Yes, I clearly spend too much time on twitter. But what else can you do when you have finished your work and you are trying not to eat ALL the snacks in the house. Have a great day! and share your favorite jokes too! We all need a laugh!
Category: humor
Why Growing Up In The 80s Was Simply The Best
I graduated High School in 1984. I am the epitome of an 80s Kid. I have tried many many times to explain the 80s to my own children. It’s a difficult decade to explain because most of todays pop culture gets it wrong.
I recently ran into one of my students as she was going to an 80s party. She had on literally EVERY cliche 80s fashion. From BIG bangs to a mullet with a rat tail. A Michael Jackson glove, MC Hammer Pants with a fanny pack. Crazy colorful makeup yet managed to put on black eyeliner. Dangly earrings that nearly touched the massive shoulder pads in her jacket.
You can pick on us for our fashion and hair- BUT WE HAD THE BEST MUSIC and MOST OF THE BEST MOVIES.
In the 80s It was OK, or even expected for kids to get hurt. We were kids. We got bumps, bruises, cuts and were roughed up on a regular basis. Our feelings were hurt and we somehow had the support systems in place to overcome this adversity. SURE I did stupid things. But I learned that doing something stupid had consequences.
We spent countless hours outside. Largely unsupervised. I do not think my parents EVER knew where we were. They knew we were “out”. We were with friends. The media today makes their money by frightening you. They want you to believe there is a predator at every corner. That drug dealers are just giving drugs away to children (because that is a good business plan?!).
80s music. Loved and Hated.
I was able to see a lot of great bands in the 80s. Bands that were still around from the 60s as well as bands that were new and on their way up. Of course there are Rolling Stones and The Who which somehow are still around and on tour! (Not in any particular order. Just what I remember. (Bjorn, Joe- What am I forgetting?)
- The Kinks
- The Ramones
- The Rolling Stones
- The Who
- The Police
- Psychedelic Furs
- Big Country
- The Alarm
- Run DMC
- Beastie Boys
- Black Flag
- Depeche Mode
- The Smiths
- The Cure
- David Bowie
- Asia
- Sugar Cubes
- Talking Heads
- Bruce Springsteen
- Peter Gabriel
I remember when one of my students asked me if I passed notes when I was in school. Apparently her mother told her about passing notes. The good thing is you could always destroy a note. Burn it, flush it, eat it if necessary to get rid of the evidence. Try that with an iPhone.
As the 80’s turned into the 90’s there were big changes. The Reagan/Bush era turned to the Clintons. Germany reunified.
Donald Trump’s Campaign Is Becoming an Exercise in Public Insanity
If it doesn’t work out in his favor, someone is always conspiring against him.
If the economy goes south, as a lot of people are warning us it will, then it’s comforting to know that the president* already is only a baby step away from blaming the Gnomes Of Zurich. From The New York Times:
He has insisted that his own handpicked Federal Reserve chair, Jerome H. Powell, is intentionally acting against him. He has said other countries, including allies, are working to hurt American economic interests. And he has accused the news media of trying to create a recession. “The Fake News Media is doing everything they can to crash the economy because they think that will be bad for me and my re-election,” Mr. Trump tweeted last week. “The problem they have is that the economy is way too strong and we will soon be winning big on Trade, and everyone knows that, including China!”
Mr. Trump has repeated the claims in private discussions with aides and allies, insisting that his critics are trying to take away what he sees as his calling card for re-election. Mr. Trump has been agitated in discussions of the economy, and by the news media’s reporting of warnings of a possible recession. He has said forces that do not want him to win have been overstating the damage his trade war has caused, according to people who have spoken with him. And several aides agree with him that the news media is overplaying the economic fears, adding to his feeling of being justified, people close to the president said.
Oh, lovely.
Weaponized paranoia always has been at the heart of El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago’s political identity. In the tangles of his mind, he is always standing strong and alone against a vast array of enemies, including the minions of The Deep State and certain Guatemalan toddlers. If he feels like his presidency* is in serious peril, he’s liable to go off the deep end. He’s already setting up the members of the cult to refuse to accept the result of any election he doesn’t win. (He’s recently gone off again about those busloads of Massachusetts voters who drove to New Hampshire to deprive him of his win there in 2016. Neglecting the fact that IF all these people were bussed in to vote- they voted IN a Republican Governor) If a recession hits, he’s already blamed his own Fed chair and the evil media. Who would be left?
The president’s broadsides follow a long pattern of conspiratorial thinking. He has claimed, without evidence, that undocumented immigrants cast millions of ballots, costing him the popular vote in the 2016 election. During the campaign, he predicted that the system might prove to be “rigged” if he did not win. He conjured up a “deep state” conspiracy within the government to thwart his election and, more recently, his agenda. And he has said reporters are trying to harm him with pictures of empty seats at his rallies.
Unless somebody finds the strawberries soon, this campaign is going to be an exercise in public insanity.
A List of Presidents Worst to Best
I firmly believe that no one is purely good or purely evil. The presidents job must be insanely difficult. The stress of the decisions they must make even with the BEST advisors would drive me over the edge. I googled ” Presidents BEST and WORST moments” . I wasn’t looking for anything overly political slamming one person or defending another. I was just looking for some facts. Here is what I found. I think it was from USA Today.
Tony
Author’s note: Yes, I know there have officially been 45 presidents. See below for the commander in chief who messed up the numbers.
The bad ones
44. James Buchanan – Didn’t believe black people should be allowed citizenship. Also did nothing to prevent the Civil War, which led to the death of hundreds of thousands of people. If his own mother saw him walking down the street, she’d punch him right in the nose.
43. Franklin Pierce – Remembered for 1.) trying to expand slavery into Kansas and Nebraska; 2.) nothing else.
42. Andrew Jackson – Slave trader. Slaughterer of Native Americans. On $20 bill!
41. William Henry Harrison – Died after 31 days in office. Tried to officially legalize slavery in Indiana when he served as governor of the territory. Known by nicknames “Old Tippecanoe,” “Hot Rod.”
40. John Tyler – After his presidency, he was elected to the Confederate Congress. Like if the “Independence Day” sequel featured Bill Pullman running for mayor of Mars.
39. James K. Polk – As a 10-year-old, he had surgery for bladder stones. His only anesthetic? Brandy. That’s pretty cool, but he also supported slavery.
38. Zachary Taylor – Body was exhumed in 1991 after a theory surfaced that he was poisoned because of his anti-slavery stance. He owned slaves, too, but felt icky about it. Back then that made him a progressive.
37. Andrew Johnson – Slave owner. Was tasked with healing the nation after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Responded by getting impeached.
36. Millard Fillmore — Once belonged to the Know Nothing Party, a political organization built on hatred of Catholics and Irish immigrants. Somehow that’s the second-worst thing he did. Also supported returning slaves to their plantations. (Man, a lot of these guys supported slavery.)
35. Donald Trump – At least he doesn’t support slavery.
34. Richard Nixon – Fascinating and brilliant man who obliterated any chance of us ever trusting the federal government again.
33. George W. Bush – Started wars and stood by as the economy disemboweled itself. In a few years, when we’re fighting off radioactive slug monsters for half-eaten cans of pinto beans, we’ll remember him fondly.
32. John Adams – Thought it should be illegal to criticize the president. If elected today, he would imprison half of all Facebook users.
31. Warren G. Harding – Used his power to enrich oil companies. Patron saint to all current politicians.
30. Herbert Hoover – Once ordered the U.S. military to attack a bunch of World War I veterans, a story that is somehow true.
The mediocre ones
29. James Garfield – Shot six months into his term. Died after his surgeons failed to wash their hands. Went on to inspire a famous comic strip: “Cathy.”
28. Gerald Ford – Did great Chevy Chase impression.
27. Bill Clinton – Walking personal disaster with a shady political legacy. Still one of the more likable Democrats.
26. Chester A. Arthur – Had the same facial hair as Lemmy from Motorhead.
25. Martin Van Buren – Fighting to end slavery? Great! Forcing Native Americans off their land? Not great at all.
24. George H.W. Bush – Until he died he Could probably still beat you up.
23. Jimmy Carter – Was a very nice man and therefore unqualified to be president.
22. Rutherford B. Hayes – Had great beard. Truly the hipster of the 1870s aristocrat crowd.
21. William McKinley – Never climbed Mount McKinley.
20. Grover Cleveland – Only man to be elected to non-consecutive terms (thanks for messing up the numbers on this list, G.C.). Took four years off in between to travel through Europe and find himself.
19. Benjamin Harrison – Former Indiana resident! Fought for black voting rights. Utterly forgotten, should be remembered.
18. William Howard Taft – Last president to consistently wear facial hair, at least until the Dwight D. Eisenhower Mutton Chop Debacle of 1954.
17. Lyndon Johnson – Champion of Civil Rights. War-criminal-esque bungler of Vietnam. Picked up his beagles by their ears; did the same thing to Vice President Hubert Humphrey.
16. Calvin Coolidge – His refusal to regulate Wall Street may have partly led to the crash of ’29. But hey, he also kept his mouth shut most of the time, and that’s such an endearing quality these days that I’m surprised I didn’t rank him No. 1.
15. Harry S. Truman – Lost 1948 election to Thomas Dewey in a landslide.
14. Dwight D. Eisenhower – When people say “Make America Great Again,” they’re talking about returning to the Eisenhower administration of the 1950s. And why not? It was positively utopic – unless you were black, Hispanic, LGBT or a woman.
The good ones
13. Ulysses S. Grant – U-S-A! U-S-A!
12. Woodrow Wilson – Maybe I should put his wife, Edith Wilson, here instead. She basically ran the executive branch after Wilson had a stroke in his second term.
11. Barack Obama – You’re probably mad about this.
10. Ronald Reagan – Great Communicator. Pioneer of greedy-Wall-Street implosions. Beloved by current-day politicians he would probably hate.
9. John F. Kennedy – American icon whose death hurled the country into a dank darkness from which it still hasn’t crawled. His life was cut short before he could truly achieve greatness / screw everything up.
8. John Quincy Adams – Better than his dad.
7. James Madison – Owned slaves. But he basically wrote the Constitution, so people conveniently forget about that.
6. James Monroe – Owned slaves. After Jefferson and Adams, he was the third president to die on the Fourth of July – none of which, surprisingly, from fireworks accidents.
5. George Washington – Owned slaves. Father of our country. Had wooden teeth, horse hair, bionic limbs that gave him supernatural jumping ability.
4. Theodore Roosevelt – Davy Crocket killed a bear when he was only three. Teddy wondered what took him so long.
3. Franklin Roosevelt – Piloted America through the Great Depression and World War II. Remembered by conservatives as filthy communist.
2. Thomas Jefferson – Basically one of the most fascinating Americans to ever live. Stratospheric genius. Hypocritical slave owner.
1. Abraham Lincoln – An American saint. I’m tempted to write “if you don’t like Lincoln, you can get the hell out,” but he would hate that statement because it goes against everything the country he saved stands for.
Topping this list with Lincoln is like ending a rundown of “best hamburgers” with filet mignon. He was too good for us and we didn’t deserve him.
We probably don’t deserve this country either, but we’re lucky to have it. Let’s not make the same mistake we did with Lincoln.
WHAT ANIMALS THINK ABOUT EPA CHIEF SCOTT PRUITT
WHAT ANIMALS THINK ABOUT EPA CHIEF SCOTT PRUITT
“Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, is under increased White House scrutiny over his housing and travel arrangements as some of his own senior staff are expressing growing frustration with the public criticism of their boss.” — New York Times, April 5, 2018
– – –
American White Pelican
(Pelecanus erythrorhynchos)
Galveston, Texas
“Scott Pruitt’s scandals at the EPA are pretty damaging, in my opinion,” said the pelican, who then resumed his attempts to extricate himself from a puddle of sludge spreading from an oil refinery that would suffer no consequences for its actions. “This is probably the worst thing he has ever done.”
Piping Plover
(Charadrius melodus)
Lake Huron, Michigan
“I find it pretty suspicious that an EPA administrator was renting an apartment for such a low price from the wife of an energy lobbyist,” noted one of the last piping plovers in the Great Lakes, hopping along the shore and searching fruitlessly for any location for a nest that wasn’t already destroyed by human activity or climate change. “And what makes me angry is that I know the real estate in D.C. is expensive. It’s just so unfair.”
Channel catfish
(Ictalurus punctatus)
Ohio River
“If you ask me, giving huge raises to your staffers without going through the normal administrative procedures is unacceptable,” said a catfish who prided herself on reading Politico every morning. “And he should have been more careful. Just look at all of the turnover there’s already been in Trump’s cabinet so far.” She then resumed her leisurely swim downstream, ingesting astronomical levels of arsenic, lead, and mercury that would be passed on to the fisherman who caught her later that day.
Polar Bear
(Ursus maritimis)
Northern Alaska
“But did he really do anything so bad?” asked a Republican-leaning polar bear on a patch of ice. “I mean, yes, he rented his apartment from the wife of an energy lobbyist. But I’m sure lots of lobbyists and government officials responsible for regulation are friends. It’s a revolving door.” At that moment, the bear heard about the EPA administrator’s travel expenses. “What the hell?” he exclaimed, as his ice broke away and started floating into the open ocean.
American Bison
(Bison bison)
Yellowstone National Park
“I personally have more issues with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. I just don’t like that guy,” opined the large land mammal before being shot by a poacher.
Wood Frog
(Lithobates sylvaticus)
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
“I’m so confused,” confessed the amphibian, wallowing pensively in the metallic green water of a pond near the heart of American industry. “Who’s in the government anymore? Who’s out? Will we have any stability in policy? This is what worries me most of all.” The frog had seven eyes.
Monarch butterfly
(Danaus plexippus)
Raleigh, North Carolina
“Does anything even matter?” asked a monarch butterfly, raising its wings in exasperation as it was blown off course on its annual migration by the exhaust from a vehicle that was no longer subject to fuel efficiency standards. “I’m so tired even trying to argue about it at this point. If he leaves, someone else will take his place who will have exactly the same views. It’ll look new and different, but inside it’ll be the same gross hairy caterpillar.”
Canary
(Serinus canaria)
Coal Mine, West Virginia
The canary had no opinions on any scandals at the EPA. Because it was dead.
Things Seen in the Airport
I am a frequent traveler for work. The parent of one of my gymnasts jokes that I fly more than her husband WHO IS A PILOT!
I am a bit of a freak when it comes to arriving early. Whether I am arriving early to the airport or arriving early to a convention center or gym. I do not like to be rushed I would rather have some extra time to get my bearings, plan, etc. When I arrive early at the airport I tend to just read or write. When my brain needs a break I play a few mental games as I people watch.
Where are they going or coming from? : Based upon what they are wearing or carrying. For example- sun burned family, kids hair braided, dragging through the airport- Just came from Caribbean Vacation.
What is their job? : Based on what they are wearing or carrying- What is their job
Rank most OVERDRESSED travelers in a certain amount of time.
Rank most UNDERDRESSED travelers in a certain amount of time.
I really try to be nice to airport and airline employees. They are just doing their job. What I get annoyed with is other travelers who seemingly have NO IDEA how to travel or act at an airport. I will save that rant for another day.
Here are some photos from airports.
October 19. International Evaluate Your Life Day
Evaluate Your Life Day is a bit scary. It sounds just a little bit too serious for my liking. And, what if I evaluate my life, and find out that I don’t like it????????
Well, for starters, you can then make positive changes.
Evaluate Your Life Day gives us the opportunity to pause and reflect upon our life, where it’s been, and where its going. C’mon, be honest with yourself. Are things going well? What is bothering you? What do you need, or want, to change? How’s your Job? Why are you stressed? How is your relationship with friends and family?
With a self evaluation, you can then make big changes to improve the quality of your life, as necessary. Or, if things are going well, just tinker with small adjustments.
I have to believe that Evaluate Your Life Day is the beginning of a happier and healthier you!
Origin of Evaluate Your Life Day:
Evaluate Your Life Day was created by the good folks at Wellcat.com
Fun Ways to Repurpose Your Wine Corks
To all my wine drinking friends- we love wine! In fact, there’s nothing we find more enjoyable than gathering with other people discussing current events over a bottle of wine. The true cost of these get-togethers, though, is an ever-increasing mountain of corks. Here are a few fun ways to repurpose those pesky stoppers!
http://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Logan-Corks-1200.jpg
Like many of you I have a drawer nearly completely FILLED with corks. Every few months I empty out this drawer and put all the corks in a ziplock and put them in the basement. I now have a room in my basement almost filled. We have made a wreath out of corks- Now I need to be more creative.
Here are some more creative ways to use the corks.
1. Fill a large glass jar to the brim with your corks. This is an inexpensive and easy way to find a decorative use for them. Cork-filled jars look great on end tables!
2. Fill another jar with corks, and this time toss in some marbles to spice up the display. These also look great on end tables. An end table entirely covered with them looks even better!
3. Stuff corks into a hole in your wall as an added layer of insulation. Use as many corks as possible. I’m sure that you have several garbage bags full, and the more corks you stuff, the fewer corks you’ll have taking up valuable hallway space.
4. Bury some corks in the dirt around your houseplants. This will not rid you of many corks, but each cork buried is one more that you’ll never have to deal with again.
5. Grind the corks into mulch and put the mulch in pillowcases. These cork pillows are great for guests with feather allergies or guests who’ve had too much wine to drink and have passed out, face first. Place a cork in their pocket while they’re sleeping. That’s one more cork down.
6. Pack your own pockets with corks before you leave home in the morning, and distribute them around the city. My favorite place to leave corks is at my local public-library branch. I’ve left dozens there in the past month alone. Friends’ homes are another alternative.
7. Throw corks at weddings! They sort of look like rice. Try not to hit the bride and groom, as corks can cause serious injury.
8. Listen to a police radio for 911 chatter. When you hear about a house on fire, rush there as fast as you possibly can and toss in a sack of corks. It’s fun to watch corks burn.
9. Eat corks! Pop a cork in your mouth from time to time. After a while, you’ll start to enjoy the taste, and eventually your body will figure out how to digest them. Some days I eat only corks.
10. Finally, feel free to throw a few of those corks away! After all, you’re not superhuman. You’ve done your part, and there’s no way in hell you can get rid of them all at the rate you’re drinking.