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Freak Speak

Think you can do 4th grade Math? Think again. Try these!

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Humor Post #124 from Dr. Crankenfuss, The World’s Awesomest Raving and Rapping Middle School blogger –

Okay, first things first. My Dr. Crankenfuss Puppet Video is almost finished and will come out soon. It is very cool. Promise!! And soon DOES mean soon. So keep checking back. After all, there’s nowhere else in the world that will have anything like a genuine Dr. Crankenfuss Puppet Video!

Now it’s back to what I promised you in the title. The last time I did this was in May of last year (2012), right before the EOG tests. Well, now that school’s started again, here are some more 4th grade Math problems that I found in a friend’s little brother’s Math book. I didn’t pick out the easy ones. What’s the fun in that? No, these are the ones that gave ME trouble (even though I’m in middle school)! But I got them right, I’m sure. And if you’re the first one to get them right, I’ll praise you to the skies on this blog and let everyone know how smart you are. (I may even convince Daniel to send you a free book of his.) Now you have to be 7th grade or younger to be eligible here. These aren’t too hard for a grownup. (Well, for some grownups anyway. BTW, that would be a cool thing to do. After you’ve done these, see if one of your parents could get them right. Or at least an older sister or brother. But it’s no fair if they help you.)

So here they come. AND NONE OF THEM ARE TRICK QUESTIONS.

1) What the greatest amount of money in coins you can have and still not be able to give exact change for a dollar? (Hint: it’s definitely over a dollar.) ____________ Now, name the coins you’d need to add up to that amount. _______________________________________________________________________________

2) There are six people at a dinner at a restaurant. If everybody shakes hands with each other once, how many handshakes will take place in all? (And like I said before, this isn’t a trick question. No fair saying someone shook two people’s hands at once, or stuff like that.)   _________ handshakes in all

3) If October 8th is on a Friday, on what day is December 8th? (Yes, it’s the same year!) ___________________________

4) Fill in the next number in this sequence: 0, 1, 4, 11, 26, _____

That’ll do it. Piece of cake, no? I didn’t think so. Man, if fourth graders can do these, they’re in the wrong grade. Hey, they’re probably in the wrong school! Now I’m not posting the answers yet. I’ll wait till someone gets them all right. (I may have to throw in a hint or two if people are having trouble.) So put on your little beanie with the propeller on it and get to work. Send it to me by replying to this post and I’ll publish your answers. You have nothing to lose but your pride.

Talk to you soon.

From your Dude with the ‘Tude (and a tired brain from doing these problems),
Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak

What’s with the way we use forks and knives at the table? IT’S CRA-A-Z-Z-Y!

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Humor Post #109 from the world’s Awesomest & Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School and YA Blog –

Boy, do I have something amazingly important for you today. Okay, maybe it’s not that great, but it’s still pretty weird and weird is always good, especially when Dr. Crankenfuss explains how weirdly we live our lives.

“Oh, shut up, Crankenfuss, and get to the point,” many of you are saying.

All right, here it is. The way we use our eating utensils is kind of messed up. I’ll prove it to you. But first here’s a diagram of a table setting I took from CollageMama’s Hearty Breakfast Blog. I hope CollageMama’s okay with me borrowing it.
typical place setting
The more I look at this diagram though, I have to say I’m not very confident of the intellectual skills of Collage Mama’s audience. Why did she feel it necessary to actually label the parts? (I’m surprised she didn’t put “picture” out to the right with an arrow to the illustration.) Looks fairly simple, doesn’t it? So say I have a plate piled high with something gooey, like a bunch of mashed potatoes I’ve carved into a Vesuvius-like exploding volcano. The second I reach my right hand — I’m right handed — across the table to that fork on the left, there’s at least a decent chance I’m going to get mashed potatoes (no doubt with gravy because that would be the lava part) on my sleeve. Sure, I can sit way back from the table to avoid that mess up, but hey, I’m a sit-near-my-food kind of guy.

That’s just the first problem with the place setting. Now, say I have a nice big juicy steak on that plate there. I’m not going to put the whole steak in my mouth at once. (Well, actually I tried that one time — as a joke, you know — but I got sent to my room and ended up with exactly ZERO of that scrumptious hunk of meat. Never again.) No, I’m going to cut that steak up into pieces. No problem so far. I reach out and take the fork in my left hand to pin the sucker to the plate (just in case it’s still moving), then use my knife with my right hand — sharp side down for better results — and cut the baby up.

Here comes the ol’ bugaboo. How’m I gonna get that piece of steak into the ol’ pie hole? I put my food in my mouth with my RIGHT HAND. Well, I have to put the knife down, switch the fork to my right hand and then stick that mama and insert it into my mouth. What a pain! I’m risking another sleeve incident and meanwhile the meat is getting colder by the second. Why can’t I just keep the fork in my left hand and put the meat into my mouth from the left? Makes great sense, doesn’t it? But almost nobody does it that way. Unless you’re from England, of course. That’s the way they ALWAYS do it. They just sit there, calm as you can be, cutting their meat with aplomb — ooh, there’s a new word for you, or for some of you anyway — See, I like it cause you can make a rhyme out of it:

I was sitting at the table,
All happy and calm,
Eating my steak
With apt aplomb.

Well, now I’m so pleased with my little rap there, I’ve lost track where I was. Oh yeah, then those English dudes DON’T HAVE TO SWITCH HANDS, POSSIBLY HAVING SOME SORT OF DISASTROUS COLLISION BETWEEN KNIFE, FORK, AND FINGERS. They just insert their meat in a neat little feat.

Just sayin’, folks. Maybe they should have another of my often-suggested Congressional Committees on this potentially dangerous situation. There are many fingers (and groded up sleeves) that could be saved through this.

From Your Dude with the ‘Tude,
Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak

Since when is your finger considered a private part?

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Humor Post #108 from the world’s Awesomest & Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School and YA Blog –

I got quite a chortle the other night when I was watching ESPN’s NBA playoff coverage. See, there was this game between the Miami Heat and the Chicago Bulls a few nights before. They were playing in Miami and the Bulls weren’t doing so hot. Actually they were getting killed by the Heat and a few of their guys got technicals and thrown out of the game. Joakim Noah, their center, was one of them. As he was leaving the court after getting the old heave-ho, this fruitcake ‘roid-raged dyed-blond lady fan got in his grill and gave him the middle finger. They showed it a bunch of times on TV.

That’s not what made me laugh. No, what’s so funny is that now TV shows are putting the photo on air, but they’re blurring out the middle finger of that lady. It’s like they’re showing someone’s face who needs their identity protected or a part of the body that’s usually covered up by a bra or underpants.

This is hilarious, people! It’s not like we don’t know what’s under that blur. It’s her finger! Woooh, pretty dirty! Hey, I know what a finger looks like. And it’s not like it’s a nasty part of the body either. I could see that logic if she’d thrown her breast into Noah’s face. (Oh, how I wish that was the case.) Now she might want that covered up. But I don’t think she’s all that embarrassed by the appearance of her finger. (If you ask me, it’s her face that should be blurred out. Just look up the picture and see if you don’t agree.)

I guess the next move will be if some guy is yelling out some blankety-blank comment at a player and a photographer takes a still shot of him shouting, on TV they’ll show him with his mouth or his head blurred out. After all, we don’t want little children seeing his tongue in the process of making that sound, do we?

Anyway, here’s my idea. If the middle finger needs to be blurred, shouldn’t there be a new piece of clothing sold to cover it up at all times. After all, it must be a no-no part of our body if they can’t show it on TV. We could call a “third finger thing.” Or “third finger thong.” Or how about a “finger flap”? If you have any other ideas for names, let me know. But be sure to give me a cut of the profits if you start selling these things. I’m sure everyone will be lining up to buy them. I mean, we don’t want our privates to show, do we?

From Your Dude with the ‘Tude,
Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak

YOU LIKE THE MORNING NEWS ON TV? HERE’S WHAT YOU’RE REALLY GETTING.

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Humor Post #102 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

Well, some of you were probably surprised that Ol’ Doctor Crankenfuss had something serious to say in his last post. And he even said it in poetry! Well, that didn’t last too long. I’m back and ready to rant. Today it’s about what a bunch of people call The Morning News. People all over the country turn on their tv around 7:00 to get a quick fix of the news and weather before they go to work. The most important word here is “quick.” I recorded the CBS Morning News this morning (Friday, April 5, 2013) and I totaled up how much news they actually give you, minute by minute. Here’s what I found out. (Long story short: They should call it “The Morning Little Bit of News.”)
THE FIRST HALF HOUR
8:00 – 8:19 — National and International News
8:19 – 8:20 — Local weather and traffic
8:20 – 8:21 — CBS telling you what’s coming up soon, you know, like previews at a movie theater. (Kind of like a commercial. Or what people call a ‘teaser.’)
8:21 – 8:25 — Commercials
8:25 – 8:26 — Another minute of previews (or teasers) from CBS. See, they haven’t had any real news since 8:19 and they’re trying to keep you in front of the tv. (“Don’t go away,” they say. “Look at this cool stuff we have coming up soon.”)
8:26 – 8:29 — Local news, weather, and traffic. About one minute for each. The local news almost always has half of it (or all of it) devoted to a car accident or a murder or a fire.
8:29 – 8:30 — Commercials
TOTALS FOR FIRST HALF HOUR:
National/international news = 19 minutes
Local news/weather/traffic = 4 minutes
Commercials and previews = 7 minutes
CONCLUSION: NOT TOO BAD. BOTTOM LINE -> 23 minutes of news, 7 minutes of commercials.

THE SECOND HALF HOUR — Watch what happens now! It’s the ol’ switcheroo!!
8:30 – 8:40 — National/international news
8:40 – 8:45 — Commercials
8:45 – 8:47 — National/international news
8:47:00 – 8:47:30 — Local weather (30 seconds)
8:47:30 – 8:48 — Preview/teaser of what’s coming up (30 seconds)
8:48 – 8:52 — Commercials
8:52 – 8:52:30 — Preview/teaser (30 seconds. You see how it works?)
8:52:30 – 8:56 — Commercials (30 seconds)
8:56 – 8:59 — Local news, weather, and traffic (about one minute of each)
8:59 – 9:00 — Commercials
TOTALS FOR SECOND HALF HOUR:
National/international news = 12 minutes
Local news/weather/traffic = 3 1/2 minutes
Commercials and previews = 14 1/2 minutes
((WOW!! Look how it changes from the first half to the second half hour. The main difference is they take out seven minutes of the news and MAGICALLY CHANGE THEM INTO COMMERCIALS.))
CONCLUSION: AY, CARAMBA!! BOTTOM LINE -> 15 1/2 minutes of news, 14 1/2 minutes of commercials.

FINAL LESSON TO BE LEARNED:
If you want to get the best bang for your buck (at least when it comes to watching The CBS Morning News), watch from 8:00 to 8:20. Then run and wash up or get dressed or whatever and if you really want ONE WHOLE MINUTE of local news, come back at 8:26. And if you want the teeniest, weeniest bang for your buck, watch the second half hour which is almost 50% commercials and teasers.

How’s that for some amazing analysis from Dr. Crankenfuss? Not bad, eh, especially from a middle schooler? Well anyway, hope you learned something. I know I did. I learned when I’m playing my video games, almost all the time I spend is playing my video games. Now that’s a good use of time, at least compared to watching the news on tv.

From Your Dude with the ‘Tude (and a great media analyst to boot)
Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak

My Cure for Global Warming (or Climate Change, or whatever u want to call it)

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Humor Post #97 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

Dr. Crankenfuss is worried. He was on the web last night — that was his first mistake — and he found this article. It’s all about how the earth is the hottest now since it’s been since the DAWN OF CIVILIZATION! That means it’s hotter now than it’s been for like 11,000 years! That’s older than all my teachers put together. Here’s the main graph that shows the OMG spike.

See that huge spike at the end? That's the last 100 years or so. (This graph was in the article linked to above at MSNBC and it was called WARMING FASTEST SINCE DAWN OF CIVILIZATION, STUDY SHOWS.)

This is happening right now, people! Okay, you say you’re not worried, that you’ll just keep snarfing down those chicken wings and watch March Madness. Well, Dr. Crankenfuss watches the news. And he has eyes and a brain. So here, in his usual poetic style, he’s going to tell you what he’s going to do save his butt, at least.

THE CURE FOR GLOBAL WARMING

The earth is heating up,
The temps make record highs,
The ocean’s much too warm,
That leads to rising tides.

The tides rush into streets,
Buildings wash away,
People build sand barriers,
The waves say, “Make my day!”

Beach people got big problems,
They want the Gov to cure ’em,
The Gov ain’t got the answers,
I’m glad I live in Durham.

Our altitude’s 400 feet,
Plenty high, that’s true.
But if things start accelerating,
I’ll have an ocean view.

No way I’m stickin’ around,
I’m putting’ my theory to the test,
I’m askin’ my mom to look
For a condo on Everest.

If she won’t go for that,
Only one way we’ll stay afloat,
I’ll spend the next twenty years
Converting our house to a boat.

See you on the high seas, matey!

From Your Dude with the Tude,
Dr. Crankenfuss (soon to be Captain Crankenfuss)