The latest craze, and I do mean craze, in cheap advertising annoys me to no end.  If you haven’t seen these people standing, or dancing on street corners, pedaling  everything from tax services to precious metals purchasing, then you live on the moon…I bet it’s nice there.  Nothing makes me feel more secure, than entrusting my taxes to a homeless person in a foam rubber Statue of Liberty costume.  I don’t know what these places pay their talent, but it’s not enough, and too much, at the same time.

I know that I am not in these stores’ demographic, but seriously, who sees these poor people, standing out in the elements for hours on end, dancing or sign spinning, and thinks, “This is somebody I want to do business with!”

Now granted, I have seen this idea work in the short term.  When a certain pizza or sandwich place, or a cell phone store has a grand opening, I have no problem with the people that actually work in the establishment, coming out and showing their enthusiasm by holding signs and barking at potential customers.  These glorified pawn shops and tax services advertise like this non-stop!  At least the tax service loonies are only seasonal.

Look, I don’t think I’m better than anybody, liar, but I wouldn’t do this, I wouldn’t make somebody else do this, and I will not do business with a ‘company’ that does this.  I guess I’ll have to go sell me booty somewhere else.

   Man, what an honor!  When I pulled into the Kroger parking lot, I had no idea that I was about to have a brush with greatness.  He pulled up and parked right next to me!  He looked like a regular guy: Who knew? 

I jumped out of my car, ran up to him, introduced myself and congratulated him.  He was so modest!  He acted like he had no earthly idea what I was talking about!  I thanked him for his service, and asked what I could do to be more like him.  He was obviously embarassed by all the attention, because he nervously turned, and ran towards the store. 

   Someday, maybe I’ll be in the running.  I don’t even know how to enter the contest.  I guess you have to be nominated or something.

It says "World's Greatest Dad", and smells good too.

  I just watched an amazing special about Pythons invading Florida.  Between people releasing overgrown pets, and hurricanes destroying pet stores, these giant snakes are becoming a real problem. In the Keys, there is an endangered species called the Key Largo Wood Rat.  Scientists are monitoring the situation, waiting to see if the snakes start invading the Keys.  They have developed a Python trap, that holds a rat in a small cage, inside a larger cage. The snake crawls into the larger cage and can’t get out, or eat the rat.
  

This just in…Heart disease in rats is at an all-time high.

So…I hear that a Killer Whale is responsible for the death of a trainer at Sea World.  Does this come as a huge surprise to anyone?  Did we think that ‘Killer Whale’ was some kind of opposite nickname; like calling someone that’s really tall, Shorty?
   From what I’ve heard, the Orca pulled the trainer underwater, by her ponytail, and kept her under until she drowned.  Orcas are smart, but I don’t think they understand that humans can’t stay underwater as long as they can.  This whole thing sounds like a legitimate accident…until you find out that this was the THIRD death associated with this animal!

“Boys, sounds like we got us a serial killer on our fins.”

Whether unfounded or not, I’m always anxious when I pay with a card at dinner.  Here’s one scenario I imagined…
 
Our waitress walked up, after we finished our dinner, and asked, “Did we save room for dessert?”.

“No way,” I responded, “We are stuffed!”

She persisted, “Well, how about an after dinner drink, or a cup of coffee?”.

“No thanks, we are done.  It was delicious!” I said has I handed her my card.  “Go ahead and close us out, please.”

A few minutes later, our waitress sheepishly returned.  “Sir I’m sorry, but your card was declined.”

I replied, “Well in that case, I’ll have a bottle of your finest Scotch!”

   I consider myself a modern day, court jester.  I live solely to make people laugh, anyone will do.       
   Jesters had it pretty rough in olden times.  Basically, they said things to Royalty, that no-one else could, in order to gain a laugh.  If a jester went too far over the line, or caught the King in a foul mood, he could easily be separated from his post…and his head,  for that matter.
  Times haven’t changed much, other than the uniform and the audience.  I don’t care who I make laugh, be it peasant or nobility, as long as somebody gets it.  Now jesters only die figuratively, for bad jokes.  I have told my wife, (my unwilling straight-woman), many, many times that ‘to get a few hits, you’ve got to have many misses.’  (Scroll through my archives, you’ll see what I mean.).  I’ve always said that even if one only amuses himself, he is still considered amusing.  I’ve pretty much made an emotional living off of self deprecating humor…Unfortunately, I was listening. 
  In other words, we jesters are quite fragile, so if you like anything you read, please let me know.  Either leave a comment, or pass a link along to a friend(s).  If nothing on here amuses you, then get the hell off of my website, you’re trespassing!  (I’m just kidding, please stay.  I told you I was fragile!)

Again, thanks for stopping by and I bid you adieu.

(It’s not a mistake, I used ‘surly’ in the title in place of surely…it’s a play on words, jesters aren’t always happy.)

I saw some Alpaca walking through a pasture, the other day, and I wondered what they were thinking.  Here’s a possible conversation between a Brown Alpaca(BA) and a White Alpaca(WA)…It’s in Spanish, so I’ll translate.

Please ignore the Jackass in the back.

WA: Man, where are we?
BA: Georgia, I think.
WA: What is Georgia?
BA: It’s a State.
WA: What’s a State?
BA: It’s just a place that we live in.
WA: I thought we lived in that barn over there.
BA: We do, but that barn is in Georgia.
WA: Man, you are blowing my mind!  So, we are from Georgia?
BA: Nah…Nobody’s actually from Georgia.

BA: Why do people keep calling us llamas?
WA: I don’t know…What’s a llama?
BA: I don’t know, but I think they look like us.
WA: What do we look like?
BA: Ricardo Montalban.

 
BA: Hey man, you want some grass?
WA: Nah, I’m trying to quit.
BA:  Seriously? Why?
WA: I don’t know, I got some the other day, and I swear, it had some weird shit in it.
BA: Dude!!!  Did you like, freak out? 
WA: No, but my breath was pretty bad for a couple of days.

   Many toys today, have a new trick up their sleeve.  Every time my daughter finishes playing with one toy and moves on to another one, the old toy gets jealous and tries to win her back.  These toys will say something or make a prompting noise, after being left alone for a period of time.  Elmo will try a couple of times before finally threatening to take a nap.  This is a pretty annoying trick that toy companies have come up with that takes advantage of a child’s short attention span.  Children should be allowed to decide their favorites based on the toys themselves, not due to a psychological trick!  I have seen my daughter choose a book, only to be interrupted by some buttinsky toy.  Luckily, she usually only looks up for a moment, and then returns to her reading.  One of the toys just told us it was time to change her batteries!  Until that toy sounds like Darth Vader on horse tranquilizers, she’s not getting new batteries!
   These ‘smart’ toys aren’t only affecting my daughter.  Every night when I go to bed, one of the toys will yell at me as I walk by, and scare the bejesus out of me.
   Who knows what the next generation of ‘smart’ toys will do.  Slight hypnosis?  Electric shock?  Pheromones?  I miss the old days, when you couldn’t put a toy down, just because it was fun.

Up the Creek Extreme IPA
Thomas Creek Brewery
Greenville, S.C.
12.5% ABV

Deep ruby red color.
Smells like burnt sugar,(I mean that in a good way), candied hops.

 
Man, I love what these guys are doing.  I haven’t had a Thomas Creek beer yet that I didn’t really like!  I don’t know if everything they’re trying in this beer works, but it is super-fun trying to find out.  I think it does work.  I think it’s all there.  Obviously, at 12.5 % ABV, there is plennnnnnnnty of malty backbone, but there’s a whole lotta bitter in there too.  The wonderfully bitter finish hangs around substantially between sips.  I wonder if it should be called a Barleywine.  Whatever it is, it’s great.

Saaalut!!!

9.4 Bananas.