BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Not a day goes by that I don’t say something that belongs on a QUOTE A DAY desk calendar.

Seriously.

Yeah… Okay… So maybe not. However, I do say stuff, and some of it seems sort of quotable. At least, I think it is. My Facebook and Twitter “peeps” have been subjected to my daily musings for some time now. Why? Because the Daily Picture cycle was over and I needed a new “schtick.” Relevant – and often wholly irrelevant – quotes seemed like a good idea. I figure if I keep spewing them long enough I’ll eventually say something that really does belong on a calendar, and once I do, look out. I’ll be the next great philosopher of our age.

Trust me.

I will.

Really.

So anyway, having reached the end of the first quarter, and quotes being a little harder to condense into a 5 minute Youtube presentation than the 365 low-res webcam snapshots of my fugly mug from the daily pic project, I figured maybe I should put them out here in smaller chunks. Especially since folks keep asking me to aggregate them somewhere.

As with anything else, feel free to borrow them, just give credit where it’s due. My bills aren’t in any danger of not needing to be paid, ya’know…

The Whizzdom Of Merp

November 2010

Merpizm 11/01/10: “I am neither legally nor morally obligated to cure you of your stupidity.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 11/02/10: “Even Occam’s Razor will eventually get dull.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 11/03/10: “Unbridled activism, of any type, eventually becomes annoying to everyone – even its supporters.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 11/04/10: “The actual profundity of any statement is directly proportional to its timing divided by its delivery.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 11/05/10: “Stupidity is much like a cough. You should cover your mouth whenever you feel it coming on.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 11/06/10: “Opinions, like advice, should be graciously entertained. You can always kick them out when the party is over.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 11/07/10: “Much like wax fruit, hotel room coffee is only there for show. You aren’t actually supposed to drink it.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 11/08/10: “In my personal experience, melodrama is rarely all that mellow.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 11/09/10: “Unbridled passion is good. Bridled is too, as long as my wife isn’t too overzealous with the buggy whip.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 11/10/10: “Never attempt to write a daily quote before you’ve had your morning coffee.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 11/11/10: “Having an opinion in no way makes someone an expert on a subject. In fact, it probably just means they have gas.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 11/12/10: “Just because you can read a book that does not mean you know how to write one.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 11/13/10: “If you were happy ALL OF THE TIME, how would you know it?” ~ MRS

Merpizm 11/14/10: “Nobody is immune to stupid, and unfortunately there isn’t a vaccine for it just yet.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 11/15/10: “If you aren’t supposed to use adverbs, why the hell does “Lolly” sell the damn things?” ~ MRS

Merpizm 11/16/10: “Improper nouns throw wilder parties.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 11/17/10: “I’m actually old enough to remember when ‘crack’ was only available from plumbers.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 11/18/10: “Think before you speak, because thinking is sort of like a condom that will keep you from spreading stupid.” ~ MRS

(And if you forget to think all is not entirely lost. Just remember that biting your tongue is sorta like a diaphragm.)

Merpizm 11/19/10: “Forced humor is kind of like an inflamed hemorrhoid. Painful and not really funny at all.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 11/20/10: “Periods are multipurpose. Not only can they end sentences, they can also abruptly end an otherwise pleasant evening.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 11/21/10: “If you say something stupid, I’m going to make fun of you. I expect no less when the roles are reversed.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 11/22/10: “As with brain surgery, sarcasm should be left to the professionals who know how to do it properly.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 11/23/10: “For the most part, Facebook is really just public exhibitionism performed from the comfort of your favorite chair.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 11/24/10: “Time is a unique commodity, in that you often seem to have both too much and too little at the same time.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 11/25/10: “I’m not actually a wise person. I just play one on the Internet.” ~ M. R. Sellars

Merpizm 11/26/10: “A light at the end of the tunnel isn’t always a good thing, especially if it’s coming closer and you’re standing still.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 11/27/10: “If stupid grew on trees, we’d be living in an orchard at the peak of the season.” ~ M. R. Sellars

Merpizm 11/28/10: “Everyone is entitled to their own big, steaming bowl of stupid. The trick is to not spill it on anyone else.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 11/29/10: “A bonus of Online Social Networking is that your *friends* don’t care whether or not you’ve had a shower.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 11/30/10: “Overinflated egos are a lot like dying stars. They just keep getting bigger until they eventually implode.” ~ MRS

More to come…

Murv

…Even if you don’t follow them.

A classic line from a classic bit of spoken word, that being Baz Lurhmann’s “Wear Sunscreen.” (To give credit where due, it was written by Chicago Trib Columnist Mary Schmich, actually, and performed by Lee Perry… Produced by Baz, so he tends to get  all of the kudos…)

Now that we’ve set that record straight, suffice it to say, the advice is sound. Of course, as the song also says, advice is a form of nostalgia. A way of fishing the past from the disposal, painting over the ugly parts, and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

Problem is, when the recycling center isn’t open, all you can do is lob it over the fence and wait to see if they send you a check. By that I mean, teenagers aren’t all that good at reading directions. Maybe some are, but I can only speak from my own experiences. Hey, even I will admit that as a teen I often experienced DADD – Drooling Attention Deficit Disorder – by the time I reached the third sentence in any given set of directions.

It’s probably a hormonal thing, who knows… (Now that I’ve said that, someone with SDD – Satire Deficit Disorder – will be sure to explain it to me.)

The thing about teens afflicted with DADD is that they will do stuff that you just can’t make up. And, in their defense, I’m more than willing to believe that the advances in technology have contributed to this problem.

Case in point, my niece.

Yes, the one who paid someone to stab a carpet needle through the side of her nose and then plug it with a bejeweled booger cork.

Now, the incident in question occurred a few years before the age of Proboscis Piercing arrived, therefore I know it simply had to be a case of DADD, and not brains accidentally escaping through the third nostril. And, I will give her kudos for actually READING the directions. The problem is, she comes from a different time.

Allow me to explain…

It was Christmas as I recall. But then, I’m old, so maybe I don’t recall properly. What I can say for certain was that the family was all gathered at my mother & father-in-law’s house for some sort of all day celebration. Although we had consumed mass quantities of food at some point during this process, the niece was hungry again and wanted something different than the leftovers. In particular she wanted some manner of carb. My mother-in-law rummaged around and pointed her toward a bag of those frozen biscuit pucks.

All good. A biscuit puck or two should certainly fit the bill where carbs are concerned.

Niece read the directions and then set about puck preparation while the rest of us gathered around the table and talked about the various things that non-teenage folks talk about, which is to say, stuff that bores the living daylights out of the teenage folks. Yeah. Grown ups are mean like that.

Four or five minutes into the conversation an odd smell began wafting over the half-wall from the kitchen and into the dining room. I looked up just in time to see the interior of the microwave burst into flames.

Scrambling occurred, and I don’t mean eggs. In a matter of a few seconds the fire was extinguished before it could spread beyond the confines of the newfangled coffee re-heater. Once the crisis was over and the investigation into the origin of the fire began, we didn’t have to look far. There, smoldering in the center of the Pyrex turntable was a charred disc. Truth is, it looked far more like an actual puck at this point than a biscuit.

As one cohesive unit, the entire forensic investigation team turned to the niece (daughter, granddaughter).

“Wow…” she mumbled. “I wonder why it did that…”

We were dumbfounded. “What do you mean you wonder why it did that?” one of us asked.

She shrugged. “The directions said to cook it for ten minutes. It shouldn’t even be done yet.”

The moral of the story? We need to bring back Home Ec in schools. If for no other reason than to teach these kids the difference between an REGULAR  oven, a TOASTER oven, and a MICROWAVE oven before they burn the planet to a cinder. (We’ll save Infra Red and Convection for the advanced class…)

Just think, it could even count as a History credit…

More to come…

Murv