… waaaaaaaaaaaaait

Did you hear about the guy who lost his left arm and leg in a car crash?
He’s all right now.
Did you hear about the man who was tap dancing?
He broke his ankle when he fell into the sink.
How do you get holy water?
Boil the hell out of it.
How does a spoiled rich girl change a lightbulb?
She says, “Daddy, I want a new apartment”.
What did the fish say when he hit a concrete wall?
“Dam”
What do Eskimos get from sitting on the ice too long?
Polaroids
What do you call a boomerang that doesn’t work?
A stick
What do you call cheese that isn’t yours?
Nacho cheese.
What do you call Santa’s helpers?
Subordinate Clauses
What do you get from a pampered cow?
Spoiled milk
What is a zebra?
26 sizes larger than an “A” bra
What kind of coffee was served on the Titanic?
Sanka
And what kind of lettuce?
Iceberg
What’s the difference between an oral thermometer and a rectal thermometer?
The taste
What’s the difference between roast beef and pea soup?
Anyone can roast beef
Where do you find a no legged dog?
Right where you left him
Why do gorillas have big nostrils?
Because they have big fingers
Why are there so many Smiths in the phone book?
They all have phones
English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England nor French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat.
We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham?
If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth beeth? One goose, two geese. So one moose, two meese? One index, two indices? Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend. If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and that smell? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.
English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all.
That is why,when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.
P.S. Why doesn’t “Buick” rhyme with “quick”?
If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee. (Hardly seems worth it.)
If you farted consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb. (Now that’s more like it!)
The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet. (O.M.G.!)
A pig’s orgasm lasts 30 minutes. (In my next life, I want to be a pig.)
A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it starves to death. (Creepy.) (I’m still not over the pig.)
Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour. (Do not try this at home… maybe at work.)
The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male’s head off. (“Honey, I’m home… What the….?!”)
The flea can jump 350 times its body length. It’s like a human jumping the length of a football field. (30 minutes… can you imagine??)
The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds. (What could be so tasty on the bottom of a pond?)
Some lions mate over 50 times a day. (I still want to be a pig in my next life…quality over quantity.)
Butterflies taste with their feet. (Something I always wanted to know.)
The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue. (Hmmmmmm……..)
Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do. (If you’re ambidextrous, do you split the difference?)
Elephants are the only animal that cannot jump. (OK, so that would be a good thing….)
A cat’s urine glows under a black light. (I wonder who was paid to figure that out?)
An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain. (I know some people like that.)
Starfish have no brains. (I know some people like that too.)
Polar bears are left-handed. (Who knew?!)
Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure. (What about that pig??)
A Youtube video by Niko’s Wings of a night approach and landing at Chicago’s O’Hare reminded me that I had done a similar stunt a bit further west at LAX.
If you have no first-hand experience with the navigation of the airways you will not know that landing at one of those big airports like O’Hare is virtually impossible for a private pilot with one fan in front.
You sometimes get routed through a Bravo airspace (the highly protected space around major airports) but to enter, you have to get explicit permission in the form of a clearance like “Piper Warrior N8300L cleared to enter Bravo airspace.” But landing at the airport that this Bravo airspace protects, you don’t’ even think about it – – – normally.
But maybe I am not normal. So, in the 90s, I was playing in the airspace west of Burbank – my home airport, one late night, probably after 1 am. The radio was quiet most of the time and suddenly the idea hit me – why not shoot a practice approach into LAX, just 20-30 miles to the South-East.
So I tuned into LAX approach (now SoCal approach) – “LAX approach, PA28 N8300L, request!” I might have woken up the controller but he came back shortly “N8300L, LAX approach, go ahead.”
I gathered all my courage and asked for a practice-approach into LAX. Unfortunately, the answer was that no practice approaches are permitted at LAX. But – – – you can have a full stop landing. Wow – that was even better! For all you non-flying peeps, a practice-approach is the pretense to land at an airport as if there were clouds so that you have to land only using your instruments. Then, when you are close enough to ensure a safe landing, you give full power and get out of there – often turning around, flying another approach – that’s why it’s called ‘practice’ approach.
Now, really landing at LAX with my Piper Warrior – that would be something to tell the grandchildren about, many, many years later.
So, yes, Sir – I’ll take that approach and landing at LAX!
I got my clearance into the Bravo airspace and radar vectors to the ILS Runway 24R. (ILS stands for Instrument Landing System – a radio signal coming from the beginning of the runway that guides us down to the landing zone vertically and horizontally.)
And then I flew like a young god – holding my assigned altitude within 50 feet and pegged my directional gyro exactly where the controller had told me. I intercepted the ILS and slid down towards 24R.
Then it was time to switch from approach control to tower. Just saying “Los Angeles tower, Cherokee 8300L with you for 24R” grew some serious hair on my chest.
But I did not get to complete my landing at LAX after all. Tower told me that I should finish my approach and then fly a missed approach. That was the friendly way of giving me my practice approach without violating their rule that there are no practice approaches at LAX. It might have been a bit of a loss for me but, on the other hand, I might have owed LAX a landing fee.
I was handed over the approach control again which guided me out of the Bravo airspace and shortly I landed at my home base Burbank, tied down and went home a hero.
My little sister send me the question who might be depicted by this emoticon…
and gave me the hint that putting ‘Heil’ in front of it would make it easier.
Youtube can keep you entertained for a long time if you are looking for stand-up comedy, but often it can be as painful some of the experiences I had at the Open Mike nights at the Natural Food Cafe (I think that’s what is name was) on Fountain Ave in Hollywood.
Here is one example of an act – Bryan Callen’s wish to be a Hero – that I have already watched a few times and just don’t get tired of…
A few puns I ran into – so funny!
There was, apparently, somebody called Rocker 13666 on Reddit who created a list of the worst music videos uploaded to Youtube ever. I learned about this on GeekBeat but could not find the original post on Reddit, so, in order to preserve this list for posterity, I record it here:
So – how was the pain – you masochist!
Oh, just one little bonus – a GE light bulb commercial…