Sunday, June 29, 2003 - A mongoose is a carnivorous mammal of the genus Herpestes, having a slender agile body and a long tail and noted for the ability to seize and kill venomous snakes. The manager of the city zoo, typing a letter on the computer, wrote “I would like to place an order for two mongooses, to be delivered at your earliest convenience.” He stared at the word mongooses. He deleted it and typed “I would like to place an order for two mongeese, to be delivered at your earliest convenience.” He stared at the word mongeese and it seemed no better. Finally, he deleted the whole sentence and started over. “Everyone knows no zoo would be complete without a mongoose,” he typed. “Please send us two of them.”
Monday, June 30, 2003 - Vernon Sanders explains “Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards.” Consider the following. The teacher gives his class their final exam, containing all true/false questions, and he notices a student in the back flipping a coin for the answers. He flips the coin, writes the answer, flips the coin, writes the answer. At the end of class, everyone brings their exam to the front except for this one student, still flipping the coin. The teacher walks over to him and says “Obviously you didn’t study for this exam. If you’re only going to flip a coin for your answer, what’s taking you so long?” The student replies, still flipping the coin, “I need to check my answers.”
Tuesday, July 1, 2003 - Neurotics build castles in the sky. Psychotics live in them. Psychiatrists collect the rent. Why is psychoanalysis a lot quicker for a man than for a women? Because when it’s time to go back to childhood, the man is already there. Sigmund Freud observes “What a distressing contrast there is between the radiant intelligence of the child and the feeble mentality of the average adult.” Clement Freud postulates “If you resolve to give up smoking, drinking, and loving, you don’t actually live longer; it just seems longer.” And in 1885, Barker Bradford ended his epic “How I missed her, how I missed her, how I missed my Clementine, ‘til I kissed her little sister, and forgot my Clementine.” (!)

Wednesday, July 2, 2003 - Epitaphs. In Silver City, Nevada: “Here lays The Kid. We planted him raw. He was quick on the trigger but slow on the draw.” In London, England: “Owen Moore, gone away, owin’ more than he could pay.” In Uniontown, Pennsylvania: “Here lies the body of Jonathan Blake, stepped on the gas instead of the brake.” In Enosburg Falls, Vermont: “Here lies the body of our Anna, done to death by a banana. It wasn’t the fruit that laid her low, but the skin of the thing that made her go.” In Thurmont, Maryland: “Here lies an atheist all dressed up and no place to go.” And “That’s All Folks!” The Man of a Thousand Voices. Mel Blanc.

Thursday, July 3, 2003 - Always wear your safety goggles or pixels may get in your eyes. Albert Einstein postulates “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.” Elbert Hubbard explains “Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.” Nick Diamos insists “Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.” Stephen Vizinczey affirms “Strange as it seems, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and formal education positively fortifies it.” And Werner Herzog declares “Stupidity is the devil. Look in the eye of a chicken and you’ll know. It’s the most horrifying, cannibalistic, and nightmarish creature in this world.”

Friday, July 4, 2003 - The musical 1776 with William Daniels as the “obnoxious and disliked” delegate from Massachusetts, John Adams, was, to my mind, the last of the great old-fashioned movie musicals in the tradition of The Music Man, My Fair Lady, Camelot, Fiddler on the Roof, and Man of La Mancha. It wasn’t a high budget or highbrow production, but where else could one hear Benjamin Franklin declare his disinterest in penning the Declaration of Independence, singing “Mr. Adams, but, Mr. Adams. The things I write are only light extemporania. I won’t put politics on paper; it’s a mania. So I refuse to use the pen in Pennsylvania.” Bob Fosse’s Cabaret also came out that same year (1972) and musicals were never the same again.

Saturday, July 5, 2003 - For almost two decades now, I experience the same two-year cycle with the Pasadena Rose Bowl 4th of July fireworks display. One year it seems to last a long time. The next year it seems to last a short time. Long time. Short time. Last year was a long time. This year was a short time. The quality of the firework effects always improves, however. Bigger. Louder. More colors. More amazing sparkles, spangles, and whirligigs. The finale explodes across the entire sky. Of course, I lie on the grass at ground zero to optimize the terror, and this year, a bonus. When it was all over, I discovered I had a fine layer of ash all over me. I hardly need Independence Day, though, as an excuse to make an ash of myself.