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I’m tired of tired sports clichés

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Humor Post #30 from Middle School’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

Okay, I have a confession. One that I’m proud of. I like sports. Especially football. But I get kind of annoyed at some of the people who do the play-by-play announcing on TV and — I hate to admit it — some of the stuff the players say is kind of embarrassing. I don’t have a whole lot of time for this post since I have to do the rest of my (sigh) homework, but I’ll give it my best shot. I mean, it’ll be a war out there between the Crank and those announcers and players, but I believe in myself and I promise to leave everything on the field. This will be a marathon, not a sprint, but I know I’ll win ’cause I want it more. After all, on any given day a sixth grader can beat all those guys, can’t he? And if I play within myself, I think I can give ’em a clinic.

Have I made a good start on some of those clichés?

First I’ll go to one I’ve heard in real life, not on TV. Our P.E. teacher always likes to say, “There’s no i in team” when he’s saying we shouldn’t hog the ball. And I always want to say back, “But coach, there’s a me.” You know, like an m and an e. I haven’t done it though ’cause he might decide to sit on me and then all I’d be good for is to be tomorrow’s special at the IHOP. (I could also say, “But coach, there’s an i in win.” Of course, I haven’t done that either. Same reason.

Here’s one I didn’t figure out myself, but a friend (Rhymin’ Simon) told me about it. In basketball, if a guy shoots a thee-pointer, the announcer will say something like, “He threw up the rock from way downtown,” like downtown’s really far away. But hey, lots of the stadiums are already downtown so wouldn’t that be a close shot? Just askin’.

Just one more cliché for now. Players often say, “I’m giving it 110%.” (Actually, politicians say that a lot too, as in, “I’m 110% committed to staying in the race.”) Now everybody knows you can’t do anything more than 100%, so why stop at 110? Why not a thousand per cent? Or a million? Or to really prove you mean it, the player could say, “I’m gonna give it a million, gajillion, bazillion per cent. And that’s just in the first quarter!” (As for the Crankoid, I always give 100%, except when I’m donating blood.)

Well, I said that was my last one, but I have to finish this post with the tiredest sports cliché of them all — Dick Vitale. That guy makes my ears hurt. He’s like a circus clown who stole the mic from the MC.
“PTP, baby!”
“He dishes the rock.”
“He’s a diaper dandy!”
“I’m-a gonna be sick!”
(That last line isn’t his. It’s mine when he’s announcing a game.) The words are bad enough, but his voice is like an eight-year-old learning violin.

I better stop. I was feeling OK when I started this, but now I’m about to have a CCC (a cantankerous cranky conniption). Oh, no!! I’m sounding like Dick Vitale!

from your soon-to-be-recovered (he hopes) truth teller,
Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak, Uncategorized

A New & Improved Crankenfuss? NOT!!

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Humor Post #29 from Middle School’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

Well, not to sound like all those Twitterheads who let everyone know what they’re having for lunch or whether they need to go to the bathroom, Dr. Crankenfuss was in the grocery store yesterday. And Crankenfuss discovered something interesting. He saw six — count ’em, six — products that had “New and Improved” written on them. And he didn’t even try very hard to find them. It’s just that their announcements were in such bold print he couldn’t miss them.

So Crankenfuss decided seven can play that game. He went home and within half an hour he had these two new prototypes for his brand. Pretty cool, huh? (Note: If you can’t see them yet, you need to look down. No, no, not down at the floor. Down this page.)

But then Crankenfuss started thinking. Always a fascinating (and scary) activity especially if you have all those secret passages and cobwebs in your head like Crankenfuss does. And he thought, Why did that clothes detergent (or whatever) need to be improved? What was it like before? And Crankenfuss, utilizing that muscular noodle of his, came up with the logical answer. Well, before, it must have sucked. That’s why it needed newing and improving. After all, improvement is one thing. But “New and Improved” sounds like they totally got rid of the old way it was — the old sucky, useless way it was, the old this-thing-should-be-shot-for-its-own-good way it was. For detergent, that probably meant it didn’t clean clothes too well. After all, clothes can turn out only one of two ways: clean or not clean. And not clean basically means kinda dirty, doesn’t it?

After all that thinking, Crankenfuss decided to ixnay his new “New and Improved” label. I don’t need a new me, he thought. My crank is just right. And you can trust my fuss. But Crankenfuss still wanted to improve his brand, you know, so he came up with the perfect solution. Take a look below to see the realest and most accurate description of the Dr. Crankenfuss who’ll be at your service in the future.
From your humble and awesome progenitor of 21st century thinking,
Dr. Crankenfuss
P.S. You impressed by that cool word in the closing? So am I.

Freak Speak, Uncategorized

Which Names are Hot and Which Are Not?

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Humor Post #28 from Middle School’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

El Cranko has been on the move again. You know, you can’t keep a good Crank down. Or is it up? Aw, who cares? What matters is that I have something good for you. See, I was noticing some of the cool names the people in my classes have and I decided to do some research. I looked up the most popular names from a hundred years ago and the most popular names today. OMG! I’m surprised some people left their houses back then. Seems like they would’ve been laughed out of their schools. But maybe I’m looking at it all wrong. ‘Cause some of those names are still popular. So I put together this quiz for you. You can either write down your answers or you can print out the test and circle them. (Sorry, I don’t know enough code to make an online test.) Be honest now. Write down what you think. Then at the bottom of the test, I’ll put a link that’ll take you to the answers. (Hey, I do know that much code.) So here goes. (You’ll notice I gave the test an appropriate title.)

DR. CRANKENFUSS’S AWESOME NAME GAME

Important Warning: Some of these have more than one answer
            so you have to get all answers right to get credit.

1. Which of these names was in the top 100 names in 1910?
A. Samantha      B. Brandon     C. Gertrude

2. Which of these names was in the top 100 names in 2010?
A. Viola      B. Ashley      C. Elmer

3. Which of these names was in the top 100 names in both 1910 and 2010?
A. Emma      B. Alexis      C. Kesha

4. Which of these names was in the top 10 boys’ names in 2010?
A. Andrew      B. Ethan      C. Joshua

5. Which of these names was in the top 10 girls’ names in 2010?
A. Abigail      B. Hannah      C. Olivia

Think you did well? Click here to find out.

So there you go. Don’t you feel smarter and cooler than you were a few minutes ago? Sure you do. Thanks to yours truly, middle school’s awesomest blogger (even though the guy can get in sort of a snit sometimes),

Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak, Uncategorized

If I had a dime for every time I had a great idea…

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Humor Post #27 from Middle School’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

So here’s something I pulled off on my mom this morning and I bet you could do the same. It made a lot of sense. (Of course it would, coming from you-know-who.) So my mom says something like, “Crankenfuss, if I had a dime for every time I told you to clean your room, I’d be rich.” So I decided to deliver one of my special-delivery zingers. “And Mom,” I said, “if I had a dime for every time I kept my room dirty, I’d be just as rich or even richer.”

No, she was not pleased with that answer. In fact, she made me stay inside till I had cleaned over half my room. But it was worth it because I was helping to educate her. See, that’s just a silly thing to say. First off, she’s not going to get a dime for having told me anything, much less get a bunch of dimes for having told me a bunch of times. And why be so cheap with your wishes? Why not say, “If I had a million dollars for every time I asked you to clean your room…”? That way, she’s at least wishing for something really worth something. If you’re going to wish for something, shoot for the stars, that’s what I say.

Also it might work better if she said something like, “If I had a heart attack for every time I asked you to clean your room, I’d be dead. And then you’d be sorry.” Now that would have a chance of working on me because I don’t want to be in any way responsible for hurting my mom. But guilt-tripping your son like that would be pretty mean, wouldn’t it? Maybe I could try it on her though. “Mom, if I get killed from one of these grody asparagus spears stabbing me in the heart after I swallowed it, boy, then you’d be sorry. I mean, they don’t call them ‘spears’ for nothing.” Hoo boy, can’t wait to try that one. I’m sure she’ll say, “Oh, Crankenfuss, I never thought of it that way. Here, have some cake and ice cream instead.” Yeah, that’s what will happen, I’m sure.

Anyway, just another awesome piece of analysis and advice from the internet’s best middle school blogger who provides so much to his readers.
Yes, that would be me, Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak

Watch Out If Someone Says You Have Great Potential

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Humor Post #26 from Middle School’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

Ooh, I just had the worst insult handed to me yesterday. That’s twice this year and we’ve only been back in school for two days! My English teacher was talking about this book we just started and she asked, “What did the author mean when she said blah-blah-blah?” So I raised my hand and said, “How are we supposed to know what the author meant? She didn’t tell us!” A couple people said, “Yeah, that’s right, Crankenfuss.” The teacher was NOT one of those people. (BTW, people don’t really call me Crankenfuss. I just thought it would make this post seem more literary.) Instead she looked at me, shook her head sadly, and said, “Crankenfuss, I don’t know why you insist on acting like this. You have such great potential, you know.”

Now in the past — how can something be both now and in the past? — I would have thought having great potential was a GOOD thing. Not anymore. Ms. ___ was obviously ticked off at me for being right. And what she said was meant as a putdown. So I have put 2 and 2 together and come up with 4, as is my usual tendency because I be so good in math, and now I’m ready to revise that famous and often-used saying. So here it is:

“You have so much potential” = “You ain’t worth squat right now, kid!”

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. If you don’t believe me, think about some superstar and see how many times you hear, “Oh, LeBron James has such potential!” Never or very close to never! Naw, people say, “That LeBron, he skyin’!” or “LeBron James is da bomb AND da bombardier!” Or if the person is kinda dorky and not rad cool hip hop like me, he might say, “Oh, LeBron James is a quite wonderful excellent basketball player.” No matter what they say, they don’t talk about his potential to be a good player.

So don’t go feeling so good about yourself if, for example, your guitar teacher tells your mom, “Oh, your son has so much potential. I think you should sign him up for 17 lessons a week to unleash that potential.” Hey, it’s not about you, Paco. The teacher is trying to get some big bucks from your mama, that’s all.

Just another platter of wisdom from your Brilliance Chef,
Dr. Crankenfuss