Sunday, August 9, 2009

New American Bill of Rights

Star 11 Our founding fathers were brilliant and conscientious. But didn’t foresee everything. So, America needs a second Bill of Rights. We need the right to:

1) No hidden fees in airline travels. Like Southwest.
2) To expect to see other cars signal before turning or changing lanes.
3) See uninterupted Guests on TV.
4) Good, cheap root beer.
5) Tacos, too.
6) Have employees get raises when CEOs get increased bonuses.
7) Eliminate torture whether it’s waterboarding or listening to the theme song to Barney the Dinosaur.
8) Have our doctors see us on time, no matter what system we get. How hard is it to be on time for the first patient?
9) Clear labeling if high-fructose corn-syrup is used.
10) Understandable phone bills, whether land-line or cellular.

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Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Things That Scare Me

   AfraidNuclear war and global economic depression, although arguably bad, do not scare me. I live with it. They are always there but in the background. Out of sight, out of mind. The following things do concern me greatly and fill me with dread.

1) School parking lots just before and after school. Demolition derby, anyone.
2) Mushrooms. Why were they created?
3) Departments of Motor Vehicles.
4) The Stamp Act of 1775. I’m gradually getting over this one.
5) Simultaneous scheduling of kids’ baseball games.
6) Tic-tac-toe when played against professionals.
7) The lines for food in the bleachers of any Major League Baseball team.
8) Teeth retainers. Not as bad as braces, but they still enter my dreams.
9) The number 172,897. Don’t know why.
10) The uneasy feeling that the treaty of Westphalia in 1648, the one that ended the Thirty Years War, will somehow lead to our government banning tacos and root beer.
11) I will have to take a test tomorrow morning in econometrics and I have not looked at the course’s text book in over two decades.
12) I will somehow be out in public wearing plaid pajamas.
13) Public restrooms without toilet paper.

- Paul De Lancey, First Lord of Fun
www.lordsoffun.com

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Wednesday, April 29, 2009

How The Media Works - 2

 Siamese Twins  Gentle Reader, you may have gotten the impression that I am a curmudgeon railing against media in its entirety. But this would be a false impression on two counts. First, I am a gentle and cuddly as a Teddy Bear. Second, those fine newspapers one finds at fine checkout counters everywhere have made me smile many times.

     My favorite headlines:

1) Archaelogists Find Skeleton of Satan, Call It the Find of the Century.
    Expert Analysis: Of come on. Proof that Satan existed? Proof that he died? With Satan gone will we never again be tempted to take that last slice of key-lime pie when no one is looking? All this and only the find of the century? What’s a baddie to do to get millennial billing?

2) Ten New Ways to Talk to the Dead.
    Expert Analysis: Boy, am I red faced on this one. I didn’t even know the ten old ways.

3) Tap the Amazing Healing Power of Ketchup.
    Expert Analysis: I knew it. Soon, those scientists will find out about the wondrous properties of tacos Taco, Swedish meatballs, and root beer.

4) Woman Steals Three Headed Baby.
    Expert Analysis: This one always brings a tear to my eyes; your average Jane Baby-Stealer will never again get press by stealing two-headed babies ever again.

    Well, that is all the headlines I can remember. So if you’ll excuse me I’m going to the kitchen for a ketchup sandwich

- Paul De Lancey, First Lord of Fun

visit his website at www.lordsoffun.com

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Wednesday, March 11, 2009

The Suicidal Ants of San Diego County

Buggie 2

    Was it a sign of the end of the world? Should we be stocking up on mini-tacos?

    All I know for sure that in my home town of Poway, cultural and ant capital of San Diego County, the ant population plunged last week. Specifically, they plunged to their deaths by the thousands in my home. In my CowboyMetrics side-by-side refrigerator. In the freezer section.

    Why did they kill themselves in my refrigerator? Was it a long-postponed attempt to lay a guilt trip on me for that childhood ant farm? Where they all died? Honestly, I didn’t mean it. Perhaps I filled my farm with soldier ants from differing colonies. I’ll never know. I’ll just have to leave with the horrible uncertainty for the rest of my life.

    Why did they commit mass suicide where they did? For a full day they streamed into the freezer section to meet their icy deaths. Who among us can really feel an ant’s angst? Were they exo-skeletal weary of the daily, relentless onslaught of spiders, lizards, Rustler’s Round Up ant traps, and the terrifying stomping action of the human foot? Did they finally say, “Enough, cruel world!”

    Or was Norway stirring things up again? After all, this country brought us Viking raids and lutefisk, the worst-tasting, smelliest, glueist food the world has ever seen.

    So, why can’t Norway’s dysfunctional lemmings infect Poway’s ants with their severe brand of defeatism? Before the days of cable TV, I doubt many Powegian ants ever heard of suicidal lemmings. Now, look what happens.

    Mass extinctions of species by suicide. It might be the end of the world. Bummer. Or maybe, I’ve just invented a better ant trap.

- Paul De Lancey, First Lord of Fun

visit Paul’s website at www.lordsoffun.com

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