You can’t call it Swine Flu anymore. It’s H1N1, ever since U.S. pork producers lobbied to have it changed. The difference between the terms ‘Swine Flu’ and ‘H1N1’ is that Swine Flu just rolls off the tongue, while Aitch One En One does not. I therefore propose the following pronunciation for the overhyped malady: pronounce […]
MadMania
Faith, Books, and Stuff
Author: madman
Last Saturday I went to JoeCon, the annual G.I. Joe convention, with my girls, one of my students, and Nooby. It was pretty good, but (not to denigrate it), it was just a toy show. We got some sweet stuff and we got to meet Larry Hama, and he was pretty cool. While JoeCon rates […]
“Upstairs noodles?”
adjective, pronounced phonetically. I learned this word from my wife, who I suppose coined it, as I haven’t seen it anywhere else. It means “at a wrong angle, misaligned, uneven, out of level, out of plumb, and/or out of square.” UPDATE: one of my readers pointed out that woppyjarred appears to be a corruption of […]
As long as I could remember my Dad always drove American cars, so it was a great surprise when my uncle mentioned that my Dad and his twin brother had once owned a Volkswagen Beetle–for a short time. “They were coming around a long curve on our gravel road. Our neighbor and his wife were […]
My Dad told us he once worked at a potato chip plant. My brothers and I were fascinated at the prospect of working at such a magical place. “Did they let you eat any of the chips?” we asked. “They let us eat all we wanted,” he replied. We were completely in awe. “They knew that […]
Before you try pronouncing it with any kind of J sound, I’ll tell you: it’s pronounced MEE-ho, and in Mexican Spanish it’s a term of endearment for boys (mija, MEE-ha for girls). I learned the word from my brother. He heard it from one of his Army buddies, who told this story: “When I was […]
One of my more comically miserable memories involves Star Wars nerds, and lots of ’em. The year is 1997. My friend Dave calls and says he knows this guy named Steve who was trying to put together a big fat Star Wars convention in Kansas City, and the guy needed artists to help. I had […]
‘Pettin’ the zebra’ is a metaphor for being stuffed and mounted, and, more specifically, dead; it was coined by my brothers. They were discussing how unwise it would be to ever attempt to burglarize the house of one of our relatives (the relative in question is a hunter and a taxidermist). While he has a […]
When my wife and I were dating, she was still playing tennis. She said she had an 85 mile-an hour-backhand. I don’t know jack about sports, so I just filed the factoid away. Anyway, we were out on the court, and I was throwing tennis balls across the fence so she could hit them. You […]