"Beautiful people behaving stupidly" is how someone described the TV sitcom. These characters say and do things no sensible person would do in real life. If they did, I doubt the reaction from the rest of us would be laughter, but annoyance.

      Back in the day, sitcom characters were basically nice folks with minor flaws in odd situations. Think of Rob and Laura Petry. Nowadays the lead characters are often selfish, sneaky, dishonest, stupid and lazy. Think of Kramer and George Costanza. Current sitcoms seem to revolve around people having sex, trying to have sex, talking about sex, talking about trying to have sex, or talking about not having sex.

      Maybe I'm just an old curmudgeon, but I don't care about these character's sex lives. I don't even like these characters. Then again, if they were real people they probably wouldn't much care for me in return.

      Can somebody explain the letter 'G' to me? Not what the letter is, but why the various forms. I mean, a cursive capital 'G' doesn't look much like the formal version. How did it get that way? And what's with the two different lower case versions? Where did that second really odd-looking one come from?

      To go off on a needless tangent, why two different sounds? Like the hard 'G' in 'go' and the soft 'G' in 'tangent' for instance. Wouldn't the letter 'J' work just as well in the second case? Now, it's not a bad as the letter 'C' which doesn't even have a sound of its own. It sounds like a 'K' or an 'S'. Its only distinct sound is in combination with an 'H', as in 'church'. At least it always looks like a 'C', so I'll give it that.

      Entertaining an idea. Some joke, huh? I could have done holding an opinion or harboring a belief, but this is enough silliness for now. More than enough really. Besides, I'm basically just ripping off the old Mad magazine bit called "Horrifying Cliches." Are you horrified?

      "Happy Birthday to You", the ubiquitous song, was written by sisters Mildred and Patty Hill and published in 1935. It was originally "Good Morning to You" but they adapted it for birthdays. It's been written the royalties amount to $2 million annually.

      Color me skeptical, but I have a hard time buying that last part. I mean, who's paying these royalties? I can't imagine any of the millions of folks who sing this at birthday celebrations send one penny to ASCAP or BMI or whoever is in charge of distributing royalties for published songs. I know I never have. I don't recall a hit recording of the song going platinum either. So, how would the sisters get paid for "Happy Birthday to You"?

How many ______ does it take to change a light bulb?

      Light bulb jokes are a dime a dozen. Which is much cheaper than light bulbs in fact. I wonder when and where they started, and at what point did it become a genre, like a knock-knock joke? If genre is the term I want.

      It would seem riddle type jokes are easier to adapt and turn into a genre. Like the "what do you get when you cross a _____ with a _____?" Change what fills the blanks and you get a new set-up. But you still need a good punch-line.

      Riddles are the simplest formula humor there is. Unlike a math formula the answer can't simply be worked out, nor should it be obvious if it's to work well. With all this in mind I'll take stab at writing a light bulb joke:

How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?

One. But does the light bulb ever really change?

      Is it me or are more and more people pronouncing the word "often" with a hard "T"? I remember being taught as a schoolboy the "T" was silent. Perhaps my dictionary is out of date, but it confirms it:

often (AW fen, OFF en)

      You don't pronounce the "T" in listen, do you? How about the "L" in half? Who pronounces the first "R" in February? What on earth would I do with a word like "knight"?

      I suspect the folks who pronounce the "T" in often are the type who say either as "eye-thur". I understand this originated with King George of England, who being German could never come to grips with the idea English "ei" is not like German "ei", the latter of which is pronounced "eye". Like Einstein, for instance. Toadying English courtiers adopted this mispronunciation and it became an affectation of being higher class.

      English is full of elision and contractions that make it easier for speech to flow. The hard consonant sounds in conjunction with each other have the effect of a stop. How many of us actually pronounce the hard "g" on words ending in "ing"? Not that we should start slurring everything together and start talking like Mumbles, or Prince Charles after a drinking jag.

      But this is a matter of no great importance or weight (pronounced "wait" not "white" or "wheat." Go figure).

      For no good reason I'll add that Germans pronounce "ee" as a long A sound. Think of Beethoven (BAYtoven), or the painter Paul Klee (clay).

      The three things everyone wants in any service are fast, good, and cheap.

Getting all three is called a miracle.
Getting two out of three is called a good deal.
Getting one out of three is called a poor deal.
Getting none of the three is called a government program.

      I wrote that joke and I'm not in prison. Which shows you not all jokes start in prison, despite the urban myth. Why anyone would imagine convicted felons are good joke writers is a mystery to me. Of course, whether this joke actually is passed along is an open question. Actually, there's no guarantee anyone will ever even read it, let alone think it's funny or worth repeating. Still, there it is for what it's worth.

      Ever notice the new peel-and-stick postage stamps have that perforated-like edge even though there's no reason for it? It's a throwback to the old lick-and-stick sheets of stamps that were perforated to tear and separate them.

      It's a vestige of a bygone era. People expect stamps to have that serrated edge, or they wouldn't seem like stamps. Sort of like the grillwork on a car, which used to be radiator trim. The radiator isn't right there in the grillwork any more. In a lot of cases, cars get more cooling air from below the grill in an opening in the bumper area. People just expect cars to have a grill, so they do.

      The ipod has something of a pseudo-vestige, the controller clicks when you work it. There's no real reason for it to do so, but people like hearing a click when they push buttons. Lets them know it's working. Apple had to add on the clicking sound because the controller gizmo doesn't make a sound otherwise.

      Why is Humpty Dumpty depicted like an egg? There's no description of him appearing even vaguely ovum-ish in the nursery rhyme. Where did that come from?

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the king's horses and all the king's men,
Couldn't put Humpty together again.

      Is there a second verse I don't know about? Nothing in my dictionary under humpty or dumpty. I grow curiouser and curiouser.

      This has been going around the email net:

"Olny srmat poelpe can raed tihs.

      "Cdnuolt blveiee taht I cloud aulaclty unesdatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm.

      "Tihs is bcuseae the huanm mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe..."

      To which I say, "This pliatcarur pisoprootin is lleagry nnneosse." *

      It's a trick. It only works if you jumble the letters in a particular way so they're easy to decipher because they're common words and expected in the sentence. It's easy to read because there are clues, such as letter pairs kept together and a similar number of syllables. Plus, words under five letters are deciphered simply. Here's a sentence using words from the quote jumbled differently:

      "Inprmaott lteerts, aricdcnog to pnaamnoehl rascceherh plopee, mteatr bsueace sramt ploepe allutacy utrensnadd oedrr." **

      Not as easy, eh? Bet you can't figure out the following without some effort:

      "Seteneven frerams form atneohr crutony peesttord arligny oevr ieptmord ibreecg luctete." ***

Stumped? Answers:
* "This particular proposition is largely nonsense."
** "Important letters, according to phenomenal research people, matter because smart people actually understand order."
*** "Seventeen farmers from another country protested angrily over imported iceberg lettuce."

      Offissa Pup chasing Flatop who's just committed an intellectual property theft. The irony is I plagiarized both characters and this is art taken from the old Suck.com site. OK, maybe not so ironic or clever after all, but I always kinda liked the spot.

      Still waiting for the breakthrough invention on the American Inventor TV show. Some fair to good ideas, but nothing to make you say, "Wow, why didn't I think of that?".

      Seeing the long lines of people with their pie-in-the-sky inventions, all I can say is, "million dollar ideas are a dime a dozen." You can quote me on that.

      The backlog for biomedical related patents, about half for genetics, is currently about 10,000 applications. source: Forrester Research

TV Guide shorthand.

      This is an illustration I did for Conan O'Brien vs. Bear, but they didn't go for it. I did an alternate version, but I liked this one better and though I'd use it here. I suppose they didn't think their audience would get the "bear" reference. I'm sure one-time Suckster Owen would.

Bathtub Porsche on the way to the SEMA show.

      What's with the expression, "I thought to myself"? Is there another way to think other than to yourself? Can you think to someone else, or to your dog, or to a chair? Perhaps you can, which would explain why people often want to "bounce an idea off you."

      People also claim to be "thinking out loud," but really they're just talking. And to listen to some folks prattling on, it's clear that just because they're talking doesn't always mean they're thinking.

      Left brain vs. right brain, creative vs. linear thinking clarified. Maybe this explains what people mean when they say they are of two minds about an issue. Or that they have half a mind to do suchandsuch a thing. Now then, what part of the brain are we relying on to create linear solutions?

Professor Frank N. Bienz explains the world situation.