Please visit the memorial website for my mother.

Eugene and I put up this page to honor her memory.

http://gladysmli.blogspot.com

While I invite you to share memories in honor of my mother on her site, I must also apologize for removing all the contributors to 3 of 4, but in this case, I really must insist on having the last word.

Did you ever notice that whenever there is a lull in the conversation, you talk about Abraham Lincoln? There was never a lull in the conversation with Mom, but she did talk at great length about Lincoln. Dakota also likes Abraham Lincoln, too. A few years ago, Mom sent me a charcoal drawing of Abraham Lincoln that my Grandpa did. She sent it because Dakota told "Gran" all about our 16th President on the telephone.

Mom meant the picture to go in my office but Dakota and I assumed it was for her, and I hung it in Dakota's room. When Mom came to visit and saw it there, she laughed. One day, maybe Dakota will be President. I told Mom about that idea and she was all for it.

"Dakota is very capable, I think she'd be a great president, if that's what she decides she wants to be. But just let Dakota enjoy being Dakota. That's what's really important."

The Inside Joke

How that carp:

A) got published in the Tresher
B) was actually made worse with the butchered lettering job

Remains a mystery to me.

So I used to say that the best jokes were inside jokes. Actually what
I said was that the highest form of humor is when the person listen
does not realize that you've made a joke and you give no indication
that you have and no one laughts except you... on the inside.

At some point Louren convinced me that it was just me being rude and
mean to people to their face. So I stopped saying it. But what I mean
was that inside jokes are funniest.

Looking at the pained scheme joke below and the really creepy Eric
Hewett fanboy gallery to the left, maybe not.

--
Sent from my mobile device

The Devil's Scheme (a short story about COMP 210)

I took COMP 210 with Eric Hewett. It was so much more than a course
about computer science. It inspired cartoons and songs and epic poems.
That was just from me. The reason this class was such a revelation:
Dr. Matthias Felleisen. Here now is a story about him

Matthias was enjoying the cdr of his afternoon when the DEVnull appeared!

"Matthias! I am the destructor of your soul. Bwahaha!!!!

But there is an order of operations, as a function of a bet I lost
with the lamda of God, I must grant one wish. Don't feel too happy,
people always try to use this wish to save their soul but their cons
are always are null and I catch them."

Mathias wished for one more wish which the DEVnull must grant.

"You fool!" The DEVnull laughed. "Your wish for a wish that is eq? This wish."

"True" replied Matthias.

"People have asked for zillons of wishes. I thunks you were smarter
than that!" The DEVnull chortled.

Despite what the DEVnull thought, Matthias did have engines nested
inside his engines.

"Your wish is granted", bellowed the DEVnull, "I am returning to you
one more wish which I must grant. Ready?"

The DEVnull smiled for he could allow Matthias to continue to iterate
with wishing for one more wish and spending his life in this process
rather than living it. To the DEVnull, time is meaningless but Matthias is a mere
mortal. "At the end of his life," so thought the DEVnull, "his wishes
will run out and upon his dying breath, his soul will be mine after a lifetime of trying to wish away the DEVnull, how delicious!"

Matthias wished for his previous wish.

The DEVnull then made an amazing expression. That expression, although
robustly descriptive, was unstable and for a time equaling then to infinity, the DEVnull
returns the same wish for the wish that must be granted by the
DEVnull. Next.

"How did you know to do that, Matthias?" asked Corky the questioner.

"I went to Church. Don't tell my students."

--
Sent from my mobile device

WHAT IF .... Huey Lewis had written Blues Traveller "Four"

I am Oh-AH-Tu the Omniscient Observer of Alternate Musical Realities, a totally original but satirical character not at all infringing on the copyright of Marvel comics (see Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569 (1994).), and I am here to explore if Huey Lewis and the News had focused more on the prodigious blues harp skill of their front man. What would have been the result?

Look into my spooky glowing eyes as I wave my left hand behind me making life difficult for a cartoonist un-used to rendering foreshortening on MS Paint. I think we will need some sound effects to travel the 5th dimension.

Anyone? Anyone?

Oh, fine........

Deedlediddlydoo! Deedlediddlydoo! Deedlediddlydoo! WAHWahhwahhwah waaaaaaa....

For Starters, John Popper would have been the owner of a fanboy 'zine shop and died a virgin. Oh-AH-Tu sheds a rare tear for loser fanboys everywhere.

Okay... but what about "Fore"? It would have been called "Foure" and these would have been the tracks:

"Jacob's Ladder"
"Run-Around"
"Whole Lotta Lovin'"
"Stuck with You"
"Fallible"
"Freedom"
"Doing all the Crash and Burn for My Baby"
"Hip to Be Square"
"Hook"
"Jacob's Ladder (Reprise)"

It would have been a killer success that would have staved off the rise of the Seattle Flannel grunge scene in favor of a "white oxford shirt with top collar button opened, narrow tie losened, and Rayban Aviators" wearin middle-class Blues scene. Kurt Cobain would be alive today as a judge on "American Idol" but Eddie Veder would have been beaten to death by an angry mob of A&R people from the record label.

Eric Hewett and David Miller would have had a one hit wonder "Uncouth Knuth"

Is this world better or worse? I do not judge, I merely Observe.

Pink Panther

Dead ant. Dead ant

Jason also gets itchy ant bite blisters that freak him out. Like me he
neither knows nor cares about the difference between fire ants and
non-fire ants.

But Dakota does. As Jason stood on a bar stool shreiking "ant! Ant!".
I stomped on it with an exagerated repeated lift of the foot above my
waist (no longer easy with the achilles and back) growling "death!
Death!" Like a democrat of your conservative grandma's worst fears.

Dakota, sounding like a Budhist Monk, chastened me.

"Dad... How do you think the ant feels?"

"It feels nothing except the embrace of obvilvion"

"How do you think it felt right before you stomped?"

"I hope it felt remorse for having frightened my son, but I imagine
all that it felt was a shadow and the rush of air"

"But it never got to visit London, England, or to see the Eiffel Tower
in Paris!"

--
Sent from my mobile device

Post-Script about Eric Hewett: Once I saw a production of Titus Andronicus where Eric Hewett had a small role. In this under-appreciated Shakespearean revenge fantasy, Titus mourns the death of an innocent insect before later feeding two murdering sons to their sinister mother. Eric was pretty good.

Word to your father

Well, it finally happened. Dakota asked me a question that stumped me
so bad that I told her to look it up.

"Daddy, define the word 'word.'"

Amazingly, I had predicted this eventuality last weekend and bought
her a childrens dictionary.

In case you are wondering: Word is a synonym for "vow"

--
Sent from my mobile device

Jokes are like alchemy

I happily let Jason tell me cookie jokes for an hour last night as he tried to settle down his mind and go to sleep. Although dakota was able to tell ne funny joke before she could talk, its more of a struggle for the boy, who is more about physical comedy. But he had good material with cookies, and a good understanding of his audience. I admit most of the jokes are like:

"Why cookie oval? Cookie is oval and triangle and spinkles and I eat it!"

Which is what makes the few funny jokes seem so amazing.

Eric Hewett once wrote a really good paper for McEvilley comparing Yves Klein to the alchemists of yore, but to me a four year old actually putting together the elements of a funny joke (good delivery, timing, engaging material, unexpected punchline) is as surprising as transmuting lead into gold.

Wow that's quite a build up for this joke. It better not be like my last words joke (only funny because my grieving grandchild says the punchline). In any case, its bound to be a disappointment, aint it? It reminds me of Hendrix playing the national anthem at Woodstock. People rave and rave and rave about how original and surprising and incredible it was. In fact, the people who do that are all on the documentary because they were there. But the thing to remember is that (a) it was the last day of Woodstock so even if they weren't high, they were physically tired and thus emotionally worn out (b) people
act like only awesome acts got booked for woodstock. Untrue.  Hendrix followed Sha-Na-na. I mean... carp! Unless Hendrix decided to forego his guitar and also sing some doowop, he was going to be a hit that morning. But, I digress....

In fact there were three jokes that Jason told. Wouldn't it be just like me if in the middle of my sentence
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Ok,  just kidding. In fact, I almost forget one of the jokes because I just woke up and this blog entry is part of hitting the snooze bar and doing my back stretches from the physical therapist and TELL THE DAMN
JOKE ALWEADY!!!!

"Why cookie go up ladder of fire fighter?"
I dunno, Jason, why?
"He craaa-zy!"

"What mean boss do that for; put cookie dough oven?"
I don't know Jason, why did he do that?
"Cookies fired! Ahhhhhh, Ha ha ha ha ha"

"Do you eat cookies Daddy?"
I dunno, Jason.
"Da-dee! You eat em!"
--
Sent from my mobile device

Wow.... this new layout looks terrible

In theory it should be clean and good. It isn't

I've futzed with this for three hours. Time to do something else.

In the mean time, feast your eyes on Eric Hewett. See Eric's facebook page for an explanation as to why he's turned into the Jonas brother and I a jelly-kneed tween.