In Good Company

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Jokes has been released. It's out there, Jerry, and it's lllovin' every minute of it! The book, from Penguin Press and edited by Larry Getlen, contains jokes and tips on humor from many, many comedians and I'm proud to be one of them.

Sometime last year, I received a notice about submitting jokes for this project, so I sent in a list. Several months later, it occurred to me that I had not heard anything and I assumed either the book was no longer forthcoming or that my material had not been selected. Days later, I received an email telling me that both of my assumptions were wrong.

That was all the info I got, though, save the release date and some ideas for promoting the book upon its arrival. I didn't know which of my submissions, or how many of them, had been selected. Finally, I know and, oddly, the two that were selected are two of my only jokes that contain profanity. My stuff had to be c*&sored! I'm in there with all these other
comed#%ns* whom I have heard tell some of the raunchiest, most offensive (yet still funny) jokes ever, and I look like the dirty one!

Speaking of the other comedians, though, each submitting comic has a little bio in the back of the book. Mine** is wedged right in between Rodney Dangerfield and Ellen DeGeneres. I can live with that! Of course it just because they are in alphabetical order, but still!

There's a lot of funny stuff in the b$^k and I recommend checking it out.

* Each of my submissions contains a word in which symbols had to be substituted for letters. I've always loved the idea that that makes the word cleaner. Like it's not the meaning and intent that makes a word bad, it's just the letters and their order within the word that people find offensive!

** My bio contains the address of this site, too, so let's get ready to welcome some new folks onto the 'Ride!

Dumb As Bricks

I jinxed myself. I just had to get on the Ziggybackride blabbing about my great games of BrickBreaker! I finished the last post and promptly lost my two lives and the game ended at a mere 11,675. The beauty of BrickBreaker, though, is that there's always another incredibly long waste of time waiting behind the "New Game" button. Regular Ziggybackrider, Julie, mentioned in the comment section of the last post that she has spent an "embarrassing" amount of time playing a similar game.

I know embarrassment. I've worked with embarrassment. That's not embarrassing.

Yesterday, a co-worker and I were getting into another co-worker's car to go to lunch. Being the gentleman that I like to pretend to be, I offered my co-worker the front seat and promptly opened the passenger-side door. I began tinkering with the front passenger seat to make it slide forward so that I could climb into the back.

For some reason, I could not make it move and there's no way I can climb into the backseat of a two-door without moving the front seat forward. I worked on it for about 10 or 15 seconds and heard the driver, who was already in the car, laughing.

I was about to ask him the trick, but then I figured it out just before he had to tell me. The trick was to open the back door. The car was not, is not, and never was a two-door car. We all had a hearty chuckle.

I'm getting dumber by the minute. Damn you, BrickBreaker!

Tear Down The Walls

I love BrickBreaker*. It's the game that comes on my Blackberry and it's the advanced handheld device's greatest feature. Can a cell phone game be considered a hobby? I hope so. Otherwise, I have a new occupation.

Last night, I got my highest score ever. Ready? 15,710! I got to level 31 out of a possible 34. I've got to see those other three! My previous high was in the 13,000's and before that 11-something. I have 11,505 in my current paused game with 2 lives left. Will a new record be set? Stay tuned....

(That's right! A cliffhanger! We haven't had one of these in a while! See you soon.)

*I will never love any cell phone game as much as I loved Snake on my original Zach Morris-sized Nokia back in the SunCom days. I still have the phone. Just for Snake and for occasional use as a travel alarm. But mostly, just for Snake.

Too Soon

The world has lost a great conservationist, entertainer, and character in Steve Irwin, a.k.a. The Crocodile Hunter. He was killed by a stingray while filming a television special in his native Australia. He was 44 years old. My heart goes out to his family and to all of his fans everywhere.

There has been a great deal of coverage on what news outlets the world over are calling a shocking development. I'm surprised. Not that there's a lot of coverage. Surprised that it could be considered by anyone to be shocking. Sad, definitely. Sudden, certainly. But shocking?

Let's see... a man who routinely engaged crocodiles and other dangerous, wild animals... killed by a wild animal? Hmmm.... Now, if he had been gunned down... or hit by a bus... or crushed by a piano falling from the sky. Those things would have been shocking! This? Just sad.

Calling this shocking would be like calling the tiger attack on Sigfried or Roy (I can never remember which one it was!) shocking. The guy was playing WITH A TIGER! "But those tigers are trained," shocked fans and friends always pointed out. I'm pretty well trained to pee into a toilet, but if you think I never get a little on the seat, you're sadly mistaken. In other words, you can lead a tiger to the toilet, but you can't make him not attack strange, flamboyant entertainers.

Mother Nature is very powerful, indeed. I don't recommend getting too fresh with her. Unless, perchance, you are Chuck Norris. Now that's a fight I'd pay to see.

Preseason Conditioning

Greetings! I hope you have had a great week. Mine has been good. I am, however somewhat troubled by the ease with which we can be conditioned to accept things we don't like. It is about 85 degrees in Memphis today. Everyone is talking about how cool it is.* I bought gas yesterday. It cost $2.59 a gallon. I was excited about what a great deal I was getting.

It's okay, though. I'm able to pay extra for gas and air conditioning because, presumably in honor of the start of the Texas Longhorns' football season tomorrow, my neighborhood grocery store has put Diet Sunkist and Diet Rite Tangerine - my two favorite appropriately colored game day beverages - on sale. Let's go Krogering!

Longhorn Football 2006 begins in 17 hours and 21 minutes. Hook 'em Horns!!!

* 85 is still pretty hot.