Downsized Sports

I keep hearing about 8 man football teams for high schools who can’t field a full 11 man team. So yeah, they play with a 27% reduction in the number of players. What other downsized sporting events might we anticipate? Here are some thoughts:

1.       The Indianapolis 364 (27% reduction) – More people might watch the whole race

2.       7 pin bowling – eliminates that awkward 7-10 split

3.       The Speedway – a downsized, shortened Marathon

4.       3 Square – but would it be square?

5.       3 Man Bobsled – Makes for roomier, more comfortable seating


On a side note, Marathon Oil's got a pretty sweet deal with all the free name recognition they get from Marathon runs. Not sure why they need to do any other advertising

Midnight Madness

I just read where a local mall got robbed. Thieves somehow got into the mall at night and took all the coins out of the fountain. Management estimates that the thieves got off with about a thousand dollars. That’s right - only $1000. So yeah, this story (unlike some of my other posts) probably won’t be made into a movie.

I bet that mall manager is in trouble for saying they only got $1000. I would have upped that estimate to maybe $20,000. I mean, you want people to think it’s a successful mall, right? At a decent mall you can get a couple hundred just sitting near the edge of the fountain with your Orange Julius and dipping your arm in.

So, yeah, check the arcades, check the Laundromats! Be on the lookout for some really jingly guys 

with gross wet sleeves.

Dental Form

Yesterday at my dental appointment the receptionist handed me the dreaded clipboard. Yes, it was time to “update my records”. It’s a long, two sided form. You might get 90 seconds to fill it out. Or you might get 9 minutes. You just don’t know. So you write the fastest you’ve ever written. And your printing ends up looking like the doctor’s...

Some of these questions are nuts. Are they really asking me again if I’m pregnant? How do you answer that? “No” or “NA”? I wrote “Not yet”. I just want to see if anybody reads these things...

Dances with Wolfs

Have you ever noticed that we always just add an “s” when a last name gets pluralized, no matter what? If your last name is Wolf, your family is known as The Wolfs, not The Wolves. If your last name is Foote, you’re known as The Footes, not The Feet. If your last name is Mann, your family is known as The Manns, not The Menn. Or The Menn and Womenn. Was the family of Julia Child known as The Childs or was it known as The Children?  

At church, did their whole family come forward for The Children’s Sermon?  

A as in Apple II

Somebody wrote in and asked, “Do you use “Four Score” for your “Four” word in your A as in Apple thing for numbers (AATN)? We love the idea and we’re already using it in our two small busini”.  Well, thanks for the kind words, but the answer is no, I do not use “Four Score” for the number four. The reason I don’t is that, if you remember, the phrase continues “Four score and seven years…”. Saying the word “seven” could confuse the hearer. So, I use “Four Seasons” or the “Four Weddings and a Funeral” or something like that.

For the number three I do not use The Three Musketeers, since, believe it or not, a movie sequel was made called The Four Musketeers. For three I typically use The Three Stooges. You’ll no doubt ask, “But there were more than three stooges, Tommy. Did you forget about Shemp after Curly died?” The difference here is that there were never more than Three Stooges at any one point in time. Let’s use common sense folks.

Plurality

Who decides on the plural versions of nouns? It seems to me that some of these pluralings could be improved. Have you ever thought that? Today we’re going to look at words that end in the letters ess. For words like mattress and seamstress we have historically just added -es at the end of word to make it plural, as in, “We need new mattresses for the boys’ bunk beds”. That’s too many s’s for me. We end up sounding like an angry cat. My plan would be to shorten these plurals to mattri, or seamstri, as in “That dress is so large that it may take multiple seamtri to alter it”.  

Try these out on your friends. I bet you’ll have succi!!