SLIDESHOW: Motivators

(Sent by Pat Gainey)

COLUMN: Days of the Living Dead

By Tobin Barnes
My father-in-law was a mortician.

Said he’d be the last one to let me down. Har!

Didn’t work out that way, but the image has stuck. I see him pushing the button, the motor kicks in, and soon I’m six feet under.

A goner.

But sometimes, even while we’re alive, we have to die a little to stay vital.

You’ve been there.

Every once in a while—to merely survive the day-to-day rat race—a guy’s got to turn into a zombie.

Know what I mean?

Yeah...that’s right...kinda become undead.

Doesn’t mean he’s got to stop functioning, just that he has to take it down a couple notches from maybe prime operating performance.

Ironically enough, it’s actually a survival technique.

Oh, the guy’s still functioning when he’s in his zombie mode, still going through the motions—just not completely there. Numb might be a better description.

And numb can be good.

That way, in the undead state, time passes during unpleasant periods without the pain of being truly present.

You’ve seen the movies about the undead. We guys get just like them sometimes.

The zombies stumble and bumble and mumble across the screen. They grab at things, but miss. They chase after things, but stagger along, stumble and fall. They try to communicate, but it’s just stupid cave man talk. Aargh! Urpp!

And who can blame them? Heck, they just climbed out of a grave, for crying out loud. It’s been a bad couple decades. They aren’t what they used to be. They can’t even put their arms down.

But, after a fashion, zombies still go about their business, though admittedly not very effectively—only victims they ever catch are their cousins, the brain dead—but nonetheless their awkward gallumphiness has a certain impact on others.

After all, zombies are hard to miss. They meander into the local bar or stop-and-rob, people are bound to scream.

And so we guys do the zombie routine during our rough patches, like during a rainy weekend with no golf or midway through an endless project at work. Or like Dilbert during a meeting.

Also helps when a guy’s short on cash. Turns into a zombie, he doesn’t care. (After all, real zombies don’t carry around much cash. Heck, the undertaker took it.)

Like I said, a guy feels less pain when he’s like a zombie—makes things more bearable, if not necessarily pleasant.

Time enters a fog, and when he resurrects, he’s on the other side of an obligation.

I was in zombie mode for a time last week. Uh huh, I was undead.

I was in the nether state of there and not there.

Oh, I was breathing. I was talking, kinda. And I was functioning at a minimal level, I suppose.

But people probably looked at me and thought, “Guy’s a zombie!”

Didn’t bother me, though.

Nice thing about being a zombie, you don’t care what people think.

Besides, now I feel a lot better. Almost alive.

THE ETHICIST: Wet Work

COLUMN: One wedding: Two wives

By Tobin Barnes
A guy gets married and buys a house.

Happens all the time.

So what’s he got now?

“A wife and a house,” you say, somewhat bemused by such an obvious question.

“Maybe a path to true happiness,” you continue, thinking there must be more to it. “Perhaps marital bliss.”

Good try, but you’re wrong.

Scratch the surface, oh naive one, to see that what he really has now is two wives. That’s right, two.

“You jest,” you say.

“Nay,” I say.

You see, as I said, a wife and a house is two wives.

And to make matters worse, they’re kind of like sisters, both assiduously concerned about maintenance and upkeep, much more than the guy would ever be.

And maybe even more accurately, one is like the lawyer for the other.

Wife number one, the person, not only wants to keep herself up to the nines—some men would call this high maintenance—but she’s also an oftentimes rabid advocate for wife number two, the house.

Men, like me, are quite content to slowly and quietly descend into innocuous deterioration, if not dilapidation—my personal goal. Women and houses, on the other hand, fight the process tooth and nail.

“Women,” as the Roman poet Ovid observed 2,000 years ago, “are always buying something.” (Uh huh, the breed hasn’t changed much.)

This perfected process of perpetual purchase keeps them up to date. Something is always needed, whether it be shoes—always shoes, for crying out loud—clothes, toiletries, you name it. Common words heard around the house are “I need some new....”

But not to worry, all the things women purchase are “on sale.”

Those two words are meant to make men feel better as they trundle off to the poor house, which, by the way, is also “on sale.”

Now this first wife would be plenty for any man. Shoot, one wife is overwhelming.

Add to that the silent demands of the second wife, the house.

Maintenance is a house’s raison d’etre, it’s whoop-tee-do.

At any given moment in a house’s life span, something—large, small, but always expensive—needs to be done. Home ownership is a contract with the devil, and he’s heavily invested in lumber yards, hardware stores, and appliance outlets.

The house produces a never-ending mantra of “And there’s something else that needs to be done.” Except the message is delivered wordlessly with barely heard, but still naggingly audible, sighs. The house plays the silent pity game. One way or another, it will be sure to let the man know that this thing broke, that thing wore out, and the other thing looks shabby.

Yeah, the house, the man’s second wife, puts on a pity party and invites his first wife, who quickly becomes the house’s vocal advocate, the house’s Johnnie Cochran.

Uh huh, “The house is a pit, so you must refit.”

That’s right. You’re the guilty one.

Both wives say so.

Time to cough it up.

Homer Simpson Quotes

Here's a great way to waste time. Some actually have some depth. (Click the title)

THE ETHICIST: Milkshake Misdeed?

Will Ferrell playing George Bush

Roy Wilson sent me a video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWdiHtv6T6s
and that led me to the one above. Both versions are good.

COLUMN: It's Not Your Lucky Day

By Tobin Barnes
A good Chinese restaurant is a treat. (Uh huh, I know people who wouldn’t agree—hard-core carnivores, mostly—but for me it is.)

And then at the end of the meal, there’s another treat—a fortune cookie. Yeah!

Can’t really tell you why fortune cookies turn people’s cranks. Just one of those things, I guess. I’m as big a sucker as anyone.

Course, it’s kind of a sweet and sour moment, too, because you’re also getting the bill along with it, but, hey, so it goes. Besides, maybe it’s not your bill this time, and so sometimes it can be “all good,” as they say in the hood.

Anyway, you’re getting this fairly decent, vanilla-flavored cookie—talk about a cookie-cutter, every-one-is-the-same cookie, this is it—and even though you’ve already eaten a barrel full of sprouts and shoots, you’ve still got room for it. That’s opposed to those gut-busting, 3000-calorie desserts you get at other restaurants. (Mystery to me how people manage to pound down those chocolate mountains after a big meal.)

In that same little cellophane cookie package, you’re also getting this equally vanilla, middle-of-the-road, nobody-gets-hurt fortune on a little piece of paper locked inside the cookie.

As innocuous as the fortune typically is, people always—never seen anyone pass it up—crack the cookie to see what their fortune is, then pass it around to others at the table. It’s good for a moment’s har-har, if nothing else.

Cynics have made fun of this ritual with sometimes-hilarious mock fortunes. Here’s my favorite: “Dogs will lead police to your body.”

Now fortunes like that would certainly add spice, a little ginger maybe, to the end of a till-then satisfying meal. But, obviously, no self-respecting Chinese restaurant that wants to stay in business is going to go that far, even for a tentative black-humor laugh.

Nevertheless, according to a New York Times article by Tony Cenicola, there’s a fortune cookie company that wants to put a little zing into their cookie messages, making them much less bland than normal.

For example, “Today is a disastrous day. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”

Not surprisingly, that might apply to most people on any given day.

And here’s another one: “It’s over your head now. Time to get some professional help.”

Ditto.

Yeah, these are a little more pointed than some of the typical Confucian fortune cookie bromides, such as, “If you enjoy what you do, you'll never work another day in your life.”

Good thought, but been there, done that.

The new wave fortunes are contained in the cookies of Wonton Food of New York City, the country’s biggest fortune cookie maker. So don’t be shocked if you get one, as their new-style cookies are spreading into restaurants across the nation.

But to admittedly mixed reaction.

The Times article quotes one blogger who got the “professional help” cookie: “I shot the audacious baked item a dirty look and proceeded to eat it. And I hope it hurt.”

Bernard Chow, marketing coordinator at Wonton Food, says “We wanted our fortune cookies to be a little bit more value-added. We wanted to get some different perspective, to write something that is more contemporary.”

Mission accomplished. Here’s some more:

“Perhaps you’ve been focusing too much on yourself.”

“Your luck is just not there. Attend to practical matters today.”

“There may be a crisis looming, be ready for it.”

Yowsa!

And here you were, just out for the night, looking for some wonton soup, a couple egg rolls, and a plate of beef and broccoli.

THE ETHICIST: Dirty Money?

THE ONION: Uh, Classified

I don't know whether this is funny or scary.


Proposed (Classified) Bill Will Defend Against Flesh-Eating (Classified)

Jon Stewart: "Coalition of the Diminishing"

Laugh Lines: Jay Leno

This is a great batch through to the end. (Click the title.)

Laugh Lines: Conan O'Brien

Well above average.

Brother Don's O'Gorman Girls Tennis Team Wins South Dakota State Title

His wife, my sister-in-law (well, obviously), is the assistant coach. (Click the title for full story from Argus Leader)

COLUMN: It's a fierce up and down battle

By Tobin Barnes
Think the Hundred Years War was long? The Wars of the Roses?

They can’t hold a candle to the War of the Sexes. It began in the mists of time and won’t end until human life finally morphs into a higher form. And by the looks of things, that higher life form isn’t coming anytime soon.

Battles rage on many fronts in the War of the Sexes. Men have their sacred ground where they prefer to fight and women theirs.

But one battle front rages where neither side will concede an inch to the other. It’s where the battles are most virulent in nature and no-holds-barred in aspect.

That’s right. You guessed it.

It’s on the home front in the battle over the thermostat.

Man, it can be merciless.

Most of the tactics are based on subterfuge and chicanery.

Men quietly and secretly creep across enemy lines to turn the thermostat down, while women quietly and secretly tiptoe over the trip wires to turn it back up. Uh huh, both sides utilize the sneak attack. They appear to be doing something else, but that something else always takes them past the thermostat where the heat gets jacked back up or jacked back down.

Then, before long, the other side realizes he or she has been blind-sided again. Bitter protests arise and plans laid to counter-attack at the earliest opportunity.

Back and forth, back and forth it goes. Thermostat manufacturers will soon recommend regular dial lubrication, maybe WD-40, because the control gets moved so much.

But I have just acquired a new weapon to use in the battle on the heat front. It’s a programmable remote.

We just got a gas stove to replace our pellet stove, and it’s regulated digitally with that remote.

Hallelujah!

You see, I’m half geek.

I don’t mind reading manuals and instructions. I almost kinda dig it. Yeah, I’m that far gone.

My wife, on the other hand, abhors instructions. In her eyes, they’re the bane of mankind.

But she can do puzzles—you know, like those two bent nails hooked together?—as if she’s Einstein. I just marvel at such ability. Give me those two nails and ask me to separate them? Soon my eyes glaze over. I hate puzzles and riddles. Usually don’t even try.

Sudoku? Forgetaboutit.

But detailed instructions? Love ’em.

And this thermostat remote has detailed instructions on steroids.

I can set a standard temperature to start the stove and turn it off. I can even pre-program four temperatures a day Monday through Friday and four temperatures a day for the weekend.

My wife will never—I repeat, never—read the instruction manual.

This is a major coup in the battle of the thermostat.

All she’ll ever be able to do is turn the stove on or off. Of course, even that’s a dangerous weapon in this grim war. If only I could dismantle that option and keep the operation strictly programmable.

Hey, maybe that’s in the manual, too.

Gallery of the Odd