Yeah, I laughed

Overheard:

Dude 1: Hey, did you hear Obama might be sponsoring a car for NASCAR?

Dude 2: I guess that means he's going to play the race car.

No comment required

Me: Man, I wish Savannah had some actual real, decent restaurants.

Oldest nephew, completely sincerely: You mean like Arby's?

Yet another outlet for the awful thoughts my brain produces

Lately I've been having some pretty epic conversations with my friend T-bagz (I hesitate to use his real name because he is scared of the internet) via someecards.com, because, damn, that place has a card for every flatulent sentiment in existence.

Well, almost. Here are a few that would be useful but that I've not found on the site, so feel free to click and download and send to your pals if the occasion arises.

Hurry up before I get sued.







(^^that one's for Dave)

The importance of proper letter spacing

Back in eighth grade, I had a literature teacher who kept me after class one day to ask me a question about something I'd written in my poetry journal. Back in the day, my schtick was to make drawings in the margins of my journals, illustrating whatever it was that I had written about.

On this particular day, I had illustrated myself thumping a bitten-off fingernail. Beside the sketch of my fingers moving swiftly to propel the hangnail across the page was the word "flick," written in uppercase, comic book-style.

Mrs. Yeiser was concerned that I'd written something else there. Something that — even though it made no sense in the context of the drawing — would have gotten me in big trouble had she sussed it out.

I assured her that, no, I really did mean "FLICK," even though, yes, I could see how from a certain angle, it might certainly seem as though I'd written something much more controversial.

Ever since that day I've been particularly keen on the importance of proper kerning.

So when I saw this sign in Saltillo over the weekend, I made my sister stop the car and turn around so I could get a photo.



The Church of Christ needs to work on its sign's kerning.

Thirty minutes of April Fool's Day left to go ...

And I just got Rickrolled for the first time. Thanks, Listening Post.

'A flatulent rip in the space/time continuum'

Oh, how I love Pajiba. Regarding Superhero Movie and the Movie movies in general:

So, I'm asking nicely: Stop it. Just fucking stop it. Don't make anymore of these goddamn movies. None. The only thing left, anyway, is a motherfucking spoof of spoof movies, which would be like watching yourself look at yourself in a mirror, which would probably cause a flatulent rip in the space/time continuum, and we'd all be sucked into a wet fart that'd smell vaguely of Matthew McConaughey's underarms and Perez Hilton's swamp-ass.

I guess you'll do

HT: Tangential

Happy hump day!

HT: Amrock

Guess what I just added to my Amazon wishlist

Only what looks to be the most hilarious book ever!!!

In the future, we'll all be laughing, ha

Happy New Year!

Selected quotes from Holidizzle 2007

My 13-year-old cousin Tyler: Aunt Fran could barely talk last night! She was slurring her words together and dancing around the Christmas tree!

Mom: I was not! I was fully coherent. [pause] I was trashed.

::::::::::::

Aunt Cindy: Keri bought this birdhouse that, y'all, I swear, the front door to it looks exactly like a vagina.

Dad: So you know every time that bird comes home he feels like a pussy.

::::::::::::

Mom: I have a doodie story!

::::::::::::

Mom (in the hopes of embarrassing my brother in front of his new girlfriend Beverly): Uh oh. I feel a full moon coming on.

Evan (who has a propensity for mooning people at inappropriate times, if there is even an appropriate time to moon anyone): Uh oh, I think you want to see it.

::::::::::::

Casey (my 12-year-old nephew, entering the room with the white-wine bottle I had drained earlier): Ooooh, Aunt Lindsey, are you going to keep this bottle? Can I have it? I love saving bottles.

Me (looking at my sister Krissie): You'll have to ask your mom, but as far as I'm concerned, go for it. Just wash it out first.

Krissie (looking mildly dismayed): I don't care. Just wash it out first. (To me) He is just like you -- a friggin' packrat. He keeps bottles, scraps of paper, everything.

[Casey comes back into the room, swigging some light-colored liquid out of the wine bottle.]

Krissie: NOPE! HUH-UH. GO POUR THAT OUT AND PUT THE BOTTLE UP.

::::::::::::

Krissie (as an aside during a boisterous game of Malarky) : What's the difference between a corset and a girdle? And where does the extra fat go when you wear one?

Me: I think a corset rides higher and lower, and it's got whalebone or something in it. All the fat is shoved into the empty cavities of your body and it smothers your organs! They're both a physical manifestation of the oppression of women!

Entire room: GROOOOOAN.

::::::::::::

Heee heee. My family is hilarious. There was a lot of laughter yesterday. For several people in my family, it's been a really tough year. But we usually manage to come together and make each other cry laughing a few times a year. My only regret is that I didn't write down some of the other stuff that was said, like the conversation about bras and cup size, when I learned that damn near everyone in my family is a D or Double D except me. According to them, though, it's possible that I will just randomly wake up with a huge rack some day (if I ever have kids), which is what happened to all of them.

Ahhh, Christmas gives us such hope.

The War on Christmas: Exhibit A (for Apple)

Photo by Genista, via Pandagon.

Fran Moments

My mom called me yesterday afternoon when she and my dad arrived in Gatlinburg — they're up there for a few days to hear a timeshare pitch so they can stay at a nice chalet for free — to tell me that from their balcony they can see the little chairs that go over the road.

She was so excited. I was cracking up.

See, there's a hilarious family tale that explains all this (well, hilarious to the family). It even has video. If I could find it and transfer it from VHS to YouTube video, I would.

Back when I was a junior in high school, my family and Phil and I took a trip down to Atlanta for a few days (I think my mom, an RN, had to take some sort of certification test there) and then up through the mountains in Tennessee for a few more. We stayed in some little cabin just off the main drag. It snowed. We played putt-putt golf and toured the Ripley's museum. As we were leaving town, my mom was filming everything around us, telling it all goodbye.

When we passed under the chairlift that took tourists up atop a big hill (I hesitate to call it a mountain), my mom said, "Goodbye, little chairs that go over the road!"

That moment — immortalized in film — became an inside joke in my family, and has become a reference point for what I like to call "Fran moments."

They are moments of supreme silliness or airheadedness, when you blurt something nonsensical or misunderstand or misconstrue the obvious. They are moments of quiet hilarity made funny by your own amusement by yourself. They are, in short, what makes my mother herself and what makes me a lot like her.

Turns out that while I had been calling these moments "Fran moments," my mom's co-workers had also been using that phrase to describe when she'd do or say something silly at work. Talk about synchronicity.

I love Memphis

Because of hijinks like this:



(Via Lesley)

LOLPhil

Being my friend has its hazards, one of which is the constant threat of me taking a photo of you and making a macro of it.

Behold!

Comedy

I'm not sure there's anything funnier than watching cats try to catch and hold a ping-pong ball. On hardwood floors.

Obviously I need a new video camera. (And a life!)

Angry dancing

I have sat and laughed at this all morning.

Sometimes I want to pinch Christopher Hitchens' cheek

Because he writes stuff like this:

Next time you hear some particularly moralizing speech, set your watch. You won't have to wait long before the man who made it is found, crouched awkwardly yet ecstatically while the cistern drips and the roar of the flush maddens him like wine.

Bloody brilliant.

Overachievers

Day 227 — Blow In Her Face and She'll Follow You Anywhere

[for Wednesday, Aug. 15]



This image comes from The Male Mystique, this awesome book Sarah brought me when she came to visit last weekend. It's chock full (whoops, almost typed "cock full," hyuk) of these cheesy-ass ads from the '60s and '70s that could have served, as Sarah observed, as a general character composite for Ron Burgundy.

(Parenthetically, this seems to me to be a perfect illustration of the technique used by Mystery, "The Pick-Up Artist": Spew some harmful bullshit in the face of a woman and expect her to love it and fawn over you for doing so.)

I want to take this book home to my parents and ask them if they recall some of these ads. It's hard for me to imagine a world in which some of them would have ever been OK. Like this one:



Oh, the offensiveness goes way beyond the bad design and the terrible rape pun. Shudder.

Project 365