Let the pun continue!

Another pun for you wordsmith fans.
A set of jumper cables walks into a bar and looks around the place
with a shady sort of look in his eyes.
The bartender says to him "I'll serve you, but don't you start
anything!"

Very Punny!

I enjoy a good pun. I enjoy a bad pun even more! Here is a pun for you. You decide if it's good or bad.

_______________________________________________________________________________

A tribesman consulted his medicine man about a pain in his stomach that had persisted for three months.

"For something as long as that." said the medicine man, "I have a more drastic remedy than the herbs I normally prescribe. Chew on this leather thong every day. It's 28 inches long: chew one inch every day, and come back at the next full moon."

The patient dutifully did as directed, and at the next moon he returned to the medicine man.

"How do you feel?" the medicine man asked.

"The thong is ended, but the malady lingers on."

The Tie Makes The Man

A few days ago, I was standing in the heart of Times Square in NYC. When I say the heart of Times Square, I mean it: the corner of Broadway and West 43rd Street. I was very early for a lunch time business meeting. I was dressed professionally in my black suit with my red Donald Trump tie. I would describe my appearance as "looking like a VIP".

A man walks up to me, he was dressed as business like as I was. 

"Excuse me," he starts, "are you working right now?"

Not really understanding his tone, I said "Do you mean right this minute?"

"No. I mean are you employed right now? Because I'm not. I've been out of work about nine months. Things are getting tough and as you can imagine I'm trying to find work where I can. Do you mind if I give you my resume? I would appreciate any help you could give me"

He handed it to me without waiting for my response. I mumbled something, but I don't remember what.

"Thanks much", he just kind of laid out there, then went on his way down Broadway. He walked in some sort of gait between desperate, lost, and drunk. Although I'm pretty sure he had not been drinking that morning.

I took a quick glance at the resume, the stuffed it in my bag. His name was Tony, and from his job history (sales, sales, and more sales) it wasn't hard to figure out why he has having a difficult job search.

At this point most people standing where I was would have thought something like "there, but for the grace of some all knowing deity, go I."

Not me.

Not that I didn't feel bad for the guy, nor do I wish worse on him. But I did feel that I would never be that guy. Could I be out of work one day? Sure, any one of us could. In fact some of you reading this are unemployed. However I don't expect that I would be wandering the streets of NYC looking for strangers to hand my resume to. I believe my network, my skills, and my education will prevail. I know that may come across as arrogant, but I just believe it is confidence. Which, by the way, is an attractive trait when dating and when job searching. Along with a Donald Trump tie.

Besides, I would rather go into the human resource office with an appointment and hand my resume to a total stranger.

The Raber Family Euphemism, a.k.a. pass the grated parmesan

Every family has some sort of term of endearment: sweetie, sugar-pie, honey bunch, darling, dear, lovey-dovey, tootsie. In my house our term is: the pasta special.

Yes I will explain.

Many years ago, when I was dating my future wife, her family hosted me for dinner at a restaurant called Don Pepe in Newark, NJ. It's an excellent Portuguese place, and where my wife and I eventually had our wedding reception (that alone is about 20 different stories). On this particular day, my wife's grandparents joined us. Her grandfather at the time was well over ninety years old. For dinner he ordered the pasta special. It's always the same special at this restaurant, it's penne in a red cream sauce and features shrimp and scallops. I find it excellent, but on this day, Grandpa found it a little al dente. Actually, he found it a lot al dente. So much so that he wanted to return it. Grandma, trying to be non-confrontational told Grandpa she would trade dishes with him. He insisted that the dish be returned as it was not cooked right. He was so adamant about this he announced to the table that when the waiter came back to take the dish he would "stick it up his a**". 

After you have been married to someone for a while, and have children, and prefer not to use vulgar words in front of them, you find phrases to help censor yourself. My wife and I adapted "pasta special" from Grandpa's usage that day and use it to fit a wide variety of needs. 

"What should I do with this? You should pasta special it!" 

"Who the pasta special left this out!" 

"Don't make me come in there and pasta special you!" 

Over time we adapted a little to much. 

"Do I look like a pasta special you?" 

"Why am I always the one doing the pasta special?"

"This spaghetti recipe is not working, it's just a big pile of pasta special!"

It's like my parents always said: "Don't go putting socks on horses if you don't know how to knit wool hats!" (If you know what I mean!)

Perspective From A Father Of Three Premature Children

Today is my youngest son's fourth birthday. We will be celebrating with a party at a local indoor kids recreation center, complete with jungle gym, movie room, pizza, cake, and a "grab-nabber" game.

I've posted on the blog previously about my family's involvement in the March of Dimes and their fundraising. Each time we celebrate a child's birthday in our house, my wife and I are reminded of our three wonderful opportunities to be parents. It's something we lose sight of way to often, namely the other 362 days of the year. It real easy, after the years, to forget that advances in medicine, and the hard work of a few doctors, made all of the annoying days possible. Some readers know exactly what I'm talking about, having been through the exact same experiences as we have. I'm asking you to be just a little more patient and understanding with your kids today. Some parents never got to take their baby home from the hospital. We did. We show our gratitude by doing our best to ensure greater opportunities for future parents of pre-mature babies. 

I'll spend the day reminding myself that the number of pieces of cake my son has for his birthday is beyond insignificant. Tomorrow, I'll go back to being the strict dad. 

e-books, the final frontier.

So I've been reading a little bit about this "price-war" that is breaking out regarding e-books, publishers, authors, and consumers. Of course I have thoughts on this, and now I share.

 

First, I think this is all a rerun of what already happened to the music industry and what is happening to the newspaper and magazine industry.  I can remember the moment I had my personal falling-out with music CD's, September 1997. I took over 200 music CD's to a small record store in Bayside, NY and sold them for about $100. Of course I needed the money, but I was also beyond sick and tired of paying $17.99 for one great song, one good song, and 10 pieces of junk. Thank goodness Apple brought along the iTunes store and restored the ability for consumers to buy only the songs they wanted. As society moves to greater acceptance and usage of electronic devices to access media sources, the old model of physically printing and distributing media is going to die. I remember being a newspaper delivery boy in NYC back in the 1980's. The management of the papers were always complaining about fixed costs - driver's pay, paper and ink, writers expenses, returns from the newsstands, and 13 year old boys trying to make some candy money. It was a never ending list of "costs associated with bringing you a quality newspaper". Along comes electronic distribution via the web and mobile devices, combined with user generated content, and what do you get - complaints of the old model getting attacked! The old model didn't work! Embrace the new model - poof - end of truck driver no-show jobs, no more holdouts in the printing plant, finally that senior guest editorial writer getting $150,000 for his once a month contribution can be eliminated. With today's electronic formats, I specialize my news to my criteria and availability. Travel news for Walt Disney World everyday, not just in the Sunday Special Spring Travel Section once a year. Two examples of this business model (not necessarily the content or subject matter) are The Christian Science Monitor (homepage) and Huffington Post (homepage) If you have problems in you business model, you should be thrilled when something challenges your model.

 

Second, yes I believe $34.99 is too much for a book. I'm not cheap. I just believe that most books are not that good, there are too many published authors, and there are too many books from the same authors. The value of having read the book does not out-weight the cost of the book. I like Jim Cramer, I think his book "Real Money" was excellent, but the three follow up books? Unnecessary duplicates. I read every book in the "Harry Potter" series but I bought all of them at Costco (great item on their pricing model for books here). One of the first apps I added to my iPod Touch was Amazon's Kindle Reader, and I am splurging on free - or very close to free - versions of the classic books that I never got to read (Sherlock Holmes, A Christmas Carol, The Art of War, Last of the Mohican's).  I am not above paying for a book that exceeds my value proposition. I just bought two new releases from Amazon (The Four Hour Work Week, Crush It!). Nor am I removed from paying for an e-version of a book I already read (The Great Gatsby, 1984). As with music CD's, the full price that publishers expect consumers to pay for the 29th book from an outspoken political pundit is not in line with the product that is being delivered. Are new books worth about $10 bucks? I say ten dollars is generous for some of these new releases. The odd part of this price issue is Amazon could earn more money if they sold e-books at higher prices.

 

Lastly, there is one very large reason why I know that books, movies, magazines, music, radio, educational materials, serial television shows, and anything else you can get into a mobile media device, will eventually get into a device is this - Star Trek does not have any Hudson News locations.  There's restaurants, lounges, bars, holodecks, and work  - sickbay, engineering, transporter room, shuttle landing bay, the bridge, etc. Nowhere in any episode have I ever seen someplace to get a newspaper. Clearly these stores do not exist in the 24th century, along with bathrooms.

The NFL Conference games

Since I know everyone wants to hear my opinion, here is my prediction
on today's games.

If the Jets played the Colts 10 times, the Colts would win 8 of them
by double digits. The other two would go to the Jets by less than 3
points. The Jets have been paying excellent football the last four
games and remind me alot of the 2008 Arizona Cardinals, 2007 New York
Giants, and the 2006 Pittsburgh Steelers. Those team had one plus -
the ability to make the big offense play. The Jets can run and play
defense, along with excellent special team play. When up against the
wall I don't see this bunch coming up with that play. I recognize
Shonne Green had some big runs, but they were just that, running plays
that turned out to be big. Although Bill Belichik tried, at some point
in the game Peyton Manning will have the football and he will be
determined to win this and go back to the Super Bowl.

On the Saints versus the Vikings, I think the same desire that drives
Manning drives Sean Payton and his team. They want it more than anyone
else. Their offensive play calling is spectacular and their defense
(Darren Sharper anyone?) makes the stops they need to make. The
Vikings are sharp, Sidney Rice is (insert yor our superlative), and
Brett Farve is playing at a championship. With all of that, Reggie
Bush will still be the game changer for New Orleans.

My prediction is an Indianapolis versus New Orleans Super Bowl.

Disclaimer - Any other Super Bowl matchup would not surprise me,
although I don't expect it.

I'm headed to the couch now, pretzels and beer in hand.