In life, I'm a polite and often shy guy. If you find the humour that follows to be brash or even offensive, it is never gratuitous, but now you have been warned.
These are my jokes, except [E] by Erika Danko, [V] by Victor Shulman. Many of these date back to when Victor and I worked for Microstat Development Corporation, 1985-86. I wrote some of our bons mots in a book, but time has occasionally clouded the origin. But fear not, most of these jokes are of more recent stamp. Somebody else might have come up with these same jokes independently. I've been thinking in particular that obliterati might be a popular invention. I suppose it would be correct to google search each word before adding it to the file, but I'm lazy. Funny, eh?
Funny Stories From My Life - A Retrospective Blog contains some funny and perhaps embarrassing stories (not one-liners) from my life.
Say, have you seen dys funky dictionary of mine?
[V]
butt welder.
We are all patzes.
Once the vampire gets our chessticles
arrout of sermonal versicles.
Noout of
Normal.
You can't live with 'em, and you can't live without 'em.
He revented the dangerous motor, but still couldn't sell his boat because it was sinky.
Delivered in a Churchillian voice: Never / in the annals / of
human laziness / has so little / been accomplished / in the company /
of so much complaint. / This day / will live / in infamy / so long /
as free men / in their derision / have breath / to bellow / a
laugh.
After not doing much for a long long time, I put in a
5-hour day of work.
Old knuckleballers never die, they just float away.
Old chessplayers never die, they just spend forever contemplating the next move. [E]
My one-line Hungarian poem, using three words and a
surname:
Sör, Bor, Bor, Pálinka, Sör,
Pálinka, Bor, Sör, Pálinka,
Alföldi.
Sör is beer; Bor is wine; Pálinka is
(apricot brandy) moonshine; Alföldi is the name of a porcelain
(toilet) manufacturer.
Don't talk about buses in Hungary. The more you talk about them, the further away they get. The more you talk about them, the less people want to talk to you. [E]
Tiny Nudge is an oxymoron in Anglo-Hungarian. Nagy
(pronounced something like nudge) means great
in Hungarian.
So the Hungarian leader Imre Nagy was Big Jim
.
What do you get when you de-Magyarize a mad cow?
Jakob Creutzfeld.
Sign in Cowdale
Please step carefully.
The actual sign in
Cowdale, near Buxton, Derbyshire, England, was Please drive
carefully
.
Meanwhile Road by Don Ross, a travelling song for a mode of transport that has not yet been invented.
Did you know how the most famous Austrian song lyric got composed?
Richard Rogers was having breakfast and when he went to put milk on
his cereal, he heard a distant pop. That inspired the lyric: The
Hills are Alive with the Sound of Müesli.
It got changed by
Oscar Hammerstein II, who as lyricist was jealous of his partner's
inspiration. [E and J].
Why do they call eyeglasses specs?
Because people who wear them don't notice the specks. [E]
Did you know that dogs can time travel? That's how they can pee so much when you take them for a walk. They travel ahead in time (that's why it is so difficult to get their attention) to the next bowl of water.
Lemon tree very pretty, and the lemon flower is sweet
But the lemon-flavoured snow cone is impossible to eat.
A lyric that just burst upon us like springtime as we were walking
Caesar after the big snow storm.
Same old dam thing.
Walking the dog at Colliery Dam Park for
the umpteenth day in a row. [E]
Scandinavians love their pets. In Sweden, every day is dog day.
What is our dog's favourite book of the Bible? Saint Mark.
The opera about the Queen and her favourite dog: Corgi and Bess.
Just look at that! These people just let their dogs do
anything! I wish the City would enfoce the $1000 fine.
Let she who is without shin scat the first scone.
Bored? Call Confuse-a-Dog. That's A-DOG-CONFUSE on your totaly rerephone.
Hello? 911? I have an emergency. I'm too walked to dog the stone.
This is 911. What is your emergency?
Woof!
Hello? 911? I have an emergency. I'm too bucked to scatter the whone.
This is 911. What is your emergency?
Um, if you guys don't
show up in 5 hours, is the pizza free?
Dolph-in, tern-on, tuna-out
The wildlife wisdom of Dr. Timothy
Leary.
In 2009, forty years from now, half the freaks smoking dope will be fascists. [this might be a quote]
Why is there no Society to Prevent Vandalism? Because they have only one Vandal.
An friend saw this happen: three young women, dressed to the
nines, were outside a club, in varying states of drunkenness.
Suddenly, one of the girls punched one of the others in the face, and
she fell to the pavement. [The foregoing leads up to the punch line,
but it is also all true.] Why the punch?
The second girl was
wearing deck meshoes.
Cleanliness is next to godliness; godliness is next to chess; ches' is next to my heart. [J+E]
What's so wonderful about chess is that it's like a soap opera. You can set back the position and start again. Except that in a chess game, the acting is better. [E+J]
Are you scared? No, I'm not scared. I'm past scared. I'm putrified.
Thirty percent less rat
Than where you're at.
An optimistic tourism slogan for a clean but dull destination.
White Mandarins Can't Jump
The latest racial slur in the world of international sports politics.
It doesn't work. They said I'd win at Scrabble if I kept
score.
Only if you are Saddam Hussein. (cf: oil for food
scandal).
What do you get when you add Bush to Bill Clinton?
Boil CNN
Bullshi*. (rearranging the letters of the principals).
Après moi, le déluge!
In high school they told us that Louis XV made the remark when asked about the future of France after his death. Though this indicates that it was Madame Pompadour's. Women are better with words, eh? It was the caption for a cartoon I never did (can't draw) of Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Eliot Trudeau back-to-back with an elephant. If you like, you could write the word Patronage on the elephant.
What did the Quebec Premier become, one day before the transfer of power to the new Premier?
A 24-hour Landry.
Why do Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving on the second Monday in October?
Because by late November the turkey, and most everything else, is frozen.
It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that sting.
Talking up spicy foods.
Groundless suspicion makes your bum look fat.
A hungry person entering a vegetarian restaurant might say:
Revello is the name of a popular ice cream novelty across Canada.
It has vanilla ice cream on a stick, with a chocolate coating. Kids
usually call one a revel
. The lyrics of a pop song make more
sense as:
Revel, Revel It's on your dress; Revel, Revel Your
face is a mess.
than the canonical Rebel ...
, as
discovered at
a
misheard lyrics site. Back to the Revelstoke
joke.
In the Tchaikovsky competition, what were the similarities between Klimov and Van Cliburn?
1. Names had same first syllables
2. Neither knew how to play
the violin. [Old Russian joke, as told by V. We all know that Van
Cliburn was a piano prodigy, but Klimov really was a violinist. The
joke was a remark on the quality of the judging.]
What do you say when superheroes meet one of those heavy spiked rollers used to break up old highways?
Holy Flatman and Ribbon! [Chris Danko]
Pale expression of a great idea is when the printer ribbon breaks. [V]
If Life is like drawing without an eraser, then what is like erasing without a drawer?
Nothing is like ... [V]
Water is the universal solvent; Dynamite is the universal solution.
What were the similarities between General Kutuzov (Napoleon) and President Nasser (6-Day War)?
Each lured the enemy into the depths of his land and awaited the frosts. [Old Russian joke as related by V]
It's so foggy, I can't see my hand in front of my eyes
,
said the blind man, waving at the pretty girl across the street.
[E]
Which part of the brain controls mating behaviour?
The
Parental Lobe.
To have and to hold, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part; unless I get a better offer.
Learn to Mate.
The catch-line of a spectacularly unsuccessful
campaign for the chess club at Sentinel Secondary School, West
Vancouver, circa 1966.
The Evolution of Love: from Kama Sutra to Kamikaze
A book title destined for oblivion.
Cooking Better with Hate
A book you won't see any time soon. Maybe it should be the name of a rock group.
This is the moment when I take off my glasses to reveal my blue eyes. A tingle shoots down your spine. We clasp hands and melt into each other's arms, oblivious to the plate of squid and bean thread noodles oozing between us.
Ill-starred romances
You get more peas on your fork with honey [E] ...than with vinegar.
I'd rather be horking
An unsuccessful T-shirt campaign.
Buzzing like a fly at the windowsill [E].
Why do New York pedestrians cross against a red light ?
To avoid being trampled.
Chelsea the Cat is on 22/7.
That's 22 hours of sleep, 7 days a week. In Memory of Chelsea, 1981-2006.
How did the Mexican cat reply when the local townspeople thanked her for cleaning out the local rat population ?
El placer es meow.
Why is most of the avocado crop from the Mexican state of Michoacan, of the Hass variety?
The letter h is silent in Spanish.
Where does a lion go to get his hair cut?
A maneicurist.
What new thorn do you have for my crown? [V]
A scare of peas, bomplete with coots. [V]
Why would anybody bother? Department.
Within walking distance of Costco.
--seen in a home real
estate ad.
Meet Somebody Real
--seen in email spam.
Avril Lavigne topless
--seen in a newsgroup spam.
Yeah, well, I suppose we already had a few of those. Eye of the beholder. These are jokes that depend upon not being funny for their humour.
Why is Nanaimo City Council building a Conference Centre downtown? ... when City Council has moved its conferences away from downtown?
May 2008 - In the oft incestuous world of municipal financing, the
Port of Nanaimo has again stepped in to close the gap. Nanaimo's
controversial conference centre will now be called the Port of Nanaimo Centre. How
will that be abbreviated? PoNC? PoNCe? PoNÇ? Will it be
pronounced pOWN-thay, like the
16th
century Spanish explorer, or pawn-ss like the
uncomplimentary British slang? Will Fill our PoNCe
become
a rallying cry of civic fervour? After all, on its own terms the
conference centre can be a success only if it is heavily booked
(filled), and it is our centre, if dollars paid mean
anything. The possibilities leave me panting.
Earlier manifestations included the Port Theatre. Hey, they could have saved 33% on signage by naming it the Hub Theatre. In my lifetime, Nanaimo has gone from the Hub City to the Harbour City, and is in the process of rebranding its downtown with the even more generic word Port. The mall used to be called Harbour Park, but now it is Port Place.
July 2008 - The building has dual naming. It is both PoNCe and VICC - Vancouver Island Conference Centre.
Back in ye olde days, Nanaimo had a Heritage Advisory
Committee (HAC). Then around 1997 it got upgraded from a
Committee to a Commission (thus having Powers) and was renamed the
Nanaimo Community Heritage Commission (my
emphasis). There had been a certain vitality in saying I'm a
HAC-ker
or I belong to HAC
and I wanted something almost
as good, albeit without the bullet. So I came up with NaCHeCo. Not
to be confused with:
Nechako, a
local, British Columbia, geographical reference. Turns out that
Nacheco is a place in Mozambique (mowss-am-BEEK), maybe with less
tourism than the South Pole! NaCHeCo did not catch on.
URL: This web page is:
http://members.shaw.ca/berry5868/fun.htm
Last modified July 31, 2009