Today’s bit of absurdity came from someone I know who looked out a window on a particularly frigid winters day, saw joggers and remarked:
There are crazy people running – and they’re not even running for their lives.
Fun
Laugh Life Day 27
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There is a show on the food network called Diners Drive-ins and Dives hosted by Guy Fieri.
On the episode I watched last night he was at Cattleman’s Steakhouse in Oklahoma City, trying a dish that contained cow brains and decided to try the brains on their own. If you know Guy you know he can make a big production out of anything, and he was making a particularly big one out of this. I just figured chefs were fearless when it came to food and would eat anything, but it really seemed like he did not want to do this. The face he made when he finally did eat it was enough to make me laugh.
The kicker is: he immediately reached for something else to eat (I’m guessing to get rid of either the taste or texture in his mouth), and grabbed what looked to be a little bit of deep fried … chicken?
It wasn’t chicken. It was deep fried lamb’s testicles. The face he made next was priceless.
I am not making this up.
Proof that, in most cases, truth is funnier than fiction.
Categories: Fun, Laugh Life
Laugh Life Day 26
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I just love messed up signs or headlines and the like. I have two or three whole books of them. This one I found on line and burst out laughing.
The absurd is alive and well.
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Categories: Fun, Laugh Life
Laugh Life Day 25
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There is a wild bunny rabbit that comes into our yard at night to chew on grass and steal any bird food dropped from the bird feeder.
This winter he had come by particularly often. We know this even though we don’t always see him because he leaves tracks in the snow and also a (literal) crap load of droppings.
My wife commented on the amount of droppings we could see and asked why he had to go in our yard. I wasn’t particularly upset at all, saying: “He’s just fertilizing our lawn.” Then thinking about the state of our lawn I added, “we’ll have the best looking weeds in the neighborhood.”
There is always a bright side to the situation, and if there isn’t you can make one.
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Categories: Choice, Fun, Happiness & Laughter, Laugh Life
Laugh Life Day 24
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The saga with the mouse continues. Yesterday I found the mouse had cleaned out two traps with not so much as a twitch from the traps. I haven’t checked yet today, we’ll see if we’ve been outwitted yet again.
And I was doing one of my random searches for funny things yesterday when I came across this picture, and nearly wet myself laughing.
I’ve got a thing for Star Wars and the absurd so this was right up my alley.
Here’s hoping your day makes no sense either.
Categories: Fun, Laugh Life
Laugh Life Day 23
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Yesterday I mentioned we had a mouse in our kitchen. When I went down stairs after I had written that I found that the trap we had left out was licked clean of food and yet, hadn’t gone off.
Now I should mention (for all of the animal lovers out there) that I am extremely conflicted about the use of such devices. I do not want to kill this mouse and yet I cannot have him living in my kitchen either.
Anyway, I found it quite hilarious that a mouse could eat the peanut butter off of this thing without it going off, and yet it goes off twice while I’m trying to reset it.
It’s like some bad Disney movie (where apparently I’m playing the villain) and some tiny little creature is outwitting me.
Until tomorrow, remember that life really is crazy.
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Categories: Fun, Laugh Life
Laugh Life Day 19
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Here is the last of the segment on taking life seriously by laughing more and finding the humour in it: changing your attitude on laughter.
So maybe you’ve been seeking out the funny things in life, and changing your perspective on events to see them in a more humourous way, but the finally step is allowing yourself to loosen up and just be silly.
Changing you attitude on laughter is really a life shift where you say to yourself that it is OK to laugh much more often.
The reason why adults don’t laugh as much as children is that we have to deal with “serious” (important) things much more often, and society tends to frown on someone laughing during something “serious”.
I say screw society. Children are hushed up for giggling when some over-serious person does something that is actually really silly in an important situation. I say let yourself laugh.
Now I’m not suggesting you laugh AT people and I am certainly not suggesting that we should all start laughing at the next funeral we go to. There are times when a certain amount of gravity is OK. The problem I see is that many people go through life dealing with EVERY situation as if it were a funeral.
- If you are going in to the bank talk about your mortgage – laugh.
- If you are going to the doctor because you are sick – laugh.
- If you are at the office working – laugh (you probably need the release)
- If you are waiting in line for your coffee – laugh.
People around you might think you’re a little “off”, but that’s just because they haven’t changed their attitude on laughter yet. The more we all start to laugh, the more we will make it OK and free up others to laugh with us.
So laugh, even if for no reason.
In fact I’m not going to end with some silly quote or saying or joke. I’m just going to laugh.
Join me if you like. Laugh for no reason. If you can do that, you are on your way to a lighter, happier life.
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Categories: Choice, Feelings, Fun, Happiness & Laughter, Laugh Life
Laugh Life Day 17
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Here’s a shorter post, I’ll get back to the Perspective work and behaviour change tomorrow.
Last night I watched a Mythbusters (I don’t know how old it was) where they were testing the myth that a Turkish man names Lagari Hasan Celebi in 1633 launched himself in a rocket 1000 feet into the air, and survived.
The little voice over intro at the beginning of the episode asked the question: (I’m paraphrasing) “could a man launched 1000 feet into the air in a rocket survive?”
My wife’s response to this was: “No probably not, but shortly after this the first parachute was invented”.
We both had a bit of a laugh over this. Then we learned more about the myth where apparently the man did have some sort of “wing” he used to glide back down to earth. So maybe Lagari Hasan Celebi DID invent the first parachute.
It just goes to show, you never know when you might be right.
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Categories: Fun, Happiness & Laughter, Laugh Life
Laugh Life Day 14
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I am realizing as I go through this process (even if only for two weeks now) that consistently having laughter in your life, and improving your quality of life through this, is more involved that I had imagined.
As we grow into adults we have one message consistently and forcefully hammered into our psyche: life is serious.
The news media is always there to reinforce this, and show us all of the horrible events that apparently we have to know about. There is a reason I don’t watch the news (and am usually happier for it).
Here’s the thing, yes life is serious, but serious does not have to mean humourless. I take my humour very seriously.
Consider the following (abridged) definitions of serious from Dictionary.com
Serious:
- Characterized by deep thought
- Grave or somber
- Being in earnest, sincere
- Requiring thought, concentration or application
- Weighty or important
Here’s the problem, so many people out there get stuck on #2.
“Life is serious” becomes “life is grave and somber” and fun is not an options, it’s childish.
Yet if we look at all of the other definitions: Life requires deep thought OR Life is about being earnest and sincere OR Life is about applying yourself OR (my favourite) Life is important.
Life is important, it is after all the only one we get. It does require some application on our part, some thought, and some sincerity.
Studies have shown that people who are happier, in general, live longer, are healthier, and are more successful.
Which means taking life seriously MEANS finding the humour in it, laughing whenever you can. So I think in the next few posts I am going to cover some ways I am discovering to do this. Things like: seeking out the funny things, Changing your perspective on events, and finally changing your attitude on laughter.
And because this was another relatively serious post, here’s your funny thought for the day: Apparently there is a sign in the window of a Barcelona travel agency that boldly tells people: GO AWAY!
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Categories: Choice, Fun, Happiness & Laughter, Laugh Life, Perception, Personal Devleopment, Stress, The Power of Words
Laugh Life Day 12
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You really can find anything on the internet.
Yesterday I had a song going through my head. It was off of a record that my parents used to have. I knew the artist, but had no idea of the title.
So I went looking on line. After a few false starts (misspellings) I finally managed to get the artists’ name right (Ferrante and Teicher). Two pianists from the 60’s through to the 80’s who did some pretty funky stuff on the piano.
But still for the life of me I could not remember the name of the song. As it turns out this particular song was not one of their big well know hits because all of the songs I was finding on youtube were not it.
I went through seven pages of Google video search and still no luck. So I changed my tactic and stopped looking for the song and just kept looking deeper into Ferrante and Tiecher.
I eventually found a site where you could listen to clips of some of their songs. Well, actually the site took you to amazon.com where (I had no clue this existed) apparently you can listen to clips of song off of any album they have for sale.
I went through album after album and eventually found it. Then I went back to you tube, did a search for the exact title and guess what … there it was.
This clip is from a special the two did, and has a bit of meaningless chatter at the beginning, but that is certainly the song I remember.
Again this was just one of those things that made me laugh, because some completely obscure song from my childhood, is on-line for all to enjoy.
For those of you who are interested (I’m sure my musical tastes are not for all) here it is. The song is African Echoes.
Until tomorrow, remember, with a little persistence anything is possible.
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Categories: Awareness, Fun, Happiness & Laughter, Laugh Life, Persistence