Hey, 13’s ain’t so bad and Fridays are even better!

Humor Post #53 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

In my last post I gave you a ton of evidence (well… at least a big bag full) why Friday the 13th is no worse than any other day. Today I’ll tell you why Fridays and 13 are really pretty cool, especially Fridays. Now I had to think hard about this and do some real research so give me some credit, okay, and cut me a little slack if there’s some itty-bitty part you don’t agree with.

Anyway, here’s the dirt in two parts:

WHY FRIDAYS ARE COOL
— While I freely admit that I like Saturdays and Sundays more than Fridays (for obvious reasons), I still think Friday comes in third for most people in the world. First off, being a student I really hate Mondays. Y-e-c-c-h-h! Yeah, you can say that with a lot of phlegm in your throat ’cause that’s how most people feel about Mondays. School starts, work starts, you know the routine. But Friday is by far the best day of the week except for the weekend. Fridays — there’s so much hope and expectation that comes with that day. There’s that expression TGIF. I mean people are thanking God it’s Friday. You won’t hear any expression like TGIM. There’s even a restaurant called that. And there was that viral video last year with some girl singing “Friday, Friday, Friday” that got her famous and probably rich and all it showed was her hanging out in the car with her friends. And anyone who likes to shop knows that the very top #1 shopping day of the year is BLACK FRIDAY, the day after Thanksgiving. That’s when people get so juiced they’ll spend all night at a Wal-Mart ready to stomp on everybody else to get inside for all those bargains. I read an article once about people forming these sophisticated teams to get all the best deals at Best Buy, almost like Search and Destroy missions.

— Now for poor old picked-on 13. It’s so hated that there are skoodles of buildings all over the world that don’t have a 13th floor. You get on the elevator and there’s no 13. The buttons just skip from 12 to 14. What kind of lesson is that for little kids? No wonder we’re #25 in the world in math It’s so hated that few pro athletes ever choose it for their uniform number. But I found a few exceptions. Wilt Chamberlain for one. He was so monster, I guess he didn’t worry about being #13. Didn’t seem to hold him back much. His first year in the pros, he AVERAGED 50 POINTS A GAME! Dude, most guys never score that much in ONE GAME! He once got 100 points in a game! Also Dan Marino, one of the best quarterbacks ever, wore number 13. Now I’ll concede that he never won a Super Bowl, so maybe that was 13’s fault, but Kurt Warner did and he wore it. (In case you didn’t know, he was on the Arizona Cardinals.)
— Another cool thing about 13 is most all kids want to get to that age. That means you’re a teenager, dude! Way cooler than being just a kid. You’re closer to driving, dating, being a big star in hip hop (well, I hope that’s true), you know, all the awesome stuff that goes along with being a teenager. I never heard of anybody saying, “Aw, I think I better stay 12 ’cause I’m going to have nothing but bad luck all next year.”
— Finally a great thing about 13 is the USA is all about that number. Here’s the Great Seal of the U.S. Great Seal of the USAThe two sides of it are on the back of the dollar bill and it’s supposed to be really important, so important they argued about it like for weeks way back around 1790 or something when they were putting our country together. It’s got 13’s all over it. There’s 13 stripes on that shield, the eagle is holding 13 arrows in one claw and 13 olive branches with 13 olives in the other claw. And there’s 13 stairs on that pyramid up to that creepy eyeball sitting on the top. (BTW, who put that thing up there? That thing could give you nightmares.) On top of all that, everyone knows we started as 13 colonies and we have 13 stripes on our flag. Try comparing that to all those other jillion flags that have other numbers of stuff on them. Let’s just look at the countries that have 3 stripes on their flags. Let’s start with Afghanistan, Andorra, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. They all have three stripes. Where’d you rather live — in the good old USA or there (if you even know where they are)? And that’s just the A’s! So 13 hasn’t exactly put us in the crapper, has it?

I rest my case. And my brain. If you can think of how this argument is all messed up, let me know and I’ll tell you how messed up YOU are. Unless you’re nice in your criticism, of course, and then I’ll return the favor. After all, it’s good if we all get along, right?

from Your Dude with the ‘Tude,
Dr. Crankenfuss

Friday the Thirteenth is coming next week. Big deal!

Humor Post #52 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

I’m on spring break so I have lots of time to kill. And one of the things I did while killing time was glance at the calendar on the wall. And what a horror it presented. I mean blood is still pouring out of my ears from what I saw. And that is… this Friday is Friday the 13th. Oh, no!! Surely this is the end of the world! Why didn’t we build a panic room before now? Where are my pills to take in case of nuclear radiation?

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m being sarcastic. I don’t know why everyone gets their shorts all twisted because of this thing. It comes a lot. According to probabilities, which I had in sixth grade math, the 13th of any month has a 1/7 chance of being a Friday ’cause the 13th’s gotta come on some day of the week and Friday is 1/7 of them. Makes sense, no? This year there are three of them — in January, in April, and in July. That’s way higher than average so maybe I need to recalculate. But anyway, I don’t think we have a whole lot to fear.

I checked out the days and dates of some huge disasters. Most of them you’ll know. Or if you don’t, you should look them up ’cause they were fierce. Certainly we’ll find a bunch of Fridays and 13ths attached to them, won’t we? At least one dynamic duo for sure, you would predict. Think again.

The Sinking of the Titanic — Friday, April 14th, she hit the iceberg and she sank 2 1/2 hours later of Saturday, April 15. You gotta assume she was doing very well, thank you very much, on Thursday, April 13th.

Pearl Harbor — One of the worst days in American History. Sunday, December 7th.

9/11 (the attack on the World Trade Center) More Americans died on that day than on any day in our history — Tuesday, September 11th.

The giant tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands in southeast Asia in 2004 — Sunday, December 26th.

Hurricane Katrina that almost destroyed New Orleans — Monday, August 29th.

The earthquake in Haiti that killed hundreds of thousands of people — Tuesday, January 12th.

The tsunami last year in Japan that almost nuked the whole country. Friday, March 11th.

Finally a Friday. One out of seven, just like I predicted. And where are all those 13ths? Uh…. nowhere, that’s where.

So for all you wusses out there, go hide under your bed this Friday. Crankenfuss will be here enjoying his vacation, pretty darn sure a giant catastrophe won’t wipe him out. Hope my mom doesn’t ask me to mow the lawn that day though. That would maybe make me rethink my whole argument.

I’ll write more about this later. I’m gonna show you how Fridays and 13s can be lucky, not unlucky.

For now I remain
Your Dude with the ‘Tude,
Dr. Crankenfuss

Part 2 of “Time to change the way we tell time”

Humor Post #50 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

Well, here’s part two of that much needed tirade against how we measure stuff. In this case, it’s time. Specifically, it’s the months of the year. This won’t take long. Just go back to the last post about the days of the week and I’m sure you’ll agree they could use some new cooler names. Now it’s time to show you 12 reasons or at least close to that many why we need new names for the months as well. Quickly, here’s a rundown of how all our months got their names. (Note: If you think they’re silly at the start, wait till you hit the last four stinkeroos. Unbelievable!)

January — named for Janus, the Roman god of beginnings. Not that bad, I guess, but no one’s believed in this guy for a couple millennia.

February — apparently, this was named for Februa, some ancient festival they had in Rome. C’mon, ask anyone in the world the last time they celebrated Februa. . . Find anyone who has? I didn’t think so.

March — named for someone at least I’ve heard of. It’s Mars, the Roman god of war. Yeah, that’s great: a month named for war. And where’s the month named for peace? Nowhere, that’s where.

April — Well, maybe this is the antidote to Mars. A couple places I looked up says this is named for Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love. Kind of a stretch, but if true, very nice, I’m sure, but who in the world knows that? What good is a cool month like Love Month if  no one knows when it is? I bet if you asked people they’d say February was Love Month because of Valentine’s Day.

May — Another one nobody ever heard of, unless you’ve heard of Maia or Maiesta. For me it would be better if it was named for “May I have a big helping of pizza?”

June — for Juno, wife of Jupiter. ‘Nuff said.

July — for Julius Caesar, that guy who got himself stabbed to death in the middle of Rome back before Jesus was born. At least he got to have an affair with Cleopatra before he took that dirt nap.

August — for Augustus Caesar, another Roman leader who came in the first century. Does anyone see a certain influence a certain city has over all our American months? Why do we still let the Romans tell us how to tell time?

September — Here it gets even dumber, if that’s possible. September comes from septem, the Latin word for seven because it was the seventh month way way back. HUH? And October comes from the Latin word for 8, November comes from the word for 9, and December comes from the word that meant 10. Oh, I get it. Our name for the ninth month is THE SEVENTH MONTH, our name for the tenth month is THE EIGHTH MONTH, and so on.

People, when is the world going to wake up? This is pure silliness. Why can’t we take control of our own lives? It’s not like the Roman gods are going to come back and attack us or anything if we create some new better names. And even if they did, boy, would that ever be exciting. I’d be watching CNN 24/7. I bet those ancient washed-up dudes would  never be able to beat our smart bombs, lasers, and radioactive poop blasters. (Admission: I made that last one up, but it sounds like a good weapon to me.)

So once again, please listen to Crankenfuss and let’s get someone started on fixing our ways of measuring time. Just be sure to give me credit when the world catches up to my modern way of thinking.

from Your Dude with the ‘Tude,
Dr. Crankenfuss

The names of our days have me in a daze

Humor Post #50 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

I’ve been watching the calendar lately. It’s almost spring break time and I keep gazing at that thing trying to make the days go faster. But it doesn’t work; it never does. Seems like there’s always going to be 24 hours in a day. (But in the future that might change, if people listen to me. More about that in a later column.) But all that staring got me to thinking. How did our days get their names?

“That’s an interesting question,” I said to myself. “Good for you, Crankenfuss!” (See, I like to give myself an occasional pat on the back. Cheers me up, you know.) So I went to my trusted friend Wikipedia and some other sources and found out something very uncool. The names of our days are stupid out of date. (I’m trying to be nice here, for a change.) Oh sure, the names were fine, like one or two thousand years ago, but isn’t it time we modernized them just a wee bit? How out of date are they? Let me show you seven reasons they should be canned, deep-sixed, whacked, you name it, whatever makes them go away.

Let’s start with Sunday, our official first day. Anyone out there know how it got its name? “Uh, from the Sun?” you answer. That’s right, it goes back to when people worshiped the Sun. And if you don’t believe me, consider where Monday got its name. It’s not from money or monarch or monsoons or mongoose or monkey or Monopoly or monster, all of which certainly have their good points. (Ooh, Monkey Day, where we all get to act like monkeys. Or Monopoly Day where we all get to stay home from school to play games.) Nope, you give up? Well, you probably already figured it out. It’s short for Moon Day, back from when people worshiped the Moon.

It gets better, people. Tuesday started out as Tiw’s Day. “Who’s Tiw?” you ask. “Some cool rapper?” No, it’s even more surprising. He was a one-handed warrior god from Norse mythology or something people believed in up in Sweden and Finland, places where they actually eat reindeer steaks. Why would we go along with people who eat poor Rudolf? And Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday come from other gods and goddesses from those way-up-north ancient religions: Woden, Thor (that thunderbolt dude), and Frige (or Frigga or something like that), the goddess of love. I guess that’s why Friday night is such a heavy date night.

And Saturday, my favorite day of the week comes from Saturn’s Day. Saturn comes from Roman mythology and he was the son of the Earth and the Sky and his wife was named Ops. I guess when he was wanting her to feel good, he’d call her Special Ops. (Okay, you can stop your moaning.) Anyway, they were the parents of Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto.

So I think you’re probably ahead of me in all this. “Why in the heck are our days still named for dudes who are, to say the least, yesterday’s news? If they were singers, they’d be doing gigs in rest homes.” You’re right and let me compliment you for that rest home joke. That was good!

Now I haven’t gotten around to thinking up better names for our days, but just let ol’ Crankenfuss put on his thinking helmet — it helps prevent concussions from thunderously awesome thoughts — and he might get back to you. But in the meantime get out the word about how dumb our days’ names are.

Unless, of course, you think we should bring back animal sacrifices and naked Olympics. (Yes, they were!! I promise you!)

From your Dude with the ‘Tude,
Your Star Elite with his Genius Complete,
Dr. Crankenfuss