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Let me say this about that.

In 1973, Paul Simon recorded the song “Kodachrome” that contained the lyric, ‘When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it’s a wonder I can think at all.’  Amen, Brother Simon.  The older I get, the truer this becomes.  And it’s not just the stuff from high school, it’s most of the crap we were taught as kids.  Regrettably, I see the same old jargon being passed down to the kids of today.  If it’s not too late already, I propose we update some of these old axioms before today’s generation of kids become a addled as we were.  Here are a few old sayings I would update:…    (more…)

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Let me say this about that.

The course of our lives often rests on  the seemingly minute decisions we make every day.  Change any one of these decisions, and our lives could turn out radically different.  Or would we simply be the same person in a different environment?  Take for example:

Barack Obama, Bank Loan Officer:

Obama:  “Good morning, madam, how may I help you?”

Customer:  “I want to get a $100,000 loan.”

Obama:  “OK, what do you need the loan for?”

Customer:  “Well, these welfare checks just don’t keep the ‘ol crack pipe full like they used to.”

Obama:  “Been there.  Now what kind of work do you do?”

Customer:  “Oh, I don’t work.  I got me 14…    (more…)

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Let me say this about that.

If you have never worked outside the U.S., let me tell you that the most difficult part is not the strange food, the odd customs, the living conditions, or lax security.  It’s communication.  Even when your local contacts speak English, that doesn’t necessarily mean that there is real “communication” as I pointed out in last week’s ‘English for Brits’.

Some years ago, I was given corporate oversight responsibility for a 2,000 worker computer factory outside Sao Paulo, Brazil.  The daily operation was run by local Brazilians, but the corporation held me responsible for all strategic operations, and of course, meeting profit goals.

Something was always going wrong, so I spent considerable time on site.  During one trip, I went down to fix a production problem and, as was my custom, started with a meeting with Humberto, the local Brazilian plant manager.  I soon learned that his process engineer had overlooked a…    (more…)

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Let me say this about that.

Seems that in America we’ll do just about anything to get out of a day’s work.  In order to soothe our guilt trip for being lazy, we have invented “holidays”.  Our logic is that somehow it would be sacreligious, unpatriotic, or disrespectful to actually go to work on these days that mark important dates in our culture.  We are virtually forced to observe important benchmarks in our culture marked by skipping work on such holidays such as:  Groundhog Day  -  Valentine’s Day  -  Arbor Day  -  April Fool’s Day  -  Secretary’s Day.  You don’t get these days off?  Go to any government office on these days to find out who does.

If we are going to let American employees off work 10 or 15 days a year to observe such artificial crap , I say let’s commemorate something really important instead - something really important to us personally.  I will now grace all my LMSTAT readers with…    (more…)

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Let me say this about that.

America is wallpapered in warning labels.  A guy from another planet could beam-down to Earth and be forgiven if he believed that doing anything on this planet could be hazardous to one’s health.  The really silly part of this ‘lawyer-propagated’ blemish on our culture is that we are ‘warned’ about all the wrong things.

Any fool knows that smoking can kill you, shooting-up heroin can kill you, swallowing a bottle of sleeping pills can kill you.  Yet, despite all the warnings, people still indulge in these potentially fatal activities.  Strangely, some of the most hazardous products contain no warning at all.  For example:

LAND MINES:   “Warning.  The specified use of this product is to remove your desire to be in the area.  Failure to heed this warning may result in the separation of your dumb ass from your torso.”

Those omissions aside, we really don’t need warnings about the obvious stuff.  We need warnings for…    (more…)

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Let me say this about that.

Whatever happened to the ‘practical joke’?  A good, ‘ol fashion knee-slapper that usually resulted in stained pants, gum in hair, or water damage.  Pre “politically correct” mania, guys were guys and showed manly affection by trying to do near-lethal damage to his buddy’s body or property.  Let me give you a couple of examples.

In the mid 60′s, I was working an an engineering intern at a power company in a small town in Tennessee, just a couple of miles north of the Georgia border.  A buddy was getting married and asked me and a couple of other guys to be groomsmen. 

The groom’s dad had bought him a new Corvette as a wedding present.  The groom was terrified that the guys would…    (more…)

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Let me say this about that.

A few years ago, there was a big flap about the lack of political correctness in the Florida State University’s use of the “Seminole” as it’s mascot.  Seemed some folks thought it lacked sensitivity and was disrespectful of the poor Seminole Indian tribes in Florida.  Unfortunately, the chalky white, pussy-boy, P/C police from the ACLU forgot to ask the Seminole’s what they thought.  Several days later, the leader of the Seminole tribes in Florida held a news conference where he said the Seminoles were proud of their connection with the University and wanted them to continue with the use of the tribe as their mascot. 

This incident proves that more needs to be known about this crucial topic.  So I have done extensive research on college mascots to uncover the REAL background on the circumstances of their selection and will reveal the results of this research to you now.  Consider yourself an ‘insider’ on…    (more…)

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Let me say this about that.

In 2001, the Writer’s Guild of America went on strike against network television.  The strike lasted only for 22 days, but it forever changed TV entertainment.  The writer’s union mistakenly believed that the drivel their membership pumped into D-list sitcoms was actually entertaining.  It wasn’t.  And during the strike, the “Reality Show” was born.  “Reality TV” doesn’t require writers, or actors, or much of anything else.  It usually involves some kind of lame competition and a little prize money.  It’s sort of like The Jerry Springer Show – except they keep score.

The current batch of reality shows feature dancing, or cooking, or dating, or whatever.  They were more entertaining than sitcoms – at least at first – but have since worn a little thin.  What’s needed now is…    (more…)

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Let me say this about that.

My wife and I were in London last year for a short vacation.  To avoid traffic, we took the subway downtown for a little sightseeing.  While waiting on the subway platform, I was approached by a uniformed policeman who gave me a stern warning:

Cop:  “Sir, you are forbidden to light-up your fag on the tube!”

Shambo:  “Whoa, there Nigel.  I have no intention of doing anything with any fag – let alone lighting him up by his tube!”

You can imagine my embarassment when I later learned that the cop was referring to smoking a cigarette on the subway.  My bad.  But the Brits have some expressions that make no sense to me.

When we returned to the States, it occurred to me that Americans also have some rather mystifying expressions.  So, in the interest of international harmony, I decided to educate our British friends on the background, and meaning of several common American expressions.

“Can’t hit a bull in the butt with a base fiddle”:   This expression comes from American baseball and describes…    (more…)

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Let me say this about that.

As LMSTAT pointed out last week, America has some big problems.  Leaders in  business and government have proven that they are no smarter than the average Joe Sixpack.  The guys running General Motors ran the company into bankruptcy.  The guys running the nation’s largest insurance company, AIG, ran it into bankruptcy.  The guys running the country’s banks have run 82 of them into bankruptcy this year alone.  And the federal government has accrued the largest debt in the history of government.  In other words, you could have put Elmer Fudd in any of these executive positions and achieved the same result.

Albert Einstein once said:  “You can’t solve a problem with the same thinking that created it.”  To this point, LMSTAT is looking for some very smart people to take over and…    (more…)