» On 1/05/2015 03:00:00 PM Mountain Standard Time, Alan wrote:
Freeway Birthday Triple-A. 

So there I was this morning, standing on a 12-lane freeway in the 6am darkness, watching the cars whiz by me, three feet away, at 75mph, and I'm singing, in my scared-sh*tless voice:

Happy birthday to you / Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday YOU MORON / Happy birthday to you.

You see, my car had run out of gas on the Superstition Freeway. Bonehead move, right? I knew the tank was getting empty, but based on the odometer reading, I calculated there were 10 or 20 miles left to go. The car had traveled at least that far before, without any problem. But I forgot to factor in the three mornings last week when the ice on the windshield was obscuring my view. Each of those times, I sat in the parking lot at work, running the heater/defroster/defogger for ten minutes, so I could see enough to drive home.

10 minutes x 3 = 30 minutes, or about 30 miles.

But I neglected to do that calculation until the power steering stopped working this morning, in the middle lane of the eastbound 60. As I struggled to get the car over into the breakdown lane, I was chanting my mantra of denial: "The gas tank can't be empty, it can't be, it CAN'T be!"

That's when the equation 10x3=30 flashed into my brain, and I began singing my very-special birthday song.

The Triple-A guy couldn't stop grinning. As he poured gas from his canister into my tank, he said, "Make sure you plan carefully. There are only two gallons in here."

Then he chuckled. Bastard.

 
» On 1/05/2015 01:00:00 AM Mountain Standard Time, Alan wrote:
64. 

"Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm sixty-four?"

I'll find out the answer to this question today.

Video.

 
» On 1/01/2015 02:45:00 AM Mountain Standard Time, Alan wrote:
The Golden Screw (old joke). 

A couple has a baby with a strange birth defect – a golden screw stuck in his navel. Doctors assure them there's nothing to be done about it.

The boy grows up ashamed of his difference and blames it for the fact that he has no friends, can't get a date, has a crummy job, etc. Anyway, he goes to scientists and surgeons and witch doctors around the world, but he gets nowhere. He's told to just live with it.

Finally, the guy goes to a holy man in the desert, who says, "You can simply dream it away, but you probably won't like the results. Maybe you should just accept yourself as you are." But the guy insists, so the holy man instructs him on lucid dreaming.

The guy falls asleep, and in his dream, a golden archangel descends from on high, and inserts a golden screwdriver into his navel. After a few quick turns, the golden screw falls out.

When the guy wakes up, sure enough, the golden screw is gone. He's so happy, he jumps up to do a celebratory dance...

...and his a** falls off.