Overheard at the Counter: Puns for the Literarti

Kid walks up to the counter and says, "I've got 26 puns in my head," and Verble says, "it this some sort of a joke?"

and the kid says, "No, I was just next door at SHR, listening to John Canada and Eric Johannson and these are all the ones I could remember! They call them . . .



Subject: puns for the educated mind...

1.The fattest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference.He acquired his size from too much pi.

2.I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned outto be an optical Aleutian .

3.She was only a whiskey maker, but he loved her still.

4.A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class, because itwas a weapon of math disruption.

5.No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery.

6.A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.

7.A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in LinoleumBlownapart.

8.Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.

9.A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are lookinginto it.

10.Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

11.Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

12.Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said tothe other: 'You stay here; I'll go on a head.'

13.I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.

14.A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: 'Keep off the Grass.'

15.The midget fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small mediumat large.

16.The soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now aseasoned veteran.

17.A backward poet writes inverse.

18.In a democracy it's your vote that counts. In feudalism it's yourcount that votes.

19.When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion.

20.If you jumped off the bridge in Paris, you'd be in Seine .

21.A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. Thestewardess looks at him and
says, 'I'm sorry, sir, only one carrionallowed per passenger.'

22.Two fish swim into a concrete wall. One turns to the other and says'Dam!'

23.Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in thecraft. Unsurprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can't haveyour kayak and heat it too.

24.Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says, 'I've lost my electron.' The othersays 'Are you sure?' The first replies, 'Yes, I'm positive.'

25.Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal?His goal: transcend dental medication.

26.There was the person who sent ten puns to friends, with the hope thatat least one of the puns would make them laugh. No pun in ten did.

Overheard at Table 4: Signs

I finally, after all these years, saw M Night Shyamalan's Signs. Remember when it first came out. Lots of people liked it. Not as much as they liked The Sixth Sense, but they liked it. Can't remember which movie came out first - Signs or The Sixth Sense. Think it was Signs, but I can't be sure.

It's good. Really good. In fact, it is when sci-fi is at its best. When it just lets the story unfold and doesn't try to spell everything out or try to explain itself away. It's just a story of this family at this particular time. It's kind of like Orson Wells's radio adaptation of H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds, in the way that the whole thing unfolds. I also got kind of a glimpse of Area 9, or whatever was the name of that movie with the alien ship in South Africa - Precinct 9, was it? But that movie was later, so it probably had a little bit of homage to this one.

It also reminded me of Lady in the Water, another of Shyamalan's movies, in the idea that everything happens for a reason, that everything happens for a purpose, there is a meaning in each thing that we do. That's also a Christian ethic. Taken by some to believe that we can't fight destiny, but that's an overreach and really misses the point. I think Shyamalan gets the point. We make our own destiny. We just have to see the signs. In our own lives. Take everything that we learn. Realize there's a point to what we do, what we train for, everything that happened to us in the past will help us at that one point when we need it most.

I don't know, but I think Shyamalan had John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany in mind when he was writing the script for this one. Not sure, but this movie was about a decade after the book. He could have read it. Don't know. It's not a plot inspiration, no, they're totally different stories. But the idea behind it. The idea of purpose. Of everything in your life being interconnected. That's definitely there.

Signs. Makes you think. Makes you stop and reconsider every detail of the movie. This guy is the only director I can think of out there today making movies like this. There were a lot in the past. We study them in school. If you take the classes. I think he'll be one in the future.

Ever see The Village? Still his best. People hated it. They wanted a horror movie. He gave 'em something totally different.

Wanna watch it sometimes? We need a Shyamalan movie marathon. That'd be cool.

Overheard at Table 3: NRA supporting Democrats

Billy: Didja hear the news that the NRA's supporting a whole bunch'a Dems this November?

Joe: Yeah, but then they came out and said that they usually support incumbents.

Jim: That and the spokesman said that they always weigh it carefully and if both candidates have the same stance on gun rights, then they go to the incumbent.

Bob: So you don't think it shows that they're playing some sort of game?

Billy: I think it shows that they're nobody bi-

Joe: -which makes me wish that other groups would be the same, you know, standing for what they stand for and not playing one side against the other.

Jim: Yeah, didn't these yay-hoos promise us two years ago that they would work TOGETHER? Man, all I ever hear is one side talking flak about the other and how they're never getting anything done.

Bob: And we're all caught in the middle.

Billy: Yeah, I feel like the American Public's the kids and the Dems and Republicans are the parent who hate each other.

Joe: And they're trying to make it work.

Jim: For the sake of the kids?

Bob: Well, that's what they say at least.

Billy: Nah, it's got to be something more twisted than that. The kids have been neglected for too long.

Joe: I got it.

Jim: What?

Bob: What do you got?

Billy: Yeah, tell us.

Joe: They aren't fighting for us kids . . . .


. . . they just each want the house. The house, the land, the property, the cars, the boat. All of it.



Jim: Any chance they'll settle out of court?


Bob: Don't think so - not with their eyes on THIS prize!

Overheard at Table One

Sam: the problem with all of us today is that we have grown indolent from the ceaseless bacchanalia of our own neophilia.

Lila: i'd twitter that but twitter's so boring.

At the Counter: Haiku of the Day

(from 364)

284.

Today is the day
That came before yesterday
After tomorrow.

Overheard at Table Two: Renaissance Festivals

One says "I love this time of year! Renaissance Festivals in the air! Lisa and I just got back from one yesterday, opening weekend, in Plantersville"



Another "How was it?"



One "It was pretty good - although I have to admit the one we went to last year in Muskogee was better"



Still another "How so?"



One "Well, even though the one in Muskogee was smaller, it stayed more on target, I guess you could say. Plantersville was a little all over the place, with this bleedthrough of Ancient Rome, blackwinged Incubi, Dickensien clad haunted house barkers . . . Muskogee was much more on target, and had much more cast wandering through the lanes and the byways. I remember last year I got to talk to 'King Henry' and the guy was spot-on in character - it was brilliant!"



Yet another "I dunno, I never much go for the Rennie Fests. They're never quite like I remember them good ole days!"



Yet another's significant other "Ay luv, these are much better than them days! At least now the dirt in the streets is just that! Dirt! In the old days all the streets were a runnin' stink of fiss and peecees!"

Overheard at the Counter

Niall Carter is complaining to Betty Seawall, "I just don't understand these Republicans running on this uber 'small government' ticket, I mean, it used to be understandable, because what they meant was 'lean' government, but now with all this teabagger crud, these guys are running on a stump of 'no government' or 'dismantle the government' - but they WANT to be IN the government! It's insane! Who would want to be part of something they want to destroy? It's like if I were to join a country club just so I could set the golf course on fire!"