To the Quick

I understand Mr. Peterman's choice of Photo, as it relates to the Topic ... But, a pity it is that the marvelous Sport of Fencing is not what today will be about .......  A Chess Match, with Blades ... Incredibly Good Exercize, a Work-Out for both Body and Brain, and it feels amazingly Good when one Wins .......

Like full contact golf?

I'm not sure, but that picture up top might have actually been taken at the new TSA training facility, and those are not swords, but the latest iteration in security wands.....

One of many lines from Groucho: "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.....inside of a dog it is too dark to read"

I always liked it when Tommy Smothers hit his brother Dick Smothers upside the head with Oh yeah?  Well Mom always liked you best.

Good morning gentlemen! Great group of men to wake up to!
 
I have to be careful because a snark can so easilly turn cruel. to me it's a thin line between a great put down that is well deserved and just plain cruelty. I try very hard to not go into the latter category, but when I do I feel ashamed and dirty inside. I recently wrote a letter to the editor an upon further reflection I changed a phrase  my husband pointed out how it could be construed by some, a point I had not seen. I cleaned it up and it was actually stronger, but w/ out the personal attack) So, I try to think before I print or speak, but I am not always succesful.........
 
Be well all and have a wonderful Friday..............

"Fiendishly clever" ..... what more endearing term could ever memorialize one's headstone?

An old friend of ours, since passed away, was the master of the cutting remark.  I wanted to sit at his feet and learn. People didn't know that they've been sliced and diced until they keeled over.  Once, when a particularly obnoxious client drove him to real anger, he pointed his pinkie at him in a stabbing gesture.  The guy said "what's that?"  Allen said, "that's for those who don't deserve the best".

Off topic, I am wearing a JP spote coat today- tan wool with a paler tan windowpane and a blood-burgundy one, described by our Host "...make you look as if you have done very well in a short period of time..." Well, other than the doing well and the implications of youth, it describes me fairly accurately.

Bert~ That's cheating - Grave Humour is another facet of the diamond of laugher. I'm told Spike Milligan's headstone reads:- I told you I was ill.
Morning all- bebe~ considering your claim to carefully considered words that are not open to misiterpretation, speculation regarding your early morning frolics will be rife!

Bwahhahhahhh- but at least you can spell.

Is that your Foil or are you just glad to see me.

Today's topic finds me boarding the way back machine and stepping off sometime during my college days.

An obnoxious fellow, in invertebrate zoology lab, was always quick with the "zinger". I was often the target, probably due to the fact I was unresponsive to his clumsy flirtatious overtures. Midway into the semester, about three hours into a four hour "snark" riddled afternoon, I looked him in the eye and simply said "anal pore". Murray just stood there staring, while everyone within earshot turned and waited for the other shoe to drop. I continued with "Yea, Murray, anal pore. You're too primitive for me to call you an a** hole".

The rest of the afternoon was fairly quiet.  After class, the cute guy a couple of lab tables over asked me for a date. I accepted.

Parry, Fente.

I, too, saw the photo and thought, "Hurrah! Fencing!"
 
But I must say that I enjoy the berbal kind of fencing as much as I enjoy the physical sport. In fact, one of the best gentlemen with comebacks that sounded polite until you thought about them was my fencing coach at Scott AFB in 1984-85.
 
I'm no good at the art of snark but I did get a contract law group project member who spent the entire class period loudly kvetching about politics, religion and all other manner of sensitive topics instead of doing his share of the work to shut up once. After listening to him go one for half the class I reached into my bag, pulled out a roll of duct tape, and handed it to him. He stared at it and shut up. One of the other group members asked me what he was supposed to with it. I told her that since duct tape fixed everything he could start fixing the things he was complaining about instead of just blabbing about them. That or put some over his mouth.
 
Actually, duct tape is good for patching rips in a fencing jacket, too.
 
Miss Blue: That was an absolute gem of a snark!
 
 

How about when Rick (Humphrey Bogart) says to Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) in Casablanca: "We all try, you succeed."?

Good morning D.K.

According to De Beaumont, successful prises de fer actions require surprise, precise timing, and control, all of which you seem to possess. An opponent's maintaining and using a straight arm facilitates that maneuver; perhaps the origin of the term "straight man"?

And, of course timing is everything.

An observation: If one needs a handbook of insults, snarks and clever comebacks, my advice is to not enter the arena.

I realized just this morning that even weak wit serves to derail a telephone solicitor.  They work on commission, more or less. No matter what you say, you cost them. They are trained to say "I'm sorry you feel that way, sir"  to everything.  Whether or not the insults bother them, the time spent with no results does.

I had a rather terse word for a colleague, I said his wife had two butts....and she sent one to pester me

From the movie ALIENS:

Muscular woman Marine (character named Vasquez) observed doing chin ups by male Marine named Hudson;

Hudson: "Vasquez, you ever been mistaken for a man?"

Vasquez: "No, have you?"

Oh, Willie, what do yo say to one that has a heavy accent?  I say "what?" ,and let them go through the entire spiel again, and then I say "what?",and it goes on and on and on,untill they catch on....meanwhile, I hold the phone away from my ear, and only respond when I hear lack of spiel....it's like that faint soundtrack that permeates modern life as we know it inside pedestrian malls

Nancy Astor's grand nephew is Keith Richards' biographer and the author of WHITE MISCHIEF, a chronicle of many things Peterman: The Muthaiga Club, Masai tribesmen, and, if the movie version can be believed, at leasta request for a Chocolate Covered Lobster...

I must proof read better...timing is important butt...

RY....funny

Willie T....my husband usually derails the telephone solicitors by turning the conversation around and trying to sell them something. I remember he was once called to the phone, while very involved with some damaged cargo in the warehouse, only to find someone on the other end trying to sell him investments in some sort of gem mines in Africa. He replied that he invested in show goats and would the fellow like to buy some semen from our prize buck. CLICK...

 W.T the" lobster "would pose a problem....red or white wine?

Miss Blue~ red or white wine should always be dictated by the color of the clothing it will dribble on

Well a fine Champagne, then...goes with anything, soft of like my cousin Marlee.

Unexplained Laughter in the dark wild rainy woods of Wales.

Whew! Well, I just survived another algebra class (the cumulative final is a week from Monday) and uploading the latest info to the department website. Now I can take a break and enjoy the company here.
 
Thank you for the compliment Miss Blue.
 
Road Yacht: I HAVE to remember your comment about what wine goes with what and tell it to R- when I get home tonight. His face ought to be priceless, especially since he's spent much of the last two years gently instructing me about the pleasures of oenophilia.
 
Off topic but... R- is leaving for Anarctica on December 30th (he's going to the South Pole!)and I have to figure out what to do for New Year's Eve since I won't have a partner to go to the New Year''s Eve ball hosted by one of the ballroom dance clubs. Do any of you have some suggestions?

Getting old is rough, your memory is the second thing to go.

That's me on the left in the picture.       ;)

DancingKatz:  it's 2010.  And you'll be welcoming in 2011.  Can't you go stag to your ballroom dances?

Hi PARK! Well, I could go stag, but most of the folks who go to the New Year's Ball are committed couples who don't dance with anyone but each other. At $75.00 a ticket it's a bit steep for the privilege of sitting and watching the other people dance for most of the evening. They have a supper but the food is usually pretty mediocre.
 
I'm sure I'll find something fun to do but I'm pulling a blank on ideas at the moment.
 
 

Oh, PARK4? That car in your avatar pic? I rode in one of those to my wedding back in 1994. Out of all the regrets I have for marrying my ex, arranging for that car as the ride to and from the church is one I don't regret.

Miss  BLue, I wasn't ignoring you- I was EN ROUTE.  One is truly on the horns with the choco- lob, cause the trend now is for dark sweet wines with the chocolate, but I think a Champagne would be my choice.  WHITE MISCHIEF is quite good, in book or movie form, though you don't get Greta  Scacchi in the book.

Perhaps a subtle "jab" occured when Navin (The Jerk) figured out it was time to leave home & learned the difference between shit and shinola by observation prompting his Father to say "Son, you gonna be alright."

I remember the day before I got married, I had a close friend with an eccentric Aunt that owned a 1963 Cadillac Limo he said my lovely bride and I could use for our wedding. The thing looked like a brand new nickle and was a s clean as a firetruck, exceptionally low miles (under 10,000), and man it was as nice as most living rooms on the inside. Black as 30 midnights paint so shiney you could shave a piglets chiny chin chin in it. He was going to unload the auto to the highest bidder at a local auto auction the next week and he was glad it was going to get used for something productive besides his Auntie going to the Burger King Drive in (I kid you not) and her purchasing a kids meal every wednesday for ten strait years as a treat, also an extravagance for the old woman thsat never married but in herited well from her parents.
 
The old Caddy cranked as soon as you'd touch the key, my dude friends and I polished that beats up and checked the fluids, preparing it for it's first journey, the much harolded batchelor party. It was seven ish whe we departed and almost made it to Ashby street before that sucker blew a water pump. We were twelve white dudes in the middle of "you don't want to be white and be here street" and we were in a predicament.
 
As fate would have it, I still had a friend the lived in the West End, in the house his parents were first married in, and he was in the phone book. We called him and after a few minutes of "I swear, it's me Dickey, I'm not joking" he gave us directions to his compound, buzzed us in, and we found a safe haven for the Limosine to rest until it could be repaired. Dickey ley us use his dumptruck to visit the many places men might visit on the night before his wedding, and that one is a memory I'll never forget.
 
If you could have seen the look on my future Mother in laws face whe we pulled up the next morning in a dump truck...

phone key typos again...

Dancingkatz~ The most fun New Year's Eves I ever had were kid-sitting for a young couple who seldom got a romantic evening out. The 3 little girls were great, tired out from the excitement of Christmas. We cuddled up on the sofa by a log fire & read stories. I had to promise to wake them up so we could watch the clock turn midnight & wish the World a Happy Birthday. I'd got some sparklers and a huge firework rocket, as a surprise for them, so out we went, the kids in dressing-gowns with coats on top and welly boots - mugs of hot chocolate with marshmallows floating on top & then off to bed. They were asleep in five minutes & the parents said they slept through to 10.30 next day. Made a rod for my own back, as every year thereafter, the kids demanded that the parents went out for New Year & got Haze in to child-sit. Now they are grown-up, all 3 of them call me around midnight New Year.
Ummgawa~ I turned up to my first wedding in a beat-up split-screen Morris Minor with the exhaust blowing like a tractor.

Ex number 1 was in an argument with our son & told him to go to his bedroom.
Son retorted that his Dad was behaving like an overtired brat, so maybe HE should get an early night.
Head below the parapet, me.

Wishing Everyone of You in This Village a Pleasant and Rewarding Weekend !!!!!!!!!
 
Be Safe, Have Fun, Relax and Enjoy Everything You Like !!!!!!!
 
Weather Should Be Good Everywhere !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
TO THOSE OF YOU WHO DO .......
 
A GOOD SABBATH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Peace, Joy, and Rest Be Yours ... and Fill Your Houses With All Good Things !!!
 
 
IVAN

Ivan

Shalom in your home

Peace between your ears

Blessings

Coming from a childhood, and a military background that greatly prized and admired straight-razor wit it was a very hard habit to break. After 20 plus years of effort, I still succumb when sorely provoked.
Our former handyman descended upon me at a register in the hardware store. Customary pleasantries ensued. When he heard our 4th grandchild was imminent he ejaculated, “Good Gawd, there’s too many brats causing trouble in this world already!”
I leaned into him and said very gently “Which one do you think I should kill?”

He crosses the street a full block away now, I can’t think why.

"What's the problem?" asked the doctor.
Fellow turns to show a large frog growing out of his ear.
"My, how did that happen?"
"Started out," replied the frog, " as a boil on my ass."


Just stopped by for the Friday Blessing.
God's peace Ivan.

Amen, Ivan, Stoney and all you loved ones (you know you are).

Dancing Katz ...is R going via South America? (Chile?). Tasmania is one of few jumping points to the Antartic as we are just a hop away. Australia has a couple of research bases there and the ships leave from here. In fact I know someone who works in the division; one can also apply for jobs there but each station is about 6 months; my son thinks I'm nuts to even consider it especially since I prefer warm weather to cold. But I think it would be such an experience! Maybe R would like to read this link...
 
http://www.antarctica.gov.au/
 
My younger son's pretty quick with snarky remarks that is also designed to stop the heat ...the other day I heard him saying to someone "...or you will be cut off faster than a foreskin"......everyone burst into laughter and that stopped the fight
 
Kids have some of the best lines. Another favourite of mine was of my elder son who is a voracious reader.  At 5+ he stood in front of the toilet bowl and declared," To pee or not to pee, that is the question..."
 
 

To you as well, Ivan Jalopkin.  

that "peace between your ears" cracks me up every time, but it's one of the best blessings you can offer to anyone.  So peace between all yer ears, Villagers.  Have a wunderbar kind of night.   

Good Shabbos to all and "peace between your ears" -- love it
 
Also love yours, Ivan, "fill your house with all good things"
 
But most of all, wishing you all good health, happiness and joy

Dancingkatz, it is so good to see you out and about
again.  I hope that the space between your ears has been filled with all the
knowledge that you have exposed yourself to in the interim.  I envy you the work
and the effort.  If you can't find a dance partner for New Years, I will ask
Bebe to stop by George Clooney's apartment to see if either Nick or George can
accompany you.  If Bebe can't get either one of them to come to the door,
then maybe, MAYBE BERT, will do you the honor.  I hear he can not only trip the
light fantastic, but is also a gentleman, a scholar and has an open spot on his
calendar for that night and into the next early morn.
 
Blessings.  I flew into Reno yesterday afternoon, 
The foliage in the Washoe valley is just incredible, the maples are blood orange
and every other tree is sunburst yellow as if Jax had smacked them with her
magic wand.  Blessings, Ivan...an abundance of blessings are out there waiting
for us all...thanks be to you and the maker of us all.

DANCINGKATZ..........I would suggest getting a few of your favorite movies that you would like to watch again or a few you have been wanting to watch, your favorite foods, champagne or wine and just have yourself a wonderful at home, cozy time. I have always found, it never fails..........when we go out on New Year's Eve it always falls short of what I have in my head. I would rather go out for supper and come home & watch the ball drop.............So now we happily stay home............ I o understand that you love to dance....is there a friend you could corral? I took PAOLOS's suggestion...........I have sent word to George C. & as soon as he gets back to me I will get back to you.............you never know............a PARK wink at the end...............
 
JAX.........wonderful comeback to the ex handyman..................some people seem to not use their brain filter before they speak.............I put myself in that category & when it is me, it is usually cringe worthy & not a proud moment, but I have gotten a tight reign on that sucker because the filter is what lets you keep your friends & not make someone feel awful..........