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Freak Speak

I come to praise a hair salon, not to bury it

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Post #13 from Kidlit’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Blog–

No, no, I don’t go to hair salons. I go to a barber shop, thank you very much. (Though actually the last two times my mom cut my hair and nobody could tell the difference, least of all my hair.) But we were driving — Confession: I wasn’t driving. I’m using the editorial “we” here — in Cary, NC, and we saw this sign for a hair place and the name was Curl Up & Dye. My mom started laughing and — I hate to admit it — then she had to explain the joke to me. But even if I WAS a dumb bunny at the time, I think it’s a cool name for a salon.

Husband: What are you going to do today, honey?

Wife: Oh, I want to go to Curl Up & Dye?

Husband: Oh, no, don’t say that. I’m sorry for saying I didn’t like your brussel sprouts last night. They were really quite excellent. Let me help, please!

Wife: What for? I just want to go to Curl Up & Dye. It’s time for a change.

Husband: What?? Don’t you move, sweetie. I’m calling 911.

So congratulations to Curl Up & Dye. BTW, I looked it up on the web and it gets tons of ***** reviews.

Sorry I didn’t have anything to rant and rave about today. Hope you’ll forgive me.

From Dr. Crankenfuss, your (out-of-sorts) Cranky (but certainly not Stanky or Skanky) Curmudgeon

P.S. That title for the post comes from Julius Caesar, the Shakespeare play. They’re making us read, uh, be tortured by it in English class. No wonder the Roman Empire fell. They bored everybody to death by speaking in iambic pentameter all the time.

Freak Speak

New FDB video goes online

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Post #11 from Kidlit’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Blog–

What, no complaints?? Sorry, dudes, today Dr. Crankenfuss is actually impressed with something. Daniel has just posted the latest video from Freaky Dude Books. He says he doesn’t know whether to call it a poetry video or video poetry, but I don’t really care, it’s still pretty good. Who thought such an old fart could create anything decent, much less something actually good? It helped that he had a good actor (Michael Thompson). Not to give too much away, but the bloopers at the end are my favorite part. Oh, yeah, the way he makes the pictures match up to the beat of the music in the middle is pretty cool too.

Anyway, you can look at the video by clicking here or you can go to the Videos Page and look at a bunch more.

For those of you who thought I was kidding in the heading and that I’d deliver my usual dose of ranting genius, sorry to disappoint you. I guess you could say I’m out of sorts today. Hey, don’t worry ’bout it. Just check out the video. In the meantime, I’ll be looking for something to get me back on track.

Freak Speak

Doesn’t this tick you off, Mr. Clop?

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Post #10 from Kidlit’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Blog–

I love Greek and Roman myths. Forget Batman, X-Men, ET, Teletubbies, Ninja Knotheads, forget all of them cause they don’t hold a candle to the Greek and Roman guys. Don’t believe me? Check em out, you’ll see. Anyway, I’m reading The Odyssey for like the gazillionth time (+ 1) and I’m at the story of Ulysses and the cyclops. You know, that giant with one eye in the middle of his head and Ulysses sticks this long burning stick right in the man’s eye, which kind of annoys him just a bit and… anyway, it’s wonderful and painful and gross, all the stuff I find worthy, you know, when it comes to literature. And I had a question.

Why do they call this guy the cyclops? Shouldn’t it be cyclop? I mean, he only has one eye, doesn’t he? And clop is probably ancient Greek for eye. Now I don’t know exactly what cy means. One is the obvious choice, but I’m not sure. Maybe that was like his first name, like Sy nowadays is short for something like Seymour or Simon or Cyrus or Cyril or whatever. Cyclone? Anyway, that dude probably had a regular name like Simon Clop and people shortened it to Cy Clop. That’s the way I see it anyway. (Get it? See?) But there’s no way it would have been clops. After a couple thousand years, people probably copied it down wrong, that’s all.

So all your mythology experts out there, just lissen up to old Crankenfuss and he’ll get you straightened out when it comes to the things that matter.

From your Teller of Truth, Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak

Hey Little Baby, KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT NEXT TIME, OKAY?

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Post #9 from Kidlit’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Blog–

OOH, the doctor is less than happy!!!!! He just got back from the movies and he’s so ticked he can hardly type. But he’ll do his best to explain what happened.

How’s this for a nice setup? You go to the IMAX to see Puss in Boots in 3D with a couple of your best buds. You get seats right in the middle where the screen is as big as North America and you have on those glasses and just the intro to the Dolby Sound System makes your ears so happy they try to put on party hats. Then the movie starts and you’re in heaven till… W-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-H!! Some baby starts wailing nearby. Nearby as in the seat just in front of you to the left. Like fingernails on your ear drums. You’d think the mother would whisk her bratty little kid out of the theater and give hundreds of paying customers a little peace and quiet. Think again. The lady puts her lil punkin head on her shoulder and tries to comfort her/him/whatever. (It was hard to tell.) The baby quiets down to maybe half the volume as before — maybe police siren level — and then lets out a nice portion of barf right on you know who’s leg. Only then does the lady get up and muscle her way toward the aisle. I’m sitting there, my chin somewhere near my belly button in amazement, while my two (former) friends are laughing so hard they’re practically shooting their Cokes up through their noses. So I do what I have to. Try to get out of there as unmessily as possible. Guess what. It was impossible. I ended up getting barf on either the people I was trying to slide past or on the backs of the chairs right in front of them. Of course, they got mad at ME!! Like it was my fault!!

So I finally get out of there to the bathroom and have to spend 10 or 20 minutes pretty much trying to get into the sink to get my pants less filthy. Bad enough in itself but think about the other people coming in. I tried to explain to the first couple, but it sounded so bad, I just shut up and kept my eyes down. But I knew everybody was staring at me and probably telling their friends what a doof I was.

When I finally get to my row, this man demands that I clean up the mess I left on the seat back in front of him. What am I going to do? Say “Make that lady do it?” She wasn’t even back yet. So there I went, back to the refreshments counter where I had to ask for some paper towels, then come back and do what the guy said, then leave again to throw away the trash.

Was I having fun yet?

I finally got back to my seat and then here comes back that lady with the baby. At least the little creature has calmed down. Boy, was I wrong! Two minutes later, like Ke$ha says, “This place about to blow.” More chunks, smaller and, as I was to find out, even harder to dispose of. The only good thing was my friend next to me got at least a bit of the overflow. And some of it went in his Coke.

I’ll spare you the rest of the details. I’ll just say, “Lady Lunkhead and Barfbaby, whatever your names are, if I ever find you, you owe me $10, you owe my friend $10, and you owe me a new pair of jeans, and much, much more.” How much I’m still trying to figure out. But it’s going to be a lot.

Till then, I’m a very PO’d Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak

Uh, God, can I make a suggestion?

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Post #8 from Kidlit’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Blog–

Okay people, I know I’m all full of myself and all and I like to complain/whine/moan/kvetch, you name it, but I’m always right, which makes my rants justified. But you know all that already, don’t you? But tonight, I have a different “concern” and this one concerns all of us, but especially kids in school. I guess I’ll have to put it to the only guy who can actually change it for the better. So here goes:

Dear God,
I’m only a regular — actually better than regular, but you know that — kid in North Carolina and usually I don’t ask you for much. I mean, I know life isn’t fair and all that and you’ve set it all up the way you want, but I just have a little request, not for just me, you understand, but for millions of people like me. See, around this time of year, daylight savings time ends and that means that around 5 o’clock, like whoa, it gets too dark to see the basket very well and my shots keep missing, but it’s not all my fault, you know, cause how can anyone expect me to score when I can’t see? It’s not the cold weather that gets to me — hey, I can play shirts and skins in a snowstorm, though I have to admit I’d rather be a shirt — but this daylight thing is a real hindrance. Now I know we could go back to daylight savings, but that wouldn’t work either because then I’m waking up and it’s still dark. Not good. Just a couple weeks ago I smashed my toe on the bathroom scale cause I couldn’t see anything and it was already past six in the morning. Now I’m not blaming you, you understand, but it really did hurt.

So here’s my humble suggestion. Can’t you just tilt the Earth just a tad different or maybe let the sun move around as much as is necessary to keep daylight hours a little more even? It wouldn’t be that hard for you and think how much kids would appreciate it. I can’t speak for all the adults but I have the feeling that a little more regularity would be appreciated by all.

As I said, this is only a suggestion. Maybe I don’t get it all and it would be impossible but — oh yeah, I just thought of this — think of how hard it must be for kids in Alaska who have to live in the darkness for months every winter. Man, how are their dads going to kill any moose for dinner if they can’t see? I’m sure there must be others who’d agree with me, but anyway, just give it some thought, okay?

Thank you for listening.

From one of your biggest fans,
Dr. Crankenfuss (I know you know who I am, but this is for my readers. I’m sure you understand.)