Friday, November 26, 2010

Daily Report: Miscellaneous Thoughts

Wizard of Oz... first time in 25 years. (No, I didn't put on "Dark Side Of The Moon.") I've assigned Epril the task of watching that movie before our next chat. I told her a quiz would be forthcoming. (How the hell can you know the lyrics to every Tom Jones song, but not know "If I only had a brain... a heart... a home... the noive"?)

Rain in Florida looks a whole hell of a lot colder than it actually is.

One part coffee, one part gold rum, one part creme de cacao, and a big pressurized bottle of whipped cream: Danger Will Robinson!

I, by myself, will never dirty enough dishes in enough time to justify using a dishwasher, so I'm just forgetting I have one. Similarly, I have to soil every piece of clothing I own just to create a "medium" load in my mother's cement-mixer sized washing machine.

If you don't have a hot water heater stuck to the wall of your shower cubicle with the pipes running in and out of it, Asian style, you will eventually run out of hot water. Then you will discover that certain temperatures in Florida are actually substantially colder than expected.

The movie called "Elf": Best Christmas movie ever. "Hello! I'm Buddy The Elf! What's your favorite color!?" Above mentioned coffee/rum/cacao mix shot straight out the nose.

They should schedule more mine accidents in places like Afghanistan. Then Americans would pay more attention to the place.

Smell is the strongest memory trigger. This old Florida house used to belong to my (maternal) grandparents. There used to be a smell on the back veranda caused by a liquor cabinet that used to sit there in the corner (a combination of Grandpa's cherry carpentry, the plastic inside of an ice bucket, spilled scotch, and rubber coasters). That cabinet has been gone for a decade, but the ghost of the scent of that thing still lingers. Every time I walk by... not exactly my nose... but the uttermost back of my brain... perks right up and remembers Grandma and Grandpa's cocktail hours of 30 years ago. I can still see my grandmother Ethel sitting on the yellow/white patio furniture in her Florida-issue white slacks and green/white tropical shirt, chatting and laughing with Aunt Dotty... who had the whitest hair ever and wore pink. My grandfather Howard would be in grey slacks and a drab knit golf shirt... smiling, always smiling. That was his bar in the corner. That smell was his smell.

More Americans got Pay-Per-View for Manny Pacquiao than they ever did for Mike Tyson. LOTS more.

There never has been, there is not, and there never will be — all evidence you may see to the contrary — an American version of the show, "Top Gear" or an American version of the show "Iron Chef". The British have been sensible enough not to try to recreate The Simpsons, and the Japanese have been smart enough not to try to recreate Buffy The Vampire Slayer... we Americans should leave well enough alone as well.

Florida doesn't have any small birds because all of these frickin giant birds the size of kites ate them. Geckos here are not nearly as cool as their Asian counterparts.

Stir fry a bag of pre-mixed salad, chopped up leftover steak, and ginger-garlic marinade and you've got a heck of a 3-minute meal.

I-Phones suck in America too.

If somebody assures you that they will undoubtedly forget to do something on Thursday night, you should probably believe them.

I'm a genuinely smart guy... but the only way I could stop this f**kin clock radio alarm from going off every morning was to unplug it.

Milk plus creme de cacao, microwaved for 2 minutes, equals "good night."

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

genuinely smart guy,ok!This question is better asked,not read,but,30 seconds on the clock Alex,"Can a Man in Asia,marry his widows sister?"explain ur answer please,remember 30 seconds...DAH DAH DAH,diddy dah dah dah,and the answer is?
one more:what type of mechanized fire-fighting apparatus can not go up,or down,a one-way street on its own power?30 seconds.....times a wastin...

Jil Wrinkle said...

Anon,

Question #1: Yes, Zombies can get married to their wives' sisters in Asia no problem, assuming their divorce papers are in order.

Question #2: I imagine a ceiling sprinkler would have difficulty making such a trip, unless properly licensed to operate a rocket-powered fire extinguisher.

(And, in case you are wondering... it took me almost precisely a minute to think those answers up.)

seua_yai said...

I thin you are missing your beautiful wife...
Good random thoughts nonetheless...
mataho in bkk

Anonymous said...

Mr.J J,the answer to question is,NO,Because a DEAD MAN can not marry.any Man who has a Widow is DEAD.Question#2 your answer could be considered correct.It was improperly asked,it should have read:Motorized and/or mechanized.The answer is:A FIRE BOAT.
These questions I have asked many people and only three people have ever gotten the first question right.One person,and maybe you,got the second one correct.
When I made these questions up,20 years ago,I really figured more people would get them right.Sort of backwards thinking thrown forward.A few more exist,maybe for another day...

Jil Wrinkle said...

Well, Anon... I got the first quesetion right: Zombies are dead, and (dead) Zombies can get married if they are properly divorced. (In other words, I was quite aware of the fact that a widow's husband is, ex officio, dead.)

And I think my "sprinkler" answer is far cleverer than a silly "fire boat".

Anonymous said...

Sorry J.J.,No you didn't.Dead people can't say "I do",neither can mutes,but mutes can answer the question;"do you take this...".Dead people cant marry,simple.there is no mention about a divorce in either question.
Ya missed the first one,ya got the second one on a technicality.
I am trying to have some fun here.
So please don't point me in the direction of a talking dead person.
DANG!

Jil Wrinkle said...

Well, Anon, riddles are questions containing a verbal ruse upon which the person questioned is tricked into making an improper assumption.

Question one is based on a ruse that tricks the person asked into thinking that a "widow's husband" is person still alive. My simply knowing that a "widow's husband" is, in fact, a deceased person (or a zombie, as I joked) is, in essence, solving the riddle. Whether or not a zombie can get married is not pertinent to the discussion.

Question two tricks the person asked into thinking that the answer must be some kind of firetruck (since those are the only firefighting equipment people normally associate with "streets"). Since my instant conclusion was that the riddle must be looking for an answer of firefighting equipment that did not operate on any street, again I in essence solved the riddle.

In other words, riddles can have many possible answers... it is only the inability to see through the riddle's fundamental ruse and provide a theoretically correct answer that makes the person asking the riddle "win" the point.

Anonymous said...

They were meant to be fun,J.J..
You weren't tricked and nobody won anything.
Glad I am not invited to a party at your house.

Jil Wrinkle said...

Heheh. They were indeed fun.

Perhaps I see the fun with the riddles because I was able to easily solve them; while perhaps you had less fun because you lost the opportunity to tease my original pretention to being "genuinely smart" by fooling me with your riddles. But, that was your venture: I appreciate it.

sweetheart said...

hahaha... this whole thing is amusing...

Anonymous said...

You really didn't get it...The game show motiff...FUN n GAMES.How could anyone know how long it took you to answer the questions?If you had gotten the first one right,I'd have said "You are correct,sir.Tell mr.jil what he has won,johnny gilbert.".I had hoped for A snappy comeback,maybe a quick question thrown my way(anything but this!),but,NO!You gotta show your readers just how over-sized your ego is(by refusing to be incorrect,but,no one cares!),prove how low your self esteem is("I got it right",uh,NO ya didnt,and couldn't prove it!)with a long winded explanation of what riddles are and how you figured it out,OMG!!!Then brag about it as if anyone cares,especially me!!!It was meant to be fun and you just ruined it for me,wasn't it obvious when I asked you to not "point me in the directio...".Sir,I know you might be missing your wife.You might want to go see someone about this,I do not care if you publishh this and would rather you don't,your over obsessed behavior on this one suggests something going on that is beyond anything I wanted to find out .I am not trying to win anything,trick you or fool you(Delusional?Paranoid?) .Fun was what it was intended to be and making it what you made out of it was actually painful to see.this is for your eyes only and I would rather you do not publish it.

Jil Wrinkle said...

Since it bears repeating: This blog is a huge, vain, arrogant, self-important monument to myself: 6 years of me, by me, and for me. It is a showcase for my superior writing, grammar, vocabulary, wit, knowledge, and opinions. I view every comment as a potential opportunity to illustrate to myself my opinions about myself.

One of the main reasons I have comments is because I get entertainment from Anonymous when he comes in and attempts to challenge (or belittle) my opinion, my writing, or my intelligence so that I can engage in debate and prove Anonymous completely and utterly wrong.

(Of course, I am also entertained when, after losing all of the logical aspects of the debate, Anonymous always does the same thing: Explaining with obvious import, effort, detail, duration, and care how, ironically, the entire debate is of no import, not worth the effort, not worth the detail, not worth the duration, and that nobody cares about it anyway.)

Anonymous, this has been going on for 6 years now, and though I always tell you this, you always seem to be surprised each time: This blog is here for my entertainment; you are here for my entertainment; the comments are turned ON for my entertainment; I approve your comments and reply to your comments for my entertainment. (See our conversation last week here where I explained the same thing to you, in case you have already forgotten.)

Anyway, I hope you keep commenting, Anonymous. (Granted, I need not hope: If you haven't left after 6 years of losing these debates, you never will.) See you next week.

(And, obiter dictum: based on this debate (apropos the "divorced Zombie" thing) I can see you aren't one to appreciate the more subtle aspects of wit; so lest I further incur your misconceptions that I am ever wrong about anything I should probably point out that, yes, I am aware that "Anonymous" can be a any number of different people.)

Anonymous said...

Go Jil!

Anonymous said...

I agree with Jil.When people come to a blog and leave comments they dont get to say that somebody should take their comment in a certain way. you challenged Jill to answer the riddle and he DID even if you want to argue that point, Jil has every right to argue also. All the stuff you said about him and him missing his wife makes you just sound like sore loser. Getover it.

Anonymous said...

I see you posted what was a sincere personal message.I did not read your response.if u enjoyed it,finally,gr8t.I didnt and will refrain from doing so(reading anymore of this).It was only a question.I started reading this blog 2 months ago as an alternative to the boring blogs,(mindanao $#@)(cdo *^%)(cdo lights and $#@!^%)the american bashing blogs(wall of ),and will now look elsewhere.You are more interesting,BUT I actually got a headache from this.