Category: humour

Adulting: a funny self help book, not just for young people

For anyone starting out on the road to being an independent adult, the book Adulting (from Hachette) is a good guide to have. It is packed with tips – 468 to be exact – on pretty much any experience you are going to go through in your early 20s. If this is you or someone you love, this book will have an obvious appeal.

It’s not just for young people though. I think all adults could benefit from parts of the book, especially if you are having to start out on some adult experience that is either new to you or something you haven’t done for some time. It’s good advice, and good advice never goes out of date.

Even if you don’t need good advice, read it just for the humour. It’s a very funny book. (Note, there is a fair amount of profanity and references to sex, but if that doesn’t bother you, then you’ll be fine.)

Finally, if you want to have a better understanding of what life is like for that young person you know, this book can help you achieve that.

By the way, if you want a preview of it, you can check out the Adulting blog. Also very good.

I was killing time in a bookstore last night and I thought it looked good. I ended up reading it from cover to cover.

 

The subversive genius that is Cracked.com

The team at cracked.com have a tested formula: take some good advice  and practically bury it in humour to get a piece that has you laughing at first but thinking later. It is a very subversive way to get people thinking on a site you wouldn’t expect to be doing so.

I first started reading cracked.com for the laughs, but afterwards thought: hey, they have a really great piece of guidance there. Here are two pieces from many good ones on the site:

There are lots of sites on the Web giving advice (including this one). Cracked does it in a way that is better than most. Worth checking out.

How to sing the blues

null
(I’ve seen this in a number of places. It’s a classic. I am sad to say I own a computer, but I still aspire to sing the blues… )

1. Most Blues begin, “Woke up this morning.”

2. “I got a good woman,” is a bad way to begin the Blues, ‘less you stick something nasty in the next line: ” I got a good woman- with the meanest face in town.”

3. The Blues is simple. After you get the first line right, repeat it. Then find something that rhymes…sort of: ” Got a good woman with the meanest face in town. Got teeth like Margaret Thatcher and she weigh 500 pound.”

4. The Blues are not about choice. You stuck in a ditch. You stuck in a ditch ain’t no way out.

5. Blues Cars: Chevy’s and Cadillac’s and broken down trucks. Blues don’t travel inVolvos, BMW’s, or SUV’s. Most Blues transportation is a Greyhound bus or a southbound train. Jet aircraft and state-sponsored motor pools ain’t even in the running. Walkin’ plays a major part in the Blues lifestyle. So does fixin’ to die.

6. Teenagers can’t sing the Blues. They ain’t fixin to die yet. Adults sing the Blues. In Blues, “adulthood” means being old enough to get the electric chair if you shoot a man in Memphis.

7. Blues can take place in New York City, but not in Hawaii or any place in Canada. Hard times in St. Paul or Tucson is just depression. Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City are still the best places to have the Blues. You cannot have the Blues in any place that don’t get rain.

8. A man with male pattern baldness ain’t the Blues. A woman with male pattern baldness is. Breaking your leg cause you were skiing ain’t the Blues. Breaking your leg cause an alligator be chomping on it is.

9. You can’t have no Blues in an office or a shopping mall. The lighting is wrong. Go outside to the parking lot or sit by the dumpster.

10. Good places for the Blues:

1. Highway
2. Jailhouse
3. Empty bed
4. Bottom of a whiskey glass

11. Bad places for the Blues:

1. Malls
2. Gallery openings
3. Ivy league institutions
4. Golf courses

12. No one will believe it’s the Blues if you wear a suit, unless you happen to be an old black man, and you slept in it.

13. Do you have the right to sing the Blues: Yes, if:

1. You older than dirt
2. You blind
3. You shot a man in Memphis
4. You can’t be satisfied

Do you have the right to sing the Blues: No, if:

1. You have all your teeth
2. You were once blind but now you can see
3. You have a retirement plan or trust fund
4. You won the lottery
5. The man in Memphis lived

14. Blues is not a matter of color. It’s a matter of bad luck. Tiger Woods cannot sing the Blues. Gary Coleman could. Ugly white people also get the Blues.

15. If you ask for water and Baby give you gasoline, it’s the Blues. Other acceptable drinks are:

1. Cheap Wine
2. Whiskey or bourbon
3. Muddy water
4. Nasty Black coffee

16. The following are not Blues beverages:

1. Mixed drinks
2. Kosher wine
3. Snapple
4. Sparking water
5. Diet Coke

17. If it occurs in a cheap motel or a shotgun shack, it’s a Blues death. Stabbed in the back by a jealous lover is another Blues way to die. So is the electric chair, substance abuse, and dying lonely in a broken down cot. You can’t have a Blues death if you die during a tennis match or getting liposuction.

18. Some Blues names for women:

1. Sadie
2. Big Mama
3. Bessie
4. Fat River Dumping
5. Caledonia

19. Some Blues names for men:

1. Joe
2. Willie
3. Little Willie
4. Big Willie
5. Leroy

20. Persons with names like Michelle, Amber, Jennifer, Tiffany, Brooke and Heather can’t sing the Blues no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis.

21. Make your own Blues name (starter kit):

1. Name of physical infirmity (Blind, Cripple, Lame, etc.)
2. First name (see above) plus name of fruit (Lemon, Lime, Kiwi, etc.)
3. Last name of president (Jefferson, Johnson, Fillmore, etc.)

For example: Blind Lime Jefferson, or Cripple Kiwi Fillmore, etc.

22. I don’t care how tragic your life; if you own a computer, you cannot sing the Blues.

Visio – not just for IT diagrams

As an IT architect, I use Microsoft Visio for some of the diagrams I do. (I do use IBM’s Rational products as well.) Little did I imagine you could use it for non-technical things the way David Salaguinto does to make funny comics like this one:

For more on this, see Office Hours: Drawing a daily comic strip with Visio – Help and How-to – Microsoft Office Online

Get Fuzzy

I have always had a love/hate relationship with Siamese cats. They are beautiful looking, but they aren’t exactly the friendliest, in my limited experience.

There used to be one who lived in the house across from mine, and she used to stand out in the middle of her yard until my dog would see her and chase after her. She had it timed perfectly: she could make it to a crawl space and turn around so that she could scratch my dog when he stuck his nose in the crawl space. (Cat = smart; dog…not so much).

Which leads me to my favourite Siamese cat, Bucky, from Get Fuzzy. Mean cat, great comic.

You can get it here:

Comics and Editorial Cartoons: Get Fuzzy on Yahoo! News