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Freak Speak

Here’s how to solve and prevent all missing kids cases. Really!

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Humor Post #63 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

No jokes today, people. Ol’ Crankenfuss has turned over a new leaf. For today, anyway. (BTW, what’s with that “turning over a new leaf” thing? If it’s in your yard, like so what? If it’s in a book or album, like so what? Either way, it certainly doesn’t take much effort, does it? But sure enough, I’m already off-topic. Hello, ADD. Just forget what you just read in these parentheses. Or start this post over and just skip this part. Sorry.) Yep, he’s going to solve something everybody really cares about: missing children.

I’m serious. Practically every day there’s news about some poor child who disappears. Around here, they issue an “amber alert” when that happens and they have announcements all over the TV and the radio. I’m sure a lot of these kids have just wandered off and are found. Others have been kind of “kidnapped” by one of their parents from the other one if the parents are split up, like after a divorce, you know. But the ones who get on national news often end up getting killed. It’s really scary and terrible, no matter how you look at it. No matter which category it falls in, a missing child means lots of anguish and pain for the child’s parent(s) and family even if it’s only for a few hours.

But most all of this could be stopped with one small innovation that’s actually already here. It’s to put a GPS computer chip in every kid. Probably while they’re still in the hospital, right after birth. Lots of dog owners do that with their dogs. The chips are getting tinier and tinier and will be practically invisible in a few years. They could be easily hidden inside a kid’s body to prevent them from being taken out. I’ve read about guys who’ve been shot and they still have the bullet inside them the rest of their lives. It’s not common, for sure, but it does happen. And they seem to do okay, so it would be very possible for people to walk around with a tiny chip in them. The way science is going, they could probably put the chip almost anywhere. If it was always put in the same place, a kidnapper could cut the chip out of someone. But if he didn’t know where it was, he couldn’t. And the child’s parent would probably activate their GPS thing and know where their kid was before a kidnapper could do anything anyway.

Let’s say a mom is at the mall and her child goes missing. She could activate her “child finder” GPS and it would pinpoint exactly where her child was. And if it showed that her child was already a mile or two from the mall, that would show a certain kidnapping and the police could get involved. But with such an accurate location device, they’d find the child pretty quickly. Just the possibility of this happening would probably cut down on a lot of this stuff. After all, kidnapping is definitely a felony everywhere and that would mean lots of jail time for sure.

Just recently some crazy woman stole a baby from a lady leaving the hospital. She killed the mother, but if the baby had one of those GPS devices inside already, they could have found that psycho immediately. Hey, she probably wouldn’t have done it knowing how easy it would be to catch her.

Now I know a lot of kids wouldn’t like their parents always “spying” on them. But hey, when they were 18, they could have the thing taken out of them since then they’d be adults. But I bet a lot of people would keep it inside them anyway and just let their husbands or wives know all about it.

There it is, all wrapped up like a beautiful present. So when are people are going to get smart and use this new science to protect their children?

From Dr. Crankenfuss, a guy with good ideas more often than you’d think

Freak Speak

Why a half should NOT be a half

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Humor Post #62 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

Math scores ain’t so high in this country, if you can believe what all those international test results show. Now I’m pretty good at math, but I gotta admit, there’s a lot about it that could be improved. Like fractions, for instance. That’s what I’m going to rant about today. Okay, it’s not going to be a rant. I will be very calm and patient as I explain how THE WAY FRACTIONS ARE NAMED MESSES LITTLE KIDS UP RIGHT AWAY!

See, I was working with my little pal Jojo again. (You can see the last time I worked with the little guy here.) He’s the little brother of a friend of mine and I want to get it where he’ll be considered a junior genius. That shouldn’t be too hard considering who’s teaching him. So I figure I’ll help him get ahead in math. I can picture some scene where his kindergarten teacher is saying, “Okay, class, let’s practice counting up to 3,” and Jojo will go start asking her questions about atomic particle accelerators or 3D quark generators or something else I’ve taught him. All the other kids’ mouths drop open. The teacher will be just a little bit surprised.

At least that was the idea I had. I like to shake things up, ya know.

So since Jojo already knows how to count, I thought I’d start him off with some simple fractions. I got out a chocolate chip cookie — he likes those — and cut it in half. Then I tried to show him how there were two halves in a whole. But he immediately got mixed up with the word “whole” and asked why I wanted to put his cookie into a hole. “I don’t want my cookie all dirty,” I think is the exact quote I got. No, no, I tried to explain how a “whole” meant “one” and I was already getting the little dude confused. But I plowed on anyway.

The next step was to show him when the cookie was cut in two parts, each part would be called a “half.” That blew his little brain even more. So I showed how to cut a cookie into four pieces and each piece would be called a “fourth.” So Jojo asks, “How about if you cut the cookie into six pieces?” and I say, “Then each piece would be a sixth,” so he says, “So if it’s in two pieces, why don’t they call it a twoth?”

Now he had ME all messed up. What a great question! We have fourths, sixth, eighths, tenths, and all the rest. Now “thirds” and “fifths” might throw you off a little, but at least the first two letters are the same. But to change a “two” into H-A-L-F makes NO SENSE! And then there’s that plural of HALF which changes the f to a v. How’s a little guy supposed to learn this stuff? How’s anyone supposed to get it?

THE VERY FIRST FRACTION THEY GIVE YOU — THE ONE THAT SHOULD BE, YOU KNOW, THE EASIEST ONE — GETS YOU ALL BAMZOODLED.

They really should call it a “twoth.” But of course they won’t cause that would get kids mixing up fractions with teeth. (Which makes me wonder why they don’t call more than one half “heef.” But that’s a whole ‘nother thing to consider another time.)

So anyway, to help little Jojo and everyone else in the world who’s ever gotten mixed up learning fractions, here’s the new diagram I think should go in every new math book there is so EVERYONE CAN LEARN FRACTIONS WITHOUT GETTING THEIR HEADS ALL FLIPPED UPSIDE DOWN.

Go ahead, show this to your teachers and see if they don’t have to agree with you. But they probably won’t want to because that would rock their worlds too much, ya know.

So go have a great day (or night) and remember who’s doing his best to make the world make better sense for everyone.

That would be:
Dr. Crankenfuss
The Dude with the ‘Tude

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

Who was the dumbbell who invented the electric pencil sharpener? I hope they feel guilty.

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Humor Post #47 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

For those of you who haven’t figured it out yet, I’m kinda hooked on computers. I’m waiting for the day when we don’t need pencils anymore. Now I’m not totally anti-pencil. I can see how they’re easier than computers if you actually have to work a math problem yourself. I mean when the teacher gives you a calculator-inactive problem, I’m glad a have a pencil to do the work. A pen can’t be erased And writing numbers on a sheet of paper is easier than typing them on a computer would be. (The spacing and all those math symbols would mess me up.)  Yeah, pencils are kind of messy but I’m not ready to ban them yet.

Electric pencil sharpeners, on the other hand, should be thrown in the old dumperoo immediately. Why? you ask. Let me calculate the ways:
1. They’re NOISY!! Whenever someone sharpens their pencil, it’s worse than that old fingernails on the chalkboard thing. (And I don’t think I’ve seen a chalkboard for maybe a century now.) No, it’s more like a high-pitched, whining dentist drill sound and it makes my teeth hurt. Some teachers won’t let their students use them after class starts. I don’t see how anything gets done when they’re on.

2. They wear out too easy. In half my classes, you can stand there for maybe two minutes trying to get your pencil sharp and the blades inside the sharpener must be worn out cause I think I could do a better job with my teeth. I think the companies know this. That’s how they sell more of them.

3. They’re dangerous. Even when they do work, the pencils come out looking like something a serial killer might use on his victims. I don’t think doctors’ scalpels are as sharp as a freshy sharpened pencil. Think how many eyes we might save if we get rid of them. (BTW, I tried to find info on how many eyes get poked out by hyper-sharp pencils, but the web let me down on that attempt.)

4. Most kids are already out of shape. How about giving them some hearty aerobic exercise by, gasp, making them move their arm round and round to sharpen their pencil? The motion will also help them get better at hauling in a fish on a fishing pole (in case they’re into fishing, that is). Sharpening your pencil probably uses up around 5 calories or so and since 2700 calories is equal to a pound (or something like that), if you sharpen your pencil 540 times, you’ll maybe lose a pound. Yeah, I know that’s probably two years worth of pencil sharpening, but Crankenfuss is thinking about your health here. And every little bit counts, doesn’t it?

5. Everyone knows that our economy is not in the greatest shape. And a lot of schools are laying off teachers. Well, maybe if everyone stopped using all that electric power on those stupid electric sharpeners, the schools could hire back a teacher or three.

At home my mom still has an old-fashioned windup pencil sharpener and it works fine. Now I complain about a lot of stuff, but I don’t complain about that. And if I don’t complain about it, it’s probably not worth complaining about.

So, for your ears’ sake, for your eyes’ sake, for your health’s sake, for education’s sake, and last, but certainly not least, for Dr. Crankenfuss’s sake, let’s get rid of those dumb electric pencil sharpeners.

Maybe this could become a good issue for some presidential candidate to talk about. Some of them could probably use some new, brilliant ideas.

So that’s it for today. I’m glad to have brought a little sunshine into your life (unless you live in the desert, in which case you don’t need any more).

from Your Dude with the ‘Tude
Dr. Crankenfuss