One of my old lines

The difference between Dr Pepper and Mr Pibb is Biochemistry. If Mr Pibb hadn't flunked Biochemistry, he'd be a doctor, too.

This belongs on a T-shirt!

I ordered the first 2 T-shirts today that have things I wrote:

Think Globally
Act Locally
Go Hang Yourself

and

Take it with a
grain of
GESTALT

I need to decide if I want to sell them on the internet.

I also need to decide what other things to say.

I smiled just now

I performed 6 minutes of stand-up comedy tonight. It wasn't very good and I was the (something like) 15th out of 17 performers. The crowd had gone; only comics were left. It's tough to get those guys to laugh.

While browsing the web tonight, I thought of something I wanted to post. And so I came to this site and saw the two pictures of Starbuck I'd put up after he died. Despite the fact I miss him terribly every day, I smiled instead of bursting into tears. He would have liked my funny idea, too. Or, at least, he would have *pretended* to like it, just to humor me. He was a very good audience for comedy material. If his spirit is nearby, he'll be laughing when he reads this.

I saw an ad for Oxnard College in Ventura County (Southern California). I thought, "The way to get your Oxnard is to rub its belly."

Starbuck would have enjoyed the silliness. And then we would have played.

Starbuck (4/9/1997-11/26/2010)

Various of my pages feature pictures of my Cardigan Welsh Corgi, Starbuck. I have a collection of his photos on my Facebook page, Starbuck photos on Facebook

He may have been the most beautiful dog this world has ever seen. Not just his looks, which were extraordinary, but his sweet and loving nature.

"Black Friday" was really a dark day for us this year. On the morning after Thanksgiving, we had to put Starbuck to sleep. Even now, a month later, when I write words like these, I want to shout to our veterinarian, "Stop! Don't do it! Don't kill our boy!" But I can't un-do what's done.

I wouldn't, of course, even if I could. It was the right decision. I know if we'd asked Starbuck, he would have said, "I want to love you and make you happy forever. I don't care about the pain." But we loved him, too. We couldn't let him suffer.

His ashes and a little clay paw print are 6 feet away. I don't pull those things out when I want to talk to him. I just talk to the place I know he'd be sitting if he were here.

Playing Doctor's Office

I went to see the doctor Tuesday. The receptionist said, "He's running behind." I said, "I know all about that. I had to start taking Imodium."

Islamic Martyrs Get 72 Virgins?

I've been thinking about this whole "72 Virgins" thing for a while. I wrote a joke about it I published here before that I'll retell below, but I got to wondering what the specific attraction is. What about it would help convince a young man to become a suicide bomber?

I have an idea, but nobody with whom to confirm or deny it. Here it is anyway.

The little I know about Islam suggests they frown upon (forbid?) premarital sex. That means many/most/all the young men who blow themselves up have never had sex before. If you were one of those men, you wouldn't want to get to Heaven/Paradise, have sex for the first time, and have the woman tell you, "You are the worst lay I ever had, you premature-ejaculating pencil dick." I can see how that wouldn't be a very desirable experience. It wouldn't make *me* want to blow myself up.

The "72 Virgins" offer, on the other hand, is enormously attractive. For 72 times in a row a woman would say, "So THAT is sex. I had always wondered. Making love with you was the most fabulous experience of my life." Or something like that.

By removing the sexual performance anxiety from young male virgin zealots, those issuing the orders have a far greater likelihood their men will follow through with their missions.

BTW, there are many *female* suicide bombers, too. I wonder what they get promised.

And now the aforementioned joke ...

Islamic suicide bombers are promised 72 virgins in Heaven. If Popeye the Sailor became a suicide bomber, he'd get 73. He'd have that extra virgin, Olive Oyl.

Dating somebody at work

When I was very, very young, I dated a woman where I worked.

We all gave her a 21st birthday party (I *said* I was young), and somebody brought a bottle of wine -- but no corkscrew. I handed her the bottle and asked (in a normal voice), "Why don't you suck out the cork?" Everybody, including the girl and me, thought this was very funny.

Only a very special set of circumstances made that moment work. But it did.