Austin, TX

It’s the Holidays and you’re goofing off at work. C’mon, don’t try to tell me otherwise. Here are a few of my favorite holiday time wasters:

PeeMail
Fun for all ages. Haven’t you always wanted to pee in the snow? Especially you ladies? Well, here is your opportunity to pee a message into the snow and you can even email it your proud family members. I do this every year. It’s silly and it’s fun.

Elf Yourself!
This fun little program popped up last year. This year though, you can upload as many as four friends our family members. You can even record a message and send it off to those you wish to torment entertain. Yeah, entertain, that’s what I meant!

Make-a-Flake
This is one of my very favorite Holiday websites. All the fun of making paper snowflakes with none of the mess. You can save them and email them, too. It’s simple enough that even fairly young children can do create snowflakes. Do them during the day and email them to Mom and Dad, Granny and Grandpa. Grown-ups and children alike can spend hours creating beautiful snowflakes. No two are alike!

Track Santa with NORAD
NORAD, together with Google Earth, will be tracking Santa and his reindeer as they make their trek across the world. Beginning at 2:00 am MTN on Christmas Eve, you can track Santa Live as he makes his historical journey around the world! Isn’t that the coolest?

I’m sure there are a lot of other holiday time wasters out there but these three are my favorites. If you come across any fun ones I’d love to hear about them!

If you’re looking for more worthwhile things to do with your time, here are a couple of suggestions.

Holiday, games, time, wasters, peemail, make-a-flake, track, Santa, NORAD

When my brother Kevin and his wife were expecting their son, they decided to name the baby Elvis, my brother being a huge Elvis fan. My mother thought that this was a particularly bad idea. “He will be teased in school,” she said, among other things. That turned out to be a moot point as Kev and Liz home schooled Elvis until recently. The argument went on for months and eventually things went from bad to a “subject-not-to-be-discussed” as it just made everyone angry.

Then one day I was listening to the news. It seems a new constellation had been discovered and it was called Ophiuchis. An evil thought crept into my mind and took root…“And we shall call the baby Ophiuchis!” Muahahahahaha…

So I called my brother Kevin and urged him to call our mother and tell her he’d changed his mind about calling the baby Elvis. I explained my evil plan and thusly, he called our mother.

“Hey Mom,” he said. “I think you’re right. We’re not going to call the baby Elvis after all.”

“Oh good,” she said, relieved, “I think you’ve made the right decision.”

“Yeah. I was listening to the news today and it seems they have discovered a new constellation. Ophiuchis. So we have decided to name the baby, Ophiuchis, instead of Elvis.”

“Oh….” And thus 15 seconds of silence ensued.

I know that doesn’t sound like a long time but count that out in your head and you’ll see how long that silence stretched out. That is a very long time, indeed, when it comes to my mother being silent. I think she was struggling to find something that she possesses very little of and that would be TACT.

Finally, in a very small voice my mother said, “Welllllll, we could call him Opie.”

My brother burst out laughing. He couldn’t help himself. Of course he also told mother that I’d put him up to it, so I was in the dog-house. What’s new?

After that, our dear mother, found the name Elvis to be perfectly acceptable. Heheh…. I wonder why?

In a somewhat related story, my mother can never remember the words to songs, so she makes up her own.

Many years before Elvis was born, I was visiting with my folks in Germany and chanced to hear my mother singing.

“We had eeeee ohhhhh, just like Bogey and Bacall….”

“Mother,” I said, raising my eyebrow quizzically, “what the heck is E O?”

“I don’t know,” she said defensively, “thats what the song says!” As if she couldn’t be held responsible for stupid writers writing stupid lyrics. She, after all, was just singing what they had written. I half expected her to stomp her little foot.

“It’s We.had.IT.ALL!,” I said, enunciating each word clearly.

“OH!, yes, that makes MUCH more sense!”

The next day I heard my mother singing.

“We had eeeee ohhhhh, just like Bogey and Bacall….”

I just laughed and shook my head, sighing to myself.

When Elvis Orion arrived, though, I called up my mother.

“Hey Ma,” I said, “we finally have E O.”

Sometimes you have to wait awhile for a good pun to come to fruition.

humor, family, elvis, Ophiuchis, Bogey, Bacall

“I have to pee,” announced my mother.

We were driving through the largest small town we’d been through on our way to California via the Redwood Highway.

“We’ll be at the next rest stop in about 10 miles,” said my Dad.
“How do you know?” my mother inquired suspiciously.
“The last rest stop had a sign that said the next rest stop would be in 52 miles,” replied my Dad, “and we’ve gone about 40 miles since then. Can you wait that long?”
“I guess so.”

I glanced at the Burger King on my right as we passed it. We passed a 76 gas station on the left. There was a grocery store and then a small strip mall. We kept going. I raised my eyebrow but since the my mother didn’t object, I just kept quiet. For the moment.

We passed through the town in companionable silence.

“Maybe this one will even have running water,” said my Dad.
“Ummm…yeah, Dad. I mean, why would we stop in a town that had bathrooms with running water when heck, an outhouse awaits us just 10 miles down the road.”

My mother began to giggle.

“Oh look honey, we’re in a real town with bathrooms and running water, but can you hold it because just 10 minutes away is an outhouse. If you’re lucky maybe it will even have running water and you’ll be able to wash your hands,” I said, mocking my father.

Even my nephew and my father were laughing by this time.

“If you’re especially lucky it will have mice,” I continued.

You see, on the way to Oregon from Reno we’d stopped at a rest stop in the dead of the night. My father and I were the only ones awake. As I sat upon the porcelain throne, a mouse darted in from under the door. I screeched. Loudly. The mouse thought better of his invasion and ran back out the door. My dad thought that incident was particularly funny. He would.

“After all,” I continued, “it’s more fun to pee in the woods. You are such a guy.”
“Stop making me laugh,” said my mother, “you’re going to make me pee my pants.”
“I guess you should be happy, Ma, you’re lucky he just didn’t pull over to the side of the road and thrust a handful of leaves into your hand.”

We arrived at the rest stop and piled out to use the facilities. This one was an actual bathroom, complete with running water.

“See,” said my Dad, “it did have running water.”
“Like you planned that, Dad,” I said, rolling my eyes. You just got lucky.”

“Your daughter is going to blog this, y’know,” my mother said, knowingly.
“I don’t care.”

My family is beginning to fear my blog. Muahahaha…

Oh well, I think I’m funny!

I was walking through my neighborhood this morning checking out some new houses being built when I spotted a sign. The sign was an advertisement for a new retirement development. It read:

No pets. No children. No alcohol. No Drugs. No Loud Music.

Hmmm… well I can certainly understand “No Drugs.” and “No Loud Music.” I can even understand “No Children”.

“You damned kids get off my lawn!”

No alcohol and no pets, though?

Geez. It’s not a hospice. People aren’t going there to die. Pets are good company for elderly people. Right?

And who the hell is going to be checking that they aren’t drinking alcohol? Can’t you just picture a rent-a-cop swaggering by with a breathalyser? “Excuse me ma’am but you’re a little wobbly on that walker, I’m going to have to check your breath.”

What is this? A retirement village for the terminally grouchy old fart?

Retirement, humor, I think I’m funny