This is Why I Don’t Get Paid to Write Obituaries

Knock knock!

Who’s there?

Henry Kissinger.

I heard he died. Just read it on the news.

That’s not how these jokes work… Let’s try this again. Knock knock!

Who’s there?

Henry Kissinger.

Henry Kissinger who?

Henry Kissinger. THE Henry Kissinger? I mean, you have to ask “Henry Kissinger who?” It’s not a very common name. He was kinda famous. Geez, read a book.

Okaaaaay…

Anyway, he’s dead. One hunderd years old. Kind of a controversial fellow.

*Seething, silent rage*

It’s a lot funnier if you knew who he was.

O, Captain, My Captain, If That’s Your Real Name (which I learned it is NOT)

The Captain and Tammy Tennille in better times when they were both alive.

RIP “The Captain” from “The Captain & Tennille,” a TV show I watched as a kid with completely NO sense of what irony even was. (I also did not watch the show at the time in a haze of booze and/or legal weed and/or fake news, so everything seemed so real at the time.) Therefore, I have little reason to doubt anything from that era. As it turns out, “The Captain” was not his real name, of course.

Captain, O, Captain…

So, you ready for this? His real name was “Lew Alcindor.”

I found that online, so it has to be true. Yep. And I discovered more about fake/repurposed/altered/née names there, too.

“I’m sorry, son, but you must have me confused with someone else. My name is Roger Murdock. I’m the co-pilot…”

Basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s original name was “Robert Paulson.”

And the singer/actor Meat Loaf’s birth name was, get this…“Elijah’s Manna.”

Post Toasties cereal? Almost known as “Goodbye Burger City.” Yikes!

The hit movie “American Graffiti” was almost called “Utopian TurtleTop.”

The Edsel automobile was originally called the “Dodge Corvette,” spurring mulitiple lawsuits.

The Dodge Corvette automobile was once to be known as “Slim Shady.”

Eminem’s birthname was “Archibald Leach.”

And Hollywood legend Cary Grant? If you’re of a certain age, you knew him as… “Daryl Dragon.” But no one is that old anymore. Certainly not the Captain.

This guy came up when I used the googles on “Daryl Dragon.” Must be him, right? RIP.

So, thanks Captain! Thanks, Wikipeida! And thanks to the legislators in Colorado who brought us the world’s first Legal Weed! And thanks to my friend Jack Daniel.

You might know him by his original name, “Earl Times.”

captain and tennile
O Cap’n, My Cap’n, OOPS! All Berries!!!

Which Chocolate Chip Cookie, Sausage Ball, or Rock Are You? A Quiz

rock sausage ball cookie

Here’s a Quiz to determine once and for all… Which Chocolate Chip Cookie, Sausage Ball, or Rock Are You? Answer as honestly as you can, and check to see which one you are. You can only be one!

A man leaves New York by train at 7:00 am local time. How long until he is in Philadelphia?
Time is irrelevant to a rock.
The train is in Europe, so he needs to go to an airport first.
He has been in Philly the entire time.

Do you have any pets? What are their names?
Pepper, Love and Stunt.
Charles, Rudy and Nigel.
I have pet rocks named Checker, Mint, and Checker II.

dave matthews rocksDo you think “Are you into Dave Matthews?” is a safe conversation starter for hitting on a stranger, and if so, why?
Yes, way awesome.
No, N’awesome pas.
I love Dave Matthews. He rocks. But you shouldn’t talk about him.

What is your favorite movie spoiler ending?
Harry Potter dies in all 8 movies.
Luke finds out Princess Leia is a rock.
Rosebud turns out to be the real killer.
SPOILER ALERT! THE PREVIOUS QUESTION HAS THEM!

Can you follow instructions?
Check the box below this one.
Do not check this box if you are a rock.
Check this box if you agree boxes should remain unchecked.

If you were on a table at a party, who would eat you?
Everyone (unless they have gluten allergies).
Vegetarians (but only on a cheat day).
Someone who keeps kosher (but only when no one is looking).

survey buttonsurvey buttonsurvey buttonsurvey buttonsurvey buttonsurvey buttonsurvey buttonsurvey buttonsurvey buttonsurvey button

Ron’s Manifesto : Agree or Move On

I like you. At least I want to like you. But we need to see eye to eye on some things. I would hope you and I agree on at least most of this stuff. If we don’t, we should no longer remain friends, because this is core stuff in my head. Goodbye in advance if you disagree with my Manifesto .

stevia is yuckyStevia is awful. I would rather eat food that is super unsweet, or suffer the bad health consequences of real sugar, or take a bath in a tub full of the pink fake sugar, or drink a gallon of high-fructose corn syrup, than to even be in the same aisle at the grocery store with this stuff. You know this to be true.

Black licorice is better than red licorice.

I don’t like fennel. Food that tastes like licorice, but is in fact not licorice, is bad.

Except for sausage. Fennel is often found in sausage. Sausage is good.

kardashiansWhat I know and/or care about the Kardashians could be engraved on a grain of rice in very large type. They should not matter to you, either.

To shake things up at sporting events, we should occasionally sing the Preamble to the Constitution from “Schoolhouse Rock” before games.

hockey ballThere are too many bowl games in college football. They should get rid of most of them and keep these:
• Rose Bowl.
• Sugar Bowl.
• Cotton Bowl.
• Citrus/Orange Bowl (those are redundant, so combine them and let four teams play a round robin, one quarter per pair, for a total of six ten-minute quarters. You know you’d watch that!).
• Peach Bowl.
• Cereal Bowl because that should totally be a thing, because that was funny to me as a kid and will never be not funny.
• Toilet Bowl, which is kind of like the Cereal Bowl, but was like a hundred times funnier to my seven-year-old self. I drew a cartoon about it once, probably.
• Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl because it has the coolest name.
•And bring back the Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl, but send the two teams who were the biggest disappointments that season and shower them with scorn and humiliation… and rancid beef probably, I don’t know.
Even after looking at this very short list, doesn’t the world “Bowl” seem kind of stupid looking and weird sounding? I rest my case. Too many of them.

Speaking of quarters, if you said “there can’t be six quarters in a game, there can only be four quarters,” then I shall reply, “fee and foo, behold what was in my pocket! Six quarters!”
quarters
Speaking of speaking of quarters, there should be exactly two designs allowed on the back of United States 25-cent coins: The 1976 Bicentennial one with the with the fife and drum corps, and the other regular one, which has an eagle on the moon or something. I can’t remember exactly what it looks like, because, and I cannot stress this enough… THERE ARE TOO MANY STUPID DESIGNS ON THE BACK OF OUR MONEY! If you wanted to make counterfeit coins, why copy an existing design when you can just put Chester Cheetah or some other spokescharacter on there? Who would notice? Seems legit.

Same thing with pennies: Two designs: the one with the wheat and the one with the Parthenon from Nashville.

el camino
Everyone secretly wants to drive an El Camino. If you say you don’t, you are living a lie, and I can’t abide by liars.

So, are we cool?

Cheer Up! Lots of People Didn’t Die in 2016 !

dumpster fireEveryone keeps referring to 2016 as the dumpster fire that never quit burning. It seemed like every few days someone who made a brilliant mark on this world died. But it wasn’t all bad… here are some folks who didn’t die in 2016 . (I waited until 12:01 AM, January 1 to post it just to make sure no one on the list died at the last minute.)

james stewart
James Stewart

catwoman joker
Cesar Romero and Eartha Kitt

bob denver
Bob Denver (Little Buddy!)

Abraham Lincoln
Abe Lincoln

helen keller
Helen Keller

dinosaur
This inflatable dinosaur and friends

kurt cobain
Kurt Cobain

lemmy motorhead
Lemmy from Møtørhead

ronald reaganRonald Reagan

ray nitschke
Ray Nitschke

styx albums
That Guy from Styx (No, that other guy)

charles schulz
Charles Schulz

matchbox flying bug
The Guy driving this car

jon lovitz
Jon Lovitz

Paul Newman
Paul Newman

nighthawks edward hopperJames Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart and that guy behind the counter in that famous painting.

Doesn’t that make you feel better?

This is a test of the Ron Blogcasting System

No, seriously, this is just an experimental post to see if this is working. Just testing to make sure links work, too. This is a test of the Ron Blogcasting System

dinosaur
Love that costume! Oh, good, the captions work!

Random thoughts I borrowed from somethere to test how well this works… Some ad wants me to enter my last name to discover its origin. It’s “Cockroach.” It’s a giant disgusting bug. I’m not proud of it, but I’m not ashamed of it. It’s just who I am. Oh, and I crawled all over your waffle iron last night. Hope you washed it before you made breakfast. Actaully, I am kind of proud.

I watched a lot of sports on TV this weekend. Such wonderful displays of physicality and athleticism. There was some good sportsmaniciousness and effortation as well. I felt a sense of excitementalotomy while witnessing the competitionosity.

Great. Now that “Starbucks’ December holiday festival of no particular denomination” have leaked, we can now speculate on whether the War on Christmas has begun. By the way, I hope they don’t really leak. That would be messy.

Thanks for not reading this post.