I wish it were that easy to decline requests to be in the wedding party. Though that is awfully ungrateful of me to say.
Just add a signature line to your emails that says: "Do not be afraid to ask for bridesmaids or groomsmen for our way of refusing is very polite."
Ok, so you don't want to marry eekbeat, for some reason (does that mean she's available?). But who else would have invited you to conjugal intimacy?
I recently ended a friendship over a wedding invitation, sort of! Also liberating, though the under-defined social protocols for friendship breakup led to some agita.
Holy christ, wine and cheese for breakfast on ESPN coverage of US- Algeria. I hereby declare this the soccer thread.
The lack of comments on soccer merely reflect the US game score.
The closest we ever got to a fight about a wedding was the time the members of the wedding party starting hitting the guests up for cash (for example to finance/upgrade things they had promised the wedding couple they'd pay for). We politely demurred, were pressed on it, and then told them they were crass. Whee!
The ref disallowed the soccer comments.
weddings are sucky things anyway.
I went to a wedding a couple of years ago and the minister spent 10 minutes talking about how relieved he was that the couple was getting married instead of living together in sin.
We felt honored that the minister spent so much time focusing on our horrible lifestyle!
Decline all wedding invites! Accept all party invites!
I find the near-universal rejection of my invitation to comment on soccer here to be strangely liberating.
Doctor, I'm two tents. Can't comment on the soccers while the game is going on.
US needs to go to shooting school ...
This match is all the fuck over the place.
My crush on Clint Dempsey is waning.
Three months until real football starts!
American football lacks crush-objects. Those helmets make perving difficult.
Actually, the EPL starts up in only 2 months.
Jesus Christ, at this point neither team deserves to win.
American football lacks crush-objects.
Dude, somebody gets crushed on almost every play.
Near-miss on an own-goal for the Algerians! That would be an appropriate way for this game to end.
My crush on Clint Dempsey is waning.
Why bother kicking the ball if you're going to kick it like that?
I was going to complain that I'll probably need to leave for work before the game ends, but I'm thinking that's not such a bad thing at this point. Of course, they'll score in injury time.
(And by "they" I mean some team at some point in some game somewhere in the world.)
It's like you're all watching a different game to me.
OMG, Dempsey played for Juventus? Love is dead. (At least he's since moved on...)
I'd watch both, my laptop can only do one at a time.
33: No, he scored the goal that knocked Juventus out of the UEFA Cup. He's only ever played for Fulham and New England.
That was an ugly goal, but it goes along with the general tenor of the match-up.
OMG. Exciting even on the NYT text feed.
Good thing I took a long time to put things in my backpack.
We felt honored that the minister spent so much time focusing on our horrible lifestyle!
I'm trying to get ministers to spend more time talking about horrible hairstyles, but so far only the Unitarians have been interested which is ironic as they have the some worst hair of any religion without rules about how you should wear your hair.
You're thinking of the Unibrowians.
Actually, 49 applied to men's hairstyles only.
In other dramatic sports news, John Isner is leading Nicolas Mahut 30 games to 29 in the 5th set at Wimbledon.
And, after two match points for Isner, it's 33-all.
Isner's a North Carolinian. Also, those poor fuckers have been playing tennis for almost seven straight hours now.
Isner is also scheduled to play doubles this evening.
Guardian liveblogger getting punchy:
The score stands at 34-34. In order to stay upright and keep their strength, John Isner and Nicolas Mahut have now started eating members of the audience. They trudge back to the baseline, gnawing on thigh-bones and sucking intestines. They have decided that they will stay on Court 18 until every spectator is eaten. Only then, they say, will they consider ending their contest.
Isn't a match usually best of 7? I've never played tennis, except on the Wii, so I may be confused.
The longest tennis match since the Open era began in 1968 was Santoro-Clement in the 2004 French Open. That 6.5-hour match had a total of 71 games. Mahut and Isner are beginning the 71st game *of the fifth set*.
Best of 7, but you have to win by 2.
I know Isner is a big server, presumably the other guy is as well.
Or maybe he is a gay blade.
</sysadmin humor>
36-36! Somebody's arm is going to fall off soon.
On Wii Tennis, the arms are never really attached.
If you are watching on TV, you'll know the final point is about to come when Kenny Loggins stops singing and the instrumental music gets all serious.
A match is best of 5 sets, not 7. A set is first to 6 games, win by 2 or if it gets to 6-6, play a tie-breaker, which is first to 7 points, win by 2. No tie-breaker in the 5th set, so you need to win by 2 games.
You can watch World Cup soccer online? Damn. Didn't know that.
Also, McChrystal's out. And on preview, I'm pwned.
121 games in this match, 2 service breaks, none in the last 3 sets, so at least 89 consecutive games on serve.
And they're past the 8-hour mark now. 43-43.
I figure they must be about to run out of sunlight there.
76: It was a suspended match from last night already.
76. I'd say it was marginal to play tennis by now. I'm 200 miles north which probably gives them some margin, but I wouldn't like to play in this light.
That's when you dip the balls in lighter fluid. Play on!
BBC: Well, the referee's office have just informed us that Isner's doubles match with Sam Querrey due on Court 10 has been cancelled for the day.
Never say there's no mercy in this world.
Date night gets out of hand?
Party's just getting started!!
Still bright and sunny but the sun is low. I am not in the court though. They don't allow liveblogging from the stands.
Declining two wedding invitations would be difficult in Russian actually. In nominative and accusative it's just "два приглашения на свадьбу" but after that, things get weird.
It's all fun and games until somebody gets a burned scrotum.
Party's just getting started!!
It's over quickly, though.
Has somebody written a panicky article on how Youtube is causing the kids to be even stupider than we were? Because the video in 86 makes me want to call somebody's mom.
It's all fun and games until somebody gets a burned scrotum.
I KNOW, RIGHT?
I prefer to think that the young man was practicing Science, having formed a hypothesis about what might happen if he put lighter fluid on his thighs and groin, then set his doused pants afire? Will the outcome confirm his hypothesis? Empiricism is the only way to find out.
The kid who sets his pants on fire is probably going to grow-up to be either a spree killer or a "financial services consultant." The stomping kids will either do their part to give some frat a bad name or sell insurance or both. Where are the parents?
How are these guys still standing?
You mean the Wimbledon guys, or the kid who got monkey-stomped in the nuts?
I prefer to think that the young man was practicing Science
Specifically, evolutionary biology.
The NYT text feed about the match is hilariously literary:
One point tells a lot. Leading 40-15 on his serve, Isner finds himself wrong footed, yet turns and blasts a late-swinging backhand that finds the corner and leaves Mahut without a chance to return it. The light is fading but the spirit of the two competitors seems undimmed.
Just now scrolling through this thread, I assumed "50/50" was a joke. Holy shit.
Wait, ESPN tells me the match has only been going on for 174 minutes... how is that possible?
Oh, I found the answer to 98: they aren't counting the fifth set.
Real-time Wikipedia: The world record for most aces in a match is held by John Isner, with 92 aces (although game still ongoing) in a first round match against Nicolas Mahut at the 2010 Wimbledon Championships on June 23, 2010.
Why don't they have lights at Wimbledon?
100: Weird--that text doesn't appear anywhere when I clikc your link. I see: "On 18 September 2009, Ivo Karlović hit 78 aces (77 aces on 1st serve)[3] in a Davis Cup match against Radek Štěpánek, to break his own record for most aces in a match."
It was there, but the edit history on this article shows that it has been very busy today. Looks like somebody decided to wait until the game finished.
Why don't they have lights at Wimbledon?
They do, they just never use them. The Rochus-Djokovic match the other day was the first time they had ever been used, I think (that match went until just before the 11 pm curfew). They're big on tradition at Wimbledon.
2 match points that bloody Isner just pissed away.
They do, they just never use them.
I think the orthodontist joke is too obvious.
the 11 pm curfew
Curfew? Man, those Tories really are a bunch of iron-fisted meanies.
Eventually one of them is going to pull a Richie Tenenbaum.
Also they do allow live-blogging! Poor old Xan Brooks!
Xan's making a great job of it though. Highly entertaining.
Commentator just now: "They started this game in brilliant sunshine, not a shadow on court. Now it's being played by the light of the moon."
The Guardian blog is priceless:
"It's 56 games all and darkness is falling. This, needless to say, is not a good development, because everybody knows that zombies like the dark. So far in this match they've been comparatively puny and manageable, only eating a few of the spectators in between bashing their serves."
112: The dramatic close-up of the moon's surface was a nice touch.
Xan's coverage: "An exhausted Mahut runs for a volley and falls flat on his face."
Wow. I can't watch this game from work, but damn, maybe highlights this evening.
Last I saw Mahut had had precisely *one* service break point in the whole match, and converted it.
Suspended until tomorrow, against the wishes of Isner, who was about to serve at 59-59.
This is insane. I wonder if there are enough distracted tennis fans to have a noticeable effect on world economic production.
Wait, Mahut requested to pick it up again tomorrow? Huh.
Oh, but they were tied again. Okay.
Just. Wow.
Meanwhile, to revert to the footie, you lot look like you've got Ghana in the next round. That should be doable, though not a pushover. Meanwhile the Sun and the Daily Mail will be re-fighting WWII, because that's what they do.
Meanwhile the Sun and the Daily Mail will be re-fighting WWII, because that's what they do.
It's good to have a hobby.
Ghana to beat US: Germany to beat UK
the Sun and the Daily Mail will be re-fighting WWII, because that's what they do.
IF IT WASN"T FOR THE ENGLISH YOU'D BE KRAUTS!
Aussies gave it a decent run after the dreadful start.
The one person I know rooting for the fall-down-happy Italians is quite worried about the next round. Apparently, they're likely to face some pretty tough teams. This concludes my second-hand, uninformed contribution to the World Cup discussion.
On consideration, England might just take Germany, because Germany is not at its best right now. I reckon penalties, anybody's game.
JM should be happy that Ghana have gone through, as she was bemoaning the lack of African qualifiers. She'll be torn now.
We have always been at war with Ghana.
Datapoint for JP Stormcrow: I was listening to Jim Rome this morning driving back from a meeting (don't ask why) and he was 100% positive about soccer and the world cup, to the point of shutting down a caller who started off on a soccer is the ghey rant.
Ghana are a good side, I would much prefer to have played Serbia. If Essien were fit it wouldn't be competitive, but as it is it should be a good game, although Gyan is going to skin Bocanegra alive.
132: You'd better be right. I'm going to start repeating that around the water cooler.
My beloved Black Stars played well against Germany, just not so much with the scoring. Still they're through and should be a good match against the US. Will I experience divided loyalties? I will pretend to!
53-53? Am I seeing this live? Shouldn't it be super-late by now?
You're not seeing it live. They suspended play a couple of hours ago.
Man. Do they have to get up tomorrow and keep playing first thing?
Just read through the entirety of the Guardian's liveblog and it had me repeatedly in tears.
I don't know what time they start tomorrow, but the NYT coverage it clarifies that this is actually the second time they've suspended play to the next day: the match started on *Tuesday*,
131: he was 100% positive about soccer and the world cup
Good, the Euro-dhimmi-gheyification program proceeds apace (please don't tell anybody, though).
142: John Derbyshire will NOT be fucking that gay French Muslim soccer player if he's a day over 16.
I don't think I've laughed that long in months.
140 - yeah, they played the first 4 sets yesterday, came back this afternoon and played 118 games of the 5th set.
Entertain me please - my friend's daughter is currently in theatre, after a dog bit her hand yesterday. Antibiotics didn't stop it getting infected today and they're poking about trying to get it cleaned up properly. I want to stay up and hear that's she out and the hand is on the mend but I'm really tired.
currently in theatre
Does this mean "currently undergoing surgery"?
ha, yes, it's not her jazz hands I'm worried about! She was with her uncle 100 miles away and they wanted to wait for her parents to arrive to give consent so it ended up being really late (midnight here now).
Perhaps you could find someone with whom to play tennis?
I can't wait for tomorrow when the never-ending game is finally brought to an end by blancmanges rushing the court and devouring them.
OK, she's out and in recovery. 3 bite wounds, loads of pus, cellulitis. In hospital until Friday at least.
Glad she's ok. How's the dog?
In hospital until Friday at least
Cushy NHS. Any God-fearing, rugged American emergency room would have turned her away coldly hours ago.
Any God-fearing, rugged American emergency room would have turned her away coldly hours ago.
Are you kidding, here she would probably still be waiting to be seen in triage. Too many Mexicans with colds.
Well, it was the shoddy English A&E that didn't clean it up enough or give her enough ABs yesterday that let it get infected today. The NHS *makes* people worse!
As for the dog, I dunno. It's a dog that lives in a pub and she was there for dinner with her aunt, uncle and cousins. I can't quite believe that this is the first time it's ever snapped at anyone - she is used to dogs, not nervous of them, and old enough not to be annoying it.
Snapped at, to me, means 'made a biting motion, but didn't make contact, or at least didn't leave marks'. A dog that left her with three punctures sounds like a problem dog.
The dog would probably be destroyed here. And there would be a lawsuit. Where are the ambulance chasers when you need one?
159: At LB's daughter's school-to-be.
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For reasons rooted in boredom, I've been reading about flamingos. Crazy!
Crop milk, also known as pigeon's milk or pigeon milk, is a secretion from the lining of the crop of pigeons and doves with which the parents feed their young by regurgitation. Similar crop milk is also produced by flamingos.
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Glad to hear she's doing better, asilon (now that I've read The Lion etc. for the first time, BTW, I keep reading your pseud as, well, you know...).
161: Is it boredom related to trying to raise an orphaned flamingo?
163: Raising an orphaned flamingo sounds far from being boring. Maybe I'll go looking for one.
164: Warning -- my mother's attempt to raise baby bunnies by hand did not end well.
Of course, there are potential complications. What if one or both of the biological flamingo parents returns and wishes to participate in the life of their flaminglet? I'd be all, "But I'm the one who vomited protein juice into little Pinky's beak for all those weeks! You were off galavanting in South Florida!"
165: My brother and I tried that several times too. I think we only succeeded once.
my mother's attempt to raise baby bunnies by hand did not end well.
No yummy hossenfeffer?
She felt bad that our adorable but vicious dog ate their mom. :-(
169: IIRC some of ours were dog-related and some tractor-related.
I saw a baby bird on the ground yesterday, but convinced myself that it would be hard to keep the poor thing alive and I could hear a distressed parent chirping nearby, so I left it. Today, they mowed that patch.
She felt bad that our adorable but vicious dog ate their mom
Well at least she didn't try to replace the mommy bunny
When I was a child, I often fantasized about raising some orphaned injured animal by hand and it would become my familiar. This never happened. I shake my tiny childhood fist at Jean Auel.
173: For me it was "The Dog Who Wouldn't Be".
You guys are depressing me! The only orphan-ish being I tried to raise by hand was the so-called runt of my cat's litter many years ago. So sad. It did not work. The mommy cat knew best in that case.
From the bird folks at Cornell:
Fortunately, the vast majority of "abandoned" baby birds are perfectly healthy fledglings. Their parents are nearby and watching out for them. The parents may be attending to four or five young scattered in different directions, but they will most likely return to care for the one you have found shortly after you leave.Fledglings are feathered and can hop/flit/walk. Nestlings are naked to sparsely feathered and can't really move about, if you find a nearby nest you can put them back in. A parent chirping nearby usually means it is a fledgling.
161: I knew that, and everything I know about flamingos I learned from this book.
It was sparsely feathered. Farley Mowat would be so ashamed, me leaving it to be mulched.
Speaking of Cornell and birds, I would like to apologize to teo for having brought up the subject of birds. That was very insensitive of me, teo.
Speaking of bunnies, today I saw one dart across across four lanes of heavy traffic and then scamper safely up a hill. It was impressive, if seemingly suicidal.
174: I tried reading that book as a kid, and for some reason, I found it too upsetting. Remind me why it was so upsetting? (Never Cry Wolf was my favorite movie when I was a kid, and I drove my parents crazy making us watch it over and over, all before age 5.)
At the end he talks about his dog getting run over?
I remember him wondering if the person who left Mutt on the side of the road would ever realize how much he had taken from him.
Speaking of Cornell and birds, I would like to apologize to teo for having brought up the subject of birds. That was very insensitive of me, teo.
Indeed it was, and you should be horribly ashamed. But good news, teo: we've got your back.
179: I'm sure teo is heartened when he contemplates how every day during breeding season results in massive baby bird carnage.
181, 182: Maybe that's it. He was sort of a bad dog, in a non-funny way, wasn't he? I was extremely attached to my dog at the time (no doggo) and found it somehow hurtful.
166: Being as I read that comment, I'm not going to feel bad that I didn't read the "Dads" thread.
the Sun and the Daily Mail will be re-fighting WWII
But which one is the anti-fascist?
Why does everybody think you need to be anti-fascist to be anti-German?
There was a part where he set Mutt loose on the cat lady's house that I thought was very mean.
187: Flamingos don't have dads. They're pink.
On the recent Tostitos theme in the BLL thread, doesn't "Flamingos" some kind of crazy new snack food? "Try new Chipotle Ranch Flamingos™ today!"
190: I liked but was upset by that book as a child as well. Was not just the cat lady's house, but as I recall he described how Mutt could better hunt down and kill cats because he could walk on fences etc. For a kid growing up in a cat household that was pretty tough stuff.
193: Yeah, there was quite a bit of casual anti-cat violence, come to think of it. I think they would chase them down on bikes, wielding fishing rods like lances.
You can watch World Cup soccer online? Damn. Didn't know that.
ESPN3. Dot com. It might be available in Wisconsin. It depends on your cable company and/or ISP. I can get it here through comcast, but I've never been able to get it before. Also, they don't do the ABC broadcasts live because making your product visible to the widest possible audience is a bad business model. This means I probably won't see the final, but that's ok because I don't like it when matches end in penalties after no one scores.
Also, the US Open and possibly the Australian Open too play 5th set tiebreakers.
because making your product visible to the widest possible audience is a bad business model.
This made me laugh. I might be a little tired, though.
I probably won't see the final
Not that you seem particularly concerned about missing it, but you could almost certainly find a restaurant or bar that's showing the final, provided it doesn't interfere time-wise with any minor-league hockey game or moose pageant.
Or, if it's airing on regular TV (which I assume it is?) you could pick up one of these bad boys and watch it over-the-air, with the additional benefit that you could pick up the occasional Canadian variety show or whatever.
198: There aren't too many Canadian immigrants here, I don't think.
Anyway, I read somewhere that there were plans to set up a large outdoor screen somewhere for the big games. I'll probably go look for that, if there's a chance of seeing the screen through the fog.
Did you see what the moose are wearing now that Trump is running the show?
Lots of things happen somewhere. In my mind.
ESPN3. Dot com.
Yeah, tried it and failed, Qwest is my ISP. But now I realize I can get on my neighbors' wireless, and they're on comcast, so I'll give that a shot.
Tweety and any other Red Sox fans, this Sox/Rockies game has gotten interesting. mlb. dot com.
There aren't too many Canadian immigrants here
I give myself three months to adjust to peoples' shifts in locations. You'll just have to work with me on it.
199: I have the Eye TV, but apparently it won't work for me without a power antenna. Perilously close to having an actual TV!
Incidentally, during the Olympics, CTV made every single raw event feed (no commentary, just the sound audible near the camera) available online for free in HD and you could jump back to any point in any feed even while the event was going on live. You could also watch every live broadcast that was currently on tv online, but those were not available for very long after the broadcast ended.
Those quaint Canadians with their antiquated ideas about technology.
(Actually, being the host along with the relative lack of competition within the country probably made it easier to do that. The flip side is that there doesn't seem to be any netflix equivalent on-demand service up there. There is on-demand, but it seems to be controlled by the networks/ISPs/cable/phone companies.)
There is on-demand, but it seems to be controlled by the networks/ISPs/cable/phone companies.
We get our On-Demand from an organic beet growing co-op.
I demand justice, but a deep voice from the sky just asks where I was when the earth was made.
Back to animals, apparently you get a tame fox from Siberia; don't everyone get up at once.
208: Getting a compost bin and a shifty lawyer might work.
209: RACIST AND CULTURALY-INSENSITIVE PERFIDY!
209: apparently you get s/b apparently you can get
$6000? Think of all the Bud Light Lime that buys...
214: Enough to get seven or eight generals fired, at least.
Vulpes seeks Sibfox for perfidage, trickery. No canis need apply.
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So, my 12-year-old cousin (the one who made the Pirit Book when he was 5) got medivaced to Seattle today and has been unconscious for, apparently, most of the day. There may or may not be seizures involved. I have no idea what else is going on except that my brother threw around "maybe meningitis" for no reason that he could defend. My family is all too distraught to communicate clearly. Whatever is wrong with the cousin is probably linked to whatever is wrong with me. I'm freaking out. Anyone who wants to play "let's make up ridiculous puns to comfort Cecily", please go right ahead.
When does being unconscious turn in to being in a coma?
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220: Yikes, sorry, C. What kind of puns do you want? Your choice, but we'll need a theme or something.
Tom Swiftys?
eh, I don't know. I don't care really. I'll probably go to bed soon. I should have waited to request distraction until I would be awake...
Oh, I completely forgot. Univision is also broadcasting games online, including ones airing on ABC (at least so far).
220: I might have some puns later, but my first reaction was the same as Stanley's.
If we like the Tom Swifty idea, my brother had a couple of good ones from a few days ago, for inspiration. For example:
"Fine, I guess I will observe the Christian tradition of fasting and sacrifice AGAIN," he relented.
Or, my favorite of all time, "I dream that one day I will measure the width of orange soda" Tom fantasized.
"Well, mud dirt paint stain,"
"I'd never even heard of Tom Swifties," he said inaudibly.
So, back in 'nam, there was this grunt, real innocent kid, who had been drafted in the fall and showed up in country right before christmas. Well, long story short, he ended up at the perimeter, when suddenly he saw the strangest thing: some kind of airship streaking low across the valley he was watching. Well, sure enough, the VC lit it up with AA fire, tracers, the whole works, but they couldn't seem to hit it. He was mystified, and not a little scared, but he figured this was just something that happened out in the bush until one of the tracers lit up the strange vehicle and he let out an involuntary yelp, loud enough to attract some fire from the bush of his own. "Shit, son!" said his sargeant, leaping from a nearby position to hold his head down, "what the hell do you think you're doing?"
"I'm sorry sarge," said the kid, "but I... I think... I saw..."
"Out with it, son!"
"Well, sir, I saw commies missing Santa Claus."
Oh. That's not a Tom Swifty. You work too fast for my laborious shaggy dog storiy.
HEYOH
I'm torn, really irritatingly and guilt-inducingly, between being upset about my cousin, and annoyed because I have a shitload of doctor appointments for myself this week and I would like to know what is happening so I can update them for whatever potential family history it implies but I can't get a straight answer out of anyone about what is happening. Probably because they don't know, and they are all very stressed out about it in its own right. This is all creating a giant sucking spiral of guilt and misery.
But my EKG was normal, so, uh. Woo, or whatever.
"Well, this forest gives us a lot, and it only serves to reason that we have to give something back," the wise indian opined.
"Presumably, the low hanging fruit of '"I'm coming!" he ejaculated' has been picked long ago," she speculated.
"Serves to reason"? A thoughtless volley indeed.
"That there's a butt", was his analysis.
"If you're only going to work here for a week before being assigned somewhere else, I am no longer fucking you in the ass" Tom said extemporaneously.
I might not know how to get down, but soon enough my dogged interjections'll have you licked.
I have a couple in the works that I just haven't been able to flesh out. One about somebody making pies, or maybe making legal claims, and then making it again, "he retorted".
Another good idea would be someone who said something about not being able to [write? scan? read?] poems, and being despondent.
"The less of this sort of thing the better", in Megan's caustic opinion.
"I don't even know," he ignorated.
"My bag has a Bible, a Koran, and a Book of Mormon in it" Tom said sacrilegiously.
"I couldn't care less," she indifferided.
"Nerves settled? Sign the treaty," Tom said compactly.
"You just made those words up!" he vernaculated.
I can think only of really ridiculous scenarios to make them work. For example:
"Mike Tyson tackled me at the top of hill, but it's totally fine," Tom said, rolling with the punches.
"They aren't words at all, so they couldn't have been made up words," he little bitched, necessarily.
"Let's turn that into an exam," he testified.
"You've honed right in on the problem", per Tom's sharp locution.
"Feel free to sleep here tonight, Mark", Tom say gayly.
"We added the rooftop addition in 1987 to get an extra dental office," Tom fluoridated.
Wait, that's not how these work, is it. Damn. TO be.d
You guys are swell (Tom said, rising). I gotta get ready for bed now (she disclosed)
"I suppose I could eat a hot dog," Tom finally mustered.
"I don't know... should I be your liege?" Tom vacillated.
Asked his purpose traveling so far, the wise man demurred.
"The property value really went up when we added the fiery pink bird standing on one leg," Tom flamingwent.
"Wait...why can't we be friends?" Tom said warily.
A vigorous intercourse on the topic of consupiscence led the abbott to neglect his fish.
"I don't get it," they started, young.
"We shall grow a wicked garden," Tom said seedily.
The CIA agents didn't respond to Maher Arar's entreaties.
"He thrusts his fist against the post and still insists he sees the ghosts," I st--st---stated.
"Idiot! Brown it in fat, the simmer it in liquid," Tom said abrasively.
Her script for a film about therapy is in treatment.
"After a while, let's go back down and get more oil," Tony Hayward said recrudescently.
"You have no rights," abrogated the CIA agents.
"In today's lab, we'll use wintergreen and leave other flavors behind," Tom said experimentally.
"I did not supply it," denied the fourth-grader.
264: If I had seen this earlier I could have written this:
"Naturally, it refers to John Muir", he said, swiftly.
"I won't be the first person to tell you this, but it's tough work here in the ninth-letter-of-the-alphabet department of the metalworks plant. And we do it alone," Tom said, steely-eyed.
"I have occasional homosexual urges" mused Tom, half in Ernest.
nice, Joel.
"Life was better before Leonard Peltier went to jail," Tom said aimlessly.
260, 264 - de-myrrhed?
Messily, I hope there is better news of your young cousin today. That sounds horribly worrying.
I confess; not original.
If I were quicker, I might have replaced "mused Tom," with "said Tom stiffly, but only"
Also not original is the Feghoot story that ends with the punchline
"Watt's course for Ragusa's a course for Uganda"
(The setup involves steam engine innovator James Watt failing a course in celestial navigation, due to a question on the final exam that required Watt to chart a course to the southern tip of Sicily.)
Then there's always
"The squaws of the Hippopotamus are equal to the sons of the squaws of the other two hides"
Back when NPR was better, they used to broadcast a BBC show called "My Word" in which panelists came up with that kind of elaborate wordplay extemporaneously, live.
"We should have started our walk already!" said Tom stridently.
"I couldn't care less about your corns" he added callously.
My favourite My Word story (they are given a word or phrase at the beginning of the programme and have to come up with a story by the end) was the one about the man trying to remember a shopping list: "Soup, a cauli, fridge, elastic, eggs, pea, halitosis."
re: 287
And also the much admired "SUPER CALEY GO BALLISTIC, CELTIC ARE ATROCIOUS" football headline after Inverness Caledonian Thistle beat Glasgow Celtic.
"You know who liked puns? Hitler.", she facetiously dictated.
"I have visitation rights!", he exclaimed.
"Prove it", she protested.
"Talk to my lawyer again", he retorted.
"You're not even his real father", biodad inappropriately injected.
"You have no standing", she cut him off.
"The court will uphold me", biodad bluffed.
"You both suck", she huffed.
"Nice rhyme", biodad said frostily.
"Fuck you clown", she joked.
"That was the problem in the first place", he rejoined.
"'Assholes", mooned the child.
"I totally Calvin," Tom verbed.
Too obscure?
The only shaggy dog pun story punchline I can remember at the moment is, "Father!" the prince exclaimed. "The sages of Wen are deaf!"
The only shaggy dog pun story punchline I can remember
nosflow provided recently a rather impressive collection and classification of shaggy dog stories, my favorite of which has a punchline about a king whose reign is called on account of the game.
Late to this, but since opportunities for humanitarian punning are rare:
"I should be the one to classify pornography, since I can't be corrupted," said Potter Stewart imperviously.
"Some of my best friends are from the Balkans," said Tom acerbically.
"I'm very fond of scrota," said the priest sacerdotally.
"I get confused when I have to be concise," said Tom, twitterpated.
"This is a strange sort of work," said Tom ergodically.
All best wishes to you and your cousin, E. Mess.
"We shouldn't waste money on sluts. Cut the rape kit budget," she said inappropriately.
Update: Cousin Jamie was briefly out of sedation this afternoon, and held his thumb up on command. Everyone was relieved at this demonstrated level of function, and then now he is sedated again. MRI and CT were clean, he's still on a respirator, still no clear diagnosis.
My heart seems fine, but I have to get an echo tomorrow to make sure. And a doctor today referred to me as "deaf and dumb". As in "and how long have you been deaf and dumb?" The interpreter threw a fit, so I just stared at everyone blankly and waited for it to go away. Woo, political correctness!
295: "well, I've been deaf since birth, but I suppose I've always been dumb."
The first one here is the first shaggy dog story I ever learned.