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Freak Speak

Some people should put bags over their heads

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Humor Post #46 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

Now don’t get your shorts all bunched up over my title up there. I’m not talking about people for their looks or anything. Although I do have to admit that there are some people out there whose looks could use some improvement. Like in some instances, brushing your teeth would be a good start. I don’t especially like someone smiling at me and I can see what they had that morning for breakfast. Or who knows? Maybe it’s last week’s dinner. Whatever, I don’t need to know about it, okay?

No, what I’m talking about here is a matter of health and well-being, particularly mine. There’s this guy in one of my classes. Let’s just call him Dummkopf for convenience’s sake. So he shows up at school with a cold. Now that in itself isn’t a crime. Why should you stay home for a cold? Then I’d be like, “Aw, what’s da mattuh wittle guy? My wittle baby have a big bad cold? Aww, let mommy put you to bed now.” No, staying at home for a cold is kind of wussy, isn’t it? But I do have a small suggestion for ol’ Dummkopf. When you feel the need to sneeze, how about holding back on the snot parade, okay? I mean this guy lets it fly, like outta the park, you know? Once I got a nice hose down of fine spray. Now I’m on a death watch, worrying about what little killers he might have let loose into the atmosphere that are now probably breeding inside me. Not a pleasant thought.

I went on the web and found the evidence for what I’m talking about. This clip, is from the BBC and the narrator has a British accent so you know he’s gotta be smart. It’s not even a minute long, but I tell you — the last ten seconds will make you think twice about how you look when you don’t cover up your nasty sneezes in public. Talk about gross!

So here’s to covering your mouth when you sneeze — I’m talking about you, Dummkopf, and all the slobs like you — and here’s to my not coming down with flesh-eating viruses that might keep me from blogging all the stuff that keeps your life worth living. And if you can’t cover your mouth, please refer to the title. That would be at the top of this post, Stupidhead… excuse me, I mean Dummkopf. (Gotta keep it in its proper German, ya know. Makes him sound dumber that way.)

From your Dude with the ‘Tude,
your Scold Against Colds,
Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak, Uncategorized

Dude, think you can do 6th grade algebra? I don’t think so.

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Humor Post #45 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

So we’re starting to get ready for our EOG’s (End-of-Grade) tests, these standardized things where you fill in the bubbles and they tell you if it’s worth it for you to be alive. Well okay, it’s not that bad, but these things are supposed to be important. So our math teacher has been giving us review problems to get us ready. I showed a couple of them to my mom and she told me she had no clue how to do them. Hah, one more way I’m better than her. (No, don’t go tell her that. She’ll kill me. Hey Mom, it was a joke. Oh no, not with the shovel!! A-h-h-h!!)

Anyway, I got the idea to test you guys out in this. I’m going to give you five Algebra problems our teacher gave us with four choices for each. Figure them out, make your selections, then click on the answer link to get the answers. I’d say “No cheating,” but I know a lot of you will. After all, who wants to admit they can’t do sixth grade math.

BTW, these are not advanced Algebra questions. They were for all the sixth graders to do.

1. The cost of a school banquet is $75 + 30n, where n is the number of people attending. What is the cost for 53 people?
a. $1,590
b. $4,005
c. $1,665
d. $158

2. To find the gasoline economy figure for a car in miles per gallon (mpg), you can use the expression d ÷ g, where d represents the distance traveled by the car, and g represents the number of gallons of gasoline used. Find the gasoline economy figure for a car that travels 200 miles on 5 gallons of gasoline.
a. 205 mpg
b. 40 mpg
c. 25 mpg
d. 38 mpg

3. During a canned food drive, Bob collected 6 times as many cans as Tom. If t represents the number of cans that Tom collected, which algebraic expression represents the number of cans that Bob collected?
a. 6t
b. 7t
c. 6 + t
d. 7 + t

4. Mike is 2 inches more than two times as tall as his younger brother Jake. If Jake is h inches tall, which expression describes Mike’s height?
a. 2(h – 2)
b. 2(h + 2)
c. 2h + 2
d. 2h – 2

5. Solve the equation: 2.2 = z ÷ 57
a. 62.7
b. 125.4
c. 59.2
d. 54.8

Ooh, I bet you aced it, huh? Click here to find out the correct answers.

Freak Speak

Intentional Walks in Baseball? Give me a break!!

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Humor Post #43 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

You thought I was done turning sports rules upside down? Hey, I’m just getting started. I mean, pro baseball just expanded their playoffs. That’s rule changing, isn’t it? And they want the new round of playoffs to be ONE GAME. Remember, baseball isn’t like football or basketball where you have the same team every game. In baseball, the main ingredient changes every game. And that would be the pitcher. A baseball team changes from a Monday to a Tuesday like a cake changes to a pie. Both have most of the same stuff, but boy, they don’t look or taste the same. Not that I’m talking about tasting a baseball team, but you get the picture. Anyway, what I’m saying is that this first round should be best two out of three. That would at least test the main part of both teams’ starting pitching staff.

But here’s the rule I really want to change in baseball: THE INTENTIONAL BASE ON BALLS. I want it banned, banished, killed, have the big kabosh put on it. It’s way worse than the “Hack a Hulk” intentional fouls I talked about in my last post. At least there the player has a chance to make two points. In baseball, he just gets to first base with no chance to make even a double.

Let’s use Barry Bonds as an example. Now I was about three years old when he was blasting just about everything out of the park. But everyone knows about him. And in 2004 — I looked this up — he was at bat 617 times and walked 232 times. That’s over 1/3 of the time! Now “only” 120 of these walks were listed as “intentional,” but come on. You know what happened. Most pitchers who did take the chance of facing ol’ Barry probably gave him nothing to really hit and he ended up getting an “unintentional” walk.

And just to stick this amazing fact in, Albert Pujols of the St. Louis Cardinals was given an intentional walk in the World Series WITH NO ONE ON BASE. The Texas Rangers were so afraid of what Albert could do them they didn’t even give him the chance to bat WITH NOBODY ON BASE. Oh, am I repeating myself? repeating myself? Well, that’s because it’s unbelievable to me that the whole sport wouldn’t let all their paying customers get to see what they buy their tickets to see. Let’s see, wouldn’t that be one team’s pitcher trying to get out the other team’s best hitter?

So I don’t know what else to say about it. I guess we could let football teams let the other team’s best runner get a free three yards every time he touches the ball. As soon as that guy got handed the ball, the game could be stopped and the runner’s team would get a free three yards.

I can’t figure out how you could work that “intentional walk” or “Hack the Hulk” in hockey. Makes me want to get more into hockey.

Now I’ll shut up. Let’s just get rid of the intentional walk in baseball so the fans get to see hitters hit.

From your Dude with the ‘Tude,
Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak

Why can’t teams decline to take foul shots and keep the ball instead?

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Humor Post #42 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

As I’ve said many times here before, I like sports. Watching them at least. I’m not the greatest in them but I’m never the last one taken in a game so I guess that’s better than nothing. But that doesn’t mean that sports are perfect. After all, they were invented by humans so we know there’s always room for improvement, don’t we? And who better to improve some of our favorite pastimes than yours truly, the old Crankmeister.

“What are you talking about, Mr. Crankenfuss?” you ask with all the proper respect owed me. Well, I’ll tell you. I was watching the Orlando Magic play the other night and they were about six or seven points ahead. So the other team — right now I can’t even remember who it was — starts fouling Dwight Howard, Orlando’s star. Why? Because Howard can’t shoot foul shots worth a flip, that’s why. And sure enough, he was clanking them all over the place. So I began thinking, “Ya know, it’s not fair that Dwight has to shoot those foul shots. He doesn’t have to shoot a regular shot unless he wants to. Why should he have to shoot foul shots if he doesn’t want to?” And it means that a team behind Orlando can always foul ol’ Dwight whenever they want to. So why can’t Orlando decline the penalty? That’s right, why can’t Orlando say, “Yeah, we know you fouled our guy, but we’d rather take the ball out of bounds instead.”

THAT’S WHAT THEY DO IN FOOTBALL!!

Yep, that’s right. For those of you totally out of the loop, in football you don’t have to accept a penalty. You can say, “Thanks, but no thanks.” At least to some of them. So why can’t you do that in all the sports. When your opponent does something against the rules, why can’t you say, “That’s all right, bro’. No problem here. Let’s just keep playing.”

Case in point: You’re ahead by three points in a basketball game and the other team’s got the ball. There’s ten seconds left. You don’t want them to try a three-pointer. If they make it, the game’s tied. So you foul them, they make one or two foul shots, you get the ball back and win the game. That’s not right, people. The other team should have the choice of declining the foul shots so they have a chance to hit that three-pointer. By “breaking the rules” (fouling the other team), your team gets rewarded.

So I say let the teams or players decide if they accept any penalties.

Just my two cents worth. (Or less.)

from your Dude with the ‘Tude,
Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak

All that minus a bag of chips

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Humor Post #40 from Middle School’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

I can’t be the only person in the world with the following problem, can I? I get out a bag of potato chips or Doritos. A nice new bag all full of fresh snacks for a growing dude like myself. Now comes the hard part. Opening the stupid bag. I take the bag gingerly on either side of the top seal and gently pull my hands apart. Of course you know where that gets me. Nowheres-ville. So I pull a bit harder. Still nothing. My need for an immediate snack makes my frustration grow. And you probably know what comes next. I give the bag a quick, violent snap outward. If I’m lucky I get my chips. If the usual thing happens, I get my chips all right, but they’re scattered all over the floor, having exploded from the bag. Then it’s a race between me and my dog to see who can get the most dusty chips off the floor. I usually win, but that’s because I’m good at blocking him out.

I’ve already written about this before. And I did it in verse. But the crisis continues and I wish I could find a solution.

So I went to YouTube where so many solutions to so many earth-shattering problems are found and I was able to find the this British guy who seemed to have a great method for opening that evil bag of chips. Ooh, he’s a master. Check it out here. There’s only one catch. I tried his method and I mucked it all up again. Chips all over the place. And my mom’s not that keen on having me experiment with new bags all the time. It did make for a great explosion sound though. Maybe this guy will come out with an instructional DVD.

It’s not just me who has this kind of problem with packaging. It’s sad to see Daniel opening his bags of rice cakes — he’s on a diet, the poor sap — and getting all ticked off when his attempts lead to the top rice cake always getting crumbled into rice pebbles. Rice cakes don’t exactly hold together too well and he ends up trashing at least one, usually two, rice cakes per package. (BTW, that’s a pretty mean thing for the company to do, calling them rice cakes. Uh, they’re about as far from cake as you can get unless you’re thinking of mud that gets caked on your shoes if you slosh around near a creek. That’s just cruel. Here you go, Daniel. A couple of nice cakes. Yeah, tasteless styrofoam peanuts is more like it.)

Anyway, time for ADD boy to get back on topic. It’s not just bags of chips that are hard to open. Cereal bags (inside the boxes) can be killers too. Sometimes they open right but usually I put a big tear down the side of the bag and a bunch of the cereal pours out into the box. Then the bag can’t really be closed and the cereal gets stale faster. Which is good for the cereal company, I guess, but not for ol’ Crankenfuss.

Now let me make something clear here. (“At last,” you’re probably saying.) I realize this isn’t as important as the end of the world that some people claim is going to happen soon. Yeah, if and when that happens, I probably won’t be jumping around whining about bags of chips. But little things add up, you know? Annoyances like this could be holding me back in my rap writing career. And that would be truly tragic, wouldn’t it?

So unless I want to give us snacks forever, I’ll keep working at finding a cure for this bag disease. Maybe I’ll end up with a Nobel Peace Prize for something for bringing inner peace to all those millions of people who suffer like I do.

So if you have any cool tricks you can teach me, let me know. In the meantime, so long from
The Dude with the ‘Tude,
Dr. Crankenfuss