Blog #40
I
have not seen a Marmatod in fourteen-hundred years.
A
Marmatod is like an ox with feathers in its ears,
But
somehow still it hears.
Well,
it’s not really like an ox because it has four eyes,
A
dozen antlers, sixteen legs, two flippers and it flies.
At
least it really tries.
I
think that I remember what a Marmatod has got,
But
it’s been fourteen-hundred years and that is quite a lot,
So
maybe I forgot.
That is probably my favorite poem. It’s whimsical and silly and all the things
that I’m not, at least on the surface.
On the surface I’m logical and organized and practical and reserved and
dull. But underneath, somewhere, is a
Marmatod, writing poetry and trying to get the feathers out of his ears and
looking for someone to play with.
Hi there. Wanna
play? I hope you are all doing well, and
I hope you don’t think that was a limerick.
No, you still have a limerick somewhere down the road, so strap yourself
in for the newest edition of the Eminently Renowned and Critically Acclaimed
International Phenomenon known as Limerick Oyster. Well, I don’t know about the words
“renowned” or “acclaimed” or “phenomenon”, but we are definitely International. Limerick Oyster is now read in Afghanistan. Welcome, Colonel Ric, and thanks for
this wonderful sports question. What
is the least number of pitches a starting pitcher can throw and still have a
complete game? I’ll give you the
answers later, and yes, there are two answers – one for the 2016 Season and
earlier and one for the 2017 Season and later.
And thanks also for the top three Christmas songs in
Afghanistan: Oh Taliban! Oh Taliban! -- Frosty
the Terrorist -- Grandma Got Run Over by a Half-track.
Yes, radio stations everywhere are playing Christmas
songs non-stop. We all love Christmas
songs, but sometimes I just get overloaded with them. I mean, how much Burl Ives can one person
take? Sometimes I just pop in the new CD
released by some of my old rock-n-roll favorites. You see, Billy Joel, Paul McCartney and
Elton John have formed a new band called Peter, Paul and Methuselah. They have come up with some new songs to
reflect the advanced age of their fan base, for instance:
I’m
Too Sexy for my Cane --- Welcome to the Nursing Home California
Lucy
in the Sky with Diapers --- Scenes from an Italian Rest Home
The
House of the Rising Blood Pressure --- Celebrate Good Poops, C’mon!
You
Had to Get a Flu Shot, Di’nt Ya --- Stayin’ Alive
And welcome back to all of my Oysters. Are
you enjoying the December holiday atmosphere? Are you out shopping? My wife loves to shop. I mean she loves to shop, and when
she’s really on a roll, you couldn’t pry her away from the stores with
Shaquille O’Neal’s shoehorn. Now, Carol
does everything fast. She plays cards
fast, cooks fast, cleans fast, walks fast.
We even have a special nickname for her -- The Princess of Lickety
Split. I think I have it figured out why
she does everything fast. It’s to make
more time for her favorite thing.
She’s
moving at light speed non-stop
Her
pace – well it makes my jaw drop
I
found out at last
Why
she does things so fast:
It
leaves her with more time to shop.
And where do people do most of their shopping? Amazon!
I’m mad at Amazon. Can we
talk? Amazon is planning a second
Headquarters complex -- HQ2 they
call it -- and they’ve asked cities around the country to submit
proposals. The market value of Amazon is
over $500 billion. They have all the
money in the world. But the cities,
including St. Louis, that are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars
preparing sophisticated proposals have no
money. They can’t pay their teachers or
their police officers. They can’t fix
their potholes. Their citizens are taxed
up to their nostrils. But Amazon is
making them spend precious dollars fawning and groveling at Jeff Bezos’ feet in
order to get chosen. Jeff
Bezos is personally worth $100 billion.
How does it feel, Jeff, to have these poor, destitute cities begging and
degrading themselves to have you pick them?
Does it make you feel like Harvey Weinstein?
A few days ago, I was driving east on a lonely
suburban road, when I saw a girl walking east as well. There was nothing around there so wherever
she was going, it was a long walk. I
would happily have given her a ride, but in this world, I barely gave it a
thought. I mean, with men being accused
and destroyed faster than Anthony Weiner can snap a Selfie, I’d sooner play
leap-frog with a unicorn than pick up a strange woman. She could accuse me of evil doings and I
would be in big trouble. What a world we
have created where people are afraid to offer help and afraid to accept it.
And what a world we have made out of public toilets. FIRST:
What happened to flushing? Is that one
of those jobs that “Americans won’t do”?
Was it such a complicated process that we had to turn it over to an
intricate and expensive droid? I want to
flush when I’m finished, not when R2P2 has decided I am far enough
away? SECOND: I want some soap and
water. What happened to faucets? They’re gone. Instead, I have to wave my hands under a spout
and wait for water to come out. It
doesn’t work the first time – or the second.
Sometimes, I have to conduct the entire 1812 Overture before a brief
gush of water comes out. THIRD:
What happened to towels? I want a
towel, not hot air. I get enough hot air
listening to talk radio. And besides,
the only thing that hot air does is turn the cold water on my hands into hot
water. What could be more simple than to
have a bathroom with a toilet, a sink, some soap and some paper towels? But instead, we have a fully-automated
factory that whisks you in, flushes you out, soaps you off and blows you
out. I hate public toilets.
All right, the baseball thing. For 2016 and before, the answer is 25
pitches. The visiting pitcher gets the first
24 outs on one pitch each. That’s eight
innings. Then, in the bottom of the
ninth, with the score still 0-0, he throws the first pitch (his 25th)
and it is hit for a home run. Game over,
1-0 loss. Complete game.
But in 2017, you could intentionally walk a batter
without throwing a pitch. So, you can
walk a batter and subsequently pick him off at first without throwing any
pitches at all. If you can get one
batter out without throwing a pitch, you can get them all out the same way. The
answer, therefore, is zero. Are you proud? No?
Better luck next time. Stay well.
Come back next week and we’ll play some more. See you then.
hi
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