Tag Archives: humor

Lance the Collie Ain’t Feelin’ Too Jolly

July 15, 2013 crankenfuss 2 Comments

Humor Post #118 from the Blog of The World’s Awesomest & Crankiest Middle School Curmudgeon, Dr. Crankenfuss
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No, this ain’t Dr. Crankenfuss at the left, guys. It’s Lance the Collie and he wanted to have his say, so I gave him this post. He needs your help bad. You tell ’em, Lance.

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Okay, here goes. Hey, my name is Lance Berenson and I live with Daniel. Many would call him my “owner” but as Dr. Crankenfuss would probably say, “I beg to differ.” He’s more like my enemy, at least right now. Read my poem and see who’s right and who’s wrong.

IT’S AIN’T FAIR, DAGNABBIT!
IT’S A NATURAL DOG HABIT!
by Lance the Collie

I got for you a shaggy dog story.
See me up there in my canine glory?
But I’ve been brought low and I ain’t to blame,
I’ve been saddled up with “The Cone of Shame.”

Do I look happy? My answer is NOT!
I’m lookin’ real stupid and my freedom’s shot,
I’m getting whacked by chairs and doors,
I’m writin’ APS; can’t take it no more.

Daniel tells me it’s for my health,
But all I was doin’ was lickin’ myself,
So I get hot spots and I’m a bit sore,
I can deal with that; I’ll just lick some more.

But Daniel carted me off to the vet
Who said this dumb coller’d be the end of it.
But it’s not right: life’s not the same,
I’m sulkin’ in the corner with my “Cone of Shame.”

I didn’t do nothin’; I was totally framed.
Help me get out of this “Cone of Shame.”

from Lance the Collie (who even appeared on YouTube here with my pal Rex and here doing a magic trick.)

Please leave your comments below. Maybe Daniel will listen. I doubt it, but I can pray for a miracle.

Freak Speak

A New UNCLE SAM POSTER for today’s times

July 11, 2013 crankenfuss Leave a comment

Humor Post #117 from The World’s Awesomest & Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School and YA Blog –

Well, I gotta admit, I’m kinda tired lately. If I was using my usually far-out, intellectual vocabulary, I could say I was fatigued or uh… flagging, but I’m too tired to, so I’ll just say I’m pooped out. Oh, no, that doesn’t sound right either, especially if you’re one of those “Ha, ha, didn’t he just say poop?” kind of chuckleheads.

Well, there I go again. Off-topic, as usual. Okay, the reason I’m so enervated — Ha! I just found that one at THESAURUS.COM and it’s a very cool word because it sounds like it means the opposite of what it really means. Very tricky, dudes! — is that Daniel is going on like three hours of sleep a night. He’s been all involved in this LOVE THUG giveaway at Amazon and that’s okay and all, but it’s keeping me from my beauty rest too.

But I DID help Daniel come up with something to take his mind off all those numbers and networking. I gave him the idea for this new UNCLE SAM POSTER. It’s kinda how Daniel and I feel a lot of the time. We feel like we’re working so hard all the time, there’s no time for fun. So here’s the idea I gave him:

Pretty cool, huh! So even though we’re working hard, at least we came up with something good.

From Your Dude with the ‘Tude,
Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak

I’m Going to Set Up My Own Demolition Derby (or NASCAR event) in Durham

July 3, 2013 crankenfuss Leave a comment

Humor Post #116 from The World’s Awesomest & Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School and YA Blog –

Well, it’s time for a change. Instead of hearing Crankenfuss rant about what’s wrong with things, today I’m going to show you (IN A VERY COOL VIDEO) something right. Right in the middle of Durham, NC, that is — that’s where I live. See there’s this railroad bridge that goes over a road. There are all kinds of signs and warnings leading up to the bridge. Why? Because the bridge is 11 feet 8 inches high. That’s kind of low for a bridge clearance. And lots of truck and rec vehicle owners don’t seem to know how tall the things they’re driving are. So BOOM, CRASH, SLASH, BANG!! about once a month a roof of one of these things get ripped off by the bridge. And here’s the video to prove it. It’s a mashup of a whole bunch of stuff from 11foot8.com, a website of Jurgen Henn, who set up two cameras to record people’s dumbicity.

CLICK HERE TO SEE DUMB DRIVERS GET WHAT THEY DESERVE.
WARNING: IT’S FUNNY AND GRUESOME AT THE SAME TIME.

How cool is that? It’s like the Darwin Awards for drivers. Hey, it’s not like drivers aren’t warned. There are signs and lights that start flashing if you vehicle is too tall. That doesn’t stop Mr. or Ms. Chucklehead though, does it?

“Why don’t they fix it?” you ask. Because it would cost MILLIONS of dollars and no one wants to pay it, that’s why. (You can read lots more details at 11foot8.com.)

Anyway, I’m thinking I could rent some space in front of this bridge. Set up some bleachers, ya know. Charge maybe $10 a head for people to sit there, sell them some hot dogs, ice cream, lemonade (hot chocolate in the winter) while they wait for the next big bang. I mean Durham doesn’t have NASCAR or a Demolition Derby, but this could be almost as good.

What do you think?

From Your Dude with the ‘Tude (and the eye for making a bit of quick cash),
Dr. Crankenfuss

P.S. Any investors out there?

Freak Speak

Daniel’s First Attempt at Flash Fiction. See what you think.

July 1, 2013 daniel 1 Comment

Yes, I know this is a shock. “What the #$%&@#%$ happened to Dr. Crankenfuss? He looks awful!” you’re saying. “Was he in some kind of industrial accident?” Well, no, the Crank is fine. That’s not Dr. Crankenfuss on the left at all. It’s me: Daniel Berenson, the head guy at Freaky Dude Books and the dude who’s nice enough (so far) to lease some space in his head to the good doctor.

And now you’re no doubt thinking, “Just look at him! What’s he got to smile about?” Well, a lot actually. My books are getting more noticed, all the reviews (over 40 of them) are 4 or 5 starred (except for one). I’m in the middle of editing and formatting my sixth book, a poetry book by and for kids, and it will be coming out in September. Also I’m happy to announce that I’ll be giving away a bunch of free stuff in the next few weeks so keep checking back or you might miss it.

But as the title of this post states, this is my first stab at Flash Fiction, which is literature for the Twitter generation, I guess. I entered a contest. There were five categories — stuff like “Write a murder mystery that has a party in it and doesn’t have over 50 words, including the title,” or “Write a romance with a horse in it somewhere. 45 words max.” I chose, “Write a children’s poem about The Adventures of Max Little. It has to involve bravery or courage and can’t be over 40 words, including the title.”

Here was my entry:

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT

Max Little wanted dinner:
Something like himself.
So he scuba dove
Down to an ocean shelf.

He battled squid and octopi.
He survived, but with a limp.
But Max got his dinner —
Tasty jumbo shrimp.

Total = 40 words

Was I pleased with myself or what? A sure winner, I thought. Okay, it’s not aimed at kids exactly. Would most children get the exact parallelism between “Max Little” and “jumbo shrimp”? Did the contest judges? But fighting squid and octopi? Hey, that’s very courageous. Remember that big squid — or was it an octopus? — in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. That guy was ginormous.

Long story short. (Ha, ha. See how I incorporated the essence of Flash Fiction into those three little words?) I LOST. “No, no way!” you say. WAY! Anyhoo, it’s they who have truly lost. Now I have the rights to this poem and it will be my first entry in my Flash Fiction oeuvre. And I’ll add it to my Poetic Poetry page. Now it’s time for my next self-imposed challenge: Dinner for two within one hour using only chicken, oleomargarine, and mosquito repellent. Ooh, Maureen’s gonna love this!

Freak Speak

iPad and Kindle Workers Don’t Make Enough, But That’s Also True For a Lot of our Stuff

June 28, 2013 crankenfuss Leave a comment

Humor Post #115 from the world’s Awesomest & Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School and YA Blog –

Whew, I’ve had a kind of rough time since I put out that BOOKS ARE EVIL post. See I was arguing that Kindles and iPads made more sense for kids than paper books. You can go back and read it if you want. Some people agreed with me, but some got kind of mad at me. I guess I need a thicker skin. Now how do I grow one of those and if I do, will I look more like an elephant?

That was supposed to be a joke. Pretty bad, huh? Okay, you don’t have to agree so loudly.

But I am willing to admit one big problem with our tablets that I didn’t know much about when I wrote that article. They all seem to be made in China or some country in Asia where workers make like, if they’re lucky, a dollar a day. That’s bad. And I checked out some of my books and they’re all printed in the USA. So I’m ready to say we should be willing to pay a bit more for tablets if they could be made here. But then I figured out something else. Most everything we buy that’s not food comes from Asia. And our food is mostly picked by workers from Mexico and Central America. And I’m not exaggerating. Look at my house. I mean we have a Samsung television and an Hitachi TV. Asia. Our refrigerator and washer/dryer are all LG. Asia.

Then I went through my clothes. Guess how many brands were made in the USA. Guess. No, I really mean Guess. My Guess shirt was practically the only thing I could find made in the USA. I have New Balance sneaks made in China, shirts made in Pakistan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, India. And I just saw on the news tonight about a clothes factory in Bangladesh where they have girls as young as 12 working there and another building fell down a month or two ago nearby and over 1000 people died. Over 1000 and they were all making clothes!! Imagine if something like that happened here. I think it would take up quite a bit of news time, don’t you? And tonight they showed the labels of the clothes those people in Bangladesh were making. The labels said ASICs and Wrangler and WalMart. (I’m sure there were other brands at other factories, but that’s what they showed tonight.)

So I gotta say it. And I’ll say it in a poem. Natch.

TABLETS AND OTHER STUFF WE NEED AND LIKE A LOT
by Dr. Crankenfuss

I don’t understand it,
What can I say?
Almost nothing I own’s
Made in the US of A.

My shoes come from Vietnam or China,
Calvin Klein’s made in Hong Kong,
Almost the only thing I have not from the far East
Is a polyester shirt from Oman.

India, Korea, Pakistan,
Don’t matter if it’s for a woman or a man,
I don’t know what happened to all the US workers,
Must be they’re all frying fast food burgers.

So I guess to be fair I should give up my iPad,
Its workers are exploited and somehow that’s my bad,
I could read paper books printed here I suppose
But shouldn’t I also learn to live without clothes?

Just sayin’.

From Your Dude with the ‘Tude (who’s still learning, ya know),
Dr. Crankenfuss
P.S. And thanks to everybody who gave me your ideas here or at LinkedIn, Facebook, and GoodReads. It’s cool to get mail from you.