Tag Archives: middle school blog

Freak Speak

TWO EXPRESSIONS AND ONE WORD THAT STICK IN MY CRAW (BESIDES THAT ONE)

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Humor Post #83 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

Anyone who regularly reads this blog knows that Dr. Crankenfuss gets annoyed at a lot of things. But that doesn’t mean he’s wrong, does it? Here’s just three things I heard today that rub me the wrong way. (Which makes me think, What’s the right way to rub me? How about a nice massage by a beauticious babe? The wrong way? Maybe with 20 grit sandpaper or worse, with razors.

Anyway, back to other things we say that should be examined:

1. “It remains to be seen whether. . . “ I hear this on TV when supposedly smart people are talking about the future. Hello, supposedly smart person! Everything in the future remains to be seen! How does this phrase add to anything?

2. “That’s like comparing apples to oranges.” People say this when they mean that one thing is NOT like another and therefore you can’t consider them similar. Once again, HELLO! Apples and oranges are way more similar than they are different.They’re practically the same! They’re both fruits, they both are good for you, they both have seeds, they both show up in my lunch fairly regularly if my mom packs it, and neither one of them makes very good toilet paper even in an emergency. How about comparing apples to Uranus? Not much similar about them. Okay, they’re both round. And yes, the pun was intended. Okay then, here’s a better one: That’s like comparing apples to algebra. You like that better?

3. My mom looked out the window today and said, “What a downpour!” Of course, her wonderful son couldn’t let that go by without acting like the wise guy he is. “As opposed to what?” I said, “An up pour.” Ooh, I thought that was pretty good. She didn’t. That’s why I’m up here in my room writing this instead of watching football on TV.

Have a great rest of the weekend. I’m just trying to figure out how to get any kind of weekend now.

From Your Dude with the ‘Tude,
Holed up in his Man Cave,
Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak

I feel bad for my mailman (and for my mom’s bank teller)

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Humor Post #76 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

I like my mailman. He’s a nice guy. He always has a smile and a friendly hello for me when I happen to be walking my dog (which isn’t nearly often enough, my mom keeps telling me). He doesn’t try to run me down or anything and I gotta give him props for that, you know.

But he’s still going to lose his job.

There’s this old saying that goes something like, “Neither rain nor snow nor mean dogs or anything else will keep the postman from delivering the mail.” And that’s pretty much true. But the saying doesn’t mention anything about the fact that almost nobody uses mail anymore to send stuff. I know, I’m exaggerating a bit here. The Crank does that sometimes. But think about it. Thanks to texting or emails, when’s the last time you actually wrote someone a letter? When’s the last time one of your parents wrote anybody a letter? I’m not talking about greeting cards. That’s the main kind of “letter” the post office delivers now. Yeah, they carry a lot of packages too. But Fed Ex and UPS and some others I can’t think of right now do the same thing. If it wasn’t for magazines — especially my favorite, Sports Illustrated — we could almost get along without our mailman. Mostly he brings us junk mail like advertising stuff from grocery stores and department stores and catalogues. I know some people like that stuff, but that’s just not enough to keep a business going. It’s kind of like those Indians that used to hold the important job in their tribe of sending out smoke signals. A while back that was a super cool job, I’m sure. Well, what happened to them?

Another job that I wouldn’t recommend someone to have for their career is being a bank teller. My mom just scanned a check yesterday afternoon and her bank deposited it in her account by 8:00 last night. She was like all happy and she said, “Now I won’t have to go to the bank. Think how much time that’ll save me from now on.” If I was a bank teller, I’d be listening to my mom. That’s kind of like your doctor telling you you have a heart murmur and maybe you should cut back on the cigarettes and double fries.

Anyway, it’s not my fault all this is happening. All I do is look around and see it.

Sorry for the bad news, Mr. Mailman and Ms. Bank Teller, but ol’ Crankenfuss is just trying to give you a thumbs up. In the meantime I gotta think of a new career path for myself. My old idea of being a spittoon cleaner ain’t looking so smart anymore.

Have a great day, people.

From your man with the message,
Your Dude with the ‘Tude,
Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak

Here’s how to make some real bucks. For real!

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Humor Post #22 from Middle School’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

I can’t promise you a whole lot today. As you can see from my picture, I’ll still recovering from my recent encounter with Mr. Locker, a fight which left me injured and dazed. (I guess that’s why they call this daily grind we have to go through “School Dazed.”) But I’ll be okay. Ol’ Crankenfuss promises you that. You can never keep a good crank down, that’s what I like to say. But come to think of it, I’m always down so I guess it should be You can never keep a good crank up.

Oh, never mind.

Anyway, I found out something cool yesterday. After that terrifying locker incident, I was complaining to my friend Max — yes, I do have friends — that I should sue the school for a million bucks, something like that, and I started wondering why we call money bucks. So I googled bucks money origin when I got home and I found out that in olden times, like 200 years ago, pioneers would use deer skins to trade for things. (Except they called them buckskins since a male deer is called a buck.) It was a kind of money, see? For instance what if you were a pioneer in some town and you went to the General Store and saw this nice trail bike for sale? Well, okay, they couldn’t have had trail bikes back then, so let’s say you needed supplies and you saw a big bag of flour and a big bag of nails that you needed. (Work with me, okay?) You’d go up to the guy behind the counter and say, “Hey, podner, what say I trade you this buck here for them there bags o’ flour and nails?” and you’d haul out this big deer skin from your back pack (or whatever they’d call it back then). And the store guy would probably say yes cause that sounded like a good deal to him. (And it would be too.) So now we still say bucks instead of money.

But what I also found out is you can still make real bucks, that is, buckskins. You know there are always like a million pages listed under every subject at Google so I checked out this site called TwoWolves.org and they have a course that’ll teach you how to make buckskins. They’re in New Jersey, for gosh sakes! And it looks like I’d qualify to take the course. Here’s the requirements:

Simply, there are no minimum requirements or skill-levels. Whether you have never even touched a raw skin before, or have a few hides under your belt, you will benefit from a deeper exploration of this art, and taking your skills to the next level. All you need is a willingness to learn and work hard.

Well, that fits me to a C. This looked kind of interesting. So here’s more of what they said.

• Each apprenticeship program is in essence a “one-on-one” course. (Wow, individual tutoring. It doesn’t get better than that!)
• Course meetings will convene at our home facility in New Jersey. Meetings at the student’s residence will require compensation of travel expenses. (Uh-oh! Well, maybe my mom would agree to the extra expense. I mean, to be able to make real buckskins? Even she’d have to admit that was pretty cool.)
• During the duration of the program, students will be free to use all our tanning related gear (excluding chemicals, brains, and hides), to work on their projects. (Huh? Whose brains can’t I use? Theirs or mine? Without brains, this could be harder to figure out. Well, let’s go a little further.)
• All materials are included in the tuition cost, which is $1450. (Wha-a-a-a?)

Well, there goes that idea. But then I saw the picture of one of the guys at that place in his buckskin outfit.Here’s someone who made some REAL bucks!

Whew! I know we’re into Freaky Dudes here at FDB, but we might have to make an exception for this boy. But hey, you gotta give him props for his self-esteem.

So it looks like the old Crankoid won’t be making real bucks after all. But he did learn something in the meantime and he may even have taught you something. Hey, that head injury I suffered might have changed me after all. I actually did something nice for somebody.

Man, I gotta think about this. Maybe I’m one of those split-personality types. Oh, no! That locker may have literally split my personality in two.

Sorry, gotta go.

From Dr. C