1/20/11 Newerest Heroes
When economic times are tough we need heroes, or we need to be heroes, or we need heroic efforts or something that segways into the premise of this bit. New characters for the television show Heroes with paranormal powers more suitable to real life.
Les Munny who can make ends meet on half his former income.
Emma Surviver who lands on her feet no matter how hard her pocketbook gets hit.
Prudence Pender who can resist the hardest sells that confront her.
Nomar Savens with the ability to live large with a shrinking net worth.
Liv Indared who posesses the superstrength to carry heavy debt.
Holden Green who can freeze excess spending at will.
Penny Pincher with superflexibility to stretch a dollar without breaking it.
Rufus Fallen who has invulnerability to survive a collapsed house market.
Mort Gage with the ability to stay afloat when financially under water.
Hellen Highwater who has the ability to sleep despite it all.
Of course not all the characters use their paranormal powers for good. Heroes has its villians.
Dee Flation with the ability to suck the value out of everyone else's assets.
Ian Flation with the power to suck the value out of everyone else's money.
Wally Street-Banks who can transform worthless mortgages into ballance sheet profits.
Robin Depopulus with the power to convert bailout money into personal riches.
Lotta Detts who can't stop growing bigger and bigger and bigger...
Then there are characters who didn't make the editorial cut. Mostly because I didn't know what their powers might be. These are Hope Ann Change, Nada Dime, Bette DeFarm, T. Bill Bonds, Mark Tomarket, and Will Powers. You are welcome to use your imagination, since mine seems to have run dry.
12/28/10 This Year Will be Different!
Ten Hard to Keep New Year’s Resolutions
1. Spel beter
2. Write gooder
3. Get in shape
4. Lose weight
5. Grow taller
6. Increase I.Q.
7. Become younger
8. Save money
9. Save the world
10. Win Nobel prize
New Year's resolutions. Many of us make them. Fewer of us keep them. We choose to do these things not because they're easy, but because they're hard. Or at least that's what JFK said. Though I would hope there's a better reason to do something other than for its difficulty. It's hard to suck a baseball through a drinking straw. So even if you did it, so what. Baseballs taste terrible.
On the other hand you can make resolutions that are too easy. In which case they just become a 'to do' list. Then again, sometimes easy things to do are worthwhile. Like 'watch Superbowl' for instance. That's easy to do. And if you're a big football fan very worthwhile. Anyway, it sure beats sucking a baseball through a drinking straw.
11/30/10 Pet Peeve
Ten Slightly Annoying Words and Phrases
1. I'm out
2. It is what it is
3. like
4. goes
5. who dat
6. male
7. female
8. the
9. on steroids
10. bazinga
1. I don't know about you, but 'I'm out' just sounds like a rude version of 'good-bye' where you don't wait for a return.
2. Gee, I thought it was what it wasn't. Thanks for the correction.
3. Younger people, like, use this word, like, all the time. It's like they can't, like, make up their, like, mind what they, like, really, like, mean. Using like like that seems to say it is only like what it is.
4. Another word usage by younger people where 'goes' means 'says.' As in, "Jill goes, 'I didn't.' Then Ann goes, 'You did.' Then..." This usage has to go.
5. What dat spose to mean?
6. This is tv news-speak, as in "A 26 year-old male fell to his death..." A male what? A male chimp? Don't you know what species it was? We're talking about humans here, so 'man' is the word to use.
7. See number six and replace 'male' with 'female' and 'man' with 'woman.'
8. The word 'the' isn't the problem, it's attaching 'the' to a proper name that rankles. As in the way Detroit Lions' coach Jim Schwartz is called 'The Schwartz.'
9. It used to be 'on acid', then 'on crack', then 'on meth.' Buzz phrases, almost always annoying.
10. Buzz phrases from tv sit-coms, even more annoying.
Sounds like a list of pet peeves, even though I generally eschew pet peeves. All I can say is, I'm only slightly annoyed. So they're, like, peeves on Prozac. Bazinga! I'm out.
10/30/10 Ye Olde List
Ten Signs You Might be Getting Old
1. Boy scouts often offer to help you cross the street.
2. Your childhood items show up on "Antiques Roadshow."
3. You go home at the time you used to go out.
4. You buy clothes for comfort rather than style.
5. You don't need to show ID to buy booze, or to get a senior citizen discount.
6. "At the turn of the century" is 1900, not 2000.
7. Every new person you meet reminds you of someone you used to know.
8. Hair grows everywhere except on top of your head.
9. "Wait 'til next year" doesn't seem that long a wait.
10. You don't trust anyone under thirty.
There are signs within the signs that you might be getting old. On number two, that you watch "Antiques Roadshow" might be a sign. On number ten, that you know this is a play on the phrase "never trust anyone over thirty" popularized by '60s era hippies might be a sign.
There are additional signs, but I wanted to stop at ten. For instance, when half the doctors you go to seem too young to be doctors. Then again, that you see multiple doctors might be a sign. As would having aches and pains, but not remembering doing anything strenuous.
Another sign, when perusing the magazine rack you don't know who any of the younger celebrities on the covers are. Not only don't you know if Lady Gaga is a man or a woman, you never even heard of Lady Gaga.
Lastly, that you read this bit on signs you're getting old and could relate could be a sign you might be getting old.
9/21/10 Great the Magnificent?
Not Necessarily the Top, But Ten Overrated People
1. William Shakespeare
2. Marco Polo
3. Albert Einstein
4. Alexander The Great
5. Pablo Picasso
6. Elvis
7. Lorenzo The Magnificent
8. Jackie Gleason
9. Spiderman
10. Mother Nature
1. Preposterous plot elements, stilted dialog, and comedies that are not to be laughed at. Though if Francis Bacon wrote the plays it wasn't Shakespeare's fault. Then again, if Shakespeare didn't write them he's even more overrated.
2. A total fraud. There's no record of Marco Polo in any Chinese archives. There's no record of the Great Wall of China in Polo's writings. How could he have missed it?
3. Did some nice math, but bend space-time? That's like saying you can cut a hole in a vacuum. Get real.
4. He killed how many for what purpose? His empire lasted how long and produced what benefit? I'm picking on Alexander, but anyone called "The Great" usually includes a high body count.
5. The artist as creator of collectibles, valuable because they're valuable. My niece could paint better, and I don't even have a niece.
6. Nice voice, with echo chamber enhancement, but "The King"? King of trailer park kitsch, maybe.
7. I don't know a thing about him, but I suspect calling anyone "The Magnificent" might be overdoing it a tad.
8. Only included because he was called "The Great One." What did he ever do? A sit-com, a variety show, a vaudville act. What am I missing?
9. Spidey powers? C'mon. Superman had superpowers. Superman could put on a pair of glasses and nobody would recognize him. Now that's a superpower.
10. Freezing in winter, hot as blazes in summer, tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanoes. Some mother!
5/3/10 Son of the Return of the Department of Redundancy and Repetition Department Redux II
It can't be just me, but there seems a lot of duplication of effort in the English language the way we use it. Take the term 'barenaked' for instance. Now then, bare means naked, and naked means bare, so why do we even have the word barenaked. You can't get any more naked than naked, can you?*
Here is a short list of a few more repetitious redundancies:
End result
Prior history
Exact replica
Viewing audience
Free giveaway
Added extra
Added bonus
Extra bonus
Dead and gone
Over and done
Then there's this run-on phrase that's in the same vein, "at this point in time." Maybe I'm nitpicking, but you really don't need the 'in time' tacked on the end. If you just say 'at this point' the point in question is a time point, isn't it? Still, the whole phrase is more or less a longwinded way to say 'now' or 'yet' anyway.
* Actually, in the old days naked didn't mean nude, but meant underclothed. As in not having shoes and an overcoat in winter. So when writers of the time spoke of Washington's troops going naked at Valley Forge, that's what they meant. At any rate barenaked may have made sense in olden times, but not any more. With that caveat this entry is now truly over and done.
3/27/10 Spring!
Spring has sprung and I'm happy as Hell. Though from what I gather Hell isn't where people go to be happy. At any rate, I'm mostly relieved winter is over. I much prefer light and warm to dark and cold. If there is a Hell perhaps it's cold and dark and not fire and brimstone after all. Then again, what do I know.
I don't have anything more on that, so I switch gears completely and provide the terrycolon.com reader with the following bit of unrelated nonsense.
Top Ten Reasons I Shop at Bur-Lers, K-Mart, Target, and Wal-Mart
1. I'm not a billionaire
2. I'm not a multi-millionaire
3. I'm not a millionaire
4. I'm not rich
5. I don't have money up the wahzoo
6. I don't have a money tree
7. I don't have money to burn
8. I don't have a burning money tree up the wahzoo
9. I'm cheap
10. The dollar store doesn't sell everything
Which I suppose only goes to show you don't need a lot of money to be happy. Just some light and warmth. I guess the two were related after all.
12/30/09 Is it Soup Yet?
Has it really been a decade already? 2009 is on the way out and 2010 looms, or beckons depending on whether it'll be half empty of half full. Folks hither and thither are assembling their top tens of the decade. But are they jumping the gun, getting ahead of themselves? Is the decade really over?
For instance, if years were dollars and I were to pay you a decade, ten dollars, I wouldn't give you nine dollars. I mean I wouldn't start counting at zero, but at one. Which would mean the last dollar of the decade of dollars is number ten not number nine.
Now then, add 2000 to all that and the last year of the ten is 2010 and not 2009. Therefor the 21st century didn't begin in 2000, but in 2001. That's why Arthur C. Clark titled his famous book 2001, a Space Odyssey as the new millennium started in that year. If you follow this line of reasoning the next decade should start in 2011.
But there's a problem with that. Ask yourself, was 1930 part of the Roaring Twenties? No, but 1920 was. Meaning 2010 is the start of a new decade in the customary mode of dividing the decades. The teens begin and the aughts are ending. (Or the oh-decade or the zip-decade or whatever you call it.)
Which means the aughts decade began in 2000, one year before the twenty-first century did in 2001. There's your Y2K glitch.
Anyway, since top tens of the decade seem to be in vogue I'll not buck the trend by offering you the...
Top 10 Years of the Decade
1. 2001
2. 2004
3. 2005
4. 2000
5. 2007
6. 2002
7. 2006
8. 2003
9. 2009
10. 2008
Some joke, huh? All the sports fan in me can say is, wait until next year.
4/8/09 Holy Boatmobile!
Eight Ways for Detroit Auto Makers to Bail Themselves Out
1. Cut labor costs by selling cars as do-it-yourself kits.
2. Rename companies in successful sounding Japanese style to General Moto, Fomocohama, and Karisera.
3. Resurrect glory days when Detroit was king - FINS!
4. Outcompete everyone on price by building used cars.
5. Hire infomercial king Billy Mays. He can sell anything. Act now!
6. Multi-level marketing. Forget about selling cars, sell dealerships.
7. Sell out to the Chinese and let them worry about it.
8. Hire charismatic economic wizard Bernie Madoff and... wait. Never mind.
1/9/09 In the Beginning Was the List
They say one of the best ways to get links to a blog or website is by posting lists. Why are lists so popular? Let's see...
Top Ten Reasons We Like Lists
1. Easy reading
2. Easy counting
3. Don't challenge our attention span
4. Don't require writing in complete sentences
5. Require no explaining*
6. We like ranking things one to ten
7. We like arguing about rankings one to ten
8. To know what to get at the grocery store
9. Can seem funny when they aren't
10. Two words, David Letterman
* Sometimes lists do require explaining, for which we have asterisks.
11. We like adding our own entries to them
If you like lists a lot, List Universe has lots of lists, lists of lists including: Top 12 Things you Need to be a Mad Scientist and Top 10 Worst Logos
If you like funny, if foul-mouthed, lists try CRACKED who've got the likes of: 15 overlooked deaths of 2008 and Five Homeless Guys Who Accomplished Amazing Things
Wouldn't you know it would eventually come to this? Top 10 Top 10 Lists of 2008