You People Are Really a Lot of Fun

Ol' Hoss began yesterday telling you how he spends his day. This is more. Most of it is spent with you. It's really exciting because you get to watch me type fast. Mostly I am visiting other writers (now up to 103; added a guy yesterday).

7:05 a.m. I take a sip of Pero, the barley/rabbit doodoo concoction. No caffeine. Switch to root beer (Dad's). Caffeine sustains me while I walk to England to visit some of the men in my life. First is my buddy Shane, whose style of writing is mesmerizing. I drop in on my buddy Latigo Flint, "the greatest quickdraw the world has ever known" (and that you never heard of). He lives in the L.A. area, maybe with Luther Burbank, and where he hustles the Starbuck's waitress. He is guaranteed fun 4-5 times a week. In Kentucky, I visit a prison guard, Lejnd, who has fascinating stories about life in stir; a guy in St. Louis, Dave Morris, who can make money doing radio voiceovers because he has such a beautiful set of pipes (and a mighty fine wit in his b**g and in his comments to others); then off to Massachusetts to find The Pointmeister, Mike Ashley, a comic who finds some great stuff for my (your) amusement; a fella up in St. Paul, Chris Cope, a professional writer who speaks Welsh in his spare time to cover for the fact that he used to live in Fargo; Big Dave, a talented writer over in Michigan who is burdened by having his Daddy watching him like a hawk; and my longtime buddy Se7en, another template designer who did this very one for his chum Ol' Hoss. Se7en lives lived in New Orleans and his house got half-full of water.

7:25 a.m. -- Another potty run. Seat up, or down? Am in a hurry, so seat down. Cleaning lady comes today.

7:27 a.m. -- I do not forget my pal Debi over there in the Channel Island of Jersey. See it down there at the bottom? She is dynamite with "Jersey facts." Debi has four children and the typical travails. It is interesting to follow her mood swings. Through it all she maintains a nice, light touch. And her children are beautiful. Which puts me in the mood for another mother, Juno, a former New Yorker now plying the environs of Southern California. Juno is a superb story-teller. Almost always her tales do that upbeat thing at the end that brings you to laughter. Or tears.

7:35 a.m. -- Root beer on keyboard. Wife's hair dryer has fixed this before.... Now okay, except letter that comes at the end of the alphabet, which doesn't look at all like omega as in alpha to omega, sticks. Column will have to be written "a to y." Make note: "yen buddha."

7:55 a.m. -- Illinois is awake by now so I go see my buddy Lois Lane, whose name is not Lois Lane but let me tell you she is an ace reporter. She produces some of the best stuff you will ever get to read for free. Then I romp right over to Michigan where I can find Vicki Bennett, one of my bestest pals whom I would describe as brilliant. And so she is. She is the latest winner of "Blogging for Books," and one of the latest losers of a child to college. Another loser-to-college is my buddy Teacher Woman, up there in Washington State. Daughter Abby, whom I suspect is a Mensa candidate, just shipped off to college. Tears in Michigan and Washington. But they got a support group going; they'll be fine.

8:20 a.m. -- Wife calls from bedroom, wants to get up. Best part of my day.

(I am going to keep this up for awhile. I'm having a good time. And, no, I have not forgotten my two Judys, my two Tammys, my Jamie, Busy Mom, J&J's Mom, Tisha, the lady who went to a Cow College...)

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My favorite phrase today is holy shit. Adj., blessed by the Pope. Def.: Descriptive of a two-hour workload with one hour left to deadline. (Possible solution: Root beer on the keyboard.)

Such an Interesting Life I Lead

I think I will tell you about how I spend my day. I do not have any young children to put vomit on me, or to throw poop on the walls. I don't have any neighbors I can visit and write about because we're all deaf as posts. I am tethered to oxygen so I don't get stuck in traffic anymore. So all in all, I'd say I've got it better than you.

2:20 a.m. -- Go potty. I sit down on the toilet so I can find out if I raised the seat the last time I went. (I COULD test the seat with my hand, but that is not very sanitary. Sanitary is The American Way.)

6:30 a.m. -- Go potty. It is now light enough to see that I didn't raise the toilet seat when I must have gone potty a couple of hours ago and can't remember that I went. (This is a work in progress.)

6:35 a.m. -- Get dressed. All my sweatshirts have bumper slogans on the front, like "In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded." I am a fan of the Big Bang and the Gang Bang.

6:40 a.m. -- Publish my piece on the Internet. Go to my home page, then go back to my b**g page. This assures that I will get one hit today. I leave a comment: "Pretty lame, Hoss."

6:45 a.m. -- Whip up a cup of Pero. This is a coffee substitute made, I think, out of barley and rabbit shit. These are the only two things scientists know of that don't contain caffeine.

6:48 a.m. -- Start visiting my b**g buddies. Usually I start with Whizzer (Mandy), back there in Connecticut, who is both funny and pretty. Here's what she looks like. Fine and dandy, no? She has been looking for true love and lately maybe has found same. Good for her.

6:52 a.m. -- Then I chase down Zoot's Mom, in Tennessee. She's a cute writer although she talks about a lot of stuff I don't care about. But I have to keep visiting because I am trying to get next to her daughter, Miss Zoot, who is over there in Alabama. Missy is about 8 months pregnant, so it is not what you think, dirty-mouth. Missy makes a helluva template and I am keeping her on the hook in case I ever need a new one.

6:54 a.m. -- Start checking on b**ggers with weird
relatives/husbands/acquaintances. I go see my Florida buddy, Laura, who is hacked at Arlene, Dennis, Emily, Katrina, Ophelia, and now Rita, which are some of this year's hurricanes that have caused Florida to escape to the Rockies. Then I might head to Central Oregon, where I can find Annie, who has a married brother who is advertising for some more women to give him some loving. I check with Seshat, an incurable West Virginia romantic who is currently mired in some not-good stuff. I visit, in Pennsylvania, TanLucyPez, who has a strange brother-in-law who is quite free with opinions and sperm. I never fail to visit Christine, who is writing "100 Reasons Why I Hate My Husband." This poor soul is between a rock (her husband) and a hard place (her children). But she amuses the hell out of us.

(You know, this is going to take awhile. I hope you're in for the long haul.)

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My favorite word today is manhole. N., under cover. Def.: A device constructed to allow men to look up the dresses of women passing by.

My second favorite word today is 18-wheeler. N., catch you on the flip side. Def.: A device constructed to allow men to look down the dresses of women passing by.

This Will Make Sense, Eventually

A lot of people have been wondering how Ol' Hoss manages to read so many b**gs (102, now) and still have a normal life. I know it's not natural to read a lot of b**gs, but it's not bordering on bestiality, either.

I was never much into bestiality. Not many people are. I guess there was just this one guy in my high school, but nobody else. He was kind of a loner, so I don't know if this was an early cow-homo sapiens cloning experiment, or just a cow-homo deal. I don't know how it turned out. Some things just don't interest me.

Cloning might be a better deal for me than reincarnation, come to think of it. I was readin' my Reincarnation Monthly, and there was a sidebar about different ideas for keeping alive/coming back/not going. One of these ideas -- I think I told you about this before -- was where they scrape some cells offa your whang and then grow a New You in a test tube. I guess the cells gotta come off the whang because, to a man, that's his most important part. It's what a lot of guys think with.

Another idea -- and this drew a lot of favorable comment -- was Not Going. This is the cheapest alternative, since reincarnation is kind of tricky and involves hiring some Voodoo guys down in Haiti and like that. It seems the way you Don't Go is to keep on breathing. Since breathing is so natural -- not like bestiality at all -- this seems like a pretty simple way of Staying Alive.

So that's how I manage to read so many b**gs.

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The Washington Post has had its annual Mensa Invitational. Readers are asked to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are some of the good ones:

Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.
Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease.

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My favorite word today (courtesy of the Washington Post) is Karmageddon. N., plant you now, dig you later. Def.: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's, like, a serious bummer.

When Couples Diverge

DEAR DIARY:

"Saturday night I thought he was acting weird. I was shopping with my friend all day long, so I thought he was upset that I was a bit late getting home. He didn't seem to have much to say; he was very quiet and absent. I asked him what was wrong but he said 'Nothing.' I asked if he was upset about something, and he said it had nothing to do with me and not to worry.

"I told him I loved him. He simply smiled. I don't know why he didn't say, 'I love you too.' It seemed as if he wanted nothing to do with me anymore. He just sat around and watched TV. Finally I decided to go to bed, and about 10 minutes later he came to bed and to my surprise he responded to my caress and we made love, but I still felt that he was distracted.

"I was going to confront him about it, but he had fallen asleep. I don't know what to do. I'm almost sure his thoughts are with someone else. My life is a disaster."

HIS DIARY:

"Played a horrible game of golf today! Shot a 95 -- can't putt for crap.

"Got laid, though."

(This was laid on me by my buddy Whizzer.)

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My favorite word today is fakir. N., outsourced to India. Def.: You, when you pretend to like a work of art by a friend who knew you would like it when you don't.

Why Bananas Grow Upright*

Not everybody has a buddy in France, like I do. I suppose a lot of people in France have buddies in France, but I'm not in France; I'm in Oregon USA, 9 time zones to the West. So Anne and I don't have coffee very often.

But she did let me take her picture. That's she on the left. I don't know who that is on the right. But Miss Kentucky oughta be taught the difference between butt cracks.

My buddy Anne is a translator. You got some past participling you need done, or some sentences needin' to be parsed, in English or French or Esperanto, or you want some swearin' done in Arabic, you let her know. She will relocate if your English is bad, which it probably is. Go say heidy ho.

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Once again, it's Just Ask Judy time, when the oldster speaks:

The nice thing about being senile is you can hide your own Easter eggs.

The funeral home director goes up to the widow and says, "How old was your husband?" She: "He was 98, I'm 96." He: "Hardly worth going home, is it?"

My memory's not as sharp as it used to be. Also, my memory's not as sharp as it used to be.

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Up there in Centralia, which is in Washington State, there is the Scatter Creek Kennel and Training Services. This is Jim Elder's homemade sign advertising his business:

"When you train here, sit happens."

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My favorite word today is obscene. N., wash your mouth out. Def.: The turnout on the highway where the ob may be viewed.

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(*I don't know why bananas grow upright. I just needed a snappy title for this piece.)

Cheese With Mold Gets Mighty Old

The apartment my wife and live in is pretty small, less than 600 square feet. So even if we throw out a few pieces of paper we gain quite a bit of space to fit some more oxygen in. A guy can't get too much oxygen.

So here are some old love letters from my wife that I'm tossing:

"2 lbs. hamburger
"Collard greens
"Whatever kind of beer you like."

(You ever have a wife that put beer on your shopping list? I thought not. Mine is the best.)

"This is the fourth day we have not spoken to each other. The next time Ed McMahon calls for you, should I say anything?"

(A normal wife wouldn't a let on that Ed called the first time. Ain't she a peach?)

"You once said if I ever need anything, to let you know. I'm letting you know that I need a trip to Reno so I have sold your golf clubs and your bowling ball."

(How many wives would keep their husbands in the know like that? I ask you.)

I guess I need to give up cleaning for the day. Somehow, all the notepaper my wife uses gives me paper cuts.

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My newest buddy, Inanna, has sent me this little bit of news:

Not to be outdone by "Two-Buck Chuck" wine at Trader Joe's, WalMart is putting out some house brands to join the competition. Where they got a leg up is they can afford a lot of money for naming rights. There is this Arkansas professor of country marketing who says "the right name is important."

A marketing survey turned up the 10 most popular names for the wines WalMart will hustle in the $2-4 range:

10. Chateau Traileur Parc
9. White Trashfindel
8. Big Red Gulp
7. World Championship Riesling
6. NASCARbernet
5. Chef Boyardeaux
4. Peanut Noir
3. I Can't Believe It's Not Vinegar
2. Grape Expectorations
1. Nasti Spumante.

The beauty of WalMart wine is that it can be served with either white meat (possum) or red meat (squirrel). Go tell Inanna "thanks." And fish around over there till you find one of her West Virginia tales. She's a pistol.

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My favorite word today is never. Adj., no way. Def. When the temporary federal tax on telephone service will expire.

Erecting a Stack

My buddy Big Dave seems to think I am being a little too forward when I say I intend to "Make My Pile" before I kick the bucket. I said, "Maybe I could say 'Erect My Stack.'" Big Dave said that's even worse. What he wants me to do is announce that I am "A Geriatric Satirist Sub-Specializing in Fund-Raising Enterprises." I guess he wants me to sneak up on people, and I am okay with that.
So my latest Fund-Raising Enterprise designed to Make My Pile is nearly off the drawing board. It is, as you can guess, the latest thing in hearing aids.

See, lots of people won't wear hearing aids because they're embarrassed to admit they need hearing aids. So they go through life either smiling and nodding and saying "Just so," or they go through life saying "Huh?" Now, I know there are these little tiny hearing aids that only cost about $3,000 a pop that go way, way down in the ear canal and nobody can see 'em. But sometimes they get so far down toward the hammer-anvil-stirrup the hearing aid guy has to dig 'em out with a pick axe, and that's no good.

This somehow reminds me of the time there in the 14th Chapter of Mark where some goons of the high priest lopped off a servant's ear for no good reason, and that guy instantly became hard of hearing. Which is where Van Gogh got the idea.

Anyway, what's neat about my new hearing aid is that it don't look like a hearing aid. It looks like an ear. See here in this picture is how it works. You just slip my new ear-looking ear over your own ear and ta-da! you can hear mosquitoes making out in the back forty.

But right here is what's going to make it sell: When somebody blows into one of the Ol' Hoss Make My Pile Hearing Aid and Love Apparati, it will whisper back: "I'll follow you anywhere." This will save the wearer a lot of time in the romance department.

Franchise opportunities will be available, if you want to become a "Sub-Specialist."

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My favorite word today is lucky. Adj., cash me out. Def.: Descriptive of someone at the slot machine you just left.

Politicians Have More Fun Than Anybody

Now, then, if you think I am totally one-sided about politics, you're pretty close. Except if you remember Mary Jo Kopechne and sort of understand how I feel about that, well I come out pretty two-sided. It's just that I can't turn down cute pictures. Cleanup crews will probably look at this and say, "too bad."

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I am having a "borrow" day. Ol' Hoss will borrow from his buddies so he don't have to be brilliant all by hisself. According to my florist buddy back there in North Carolina, this is the record of a telephone exchange between a hotel guest and room service at an Asian hotel:

Room Service: "Morrin. Roon sirbees."

Guest: "Sorry. I thought I dialed room service."

Room Service: "Rye. Roon sirbees...morrin! Jewish to oddor sunteen?"

Guest: "Uh, yes...I'd like to order some bacon and eggs."

Room Service: "Ow july den?"

Guest: "What?"

Room Service: "Ow july den?...pryed, boyud, poochd?"

Guest: "Oh, the eggs! How do I like them? Sorry. Scrambled, please."

Room Service: "Ow july dee baykem? Crease?"

Guest: "Crisp will be fine."

Room Service: "An sahn toes?"

Guest: "What?"

Room Service: "An toes. July sahn toes?"

Guest: "I don't think so."

Room Service: "No? Judo wahn sahn toes?"

Guest: "I feel really bad about this but I don't know what 'judo wan sahn toes' means."

Room Service: "Toes! Toes! Why jew don juan toes? Ow bow Anglish moppin we bodder?"

Guest: "English muffin? I've got it! You were saying 'Toast.' Fine. Yes, an English muffin will be fine."

Room Service: "We bodder?"

Guest: "No. Just put the bodder on the side."

Room Service: "Copy?"

Guest: "Excuse me?"

Room Service: "Copy...tea...meel?"

Guest: "Yes. Coffee, please, and that's all."

Room Service: One minnie. Scramah egg, crease baykem, Anglish moppin we bodder on sigh and copy...rye?"

Guest: "Whatever you say."

Room Service: "Tenjewberrymuds."

Guest: "You're very welcome."

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My favorite word today is wind. N., perhaps a southeaster. Def.: The fake thing a mime will lean into if you'll give him your attention for as little as 5 seconds.

Scientists Say Creationism Is 'Too Bad'

This here is a picture of a separatist signpost in downtown Salem, Oregon. See, the State Capitol is on State Street, and the Methodist Church is at the intersection of State and Church. (A block to the west is High Street, and you can just imagine what goes on there.)

Bible belters don't have all the power in Oregon. But we have to admit that when it comes to arguing about Creationism vs. Evolution, the Bible thumpers have the best of the argument. See, they don't have to prove anything. You say, "What about the dinosaurs turning into birds?" You say, "Look how the flamingo has evolved into lawn ornaments." And they unburden themselves with the perfect response: "That's just the way it is."

But now Ol' Hoss has the poison pill. He puts "paid" to the creation cretinists:

There in the Bible it quotes Big Ernie as saying, in Genius, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of the earth..."

Okay, fine. So where did seedless watermelons come from? Huh? How about that!

So maybe Big Ernie is Luther Burbank in disguise? I think not. No, sorry, creationist lovers, the evidence is too overwhelming in favor of evolution. Seedless watermelons descended from monkeys, just like everything else.

Hoo boy, science is so simple when you know a lot of stuff, like I do.

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I got more goods from my pal in North Carolina, Judy (kenju). Per example:

A lot of folks can't understand how we came to have an oil shortage in our country. There is a simple answer: Nobody bothered to check the oil. We just didn't know we were getting low.

The reason for this is purely geographical. Our oil is located in Alaska, California, Coastal Florida, Coastal Louisiana, Kansas, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Texas.

Our dipsticks are located in Washington, D.C.

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Also:

Among the Top 5 Smart Answers for 2004:

As a man approached a flight attendant at the departure gate, he opened his trench coat and flashed her. She says, "Sir, I need to see your ticket, not your stub."

Ho, ho har de har har. Also:

A lady is picking through the frozen turkeys at the supermarket, and they were all pretty small. She says to the stock boy, "Do these turkeys get any bigger?" And he says, "No, ma'am, they're all dead."

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My favorite word today is zoo. N., a movie named Animal House. Def.: Where you take children to watch monkeys play with themselves.

Let's Play 'Doctor'

Back in the 1930's and 1940's, any old doctor could usually tell right off what was wrong with you. If you had a broken bone, he could generally spot tht right off. Same with measles and chicken pox. If your heart was beatin' like a jack hammer, he'd listen and say, "Mmmmmm." Which just goes to show that doctors back then knew just about everything there was to know about medicine.

Nowadays, doctors don't know shit. The proctology doctor might, but the eye-ear-nose-throat guy won't unless he has to clean off his shoe. See, today they all specialize in something or other. You get a weeny wart, you go to a weenyologist. You ask an osteopath what to do about that and he'd say, "Gee, I don't know. I'd give Big Ernie a heads up, if I was you."

You think the cardiac specialist is going to help you when you get the flu? Hell, no, he's probably got it himself and can't remember whether it's feed a cold, starve a fever, or the other way around. I love the Asian flu doctors. First of all, they're not all Asian. Second, they're always real free with their appointments because they know by the time you get to see them you'll have healed up,which gives them more time for golf.

In the 1930's and 1940's, I had a doctor who took out my tonsils, took out my appendix, set my broken arm, got me over the chicken pox and ear infections, yanked out my Mom's hyster, fixed my brother's crossed eyes, cured my Dad's broken back -- although never on Thursday, for that was Doctors' Day at the Bend Golf Club.

Honest. Thursday was designated "Doctors' Day." Some people began taking advantage of this, hanging around the bar, hoping to get a free diagnosis. And some people took umbrage about the doctors lolly-gagging when people were dyin' of shin splints, so they changed it to "Men's Day." Since there were no women doctors this did not prove to be an additional discrimination.

The docs I envy most are the psychiatrists. They get the inside dope from all these people who are always talking to Big Ernie God. Maybe someday I can get one of them to do an expose'. What we need to know, I'd say, is "Where is Heaven?" For all anybody knows for sure, it could be underground where all the preachers think Hell is. If that proved true, I bet scientists would put it in the category of "too bad."

Some of these people have really got balls, like those who went to school for a long time and get to be called Doctor Something or Other but don't know a thing about sticking fingers up buttholes. These have got doctorates in homo fruit fly technology and/or the estimated date that kudzu will advance on the Inuits. I know a doctorated oceanography guy who is busy estimating how high the oceans would be if the water wasn't full of sponges.

He says if they don't soon make it illegal to take sponges out of the ocean there'll be sharks swimming on Wall Street.

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My favorite phrase today is getting a little. Adj., of sex fiends. Def.: Sleeping with dwarfs.

Cloning Is Not for Amateurs

Meet a "salmelon." One of the creatures that result "When Cloning Goes Bad." Somebody (I can't figure out who) has deftly created about 30 of these odd things which appear in a slide show that will blow my mind, maybe yours too. Go to
Bad Clones to see the show. (Oh, and in case you care, there's another one of these figments at the bottom of this piece. And it's down there at the bottom even if you DON'T care.)

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More borrowing: My buddy The Ozguru told me this true story.

Mujibar wants to enter the country but is stopped by an Immigration Officer.

"You need to pass a test before you can enter the U.S.ofA.," says the official.

"OK," says Mujibar, "test I'm."

Immigration: "I want you to use yellow, pink and green in one sentence."

Mujibar (thinks, brightens): "Oh, yes. Here: The telephone goes green, green, green, and I pink it up, and I say, 'Yellow?'."

(Afterword: Mujibar is now living in your neighborhood and working at the Microsoft help desk.)

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The other day when I was writing about high school gangs I forget to remind you that diseases also got gangs. About the time I was pushing over privies my Mom's Mom had pulmonary failure and was dying of cancer some disease. Mom told me not to use the "C" word because it was some kind of nasty disease good people weren't supposed to get. This was in the early 1940's. Today, now, you got people almost braggin' about having sexually transmitted disease the AIDS.

Anyway, these diseases can really gang up on you -- strep throat, pneumonia, hepatitis and rigor mortis is a frequent combination, I guess.

Kind of reminds me of the old saying: "And now abideth Faith, Hope, and Love, but the greatest of these is Worms."

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My favorite word today is husband. N., Mr. Fixit. Def.: The person whose amateur plumbing technique has left air in the pipes so they will make that satisfying "clunk" when the water is turned off.

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And here is your basic orangufrog:

Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport

Take a few secs today to wish a very good buddy of mine a Happy Birthday. Click on Poopsie (Janie) and take a quick trip to Tennessee.

My buddy Vicki Bennett has called my attention to a news story that talks about a potential volcanic eruption on the South Sister Mountain, which is about 100 miles east of my Old Folks' Home. Some researchers say even if it blows, it won't be all that big a deal, unfortunately. I think the visitor industry has put this in the category of "too bad," because a decent volcano is a pretty good tourist draw, which would create more jobs for Oregon.

See, the neat thing about volcanoes is they draw a lot of rubberneckers from out-of-state, so we can throw up some hot dog stands and invent a lot of jobs in the service industry. Jobs in the service industry are well-liked by Big Business because they don't pay much, and they are well-liked by poor people because they can't be outsourced. You couldn't possibly sell hot dogs in India to someone who wanted to see a volcano in Oregon.

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Until recently, most of the rubberneckers have been over there in Serbia, according to this other story Vickie sent me about the World Testicle Cooking Championship. It seems an Australian who called himself Nigel told some people in Sumska Kuca, there in North Serbia, that he was the world's leading chef when it came to cooking up kangaroo nuts, and he would be glad to show off his skill if the Serbians would get ahold of some testicles.

So the Serbs went balls out for this idea. They rented this expert a hotel room, bought some kangaroo testiculars -- and the sumbitch never showed. Well, they went ahead with the World Championship, and a team that whipped up bull and boar's nuts won the title, so the day wasn't wasted.

The sponsors said they hope Nigel will show up next year if he hasn't gone tits up. They said they would hang loose.

All this talk about testicles has made me hungry for nutcrackers:


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My favorite word today is patience. Adj., like a great blue heron. Def.: What you use while waiting for the right moment to screw someone over.

This Is How You Spell Onomatopoeia

Oh, damn. Update: Feets points out I spelled it wrong. But now it's right. Hoo boy. Onomatopoeia. There.

You know how it is in high school when some kids hang around the fringes of your gang, but never quite get invited in?

(It wasn't quite that way in grade school, when our gang rgularly "pantsed" Jerry Rippee. Jerry was so anxious to be one of us that he submitted, day after day. He was so pitiful that we made him a member of the gang. Which says something about our coolness, I think.)

Our gang in high school was like the Hell's Angels: There were a lot of us. Let's see, Don, Jack, another Don, Sam, John, Bill, Phil and me. This is the gang that left the horse in the high school one Halloween. Martin was a fringe player, and the only reason we let him into our booth at Kessler's Ice Cream now and then was because he had his own wheels, a 1936 Model A.

One time five of us were out riding with Martin and he was driving crazy. I said, "Martin, I bet if you go around a corner on two wheels, you can shear off the lug nut posts on the other side when the car comes back down."

So Martin tore around this corner on two wheels, and sheared off the lug nut posts on the other side when the car came back down. "Pay me," I said, as the other four of us headed off toward Kessler's.

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We led incredibly vicious lives in high school. Lots of times our gang would get p.o.ed at the girls because one of our number got dumped ("jilted," or "Dear Johnned," we'd say). So we'd go find a bunch of girls and yell bad things at them: "You're ugly as a mud fence." "You're all a bag of bones." And like that. We held nothing back.

And they'd yell back: "You smell like jock straps." "Buzzards." "Momma's boys." These girls wanted their mouths washed out with soap.

I don't know how any of us survived high school, getting in gang wars all the time.

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My favorite word today is denounce. N., particulate of speech. Def. When it's not verbs, adverbs, adjectives or conjunctions.

I'm Always Up for a Challenge

I previously gave you one of the British Foot in Mouth Award winners. Here's one more, actress Alicia Silverstone:

"I think that the film ['Clueless'] was very deep. I think it was deep in the way that it was very light. I think lightness has to come from a very deep place if it's true lightness."

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Somebody sent me one of them pages of odd facts, like: "There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with orange, purple and silver."

Hah! You think Ol' Hoss isn't going to challenge that?

They say nothing can rhyme with an orange.
I'm darn close with chickens that free-range.
It just goes to show,
To be in the know,
Trust Ol' Hoss who knows dirt ain't a dinge.

There's nothing that can rhyme with purple?
Well, there's acid that makes you go burple.
So never say never,
Hoss is too clever,
What he pours on his pancakes is syruple.

You can't make a rhyme out of silver?
You come pretty close with deliver.
But to make it exact,
Hoss has the ol' knack,
He says, "Hey, there's always Phil Silvers!"

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Here's another useless fact:

The dot over the letter "i" is called a tittle. What is inside a woman's T-shirt is called a chest.

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Here in The Old Folks' Home, our Alzheimer's unit is planning an event to be remembered.

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My favorite word today is magic. N., I lost count again. Def.: The additional riser someone adds to your stairs while you creep upward in the dead of night.

I Was Just Thinking About That

It is always good thinking to do some thinking now and then. So I began thinking some deep thoughts. Let's see what we got here:

-- The Chinese invented gunpowder, Nobel invented TNT, the U.S. invented the atomic bomb, and the Indians invented corn. Which has been the most useful?

-- Everybody has something to complain about: politicians, the weather, their job, the next-door neighbor. If we eliminate the politicians, the weather, all the jobs and all the next-door neighbors, would people complain about not having enough to complain about?

-- Do you know that you also are a next-door neighbor?

-- In case you are robbed, will you be able to give police the serial numbers of the bills that were in your wallet?

-- Do crop circles come in any other shape?

-- Why is baseball not called basesball?

-- Why is diarrhea called "the trots" rather than "the canters"? I have always voted against diarrhea, even when it is called "the runs."

-- Why do cows eat hay and women can eat just about anything, like chicken livers, and they both can make milk? I am a big believer in hay and chicken livers, though.

-- Why is it that when you get a wrong number it is always someone you don't know?

-- Why are you the only good driver on the road?

-- Did you know that Tennessee Walking Horses also can run?

-- When Saddam is executed, will the oxygen he would have used be put up for sale on eBay?

-- When I am reincarnated as a fine Kentucky thoroughbred standin' at stud, how will you know it's me?

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My favorite word today is out. Adj., what did you think? Def.: Descriptive of every part you have ever needed for your car to be fixed.

Am I Glad It Wasn't 8 Things

Ol’ Hoss picked up this Ol’ Meme from my buddy Ol' Shane. To be properly entertained, you really ought to click on the links.

7 things I can do

1. Cook, if I have enough beer
2. Type really fast
3. Play the ukulele
4. Sop up gravy with bread
5. Charge things to your MasterCard
6. See over the heads of little people
7. Make up words*

7 things I can’t do

1. Cook, if I don’t have enough beer
2. Climb mountains
3. Gain weight
4. Sew, but I can darn socks
5. Anything artistic
6. Rub my head and pat my tummy at the same time
7. Pat my head and rub my tummy at the same time

BF 7 things I see as attractive in the opposite sex

1. Something like my buddy Pier Angeli
2. Smarts, so they don’t want to eat at McDonald’s
3. Good legs
4. Good everything else
5. Willingness to make the beer run
6. Doesn't need a Stairmaster
7. Forgiveness. Lots of this, please

7 things I say the most

1. Hoo boy
2. Boy howdy
3. So it goes
4. Take an old cold tater and wait
5. Scientists classify this as "too bad"
6. I'm so pretty
7. That asshole Bush

7 books that I love

1. The Bible, because it is "open source"
2. "My Ten Years in a Quandary," Robert Benchley
3. "Low Man on the Totem Pole," H. Allen Smith
4. "Long Gone With the Wind and the Rain," Mr. Horsetail Snake
5. "Up Front," Bill Mauldin (featuring Willie and Joe)
6. "Weeny Whodunits and Other Yoda Yoga," Mr. Horsetail Snake
7. "Sex Life of the Banana Slug," Charles Darwin, et al

7 things I plan to do before I die

1. Eat me an abalone steak
2. Help elect a black President
3. Plan my reincarnation as a fine Kentucky horse standin’ at stud
4. Gladhand Bill Gates
5. Apologize for killing mosquitoes that the swallows needed for food
6. Tie a mirror on my shoe so I can look up your dress when you visit
7. Apologize for looking up your dress

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*My favorite word today is rumornates. N., jumping over the moon. Def.: Cows that gossip.

Children's Books in Time for School

Quite a few children's books have been written. Not all of them have been published. Here are some your poor kids will never see:

What Is That Dog Doing to That Other Dog?

You Were an Accident

Jane Was So Bad Her Mom Stopped Loving Her

Garfield Gets Feline Leukemia

You Are Different and That's Bad

The Pop-up Book of Human Anatomy

When Mommy and Daddy Don't Know the Answer They Say God Did It

Strangers Have the Best Candy

Barney: The Prison Years

Mister Policeman Eats His Service Revolver

Pop Goes the Hamster, and Other Great Microwave Games

Curious George and the High-Voltage Fence

The Boy Who Died From Eating All His Vegetables

Things Rich Kids Have That You Never Will

Controlling the Playground: Respect Through Fear

Daddy Drinks Because You Cry

How to Become the Dominant Military Power in Your Elementary School.

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What's the name of the guy with no arms and no legs who is lying on the front porch? Matt.

What's the name of the guy with no arms and no legs who is lying in a bed of leaves? Russell.

What's the name of the guy with no arms and no legs who has been pinned to the wall? Art.

What's the name of the guy who will never do this again? Mr. Snake.

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My favorite word today is taint. N., mystery zone. Def.: The area between the vagina and the anus: "T'aint pussy and t'aint asshole."

Miscellaneous & Et Cet

I have not had much here about the hurricane and its victims. And I won't. I've done what I can, as you know you did and are doing. But this here place is a port out of the storm. Relax, jangle gently as you move and don't look back -- something might be gaining on you. -- Satchel Paige.

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This was sort of fun. The states in red are the ones I have touristed. You go to World 66 and you can make a map of all the states you visited, or all the countries, all the Canadian provinces, or just Europe. Note those three Deep South states I have not been in -- Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. I doubt if my visiting would have made a difference. But who knows?
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Yesterday when I teased my pal Bonnie about owning a University of Michigan shirt, my buddy Lois Lane said in the comments that she's in a shirt-giving mood. And Bonnie seemed to be offering a Michigan State University shirt. Look, I will take all the university/football shirts I can get and I'll show 'em off. I love to get packages. When you are done giving to Katrina victims, I am at Apt. 111, 695 Orchard Hts. Rd. NW, Salem, OR 97304.

After all, it is dang near my birthday. I was born on Oct. 1 and on Oct. 2, 1930. An explanation of this Miracle Birth is here.

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What has eight legs and one eye? Two chairs and half a pig's head.

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In Great Britain, the annual Foot in Mouth Award in 2004 went to a Member of Parliament, Boris Johnson, who said on television: "I could not fail to disagree with you less."

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My favorite phrase today is false alarm. N., when you gotta go. Def.: When the urgent need to defecate turns out to be only an urgent need to fart.

School Days, School Days, Good Old...

It is me again. Since it almost football season, it is time for all of us to swear our fealty to universities with good football teams. Teams who only excel in academics can go pee up a rope until it's time for commencement.

Now, most of you don't need to pay any attention to this picture. It is here for the benefit of my pal Bonnie. See, Bonnie is a stalwart of The Dark Side, a.k.a. Michigan State University, and that just won't do.

This fine shirt was brought to me in July by a buddy of mine, Vicki Bennett, who roots for the University of Michigan. And it just so happens that Vicki also is a former friend of Bonnie's. All this proves is that my allegiance is for sale.

So, anyway, go over to Bonnie's Place and give her the raspberry. Tough luck, Bonnie. (Scientists have put this in the category of "too bad.")

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Speaking of psychology, which my shirt was doing, I am thinking about the need to catch a case of paranoia. The only people here in The Old People's Home who seem to get any attention are those who've got delusions of one kind or another. Take my down-the-hall neighbor, Sixbit Rattigan. I was doing hall patrol yesterday when I caught ol' Rattigan talking to The Home's Administrator:

Rattigan: "People are always talking about me."

Administrator: "No, they're not."

Rattigan: "Not what?"

Administrator: "Talking about you."

Rattigan: "What are they saying?"

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My pal Oz has come through again:

"Incontinence Hotline....Can you hold, please?"

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Do you realize that in 40 years we'll have thousands of old women running around with tatoos?

"I suppose that there on your leg is some kind of snake?"

"No, that's a varicose vein."

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My favorite word today is gasoline. N., a rare breed. Def.: A combustible formerly sold in screw top containers, now available only in finer stores.

Something Something Something

I knew two fine people, Angie and Miss Zoot, each of whom is having another child, but after a lapse of several years. So I thought they probably need the advice rendered by this how-to picture. You are welcome, Moms. I live to serve.

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This happened sometime in the 1960's. I am too decrepit to go to the State Library and look it up. You can do it, if you want to.

We have a State Hospital for the mentally disadvantaged here in Salem, the capital of Oregon. There are several buildings out there in East Salem, some of which are connected by tunnels so the patients and staff don't have to cross busy streets.

Somehow, those tunnels became the scene of assignations between patients who were perhaps addled but had not lost their sex drive. Legislators learned of this and demanded a hearing. A state official defended the practice, calling it "tunnel therapy."

Hoo boy, we liberals thought that was funny. Naturally, the Republicans made them give it up. So, according to what my mother told me when I was little, I guess all the guys out there went blind and grew hair on the palm of their hands.

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A guy is lying in his bed, near death, when he perceives emanating from the kitchen the unmistakable smell of chocolate chip cookies, his favorite food of all time.

So, with difficulty, he works himself downstairs, feebly clutches the table and inches his hand toward what he feels is giving him new life -- a warm chocolate chip cookie. His wife smacks his hand with a spatula.

"Get the hell away from there!" she screams. "Those are for the funeral."

(This groaner comes courtesy of TanLucyPez.)

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A caller on a Portland radio station wanted everybody to know the German word for brassiere: "Stopemfumfloppin."

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My favorite word today is diet. N., why children don't starve. Def.: The thing that occurs when you observe a 3-year-old eating his boogers.