Category: Fourre-tout

A little bit of everything

Just for laughs

A minister dies and is waiting in line at the Pearly Gates. Ahead of him is a guy dressed in sunglasses, a loud shirt, leather jacket, and jeans.
Saint Peter addresses him: “Who are you, so that I may know whether or not to admit you to the Kingdom of Heaven?”
The guy replies: “I’m Joe Cohen, taxi driver, of Noo Yawk City.”
St. Peter consults his list. He smiles and says to the taxi driver, “Take this silken robe and golden staff and enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
The taxi driver goes into Heaven with his robe and staff, and it’s the minister’s turn. He stands erect and booms out, “I am Joseph Snow, pastor of Calvary Church for the last forty-three years.”
St. Peter consults his list and says to the minister, “Take this cotton robe and wooden staff and enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
“Just a minute,” says the minister. “That man was just a taxi driver, and he gets a silken robe and golden staff. How can this be?”
“Up here, we work by results,” says Saint Peter. “While you preached, people slept; while he drove, people prayed.”

**********

A guy is reading his paper when his wife walks up behind him and smacks him on the back of the head with a frying pan.
He asks, “What was that for?”
She says, “I found a piece of paper in your pocket with Betty Sue written on it.”
He says, “Jeez, honey, remember last week when I went to the track?  “Betty Sue” was the name of the horse I went there to bet on.” She shrugs and walks away.
Three days later he’s reading his paper when she walks up behind him and smacks him on the back of the head again with the frying pan.
He asks, “What was that for?”
She answers, “Your horse called.”

 

Restaurants redux

For Valentine’s Day I took my жена to a restaurant.

Alas, three times alas, I was not pleased. And I am pretty sure that I am not the only one in that predicament.

So why do people go to restaurants?
To me, the primary reason is to get out of the house and give the home chef a break.
The secondary reason might be the desire to dine in different surroundings.
And third, the odd chance of making a palate pleasing discovery.

Unfortunately, when you go to a neighborhood restaurant few things compare favorably with what you cook at home.
Most of the dishes lack flavor or are drowning in some “secret sauce”.

To avoid offending anyone’s taste buds, the kitchen deliberately underseasons every dish. Or that’s what I think they do.
The food is bland, bland, desperately bland!

I realize that taste is subjective, but within limits.
What tastes bad to me couldn’t possibly taste good to anybody else.

Last night, I chose “tuna ceviche” as appetizer.
Anybody worth his shot of Tequila knows that ceviche is basically raw fish marinated (cooked) in lime juice.
Well, in this so-called ceviche I couldn’t detect the faintest trace of lime.
The kitchen just slapped together a few pieces of raw tuna with a few herbs.
Tasted insipid.
Ceviche without citrus juice? Who are you kidding?

My second dish was called “Baja seafood salad”.
A bed of greens decorated with a few pieces of grilled salmon, scallops and prawns.
Not too much to say about the seafood, but the salad was totally bland.
Just grass! Would have made my neighboring cows happy.
Not much Baja in this Ensalada!

I understand that a restaurant, like any other business, wants to attract as many people as possible, but when trying to please everybody you please nobody.
A restaurant should specialize in a certain type of food and focus on people attracted by this kind of food.
And if the dishes demand garlic and spices, by golly, give them garlic and spices.
Nothing is worse than tasteless grub.

As usual, after this experience, I will refrain from eating in a restaurant for a while.
And as usual, in a near future I will fall off the wagon and return to one of these pseudo “restaurants”.

C’est la vie!

But no worries!
I am still hot.
It just comes in hot flashes.

Hasta luego!

Alain

Knock-knees

Appearance is everything. Any political adviser will tell you that.
Some guys were blessed at birth with a great body, abundant hair, straight teeth, slim waist etc. and just when they started to believe that the world would be their oyster, Shazam! the Almighty cut them down to size by saddling them with knock-knees.

Knock-knees are the curse of power-seeking people. It makes them look awkward and unmanly.

No superhero or savior-of-the-world wannabe can be taken seriously if he is sporting knock-knees. Imagine for a minute Batman or Superman with knock-knees…
You simply cannot strike a heroic pose (legs apart, fists on hips) with such pathetic limbs. It would be laughable.
And leotards don’t help; they magnify this pitiful flaw. That’s probably why many men are loath to wear this garment. You simply cannot bang your chest and utter a war cry if your legs don’t stand straight. That’s probably why Hitler never wore shorts.

The same requirement also applies to women by the way. Forget about becoming a cheerleader or Miss America if your gams don’t look the part.
Bad legs are a curse worse than death. You can save the world even if burdened with a big nose, but you are simply not believable with weak knees.

The only way around this problem is to conceal the faulty equipment as much as you can. One possibility for men is to embrace the priesthood. The sacerdotal garment does a good job in concealing the knees and that could explain why the Pope or the Dalai Lama have managed to be successful for so long.

For a woman I envision a long evening dress, the kind royalty is wearing. Queen Elizabeth indubitably owes her enduring popularity to these long gowns. I am not implying that she has knock-knees, but if she did, it would be the perfect disguise.
Did you know that Sarah Bernhardt had her right leg amputated? She smartly concealed this flaw with long dresses and was successful till the end of her life.

People running for the office of President of the United States, should be required to wear shorts during their television debates. It would definitely weed out the weak candidates and substantially shorten the pathetic primaries.
I wonder what kind of knees Mitt Romney has? If he had good knees it might have helped him to show them. Lederhosen would have been nice…

Sturdy knees inspire confidence, knock-knees don’t.  And what a fantastic slogan the right candidate could use: “vote for a man who is not weak at the knees”.

I don’t know what kind of platform this job seeker would promote (it’s not that important), but with straight knees, you can hardly fail to inspire confidence.
Never mind unemployment, budget deficit, the price of gas, etc…

Show me straight knees and I’ll vote for you.

Alain