Central Snark

We’ve never owned a dog but I understand they’re very expensive, what with the licensing, shots, grooming, food and accessories and all - not to mention the initial cost of the dog itself. In addition, many people easily pay $500-$2500 or more to own a “purebred” pedigree of one kind or another.

So when my daughter asked for a $29 guinea pig two Christmases ago I was thrilled. “This is the perfect gift!” I thought. “Except for a small amount of food, guinea pigs don’t have ANY of those expenses!”

So, my wife and I headed over to the pet store to pick up her pig. Oh yeah, and a few other items:

• habitat cage - $120
• bedding - $15
• bag of hay - $15
• food - $20
• vitamins $10
• pigloo - $15

Ok, suddenly this $30 rat was costing us $224.

All right, no problem. After all, this was the only thing she actually asked for for Christmas - and with the exception of a little bit of food, these will all be one-time costs.

And so that Christmas morning a pig was born - and the children rejoiced. “Yay!”

Until my son chimed in… “Did you know that guinea pigs are supposed to be kept in pairs? So they don’t feel lonely?

“Uh, no way bud,” I retorted “this house ain’t big enough for a herd of pigs.”

And so the next day another pig was born - and the children rejoiced once again. “Yay!”

It took less than a month until the first bag of bedding was gone. And the first bag of food and hay as well.

“Dad, we need some money to go get some things for the pigs.”
“Sure,” I said as I peeled $5 from my wallet.
“Yeah right. We need like $50. At least.”

And this is how it’s been ever since. About once a month we shell out $50 for supplies and everyone is the children are happy.

Except for a few weeks ago when one of the pig’s pee started to look dark. It played out like this:

• Initial vet visit: $35
• Prescription for UTI: $35
• Follow up visit because it didn’t appear she was getting better so they needed to see her all day and do blood and urine analysis: $150
• Refill for prescription: $35

Total cost of dark pee: $255

So then… let’s add this up after 13 months, shall we?

• Initial purchase costs: $224
• Supplies since initial purchase: $600
• Vet and medicines: $255

Total cost since purchase: $1,079

Ya, there’s a comma in that number folks!

Of course just when I think we’ve made a serious mistake, I take one look at these little furballs and change my mind.

Now if I could just train them to fetch me my slippers.

~ Jeff

The laughs are cheap at humor-blogs.com

I knew I was going to be a singer from the time I was about 4 years old.

My sister, who is 10 years older than me, used to play her Beatles and Herman’s Hermits records on her phonograph in her bedroom, and I’d sit on the floor outside her door and sing along at the top of my lungs… that is until she yelled at me to “shut up and go in the other room!”

Then, when the Monkees came on TV it sealed the deal. To me there was nobody cooler than Davy Jones or Micky Dolenz and I was going to be just like them.

Just seeing these guys up in front of the microphones was all I needed. More than anything in the world I wanted to someday be that cool. And this is why:

Now be honest women… how many of you are suddenly crushing on him like you were 12 again? Hey - I don’t blame you. He makes me feel kinda funny too. Not that there’s anything wrong with that!

The Monkees (1966-1967) were one of only two shows that I can think of that featured segments of bands playing their music within the plot of a standard storyline - not counting variety shows.

In those days if you weren’t planted in front of the TV set when it was show time, you flat out missed it. There were no VCRs to capture the moment if you weren’t home - although we were guilty of tape recording the entire show on audio cassette and playing it back 100 times over the following week, so that was better than nothing.

The other show that featured a band playing their song of the week was the 2nd major influence of my musical youth. The Partridge Family (1970-1974) came along right at the start of my teen years when the thought of becoming a rock star sex symbol started to appeal to me for the first time.

And as far as I was concerned, there was no one hipper or sexier than David Cassidy himself. Take a look for yourself:

Hmm, I’m thinking maybe David might have been confusing waking up “in love” with waking up with morning wood, but hey - as long as he was happy about it did it really matter?

And so there they are… the two TV shows that most influenced me to eventually become a musician, travel around the world, meet my wife, have kids, start a blog, and get picked up by Snuppy as a fellow Snarkster to tell my story here.

I must say it’s been quite a ride, but I’d like to thank my good friends Davy and David for showing me the way.

~ Jeff

I’m singing the praises of Humor-Blogs.com!

Here’s the deal… my 15 year-old son figured this would be a GREAT gift to buy me for Christmas - which of course it was (God I love that kid).

But low and behold there were other opinions in the household.

Apparently my wife didn’t want me wearing this shirt. Something about “embarrassing the hell out of her” or “not respecting her” or some other irrational blather - I really wasn’t listening. Nonetheless, I love my wife (who is a hot mom btw) and so I obliged her and took the shirt off the instant we got home from church that Christmas morning.

This led me back to Target to return my gift, where I had this stimulating conversation with the customer service woman:

“Excuse me, but I need to return this tee shirt.”

“Is there anything wrong with it sir?”

“No. It doesn’t fit… my wife’s idea of what a 46 year old husband should be wearing.”

“She’s right.”

D’oh! The other thrill of returning this was that if you’ve ever received a gift from a teenager, you know that they don’t tend to keep important things. Like receipts for instance. They also don’t have checks or credit cards and therefore always pay for things with cash. And so the opinionated customer service woman was less than interested in taking back my rejected shirt.

But… after begging her to let me do a direct exchange for a different shirt in front of the other 25 people waiting in the post-Christmas return line behind me - she finally had degraded me enough where apparently she felt I was worthy of the exchange.

And so eventually I did end up with another, less controversial tee shirt - but not nearly as cool as the Hot Moms one. This got me thinking about designing some new tee shirts that could possibly fill this void for other husbands out there who end up in this same leaky boat. For example, would this be more appropriate?

I don’t know, I always thought pioneer school teachers were kind of sexy.

Or how about this one?

No, wait - I hate mimes. UNLESS….

Ahh, MUCH better!

Then of course there’s this version for the obsessed blogger…

Eh. But still none of those were floating my wife’s boat. Until I suggested this one…

… and gee, whatta ya know - THIS one got the thumbs up.

But I don’t think I’m going to wear it however…

I’d hate to look like a pansy.

~ Jeff

All the hot moms hang out at Humor-Blogs.com!

(p.s. Just for fun I put the last 3 shirts up for sale at cafepress.com/formatcdrive )

The following is an absolutely true story. As far as you know.

Normally there are very few things that get my goat, but last Friday my goat was got.

I was sitting at my desk battling a software upgrade from hell. For whatever reason, my connection kept failing during a major file download and crashing my browser session. Things had gone from bad to worse and I was quickly getting fed up when my download errored for the third time.

“Oh for Pete’s sakes!” I blurted out.

That’s when one of my co-workers decided to challenge me.

CW: I believe the proper phrase is “Oh for Pete’s sake.”

Me: What?

CW: You know - without the “s.”

Me: What?

CW: Jeff, you said “Oh for Pete’s sakes” and it’s supposed to be “Oh for Pete’s sake.” Singular.

Me: Really.

CW: Yes. Just “Pete’s sake.”

Me: And how the hell do YOU know that Pete didn’t have more than one sake? What if he was a collector of sakes and he had a whole box full of them? What if he owned a company that made millions of them every day? What if Pete had 15 children and he named every one of them Sake? HAVEN’T YOU EVER HEARD OF A NAMESAKE?!!!

CW: Uh… ok.

Me: And what are you anyway, the friggen phrase police?

CW: Ya. Say listen, I need to make a call here. You gonna be ok back there?

And it was precisely at that moment (and unbeknownst to my co-worker) that my download crashed again.

Me: SON OF A BITCH!!!

CW: ! (with eyes as wide as saucers)

Me: Oh I’m sorry, did I say that wrong too?

Of course as soon as I said that I apologized and explained why I had flown off the handle. But for some reason, when I asked her if I could have my goat back she just looked at me like I was insane.

Working with me must be such a joy.

~ Jeff

For the sake of Pete’s children, stop over to Humor-Blogs.com NOW!

*This website contains the origins of commonly used phrases, but I’m warning you… unless you have a spare afternoon to kill, do NOT go to there!

With the exception of a few minor embarrassments such as Jesse Ventura, Vikings football and the fact that we’ve become known as the gay bathroom sex capital of the world, Minnesota is a pretty nifty place.

And one reason is that Minnesota has a lot to offer, such as our beautiful 10,000 lakes, our stellar medical industry and our ginormous mall - formally known as the “Mall of Holy crap, this place is so frikken huge you’ll have to walk 8 miles just to shop at 4 different stores for a pair of gloves!” which of course didn’t fit on the sign (or denote a very positive message for that matter), so they instead claimed it as the representative mall of the entire western hemisphere and shortened it to “Mall of America” instead.

So, even though we have a lot to offer, there are many people who innocently find their way here completely unprepared for life in Minnesota. As a Scandinavian Minnesotan, I am genetically programmed to slog my way through winter and pretend it doesn’t bother me, that’s what we do here. But please don’t be naive - this place is not for everyone.

That’s why I’m here to give those of you who have yet to make the migration to our hardy state some tips that will hopefully help prepare you for the things they don’t tell you in the tourism brochures.

IF you feel you have to live here, you’re much better off embracing the things you can’t change, rather than fighting them to no avail and inevitably regretting your decision to move here in the first place.

For example:

Embrace the seasons - This is what we tell ourselves once summer has ended after only four weeks. “But the colors are SO beautiful in the fall here. THAT’S why I love Minnesota so much!” Learn to adopt that phrase.

Embrace God’s little creatures - Ok, who am I kidding, I’m talking about mosquitoes - who miraculously emerge with the spring thaw (in June) and stay with us until every living crow has been infected with West Nile Virus sometime in late August. But you’ve heard the argument… without mosquitoes, there would be no food for the birds and bats. Without birds and bats… (insert food chain here)… the world would come to an end. We certainly don’t want to be responsible for that now, do we.

Embrace the winter activities - Honestly, how could you NOT be excited about the prospect of fishing for eel pout while sitting on a pickle pail in the middle of a frozen lake in -10 degree weather?

Embrace your auto mechanic - No literally, give him a big hug. Because he will become your best friend and most important ally in the war against winter.

Embrace December 22nd - By the time December 21st (the “shortest” day of the year in terms of daylight) rolls around, some people are tired of going to and coming home from work in the dark. That’s why we celebrate December 22nd as being the “first day that the days only get longer from here on out” day. I know it’s not officially recognized on the list of holidays, but it sure as hell means more to us than, say - Arbor Day.

and finally…

Embrace Lutefisk - Pfffttt, just kidding - that was a sick joke! Except for a few ancient immigrants from the old country, I’ve never met one sane Minnesotan who willingly eats this slimy crap. Recently the word got out that this stuff is actually soaked in lye before it’s cooked and well, that just kind of took that fun out of it. And the taste.

Yes, there are many more “special qualities” to Minnesota that aren’t listed here, but these should be a good start for the screening process to help you decide if you have a thick enough head skin to live here.

But don’t get this confused with what we call the screening process… you know, the process to patch all the holes in our screens - so God’s little creatures don’t get into our houses.

~Jeff

You’ll laugh your ass off, not freeze it off at Humor-blogs.com!

I resolve to not make any stupid resolutions for 2008.

There. Done. Bam!

Ok, this is probably going to come off just a little negative, but I can’t honestly say I’ve ever met anyone who has kept a major new year’s resolution commitment. And you wanna know why? Easy. It’s because most people pick things that are too insanely impossible in the first place.

Oh right…
“I currently chain-smoke 3 packs a day but I’m going to quit smoking cold turkey on Tuesday.”
“I’m going to train all winter and run my first marathon this spring!”
“I’M going to eat nothing but organic vegetables grown within 2 miles of my house!”

Shut up. Just shut up. You’ll never last a week and you’ll be more miserable for trying when you fail. So why even bother?

I say if you HAVE to make a resolution - which you don’t - then make it something you can actually follow through on.

For example - stop picking your nose in your car at intersections. Or start leaving money in the basket for the donuts you eat at church on Sunday. Or give up watching SpongeBob SquarePants for the first 4 hours of every Saturday (ok, that one’s not as easy as it sounds). Little things like that. Little things that make you feel good about yourself. Little things that make you say “Hey - I’m not a total loser!”

So that’s my advice to you as this new year rolls on in. Keep it easy, keep it light, and most of all keep it to yourself. Because I really don’t want to have to pretend I’m going to support you in your unrealistic attempt to better yourself when I know you’re not going to last past January 2nd in the first place. But that’s only because years ago I vowed to be the most open and honest person I can be at all times. See, the good resolutions DO stick!

And now on a related note, I’m going to leave you with a little pencil sketch I made when I was touring as a mere youngster on the road - just after I had returned from playing some small islands in the South Pacific with the USO. I guess I was fascinated by the concept of desert islands at the time and the thought of being stranded on one was on my mind. Of course I’ve updated the caption to reference this next year instead.

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you have a fabulous and resolution-free holiday!

~ Jeff

The ONLY resolution you should make is to stop by Humor-blogs.com!

The other night I was innocently flipping through the channels and landed on a rerun of Jay Leno, just before he was about to introduce the musical guest for the night.

Since I didn’t know who he had booked, I stayed tuned, eager to enjoy another quality musical guest. But imagine my surprise when camera panned over to the stage and instead found…

THIS GUY!

GAH!I thought these guys were long dead. I guess that explains why Dee Snider looks like he’s been exhumed.

Last year Twisted Sister celebrated their 30th anniversary as a band, and to cap it off they released this new holiday album called… you guessed it - “A Twisted Christmas“.

And so the other night I watched them play their very twisted version of O Come All Ye Faithful which (cleverly?) superimposes the words directly over the same melody as We’re Not Gonna Take It.

Hmm, he didn’t figure that out until now? I remember thinking that was a rip-off 23 years ago when that song first came out.

Anyway, the act was entertaining - in a “it’s really hard to not watch a train wreck” kind of way. The poor band looks exactly like a weather-beaten version of the original, except for the “please just shoot me now” expressions they now wear on their faces.

Here’s the video of their version of O Come All Ye Faithful.

As I’m sure you discovered right away, having actual acting skills were not as much a prerequisite for this gig as much as having large breasts and the ability to shake your hair around.

Of course I’m quite sure you weren’t surprised to find they managed to add a sexy “video chick” to a classic Christmas song such as O Come All Ye Faithful. But then again isn’t that their job?

I mean duh - this IS Twisted Sister!!!

~ Jeff

Ye faithful always come to Humor-blogs.com for truly twisted humor!

One of the things I love most about Christmas is the food.

Every year our families converge to feast on the smörgasbord of such holiday delights as honey-glazed ham, candied yams, and one of my mom’s favorites - Jello with Miracle Whip on top!

No trust me - it’s real. In fact here’s an old ad from the 60s that I believe was her inspiration for it in the first place.

“Fruit Tower. Here’s the happiest combination of go-together fruit flavors, ever. Prepare raspberry gelatin as you always do. Blend in a medley of fresh peaches, Bing cherries and little mandarin oranges. Serve TOPPED OFF WITH MIRACLE WHIP.”

I know it’s an acquired taste, but hey - don’t knock it unless you’ve tried it. For 45 years.

Another one of my favorite holiday treats also has to do with food. Not eating it, but watching it - as in this delicious video of one of the funniest SNL skits of all time.

Well… you heard it ladies - his balls are there for your pleasure.

And speaking of pleasure… I’m curious, how many people besides me have had the “pleasure” of eating Jello with Miracle Whip? Go ahead, you can say it, don’t be embarrassed.

Even better, tell us about a unique “Delicious Dish” your family serves. And maybe if we’re lucky, we’ll get to hear about your special balls!

~Jeff

Deck the halls with Schweddy Balls over at Humor-Blogs.com!

Holy smokes! Look who and/or what we found waiting for us in the queue when we logged in this morning. That’s right — another hilarious post from one of our NEW best friends and (hopefully) frequent contributor, JEFF — aka, Harmonica Man. Or, as we suddenly feel compelled to call him, Jefferonica, who’s decided to entitle the following exchange “Virgin Visions”, despite our recommendation to call it “Overheard From the Cloud”. It matters not, for verily we say unto thee (youse?) this post by any name is still mightily amusing. Watch out, Jefferonica, we could DEFINITELY get used to seeing your avatar around here (did we just say “get”. Hell, we already are). ~snuppy

*** *** *** *** ***

Pete: Hey G, what’s going on?

G: Not much, just having a little fun here.

Pete: Oh no, not that tired old Virgin Mary siting thing again. Isn’t that getting a little old?

G: Are you kidding? Look what I did this time!

Pete: Oh for my sakes. You do realize that thousands of people are now going to flock to this poor woman’s house and set up a stupid shrine by her refrigerator. Right?

G: That’s not necessarily true. No one set up a shrine when I made this.

Pete: Ah yes, the Grilled Cheese Mary. I remember it well. Aren’t you ashamed that the schmuck you bestowed this upon made $28,000 on eBay over this?

G: Nope. But I am ashamed to claim responsibility for the idiots who bid on it. But hey, I’ve had a lot of fun with my Virgin Visions ©, especially the food series. I mean just look at these beauts…

Pete: Ok, I’ll give you the pizza pan one, but the chocolate thing looks like a big turd and the moldy lemon slice looks like the elephant man.

G: Say what you want about them, but every one of these apparitions have drawn HUGE numbers. The pizza guy’s business quadrupled over night. You can’t tell me I’m not helping out the little guy here.

Pete: Fine, but who exactly is benefiting from a Virgin Mary water stain on a freeway underpass? I mean come on already.

G: Man, ye of little faith already - Jesus. Listen, you can ring the church bells, send people door-to-door, put fliers on windshields, do whatever you want and you STILL won’t gather as many believers as Our Lady of the Underpass did in Chicago.That’s there’s some powerful stuff, I don’t care who y’all are.

Pete: Fine, you win. I do have to admit though, this one was pretty cool.

G: Uh, sorry Pete - I didn’t have anything to do with that one. I’m pretty sure that one is real.

Pete: You need to get a life.

~harmonica man

The laughs are real at humor-blogs.com!

LOOK who we found hiding behind that cloud hanging over our heads — you guessed it, our good and very tall friend, HARMONICA MAN. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t so much a cloud over our heads as in our brains, but that’s beside the point. The point, which tried to rain on our thought parade, is this: after stressing over just how to follow BOBO’s brilliant Fill-in Spin, we developed a world-class headache. Enter Jeff (aka Harmonica Man), a blogger we’ve been trying to get on the Snark team for quite some time. Finally, after much whining and/or offers to put his kids through college (assuming we can do that for about $3.50), he caved agreed to help us out. Yay for Jeff. And yay for you, too, ‘cuz this guy’s not only tall enough to view the world from behind a cloud, he’s also flat out funny. ~snuppy

PS: Leaving happy comments may help convince young Jeff to come back again, sometime soon. Otherwise we might resort to trolling on Humor-blogs.com for help the next time our brain clouds up.

****** ******** ******

True story…

So there I was sound asleep at 1:00 in the morning last Sunday when suddenly I felt something land on my chest. Startled awake, I sat straight up in my bed only to see a mouse running across my blankets and down over the side. Needless to say I was FREAKED!

Or so I thought.

Needed to say was that I was only dreaming that a mouse had landed on my chest, which caused me to sit up and think I was seeing it skitter away. But to me it was all too real and just about gave me a heart attack.

Eventually I calmed down and went back to sleep. But only until 4:00 when I dreamed once again that mice were dropping through a hole in my ceiling and filling up a box that was suspended over my bed. BUT - since the box had gotten full, the damn thing was overflowing with mice which were spilling out and falling on me while I slept. Nice.

Ok, before you call the “special police”, I’m pretty sure I have an explanation for these recurring nightmares…

…THIS!

That’s right. Billed as the “most humane” way to catch mice, this live trap allows several mice to be captured at once. Which is true. Because I used it. And it works.

You see a few weeks ago we found evidence of mice running around in our garage and decided they needed to be “relocated.” We chose this live trap because it seemed like the perfect solution. You simply gather them up in this nice little box, take them out to the woods and let them go. No more spring traps full of mice with broken necks and brains coming out of their mouths (which I’ve seen unfortunately).

Sure enough I wound up the neat live trap and put it on my workbench and the next morning there he was, one cute little mouse standing on his back legs and looking out of the plastic window. “Bingo! This thing works great!” I thought. But still I wanted to get a few more before I took the time to convert our city mice into country mice.

And then… the next morning we had another one! I was thrilled. At this rate we would have the whole McMouse family in a few days. And so I let it sit another night.

But the next morning something went horribly wrong. One of the mice had died overnight (or had been murdered) and the other one was on top of him and gnawing on his back. It was disgusting and I couldn’t bear to look at it for more than a second, so I just left him there to deal with later - except that “later” just happened to end up being about a week, at which point the only thing left in the box was one dead cannibal rodent from Hell and another dried up mouse-pelt rug. Oh yeah, this trap was a GREAT idea.

Needless to say, I won’t be quite so compassionate next time. After this it’s mouse brains all the way. Go ahead, call PETA - I don’t give a shit. This guy needs to get some sleep!

~Jeff (aka Harmonica Man)

Mickey Mouse left a juicy “surprise” for Jeff at Humor-blogs.com.