I met my first Percy the other day. I told him he was my first. He backed up a little. I stated that my Percy virginity was now gone! and how did he feel about taking it? He looked perplexed, a little worried. It's just such an uncommon name, I added. Short for Percival, is it? He looked wary, said nothing. I've just never met one before, I clarified, you know, a Percy. In spite of his guarded look and defensive stance, I reassured him that I thought Percy was a fine name, among the finest (just not in this century), but I wasn't making fun of him, I was just amazed that I have lived my whole life without meeting a single other Percy. Without saying a word, he departed. Damn, Percy! Was it something I said?
May 3, 2023
Just to clarify for those of you who've asked: Our sister guild, the Writers Guild of America is striking, not the Writers Guild of Canada. We are still producing work under our normal TV and film contracts. We just can't work in the US for now.
May 4, 2023
He got a nasty gash on his nose. It got closed with 8 stitches and looked rather ghoulish. Everybody asked him what happened and after retelling the original story - he was a victim of a nose hair trimmer gone rogue - and getting ridiculed for it, he opted to fabricate a more alluring tale in which he was a superhero saving some granny from a gang of thugs where he got cut for his heroic efforts but granny was saved and he was a hero and granny got saved and he was a hero. Only nobody believed him. Then the questions started. Who was this granny? Where was she now? How many did he purportedly fight off? Where did this mugging allegedly take place? Was he lying? Did he make this all up? Was a nose hair trimmer involved?
May 5, 2023
BAD MOVIE DIALOGUE
KITTY
But if the writers' strike, I won't have anything to say!
CHAUNCY
I believe that's the point, Kitty.
KITTY
Oh Chauncy, whatever will I do!
CHAUNCY
You'll go silent just like the rest of us, Kitty.
KITTY
Nooooooooo! When does this terrible strike start?
CHAUNCY
Now.
KITTY
!
May 6, 2023
If you could time travel to any event in history, what would it be? Perhaps you'd go to the pyramids; see when were they built, how were they built, by whom and for what purpose. Or how about a trip to see the fireworks of the Big Bang. Find out who killed JFK. Or better still, prevent the assassination of Lincoln. Was Atlantis real, where was it and what happened to it? Who wrote the Voynich manuscript and what does it mean. So many cool mysteries. When I told my neighbour of my potential time travel choices he gave me a what's-the-matter-with-you look and said, You're an idiot. You go back and get rich. No one gives a shit about the pyramids.
May 7, 2023
Outside it's gray and rainy. It's a perfect time to sit inside and watch sports on the telly. Is too.
May 9, 2023
It's two days later and it's still gray and rainy! How much more of this can I take?! I am not a machine!
May 10, 2023
I know a very successful self-destructive writer who has to be blitzed out of his mind to create. He drinks, smokes and snorts and then sits down to write. The finished product is wild, original, sometimes incoherent and unlike anything most have read before. He is known for his inventive, off beat characters and many of his books have been made into movies. So his career is going great guns, but his personal life is a mess. As he is always under the influence it has made it difficult to stay married. He is on his 4th wife, a teetotaling, religious woman from the Midwest who thinks she can change him. Prelude to #5? Is it possible that for my friend, success and stability are mutually exclusive?
May 11, 2023
This morning I went down to the barn to get the tractor and found a bear there. She was as surprised to see me as I was her. She moved away from the trash can she was trying to open and walked out of the barn to our paddock. In the paddock were two baby bears waiting for their mom. They jumped all over her like she'd been gone for weeks and then the 3 of them trudged up into our field to forage for breakfast elsewhere. Ah, the rural life.
May 12, 2023
A busker was singing Metallica tunes down by the waterfront. Almost everybody walked by without stopping or donating. A man stood off to the side and after the busker finished 'One', he walked over to him and asked if he could make a suggestion. The man simply said, play Beatles songs. Everyone knows them and loves them. Metallica, not so much.
May 13, 2023
The worst thing about living a life in this reality?
You have to eat others to stay alive.
What's the best thing?
Animals, pets.
May 14, 2023
Overheard a couple at the bank.
-- This is the last bit of money in the account. We'll be broke.
-- We have no choice, Cindy.
-- What if we don't make the repairs and try to live with the damage?
-- Your drunk brother drives his car into the side of our house and you want to live with the damage?
-- He didn't mean to do it. I don't understand why insurance isn't taking care of this?
-- What insurance?
-- Our house insurance.
-- We don't have house insurance.
-- What?
-- When my parents died and willed us the house, the mortgage was paid off so there was no requirement for house insurance. So we never got it.
-- Well that was short sighted.
-- You think?
-- What about my brother's car insurance?
-- He didn't have any because of his 3 previous DUIs.
-- How much will this cost to fix?
-- All the money that's left in that account. By the way, I hate your alcoholic brother.
-- I can see why.
-- Yeah.
May 16, 2023
I had to drop my wife off at the airport yesterday and on the way home I picked up a hitchhiker from France. He said he was going to Quebec and asked how far it was. When I told him it was over 3500 km he got concerned. He said he had no idea Canada was so big and the thought of hitchhiking thousands of kilometers was daunting. When I said his best bet was to either fly or take the train he asked if Canada used the Euro. I told him no. He looked even more concerned until I informed him that 1 Euro was equivalent to about $1.45 Canadian. He looked unsure of what I meant. In other words, I said, he had 45% more money than he thought. Now he brightened up. His next question was, Can you take me back to the airport?
May 17, 2023
His sister was somewhat of a criminal and because of her infamous exploits, her brother chose the straight life. He got a job managing a marijuana dispensary. His notorious sister thought having an inside man would make it easy to rob the place, so she did. But her brother wanted nothing to do with her and tipped the cops. She was arrested and sentenced. His sister couldn't believe her brother dropped a dime on her and vowed revenge.
"Families are messy. Sometimes the best we can do is to remind each other that we're related for better or for worse...and try to keep the maiming and killing to a minimum"- Rick Riordan
May 18, 2023
A guy had his family sedan souped up by a racing shop. He got a supercharger put on and to say he was pleased with the speed would be an understatement. However, his wife hated the constant whine of the supercharger and told him to get rid of it. He refused. She told him no more sex until that contraption goes. So he went back to the speed shop and replaced the supercharger with twin turbos. No more whine and still a huge increase in speed. He was chuffed. Then she complained about turbo lag. What's wrong with her? Could she never be satisfied? Was he doomed to go through life with a complainer? Was this the final straw? But before he could decide, he wrapped the car around a telephone pole and all his questions were moot.
May 19, 2023
What does GOP stand for?
Geriatric Old Pussies?
Gang Of Pricks?
Goobers On Parade?
Glorified Old Princesses?
'Cause you know they all fit.
May 21, 2023
Jeez, 'tis the season. I walked out our front door this morning and almost stepped on a bear. This guy was laying on our porch and was as surprised as I was when we saw each other. Uh, whoops. I immediately went back in and shut the door. He slowly got up and meandered out into our yard. Looking through the window I saw that he had trashed our hummingbird feeder. They're hungry, it was a long winter, I get it. Still, bears!
Several of you have written in asking how big it was. People, with bears, size has nothing to do with the danger factor because even the smallest one is still an apex predator. Capish?
May 22, 2023
My farmer neighbour shot at a coyote, missed, and put a bullet through another neighbour's car. He went to the neighbour to tell him he shot his car but the neighbour didn't care about the car, he cared about the coyote. He admonished the farmer and told him that everything has a right to live. But the farmer was old and told himself all he had to do was aim better.
May 24, 2023
I was sent a puzzle to figure out. But I'm not interested in puzzles so I sent it back undone. They said I didn't do the puzzle and they sent me another one. I returned that as well and told them to stop sending me puzzles. They again said that I hadn't done it correctly and sent yet another puzzle. I threw it away. Days later I received a phone call asking me why I haven't finished the puzzles.
In Canada, to make chance based games legal, when you win a prize, you have to complete a skill test (usually a simple math question; sometimes a puzzle) to collect the prize.
They asked why I entered their contest if I didn't want to win. I told them, I didn't enter any contest and I had no idea what they were talking about. They said someone must have submitted my name, but either way, I was one of the winners and had to complete the puzzle to collect the prize. I told them I wasn't interested in them, their prize or their puzzles and to please stop bothering me. They did.
When my friends asked what I won, I told them I had no idea. They were dumbfounded. What if it's a car! (or a house, or cash or a vacation or a bunch of other things they thought it would be swell to win)? I told them it sounded like a scam - I won a contest I never entered? - wake up. But they continued (what if it's a boat, a mail order bride or stock in Apple?!). I finally understood why phishing works.
No, you don't get something for nothing
You can't have freedom for free
You won't get wise
With the sleep still in your eyes
No matter what your dreams might be
Rush
May 25, 2023
Imagine you have one week to live. Everyone has one week to live. We're being invaded by an unstoppable force (an alien army; angry mother nature who's had enough; a crying climate giving up the ghost; an apocalypse that has been brewing for eons and finally unleashes it all...). What do you do?
Brenda- I would just sit at home and read books with my two cats and wait peacefully for it all to end.
Carly- Are you kidding me?! Party, man! Whoo!
Larry- I would go out into the streets with all my guns and use them on anyone and anything I please.
Shana- I'd be maxxing out all my credit cards and buying everything I ever wanted. That's always been my fantasy.
Alsop- I would take the wife and kids to the seashore and wait to die by the water. None of us know how to swim. It would be quick.
Jamal- There'd be chaos in the streets. I'd be joining that, man. Get my rocks off being destructive and vicious.
Carter- I'd be trying heroin and would never have to worry about getting off the stuff.
Kiki- Sex, mad sex!
Lionel- I would finally feel free enough to tell my parents I'm gay. I can't believe it would take the end of the world for me to do that but that's where we are.
Benny- I always wanted to rob a bank. A real bank. Get all that cash and have a ball. So yeah, I'd probably do that.
Sander- I would stay at home with my family and we would pray night and day that Jesus would save us.
Danny, Sander's son- I could finally tell my wacko religious parents to take Jesus and stuff him up their butts. Jesus butts, haw!
Darrell- This may sound stupid but I would masturbate constantly. I wouldn't stop until I'm dead. What a way to go, eh?
Mark- I don't know what I'd do but it would be something pretty cool, I can tell you that.
Josef- It'd be food for me. All I can eat. Especially bakery stuff. I like the sweets. Diabetes, rotten teeth, that's all out the window now, baby!
Judith- I'd spring Mama from the nursing home and we'd take a road trip until there was no more roads, or Earth for that matter.
Alisha- Sex and more sex! Men, woman or any other gender that wants to do it.
Carl- First thing I'm doing is finding Alisha.
Zeke- Oh dude, I for one would be welcoming our alien overlords. Surely they'd want to keep a few of us as pets or in their zoos or something. That's what I'd shoot for.
Tara - I'd kill myself first. I do not want to suffer climate catastrophe or alien invasion. I don't like being scared. Maybe I'd go bungee jumping without a rope?
Misha- I'm going to spend the whole week looking back through all my pictures and videos and mementos and keep reminding myself of all the things I loved in my short life.
Rudolph- I'd create my Wikipedia page. I always wanted to be important enough to have a Wikipedia page. Is that stupid?
Nate- I like my life so I'd just continue doing what I'm doing until I can't do what I'm doing anymore.
Lois- Definitely murder. And I know exactly who.
Traci - Is the TV still working? 'Cause I'd probably just sit and watch TV.
Allen- I would go to every animal shelter I could and release all the animals. No one should have to die in a cage.
Pete- That's simple. I would wish for our old way of life back and not stop until I got it.
Why, with one week left to live, what would you do?
May 26, 2023
After myriad refusals and in the hopes of getting the invitations to stop, I went to an acquaintance's house for dinner. What was served was unidentifiable and virtually inedible. His personal views were problematic and his emotional intelligence suspect. I pushed the alleged food around on my plate and drank a lot. When it was over I said my goodbyes, and although he thought I was just ending the evening, I was really ending any pretense of an acquaintanceship.
May 27, 2023
I have been out of town 3 of the last 5 days. Enough is enough! I am not a machine!
May 29, 2023
Some electronic issue was so vexing me that I couldn't sleep running through all the possible fixes that might work. I even got up a couple of times in the middle of the night to try out my ideas but nothing solved the problem. I scoured the Internet looking for similar issues but nothing helped. I said to my wife that I'll bet it ends up being something simple - and by gar it was. I finally hit upon the correct solution two days later and it did turn out to be something simple. Now my world is right again. Ah.
May 30, 2023
Overheard a young woman talking to herself at the grocery.
-- If I do what she wants I'm screwed and if I don't, I'm still screwed. There must be some way out of this mess. God, look how expensive these cookies are! I could get Herman involved, oh, wouldn't he love to be the hero, but it would just end up being a bigger mess. Herman's a twit. Maybe Kiley would help? But I hate Kiley. She's so fake. Shit. This is bad. God, I can't even afford to eat anymore! Why is this stuff so expensive?! I know what she wants. She's made it painfully clear. Can I keep avoiding her? What if I leave town? If she can't find me she can't make me do it. I could go to Sara's place in Nelson. Crash with her and Brad. God, he's such a hunk. I wouldn't trust myself. I'd do Brad and Sara would throw me out. Then I'd have to move back here and face her again. What if I just starve to death because at these prices I can't even afford to eat. Would that satisfy her? God, I'm so screwed.
May 31, 2023
Our house is ¼ mile off the lake and yet I saw a mallard duck with 5 chicks walking down our driveway this morning. The babies were too young to fly, which means their nest is most likely up in our field. That means they had to avoid, bears, coyotes, foxes, raccoons and other predators that would certainly like a tasty young chick or two. And yet here they are. To mama mallard and her brood: May you enjoy fresh water soon.
