Selections from "A Brief History of Bad Ideas"

Bad Ideas I'm Having Right Now:

Unfortunately, I typically won't know which ones are bad ideas until I've tried them. Wish me luck.

I used to live next door to this guy

Mental Health

Patients showed a marked deterioration of condition under the experimental "innacupuncture" therapy, and most complained to the FDA that they "continued to find embedded needles in their skin for several weeks after treatment had ended". The therapy's inventor, the evil Dr. Vandertramp, was last seen fleeing to Cuba in a black dirigible.

mostly not true

Guess what I'm doing today

Mental Health

In retrospect, the explosion was overkill, the superfluous attempt of an amateur villain to show the world what he was made of. The evil plan would have gone off perfectly without the theatrics, and the authorities would never have bothered to show up. And after all, just how dead did the heroic secret agent need to be?

Attention grabber

Possibly a slight exaggeration

Mental Health

He is a man in disrepair. He whispers unconvincing reassurances to himself when he thinks no one can hear, but he is a poor judge of his own audibility. He locks every door in his house, fanatically. When winter comes, if he has not yet fallen at the hands of imaginary enemies, he may go so far as to be a mall Santa Claus. He reflects often that children make the best human shields.

Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel

Director's Commentary on a DVD no one will ever watch

The title for today's post is due to the fact that there was no scanner to be found today, not in all the land. So these are backup drawings, held in reserve for just such a time of desperate need. The good news is, the scanner and I will probably have resolved our differences by tomorrow. 

You didn't need to know any of that. We now return to your regularly-scheduled internets. 

Salt, meet wound

Mental Health

"I think I can, I think I can," I whispered to myself, shouldering the heavy load and chugging up the hill. Gradually I became aware, in spite of my deep concentration, of a crowd of people gathering around on both sides, perhaps to admire my determination and stamina. Perhaps to cheer me on.

Well, and then I heard the guy say, "Get that lunatic off the tracks before a train comes!"

Convenient and deadly

Mental Health Re-run:

An otherwise benign ghost haunts this home, whose one hatred is directed, inexplicably, towards Gus's toothbrush, which disappears constantly from its place by the sink and seems to turn up everywhere else.

Why yes, this is an anvil

Mental Health

Where had the time gone? The kids were grown up and going to college or working or seeing the world. The house was paid off, the retirement was announced. Now the evil Dr. Vandertramp's last worry was his only worry-- diffusing that bomb, the one on the 30-year timer. And that could wait until at least next week.

How to make enemies and defeat them in single combat

Mental Health

Listen, guys. Just listen for one second. Those rations? Yeah, I ate them. They looked iffy, OK, so I was, I was testing them. I was sacrificing myself, come on! Are you really going to execute a guy who was just making sure our ship's last week of food wasn't somehow tainted or un-delicious? It was delicious, by the way. 

Could be worse

Mental Health Re-run:

Though at the end of the day, Winston's running tally of victories revealed only one, he leapt into his tall bed and laid there in satisfaction, visualizing how Hoffman must have reacted upon finding that the experimental apes had been enclosed in his home and the poor, bewildered Hoffman family locked in the laboratory in their place.

Questions answered

Mental Health

You can't blame the man for using his pen name-- after all, who would ever read sentimental romance novels written by Skeevy VanPervleton?

Nutrition Opinions

Mental Health

Nothing puts life into perspective like a 900 pound grizzly bear in one's kitchen, and Nigel's perspective became one of simultaneous awe at the wonders of nature and befuddlement as to what he could possibly do now that would not end up turning him into dinner.

If only it were a joke

Mental Health

With candy rations dwindling daily and the calendar continuing its inexorable march, David and Eric and Dave found themselves mere days away from school. As they toured their habitual haunts in the neighborhood and the dry creek bed, they found that the usual joys had been leeched out of everything. They spoke seldom and grimly, three little men facing lengthy incarceration. They kicked tin cans perfunctorily as they walked, heads down, already dead to summer.

He has a point

Mental Health

The more I think about it, dear, the more I worry: maybe a relationship based solely on a mutual fascination with dinosaurs is doomed to fail. Maybe the first meteorite that comes along will raise up clouds of dust and kill the vegetation that feeds our shared interest, and our romance will go extinct.

It's very surprising

Mental Health

The Inspector wouldn't be caught crying, not in front of his men. So when he felt the menacing of a flood of angry tears threatening to burst out, and saw he was surrounded at the station, he could think of little else to do but to grab the first liquid he could see and to throw it in his own face.

It didn't matter whose pineapple juice it had been. It burned the Inspector's eyes. The subordinate detectives and secretaries were too startled to speak, and frozen with curiosity at the sight of their superior's own indecisive, dripping face and red eyes as though he had been crying.

The moral of the story

 

Mental Health

The latest bout of gastrointestinal distress had left the expedition's guide in an awkward situation. He hated to admit to his wealthy clients that the water here still made him sick, hated the very thought of lacking in intestinal fortitude-- and yet, if he didn't pull the jeep over soon, there would be far greater problems than wounded pride.

Ethical jokes

 

I don't know if this joke is strictly speaking ethical, but it's at least heartfelt. And yeah, we can't send our wasted food to the children in Africa once it's cooked, but we could spend less if we wasted less, and then, I dunno, maybe we could give more.

Dismounting from the soapbox now. Sorry.

I forbid it

Mental Health

One step forward, two steps back. One step forward, turn around and run as fast as you can. I hate this game, and I wish I didn't have this pack of hyenas in my house. 

 

For beginning cooks

 

Mental Health

The grocery store lights cast a soul-crushing artificial pallor on the aisles and the clientele. Some shoppers were lost, and had been for hours, having forgotten why they had come, or how to get out. Meanwhile, young Whit was following people around and placing odd items in their baskets while they weren't looking. He vaguely wondered what would happen if he were caught, but generally did not intend to be.

 

Apiculture: specific applications

 

Mental Health Re-runs

sunk fingers into thick, yielding couch cushions, finally getting a hold. moved it another foot or so from the wall and crawled into the resulting gap, headfirst, tucking feet in behind: effectively hidden, but wretchedly hoping to be found.