Wait a Minute….This is Stupid.

Ok, let's begin a new feature on the Band Blog. From time to time, or maybe never again, we will chronicle events from the past and present that beg the following question…

“Wasn’t there ANYONE involved ANYWHERE in the decision making process who could have headed this off by simply raising their hand and saying, 'Wait a minute…This is Stupid.'?”

Now, to keep it simple, we will begin in the true, “Besides Michael Jordan” tradition, with this one…


Enough Said.

Here’s another. Back in the 80’s there was an ad for, Tylenol, I think. The brand was not important. What was notable, was that they got a soap opera actor from General Hospital to actually sit behind a deck in his medical smock and say the following:

“I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV.” Then he proceeded to advise us as to what pain reliever we should buy.

What kind of message did that send? “We think you are so dumb, that you will believe this guy just because he admits to PRETENDING to be a doctor. Wasn’t there ANYONE at the ad agency with the wherewithal to stand up and say, “Wait a Minute…This is Stupid.”

One more for our older fans…Remember this one?


So, got any more? Comment away.
And please, no comments about how someone should have intervened before I wrote this post. I already thought of that one.

An Apology and a Warning...

A bit of seriousness here from the Colonel...

We had a comment from a legitimate, faithful reader on our latest post, with an excellent, humorous link to a picture of the guy, Crispin Glover, who played the nerdy father of Marty McFly in "Back to the Future." (I know the link was valid. I saw the actual pic when it was first posted.)

At any rate, sometimes out on the web, the material at the source of a link gets changed, through no fault of the blogger or the person making the comment. (I remember once, a very good Youth Group web site featured for a month on their front page, of all things, a picture of a wood burning stove.)

Whether these changes are errors, or malicious, is sometimes difficult to tell. In this case, it seemed to be malicious, as the "Glover" link, while not changed, now ended at a photo that, to say the least, does not meet the standards of this blog.

Please keep in mind, that this material CHANGED AT THE SOURCE AFTER the faithful reader posted the link.

So to our readers,
1st, an Apology to any who may have clicked on the link. We have immediately deleted the comment in question, not in judgment of the comment itself, but because the link had been compromised.

2nd, a Warning. Be on guard. The net is an excellent communication tool, (For us, it's our best method of staying in touch with our adult children) but content can change quickly, and garbage is often only one, even UNINTENTIONAL, click away. We can be careful, we can all have "Word Verification" turned on in our blogs, but the junk is still out there. Our best defense is a heart guarded by the Lord Jesus Christ. We must live a life filled with The Holy Spirit, Who gives us wisdom to avoid this trash, eyes that bounce off the garbage the world throws at us from every direction, and VERY quick fingers to "X" out of these pages when they do (hopefully very rarely) pop up.

OK, since I've gone into a rare, Pastoral moment on the Band Blog, here's one more thought...

Friend, you're not alone. If you've struggled with stuff on the net, the BEST thing you can do is share your struggle and desire for victory with a CHRISTIAN friend.

We had a guest speaker at our church who stated that accountability is not a negative "Gothca" to get someone in trouble when they've messed up. Accountability is a POSITIVE tool for Victory!

Here's a good site. (I hope the link works, cause it's title looks weird.) At this site, you can download a simple program that will E-mail your net activity to a good friend, again not as a "Gotcha!", but as a way to encourage healthy discussion that leads to a victorious life.

Here's the link...

http://www.xxxchurch.com/

The program to download is called X3watch.

OK, there's the serious stuff. Next time, we return to Jokes about Monkey Butlers and Complaints about the Dog.

Things I Do Because I'm A Moron: II

I have this guy to thank for this one...



Back in college, I got into the habit of saying, "Howdy" instead of "Hi" or "Hello". It's not that I wanted to be a cowboy. I was just under the delusion that somehow, it sounded cooler.

At any rate, one Saturday morning in the 80's, Eugene Meltsner pointed out the following:

"Howdy" is actually a shortened colloquialism for "How do you do?", or more accurately, "How do you fare?"

Therefore, when someone says to you, "Howdy!", your response should be...

"I fare well, thank you."


Well, I didn't do that. I'm not that dumb. (Please...no comments from The Blond or The Whiner.)

But the other day, I was at walking around the corner at the gas station, when I passed a typical Iron Range Guy. We passed closely enough to where a greeting was socially obligatory.

"Howdy," I said.
"How ya doin'," He responded.
"I just asked you that," I said.

He looked at me much the way a potato would, got in his pickup, and drove away.

(For Part III in the "Moron" Series, Click Here.)

Fractured Syntax

I love our local paper...really.

Thank goodness they chose to cover the Viking's game rather than using AP feed from Dave Campbell. Otherwise, we would have been denied gems like this:

"One play later, quarterback Dante Culpepper hit Travis Taylor on a 24 yard scoring pass. It was the quickest score in team history, which occurred in 1989 against Philadelphia."

I really don't have a problem with all of the Viking's History occurring in one game in the late 80's, except that it totally ignores the Tarkenton years.

And...

"After the Vikings had to punt to start the third quarter (Doesn't the third quarter usually start with a kick-off?), New Orleans drove down the Minnesota four."
(This must be referring to the famous quartet of Alan Page, Carl Eller, Jim Marshall, and Gary Larsen.. Why did New Orleans feel the need to "Drive Down" these fine, retired veterans? Was this allowed by the same officials who forced the Vikings to begin the half with a punt?)

Finally,

"Deuce McAllister rambled over from one yard out to make the score 24-16 with 11:40 to play. We're the Vikings worried?"

Enough said.



In Closing...
"Vikings, Vikings, honor the name...
Vikings, Vikings, we're going to win this game..."

If you've never heard these lyrics sung to the Vikings song at the end of "Fan Line", then you've probably retained the Chili Dog you ate during the game.

Here's a better song. (Click here to Find & Download the "Purple Polka Rap") I found it while searching for the above lyrics. How cool to find it was written & performed by a relative of mine. (The Colonel gets to "Jam" with him about every five years at family reunions. It's kinda fun, yah, you betcha.)

Another Pictorial Quiz

What do these two players have in common?

My Mom Didn't Exactly Lie To Me...

But now that I think about it, she was an old wife.

Do you remember all those things we were told as children, that turned out to be a load of horse hockey?

"You CAN'T go swimming until a half-hour after you've eaten. You'll get a cramp and die."

Ok, why aren't the newspapers FILLED with stories like this?

Laguna Beach, CA:
Vernon L Abernathy, 37 of Port Garabaldi drowned today, a mere 30 feet from the shoreline of his private beach. Authorities suspect cramps.

Here's a stat from 2004:
Deaths by Shark Attack: 7
Death from Cramps caused by getting wet 29 minutes after eating a Fudgescicle: 0

How about this one...

You HAVE to sit at least 1 foot away from your TV for every inch of screen size. If you violate this rule, you will die of RADIATION.

So if you had a 19 inch Television, you had to sit 19 feet away from it. Since many living rooms were about 15 or so feet long, this resulted in various "home improvement" projects, many involving "Sledgehammers" and lots of "Budweiser". (Not at our house.)

To obey this rule with our current screen size, we would have to set up our basement sofa at a safe distance away in, say, Montana.

Also, where are the radiation wards full of nearsighted people like me who, ignoring their mothers, sat three inches from the screen in order to watch Jonny Quest? (What a great show...sigh.)

Here's another: You may not know about this one:

When I was 7 (1969), our home was actually destroyed by a tornado. After that, we had a reasonable concern over developing weather patterns. What was not reasonable was our technique for predicting these severe storms.

We heard somewhere that if you suspected there was a tornado in the area, you needed to perform the following procedures on the most advanced meteorological tool in your house: The Television.

1. Turn the Knob to Channel 2. (Note to 90% of my readers: Televisions used to have a channel changing knob that you would get up and turn by hand. Seriously.)

2. Turn the "Brightness" all the way down. (Note #2: Yes, they also had a "Brightness" Control on the front, as well a a "Fine Tuning" knob that never really "tuned" anything.)

3. QUICKLY flip the Knob to Channel 13. If there was a tornado in the area, the screen was supposed to turn totally white.

I can't tell you how many times the wind would begin to blow, and one of us would DASH to the television, not to catch a national weather service warning, but to begin fiddling with the knobs.

Can you see the local news team reporting?
"Well, Jim, Doppler Radar shows a line of severe weather heading our way, the Itasca County sheriff's Department reports sighting several funnel clouds, but just to be sure, why don't you reach over to the old Magnovox there and turn the brightness down?"

"Whoa, it doesn't look good, Bob."

So what Old Wives Tales do you remember from your childhood? Go ahead and post a few, and everyone else will make fun of them.

Bonus Questions:
1. Remember how mad your aunt would get when you'd cheat on the "Half-Hour" rule? Wasn't that great?

2. How many different spellings are there for "Fudgescicle"? Discuss.

3. Have you ever seen "Jonny Quest vs. the Cyber Insects"? Ugh. A travesty of Lucasian proportions.

4. There were also knobs labeled "Tint", "Sharpness", and "Contrast". What exactly did these do?

And yes, Kranny, I know that the monitor in the sound booth still has all these knobs. It's old, but we need it for Weather Alerts.

Here...Try This...(Part III)

My final visit to this dentist was pretty much just a conversation. No dental work, no gas, just a little chat.

He had pulled one of my wisdom teeth a month before. (The intense work chronicled in "Here...Try This... Part I") I was beginning to get a bit concerned because the right side of my tongue had gone numb and the feeling had not yet returned. I was further disturbed by the fact that my wife (The Blond) also had a tooth pulled by him a year earlier. Her tongue had gone numb as well, and her feeling had not come back either.

"I have a question," I said.

"No problem," He replied, reaching under his desk for the N2O mask.

"Now now...none of that," I took a step backwards. "I need to talk to you about my tongue." (Of course, it came out as, "I beeed do dock do boo aboud by dumb," but I already did that shtick in "Part II".)

He put the gas mask back under the desk, looking a bit disappointed, "So what seems to be the trouble?"

"It's been a month. My tongue went numb and it still isn't back to normal."

"Is it really that bad?"

"Bad? I have a trombone concert tonight, and when I play, it sounds more like someone is poking Donald Trump in the stomach with a pool cue, not that I'm recommending that sort of thing. What can I do, Doc?"

"Well, there's really nothing you can do. It's one of those freaky, "One-in-a-Million" things."

I was incredulous. "One in a Million? That's exactly what you told my wife a year ago when her tongue went numb. If it's really "One-in-a-Million", how do explain the fact that this happened to both of us?"

Here was his reply. I swear I'm not making it up.

He said, "Heredity?"


Think about it.

I refused his offer of more gas, walked out of there and found another dentist.

Here...Try This...(Part II)

(For Part One, scroll down or click here.)

I still remember my first appointment with this guy. He was going to do some routine work, so he threw the mask on (me...not himself) and turned up the gas.

Since it was the first time I had ever been under any kind of anesthetic, I took a somewhat intellectual approach. I was quite interested in studying the effects the N2O would have on me.

"Hmmm...this is interesting..."

I felt like I was sinking deeper and deeper into the dental chair. Meanwhile, it seemed like layers and layers of haze we're piling up on top of me, separating me from the room, the assistant, the dentist...

I could hear bits of his instructions as he worked.

"SuctioNnnNnnn ..................drill..ill..illll....illlllll...........
scraaaaaaaaperrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr..."


Then, his tone changed just a bit...

"SOooooooooo.......DoEs tHe ECOooooooonemeeee......afffffect you verrrrrrry much...............there..........atttttttt. ........McDoooooonnnnnnald's???????"

"What?" I thought, "What was that?"

"Oh-no," I started to panic, "He's talking to me. I'm sitting here under 20 layers of nitrous haze and this knuckle head is actually asking me a QUESTION."

I figured I'd better give him an answer, so I said, (and this is a direct quote...)

"Welllllll you noooo the garrrrrbghegagh blellllaghuegh isssss wighewwwww reshpectobiggle..."

Through my eyeslits, I could just barely see him nodding as if he understood perfectly.

Coming soon: Part III: My last trip to this dentist, and why I stopped going. (No N2O involved.)

I don't think I'll use "Spell-Check" on this one.

Happy Birthday...from Hal

Why do businesses still send out birthday cards?

We've all gotten them. They have the company logo on the front and on the inside they say something like,

Roses are Red,
Pimples have Pus
Thank you for Buying
Insurance from Us

Happy Birthday!

Then there is a printed image of the signature of the CEO of the company.

In the old days, I'm sure people used to think, "Wow. The president of the company remembered me on my birthday. I'm going to send them all my money."

Nowadays, everyone knows that some database somewhere has simply triggered an automatic mail-merge with your name on it. Instead of a warm, fuzzy feeling about the great folks down at your electric company, you are left with one more uneasy reminder that some massive computer is holding all of your personal information and is using it to print out cold, emotionless birthday greetings and false Mastercard charges.

I got about twelve of these last week. I threw them all away.

One of them was signed, "Mom."

Here...Try This...

When I was younger, I used to go to the dentist a lot more than I do now. I didn't mind it so much, because he used to give me Nitrous Oxide for EVERYTHING.

Filling a tooth? "Here...try this..." On went the mask.

Routine cleaning? "Here...try this..."

I would go in to pay my bill.
"Hey, Al!" He would say reaching under the counter for a mask, "I just got some new stuff in. Here...try this." Then I would get out my checkbook.

I remember one time, he was going to do some pretty intensive work, so I was sitting there in the chair with the mask on, dropping off deeper and deeper. After a bit, I began to think, "Hey, this mask has been on for quite a while." After another minute or so, I started to get a little concerned. As the room began to fade out, I have a vague memory of the following events happening in short succession:

The Dental Assistant taking a casual glance at the Nitrous Oxide tank.

Her looking back away, and then suddenly starting, as if alarmed.

The Assistant jerking her head back toward the tank, taking a sharp intake of breath, and reaching quickly for the tank valve.

"Great..." I thought, "She's overdosed me. Now I'm going to die."

For some reason, I thought this was hilarious.


Later, my dentist asked me what had been so funny. I didn't bother to tell him.

He offered me some more gas for the ride home, but I said no. The monkey on my shoulder wasn't happy, but I didn't care.

Visine

I saw an ad on TV this morning for Visine, and was reminded that eye drops run about $1100 per gallon.

I'm switching to gasoline.

Signed,
Bartimaeus