Archive for the ‘Humor’ Category

Real Men Decorate

Saturday, February 12th, 2011

Got your attention, didn’t I?

With the opening of the second building at our New Jersey Avenue location in Wildwood Crest this past Wednesday, it’s obvious that the decor and wall hangings didn’t just appear overnight.  It took some serious shopping.  It took painting a pallette in my mind of the decor blending together.

Don’t let my rugged Mountain Man appearance fool you.  I love to decorate.  When I was a kid, my mother used to tell me that, “Someday you’ll make somebody a good wife.”  I’d give her a disgusted look as I continued to stir the spaghetti sauce.  No, I didn’t wear an apron.

Decorating is an art.  It sets the tone of the building, employees, and customers through the feelings it exudes.  Good feelings – in our real estate industry – equal good business and good sales.  That warm, fuzzy feeling gets them every time.  Oh, and our genuinely friendly demeanor helps, too.

Some guys have no taste.  To them, hang a few posters of hot chicks along with a few beer signs and they think that’s cool.  Yeah, if you’re stuck in post-pubescence.  I like to think – no, I know – that I’m eons past that stage.  I appreciate optical splendor.  I love sunsets and full moons and birds fishing in a marsh and swaying palm trees and a sailboat on the horizon.  I enjoy all forms of flora and fauna.  I love mountain streams and deer grazing and hawks circling above.  I can express my pleasure with these images through decorating our homes and offices.

You were right, Mom.

- Mountain Man

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Temperance Still Alive

Thursday, January 20th, 2011

Ocean City, a seashore town located at the north end of Cape May County, New Jersey, was founded in 1879 by four Methodist ministers.  The town is a popular resort, with plenty of beaches, a Boardwalk, amusement rides, restaurants, retail stores, etc, even the Ocean City Pops.  The year-round population of about 15,000 swells to 150,000 on any given day in the summer.

Ocean City gained notoriety for its idiotic Blue Laws, which designated Sunday as a day of no driving, no ocean bathing, no retail sales of any kind, no recreational activities.  I guess the only thing you were allowed to do was go to church …oops, walk to church.  In 1985 and ’86, most of the remaining Blue Laws were finally repealed.  Amazingly, it was a very close vote.

Ocean City does still carry the torch outlawing liquor.  The town is “dry”, meaning no restaurants can serve alcohol and naturally there are no packaged goods stores.  Heck, you can’t even be seen in public drinking a beer.

So imagine the the gall of restaurant owners this winter in proposing permitting BYOB, which stands for Bring Your Own Booze.  They weren’t asking to sell beer, wine or liquor, just to allow customers to bring a bottle of wine to consume with dinner.  The nerve!

The backward temperance folks were outraged.  “Not while I’m mayor,” said the reigning mayor.  I was waiting for him to add, “You’ll have to pry the gavel from my cold, dead hands.”  The argument, of course, is that Ocean City is America’s “Greatest Seaside Family Resort” and the town would shrivel and die if alcohol of any sort is allowed.  How dare we subject little Johnny and Susie to have to sit in a restaurant while the adults at the next table each sip a glass of wine.  Blasphemy!

The debate will carry on this winter, but by spring no doubt the temperance clan will prevail.  In Ocean City, BYOB will still mean Bring Your Own Bible.

- Mountain Man

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Daydreaming

Wednesday, January 19th, 2011

The human mind is a funny thing.  You can play tricks on it, even though your mind knows you’re playing a trick.  More simply put, you can divert your mind to thoughts of pleasant things to help blot out the unpleasant and your mind will go along with the deception.

Case in point is City Girl.  On Christmas day, she laid in tremendous pain in the hospital with a broken hip.  The ball of the femur (thigh) bone had totally pulled out of the hip socket.  The pain was constant, excruciating.  I mentioned that perhaps we should delay purchasing the building next door to our real estate office for a few months.  “No,” she replied.  “Thinking about the building is all that’s getting me through this pain.”  She was focusing on a positive to try to lessen a negative.

We all do the same thing, except when there isn’t physical pain involved it’s more appropriately called daydreaming. 

I daydream often.  In fact, I guess I actually daydream daily.  My mind is taking itself to somewhere in the future that is pleasant, soothing, idyllic.

Right now, in mid-January of a colder than average South Jersey winter, my mind is working overtime.  My mind is thinking of spring, of planting flowers and vegetables.  This fantasy has been helped along by the half-dozen seed catalogs that have arrived since January 2nd.  As I pour through the catalogs in my reading room (okay, bathroom) looking at tomato varieties, zucchini, spinach, hot pepper, and a host of other vegetable seeds, I envision these plants growing in my dozen raised beds behind the house.  I decide what varieties I’ll grow again this year and which new ones deserve a chance.  I think of the mistakes I made last year, like not planting enough zucchini plants to get proper pollination.  My zucchini crop was a total flop in 2010.  My peppers arrived late and my spinach bolted too early.  And I planted too many cucumber plants.  I’ll cut back on cukes this year.

With new flower beds to deal with as our real estate office expansion comes to fruition, I am debating which flowers to plant.  I want continuity so that the two side-by-side properties will become one.  Should I use impatiens, which always give a colorful display?  No, they get stressed too much in the hot July and August days because they need some shade, not full sunlight.  How about marigolds or asters or chrysanthemums?  Maybe I should start with cold-hardy pansies in March, then replant summer flowers Memorial Weekend?

My mind wanders to envisioning myself in a tee shirt and jeans, on my knees, with flats of flowers ready to find their summer home.  I think about all our customers and even folks walking down New Jersey Avenue who will be complimenting my choice of yellows, pinks, oranges, reds, whites and purples.  The compliments bring satisfaction, a feeling of accomplishment.

I feel good.  Isn’t daydreaming great?!!

- Mountain Man

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Ready,… Set,… Go

Saturday, January 15th, 2011

I’ve got an idea.  I know how to put America and the world economies back on solid ground.

First of all, it’s hard to not agree that the demographics do not support our weak economic state.  We have more and more people on Planet Earth.  In fact, the world’s population increases by nearly 80 million people each year.  That’s equivalent to over 1/4 of the USA’s current population, which is 310 million.  Today’s world population of 6,868,724,935 will hit the 7 billion mark before 2011 is over.  That’s a lot of consumers, a lot of people who need housing, clothing, and everyday staples of life.

The biggest needs in the world are potable water, food, health care, education, and alternative energy.  Incredibly, an estimated 1.7 billion folks in the world live off the grid, meaning they have no electricity or other utilities we take for granted.

Okay, that’s a lot of numbers, but what do they mean?  Are you thinking what I’m thinking? 

Our world economies can gear up by providing water, food, health care, education and alternative energy to the world.  Just imagine if the 14 countries with the biggest economies turned their production toward meeting these needs.  The world leaders I’m talking about are the US, China, Japan, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Brazil, Canada, Russia, India, Spain, Australia, and Mexico.  The unemployment rates in these countries would drastically drop, putting perhaps 50-100 million people back to work.  That would create boom times not only in these 14 countries, but all countries. 

The standard of living in the 50 poorest countries would rise to unthought of heights.  Since these 50 countries also have the highest fertility rates, health care and education would result in a “zero growth” population gain.  Couples would be subsidized and forced to have just two children, just like some countries already do.  We need to stabilize our population and make predictions of 11 billion people by 2050 mute.

Sure, you’re thinking how are we gonna pay for this?  Who’ll pay the farmers to grow more crops, the manufacturers to make windmills and solar cells and water pumps and desalination plants and medicine and so on?

That’s where capitalism comes in.  The infusion of new jobs saving the world would fuel the growth of everything from more restaurants and retailers to the manufacture of more cars and TVs.  Production would boom.  Personal wealth would skyrocket.  Everyone would get a piece of the pie.  Including the tax man, who could use the tenfold or more increase in tax revenue to fund the manufacture startups.

The only variable is timing.  Everything has to start at once.  “Instant Prosperity” I’ll call it.  So let’s pick a day.  I nominate Monday, June 4, 2012 as Prosperity Day.  That’ll give us over a year to get ready to gear up.  The night before, the world sets off fireworks.  On Monday morning, we roll up our sleeves and get to work.

- Mountain Man

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I’m No Homer

Monday, January 10th, 2011

I have lived in many places in the United States during my life.  One thing in common each had is that I absolutely despised their hometown sports teams.  The homers turned me off, made me sick.  They have an undying and somewhat pathetic loyalty to their local pro sports teams, so I am the type personality that purposely takes the opposite tact.  I hate the teams they love.  Aren’t I annoying?

I grew up in New Jersey just across the Hudson River from New York City.  I hated the NY Yankees through one World Series championship after another.  I loved the Dodgers, even though they had bolted for the West Coast.  Same for the SF Giants.  I liked the Pirates, too.  In football, I hated the NY Giants.  I liked the Baltimore Colts and Green Bay Packers.  I didn’t like the NY Knickerbockers, instead my allegiance went to the Philadelphia Warriors and big Wilt Chamberlain.  And yes, I also didn’t like the NHL’s NY Rangers, instead being a devoted Montreal Canadiens fan.  As you can guess, I was very popular in school.  Not.

In high school and college I lived in suburban Boston.  Needless to say, I hated the Bruins, Red Sox, Patriots, and Celtics.  Oh, I especially hated the Celtics as they won title after title.  I got in many verbal spats concerning the merits of Wilt over Bill Russell.  However, once the dynasty broke up and the Celtics became a .500 team, I became a big fan.  Why?  Because the homers turned on them.  I guess I like the underdog.  And I like my role as an anti-homer.

When I later lived in San Diego, I predictably didn’t like the Chargers or Padres.  I did, however, like the San Diego State Aztecs football team.  I am a loyal local college and high school fan.  I guess that’s because the homers tend to stick to pro sports.  No matter where I lived, I liked the nearby high schools and the in-state college teams.  One exception – I have never and will never like UCLA.  Screw them!

Now I live in South Jersey and all the locals are obsessed with the Philadelphia sports teams.  I hate the Eagles (they call them I-G-G-L-E-S).  When they lost in the first round of the NFL playoffs yesterday, it made my year.  That’ll shut up all the “this is our year” idiots.  Revenge is sweet!

My favorite NBA team is now the Celtics.  I kinda like the 76ers, but that’s because they’re incompetent.  I also kinda like the Phillies, but that’s because they were cellar dwellers most of my life.  I cheered them to their World Series victory a couple years ago.  As for the Flyers – who cares.  The NHL is all Eastern Europeans and Nordics now, so I’ve lost total interest.

In boxing, I hated Cassius Clay.  Oh, I heard he changed his name to Muhammad Ali.  His fight style was boring and his mouth was too big.  I liked Joe Frazier and George Foreman.  I did and still do like Mike Tyson, but he was a tragedy waiting to happen and we didn’t have to wait too long.  I sympathized with the guy. 

The PGA Golf Tour shows my disdain for the top dog.  When Arnold Palmer was on top, I liked Julius Boros and Doug Ford.  When it was Jack Nicklaus, I loved Lee Trevino, Chi Chi Rodriguez, and Gary Player.  Now that they are the elder statesmen of golf and no longer dominate, I do like Palmer and Nicklaus.  I even admire them.  As for Tiger Woods, I never liked him.  Too cocky, too aloof, too “I’m great”.  And my dislike has nothing to do with all those hot chicks.  I could care less about that, although I cheered because now lots of people hate him as much as I do.  But, maybe someday, around 2040, I might begin to accept him as a legend. 

No, I’ll be gone from this earth by then.  That’ll give all the homers something to cheer about.

- Mountain Man

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Please, No More Snow!

Saturday, January 8th, 2011

Enough is enough.

Last winter, South Jersey was blasted by four big snowstorms which set a record for the winter by leaving behind 58 inches of snow.  Okay, we looked back at it all summer and decided it was an anomaly.  C’mon, we don’t get that kind of snowfall here in Cape May County, a 5-mile wide peninsula where the half dozen golf courses stay open year-round.  With the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south and the 13-mile wide Delaware Bay to the west, our weather is tempered by the waters that are much warmer than the air.

Up until a few years ago, I didn’t even own a winter jacket.  A heavy sweatshirt was sufficient.  Sure we had a couple cold mornings with temperatures in the upper teens, but it usually got in the mid-40s in the day and often broke the 50 degree mark.  Our winter was more like those found in South Carolina and Georgia, or so we told ourselves.

This winter, the day after Christmas, we received 17″ of snow.  Fortunately it was light and fluffy.  We all told ourselves that it was going to be the only snowstorm of the winter.  We collectively decided to ignor the fact that the temperate zones of the world – like the good old USA – were subject to weather extremes in this age of global warming.  Just a quick peek back to last summer and its intense heat and lack of rainfall should have been a sufficient reminder.

Yesterday, the TV meteorologists had the local populace scared about snow, but we didn’t even get enough to show on the ground before the sun popped out.  They switched their negative prognostications to today, a Saturday.  They talked about 1″-3′ here at the shore and up to 6″ farther inland.  Well, here it is 11am and we’ve got two inches of fresh snow on the ground and it’s still coming down with reckless abandon. 

 

Worse yet, they’re talking about a possible nor’easter on Tuesday.  Snow that wraps around and comes from the northeast is always our heaviest snowfall.  People on the East Coast love to talk about past nor’easters.

A few minutes ago, I had to go preview a property for one of  my real estate clients.  That’s what realtors do, rain or shine.  As I sloshed down a back city street in my 4-wheel drive, I pondered why anyone would tolerate this snow.  Everyone hated it, right? 

Then up ahead, I saw three boys about 8-years old each sitting on an old December 26th snowpile.  They had on full snowsuits, ski caps and hoods, mittens, and boots.  Each had carved out a spot in the hill that was custom-fit to their derriere.  They were having a great time and were oblivious to the blowing snow and chilly conditions.  It was then that I had an epiphany.  I flashed back to my youth.  Gosh, how I loved to sit and play in the snow, just like these three young lads.

The negative thoughts about snow left my mind.  Of course, snow is for the children, the innocent souls.  Have fun, kids!

- Mountain Man

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Spammers & Scammers

Friday, January 7th, 2011

It used to be that spam was a kind of lousy meat in a can.  And a scam was when some college-aged person came knocking on your door selling alleged magazine subscriptions to put themselves through school.

Times have changed.

With the advent of the internet age, spamming and scamming have taken on a new life.  Yesterday on this blogsite there were 73 spams and this morning another 40.  Some take the line of supposedly commenting on a particular blog article.  But wouldn’t you get suspicious when some talk about a blog I wrote about City Girl breaking her hip and they say something like, “Informative article.  It made me feel good.”?

The last two days of spams have included dozens promoting on-line gambling, sexual enhancement pills (I refuse to print the names), weight loss miracles, wonder drugs, sporting goods, horny housewives and Russian brides, and on and on.  How do these people sleep at night knowing they are being underhanded?  Do their kids know that Daddy is unscrupulous and not really a role model?  Hey kids, Pops is a sleazeball!

Scammers take it to a different level.  If I was to believe every shifty email I get, I have relatives in China, India, Hong Kong, the Phillipines, England, Germany, Spain, Portugal, and yes Nigeria – let’s not forget Nigeria – that have left me fortunes ranging from $2 million up to $16 million.  Boy, I must have quite a family tree. 

And then there’s those who claim that some deceased prince or rich businessman has picked me from the world’s 6.9 billion people to be the lucky recipient of his mass fortune.  Wouldn’t they turn over in their grave if they knew I’d spend all the money on feeding and housing the needy folks in our country, instead of Rolls Royces and luxurious palaces.  Oh yea, I would set aside some money for beer.

I figure that adding up all the vast sums of money I have been offered amounts to about 1 billion dollars.  With 43.6 million Americans living in poverty, I could give each of them about $23 worth of food.  You know what?  I will take that money!

- Mountain Man

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Guys Don’t Know

Tuesday, January 4th, 2011

I’m a guy.  That’s not a bad thing, but there are some things that are second nature to City Girl that are Greek to me.

As you may know from reading two of the blogs I wrote since Christmas, City Girl broke her hip on Christmas morning when we were walking down the railroad tracks to feed some homeless fellows.  She’s had hip replacement surgery and is now in a convalescent home receiving physical therapy.  That makes me a bachelor for a while longer.

I’m pretty good around the kitchen, and in fact I do all the cooking in our household of two.  My mother even used to tell me that, “someday you’ll make somebody a good wife.”  She was right.

But I found one of my limitations this morning.  Since City Girl can not climb stairs, I am converting the dining room into a temporary bedroom.  It’ll be convenient for her being on the first floor and close to a bathroom, her office, and the kitchen.  I had no trouble disassembling the dining room table and along with my buddy Keith we got the table top, extension, legs, and six chairs into an outbuilding for storage.  The new full-sized bed I purchased was quickly assembled.  So far, every task had been regular guy stuff.  Easy to do.

Yesterday I bought a mattress pad, bed skirt, and a matching set of fitted sheet, top sheet, and two pillow cases.  I went 300 count thread, which is decent, and picked a nice beige color which City Girl approved via phone as I stood in the store aisle naming the color choices.  So far so good.

This morning I decided to assemble the bedding.  First I put on the mattress pad and it fit nicely.  Then I took the bed skirt and hit a brick wall.  I tried putting it over the mattress pad, but that couldn’t possibly be right.  I knew it didn’t go over the fitted sheet, so I pulled a chair up to the foot of the bed to contemplate my predicament.  Where the heck does the bed skirt go?  I could have gone upstairs and simply seen where City Girl had it on our bed, but that would be admitting I couldn’t figure it out.  No way!

Then it hit me.  It must go between the box spring and mattress.  Voila.  That was the answer.  Ten minutes later I had the entire bed made.  It looked nice. 

Oops.  One more thing.  Standing back to admire my work, I realized that the bed skirt was very wrinkled.  It needed to be ironed.  City Girl, once she’s home, will immediately point out that I should have ironed the bed skirt. 

I thought for a split second.  No, I won’t iron the bed skirt.  If I did, she wouldn’t feel like I really need her, which I do.  I’d rather have her smirk and think to herself, “He’s just a guy!”

- Mountain Man

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Jersey Shore – The TV Show

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

I’m not really one to watch MTV.  It’s not my generation.  I’m a couple generations past that.  So when I read in the newspaper that Italian-American groups were repulsed and offended by the show “Jersey Shore”, it piqued my interest.

I feel qualified to have an opinion about the Jersey Shore (the place, not the show) because, heck, I live here.  Our real estate office is located in Wildwood Crest, Cape May County.  We’re just four blocks from the beach and the beginning of the 39 city block long Boardwalk.  From Memorial Day to Labor Day, the population on our island swells from 14,000 yearround to over 250,000.

Our closest metropolitan area is Philadelphia.  It’s predominantly Italian and Irish heritage.  And it’s a rite of passage for families and their kids to vacation here.  It’s also an unofficial “tradition” that kids in their late teens and twenties come here in the summer to party.  Party hard!  Party hard away from their elders, out of sight of those who might inflict family repercussions.

I have a little more insight than most because I also owned a bar here from 2002 through 2004.  Though my tavern was off the beaten track and it attracted an older (30 to 75) crowd, I did become acquainted with many other bar owners and I did make the late night rounds more than once.

Long story short, I recently did catch two episodes of Jersey Shore.  It’s about these eight Italian-American young twenty-somethings who come to the shore town of Seaside Heights, NJ, about 50 miles north of us.  They have an assortment of MTV-generation names like Snooki, JWoWW, and The Situation.  The Situation?  Give me a break.

Anyway, they primp and argue at their rented beach house, then go out and drink and carouse, and inevitably come home and be promiscious with a newfound partner.  They call it “hooking up”.  You can call it what you like.

They also get into fights and do other immature, egotistical things.  They are an extreme example of typical summertime behavior.  Tone it down a little bit and they’re just like the others who go “Animal House” at the shore.

The Italian-American groups call Jersey Shore demeaning and not reality.  “That’s not how our kids act,” is their general feeling. 

Bottom line: 

Is this behavior the norm at the shore in the summertime?  Yes.  It’s called “sowing your oats” before settling down to a lifetime of responsibility and 2.3 kids and a soccer-mom vehicle and a mortgage.

Should Italian-American groups be offended?  No.  Get over it.  It’s also Irish-American kids and CEO’s kids and teachers’ kids and mayors’ kids.  And your kids!

- Mountain Man and City Girl    http://www.MountainManandCityGirl.com 

The blogsite of Jewell Real Estate Agency, Wildwood Crest, NJ    http://www.JewellRealEstateAgency.com

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A Penny for your Thoughts

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

It’s time to abolish the American penny.  Pass the petitions, please.

The American penny has outlived its usefulness.  I think its demise can be directly tied to the end of penny candy.  Nowadays, nothing costs under a nickel, does it?

At our house, we keep a coffee cup near the front door and every time we walk in the door we empty our pockets of those dadgum pennies.  We do this ritual because Joyce says it’s a feng-shui thing.  I don’t know, something about good karma.  Pennies are so worthless that even the little grandkids don’t want the cupful of pennies by the door.  “Aren’t there any dollars in there?”, they ask.

The American penny originated in 1793 and for the first 64 years of its life it was actually 100% copper.  The next seven years it was 89% copper and 11% nickel.  That didn’t last long, as the US mint changed to 95% copper and 5% a combination of tin and zinc.  They made pennies that way until World War II.  It went through another three transformations in the next 20 years.

In 1962, the penny became brass – that’s 95% copper and 5% zinc and titanium.  The biggest change came in 1982, when the penny made its final reform.  It became 97.5% zinc  at the core with 2.5% copper plating.  The mighty penny was no longer mostly copper, but instead a shadow of its former self.  The current cost to make a penny is 1.67 cents.  That’s right, it costs more to make this mostly-zinc penny than its face value.

I propose that we do away with the penny.  If the cost of something ends in 1 cent or two cents, round it down to zero.  If it ends in 3 or 4 cents, round it up to a nickel.  The same for 6 or 7 cents down to a nickel and 8 or 9 cents up to a dime.  It all evens out in the end.  Isn’t that easy?

There is one driving force that is lobbying – successfully, so far – to keep the penny.  No, it’s not retail merchants.  It’s not the US Treasury or the US Mint.  It’s not Congress or the Senate or the White House.  Are you sitting down?

It’s the zinc industry.  Aarrrgh!

- Mountain Man and City Girl

http://www.MountainManandCityGirl.com

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Arctic Terrorists

Sunday, January 10th, 2010

It’s an arctic jihad.  And we’ve got proof!

The weather the last couple months has been, well, extreme.  Just look at the facts.  The resort town of Whistler, British Columbia received an incredible 18 feet of snow in November.  That’s November, mind you.  That’s 216 inches of the white powder and nearly four times the November average of 58″.  In fact, it’s nearly 20% more snow than the snowiest month ever at Whistler.

In England, it was as low as 7 degrees Fahrenheit this week.  There has been snow in Madrid, Spain and Paris, France.  Temperatures in Alabama and Mississippi have been in the teens.  In Florida, the orange, grapefruit and vegetable crops are threatened with huge die-offs due to temperatures in the 20′s.  The poor iguana’s are freezing to death and dropping out of the trees.

Even here in southern New Jersey, where we’re surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean and Delaware Bay and the influence of their relatively warmer water temperatures, it was 9 degrees Fahrenheit this morning.  Heck, some winters we don’t even have to wear a winter coat.  For the past six weeks, my winter coat has been my best friend.

We were optimistic this autumn when meteorologists reported an El Nino was warming the Pacific Ocean.  That means a warm winter, doesn’t it?  But they are attributing this excessive cold and snow to an “Arctic Oscillation”.  Yeah, right, whatever that is.

Anyway, we received an email this morning from my old friend Icky Kitikmeot, an Inuit eskimo living outside Cambridge Bay on Victoria Island in the Northwest Territories of Canada.  He shed a light on this entire weather thing.

It seems Icky was out muskox hunting last week about 250 miles north of the Arctic Circle when he came across a valley lined with giant fans.  He lost count there were so many.  Stealthly sneaking up to a pre-fab quonset hut, he couldn’t believe his eyes.  Inside were dozens of men of apparent Middle Eastern descent.  Icky laid quietly for hours, listening to their conversation.

It seems that they were definitely Al-Qaeda or something, and their goal was to disrupt next month’s XXI Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver and Whistler, and at the same time cause havoc in the empirial Western World.  They laughed about the 14,000 fans they had positioned on Victoria Island that were blowing the dickens out of us infidels in North America and northern Europe.

Thanks to Icky, I’m about to alert our U.S. Department of Homeland Security about this situation.  Think they’ll issue a “level white alert”?

- Mountain Man and City Girl

http://www.MountainManandCityGirl.com

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The Demise of “da inglish langwij”

Thursday, December 31st, 2009

Maybe it’s me.  But I’m really amazed at how the majority of the American public has no sense of correct spelling and grammar.

Since you are reading this blog instead of sitting home on the couch watching Jerry Springer or hanging out in an alley sipping some Boone’s Farm Apple Wine and puffing on a cigarette, you are also probably confounded by how the English language is being butchered.

As a realtor, I am actually getting used to the fact that so many people spell realty as R-E-A-L-I-T-Y.  Duh!  Isn’t reality one of those dumb shows where people eat maggots or get stranded together on an island?

And how about people who say, “I ain’t got none.”  Gee, I didn’t learn not to use double negatives until I was in the fourth grade.  Or was it sooner? (Did you notice my use of a double negative?)

I guess our educational systems are to blame.  Teachers become babysitters to half the kids, while the other half actually learn and excel.  I was always in the “accelerated” class growing up in progressive North Jersey, so I was separated from the dummies after kindergarten and apparently forgot they existed.  Perhaps that’s why I’m perplexed by their lack of English fundamentals.

Yet, you would think that after 10 or 12 years of school people would have retained some elements of grammar and spelling.  Some people come from the worst possible environment or home life, but somehow they work hard and get college degrees and end up with high-paying jobs.  They show that anyone can excel.

So how come some people can’t even fill out a job application or handle a job interview?  The answer may be that they concentrated on being “cool” when they were in school, instead of toeing the line.  I guess that once again lays the blame on the schools.

I’m not sure what the solution is.  More compassion from teachers, smaller classrooms, more individual attention?  Maybe more direction from parents, but if they’re half-literate that’ll be tough.

Maybe we better just play taps for the English language and bury it with honors.

- Mountain Man and City Girl

http://www.MountainManandCityGirl.com

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New Year’s Resolutions

Thursday, December 31st, 2009

I’m not really the type of guy to make New Year’s resolutions.  I guess it’s because I’ve pretty much always been in control of my life.  Okay, so I always want to lose weight and I guess that is the one resolution that I might think about each December.  But it probably has more to do with the overeating I enjoy from Thanksgiving through January 1st and it’s just a coincidence of calendar.

But, what the heck.  Let me see if I can’t take a few things that bother me and turn them into New Year’s resolutions.

I vow to pay no attention to the Nostradamus prophecy of the end of the world on December 21, 2012.  Give me a break.  There’s no way some dude in 1555 could predict the end of civilization.  As the stoned-out hippies used to say, “Far out, I see it, too.”  Nostradamus will get the attention equal to Y2K, and fail as miserably.

I vow not to mumble under my breath when I see a woman covered in tattoos.  Sure, I think it’s degrading, even belittling.  But I’ll keep my mouth shut.

I vow not to make fun of religion.  So what if it is a continuance of primitive pagan rituals that fly in the face of science.  So what if religion has been the basis of wars and murder for many millineum, and still is to this day.  I’ll just consider it population control.

I vow not to complain when a bunch of brats are screaming in a store, “I want that!” and the mother exerts no control, no authority.  She’s probably dumber than them, anyway.

I vow not to get upset when the driver in front of me turns without signalling.  Or hogs the passing lane while going 5 mph under the speed limit.  I’ll just keep driving my beat-up truck that subtly says, “I don’t care, I’ll ram you.”

I vow not to get pissed off when I see a dog tied up to a chain out in the pouring rain with no cover, no food, no hope.  Maybe the dog was Idi Amin in its last life and deserves it.

I vow not to speak badly about ALL politicians and our corrupt government system.  There must be one politician out there with the ethics of Gandhi.

And lastly, I vow to not take seriously any of these stupid New Year’s resolutions.  If I can’t bitch and complain and grumble, what do I have to look forward to in 2010?

- Mountain Man

http://www.MountainManandCityGirl.com

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