Are You Annoying?

    This is a common question that many may ask about
themselves.  If you are not among the many who ask this vital
question, you are sorely in danger of the answer being, "Yes."
    Oftimes, it is easy to assess one’s own level of
annoyance, by answering simple questions such as, "Do I make
noises or splash while eating?" "Do I dance in public places not
intended for dancing?" and "Is my nick-name ‘Pest’?"
    For others, these kinds of simple questions are not
enough.  If you are a friend indeed, take the following short quiz
to assess your personal A.Q. (Annoyance Quotient).

        Quiz

1.  When confronted with a major decision, I usually . . .
    a.  make a logical choice.
    b.  cry.
    c.  quote Nietzsche.
    d.  sing show tunes.

2.  For breakfast, I like to eat . . .
    a.  eggs and toast.
    b.  cereal.
    c.  out.
    d.  whatever’s on the next guy’s plate.

3.  When a party gets dull, I . . .
    a.  go home.
    b.  go to another party.
    c.  spill the bean dip.
    d.  sing show tunes.

4.  My friends are always happy, if they hear that I will
drop . . .
    a.  in.
    b.  out.
    c.  a foal.
    d.  dead.

5.  My hobby is . . .
    a. collecting stamps.
    b.  collecting pancakes.
    c.  collecting enemies.
    d.  singing show tunes.

6.  I once got a girl . . .
    a.  flowers and a box of chocolates.
    b.  home late.
    c.  pregnant.
    d.  pissed-off.

7.  In a crises, what is the best way to alert the police?
    a.  Call 9-1-1.
    b.  Yell for help.
    c.  Send smoke signals.
    d.  Sing show tunes.

8.  I always have trouble remembering . . .
    a.  phone numbers.
    b.  people’s names.
    c.  to say, "Thank you."
    d.  which hand to extend for a handshake.

9.  When I started to attend public school, my parents hoped I
would not learn . . .
    a.  bad words.
    b.  bad habits.
    c.  the way home.
    d.  to sing show tunes.

10.  I moved to another town and changed my name . . .
    a.  for professional reasons.
    b.  as par of a witness protection program.
    c.  again.
    d.  because my family forced me.

    If you answered three or more of these questions with the
answer labeled c. or d., you may consider yourself certifiably
annoying.  If your answer to any of the odd-numbered questions
involved the singing of show tunes, either change your ways or
drop out of polite society and live as an outcast.
    Hopefully, this little self-improvement aid has been of
some assistance.  Good luck, and have pleasant friendships.

Strategy

This is a patterned writing I did a while back.  Tell me if you catch the pattern.

Another rejection and Bob turned around and hopped down off of the bar stool. Bob could see Carl sitting across the room, alone at a booth and waiting to hear Bob’s story. Calmly, Bob sat across the table and picked up the beer that Carl had ordered for him.

“Don’t even say it,” he said to Carl, before Carl could comment on another one who got away.

Every weekend that two of them had come to the same restaurant, sat at the same bar, used the same pick-up lines and got the same rejections. For two years, they had waited for Miss Right to see them for the great guys they were, but apparently no women in their world could appreciate them for who they really were.

“Go figure,” said Carl. “How do we break through to some of these mannequins?”

“I'm a great catch, Carl. Just the fact that I have a job, a car and a house should say something about my character,” answered Bob.

Kings have queens, but Bob and Carl had none, and not because they hadn’t been

trying. Love and romance just didn’t seem to be in their stars.

“Maybe we should change our approaches,” Bob thought out loud.

“Never!” answered Carl with conviction. “One man, one plan,” he said like he’d probably said a million times before. Persistence was definitely Carl’s long suit.

Quietly, Bob thought about what all of his rejections had in common, and there was only one thing he could think of: Lies.

“Reality check,” one girl had said to Bob as she stood up and left the bar, following Bob’s story about how he had killed a shark that was trying to snack on him at the beach. She was right because the whole story was straight out of Bob’s imagination.

“The truth is the answer,” Bob said to Carl. “Unless there's no choice, I plan to be honest, and the women will have to respect me for the strait-forward kind of man I am deep inside.”

“Very believable,” Carl chimed in.

“Well, it better be,” Bob continued, “because I’m not just some shallow red-neck with a loaded gun rack in my pick-up and no brain of my own.”

“Xerox that speech for me,” said Carl. “You know, it might come in handy as a pick-up line someday.”

“Zip the lip, Carl,” Bob said with a deflated look on his face, slumped back in his seat and ordered another beer.

How Tired I Art

(sung to the tune of "How Great Thou Art")

Oh, when I teach a class of English Grammar,

I wonder how more stupid kids can get.
They look at me as though I speak Swahili,
Or else they think I’m nuts, more than a bit.

(chorus)
It’s then I know I want to go to bed.
How tired I art.
How tired I art.
It’s then I feel much like the living dead.
How tired I art.
How tired I art.

When the alarm rings, in the morning early,
I wonder why I stayed up quite so late.
And then I go and teach those kids so squirrly.
I pray, a life of this won’t be my fate.

(chorus)

[dramatic key change]

One day, I know I’ll lose my mind completely.
Someday, I’m sure, my sanity will snap.
And then I’ll die, but please don’t feel too badly.
To me it’s just like an extended nap.

(chorus 2x)

Tyler Manners

The Rules of the Game

After three years of living in Europe and watching British news, sports and weather broadcasts, I find myself in a comfortable position to draw together my objective observations and inform the rest of the free world that which I have learned about the game of cricket. This is a game that has gone largely misunderstood and viewed with confusion. I intend to help you to understand this game and blow away that fog of confusion that surrounds it.

Cricket is primarily played by athletes not qualifying for more strenuous team sports or other sports that require a basic level of precision or endurance. The main area of ability must lie in their talent to apply zinc oxide decoratively and to match their whites. The players who are successful at this game must be gifted with coordination enough to skip without falling and the ability to throw a ball and have
it hit the ground at least four out of five throws.

In the center of the cricket field of play is a receptacle, in which (I am led to believe) are placed the ashes of some historically significant tree stump. Somewhere in relation to this receptacle--it might be on top--is the wicket. No one knows what the wicket is, since no one has
ever seen it, but the object of the game is for the bowler to throw a ball, in an attempt to dislodge the wicket from its appointed position.

Another player holds a long paddle and tries to swat the ball, thrown by the first player, away from its target. If the man with the paddle is successful in his swatting, apparently that round is finished, and a new bowler tries his hand at knocking off the allusive wicket.

If the bowler is able to dislodge the wicket, he then takes off into the playing field and runs aimlessly until the wicket can be collected and someone on the opposing team can stop him. If he isn't stopped before the ball is found, the man with the paddle is expected to give him a
brain concussion with same paddle. Now, if the wicket becomes lost in the fracas, it can be replaced easily. Since no one knows what it looks
like, many substitutions can be and are made. It is quite common to see rolled athletic socks, borrowed sets of car keys or broken pieces of pottery used in place of a lost wicket.

After several hours of play and scoring procedures that change with the wind, all play stops while the players bring their chaise lounges
onto the field and the Queen joins them for tea.

I won't try to explain the second half of the game, because no one has ever had the tenacity to watch an entire game. Suffice it to say that a
single game sometimes lasts several days. During this time hundreds of points are amassed by players completing something referred to as "runs."

Hopefully, I have cleared up some of the misconceptions about this sport. Even more than this, I hope you can sleep well knowing that people are demanding and receiving large salaries to play this game.

The Elegant Symphony

I went to a symphony concert tonight, and I have to
admit I was frightened. Not frightened as in Linda Blair's
head spinning around and around before that became something
that happens every day in your living room. More like
frightened as in, "Has civilization really descended to
THIS?"

If the symphony is anything, the symphony is elegant.
You check reality with your coat, and don't even consider
bringing your cellular or your beeper. If either went off
during the performance, you would be immediately sacrificed
to the muses, and the concert would continue in spite of the
interruption. But I digress.
Tonight, the program was filled with movements from
three Mozart symphonies and a short series of classical
guitar. During the adagio movement of the third Mozart
selection, the melee began.
The violins apparently came to a page turn in their
music, so the second violinist reached across the music stand
he shared with the first violinist to turn the page. As he
moved the loose page from the right to the left, the paper
slipped from his fingers. This did not alter the flow of the
music played by the first violinist because the page that fell
had already been finished, and the page now exposed was the
next in order.

This would have been no problem had it stopped there,
but it didn't.

The first violinist was sitting high in his seat with
his feet perched lightly below and somewhat underneath it.
The page of music that fell from the music stand landed under
the first violinist's right toes as he lifted them in time to
the music. As he put the toes of his right foot back down, the
paper between his shoe and the floor of the stage caused his
foot to slip backward.
The sudden movement of his foot effected his balance,
and he lurched forward quickly and dropped to a kneeling
position.
This change in position happened suddenly, and with a
great deal of force, but this concertmaster was a seasoned
performer, and he continued to play throughout. But this
wasn't the end. The page of music that started the trouble
was not finished.

When the first violinist dropped off of his chair
onto his knees, the music that was under his toes was
propelled out from behind him and into the face of an
unsuspecting violinist in the second row. The leap of the
first violinist and the music in his face took the man in the
second row quite by surprise, and he flinched to the left.
Of course, as one might suspect, this made him lose his
balance, causing both he and his chair to fall to the side.
The side he fell to happened to be where the woodwinds
were sitting. Amazingly, they continued to play and were
quite unaffected. It's not finished though.

The violinist from the second row who had fallen
moved into a sitting position, there on the floor beside the
woodwinds, in an attempt to follow the example of the first
violinist and continue playing. This was a noble gesture, but
as he moved, his foot bumped a glass of water sitting beside a
music stand in the woodwind section. The resulting water on
the stage floor, I am happy to say, left the woodwinds
completely unscathed, which is better than can be said for
the incredibly animated percussionist.

Normally, it is very interesting to watch the spry
movements of the percussionist from one timpani to the other.
This, however, was his undoing tonight. Of course, he slipped
on the water and headed for the floor. In a futile attempt to
grab for something stable, he put his hands onto the timpani,
which proved to be of little help.

The timpani went over onto one side, then rolled away
from the fallen percussionist and through the brass section.
The run-away drum prompted the brass players to come to their
feet and scatter. The quick movements of the entire brass
section startled one of the contrabass players. This
contrabass player looked toward the confusion and away from
the next musician in his own section. In the diversion, he
moved his bow hand in such a way as to inadvertently perform
exploratory surgery on the ear of the next contrabass player,
who must have experienced severe pain. The pain coaxed the
contrabass player to say something that the chelists in front
of him apparently took for "fightin' words."
By the time the movement was finished, several
musicians were seated on the floor, several others were
standing, a few were wet, a few were injured, and a fist-fight
was in progress.

The conductor successfully directed a majority of the
instruments to the end of the movement, and though the
audience was not expected to applaud until the next movement
was finished, there was a standing ovation.

The rest of the Mozart selection and the classical
guitar portion of the concert were both abandoned, I will
assume due to nervous trauma on the part of the conductor.

When the elegant audience left the concert hall, no one spoke
audibly about the goings on, but I can imagine that others
like myself were scarred.