Category: Crack-Ups

When Your Hero Becomes Scary at Night

On By Norbert HauptIn Crack-UpsLeave a comment

I recently posted about giving my 6-year-old grandson a painting of his (current) hero, Shadow the Hedgehog. Read about it here.

He gets scared at night, so he sleeps with the lights on low. I just heard from his mom that she has to take the painting down and turn it around at night, because he is scared because “Shadow looks too real.

Here is the painting on his wall during the day:

And this is where it at night. Note the drawing on the back. This is the drawing he mailed to me to make sure I knew what Shadow looked like when I painted him.

You might get a kick out of what the other wall in his room looks like:

These are all drawings or colorings of Shadow he did himself. I guess none of those are as real looking as mine.

I take that as a compliment.

Idiots in Federal Government

On By Norbert HauptIn Atrocities, Crack-Ups, Feelings, History, Political1 Comment

The idiocy in our current federal government is staggering. Here is our Secretary of Health and Human Services, talking about autistic children:

And these are kids who will never pay taxes, they’ll never hold a job, they’ll never play baseball, they’ll never write a poem. They’ll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.

He has obviously never met an autistic person.

What is he going to suggest next? Maybe the best thing to do is to send them all to a camp? Let’s call it a concentration camp. Maybe we should open one in El Salvador, “the Savior,” where they’ll be well taken care of?

This is wisdom from the “Pro-Life” faction of our political landscape.

Purchased a Canadian Product Today

On By Norbert HauptIn Crack-UpsLeave a comment

We went shopping today and stocked up on Canadian products before they become contraband.

Zum Wohl!

Biking at the Lake Miramar Recreation Area

On By Norbert HauptIn Crack-Ups1 Comment

The Lake Miramar Recreation Area is a great place in San Diego for an easy bike ride or a nice long walk.

The trail around the lake is exactly 5 miles long and completely paved. Here is the official web site link. We bring our bikes and ride around, usually once clockwise and then turn around and do it again the other way for variety and it’s a nice 10 mile ride. We did just that this afternoon.

The terrain is mostly flat. On the weekend it’s quite busy and you have to watch for walkers and other bikers, but it never feels crowded. It’s also a good and safe place to bring small children to teach them to ride their own bikes in a traffic-free environment.

Only one thing about the place is curious. Check out their sign:

Can you even read that? Depending on the angle of the afternoon sun, this sign can be completely unreadable. See for yourself what it looks like from the road:

Now you can see why I missed it the first time I went there.

Going to the Bookstore to Go

On By Norbert HauptIn Books, Crack-Ups1 Comment

A long, long time ago when bookstores were still a thing, when we had B. Dalton at the malls, Waldenbooks, Book Star, Borders, Crown Books and many mom and pop stores, I used to spend a lot of time (and eventually money) at bookstores. I noticed a curious phenomenon: Whenever I was at the bookstore I got the urge to go poop. I knew where the bathrooms were. It never seemed to fail. Bookstore visits led to bowel movements.

Eventually I had kids and from time to time when they would get constipated, I would, half jokingly, tell them that they just needed to go to the bookstore.

Fast forward 30 years, and now my daughter’s two-year-old son likes to “hold it in” for some reason. When toddlers do that they get cranky and miserable, which of course is utterly frustrating to the parents. Anyone who has had kids knows that. The other day she texted me and said that it was so bad, she had to choose the nuclear option and — you guessed it — take him to the bookstore.

IT WORKED! She sent me a video of him standing at a little table with games visibly “pushing.” I wrote back and said that it proves he’s definitely my grandson.

Then she looked it up and found the “Mariko Aoki phenomenon.” IT HAS A NAME!

The Mariko Aoki phenomenon (青木まりこ現象, Aoki Mariko genshō) is a Japanese expression referring to a sudden urge to defecate that is felt upon entering bookstores. The phenomenon is named after Mariko Aoki, a woman who described the effect in a magazine article published in 1985.

— Wikipedia

Good old Mariko discovered the phenomenon in 1985, which was many years after it was already a certain thing in my world.

Two days after the the first success with our grandson, she went back today and recorded success within two minutes of arriving at the bookstore.

Which makes me worried: Please, let’s keep Barnes & Noble in business! We need at least one bookstore chain left standing. While I am a bookstore mooch (see my post to this effect from 2013), I resolved that I need to go to the local Barnes & Noble regularly and BUY SOMETHING every time. Our digestive health depends on it.

I told my daughter that her son would be a reader, being introduced to frequent visits to bookstores at an early age.

Right Time, Right Place – but Wrong Man

On By Norbert HauptIn Cool People, Crack-Ups2 Comments

Last week I was driving the rural roads of upstate New York, going from Albany west on Route 20. My destination was the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, which had a special exhibition of Wyeth family figure drawings that I wanted to see.

I was scheduled for a work meeting at noon local time, and I planned to be in town by then and catch it on my computer using my Verizon hot spot for network access. Once I entered town about 20 minutes before my call, I drove down the main street and got lucky: In the middle of town, busy with people and cars all around, I found an empty parking space on the right side of the road that I was able to parallel-park into.

I left my engine running, since it was really hot outside, and got set up for my meeting with my laptop leaning against the steering wheel.

Then I looked up and out my side window, and this is what I saw:

This is the main entrance to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. People save their money to take their kids on vacation to come here as a destination. And here I was parked across the street from it for a prosaic business meeting.

I have to explain here that I do not know anything about baseball. I have been to exactly one game in my life and I was bored. I do not know any names of any baseball players, except Babe Ruth, oh, and maybe Joe DiMaggio – that was another baseball player, right? Oh, and I also have to add that in 1982, I once got a private tour of their home stadium and facilities by the chief financial officer of the Chicago White Sox; I was working on the season billing program for the White Sox when I was working for Ticketmaster.

I didn’t go into the Hall of Fame after my meeting. Rather, I tried to find some lunch down the street at a diner, but the diner was closed, so I stopped at the sushi place next door. I was reading and eating my myself. At the table next to me there were a couple of old Italian-looking guys in their late 70ies, one of them with a cane, having their lunch. While I am sitting there, a family man with his teenage son comes up to the old guy with the cane and asks him for an autograph for his son. They are chatting it up for a while, the boy awestruck, quiet and just smiling.

So I was at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and didn’t go in, and I sat next to an old legend whose name I don’t know.

I was definitely at the right time, at the right place – but I was the wrong man.

International Approaches to Problems and their Solutions

On By Norbert HauptIn Crack-Ups3 Comments

This is hilarious. It makes me proud of my German heritage.

To make it easier, here is the key:

  1. Germany
  2. United States
  3. Russia
  4. China
  5. United Kingdom
  6. Ireland
  7. Spain
  8. Switzerland
  9. France
  10. Belgium
  11. Turkey
  12. Poland
  13. Italy

 

Featured Artist: Tatsuo Horiuchi

On By Norbert HauptIn Art, Cool People, Crack-UpsLeave a comment

Tatsuo Horiuchi wanted to paint after he retired, but he didn’t want to spend money on supplies, and he didn’t want to buy a painting program. So he used what he already had: Microsoft Excel.

After using Excel for three decades myself, I didn’t know you could possibly use it to paint. I am amazed about the level of creativity and ingenuity this artist exhibits.

The Old Bank Vault

On By Norbert HauptIn Crack-Ups, HistoryLeave a comment

Today I went to the local locksmith shop to get a copy of a key. I saw this sitting in the middle of the shop:

I didn’t have a banana with me for scale, but the white paper on top is a normal sheet of 8.5 x 11 paper. The top of it reached about to the level of my belt.

We are looking at a bank vault from circa 1853. To put it in perspective, this was before Abraham Lincoln was president. The vault is made of solid manganese and weighs over 4,500 pounds. The design of the vault was to direct the shock of a dynamite blast away from the vault, thus ensuring anything inside would be protected. The inside of the vault is only about 12 by 12 inches, about enough room for a basketball.

Those cowboy bank robbers of the west must have had a hard time with a vault that weighed 4,500 pounds and couldn’t be blasted open with dynamite. Try to put that on the back of a horse!

Berniegami

On By Norbert HauptIn Art, Cool People, Crack-Ups1 Comment
Picture Credit: Joseph Wu

Joseph Wu makes a living doing origami. Here is his Facebook page: Link to Facebook.

I checked his website, but it is broken right now. Here is the link, maybe he’ll get it fixed now that he is going viral with the Berniegami: Link to Joseph Wu’s website (broken site).

Pandemic Gardening

On By Norbert HauptIn Commentaries, Crack-UpsLeave a comment

During the pandemic, we have spent more time in the yard, and one of the fruits of our labor were bell peppers.

To put this in perspective:

The two peppers on the left we bought at the market for 99 cents.

The two peppers on the right we grew ourselves. Given the cost of the plants, the planter, the irrigation, they probably cost 99 dollars, and it took at least 3 months to grow them.

Time and money well-spent.

I won’t talk about our carrots. Not a single one succeeded. I think we planted too late, and we have to start again in the spring. Good thing we’re not dependent on living off the land.

How #DiaperDon Became Possible

On By Norbert HauptIn Crack-Ups, Trump1 Comment

Trump held a news conference on Thanksgiving sitting at an oddly small desk.

Not only did this make for strange optics, particularly with Trump being a big man, he made it worse by flying off the handle when he didn’t like some of the questions from reporters. At one point, he railed “I am the President of the United States! Don’t talk to me like that…..” which of course looked like a tantrum a school boy would throw when he didn’t get his way.

Social media went wild. Here is an example:

There seem to be thousands of images like this, framing Trump as a toddler, and #DiaperDon instantly rose to the top of Twitter trends.

After doing this to himself yesterday, he is piling on today coming after Twitter as if somehow it’s their fault that thousands of people thought it funny and started posting modified images.

Trump is obviously out of touch with reality. Nobody forced him to sit down at the tiny desk and act like a toddler. He did this to himself. Now he is throwing more tantrums because he does not like the outcome, making it yet worse, because if you didn’t check Twitter before this, you surely will now.

This is obviously what happens if you surround yourself only with sycophants. Somebody actually decided to use this tiny desk for a press conference. Perhaps it was a purposeful choice? But does it not strike you as odd that nobody in the White House thought it wise to tell him that this was probably not a good idea and he should not sit at a tiny desk?

 

Big Dispute in the Chicken Coop

On By Norbert HauptIn Crack-Ups, Political3 Comments

This allegory was posted on Facebook by a Trump voter I have very high respect for, whom I will keep anonymous:

Big dispute in the chicken house about the latest vote on “which is better – white or brown eggs”–more votes than chickens and some are too young to vote-some votes came from stew pot chicken and biscuits. They were cooked several years ago – some mail in votes were received after the votes were being counted. The BIG ROOSTER invalidated all the votes and said only those who can validate their eligibility to vote can be counted. Those who oppose this ruling are marching in protest outside the coop with signs that says “WE WANT ALL VOTES TO COUNT”– Some votes were found under the chicken house and under the feed barrel. some were in the mail two days after the election and were counted–such a mess.

Here are my thoughts on the various subjects:

Chicken and biscuits voting: Occasionally such votes are found, but it is actually very rare. They find onesies and twosies coming into the coop from time to time. It turns out that the chicken and biscuits votes are as often from white meat chicken as they are from dark meat chicken. I don’t think any coop counsel would object to discarding chicken and biscuit ballots, when they are identified. But no coop counsel has ever, in the history of chickendom, found enough chicken and biscuit ballots to overturn any election. 

Some chickens are too young to vote: Same problem. Coops have occasionally found invalid ballots like this, but they are as often from white meat chicken as they are from dark meat chicken.

Some were in mail two days after the election: In those coops where ballots have to be mailed and postmarked by election day, nobody has a problem with discarding those ballots. Any coop counsel, when presented with this obviously illegal evidence, should and will discard those ballots.

Votes found under the chicken house and under the feed barrel: When you have to track 150 million pieces of paper in just a few days, sometimes stuff falls down the ladder, gets left in the barn, the yard or the feed barrel. This happens to ballots from white-egg chickens and brown-egg chickens alike. This does not mean that only the brown-egg chickens are dropping ballots.

Some mail in votes were received after the votes were being counted: Many coops legally allow mailing ballots to be received and counted after election day. Here is a chart that outlines the various coops and their rules. There is nothing wrong with that. That’s the law. 

The BIG ROOSTER has had four years to make sure that the election system works, and according to the lead cock in charge of safeguarding the elections, they have been the safest and most secure elections ever. The BIG ROOSTER however didn’t like that the lead cock did his job so well, because the numbers didn’t work out for the big rooster, and all the hens are cackling now. So the lead cock is now stew.

Sad.

We now have four years of time to work out some of the remaining kinks with the ballots, not because there was widespread fraud, but because the crowing of the BIG ROOSTER that the election is rigged has confused half the chickens in all the coops.

Meanwhile, the hens are back to laying eggs, brown and white alike, all the roosters are crowing, and I no longer listen the the tweets of the BIG ROOSTER.

Let’s Make America Rake Again…

On By Norbert HauptIn Crack-Ups, Political2 Comments

…at Four Seasons Total Landscaping Company in Philadelphia, where United States Presidential Administrations go to get buried.

Go buy your sticker now. 


I think I’ll go out into my yard and rake again.

I have earned it.