But physics- well, that was even worse. In a failing effort to teach me relativity theory equations, one of my physics professors (whom I had driven to his wits’ end) came up with a special physics problem just for me involving an X-Wing Fighter flying past the Death Star at the speed of light. He hoped that my dense brain would finally wrap itself around the problem if the challenge appealed to my geeky nature.

I still got a C+.

Knowing how to take a hint, I never considered a career as a physician.

I do, though, have the privilege of knowing many highly competent and talented doctors. Most of their days, it seems, are fairly uneventful. But on occasion, as in every workplace, embarrassing and humorous moments do occur.

But funny moments at hospitals are always much more funny than episodes elsewhere.

Because they usually involve someone’s sphincter.

Always Use The Right Tools for the Job
After performing many physical exams supervised by her teaching physicians, a new intern began giving patients physicals on her own.

After a few solo sessions, the teaching physicians were perplexed. About halfway through each session, they kept hearing a sharp grunt or a muffled cry emanating from behind the exam room door.

After hearing this audible anomaly a few times, one of the more experienced doctors decides to sit in on the new intern’s next physical, in case she had overlooked a step.

You guessed it: She gloved up for the rectal exam like every good doctor should (*sss-nap!*). But she forgot to use lubricant to *ahem* ease the discomfort.

Improvised Explosive Device
A patient comes in, complaining of being constipated for several days. They give her some oral laxatives and send her home.

It doesn’t seem to help. She returns. Her abdomen, naturally, is in a lot of pain at this point.

They admit her to the hospital. The doctors consult with each other to resolve the obstruction. They put her in stirrups and give her suppositories. And more suppositories.

This continues for a quite a while. She’s backed up. She’s lying down, in stirrups. They keep giving her suppositories. Nothing’s happening.

Finally, after a few days of this, one of the nurses hears a bursting sound (*BOOM*!!!) coming from the room.

The dam had burst. Or rather, exploded.

There was poop everywhere.

The linens.

The bed.

The floor.

The wall facing the bed.

Inside the air conditioning vent.

The poor nurses were none too happy about clean-up detail. But the backed up lady sure was happy her problem had finally cleared up.

You Say Tomato, I Say Rectal Exam
A doctor is giving a physical.

The patient speaks only Spanish.

The doctor learned Spanish in school. So, in his effort to communicate effectively, he conducts the physical en Espanol.

Or so he thinks.

The first part of the physical goes smoothly. Then comes the rectal exam (told you- every funny story involves someone’s sphincter).

The doctor explains the rectal exam procedure to the patient (in Spanish, of course). That the patient would have to turn around, partially disrobe, and bend over the exam table. That the doctor would then insert his finger into the patient’s rectum to check for abnormalities.

The doctor then leaves the room to get some supplies.

Upon returning, the patient is standing there in his hospital gown.

Underwear off.

Bending backwards.

With his own finger up his ass.

tags :: jokes : humor : doctor : hospital : suppository : sphincter

But given Towel Day’s surprisingly widespread support by bloggers of all stripes and not just sciphiles, they should have named it “Yet Another Excuse for Nerds to Invite More Ass Kickings by Meatheads Named Biff”. Or something like that. (talk like Christian Slater imitating Jack Nicholson in Heathers for the following…it’ll be funnier) Just kidding, bros! It’s all good! I got my own nerd flag right here!

Man, am I the world’s loserest nerd. I have never read Hitchhiker’s, nor any other Douglas Adams book. So please please nerds more nerdy than I, please don’t pelt me with slide rules! They hurt! And if you must, hurl some pocket protectors my way. They don’t hurt as much as slide rules, and I can always imprint a fuzzy Jesus silhouette on them and sell them to superstitious Catholic hackers on eBay.

Not to be outdone, here is where I out-nerd the nerds more nerdy than I. I Googled further and found another Hitchhiker’s nerdifact: the Babel Fish, which is a fish that translates any form of language for your comprehension when you stick it in your ear. A-ha! It all comes together! That’s why AltaVista named their web translation utility BabelFish!

So to get back into the good graces of the towel-wearing, Hitchhikers-reading crowd (which apparently includes a disturbingly large number of mommybloggers), I have translated some of my all-time favorite passages which I just wrote this very minute into French and then back into English, using the Babel Fish translator:

Original Sucky Masterpiece:
People who wear towels to work need to have their heads checked.
BabelFrench:
Peuplez qui les serviettes d’usage pour travailler le besoin d’avoir leurs têtes ont vérifié.
AngloBabel:
Populate which them towels of use to work the need to have their heads checked.

Original Sucky Masterpiece:
Not even I am a big enough nerd to wear a towel to work.
BabelFrench:
Non égal je suis un assez grand ballot pour porter une serviette pour travailler.
AngloBabel:
Nonequal I am a rather large bundle to carry a towel to work.

Original Sucky Masterpiece:
Have a happy Memorial Day weekend my blogging friends. Be careful with those towels near the grill, because one hundred fifty thread count steak tastes like shit.
BabelFrench:
Ayez un week-end heureux de jour commémoratif mes amis blogging. Faites attention avec ces serviettes près du gril, parce que cent biftecks de compte de cinquante fils goûtent comme la merde.
AngloBabel:
Have one happy weekend of commemorative day my friends blogging. Pay attention with these towels close to the grill, because hundred beefsteaks of account of fifty wire taste like the shit.

That last translated translation sounds a lot like the crazy Lebanese guy who’s always cursing at me when I walk by his cardboard box home: “What it is arue you to doing! You to stealing from me the things! The F#%K to you, and the F#$K to your the mother too!”

OK, enough fun for one day. I’d better go exercise now, since BabelFish says that I am a rather large bundle with nonequal.

tags :: jokes : humor : Hitchhiker’s Guide : Towel Day : Babel Fish

Shont fires back with: “The pressure of success.”

Hardly.

The number of blog friends I have is still smaller than my shoe size. So Shont, I’m afraid you will have to continue visiting SuckyBlog to help keep the readership hovering above zero.

But it did get me thinking. Maybe I was fishing for a compliment! My insecure, competitive, Type-A, unconscious psyche getting the best of me again! Dammit!

So, time to put my bloated ego back in its place. (I suspect it usually resides in my ass, given the required cubic footage). To accomplish this, I have listed all the non calorie burning activities (for me, there is no other kind) that I would rather do than read SuckyBlog:

1. Watch movies.
2. Watch basketball.
3. Read news magazines.
4. Read books.
5. Read blogs written by other people. Except for mommy blogs. OK I admit it- I usually get bored with some of the mommy blogs out there, except for the funny or raunchy ones. Because mommies shouldn’t be raunchy. But apparently all the ones who are like to blog.
6. Read about strange things on Wikipedia, like the 7 forms of lightsaber combat.
7. Defrag my hard drive, and watch the progress status bar. This process takes 47 minutes and 13 seconds. The progress bar moves 1.24 millimeters per minute on my 17-inch screen. I know this because I measured it with digital calipers. More fun than reading SuckyBlog.
8. Read the back of my toothpaste label. “Squeeze and flatten on brush as you go up.” I’ve got this one burned into my cornea because I read it every single time I forget to bring a magazine to the can. And I hit the can at least twice a day. So that’s how you apply toothpaste. Good to know.
9. Read my mattress tag. “DO NOT REMOVE UNDER PENALTY OF LAW”. *rip*. Please don’t arrest me. The voices in my head told me to do it. This is the only way I can make them stop.
10. Pick my nose, and flatten the extracted manna-from-nostril between my thumb and index finger (the toothpaste instructions have trained me to flatten everything squishy). Then give myself a little Rorschach test by admiring my newly-formed Poodlebooger.

Wait a minute. I write SuckyBlog. I don’t read it also. That would be narcissistic, and I can’t afford for my ego (or my ass) to grow any bigger. So scratch everything I just said, go do a Rorschach boogerblot test, and tell me what you see.

tags :: jokes : humor : blogging : mattress tag : Rorschach : booger

Arpi and Azure were going on and on about the movie “Pretty Woman”: Ohhhhh it’s the best movie ever. Ohhhhh Richard Gere is so handsome in it. Ohhhhh Julia Roberts is so perky! Ohhhhhh it’s so cute how they fall in love. Ohhhhh I really identify with that movie. Ohhhhh where’s the boom box- let’s all sway to a New Kids on the Block song, because that “Pretty Woman” movie is so romantic.

Shont starts to shake his head in his characteristic quirky, opinionated manner, and blurts out: “OK, you guys. Let’s take a step back. Think about it. This movie is about a mean rich guy. Who falls in love with a hooker. Plain and simple.”

Shont is right. It’s a movie about a guy who falls in love with a hooker. Yet we all fondly remember it through nostalgia-tinted lenses as one of the best romantic comedies ever. The movie that made Julia Roberts the top actress in Hollywood.

Let’s consider another one. One of my personal favorites (“Pretty Woman” was not one of my personal favorites).

Once there was this director from Modesto, California. He had recently made a movie about teenagers in a small whitebread American town, cruising around on a weekend night. Starring Opie. Also in the cast were Shirley (Laverne’s best friend) and The Fugitive. (Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon in Reverse? Anyone?)

After the modest success of that movie, the director goes to the studio and tells them that, for his next movie, he wants to make a space opera. The studio execs show a puzzled look, and declare, “Why, that sounds intriguing, although we have no clue what a ‘space opera’ is, but we have to pretend we’re smart since we have corner offices. What is it about?”

“It’s an epic narrative set in outer space about a lost son who stumbles upon his destiny, a beautiful princess, and an old sage who guides them on their quest”, the filmmaker replies. “Oh! Why that sounds intriguing! As long as it comes within budget, of course,” say the execs.

In case you haven’t guessed by now, the director was George Lucas.

The movie, of course, was “Star Wars”.

Even without the benefit of hindsight, that one-sentence premise sounds great, doesn’t it? A classic myth with a science fiction backdrop. What’s not to like?

But just think about what happens next, after the money men begin digging into the script and the details. I can only imagine:

Encouraged by the positive initial reaction, the filmmaker continues: “Here’s my latest draft of the script. I’ll give you the highlights. It takes place in outer space. The main characters wear loose-fitting, flowing robes, as if a civilization with light-speed transport technology never bothered to invent a sewing machine. The princess wears a cinammon roll on each side of her head. She wanted to make a fashion statement but couldn’t find any white iPod earbuds. Everyone has a laser gun which shoots deadly energy-based projectiles thousands of feet, but the hero uses a laser sword, which shoots nothing and has a range of three feet. The hero and the princess are actually siblings by birth, but the pervey sage only reveals this to them after the princess slips her own brother the tongue.

“The villain wears a black samurai helmet on his head and has a 10-pound bionic lung strapped to his chest that looks like the Commodore 64′s great grandchild. He also dons a weird-looking mechanical facemask with big black Jackie O-style goggle lenses. When he talks, he sounds like a late-stage emphysema patient.

“There are two characters written in for comic relief. They are robots with human personalities. One is a neurotic, uptight nervous nelly. But male. The other robot is not in human form. He looks more like a white and blue suppository on wheels. He doesn’t speak English. He just utters a series of beeps and chirps, yet everyone in that universe can understand everything he says.

“One of the hero’s friends is a roguish character who is a space-faring pirate. He wears a white long-sleeved shirt underneath a black vest with a gun and holster strapped low on his thigh, as if he were the long lost seventh member of the Village People.

“And the space pirate’s sidekick is an 8-foot-tall dog that walks upright on two feet and shoots a laser crossbow. He wears no clothing, so the costumers will have to figure it out since I don’t want him hangin’ brain during a gunfight. Even though the walking dog speaks by uttering the exact same series of high-pitched grunts and growls, the space pirate can still carry on long, involved conversations with him. Because nnggghhhooooo nnggghhhooooo nngghoo ngghhooo means ‘Imperial Stormtroopers are on our ass’ as well as ‘I have shit on my fur’.”

Er, so far this thing sounds like the absurd result of a really bad LSD trip.

I once watched an interview with George Lucas. They asked him how he came up with the Chewbacca character. He said that he used to have a dog named Indiana (yes, he named Indiana Jones after his dog). Indiana (the dog, not Harrison Ford) used to sit upright in the front seat of his car while they drove around town, and Lucas thought it was funny that she sat there like a person, as if a dog were co-piloting the vehicle. So he worked it into the “Star Wars” script.

Thank goodness a movie studio gave Lucas the money to make Star Wars, preposterous as the premise and details may have sounded to many a movie exec.

If it hadn’t happened, I never would have known what a lightsaber is, let alone sign up for lightsaber fighting lessons. It’s important for a fully-grown man to know how to properly wield a functioning lightsaber. Otherwise he may accidentally slice his Star Wars action figure display case in half while pretending to be Darth Maul. In the privacy of his bedroom. Wearing nothing but tighty whiteys.

tags :: humor : Pretty Woman : Star Wars : George Lucas : Unexpected Success

After a bathroom trip at the Portland Airport, I now know the truth.

They are already here. Armageddon is nigh.

Step step step. Good, no janitor sign
Sink. Soap. Paper towels. Check
Open stall. Gross. Bastard didn’t flush. Next
Open stall. No TP. Crap. Next
Open stall. Clean seat. TP. Seat covers. Check
Sweet
Enter. Shut door. Lock
Take off jacket. Hang on hook
[CLICK!] ***FLUSH***. Crap!
Roll roll roll. Wipe wipe wipe seat.
[CLICK!] ***FLUSH***. Crap!
Roll roll roll. Slowly wipe wipe wipe seat
Hold breath. No flush. *sigh*
Place seat cover. Slowly
Hold breath. No flush. *sigh*
Turn around. drop trow
[CLICK!] ***FLUSH***. Crap!
Turn back around. Pull up tighty whiteys
Pants between ankles
Roll roll roll. Slowly wipe wipe wipe seat
Hold breath. No flush. *sigh*
Place seat cover. Slowly
Hold breath. No flush. *sigh*
Turnarounddroptrow! Fast!
Hold breath. No flush! *YES*
Lean in to sit
[CLICK!] ***FLUSH***
Seat cover swirls down. Mother f****r!!!
Turn back around. Pull up tighty whiteys
Pants between ankles
Roll roll roll. Slowly wipe wipe wipe seat
Hold breath. No flush. *sigh*
Place seat cover. Slowly
Hold breath. No flush. *sigh*
Turnarounddroptrow! Fast!
Hold breath. No flush! *YES*
Please please please no no no flush
SIT. slowly. carefully
No flush. *YES*
Poop
Roll roll roll
Wipe wipe
[CLICK!] ***FLUSH***
Shit. This sucks
Roll roll roll
Wipe
Stand up. Dress. Turn around
No flush
Wave hand over sensor
No flush
Cover sensor with palm. Uncover
No flush
*sigh*. Push button on Cylon head
Wait. Wait
[CLICK!] ***FLUSH***

Damn Cylon terrorists. So this is how you plan to drive the human race insane, to render us defenseless when you finally launch the nukes.

tags :: jokes : humor : toilet : flush : Cylon : Battlestar Galactica

tags :: jokes : humor : geek : nerd

1. you need to find a 2 word search that yields only one result from google
2. both words must be defined by the google dictionary. the little blue bar above the search results will show the search phrase- both words must be in blue and underlined (meaning there’s a link to the word’s definition). if it ain’t defined it don’t count, so “makhai khalem!!!” (for all of you who have seen father of the bride), even if it yields only one result, won’t count.
3. the single result cannot be a web page that is simply a word list (like those long list of obscure words that scrabble players use)

they have a validator on the googlewhack website, so when you get a google whack, you can go enter it on their site and if it passes all the rules you can leave a comment and your name to be immortalized in the goog annals (again get your mind out of the gutter).

the hard part is finding obscure defined words that are not listed in the various web pages that googlewhack.com recognizes as a wordlist. one way to find such words is to look at recent whacks. likely they’ll be made up of at least one such word.

so generally whacking the goog is hard (er, difficult). two and a half hours of nonstop whacking yielded “eponymous aquafarmer” and “fugliest charybdis”. i’m sure many of you who score higher than 650 on the verbal sat, or those of you who actually read more than us magazine will be able to whack the goog much more quickly.

whack away!

tags :: games : fun : vocabulary : humor : fun

tags :: rants : rambling : personality : anthropology