Honest company recorded messages - We Just Do Not Care

Wouldn’t you love to hear companies be honest and have this message on their phone system?

“Hello. Your call is important to us, but not important enough to us to hire enough people to answer the phones. So just talk to our machine, or punch buttons endlessly – either way we know you will be very frustrated, but we frankly do not care enough to change our system, because that would inconvenience us, and we definitely would rather that you be inconvenienced than us."

Sometimes when we have nothing (absolutely) to do, we all need to get together and watch the “Road to” movies in chronological order. Ought to be interesting, and brain-frying. Can anyone stand that much corn at one time?

Barry Fitzgerald - one of the great ones

Barry Fitzgerald has to be among the all-time great character actors. If you have never seen him in a movie, you need to. A little dried-up Irishman. His most famous movie, of course, was Going My Way, for which he won an Oscar. But he also did several other excellent rolls, among which were:

The Quiet Man
The Stork Club
Welcome Stranger
Top O' The Morning

Can you name all the Marx Brothers?

Churchill's speechmaking

Winston Churchill was NOT a great speechmaker. Search for examples on Youtube. In fact, he was awful. However, he wrote his own speeches, and he was an absolute master of the English language. It was what he said that made his speeches memorable, not how he said it.

How can you have an "enemy combatant" if you have never declared war?

Holding a chicken

Why is it that when you hold a chicken, and move its body back and forth slowly, its head will stay stationary?

My new graduated-lens eyeglasses are working me to death!

The big secret to winning ballgame is to get them to stop the games when you are ahead.

In the sentence, "I can now rest easy," is the verb "rest" transitive or intransitive?

I need to give some thought to which sinful impulses cause frustration. It is an all-too-familiar emotion in human nature. We need to overcome it.

Unimpressed by rich people

I am hugely unimpressed with the vast majority of rich, famous and powerful people for the simple fact that almost all rich, famous and powerful people grossly neglect and abuse the truly important things in life. Therefore, why should they impress me?

No instant replay in baseball

Requested post: "I would like to request a post concerning instant replay in the majors - specifically the call by same for an expanded use thereof because of the missed calls in a couple of the recent games."

Umpiring is such an integral part of the game that eliminating it would change the whole nature of the sport. Arguing calls. Calls in question. Baseball fans argue for years over them. In my opinion, much more would be taken from the game than would be added to it by instituting and instant replay in baseball. Questioning calls is about half the fun of the game.

Pappy's Proverbs:

You don't have to see the animal to know that you are dealing with a weasel; all you have to see are the tracks.

Portland Hoffa

Portland Hoffa, who was married to comedian Fred Allen, remarried after his death, and became a rare example of a woman who observed two silver wedding anniversaries.

Freedom has a price

Freedom has a price. The police can operate very efficiently if citizens are willing to give up their civil rights so that the security forces have a totally free hand. You can be relatively secure – but you will not be free. America has the same choice. Do we give up our civil rights to make it easier for the government to protect us against terrorism? Freedom – or security. I choose freedom.

Living below our means

Young people (and old people) need to learn to live BELOW their means. We certainly need to live within our means, but what if our means get reduced? What then? Even if we have a Cadillac income, we need to have a Chevrolet lifestyle. That way, if our income is reduced to a Chevrolet level, we are all right - and not stuck with all those build-in payments for Cadillacs that we now cannot afford and cannot easily get rid of.

Come on, gridlock!

Here's hoping for gridlock in Washington. If neither party can act, then neither party can hurt us, which has pretty much been the status quo in recent years.

Respect for those in authority

There is a proper decorum toward "the powers that be" that must be observed. The congressman who shouted out during President Obama's speech definitely was out of line. Are we to bring the business of the country to a screeching halt because our congress degenerates into a shouting match? Was that the conduct of Joseph and Daniel, even toward absolute heathen monarchs who were grossly further from what we would consider good government than Mr. Obama ever thought about being? Have Republican presidents never been guilty of not telling the truth in speeches to Congress, and would Republicans defend a Democrat who shouted out in that manner during a similar speech by a Republican President? It was a travesty, and I was embarrassed for the country.

One decade at a time

A decade is a pretty healthy chunk of a person's life today. Most of us will see less than ten of them. It was "just the other day," wasn't it, that we were worrying about Y2K? Oops, it was exactly ten years ago. That is almost 18% of my life.