Lost and found

Meant to be read in side-by-side columns, but I think it's okay anyway:

LOST

1200 block Wasteland St, Thursday, FAKE “threatening” letter, handwritten, slightly soiled paper. Pls call if found – was just a JOKE, btwn FRIENDS, still shouldn’t fall into wrong hands.







DOG, large brown and white mongrel, skinny, pointy ears, answers to Bud, missing Weds night. Will reimburse finder for dog food.


SKETCHBOOK, green cover, has a few diagrams of nothing in particular. URGENTLY NEEDED! Generous reward – even more if you can prove you didn’t look inside.










FOUND

On my doorstep, Wasteland St, a filthy scrap of notebook paper partly covered with incoherent scrawls apparently threatening me (by name) with being rendered “so dead”. If the legal guardian of the child or mental patient who obviously “wrote” this text wishes to see it, please contact me before Monday morning, when I plan to take appropriate action.

DOG, wire-haired Ibizan hound, healthy appetite, probably wants to get back to winning medals at shows? Call to ID.



SKETCHBOOK, green cover, with detailed plans for car engine that runs on tap water (?).

Few people are aware of . . .

. . . the 19th-century origins of the Teletubbies. But here's proof they do go back that far.

(from Dover)

"Animal hoarding? No, we're not being hoarded . . .

. . . Not yet."

eRejection

"We cannot bring you aboard at this time."

It sounds like an announcement in an airport departure lounge, but it's actually from an email turning me down for a writing job.

(At first, I took it more dramatically and had a picture of myself, on a makeshift raft, getting turned away from a passing ship.)

Yes, I took a risk, and it could have turned out a lot worse. There was a guy who got his first submission to some syndicate mailed back unopened, with a note on the envelope: "I told you to stop sending us your ****!"

Still . . .

Liberty, Equality, and the Pursuit of Happiness

Now Président Sarkozy wants to measure France's success by its happiness, not its production.

One country already does:

So far, Bhutan is the only country to put happiness at the heart of policy. The government of the remote Himalayan kingdom must consider every policy for its impact on “Gross National Happiness.” This has led to a ban on ads, wrestling channels, plastic bags and traffic lights.

Things that would make me happier by disappearing:

• spam
• lame legacy comic strips
• school-issued combination locks that kids can't figure out (let alone parents)
  
• the becoming-an-annual-tradition confidence vote in the Canadian Parliament
• the use of the word "inappropriate" as a substitute for "wrong"
• fluoride rinses after teeth cleaning

This is only the beginning.

Sorry, gotta laugh

Porcupine Man Pleads Guilty to Mailing Threatening Letters

What did he threaten to do, shoot his quills? Not that he could really do that . . . I know, I know, the situation's not funny at all. But the headline is.

Phone woman returns (perhaps for the last time?)

If it's too small to read (and it is, at least on my machine), click on it.

The next-to-last incident actually happened to me -- except my phone asked me to deposit 25 cents.

Ad Orientation

Learned at Parents' Orientation today:

1. New this year: Swine flu policy.
2. If road cones are placed across the school driveway, parents should not remove them and drive through.
3. The school is not a peanut-free zone, but a peanut-aware zone. ("We are aware peanuts exist.")
4. The kneeling test for girls' skirts is still with us.
5. So are portable classrooms. Sigh.
   

You're welcome -- I think -- but . . .

This guy says his dog loves back-to-school time because he finds plenty of tossed-away sandwiches in the bushes near the school, and adds:

On Fido's behalf, thanks, Moms, for making such great food.

But I don't make school lunches -- the kids do. (Well, one of them does, and the other is about to start.)

It cuts down on unpleasant surprises, on both ends. Besides --

No one under the age of 19 is going to waste time and effort making a sandwich he doesn't like just to keep his mother happy, then throw it into the shrubbery or feed it to a dog. Only adults can make the mental contortions that might make that seem like the right thing to do.

I could say more, but writing about not feeding people food to animals is something I do for pay, and this is a holiday weekend.

Stuck Tune Syndrome

Here are "the top ten offending tunes" found in a study of 1000 university students.

1. "The Macarena"
2. "I'm a Little Teapot"
3. Theme from Gilligan's Island
4. Chili's baby-back ribs jingle (we seem to spared this in Canada)
5. "1812 Overture"
6. "The Gambler"
7. "YMCA"
8. Two Dr. Pepper jingles
9. "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik"
10. Themes from The Andy Griffith Show and The Odd Couple

The study was done in 2001 by James Kellaris of the University of Cincinnati and is reported by Larry Dossey in The Extraordinary Healing Power of Ordinary Things. Which is not to say that earworms are healing -- just that music has power we don't understand.

Kellaris found three traits in the "stickiest" songs:

1. excessive repetition
2. musical simplicity
3. incongruity ("the beat or lyric defies the listener's expectations).

Dossey says, "One unfortunate individual claimed that a tune from an Atari 260 video game had been humming in his head since 1986."

Don't get me started on Roddy McCorley . . .

Possibly not the lamest comic strip ever . . .

but I'm working on it. Click on the image to get a legible size.