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Freak Speak

$80 million for The Scream? Makes me wanna scream, all right!

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Humor Post #58 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

Yesterday I was in the car attached to my IPod as usual when I somehow heard this news on the radio that made me sit up straight. (Not the easiest thing to do in our car.) This woman was saying there was a painting on sale in New York for around $80 million!! Yeah, you read that right (assuming you can read, of course). 80 million GW’s. For one painting. Man, I had to look that up when I got home. It’s called “The Scream” and it’s by this guy Edvard Munch from Norway or somewhere like that. Turns out I’ve seen it before on posters and in cartoons. Here it is:

The Scream by Edward Munch

Yeah, it’s not exactly a publicity shot of Selena Gomez, is it? Looks like the guy — or is it a girl? Hard to tell. — just got a wedgie in front of the whole school. I have to admit the colors are pretty cool. It’s supposed to represent the fear and anxiety people have. At least that’s what I can figure out from what I read. Apparently Munch was on this bridge somewhere and the sky turned red and he felt “the great scream of nature.” So this is what he came up with. Man, that dweeb could have used a psychiatrist (or 20). You know, like he needed a checkup from the neck up.

And dude, you wanna feel a little less pain? Start with the hair. Like it’s not there. Rogaine time, my man!

But from what I can see, Munch also could have used some art lessons. Yeah, the thing’s all primal and stuff with those bold colors, but so are Little Jojo’s crayon pictures. (He’s a little guy I know who I try to educate about the world sometimes.) And he’s like six years old. Why in the world is this thing worth $80 million? And it turns out there are four others just like it. Dude, couldn’t you think of anything new?

Now you might be thinking it’s great that the thing is selling for $80 million, at least for old Eddie. With that kind of attitude, maybe he could use the money to take a nice, relaxing vacation somewhere. Whoa, wait up a sec. Eddie ain’t with us anymore. He died like maybe 70 years ago. Probably gave this painting to a niece because he couldn’t afford a big box of chocolates at the time. (And of course he already had four other copies of it.) She, of course, looked at it, said, “Oh, barf!” to herself, and stuck it in a closet somewhere. I mean, this thing on your wall could give you nightmares. So there it probably sat for years and then it got put in the attic and who knows, someone probably found it and put it on a table at a yard sale and was happy to get $3 for it. And now some unbelievably lucky fart is going to score 80 million cool ones.

I got a few weird relatives, just like everyone else. Why didn’t one of them give me a painting like that? But even if they did, would I have kept it for over 100 years till it was worth more than Beyonce’s wardrobe? Probably not.

But anyway, I looked at the painting some more and the more I looked at it, the more it reminded me of a scene from one of my favorite movies. Here it is:

Macaulay Culkin in HOME ALONE (from 20th Century Fox)

See what I mean? For those of you who live on the moon, that’s Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone, one of the funniest movies going. That’s probably how Edward Munch looked when he was a kid.

Now with a little computer creativity thanks to Fireworks, let’s see if I can do something with this photo. Here’s the Dr. Crankenfuss version called:
Making The Scream Speak to Modern Audiences

The Scream (the Dr. Crankenfuss version) (Thanks to Fox for the photo.)

Okay, okay, maybe I should have taken some more time. I’m still trying to figure out this layer stuff and transparencies, but I don’t have a whole lot of patience, you know. But certainly this Crankenfuss masterpiece should be worth at least 10 million, don’t you think? Excuse me while I Google “Awesome Art Agents” in my area. Maybe Angie’s List will have a section on it. Hey, I’m even willing to share some of it with Culkin and Fox for using their photo as my model.

Gotta book. Certain wealth awaits.

From da new da Vinci,
Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak

When is a foot not a foot? When it’s YOUR foot, that’s when.

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Humor Post #57 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

We’ve been doing all this measuring at school in math, comparing the USA system to the metric system and stuff like that. I gotta say the metric system makes way more sense, but that’s not what this is about. This is about a real little thing, but I still think it’s important. To measure stuff we mostly use rulers and yardsticks and tape measures. Now tape measures make a lot of sense, especially the ones that are metal and curl up inside their case. Rulers are okay if you have a backpack but forget it if you only have pockets and don’t like being poked in the side. And yardsticks are just useless for carrying around, aren’t they? Well, you could put one down your pants leg, but that would probably slow you down just a little.

Anyway, here’s the small thing. We have a nice name for the stick that’s a yard long. Uh, it’s called a YARDSTICK. Makes sense, doesn’t it? We don’t use it a whole lot, but it does have a sensible name. So what do we call a stick that’s a foot long, you know, the one we use all the time. “A FOOTSTICK,” you yell out, “it’s gotta be a FOOTSTICK.” How sadly wrong you are, Paco. It’s called a RULER. What good does that do anybody? A ruler can be a foot or it can be six or eight inches. The word ruler doesn’t tell you anything. It certainly doesn’t rule.

Wouldn’t kids learn what a foot was better if we actually had something called a FOOTSTICK? The way it is now, a teacher has to explain that a ruler has 12 inches and, oh yeah, a ruler is usually a foot and a foot has 12 inches too. No wonder kids can’t do math right.

And why do they call it a FOOT anyway? Probably because the guy who invented it put a stick next to his foot and decided, “I think I’ll call this length of stick a foot. Yeah, that’ll make it easy for everyone for the rest of eternity.”

Thanks a lot, Bozo!

Freak Speak

You want to see how good a reader you are? Try this test.

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Humor Post #56 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

We had a great reading lesson today.

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. “What?? Where’s ol’ Crankenfuss’s usual rant, his whining, his complaining, his ‘I hate everything’ way of looking at the whole world?”

Well, I’ll tell you. That attitude is on hiatus for this blog post. (Yeah, it’s a new word I just learned. You can look it up.) Today I’m Mr. Happy Face cause my English teacher had this cool lesson. She brought out five of those mini-bags of popcorn and said the first five people to complete this silent reading contest she was ready to pass out would get a bag of popcorn. That got us hyped cause what’s not to like about popcorn? So she handed out this paper face down on everybody’s desk and when she was done, she said, “Okay, turn it over and you may begin. Bring it to me when you’re through. If you’re one of the first five to finish it, I have your prize right here.”

Now I consider myself a pretty good reader so I figured I’d have a pretty good shot at bringing home the bacon… uh, popcorn. So I tore into it like an alligator into a wildebeest. (I saw that happen on “Planet Earth.” One of the gruesomest things I’ve ever watched four or five times. So sad. For the wildebeest anyway.)

Here’s what was on the sheet of paper, starting right at the top:
——————————————————————————————————

This is a contest to see who can follow instructions the best. There are 20 tasks listed on this paper. The first one to finish them wins. But please read all the tasks before you start. When you have completed the assignment, bring it to the teacher and she’ll give you your prize.

1. Write your last name. ________________________________
2. Write the last name of this class’s teacher. ___________________________________
3. Put the current year on the line at the right. ___________________
4. Do not do anything on this line.
5. Write the name of the city we live in. __________________________________
6. Write the name of the state we live in. _________________________________
7. What is the name of our school? _____________________________________________
8. What is the last name of our President? ___________________________
9. Skip this line and go all the way to Number 15.
10. What is 72 + 8? _______
11. What is 3 multiplied by 3? ______
12. How many weeks are in a day? Circle the correct answer. A. 7   B. 30   C. 31   D. 1/7
13. What is the antonym of the word synonym? _________________________
14. What is the abbreviation for United States of America? __________________
15. Who was the USA’s first President? George _____________________
16. From which country did we win our independence? (Hint: It rhymes with Bingland.) ________________________
17. Go back and answer Number 10-14.
18. Write the alphabet backwards from G to A? ________________________________
19. Did you read all these tasks before you started? __________
20. Don’t write anything on this page. All you have to do is bring it to the teacher for your prize. Don’t tell anyone how you did it so fast. If you’re one of the first five, you WIN!

——————————————————————————————————-

Man, after the first eight things to answer, I was in a groove. I figured I had a great chance of winning. My hands were flying like an F-18. And then it happened. The first person finished and brought up her paper. HUH?? How was that possible. I was only on Number 6. Then two more people came up. NO!! HOW HAD THEY FINISHED SO FAST?? After another two more minutes, two others had come up and the teacher was out of popcorn. The biggest mystery was the last two to come up weren’t even very good students. They were making like maybe C’s in the class. HOW COULD I BE LOSING TO THEM?

IT WASN’T FAIR! My mouth was sweating, almost drooling really, it was craving that popcorn so much, especially after the winners had opened their bags and were happily munching away. There were some grumbles about the test not being fair, so our teacher made us put our pens and pencils down and made us read the instructions at the top of the paper again. “This time read them very carefully,” she said. I did what she said and after a couple minutes, I saw why I’d lost. WHAT AN IDIOT I WAS! And the key to everything was in boldface. But I have to admit it was a cool reading test.

So here I’m offering it to you. Maybe you can print it out and have your teacher give it to your class. Of course, that means you’ll win, which is even better.

Just one more helpful suggestion from
The Dude Who was in the Mood for some Food,
Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak

Hey, 13’s ain’t so bad and Fridays are even better!

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Humor Post #53 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

In my last post I gave you a ton of evidence (well… at least a big bag full) why Friday the 13th is no worse than any other day. Today I’ll tell you why Fridays and 13 are really pretty cool, especially Fridays. Now I had to think hard about this and do some real research so give me some credit, okay, and cut me a little slack if there’s some itty-bitty part you don’t agree with.

Anyway, here’s the dirt in two parts:

WHY FRIDAYS ARE COOL
— While I freely admit that I like Saturdays and Sundays more than Fridays (for obvious reasons), I still think Friday comes in third for most people in the world. First off, being a student I really hate Mondays. Y-e-c-c-h-h! Yeah, you can say that with a lot of phlegm in your throat ’cause that’s how most people feel about Mondays. School starts, work starts, you know the routine. But Friday is by far the best day of the week except for the weekend. Fridays — there’s so much hope and expectation that comes with that day. There’s that expression TGIF. I mean people are thanking God it’s Friday. You won’t hear any expression like TGIM. There’s even a restaurant called that. And there was that viral video last year with some girl singing “Friday, Friday, Friday” that got her famous and probably rich and all it showed was her hanging out in the car with her friends. And anyone who likes to shop knows that the very top #1 shopping day of the year is BLACK FRIDAY, the day after Thanksgiving. That’s when people get so juiced they’ll spend all night at a Wal-Mart ready to stomp on everybody else to get inside for all those bargains. I read an article once about people forming these sophisticated teams to get all the best deals at Best Buy, almost like Search and Destroy missions.

— Now for poor old picked-on 13. It’s so hated that there are skoodles of buildings all over the world that don’t have a 13th floor. You get on the elevator and there’s no 13. The buttons just skip from 12 to 14. What kind of lesson is that for little kids? No wonder we’re #25 in the world in math It’s so hated that few pro athletes ever choose it for their uniform number. But I found a few exceptions. Wilt Chamberlain for one. He was so monster, I guess he didn’t worry about being #13. Didn’t seem to hold him back much. His first year in the pros, he AVERAGED 50 POINTS A GAME! Dude, most guys never score that much in ONE GAME! He once got 100 points in a game! Also Dan Marino, one of the best quarterbacks ever, wore number 13. Now I’ll concede that he never won a Super Bowl, so maybe that was 13’s fault, but Kurt Warner did and he wore it. (In case you didn’t know, he was on the Arizona Cardinals.)
— Another cool thing about 13 is most all kids want to get to that age. That means you’re a teenager, dude! Way cooler than being just a kid. You’re closer to driving, dating, being a big star in hip hop (well, I hope that’s true), you know, all the awesome stuff that goes along with being a teenager. I never heard of anybody saying, “Aw, I think I better stay 12 ’cause I’m going to have nothing but bad luck all next year.”
— Finally a great thing about 13 is the USA is all about that number. Here’s the Great Seal of the U.S. Great Seal of the USAThe two sides of it are on the back of the dollar bill and it’s supposed to be really important, so important they argued about it like for weeks way back around 1790 or something when they were putting our country together. It’s got 13’s all over it. There’s 13 stripes on that shield, the eagle is holding 13 arrows in one claw and 13 olive branches with 13 olives in the other claw. And there’s 13 stairs on that pyramid up to that creepy eyeball sitting on the top. (BTW, who put that thing up there? That thing could give you nightmares.) On top of all that, everyone knows we started as 13 colonies and we have 13 stripes on our flag. Try comparing that to all those other jillion flags that have other numbers of stuff on them. Let’s just look at the countries that have 3 stripes on their flags. Let’s start with Afghanistan, Andorra, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. They all have three stripes. Where’d you rather live — in the good old USA or there (if you even know where they are)? And that’s just the A’s! So 13 hasn’t exactly put us in the crapper, has it?

I rest my case. And my brain. If you can think of how this argument is all messed up, let me know and I’ll tell you how messed up YOU are. Unless you’re nice in your criticism, of course, and then I’ll return the favor. After all, it’s good if we all get along, right?

from Your Dude with the ‘Tude,
Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak

Friday the Thirteenth is coming next week. Big deal!

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Humor Post #52 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

I’m on spring break so I have lots of time to kill. And one of the things I did while killing time was glance at the calendar on the wall. And what a horror it presented. I mean blood is still pouring out of my ears from what I saw. And that is… this Friday is Friday the 13th. Oh, no!! Surely this is the end of the world! Why didn’t we build a panic room before now? Where are my pills to take in case of nuclear radiation?

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m being sarcastic. I don’t know why everyone gets their shorts all twisted because of this thing. It comes a lot. According to probabilities, which I had in sixth grade math, the 13th of any month has a 1/7 chance of being a Friday ’cause the 13th’s gotta come on some day of the week and Friday is 1/7 of them. Makes sense, no? This year there are three of them — in January, in April, and in July. That’s way higher than average so maybe I need to recalculate. But anyway, I don’t think we have a whole lot to fear.

I checked out the days and dates of some huge disasters. Most of them you’ll know. Or if you don’t, you should look them up ’cause they were fierce. Certainly we’ll find a bunch of Fridays and 13ths attached to them, won’t we? At least one dynamic duo for sure, you would predict. Think again.

The Sinking of the Titanic — Friday, April 14th, she hit the iceberg and she sank 2 1/2 hours later of Saturday, April 15. You gotta assume she was doing very well, thank you very much, on Thursday, April 13th.

Pearl Harbor — One of the worst days in American History. Sunday, December 7th.

9/11 (the attack on the World Trade Center) More Americans died on that day than on any day in our history — Tuesday, September 11th.

The giant tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands in southeast Asia in 2004 — Sunday, December 26th.

Hurricane Katrina that almost destroyed New Orleans — Monday, August 29th.

The earthquake in Haiti that killed hundreds of thousands of people — Tuesday, January 12th.

The tsunami last year in Japan that almost nuked the whole country. Friday, March 11th.

Finally a Friday. One out of seven, just like I predicted. And where are all those 13ths? Uh…. nowhere, that’s where.

So for all you wusses out there, go hide under your bed this Friday. Crankenfuss will be here enjoying his vacation, pretty darn sure a giant catastrophe won’t wipe him out. Hope my mom doesn’t ask me to mow the lawn that day though. That would maybe make me rethink my whole argument.

I’ll write more about this later. I’m gonna show you how Fridays and 13s can be lucky, not unlucky.

For now I remain
Your Dude with the ‘Tude,
Dr. Crankenfuss