Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.
–Wystan Hugh Auden

Go through your phone book, call people and ask them to drive you to the airport. The ones who will drive you are your true friends. The rest aren’t bad people; they’re just acquaintances.
–Jay Leno

Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts.
–Rita Mae Brown

Never suffer youth to be an excuse for inadequacy, nor age and fame to be an excuse for indolence.
— Benjamin Haydon

———————
Well, dammit, indolence was my whole plan for the next four days. Now what?

Another LOL’er from TopFive.com

Yesterday’s headlines left me flat, but these tickled me today. You (my vast internet audience of two) should subscribe to this newsletter, it nearly always has something hilarious in it. The Club Top Five is the best one, but you have to pay a little bit for it. Works out to $1.50/month. 🙂 Cheapest original humor on the internet.

–==++ TopFive’s News Headlines ++==–

Bush: Bin Laden Is Determined to Take Advantage of My Mistakes

Army Denies Tapping Suicide Hotlines to Find Recruits

Enemy of Counterfeit Vietnamese Noodles Is Faux-Pho Foe

Anne Heche Battles Ex-Husband for Custody of Mothership

FBI: U.S. Is Well-Defended Against Cyber-Terrorists [Er, No,
You’re Not!]

Study: Saturn’s Rings Are Dense Clumps, Much Like That Stuff
Around Uranus

Credits: David Kass (1), Bill Muse (2,3), Mike Ranston (4,6),
Jerry L. Embry (5)

Send submissions to headlines@topfive.com

Two of them made me lol so I had to share.

–==++ TopFive’s News Headlines ++==–

Bush: Carter Is Irrelephant

Al Gore Successfully Lures Two Lost Whales Back to Ocean

“Star Wars” Turns 30; I Turn Really Really Old

G-8 Leaders Promise More Whatever for Africa

“Hello… Jerry!”: Falwell Compliments God on His Perfect
“Newman” Impression

Barry Bonds Implodes Into Quantum Steroid Singularity

Credits: Jerry Embry (1,2,4), Travis Ruetenik (3),
Brad Osberg (5), Mark Niebuhr (6),

Send submissions to headlines@topfive.com

I was looking at my calendar Friday and noticed I had a hair appointment for Saturday.  At 7:30.  45 minutes from my house.

Was I on crack when I made that appointment?  I think SO.  Good God.  Luckily the car knew the way and I slept for most of the drive.

I made it on time, did the usual Shrink session with V and noticed a sign for a Gourd Festival on my way back.  Gourd Festival?  Who knew?  What the hell was a Gourd Festival?  I thought about it all the rest of the way back and decided I had to go, and so should Bob. (We grew a lot of gourds on the back fence growing up so I have a bit of a Thing for gourds, anyway.)

I also saw a smashing yellow old cherry Corvette convertible driving around and figured out there was a car show going on in the dealer’s lot on the way to our house.

I talked Bob into the Gourd Festival and showed him the car show on the way (his reward for going to a gourd festival w/out grumbling), so we stopped and wandered around looking at beautiful old muscle cars and various other phenomenal old specimens.  Loved me that 63 Corvette and also a dandy old Camaro … and a couple of great old Mustangs with the ponies stamped into the leather seats.  And a big ol’ round (51?) Caddy, restored to all it’s former glory.  I like the cars that have the original equipment restored.  So does Bob, yet another of the many millions of things we seem to agree on.

The Gourd Festival was a lot bigger than I was expecting.  There were already about 300 cars when we got there.  Lots of gourds to buy, fresh (freshly dried, anyway) from the field and still covered in dirt and various other kinds of crap.  There were also a lot of vendors and artists selling their wares.  A lot of the stuff was that cutesie chicken and puppy junk that I despise, but it was tempered with several booths that had really gorgeous, artistic examples of gourd decorating.   I didn’t buy anything except a hot dog, though.  The stuff I liked was expensive.  Like this great warty anteater — $250.  Some beautiful little carved gourds with fall leaves cut out and painted on them were $30 – $200.  Lots of money.  If I was rich I would have bought several of them.

Now, I have to go buy a wood burning tool and leather dye instead and make my own.    I’ve been jonesing for some creative outlet anyway.

On the way back from the Gourd Festival we  saw some signs for New Solar Houses in the south part of town.  We went and looked. The models weren’t too bad, but there weren’t any batteries to store any electricity you might produce over what you needed. Doesn’t that seem sort of weird?  The two houses that were available but not models were cheesy.  Vinyl-that-looked-like-tile-type-cheesy.  Blech.  I’m not staying in this city, anyway.

This is from Defective Yeti, a fine and funny blogger and one of the only three on the planet I read fairly regularly.

Where’s Keith When You Need ‘Em? A woman is giving me her personal information over the phone:

“First name: Janet; Last name: Oakley. Email address: jaoakley@yahoo.com; that’s J as in James, A as in Andrew, O as in Oscar, A as in Andrew, K as in, uhhhhhhhhh, Welcomebackkotter …”