Tag: laugh

Funny Friday- featuring Jim Gaffigan!

Today’s Funny Friday is a treat.

jimgaffiganComedian Jim Gaffigan likes a lot of the same thing I do:
• Sleep

• Hammocks

• Breakfast in Bed (because it combines sleeping and eating)

• Bacon

• Talking about funny things the whole family can enjoy together

But, unlike Jim, I really enjoy camping.

It’s not because it’s comfortable. Jim’s right–it’s hardly that.

No, I like camping because I can get to seem like I’m getting out of my neighborhood for a legit reason instead of looking like I’m trying to run away. Camping helps me not feel guilty about about leaving to live somewhere else for a while.

Every single time, 3-4 days of camping is preceded by spending a 3-4 days of packing, just so I can go to another location and start feeling too hot, too cold, bug bites, a continual film of filth on my entire body, the wrenching pain of back spasms from the popup camper mattress I like to call “The Devastator”, and all towels feeling damp no matter what, I still have to talk myself into coming home again. (Then it’s 1-2 days of cleaning things, washing clothes, and unpacking.)

Nevertheless, Jim is correct, camping, as a concept where you pay actual money to leave your home and feel less comfortable, is admittedly quite odd.

Jim’s reflections on this and the other topics in this video made me laugh out loud. Enjoy!

He’s written a few books too.

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Introducing Funny Fridays!

personalityMy humor posts tend to rank among the highest on the blog, but I’ve been lax about including humor regularly.

No more.

In the next few months I’ll add a bit of humor to your Fridays!

If you have the time, drop by and see what’s going on, or add a link with something that amused you recently.

Today’s feature wasn’t originally meant to be funny at all.

BACKGROUND:
This video is part of an extended series of educational videos from Mississippi State University in the early 1950s. Parts of them of still useful today, but only if you can get over the heavy-hand teaching method and the very antiquated feel. I can, but only barely.

Upside:

The goals should still be taught today: good manners, consideration of others, and socially pleasant behavior. It’s crazy though because it’s so far removed from our own time and ways of interacting that it seems like satire, (that’s why it’s a Funny Friday feature.)

• But seriously, it made me stop to consider how I might be more polite. (Gosh, Beaver, maybe good manners are important!)

• Most of these actors would have turned into anti-establishment, long-haired, sexually uninhibited hippies about a decade later. (So much for a cutting edge education delivery method with expected outcomes. HA!)

 

Downside:

• The angle seems poorly positioned at the beginning as “a way to get what you what” instead of how to be mature or enjoyable to be around.

• It has nothing about texting etiquette. Major oversight! ;)

• Is it about practicing pretenses and inauthenticity? A bit. BLECKkk! 

 

VIEWING TIP:

Try to not be cynical when you watch this. It’s easy sometimes to disparage things from other eras. We live in a cynical time! if you can manage it, try to appreciate this as a “time-capsule” of another time and a culture removed from ours today (for better and for worse).

The next post will go live on Sunday. It starts a series I’m really interested in and, golly, I hope to see you soon! That would be swell!

Hey! One more thing! Try the new subscription app to get an update when posts go live.

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The humor of Self-motivation

There are all kinds of reasons for doing things.

In the end, I wonder if it comes down to just two: avoiding fear & pain or making ourselves feel better, which is sort of the same thing.

I loved this photo (below) for it’s weirdness.

What’s more exciting than running on to the field when a soccer match is in progress? Taking a picture of yourself doing it…but wait…

I wonder…would this girl have run onto the football pitch in the middle of this match if she had left her mobile phone at home?

Would the notoriety feel real if it could not be captured on her camera phone?

Is her fear “not mattering”?
Or maybe the motivation was to get some quick attention on Facebook, pure and simple.

Perhaps she was self and selfie motivated. Could it be crazy fun, or just crazy?

Screen Shot 2013-08-24 at 4.32.23 PM

 

Of course we can only speculate.
In speculating alone, we will only distract ourselves from our fears. And those fears are the ones we live with each day. They are the ones that matter. So let’s transition…

As you prepare yourself for the new year, consider your motivations and your fears. What are they? Jot the big ones down. Be brave.

They will last the whole year long, likely, but you can move toward mastering them, yes? That said, you probably won’t be able to if you take a lot of selfies. It seems there’s something of a dead end in that preoccupation.

Did this photo make you laugh or cringe?

If yes, share to say you care. :)

HAPPY 2014!

Holiday update: My tech dieting

shotssmartphoto

I read a post….called…wait for it…

One Month with No Phone — How to Go Phoneless in a Major US City

at Tim Ferriss’ site that made me want to laugh and cry and then shake my head and then sigh…and now…confess.

So, it’s like this…

A whole generation can’t imagine what it’s like to live without a mobile phone and miraculously guest writer, Lane Wood…(sounds like a bowling alley product, right?) managed a whole month without one. He got around it with tons of technology and had to acquire a lot of patience. But, he’s still alive and everything.

But…Um. We do remember that just a few years ago most people didn’t have smart phones, right? Yes? Even you youthful Millenials?

Duh. Not even ten years ago we had stupid phones. Now the phone have a distinct intellectual edge, obviously.

I’m not a ancient relic, but I remember when “communication technology” was finding a creepy phone box thing that eat quarters and held you hostage with its strong metal cord. I would tell the operator, or the computer, my name was “Pick Me Up” so my dad would fetch me from Volleyball practice. The only people who had mobile phones were doctors, and most of them still had pagers. (If you’re clueless here, Google it up, okay.) Things have changed so much in so little time. I can barely remember a time that I wasn’t somehow attached to tech like I am now. CRAZZZZY.

 

Having no money makes you creative apparently, and now Lane’s an evangelist warning us that tech is cramping our lives and making us less human. No, it’s not big news, but I’m glad it’s getting more “air time” anyhow. Seriously.

 

I’m not posting now to pass judgement. Nope. I have changed to adopt the norms this guy has (seemingly) only ever known. Guilty. as. charged. Lane, I thank you. But, it is sort of sad, all of it.

Now to the good news:

In the last few days, because my kids have been on vacation, I have gone on a major diet…not with food…I was bad on that front. No, I haven’t used my phone, Facebook, twitter, Buffer, on been on my blog or or anyone else’s almost at all.

It’s been…NICE!

It’s like being able to breathe again. Lane, I’m with you!

Have you been on any sort of diet this season?

How long could you last without technology?

And I’m curious…what did you think of Lane’s article? Let me know.