Electrical Dreams and Grammatical Reality

Many years ago when I was a young whippersnapper growing up in Pittsburgh*, I wanted to be a scientist. I loved the imagery of laboratories with colored liquids bubbling in strange glass vessels, of sparks climbing jacob's ladders or zipping from van de Graaf generators, of the whole arcane mystique of science. I eventually matriculated** at Penn State University, where (much to my father's pride) I began my quest to become a chemical engineer.

But then my scholarship crashed on the jagged reefs of differential and integral calculus, sinking all my dreams of cackling hysterically in my vast mountaintop laboratory ...

And I ended up with a degree in Linguistics, having traded laboratory glassware and electrical displays for (much to my father's dismay) the arcane mysteries of German grammar and acoustic phonetics***.

Sigh.

I thought about this today when I ran across this wonderful sendup of the impossibly complex electrical diagrams that I was never able to understand ...

... and I decided that German grammar and the Cyrillic alphabet weren't so bad after all.

So, Dear Readers, did you realize your dreams? Are you still working on them? Want to share? Leave a comment, and let's see where we're all going together.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* As opposed to an old curmudgeon grouching along in Springfield.

** But I had to stop, because I heard I'd go blind if I kept it up.

*** I can now refer to a raspberry as an elongated bilateral labial fricative.

Halloween Jokes

Yesterday afternoon I had the privilege of being the emcee for the Fall Showcase at Dance Studio Lioudmila in Alexandria. This is a wonderful job ... I get to do dress up and what I do well (be a ham) while spending the afternoon in a room full of beautiful ladies without the pressure of having to remember a dance routine. What's not to like?

One of the things you have to be ready to do as an emcee at a dance event is kill time between presentations when the inevitable glitches arise (costume changes, music doesn't work, wardrobe malfunctions, performers show up late, etc). For those cases, I always have to try to have plenty of silly, topical jokes on hand ... everybody groans about them, but they can't wait to use them themselves. Here is a selection of the Halloween-theme jokes from my notes ...

Why did the vampire enjoy ballroom dancing? He could really get into the vaultz.

How does a witch-doctor ask a girl to dance? "Voodoo like to dance with me?"

How do you win a soccer game against a team of ghosts? You score more ghouls.

Do zombies eat popcorn with their fingers? No, they eat the fingers separately.

What do you get when you cross a vampire and a snowman? Frostbite.

What do you call someone who puts poison in your cornflakes? A cereal killer.

Why did the witches' team lose the baseball game? Their bats flew away.

What do you call a haunted chicken? A poultry-geist.

What happened to the guy who couldn't keep up payments to his exorcist? He got repossessed.

Why did the skeleton cross the road? To get to the body shop.

What kind of monster is safe to put in a washing machine? A wash and wear wolf.

Why did the ghost go into the bar? For the boos.

What do you get when you divide the circumference of a jack-o-lantern by its diameter? Pumpkin Pi.

Two zombies went to a party. One said to the other, “A lady just rolled her eyes at me. What should I do?” The other one said, “Be a gentleman and roll them back to her.”

Go ahead and use these at your next party. Or let your kids use them at school. No charge.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Dream Jobs

You may recall that in my post of March 28th (Something Else to Worry About), I wrote about the need to counter the latest insidious terrorist threat: exploding breast implants (I am not making this up, as Dave Barry would have said). You may also recall that I selflessly volunteered to help the TSA screen for these dastardly, murderous bosoms...one has to do one's patriotic duty, after all.

Well, it occurred to me that, as enjoyable and rewarding as such a job might be 99 out of 100 times, that 100th time might be...well...rather unpleasant.

So I'm looking for another - safer - dream job, and I think I may have found it.

According to this article on CNN, an Irish travel agency called Runaway Bride and Groom is having a contest to hire for the "ultimate job in Ireland" - "honeymoon testers."

Yes, friends, if you win this contest, you and your beloved (maybe even your husband or wife) can have a job visiting exotic resorts around the world on someone elses dime, evaluating those resorts for suitability as honeymoon destinations.

I've already submitted about 7,000 entries. I'll let you know how it comes out.

In other job-related news, we have determined that our granddaughter Leya - at age 2-1/2 - is destined to become an optometrist. Her latest thing is "fixing" Oma and Opa's glasses...which means taking them off, then putting them back on (usually sticking the arms of the glasses into an eye or an ear) and adjusting them by pushing on the lenses until the glasses are firmly seated against the eyeballs. Those of you familiar with toddlers can imagine the condition of the lenses once this activity has been completed...

I wonder if the outcome is covered under my health insurance?

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo