Category Archives: Freak Speak

Freak Speak

I wish I was as sick as a dog! That would be some sweet action!

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Humor Post #54 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

Here’s another of those stupidissimo  expressions you hear all the time: sick as a dog. What’s with that piece of rot? Daniel has a dog, a collie named Lance. Talk about cool. You can see him doing a magic trick here. Now Lance is about as regular a dog as you can find and one thing that’s easy to say about Lance — he hardly ever gets sick. He goes to the vet like once or twice every year, once for his yearly checkup and shots and once to get shaved for the summer. Almost never for being sick. (Though he did have a bad case of fleas once, thanks to Daniel being too careless, or too cheap, to put flea stuff on him.) Anyway, I can safely say I wish I was as sick as Lance. Man, I’d put doctors out of business!

Now I know there will be a few of you who look up the phrase and you’ll write to say, “Oh, you stupid Crankenfuss, People say that because dogs will eat almost anything and then when they eat something bad for them, they throw up. That’s where the expression comes from.” And I’d fire right back at you, “Fair enough, Bullet Head, but it’s still a dumb expression because whenever I see a dog throw up, he’s over it in about 10 seconds. They get rid of the bad stuff inside and then they’re ready to go on with their walk. I’ve seen it many times. Usually when humans throw up, they call in sick and stay home, and lots of them moan and whine for hours. Not Lance. Within a few minutes, he’s ready to eat again. Sometimes he even wants to eat his own barf! Yeah, that’s pretty sick, I know, but it’s still a sign he’s got a positive attitude. A sure sign of good health, I’d say.”

And on top of all that, he can eat anything he likes and he never ever gets fat. How many of the rest of us can say that?

So here are a few alternatives I’ve come up with for “sick as a dog,” every one of them way more accurate. Feel free to use them. You don’t even have to give me credit.
— Sick as a guy with bubonic plague (Look it up. Those buboes were beyond y-e-c-c-h-h!)
— Sick as an asparagus eater
— Sick as someone who’s forced to listen to Justin Bieber for 5 hours
— Sick as a zombie with the flu (See, they’re already dead, ugly, and starving, and then they get the flu on top of that. That’s gotta hurt!)

And while we’re in this fascinating conversation about dog barf and other sicko stuff, how about that beaut “I’m feeling under the weather”? Hello! Aren’t we all under the weather? Okay maybe if you’re an astronaut or a space alien, you’re not, but by definition the rest of us are. So there’s another cliché to stay clear of.

That’s enough for today. More to come within two days.

From Your Dude with a ‘Tude,
your thinker who’s no stinker,
Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak

Hungry as a horse? Oh, we can do better than that!

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

This one’ll be kinda short so here goes.
What’s with these silly sayings we use all the time? I don’t know whether to call them clichés or expressions or whatever they are; all I know is a lot of them are — how shall I put this nicely? — DUMB, DUMB, DUMB! Like today, we’re on our way to lunch and Joe (someone you probably don’t know) says, “I gotta get to the cafeteria. I’m as hungry as a horse.” Now nothing against Joe or anything. He’s not dumb or anything, but why do people say “hungry as a horse”? Now I got nothing against horses either but are they hungrier than other animals? (Same question with “hungry as a bear”.) Why didn’t Joe say, “I’m as hungry as a teenager”? Now any parent will tell you that’s way more accurate cause they’re always complaining about how much their kids eat. We can’t help it; we’re having our growth spurt. (BTW, I wish mine would start spurting a lot more. Like a geyser would be nice. Then maybe I’d be better in basketball.)

I looked up which animals eat the most and there’s lots of stuff out there, but it seems that hummingbirds are definitely near the top of the list. One site says they eat 2/3 of their weight each day. Most of it is sugar. Wow, who wouldn’t go for that? But they’re also so hungry they eat lots of bugs. Now that’s HUNGRY with a capital H and a U and an N and … Oh, you get the picture. Another site, named Birdola, of all things, says hummingbirds eat TWICE their weight each day. And they eat every 10 minutes!! Now let’s see a horse do that! The horse would have to eat like 500 or 1000 pounds of food a day. Hay, that’s a lot! Ha, ha, get it? Okay, I know it’s dumb.

I spent some time thinking of other dumbissimo clichés like that one and it wasn’t too hard. If you feel like, you can even send me one and I’ll use it if I haven’t thought of it yet. So get ready for a barrage of bull hockey in the next week or two. There’s a lot of expressions that need to be 187ed. Okay, if that’s too strong for you, how about “put out to pasture”?

Thanks for listening and remember, I’m always out here, lookin’ out for ya’.

Note: You know the real reason I’m stopping right now? I have to raid the refrigerator cause I’m hungry as a hummingbird.

from Dr. Crankenfuss,
The Dude with the ‘Tude

Freak Speak

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

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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

Freak Speak

Friday the Thirteenth is coming next week. Big deal!

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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

Freak Speak

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

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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