Category Archives: humor

November 21, 2008 · 7:17 pm

Blogaholic? Me?

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Uh oh. It has happened. Blogging (and twittering) have now gotten in the way of my real life. Wait, I have a real life, right? I mean my real life did not get up and pack it’s bags while I was banging the keyboard, right?

This could be a problem folks. I may need help.

Here are a few conversations that have taken place in my house lately:

Danny: mom, you are obsessed with blogs.

Me: NO I AM NOT! (the classic doth protest too much response, how cliché).

Gary: I need to say this. I think your personal hygiene has gone down the tubes since you started blogging

Me: What? Are you crazy?

Gary: Let’s see, whenever I call during the day you tell me you haven’t showered yet. The other day I came home from work and you were still in your walking clothes and did not shower till midnight.

Me: Um, in my defense I never get into bed without showering.

Gary: And you did use the sentence, “I don’t remember the last time I washed my hair” the other day.

Me: Alright. Maybe I did say that but I did not mean like it was weeks or anything.

Come to think of it my nails do look like they could be in fashion if I were a rich young thang. And perhaps the fact that I still had sweats on at 3PM AND they were on inside out could all be signs of, what shall I say, a little personal neglect of sorts.

But I have been working at home for years. And have kids for almost 20 of those years (yikes, hard to say that one outloud). I have always spent a ridiculous amount of time in my subterranean office cocoon affectionately known as the command center. I have over-volunteered and fallen victim to the sandwich generation woes many times while working full time, taking care of a family and a home and still was able to take a shower in a timely fashion.

So, what makes the blogging piece the culprit? 

Suggestions, please? I need to be rehabilitated.

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November 20, 2008 · 6:26 pm

Ahh… the Mansierre

Just when I was starting to wrack my brain for something to write about my dear nephew sent me a link to this dlisted blog post featuring this baby.

mens-bra11

If only I could read the headline. Anyone out there able to translate that for me? And why do they have such a western looking guy in this photo? (hate his hair BTW).  Gizmodo has a nice comprehensive post up for this with all the photos. Please note that this is a premium product. And it is ‘produce’ by WishRoom. Oops, a little translation issue, dropped that final ‘d’. Wonder if the headline has any typos. Damn, anyone? Translation? PLEASE?

The bro, the mansierre, something to hold ‘moobs’. Today is the first time I heard that term. Why does that make me laugh so much? Oh, right, because I am insane.

Of course this prompted me to go hunting around to find out what competing products were out there. You know, can’t just steal a blog post concept, have to make it my own.

Here is another option, not as slick a pic and honestly, this guy… that face he is making. I find myself wishing this were a video.

manbrauz5

The male support vest

I guess I have become the person that people send absurdities to. I will take that role, it works with my personality. I am trying to find my niche. Maybe that is it. The absurdity queen. Call to action, everyone who reads this post, send me the most ridiculous thing you have seen. I will run a poll later on and we can vote on the best one.

Oooo, maybe there should be a prize…

Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at Mid-Century Modern Moms and at 50-Something Moms Blog.

For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

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November 19, 2008 · 9:15 pm

First there were tampon crafts…

snaitary-slippers

Who knew feminine hygiene products could be so crafty. For those who missed the tampon crafts post, please take a visit.

It appears I am not the only one who loved these. I received an email this week (thanks Paula) with yet another creative project idea.

The person who sent this out prefaced it with stating that Christmas was tight this year so she decided to make her gifts. Each person on her list will receive these hand made slippers. For us Jews, I suggest replacing the little ornaments with some dreidels.

Here goes (with a little commentary where I see fit):

How to Make Bedroom Slippers

You need 4 maxi pads to make a pair.

Two of them get laid out flat for the foot part.

The other two wrap around the toe area to form the top.

Tape or glue each side of the top pieces to the bottom of the foot part.

Decorate the tops with whatever you desire.

These slippers are:

soft and hygienic (remember, these should be unused maxi pads)

have non-slip grip strips on the soles (glue strips for guys who don’t know)

built in deodorant keeps feet fresh (ew, I always hated scented)

no more bending over to mop up spills (nice feature)

disposable and biodegradable (the bio part might be a stretch)

environmentally safe (again, not sure about that).

Not bad, right? Don’t worry kids, mommy will not make you where maxi-pad slippers, as long as you make me a tampon menorah you are in the clear.

Wait, did one of you make me one of these in hebrew school years ago.

Note to self: talk to Rabbi about this.

Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at Mid-Century Modern Moms and at 50-Something Moms Blog.

For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

 

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November 19, 2008 · 12:14 am

Spam… A LOT

15spam600

Allen Brisson-Smith for The New York Times

Am I living in a time warp traveling at light speed back to my childhood? Could Spam actually be back on the top of the food charts? What next, Velveeta – the spam of cheeses? Vienna sausages?

Believe it or not, Spam made it to the cover of Saturday’s NYT business section. Andrew Martin wrote a comprehensive article about Spam sales in the down economy that gave me way more information than I ever cared to know about the grisly little cake of gelatinous gooey meat product. There were however some great factoids I have to share here:

1. They market Spam with the tagline “Crazy Tasty”. I LOVE that. I wonder how long they have used that.

2. Austin, MN advertises itself as Spamtown and has 13 restaurant with Spam on the menu. (Note to self: do not take Gary here, there will be no egg white omelettes, bagels with a schmeer or Earl Grey tea with honey) 

3. There is a Spam Museum where you can buy Spam ties (Rik, you need this account) as well as many other wonderful Spam gift items. The tagline is “Sure Beats an Art Museum”. I swear. I am crying from this. You should see me here in the command center, hysterical laughing. I am so easily amused. I MUST visit this place. Gary’s 50th was a trip to the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. Same guests, please pack your bags in September, my 50th is going to be in Austin, MN.

4. Because it is vacuum sealed, Spam can last for years. They say it is “like meat with a pause button”. Ew, I am sorry, that is just not right.

5. On a recent day 149,950 cans of Spam were made on the day shift. That’s a hell of a lot of Spam. Perhaps we should start watching Hormel’s stock.

Some other products with soaring sales are Velveeta (I read that after I wrote the first paragraph, I must be a trend forecaster), pancake mixes, boxed mac and cheese, instant potatoes, Jell-O and Kool-aid. Wait, did someone just open my mom’s pantry cabinet of 1968? Are canned string beans on this list too? Do they still make Fizzies? I friggin’ loved root beer Fizzies. Anyone? Fizzies? Was it just me?

So, what? We throw out all that we have learned about healthy eating and go back to high fat and preservative foods to save money? Hmmm… cyclical. What’s old is new again.

Spam is the new fois gras. Honestly, they look the same to me.

Since this post has made me nostalgic for my childhood days, I will leave you with one of my favorite Monty Python skits. Jeanne, this one’s for you babe. (email subscribers, click over the blog to watch this, it will make you laugh)

Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at Mid-Century Modern Moms and at 50-Something Moms Blog.

For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

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November 14, 2008 · 11:56 pm

I write with dead people…

carbon-copy-pencil

This came to my attention on Twitter from @akaSylvia. Check out her website (way cool).

This little item falls under the category of who the hell thinks of this stuff? The answer would be artist Nadine Jarvis of the UK.

This box of 240 pencils is made from the cremated ash of a human being. Yes, you read that correctly. Kind of like Soylent pencils, if you will. It would appear that one average body yields 240 pencils. I would suppose results may vary with say an anorexic or someone who was morbidly obese.

Each pencil is foil stamped with the name of the person and their dates of birth and death. What a lovely personalized touch. Imagine the factory, ‘Damn Joe, who’s ashes did you say we used for this one?’ ‘No worries, how will they be able to tell?’ Oh we loved ones can tell, Joe, don’t screw this up!

Only one pencil can be removed at a time, it is sharpened back into the box where the shavings take up the space of the used pencils. At the end of the line the shavings, or reconstituted ash, fill the box making transforming it into an urn. How lovely. Kind of like ashes to pencils to shavings… hmmm, kind of a weird ring to that. The window in the box acts as a timeline showing the amount of pencils that are left. 

Of course I became curious as to who Joseph Wald was on those pencils. But the Google search only yielded more blog posts about this item. Bloggers love weird shit, for sure.

Myself included!

Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at Mid-Century Modern Moms and at 50-Something Moms Blog.

For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

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November 13, 2008 · 9:49 pm

Stop me!

stop-me_smallIt is like a disease, this over-volunteering. For years I have taken on just one more thing than I am realistically capable of doing. For a while Gary would have me practice the sentence, “I am sorry, I can’t”.

I have to say that I have gotten better at saying no. I feel that if you don’t volunteer in the full spirit of the act, if you begin resenting it, then what is the point. I have retained the few things that are close to my heart. And of course the one shot volunteer activities are still attractive to me.

A friend who owns a shop in town gave me this great little pad. I carry it around and when I am asked to do something I really can’t do I can hold it up and get a laugh.

Any over-volunteers out there need one of these?

Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at Mid-Century Modern Moms and at 50-Something Moms Blog where Jana joins in the election bloglove.

For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

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November 12, 2008 · 9:30 pm

We are #1…

no1atno2_small

…at picking up #2?!

Oh yes, you read that billboard correctly. This is an advertisement for Callahead. And who, might you ask, is this company? Well, if you live in the suburbs near a house under construction, or you attend an outdoor concert or event, then you would know that Callahead would be a supplier of…

… you guessed it, porta-sans. Yes, my friends, here is a company that capitalized on the funkiness of its product with a campy name. Then went one step further in the school of ‘i know you are but what am I’ advertising and came up with what I think is a brilliant tagline. Seriously, how can you not laugh when you see this? Come on all you lofty sophisticates and award-winning creatives. I challenge you to say that this is not effective and memorable. At the risk of using a marketing term with a double entendre, this sucker is extremely ‘sticky’.

So you get the full picture of why I took this shot, let me first say that my sister-in-law called me the day before I saw this billboard to tell me that she saw the truck and did not have a camera. The next day, there I am driving into the city for brunch and right on the ramp to the Midtown Tunnel is that crazy billboard. I missed it on the way in, so on the way out I hung my camera out the window facing backwards and caught it at the last minute. NO, I was not driving. Give me a break, I am not that nuts.

I was going to crop it till I noticed the Empire State Building, that crazy sky and the wild angle and decided the whole shot was a keeper.

callaheadJust in case you were wondering what these look like in person, I took a picture of one on my walk this morning. This baby is the Econo-Head. Oh, how I love that name. As the website states, ‘this product has evolved dramatically over the years… Econo head is one of our most attractive portable toilets available today.’ Wait, here it comes…

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? How did anyone write that copy with a straight face?

Hold on, this gets better. Here are a few of my faves in the product line: The Special Event Toilet (for those special events, you know what they are). The Construction Flush (is that like a Royal Flush?) and my all time favorite…

The Job-Site Head. OMG, this one kills me. Go ahead, think about that one. Job? Head? This reminding anyone of anything here? Really, who would not like a little head on the job site? If you remember way back when I did a post about ‘a little head would be nice’. (You really need to click on that link now, don’t you?)

Face it, bathroom humor and infantile behavior always gets a laugh. And remember, this ain’t no mom blog 7 days a week, that’s for sure.

Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at Mid-Century Modern Moms and at 50-Something Moms Blog where Jana joins in the election bloglove.

For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

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November 11, 2008 · 9:41 pm

Was that Just a Box of Rain?

dso

File this under ‘you can’t make this stuff up’. Jersey City councilman, Steven Lipski, was arrested for urinating on the crowd from a balcony of a Washington night club during a Dark Star Orchestra concert last Friday night. For those who are unfamiliar with DSO they are a Grateful Dead cover band. The same band that not one, but both of my kids are going to see the night after Thanksgiving. Perhaps they should bring their umbrellas to avoid that potential Box of Rain.

With more Dead shows in my past than I care to admit, I can say that public peeing at such events was not all that outrageous. But off the balcony? Hey Steve, get a grip. And at 44 and in the public (or is that pubic) eye, perhaps a little discretion is in order.

I believe he was in a state that my family likes to refer to as ‘that guy’. You know the one. We have met ‘that guy’ before. They are like a tribe. One of them puked down my son’s shoulder at his first Jets game when he was 8-years-old (funny how he never asked to go again for a long time). I believe another spilled a beer down the part of my mom’s hair at a Rangers game. And of course game day in Madison, Wisconsin brings out scores of ‘that guy’.

In The Daily News report of this incident a source stated, ” he was very drunk”. REALLY now? Well this comes as a surprise. Don’t most middle-aged guys pee off a balcony when they are stone cold sober? Could they not get a better sound bite than that one?

Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at Mid-Century Modern Moms and at 50-Something Moms Blog where Jana joins in the election bloglove.

For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

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November 9, 2008 · 5:22 pm

Naked Cowboy Wins the Big Buck(aroos)

naked_cowboy_in_times_square

I posted about the Naked Cowboy vs. Mars, Inc. lawsuit back in June. Robert Burck sued the candy company for copyright infringement when they created a blue M&M in his likeness and plastered it over Times Square. (On his turf no less).

Over the past couple of days I have noticed there was a lot of traffic on this blog with the search term Naked Cowboy. I did a quick scan and guess what?

Apparently he has settled. And get this, the NY Post is reporting the settlement was for $4 million!!

What a great country. Where a raving lunatic half-naked singing cowboy can hang in Times Square and create an intellectual property that warrants a multi-million dollar settlement.

Check out his website. Seems all those years of freezing his scantily clad butt off on the streets of NY has enabled him to create a brand that has yielded an EP called Year of the Cowboy, a podcast available on iIunes (yes there is a typo on his website), an MTV video, and Naked Cowboy.TV.

He is even available for Business/Appearance Opportunities through Naked Cowboy Enterprise. Under what circumstances would a business want to hire this guy? Who knows. Think creatively. And surely he would be the hit of any over-the-top Bar Mitzvah or Sweet 16.

Think about this. If you create a brand, no matter how ridiculous, and you are persistent and stick with the essence of that brand, the possibilities are endless.

Oh right, and if a major corporation does not do their homework on copyright infringement of an intellectual property, that helps too. To the tune of $4 million smackaroos…

Buckaroo.

Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at Mid-Century Modern Moms and at 50-Something Moms Blog where Jana joins in the election bloglove.

For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

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November 8, 2008 · 7:55 pm

So You Want to be in the Secret Service?

secret-service

Driving in my car today I heard a radio spot for…

The Secret Service. All I could think was, do they mean THE Secret Service? Like the White House guys? How could this be? Do they really recruit on the radio? This does not seem all that selective to me.

The spot went something like this:

“Do you want an exciting career that pays well? Have you ever considered a career in the Secret Service?”

Correct me if I am out of line here, but I seem to recall that the line after ‘Do you want an exciting career that pays well?’ is usually ‘Have you ever considered a career in air conditioning and refrigeration?’ Not that I am dissing the AC and fridge crowd here, it is an honorable living, but I think it is more likely that the everyman/woman would probably be more fit to perform that job than say…

guard the friggin’ president!

Of course I had to check out their website. The first position available:

Special Agent (what young boy does not dream of this one. I keep humming Secret Agent Man in my head now).

Damn, I wish I wrote the phone number from the commercial down!

Note to self: drop Obama a note about this.

Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at Mid-Century Modern Moms and at 50-Something Moms Blog where Jana joins in the election bloglove.

For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

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