we think that being a tomboy is just as odd and psychologically deviant?
3867. You know how two people encountering each other walking in opposite directions sometimes pause because neither is sure which way the other one is going?� How about we fix that problem by walking how we drive? If we all walk on the right side in the US and on the left in Europe, we won�t have any conflicts.
3868. Sure, you know about the poker pro leagues, and you may know about the blackjack leagues, too. But what about those who aren�t as psychologically or mathematically adept?� Three words that surely would prove immediately popular among those people: professional Go Fish.
3869. You ever wonder how they get those overhead shots of airplanes flying above the clouds in those airline ads? How much time and coordination do they need for that?� How do they get the OK from the FAA?
3870. I know that the ancient Greeks flourished in their civilization, but you�ve really got to tilt your head and squint at anyone who would create, abide by, and pay tribute to a system of deities the majority of whom was a bunch of incestuous perverts.
3871. I�d like to study the phenomenon in which you�re trying to remember a short list, say, 6-10 items long, and you always forget just one item in the list, but it�s a different item every time.
3872. See, I don�t really understand why some five-card draw poker games require jacks or better to open betting. They say it�s to curb dishonest play, salting the pot with awful hands playing extremely gutsy bluffs. Wait, though.� Isn�t that what poker is all about?� Dishonesty and bluffing?� How can you bluff if everyone knows who has a hand?
3873. Random useless fact of the day: if you live to be a million hours old, you would have to last until the tender age of 114 years, 28 days (29 days if you�re born between 3/1 of a leap year and 2/28 of the next year, before 1986, or any other point likewise after 1986; 30 if you�re born between 3/1 of a leap year and 2/28 of the next year, after 1986), 16 hours (15 hours if you�re born 0-28 or 29 days before daylight savings time, 17 if you�re born 0-28 or 29 days before the end of DST). Yes, I took time out of my life to figure this out.
3874. When I�m standing behind a squat, bearded white guy, in line at a convenience store, who asks for Trojan Magnum condoms, that�s the definition of way too much information.
3875. Help me. I can�t decide whether the creator of the phrase �It�s not the size of the wave, it�s the motion of the ocean� should be shot on sight or praised copiously.� It�s such a dumb phrase, but it�s so damn elegant!
3876. It�s a well-known condition among females: penis envy.� But I�d be willing to bet that just as large a proportion, if not a larger one, of males suffer from breast envy as females do penis envy.� In fact, I�d bet the ratio is at least two to one.
3877. So I hear people saying, after they meet up with someone not long after they saw them last, �Long time, no see!� That�s not that funny, really. It never was. Stop saying that, it�s annoying.
3878. On the subject of things that need to stop, how about guys at athletic events standing next to each other, bare-chested, spelling out the name of their team one letter at a time on their chests?
3879. You ever notice that when a guy is saying goodbye to a group containing both sexes, and he says goodbye to each individual, the �byes� to the females are higher-pitched and more syllabically drawn-out than the �byes� to the males?
3880. If you want a humorous picture, it never fails to take one of the facial expression of someone in midair. For some reason, a person�s face goes through a number of odd contortions in the time between when their feet leave the ground and when their feet touch the ground again.
3881. It�s a rather interesting trend we�ve developed here.� Whenever we make pictures of male historical figures and we don�t quite know what they look like, we tend to put a mustache and/or beard on them, for some reason.
3882. Ever notice that whenever a pregnant woman on a TV show is in unfamiliar company, and she�s about to have a baby in a weird place, there�s never a female to help her deliver? It�s always a guy!
3883. This is a plea to all you decent computer users out there.� Spam artists depend on the gullibility of users like you to cheat innocents out of hard-earned money. No matter how tempting it is, don�t be stupid.� And if you get a popup telling you that you can remove adware and spyware from your system, don�t be stupid.� If no one clicks on spam links, and no one clicks on those popup ads, they will go away. Please.� Don�t give those scum money or opportunity.
3884. Most people would say that headbands aren�t a very good judge of character, but I shall beg to differ. If you�re wearing a headband, and you�re not cold, and you aren�t going to sweat with it, then suffice it to say that you�re a giant putz as far as I see it.
3885. The ubiquity of cellular phones has really gotten into my head.� Now, when I get the tinnitus, it�s not a high-pitched monotone ringing in my ear, it�s a freaking mechanized version of the first five bars of �F�r Elise�.� Over� and over� and over�
3886. So this geologist walks into a bar in San Francisco.� Fifteen seconds later, a big earthquake starts.� A minute later, the quake ends, and the bar is totaled. �Everyone in the bar looks at the geologist angrily. So the geologist screams, �Hey, it�s not my fault!�
3887. When two banker friends of mine started going together, I knew immediately that it would work out. How did I know?� Their relationship was built on trust.
3888. The Law of Erstwhile Canned Amusement: at least 80% of the stars of sitcoms ending their runs ten to fifteen years ago are either homeless, destitute, lonely, or in a cheesy celebrity reality TV special.� The majority is in the final category.
3889. Here�s an equation for all you math majors out there to keep in mind.� Monkey + syrup of ipecac + shaving cream + defibrillator = mountains of fun.
3890. For all you families out there experiencing a little tension or stagnation, I offer you some old, reliable words of advice.� The family that prays together� feeds the pet rabbit Alka-Seltzer, I don�t know, something like that�
3891. A common sales pitch phrase is, �It�s easy as picking up the phone right now.� Trust me, if it were really that easy, a lot more would be doing it. The considerably more difficult part, the one not really mentioned that often, oddly enough, is the part where you have to pull the wallet out of your pocket.
3892. Candle stores should make a new scent of candle called �Candle Store�.� It smells like the weird combination of the scents of all the candles that hits your nose as soon as you walk into a candle store.
3893. I don�t believe it when violent video games become the blame for the violence of youth playing them. Seriously, now. If some pixelated characters, which shoot each other only because the computer programmers typed some code, cause some kid to go all Manson, then it ain�t the video game, pal.� It�s the kid who ought to have their head examined. With no due respect, the characters are pixelated, but anyone who thinks it�s the fault of the video game makers are more than a bit pixillated.
3894. So you mean to tell me that innocent carrots, cornstalks, tomatoes, and other plants are mercilessly ripped from their roots in the primes of their lives just so we humans can have healthy sustenance?!� Where�s the concern for the plants here?! They take in carbon dioxide and give us oxygen, and this is how you repay them?!� Plant killer!!
3895. We had planned to go apple picking, and set out to find an apple orchard. �But none were open; all our efforts became fruitless.
3896. So the dentist says to the rival dentist�s receptionist, �I�ll pay you $3 more per hour to come over here and work for us.�� The receptionist replies, �Hey, that�s a toothsome offer��
3897. The next time I go to a discount store, I�m going to look for one of those frames that�ve got a sample picture in it. But I�m not going to put one of my pics in it.� I�m just going to leave the sample on display when I put the frame up. Why?� Because I can.
3898. Near the end of �The Wizard of Oz�, the Good Witch lets Dorothy know that she always had the power in her to go back home.� Pinch yourself! Dammit, you could�ve pinched yourself five minutes in, and the whole damn movie would never have happened! Aarrghh!
3899. Duck flatulence: no matter what you could possibly say about it, it would be funny. So that�s all I�m going to say: duck flatulence.
3900. Several Southern legislators have teamed up to put through a law, particularly applicable to the Midwestern and Southern states, meant to curb overpopulation. You�ve got to be able to spell �sex� before you can have any of it.
3901. The conspirator in me reasons that it is no coincidence that every professional female beach volleyball player just happens to be physically attractive.� The male chauvinist in everyone else subsequently slaps me in the face and dumps a bucket of cold water over my head.
3902. A recent issue of Star magazine proclaimed on its cover the �50 Most Annoying People� of the year. I say, what better judge of annoyingness exists in this earthly domain than Star magazine?
3903. If you want to go for shock value, try adding to the pile of magazines in a doctor�s waiting room the current issues of Penthouse and Playboy.� Bonus points if the doctor�s a pediatrician.
3904. If you�re a budding minimalist composer, take my suggestion and record the random banging on demo keyboards on sales floors of stores by people who either think they have talent or are too young to know any better.
3905. It�s funny how the weather is in New England, because the people here are exactly the same way. They�re bitter, icy, cold, and brisk, or they�re oppressive, hot, annoying, and/or clammy, with only an occasional pleasant streak.
3906. It�s too bad I wasn�t around for the end of World War II, because I really would have liked to hear a duet in German of �Baby It�s Cold Outside� by Hermann G�ring and Adolf Hitler. Hey, it was near the end of the war, they could�ve been desperate and willing to humiliate themselves, it could�ve happened�
3907. What did the old, retired naval officer say to his old Navy buddy upon meeting up with him again? �Long time, no sea!�
3908. Sure, some stores show those sweeping movies with huge soundtracks to demonstrate their televisions. But if you really want to demonstrate the efficacy of a TV, put on a porno.� Curve shading and three-dimensional realism� need I say more?
3909. A recent issue of Glamour offered, on the cover, a promise of a �Sex survey: what 2,057 women and men did in bed last night�.� Well, that�s easy.� I don�t have to look inside the covers to find out what they did, I can tell you � it�s their partners, of course!
3910. If you want to annoy me to hell, pronounce �culinary� with a short U.� The first syllable sounds like �cue�, not �cull�.
3911. So the dumb guy goes to the checkout counter, but says, �Hey, there�s mold all over my cheese!� and takes it back to get another package. He comes back with the other package, but, almost there, he spots mold on this one, too.� He shouts the same thing, going back for another one. After several more similar trips back and forth, the manager goes back with him to see what�s going on with the dairy section. The next sound we hear is a loud sigh, and the words, �Sir, this is blue cheese.�
3912. I hear of celebrity birthday parties that have lasted for a few days.� Now, unless some sort of weird phenomenon of elongated parturition is going on here, I thought that birthdays for everyone, including celebrities, lasted one day.
3913. Old poker players never die; they just fold with seven-two unsuited.
3914. Life is like a box of burnt-out 15-watt light bulbs.� Why? I have no idea.� I just figured I�d throw a baseless metaphor out there and let you all kick it around.
3915. Oh, wait. Correction: George W. Bush is like a box of burnt-out 15-watt light bulbs.� Sorry, I misremembered. �The connection should be a big more overt now.
3916. Here�s a cool addition to the list of fun words to say: �filigree�.
3917. On the cover of the �Weekly World News� one issue, was a contest: �Find the fake story, win $200!� You know, this joke just wrote itself for me.
3918. I�m convinced that it is an FCC regulation that, at least once every ten minutes, there must be an ad for the Craftmatic Adjustable Bed on some channel.
3919. If I were one of the last two guys on �The Bachelorette�, I would have wanted to be the one she didn�t pick. Why?� Because I�d have gotten my choice of myriad women myself as the host of the next �Bachelor� show.
3920. A disclaimer in a Wal-Mart ad read, �Prices may vary by state, including Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Canada.� Oh, so Canada�s a state now, apparently?� And thanks to Wal-Mart for reminding us that Alaska and Hawai'i qualify as states now! We bow to Wal-Mart, king of kings�
3921. Just wondering� do chimpanzees ever get jock itch?� And if they do, could they take Tinactin for it?
3922. Pace Picante Sauce claims it�s authentically made in the Southwest US.� Oh, no.� If it were that authentic, it would be pronounced �pah-say�.� There�s no way a salsa should have such a white-boy name and get away with it.
3923. Well, I could say that I�ve got goose bumps, but why say that when I can mean the same thing and say I�m horripilating?� Isn�t that much cooler to say?
3924. See, I think it�s great that George W. Bush enjoyed Christmases from the cozy confines of the White House with family while the troops he sent to various conflicts were waging battle in oppressive conditions during the holiday season, away from their families.� What�s even better about it is that he didn�t even care about that.� Let�s raise a glass every Christmas to the spirit of the brave and compassionate George W. Bush.� I�m sure all the troops over there appreciated his deeds.� You earned it, Dubya.
3925. It always amuses me when you�re listening to a rock music station, and it�s not quite coming in, and the radio station it�s conflicting with plays Spanish music. So you�ve got the heavy guitars and drums, but, every so often, you hear brief snippets of light, quick trumpet with Spanish vocals fading in and out.� It�s a rather amusing combination.
3926. I�ll bet you that at least half of the people who saw in theaters the movie �Road to Perdition� had no idea going into the theater what the word �perdition� meant.
3927. The postman-turned-comedian had little trouble winning over audience after audience. How?� He learned from his previous job that it�s all in the delivery.
3928. Here�s a CD you�ll likely never hear: �Classic Christmas Favorites Klezmer Style�. I want to hear it, though�
3929. This one�s sure to be an interesting party conversation starter: �Hey, I get zits in the weirdest places, you know what I�m saying?�
3930. They carpet the ceilings of charter buses, but not the floors.� Well, at least they want to ensure our comfort if the bus gets flipped over.
3931. Could you say that �manhole cover� would be an apt nickname for a condom?
3932. Tinactin could well be the only earthly useful thing you can put on both your feet and your groin.
3933. As technologies for cellular phones advance, my prediction is that cell phones will once be able to take incriminating pictures of people and automatically send them to their ex-lover�s current e-mail address.
3934. If you need a good boost of self-esteem, hang around stoners.� No matter what you say, if it�s even remotely amusing, they�ll laugh hysterically.
3935. From certain life experiences, I have learned that among the qualities required to manage a fast-food restaurant does not exist having a conscience.
3936. If Fabio and the AFLAC duck were somehow to have their genes spliced, would the result get into car accidents, have webbed feet and puffed-out pectorals, and scream, �I can�t believe it�s not butter!�?
3937. The Law of Equine Silhouette Excitability: whenever a horseman pauses on his horse and is silhouetted by the Sun, according to Hollywood, the horse will recognize that this is a perspective shot and dramatically rear in slow motion.
3938. I find it absolutely phenomenal that not one of the superheroes in comic books or movies wearing those tight-fitting costumes ever paused to adjust a wedgie.
3939. Hollywood, as I take it, has also decreed that every old-time Spanish or Latin-American hero must have a very elaborate pattern of facial hair.
3940. Why is it that whenever a group of people are watching a movie, and a violent fight scene breaks out, at least one schmuck has to say, �That�s gotta hurt!�?
3941. How did the optometrist grow his practice into a nationwide success?� Well, it started with a man and his vision�
3942. I predict, and hope to see, that one day in the future, an evil army of fierce, heartless warriors will be brought down by a brave, very young group of legionnaires armed with no weapons but snowballs.
3943. Would it be too horridly inappropriate to call the Siamese twin daughters of a stepfather �half sisters�?
3944. Quite possibly the most boring game in existence is hide-and-seek between Siamese twins.
3945. Quite possibly the second most boring game in existence is tag between Siamese twins.
3946. Isn�t it rather ironic that God gave Roseanne Barr a larynx which was functional?
3947. What�s the stripper�s favorite part of a guitar?� The G string!
3948. Emergency room conversation: �Hey, I�m gonna sew myself back up now, is that all right?� �Okay, suture self!�
3949. It�s rather ironic how the one person on a bus or in a car with you who won�t shut up, the one person you wish would tire and fall asleep, is usually the one who snores the loudest when they do fall asleep.
3950. I find it dumbfounding that I go to basketball games, and it�s not only that I hear the ref heckled, �Go back to Foot Locker�, about once every game or two; it�s also that people still, mysteriously, find it humorous.
3951. Oh, sure, I�m indebted to intellectual entertainment by nature, but give me two oddly shaped mirrors and a Pez dispenser, and I, among many people, would be entertained for quite a time.
3952. The United States is not one nation under God.� In God we do not all trust.� Sorry to bust your ideal, churches, but 100% of the U.S. citizenry does not, and won�t ever, all believe in God.� Some [gasp] even don�t acknowledge or believe in a God.� So strike it off the Pledge of Allegiance, strike it off our coin, because it neither is nor will ever be an accurate description of America.
3953. I hear of all these supposed hangover curing products, or hangover alleviating pills, on the market, but I think they�re all pointless.� A hangover is caused by dehydration.� So the ultimate hangover cure is � wait � water! Who cares if you have to pee even more? Treat a hangover the way you�d treat dehydration. Common sense.
3954. I�m anticipating the New Year�s celebrations for years whose numbers don�t have at least two circles in them. Why?� So I don�t have to see those dumb �glasses� made out of the numbers of the years wrapped around heads.
3955. Outside the front of a fairly local Wal-Mart to me, under the marquee, there was a sign on a trash can labeling it as a trash can.� This tells you all you need to know about the anticipated target customer demographic of the average Wal-Mart.
3956. In keeping with old culinary tradition, if we were ever to bomb the hell out of Turkey, I think we should first coat it with a light layer of basting liquid.
3957. You know, I�m not so sure that God needs all the power that he has.� I think all you need to do is give God a giant flyswatter and all the evil in the universe will be quickly eradicated.
3958. See, I say the world would be a lot more fun if our atmosphere were composed primarily of helium. Never mind the Earth would be a fireball waiting to happen; everyone would all talk really funny and float high in the air, and that would be really cool!
3959. I think that Hollywood has imbued my brain.� Now, when I (hopefully) get to Heaven, I�m going to see a dry ice fog machine and God is going to be an A-list actor.
3960. Any of you wondering whether I have any sort of life because of the Big List here can consider that I spent two hours poring over whether an atheist or agnostic can ever technically be a martyr.
3961. Introducing a new restaurant: the Ku Klux Kaf�. For only the most discriminating tastes.
3962. An informal survey among my little section of humanity has led me to notice that the absolute favorite curse word among the older generation is �g__d__n�.� They throw it around like it�s going out of style.
3963. My bet is that the majority of people who get those Japanese, or Chinese, whatever, character tattoos get them so they can lie about what they mean to impress people.
3964. Book I really wouldn�t be surprised to, and hope to, see: �Kama Sutra for Dummies�.
3965. Book I really hope I never see: �Baby�s First Kama Sutra ABCs�.
3966. Get a new perspective on your world. Do an occasional headstand.
3967. If you can�t sing along with the refrain from Bill Withers� �Lean On Me�, you�re either too young to vocalize, in which case you probably wouldn�t be reading this, or you�ve lived under a rock all your life.
3968. At the foot of Dumb Guy Ravine, at least 50-60 people per day are found writhing in pain. A further investigation revealed that there was a large sign halfway down the hill with large print on it, saying, �If you can read this, you�re falling.�
3969. A queen termite can have up to 30,000 children per day.� And you thought your labor pains were bad?
3970. Dogs can smell, on average, 20 times better than humans can.� Damn, so that�s why Monica was so attracted to President Clinton�
3971. Here�s a sociological experiment for cashiers to try.� When a customer asks, �Can I make out a check?�, reply, �Sure.� Can I make out with your check?� and proceed to slather your lips with lip balm.
3972. I think it�s remarkable that we�ve got a system of nonverbal communication so refined that we can turn such a complicated sentence such as, �Don�t worry, I�m going to answer your question, but I don�t want to be impolite by talking with my mouth full, so let me finish what I�m chewing and I�ll respond to you then,� with the simple gesture of tapping your lips two or three times with the tip of your index finger and then holding up that finger.
3973. We�ve all pretty much heard of the rigorous modern full-body workout, Pilates.� Do you think Jesus could have gotten up every morning and done Pontius Pilates?� Hey, any guy, King of Kings included, has to stay fit.
3974. There are few things worse, or more awkward, than mistaking the volume dial with the tuning dial on a radio with a person with a hearing aid nearby.
3975. I�ve noticed that bands whose music is complicated have gotten less and less popular. People don�t want to think anymore while they listen to music, and that�s very unsurprising to me.� Pap is okay for pop, just as long as it�s catchy enough. It�s rather sad, really; it�s being understood less as time has passed that truly good music is that which engages you, makes you think about what�s playing.
3976. Pretty much all media file photos of the Pope show him with his arm extended and hand outward, as if in the act of benediction.� Why? How �bout some variety here?
3977. As a general rule, babies pictured on diaper boxes (who are old enough) have really mussed-up hair.
3978. Would it be too horridly inappropriate to say that the amputee journalist likes to write in shorthand?
3979. Folks, I have officially witnessed everything.� At my local wholesaler, I heard a woman engaging in a serious conversation. With the automated self-checkout voice. I thought it was a joke until she said, �Thank you. I had an, uh, um, interesting experience with you today.�
3980. What�s the most impolite breed of dog? The pointer, of course!
3981. I hear tons about these UFO sightings, supposedly going on in the U.S.� I say that�s impossible.� None of those could possibly have happened. The U.S. government would never let any alien in without a visa.
3982. You ever have one of those days? You know, the ones that have 24 hours, a sunrise, and a sunset?� Yeah, haven�t we all�
3983. Millions and millions of Americans have sung the National Anthem at sporting events and such. But I�ll bet you that a quarter of them, at most, know what a rampart is.
3984. God bless any doctor who has ever had to perform a colonoscopy on Richard Simmons.
3985. What did the barber say after he lost his favorite, trusty comb?� �Parting is such sweet sorrow��
3986. I once saw a game show on which a contestant was an anesthesiologist� and so was his wife. No insomnia in that household, I�d bet.
3987. If a baseball player gets diarrhea, do you think it�d be called �the home run trots�?
3988. Oh, man, I wish I were a Scandinavian chef right now.� Why? Because I�d get to say the word �lutefisk� all the time and have a good excuse for it.
3989. Useless random fact of the day: the odds that Ron Jeremy appeared in any randomly selected movie or television show, worldwide, released in the 1980s are one in about 141.47.
3990. So this roofer walks into the bar, and asks a bartender, �How much for a drink?� He says, �For you?� It�s on the house.�
3991. When you turned five, you said or heard someone say that it was your �fifth birthday�. Well, no, it wasn�t, it was your sixth. Your first birthday was when you were born.
3992. If a website promotes �never-before-seen footage�, it can�t truthfully do so for that long a time. Once someone sees it, it�s no longer �never before seen�.
3993. It�s a general rule that when a musical act known for their heavy rock breaks down and does a sappy, bare, acoustic love ballad, no matter how bad the result is, it will do well on the charts. �God, I hate that trend.
3994. There�s just as much cryptic lyrical quasi-poetical bullsh�� �in today�s rock as there was in the classic rock era. The difference is that, then, it actually made sense.� They knew how to bullsh�� �and do it right.
3995. Whenever there�s a piano set out in a public place were many people pass by, the general rule is that none of the truly good piano players will really go up to it and play, and none of the really bad ones will have the guts to touch it.� It�s the okay players, the ones who aren�t great but think they�re freaking Van Cliburn, who�ll go up and make arrant jackasses out of themselves.
3996. Useless fact of the day: the rich film production of the country of San Marino has yielded, at the time of this Thought, in its history, one movie.� And it�s a porno.
3997. Martin Scorsese�s 1978 documentary of The Band, �The Last Waltz�, has yielded an entirely serious IMDb.com review which states that �the lowlight is some chap called Robert Zimmerman performing a bad Bob Dylan impersonation doing one of the master's greatest songs Forever Young�.� Folks, there�s the laughable epitome of musical ignorance there.� If this guy really worships Bob Dylan as a �master�, he would have realized that Robert Zimmerman is Bob Dylan�s given birth name. That �chap called Robert Zimmerman� is Bob Dylan!
3998. Eminem�s birth name is Marshall Mathers. While I concede that it was a good idea that he changed his name from that because he was becoming a rap star, you have to admit that he really wouldn�t have had to change his name if he were a 1950s pop star.
3999. The good news is that my body can turn heads.� The bad news is that they�re the heads of owls, who can turn their heads 360� anyway.
4000. Well, here we are at another major milepost, Thought #4000.� And, just like on the other thousand-Thought landmarks, I�m not really going to say anything of substance to commemorate this non-occasion. Well, maybe for the half-ten-thousand mark, anyway.
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