The eternal struggle between the good and evil sides of our souls seems so complex.
But no, it isn’t. Our decision making process is actually quite simple as the two emus show.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
Simple, Safe Darts
Has this happened to you? You’re off to the local bar to play for the Dart Championship. You have a five-year old girl, Stella. She adores you. She wants to play darts with you. “You can’t play darts with me, sweetie,” you say, “They serve beer and whisky there. You far too young to drink that stuff. Sorry, you’ll have to stay at home.”
Stella sulks and sulks. In fact, she will sulk every single day until she’s old enough to leave the house. During that time, she comes to learn about and revere Lizzie Borden, the woman who killed both her parents with an axe. Fortunately, you have a time machine. You go into the future and learn of your bloody demise. You recognize right away that you don’t want this.
So,
you buy the little princess her own darts and dartboard. Alas, being five-years old, Stella’s aim is quite poor. Her toss veers wildly off course and skewers Timmy’s right hand. Timmy will never master cursive writing. His classmates will tease him incessantly. Timmy will withdraw into himself. He’ll never write A Blueprint for Resolving All Disputes Everywhere. Without this blueprint, future wars won’t be stopped. Not ever. You go into the future again and are appalled.
So,
you buy Stella, foam darts and a foam dartboard. This time around–Hee hee, see what I did there–she doesn’t hurt anyone. However, add 17 + 3*20 and 13 proves too much for Stella’s young untrained mind. She learns to hate math. She develops a lively hatred for intellectuals and learning in general. Your princess nutures this hatred into a fierce desire to become President, or Prime Minister, if she moves to Britain. Once in power, she’ll completely sever all funding at all levels for education. Her country soon becomes completely ignorant of all things. Soon, the entire nation will be reduced to hunter/gatherers and is living in caves. You see this after travelling once more into the future. You resolve to stop this too as well.
So,
you again make Stella form darts and dartboard. This time, hee hee, the dartboard looks like the one above. Every toss of her dart, results in a score of one or zero. Even your young Stella can add ones and zeros. So, she won’t follow you to the bar. She won’t pierce her brother’s hand with a dart. She won’t reduce an entire nation to caveman status. In fact, Stella will growsup to be incredibly average. She’ll blends into the background and never really get noticed for anything.
But given, her alternative timelimes, you are very happy at that. You might even go to the bar and have two beers to celebrate.
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
Mazes can be lots of fun. They engage the mind. Solving them can be necessary and even existential as in the case of Theseus. Theseus had promised to kill Minotaur, the half-man/half-bull beast who lurked in a huge maze. He does that. But he had to get out again. If he couldn’t do so, he’d die of starvation. Bummer. So how did he manage to leave? He cheated. Theseus unraveled a ball of string as he went along. Then he wound up the string as he went back.
Fortunately, maze solving is no longer a matter of life and death. But they can take a while. You can get so engrossed in a single maze that you lose track of time. In fact, you even missed your court appearance. Your testimony was crucial to the prosecution. But because you didn’t show the judge was forced to acquit the defendant. Because of you, a serial killer once again stalks the street of your fair city.
It doesn’t, however, have to end like that. Simply, solve the above quick but snappy maze an hour before appearing in court. The law will appreciate you. So will your fellow citizens.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
I hate paying taxes. Everybody does. I do, however, realize we need taxes to pay for many necessary things such as the military and infrastructure. No, what really gets my goat is that frigging complicated tax form. With all the schedules that go along with the main page, a taxpayer could easily fill out over 30 pages. You’ll need to hire a tax preparer. That’ll run you hundreds of dollars. And that’s after spending three days assembling all the information. What makes it even more horrible is that the IRS scans all the returns looking for mistakes.
Looking for mistakes. Let that sink in. That means they already have the numbers you need to type in on the forms. And they will tell you when they think–no, when they now–you are wrong. What can be done for fix all this madness and frustration?
I’m glad you asked. Let the IRS do your taxes for you, They know what they want on your forms, schedules, and attachments anyway. I hereby propose a new and quite simple form to replace all the tree-devouring pages you used to submit.
It’s called the 1040-P. (P stands for Paul, me. I created this glorious, time saving, liberating page. I deserve some recognition.)
Anyway, I give you the 1040-P
I see a Nobel prize in my future.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
Has this happened to you? You’re playing the part of Jean Valjean for the Broadway premier of Les Miserables. Curtain goes up in about a hour. You’re a bit nervous. Who wouldn’t be? So you ask the actor for Javert to play a board game with you. He agrees. He’s nervous as well. The two of you vote against chess. It’d take way too long. So you play checkers. You become engrossed in the game. Neither of you hears the five-minutes call. The producer, frantic with worry, gives your roles to your understudy. Neither of you will ever act again. What could have been done?
Play Paul’s Simplified Checkers. It’s played on a three-by-three board. Each side get two checkers. Now let’s look at a truly exciting game.
The start of the game.
End of first move. Red player has moved from End of second move. Black player has jumped
A1 to A2. Red’s checker, C3 to A1 and was kinged.
End of third move. Red Player has moved from End of fourth move. Black played has jumped
from A3 to B2. Red’s, A1 to C3. Black player wins.
My goodness that was exciting. And it was quick. You needn’t ever again lose a Broadway acting job because you checker’s game took too long. In fact, all games will last exactly four moves. What more do you want?
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
Where’s Bettie?
Where’s Waldo is quite the amusing diversion. It’s loved by millions. But it can take time to find that rascally Waldo, particularly since he loves to hang with folks wearing nearly identical outfits. Clearly he doesn’t want to stand out in a crowd. I think it would be nigh on impossible to pick Waldo out of a police lineup.
As mentioned above, finding Waldo is quite the pleasant way to pass the time. But what if you don’t have the time to pass? What if your fiancée is flying back from a trip to see her family? You’re supposed to leave the house at at nine at night to get her home from the airport.. However, it’s only 8 P.M.. You decide to pass the time playing Waldo. But you can’t find Waldo. You really, really can’t pick him out. He’s in a crowd of Waldo impersonators. Also the characters in the picture are teeny tiny and you can’t distinguish them since you lost your reading glasses.
You’re really not having a good day. However, you’re not a quitter. You persevere. The minutes pass. The hours pass. At first, she waits eagerly for the love of her life to come rescue her from airport hell. Soon she looks forward to seeing you. Then she grows antsy. A deep and abiding hatred develops. Eventually, a red mist envelops her.
You break all speed limits to get to the airport. At 3 a.m.. You run toward her and throw open your arms to hug her. She drills you between your eyes with a bullet from her Glock(tm). Ironically, you gave her the Glock for her own protection. You, however, cannot appreciate the irony. You’re dead.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. You should have played “Where’s Bettie?” I show the game in the picture on the right. The game is rated as being solvable in five minutes, but many people claim to have solved the puzzle in less time than that. Play “Where’s Bettie?” and you’ll never miss a can’t-miss appointment again.
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
How many times has this happened to you? You’ve spent the Christmas bonus on a week-long vacation on the sun-lit beaches of Hawaii. You’re up earlier than your spouse, rather earlier as you’re just so excited to splash in the warm ocean water. But it’ll be two hours before he wakes up. What to do? You decide to play solitaire to pass the time. Only the game takes so freaking, but find you can’t ever leave anything unfinished.
He arises and cajoles you to take to the beach. Enthralled in your game; you do not. He pleads again. You do not hear him. He says he is heading to beach and asks you to join him later. You favor him with a perfunctory wave. He leaves.
Finally, the game is over. You look at your watch. Oh my gosh, is that the time? Oh my gosh, is that the day? Horrors, you have played the entire vacation away. Your plane leaves in hour. You shout for your husband. He does not respond. There is a note on the table. He found a beautiful mango heiress while you were playing solitaire. He’s going to spend the rest of his life with her on the French Riviera.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Now we all know the object of Solitaire is place the right cards on an ace. This, as we have seen above, can take a lot of time. My brilliant idea is to shrink the 52-card deck down to one, the ace of spades. As you soon as you play this card, the game is done. You can get one with your life. You and your wedded love remain inseparable. Life is good.
I show to the right a simulated game of Ace of Spades Solitaire. You’ve won!
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
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