An avian cocktail party

No tern left unstoned.

One comedian in the Galactic Empire to another

May the Farce be with you!

Oops!  That is not original with me.

After I posted this entry, I did a search for this phrase.  There are many references to this phrase, including play or musical.

Word play

I am taking a University for Seniors at UMD called “Words Just Want to Have Fun”.

The instructor passed out cards with a word or a phrase.  We were supposed to make a poem using that word.  Mine was “buffalo” and I thought of a haiku and a pair of rhymes.

Buffalo, the town,
Gets lots and lots of deep snow.
It’s the lake effect.

Where the buffalo roam
Is the subject of a poem.
But there are no buffalo on the range
And the bison are penned to cook on your range.

We were also supposed to work in pairs on a cryptogram.  It is from the Oct-Dec. SPELL/Binder.  No pair finished it in class.  I kept making copying errors, putting the letter of the clue in the grid rather than the letter in the clue.  I also had to look three clues, one online (author of “The Razor’s Edge”,  one in the dictionary that began with “syn”, and one in “Hamlet” about what the ghost had to say about Gertrude.

This last was misleading because the clue included “Hamlet’s ghost”, not the ghost in “Hamlet”.

Another time line

Tempus fugit!
Children fidget!
Adults fudge it!

You can write haiku

You can write haiku
Next come seven syllables
Then another five!

Haiku an art form
I cannot think how to do.
Once I start oh wow.

Haiku you can do.
Just forget correct grammar.
And write what you think.

In the dark of night
I wrote haiku left and right.
Gone with morning mist.

Many of these have been
In my notes for a long time
Now I share with you.

The order random
Just like my poor scatter brain.
If you chuckle, fine.

Impatient patient
Waiting, waiting, and waiting.
Doc will see you now!

The older I am
There is so much more to do,
Haiku forgotten.

It is a good thing
To think difficult deep thoughts,
Results could come soon.

Count so carefully,
Two of the haiku I wrote
Had more syllables.

Oh, I misled you!
The previous is about
Something I had fixed.

You don't like being
A bit silly now and then?
Stop reading right now.

Now it is bedtime,
But my brain is now working
Overtime darn it!

English is crazy
Sows got in a row over
How to sow in rows.

Poetry Sunday
Was attended by too few
I had no haiku.

If I cannot sleep
My brain generates haiku.
Must write or forget.

Silly doggerel
Is not what haiku should be.
But what do I know.

There is a new beer
Canoe give me Bent Paddle?
I'll take the hops, please!

To write a haiku
You have to add or subtract
A word on a line.

The fire is now lit
Back to bed I can now go
Up again too soon.

Some of the above
Were written as I got cold
In a small cabin.

Most haiku I write
Are little bits of humor.
Next is serious.

If you really want
To have a democracy
Remember to vote.

Let’s try politics,
Both funny and serious,
Comic and tragic.

Carter farmed peanuts,
Knew lots about submarines
Not much of Islam

Reagan complained that
Government was the problem.
How did ray-gun work?

Clinton promised a lot.
Congress helped and hindered him,
Then came Monica.

The muse has left me,
The line count could fill a page,
I’ll quit while ahead.

magree.blogspot.com
Is the place to find much
Witty and profound.

These also appear
in Duluth Reader 1/9
URL fits not!

http://duluthreader.com/articles/2014/01/09/2736_you_can_write_haiku

Did the flocks get the pox from the phlox?

This silly rhyme came to me as I put a flower stamp on an envelope.

Let's try a haiku for this:

Far too many flocks
Became really sick with pox
Passing over phlox.

Another witty ditty mined from my mind

Ginger the singer was singed by something rude and lewd zinged from the crowd.

Daffynition - Vertigo

After I retrieved the paper yesterday morning and shut the door, I bent over to push the rug up against the door for insulation.  As I straightened up I was a bit light-headed.  I told my wife that I had a bit of vertigo – the vertical goes!

Mike Peters' "Twelve Days of Christmas" puns for 2012

Mike Peters, creator of "Mother Goose and Grimm" is at again with his puns on "The Twelve Days of Christmas".  As I write this, he is on the Eighth day of Christmas.  If your newspaper doesn't carry "Mother Goose and Grimm", you can find his comics at his web site.

I was led to write this for a couple of reasons.

First, my blog entry "For word nerds only" from last December has been getting several hits a week and a common set of keywords used is "mother goose" "grimm" "twelve days" "Christmas".  This particular set puts this blog entry first of over 25,000!!!

Second, we stopped buying paper copies of the newspaper.  The online versions of the Duluth News Tribune and Star Tribune don't carry the same comics as the print edition, and even then, you have to click on the individual listing of a comic to see the current panel.  It's almost enough to get me back to the print edition.  Oh, yes, with the Star Tribune eEdition I can get a copy of the comic section.  It does take a bit more effort than scanning the paper copy, but I do have all the comics in one place.  Shall I call the Star Tribune eEdition my Christmas present to myself: two chortle doves?  Or "my blue glove waved to me"!

And another interesting tidbit!  When you pass the cursor over today's Google logo, it shows "200th Anniversary of Grimm's Fairy Tales".

Nickname for a star kicker

A star kicker in football or soccer might by called "Missile toe".

This phrase is not original with me, but I did think of it independently.  For more uses, search for "missile toe".  Don't forget the quotes.

An unfortunate pirate

A pirate was not a success because his cutlass cut less.

Cereals sponsor serials - a homonym homilie

The only cereal sponsoring a radio serial that I remember at the moment was Wheaties for "Jack Armstrong,  the All-American Boy" but I think there were a few other cereal sponsors  for radio serials.

This little play on my words popped into my conscious mind when I was thinking about the title of the Italian podcast, "Fuori Tempi", which means Outside Times, but I'm not sure what that means.  I'll probably find out when I get around to listening to it.  The title made me think of the phrase "fuori serie" that means a special car model that is not in a companies usual line.

For word nerds only

Mike Peters, creator of Mother Goose and Grimm, has a wonderful series of puns on "The Twelve Days of Christmas". If your paper doesn't carry his comic strip or if you missed some of the earlier strips, you can find them at http://www.grimmy.com/.

I also learned that he does two editorial cartoons a week for the Dayton Daily News. Unfortunately, you have to subscribe to the online edition to see any of the editorial pages of the DDN.

See also "Mike Peters' 'Twelve Days of Christmas' puns for 2012"

A bit of doggerel from this cuss

I was pouring water into the coffee maker trying to see the meniscus. The door bell rang; a cop came to frisk us and then whisk us off to jail because I had thrown a discus in the hibiscus.

A "homonym homily"

He growled as he bowled that he lost his soul when he stepped over the foul line.

For more of this word silliness, see Homonym Homilies.

Nerdy words that aren't dirty

I read in the news that Hugh and Stu fell in the stew. They turned red in hue.

See also "Wacky words" and "Homonym Homilies".

Ghoulish foolishness

The ghoul howled foul when he was told he had no soul.

See "Homonym Homilies" for more of this silliness or cleverness, depending on your mind set.

Wacky words

A cheese maker lost his way. He couldn't weigh his whey.

Don't shed a tear over the death of the bear. He took my Heath bar.

I had another set that I forgot but will probably remember at one in the morning. But I won't go into mourning with a curse that it could be worse.

For more of these words that often come from wise guys, see "Homonym Homilies".

I'm a baritone...

My tones are bare of any musical qualities.

This was triggered after choir practice when two musicians far, far better than I am (and calling me a musician is generous) were discussing forming a jazz group. One asked the other if he was a tenor. The second replied that he was more a baritone.

My playing with words works far better than my playing with notes.

Words from numbers

As I looked at a square in a SuDoKu puzzle, I said, "9 can't go here and 8 can't go here, so 6 must go here", I realized that SuDoKu is a game of can'ts.

For more fun with words, see my Homonym Homilies.