I turned a corner and there she was on the street. Her name was Lola. I hadn't seen her in years. She was looking a little rough around the edges; her better days were clearly in the past. She had always been high maintenance, her reputation demanded that. A faded beauty, she no longer lives in the fast lane. She was always desirable, temperamental, volatile and especially hard to manage in cold weather. Am I talking about a person or a car?
December 2, 2024
Another Mystery
I am home alone for a couple of days. No one has been in or out except the dogs. I went to bed last night after I finished writing myself a note that I left on my desk. It was written in black ink with the only pen on my desk. This morning, I go to add another thought to the note, pick up the pen and blue ink comes out. WTF? This is not one of those click the top for red, green, blue or black ink pens. It's just rollerball that has always had black ink. I know it's the same pen because I broke the clip months ago. Like I said, I am home alone for a couple of days. No one has been in or out except the dogs. WTF.
December 4, 2024
Overheard two men at a hockey game.
-- My wife thinks I'm out shopping for her birthday present.
-- When's her birthday?
-- I don't know.
-- You don't know?
-- Yeah.
-- What if today is her birthday?
-- I bought her a present like 8 months ago knowing I could use this excuse to catch some hockey games. If today is the day, I just pull it out of its hiding place and I'm all set. It's wrapped and everything. Card too.
-- What did you get her?
-- I don't remember. It was a long time ago.
-- You're such a romantic.
-- Aw, thanks!
-- I was being sarcastic.
-- Oh.
December 5, 2024
Snorkel? Check.
Fins? Check.
Goggles? Check.
Swimsuit? Check.
Sunscreen? Check.
Flip Flops? Check.
Sunglasses? Check.
Tickets? Check.
Passport? Check.
Money? Check.
Phone? Check.
Keys? Check.
Uber to airport? Check.
On vacation!
At airport realizes
Suitcase? No check.
Snorkel? No check.
Fins? No check.
Goggles? No check.
Swimsuit? No check.
Sunscreen? No check.
Flip Flops? No check.
Sunglasses? No check.
Clothes? No check.
Time to go back? No check.
Still on vacation. Shit.
December 6, 2024
Went out of town. Did out of town things. Returned home. So much done today! So proud. Can I sustain this? Ooh, another mystery!
December 7, 2024
LETTER OF THE MONTH
Dear Keith,
Why should I take your word for anything? My ex-wife is a humanitarian and she said I should question everything (everything except her infidelity), so why should I take your word for anything?
Signed,
Skeptical
Dear Skeptical,
It's simple. Whatever I have to say either resonates with you or it doesn't. If it does, perhaps you'll find it helpful; if it doesn't, you won't. See, that's how it works with everything in this world - you're either interested in it or you're not.
December 8, 2024
Overheard two women in a department store.
-- She won't wear a bra. It drives me nuts.
-- How old is she now?
-- 19. She's a 36C for christ sakes. She's flopping all over the place.
-- Why don't you get her some really sexy lingerie and maybe when she sees the set she'll-
-- I tried that. Got her matching stuff from Victoria Secret. She kept the panties and returned the bras.
-- It's her life, Jocelyn, why are you so concerned about this?
-- She's my daughter! It's a reflection on me. You don't see me showing off my boobs. Why does she have to?
-- Have you talked with Mallory about this?
-- Of course.
-- Well what does she say?
-- She says it's more comfortable without a bra.
-- Well, what's wrong with that?
-- She's flopping all over the place! Come on, how comfortable can that be?
-- You think there's another reason?
-- She's titillating the boys. She's a tease. My daughter is on the path to whoredom.
-- She's 19, Jocelyn. She's testing her womanhood.
-- Yeah well, all whores have to start somewhere.
December 10, 2024
I was messing with an old transistor radio when the crystal picked up an alien transmission! I know! I taped it, here listen for yourself.
-- Captain, we have finished our assessment of Earthlings.
-- Give me your synopsis, Bron.
-- Earth people are greedy, manipulative and stupid. Everyone is in it for themselves and there are no behaviours bad enough that they won't try them. We should wipe them out.
-- Very good. Bron. Trak, commence eradication.
-- Although they do have one redeeming factor.
-- Yes? Hold on the eradication, Trak. Yes, Bron?
-- They're so primitive they don't know they're primitive. It's kind of funny.
-- So humour is their redeeming factor?
-- Well, to be perfectly honest, they have some of the hottest female aliens in the universe.
-- Which is it, man, sex or humour? What's gonna save them?
-- Neither. They think they're alone. If we leave them alone, they will do themselves in through their greed, manipulation and stupidity. Then we won't look like the bad guys and Earth will be ours for the taking.
-- How long will we have to wait?
-- Oh, it won't be long now.
December 11, 2024
Some meaningful quotes?
Pizza and donuts for breakfast? Yes, please.
Keith Ryan
For the last time, my name isn't Jack!
Jack the Ripper
We know we're stupid. Isn't it obvious?
The Trump family
Since he's trolling me, then he shouldn't mind when I make the orange pansy my bitch.
Justin Trudeau
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
Isaac Asimov
Pass me that oil, bitch.
Diddy
I would never kill an animal. I'm more of a people person.
Vlad the Impaler
I just wish there were more Waffle Houses everywhere.
Taylor Swift
I said, more oil, bitch!
Diddy
December 12, 2024
2nd LETTER OF THE MONTH
Dear Keith,
My husband loves your dogs. He wants to get a malamute puppy, but we live in an apartment that doesn't allow dogs. He has been talking about sneaking the puppy in and out, like, I don't know, under his coat or something. So how big are malamute puppies?
Signed,
Big dog lovers in a no dogs allowed place
Dear Dog Lovers,
This is my wife Susan and baby Sophie, when she was an 8 week old puppy.
He'd need an awfully big coat.
December 13, 2024
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Politics in America
El stinkeroo
Stinkeroo
(stɪŋkəˈruː)
noun
A bad or contemptible person or thing, a complete loser, Trump, his minions.
December 14, 2024
She left the guy that she'd known since kindergarten so she could be with a girl she met in college. She was happy now. But not kindergarten boy. He was a damaged lad that didn't cotton to losing his long time girlfriend to a hard scrabble chick who smokes Marlboros and wears Doc Martens. So he instituted a twofold plan that was a failure from inception to execution. Not only was she not coming back, she had started to smoke Marlboros as well. As was mentioned earlier, he was damaged, and now defeated, so what he did next can't even be described here. For real.
Moral of the story: Just because you know someone for a long time doesn't mean you really know them.
December 16, 2024
The month long Canada Post strike will be over just in time for no one to get their Christmas presents before Christmas. Gotta give the posties credit though, they picked the exact right time to strike and force the government's hand to mandate them back to work. Evidently there are over 12 million items backlogged. Jesus will just have to wait until January for his birthday celebrations in Canada. Silver lining? That means we'll get 2 Christmases' in 2025! Well thank you, Jesus, er, Canada Post.
December 17, 2024
I was looking at all the equipment we have to maintain our acreage and I realized how many ways there are to accidentally kill oneself. There is, of course, the limb shearing chainsaw and foot removing brush saw, a hand removing augur and finger removing impeller on the snowblower, various tree shears, machetes, axes and saws, ice picks and ice choppers, multiple mowers and tractors with PTOs attached to implements with whirling blades and spinning grinders that can catch an operator's clothing and suck them into a grisly maiming or death. Tractors themselves can roll over and pin one until it's too late. And the killing doesn't stop there. How about the recreational equipment? The snowmobile can overturn landing 800 pounds on top of one, not to mention the dangerous high speed rotating tracks ready to eat a leg or arm, and the side by side can also roll over and cause injury or death, it's easy to do, short wheelbase you know. This isn't even taking into account the multiple machines with lithium ion batteries that could explode at any moment and burn down the barn. Cripes, it's a wonder I'm still alive and here to post this today.
December 18, 2024
Relax. You have all the time in the world. Do too. It's a long time living a life. So many days. And every day has 24 hours! So many opportunities to do something. And you have years and decades ahead! No, you have all the time in the world.
December 19, 2024
Got a flyer for a free pizza at a new shop. I go to redeem it and they say the printer made a mistake. It wasn't a free pizza, it was a free slice. Deceptive advertising, sure, still I try it. Meh. I thanked them for the taste and on my way out thought how do you invest all the capital and energy it takes to open a new business with a mediocre product in a highly competitive market and hope to make it any kind of success? They weren't any cheaper than anybody else, the size of their pies were commiserate, so what was their difference maker, their edge, their thing that separates them from everyone else because it sure as hell wasn't taste. Baffling, eh. Yet another December mystery.
December 20, 2024
He was the perfect neighbour. Unfortunately, he wasn't ours. Ours were more like used car salesmen, insurance swindlers, and unfulfilled semi-artistic women with either too many kids or none at all. But there was a house for sale. The perfect neighbour came to look at it! But he didn't buy. Which means someone somewhere else is enjoying the fruits of having the perfect neighbour. Drat.
December 21, 2024
His girlfriend was silly. She laughed at everything. She was lighthearted and game, never took anything seriously, but also lacked ambition, drive and a desire to achieve. But he liked her for that. She was non-competitive, not afraid of change and brought little to no baggage into the relationship. He liked her for that too. For her, he was just something to do at the moment. They were fun together and it was simply nice the way it was at the time. She never gave a thought to how long it might last or if he was the one. They were a couple living in the moment. That's how powerful that can be.
December 22, 2024
A friend drops by to visit along with her know-it-all snot nosed nephew from Toronto. Right off the bat he's obnoxious, rude, condescending and patronizing. He claims to be a genius and challenges me to prove otherwise. Yeah? I craft an offer: if he wins, he can stay; if he loses, he goes, but my friend stays. He agrees. I pull out my old trucker's CB radio and ask him what it is.
At first he thinks it's some kind of old timey router, maybe with a built in range extender, but there's no antenna...then he thinks it's a piece of scientific equipment, perhaps a spectrometer...but he finally settles on it being an artifact from the space shuttle. I assure you it was a pleasure to show him to the door. Some people.
December 23, 2024
Two buddies are over to watch some football. Both of them are bettors and have money riding on the point spread. Everything about the game is whether they can make their number. The game itself is secondary; the teams are secondary; covering the spread is all that matters. Toward the end, they are actively rooting against their home team so they don't score any more points and lose them money. What a messed up way to enjoy sports.
December 24, 2024
BAD MOVIE DIALOGUE
SHARMA
What did you get me for Christmas, Pete?
PETE
You'll just have to wait.
SHARMA
I'm not good at delayed gratification, Pete.
PETE
It's just one more day 'till Christmas, Sharma.
SHARMA
Buster, I'm gonna ask but one more time.
What did you get me for Christmas!
PETE
Ok, ok, but if I give you your present now,
Christmas will be anticlimactic.
SHARMA
You know, mother warned me about you.
Sharma, she said, he's one to delay your gratification.
PETE
She did not.
SHARMA
Oh! Now you're calling me a liar AND scrooging my present.
PETE
Scrooging your present?
SHARMA
Pete, you're an embarrassment, playing off my known trauma.
PETE
What trauma?
SHARMA
Oh, have you forgotten about that time that doctor yelled at me
because I was late for an appointment and so from then on I
have to make sure I arrive a little bit early just to make sure I'm not late?
Well consider Christmas a doctor's appointment.
PETE
What!?
SHARMA
My present, dickwad! Now!
PETE
Dickwad? It's Christmas for christ sakes!
SHARMA
That's it. I'm outta here.
Enjoy the rest of your life alone, Pete. Goodbye.
PETE
Come on, Sharma. Hey, I got you an air fryer...and a puppy!
I got you two puppies! Sharma?
December 25, 2024
Went into town. Everything was closed. Bummer. What, is it a holiday or something?
December 27, 2024
All my buddies were busy at Christmas and all my buddies were busy for Boxing Day so I have scheduled 3 different get togethers for today. I'm meeting a friend for coffee this morning, followed by another friend for beers early afternoon and later this evening yet another friend for a holiday meet up and end of year salute. These 3 will make it 6 for the year and I'm finally done. I will then have fulfilled my 2024 quota of people. Frankly, I'm thinking of cutting it to 5 in 2025. What?
December 28, 2024
Last December Mystery (cont'd)
Remember when I told you about the pen ink turning a different colour? Well get this: last night, still alone in the house with the dogs, while closing my office, I put the pen down next to my keyboard. Now I distinctly remember doing that because I actually noticed that my black keyboard was a different shade of black than the pen next to it. I close the office and me and the dogs hit the hay. I get up this morning and the pen is still next to the keyboard - but on the other side! It's over by the number pad on the right side. I left it by the Tab key on the left side. Come on, WTF? I mean really, W.T.F.?
December 29, 2024
A declarative sentence is a statement of fact. For instance, 'KeithSpeak is an entertaining 25 year continuous blog.' That's declarative; a stone cold fact. But it doesn't delineate the particulars and it doesn't entice one to pursue it. For that, one needs to stretch the declarative by venturing into hyperbole. So for instance, 'KeithSpeak is an entertaining, informative, slyly brilliant exploration of how to manage and better your human experience, done with humour, insight, and a true desire for you to understand just what the hell is going on.' See? Anyway, why am I am going on about this? Because someone said that 'KeithSpeak is the work of the Devil.' Gasp! That, my friends, is a declarative lie. Know the difference! Class dismissed.
December 30, 2024
Penultimate day of the year. If 2024 sucked you're probably ok with the near end. But if your 2024 was fabulous, you might be feeling happy that you had such a good year and perhaps a little nostalgic for it coming to an end. But just think! tomorrow! the last day! just imagine how much more suckage or happiness there will be! It's the last day!
December 31, 2024
2025 in several hours. I see some of you have a wee bit of stress about this. Look, if you need to, close your eyes, hold your breath, pinch your nose and blindly walk forward. It'll be over before you know it. Happy New Year?
