Regularly Expressing

Category: Humor

  • A Six Year Old’s Comments on a Cemetery

    While I was walking with my son we happened upon a cemetery. I explained that when people die, they are buried under the ground. He wanted to know who was buried under each of several headstones, and I read the names and dates. Then he found a few that were so old the names had worn off. He proceeded to make up names and stories, “This was Dan, he was a bully,” and so on.

    We found the graves of two babies (one just a day old when he died), and he announced that he wanted to pray for them. Naturally, of course, this made me feel quite good. I must be doing something right as a parent to inspire so noble a sentiment in my child, right?

    Anyhow, he stood over the graves with his hands folded for a few seconds. Then he said, “I wish we had something to dig all these people up so that we could hug them and take them home.”

    I told him that we wouldn’t want to do that, the people in there wouldn’t look too nice. He asked, “What do they look like?”

    I said, “Remember when we talked about skeletons? They’d look like that.”

    “Oh,” he said. “Now I wish I hadn’t prayed for them. Because they’re going to come back like this–” he proceeded to stick his arms out like a zombie and walk with his legs stiff. Then he moaned, “Mommy! Mooommmy!”

  • Space Cockroaches

    From Physorg.com: http://www.physorg.com/news130073558.html


    Russian space scientists announced on Thursday a new breakthrough in a long pedigree of firsts: the birth of 30 grandchildren of a “space cockroach” who spent 12 days in orbit.

    In the words of Kent Brockman: “I, for one, welcome Earth’s new overlords!” I’m going to put a rotten ding dong on the roof tonight as tribute.

  • Quantum Locked Kids

    Our whole family really enjoyed the Dr. Who episode “Blink,” especially my son. He now spends his time drawing Tardises and asking questions about time travel and angels.

    One of the key ideas of the episode was a defense mechanism of the aliens: they are “quantum locked.” This means that if you observe them they turn to stone, and as The Doctor says, “you can’t kill a stone.” The analogy, of course, is to quantum mechanics where observation always has the effect of changing the system.

    My discovery, however, is that “quantum locked” creatures are not really a science fiction concept at all. Children are quantum locked. I tell my son to put on his pajamas and he will only make progress while I am looking at him. As soon as I look away, or blink, he freezes. Kids are slow, slower than you can imagine, so if you tell them to do something don’t leave the room, don’t turn away, and don’t blink.

  • Who Wants to be a Necromancer? Episode V

    The final two contestants sat nervously in the cave, awaiting the appearance of Stee Mer in the crystal ball. Finally, in a luminous swirl of green and blue he appeared. “Hello, true deceivers,” he said. “Today’s challenge is to create a feast fit for a necromancer.”

    Patricia Cemetery served green eggs and ham. She commented that after doing some reading it pretty much came together. Stee Mer asked if that didn’t come from a kid’s story and she replyed, “Yes, but the author is dead.”

    Morgue Ann served waffles with some weird raised symbols on them. “I made a mold from a gravestone I found,” she explained.

    “Fools!” bellowed a voice. “Pretenders! Charlatans!” The skull of Bill of the Dead levitated into the room, red eyes flaring. “Behold the creation of a true master…”

    “First, a salad. Red cabbage and bloody celery.” A zombie walked in holding a large bowl.

    Patricia Cemetery asked, “What makes the celery red?”

    “It’s dyed,” came the reply.

    “So you’re just copying my idea. I dyed my eggs and ham green.”

    “Silence fool!” Bill yelled.

    Next a skeleton walked in bearing a tray. “Thrice killed trout,” Bill said.

    “How do you kill it three times?” Stee Mer asked.

    “By raising it from the dead and killing it again. I find it gives it a certain something extra.”

    A hooded figure glided in pushing a dessert cart. “And finally,” Bill boomed, “a chocolate cake. There is a pit of frosting in the center in which I have buried a rock-candy skeleton. You use little spoons shaped like shovels to dig it out. I also garnished the whole thing with little Count Chocula marshmellows.”

    “Yummy,” Patricia commented.

    “Yes, very nice,” Stee Mer said. “But I kicked you off the show last week. None of this matters.”

    “Ah, but I made a second dessert. Undead blackbird pie.” Several hooded figures wheeled in a huge pie. One of them lifted a scythe and cut the top. A host of screeching birds flew out, half skeletal, belching forth green lightning and fire, chasing away the other contestants and Stee Mer.

    “You know,” Bill said. “If I were a good boy I’d eat all my food. But I think I’ll stick with just desserts.” After a hearty villain laugh he comments, “You get it? ‘Just desserts?’”

    “Yes, very funny boss,” the trout answers.

    Happy Halloween.

  • Who Wants to be a Necromancer? Episode IV

    The great necromancer contestants were hanging out in the lair, bad-mouthing each other and eating bat rinds, when Stee Mer appeared in the crystal ball to give them a new assignment: Raise two famous lovers from the dead and reunite them.

    Bill of the Dead raised Wilma and Fred Flintstone. Fred tried to pretend he was remembered as famous prehistoric businessman so that Wilma would be impressed and cook up an undead brontosaurus steak. He dressed himself up as a famous historian and tried to pretend he knew all about the magnificent Businessman Fred who founded Rock Bottom Creditstone Cards. He claimed that a statue is erected in his honor in Rockville Maryland. She wanted to see it so he got Barney’s corpse and dressed it up and stood it on a pedestal. Hilarity ensued and Fred wound up sleeping in Dino’s crypt.

    Patricia Cemetery raised the skeletons of the dogs from Lady and the Tramp. She was able to supply them with a single loop of spaghetti which, when wound in the shape of a figure eight, could pass into the mouth of one dog, out the rib cage, into the mouth of the other and back again. This enabled them to suck on their delicacy and gaze into each other’s eye sockets for all eternity. Stee Mer congratulated her on doing something different than a guinea pig.

    Morgue Ann raised the souls of Sybill Fawlty, former part owner of Fawlty Towers, and summoned the spirit of Nearly Headless Nick, the resident ghost of Gryffindor House. Sybill announced that despite the striking similarity to her real husband, Nick was nearly an improvement. They then proceeded to argue and throw ecto-plasm at one another. Stee Mer commented that although they were not really lovers, they certainly acted like they were married.

    Stee Mer announces that it’s time for his favorite part of the contest, the elimination. He glares evilly at Morgue Ann, noting that she was slightly off target. He then went on to say that the Flintstones had jumped the shark decades ago. He blasted Bill of the Dead with purple lightning, and reduced him to a skull with weird glowing red eyes. The skull raised Bam Bam’s mummy, who proceeded to whack Stee Mer with a club.

  • Who Wants to be a Necromancer? Episode III

    Our contests were sitting in the wizard cave, slurping down some spicy toad stew when the great crystal ball sprang to life. The ghostly image of Stee Mer materialized in its depths to give contestants their second challenge: summon the spirit of Elvis Presley and get him to sing, “Can’t help falling in love.”

    Bill of the Dead whipped up deep two fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches. He ritually sacrificed one on the back of a Ouija board and Elvis came running like a hound dog. Then he promptly sang the song in order to get the second.

    Brain Helda gave one of her sumo wrestlers a shape-changing potion, making him appear to be Elvis. As the fake Elvis stomped into Stee Mer’s California office to perform, the ground quaked and everything became all shook up. When Stee Mer heard the impersonator sing with a Japanese accent, he angrily returned the zombie to its sender.

    Patricia Cemetery managed to summon a pair of blue suede shoes — they walked into the office on their own. A very high and squeaky voice that seemed to come from the shoes themselves sang the requested song. Stee Mer was unimpressed until he learned that the shoes were actually being haunted by ghosts of Elvis’ famous guinea pigs: Lawdy and Clawdy.

    Morgue Ann, at a loss as to how to perform the requested spell, summoned the Devil and made a pact with him to help her win the contest. The Devil promptly donned an Elvis disguise and did a very convincing performance.

    Finally, we came to the elimination, Stee Mer’s favorite part of the show. He announced that Brain Helda’s performance was the least evil and fired his purple lightning at her with glee. Her undead sumo wrestlers took vengeance for her, however, and pounded him until he begged them, don’t be cruel.

  • Who Wants to be a Necromancer? Episode II

    The first challenge to our contestants was to raise a zombie chicken.

    Bill of the dead raised a headless, featherless bird covered in a mint-almond sauce. Clearly his chef talents were showing. It proceeded to run around and stuff bread crumbs into its open throat.

    Brain Helda raised the skeleton of a pre-historic chicken. The ground shook as the 14 foot high undead animal trotted forth. When it screeched out its zombie clucks, even the cats hid in terror..

    Gerard, always the over-achiever, raised four chickens and trained them to cluck out “In the Mood” in four part harmony.

    Patricia Cemetery raised a rather small chicken, which turned out to be an undead guinea pig that had been tarred and feathered.

    Morgue Ann animated a chicken that had died before it hatched. It stuck out its small wings and flew around. She decided to paint the remainder of the egg shell gold, and call the thing a snitch. Brain Helda’s creation ate it, snatching it out of the air in its giant bony beak.

    The judge, famed necromancer trainer Stee Mer, after telling everyone that eliminations were his favorite part of this process, said that a good necromancer is never a show-off and shot purple lightning at Gerard, blasting him to oblivion. His undead creations rallied, however, and sent Stee running and screaming as they pecked at him and began clucking out the Ride of the Valkyries.

    Preview of next week: Patricia Cemetery crying and saying, “I just don’t think my undead guinea pigs can do something like that!”

  • Who Wants to be a Necromancer?

    In this televised competition (DFC – Dark Fantasy Channel) five contestants have been chosen. Each of them wants to be declared a “Lord of the Dead.” Each week, one will be eliminated until one of them earns the title.

    1. Bill of the Dead – Started his carrier as a zombie wizard by winning the annual South Ferry brain-eating-contest. He has also guest starred on Zombie Iron Chef. He was criticized for lack of exotic ingredients in his dishes.
    2. Brain Hellda – Raised and commanded a legion of undead Sumo wrestlers. Was able to demolish that same building in Japan that got demolished in every one of those old Japanese monster movies.
    3. Gerard Weird – Created a great undead parade, supposedly through the use of potions and chemicals.
    4. Petricia Cemetary – Created the most powerful army of undead guinea pigs ever known in all the Seven Lands. Unfortunately, it was stopped in its first campaign by a pile of wilted celery.
    5. Morgue-Ann – Captain of the all-undead quidditch team. Alas, last season they did not have a ghost of a chance against Hogwarts.

  • Coding Conventions

    It is important to follow standard naming conventions when writing code. It increases clarity and readability. Thus, in the "Elements of Java Style," we are told to capitolize class names but not function names, etc. A recent elaboration on this basic idea was put forward by a colleague of mine (Adam French) and his associate (Andrew France).

    The suggestion is that, in addition to other style considerations, your object oriented code should operate as follows:

    1. All variables should be named after Star Wars characters.
    2. All function names should be named after Star Trek characters.
    3. All classes should be named after Lord of the Rings characters.

    Coding in this fashion will, obviously, require great discipline and nerdity, but in the end the resulting clarity will bring many rewards. And if you are planning to become ISO 9000 certified, remember to document this procedure.