'Goaltender’ is just ‘rent old age’ with the letters rearranged…

   My host Mr. Cousins may not be able to spot the chance of a lifetime, but I certainly can. I’ve had to step over his goalie pads often enough to recognize his dedication to that particular blend of acrobatics and masochism known as ‘playing nets’, so when I see this, this and this on the World Wide Web, I feel I must speak up on his behalf. Being of a retiring nature (he’s been practicing to be retired for a quarter of a century now, but has yet to find anyone who will give him a pension in return for all those years of service), my good host would never put himself forth for such an opportunity for fame and fractures in the name of upholding the honour of a top-caliber professional hockey franchise. Allow me, then, to adopt the guise (and with any luck, the commission) of his agent pro tem, and enumerate his qualifications as an emergency backup goalie for any team that may find itself in dire straits in future:

-As well as being roughly the same age as this fellow, he has the same devil-may-care, happy-go-lucky attitude towards contusions, charley horses, knee sprains, groin pulls, separated shoulders, and concussions.

In addition, not only is he every bit the equal of our friend pictured above in terms of lateral motion, he has an extra degree of mobility, in the form of an uncanny knack for falling over on demand (and given time, even getting back up again).

-The mental aspect of his game is also beyond reproach. As well as having long since mastered the full vocabulary of epithets and obscenities required for every eventuality a goalie may encounter, he also has the streak of fatalism necessary to survive the existential rigours of his thankless task. He’s so fatalistic, in fact, that the first time he saw The Seventh Seal, he thought it was a comedy.

-If all you need is a backup goalie, he’s spent his entire hockey ‘career’ being just that. Not only have years of practice finely honed his ability to sit motionless on the end of a bench for long stretches of time, but he keeps this skill at razor-sharpness by training several hours every day on the sofa at home.

   So, should any major league, minor league, or college hockey team (he still has full eligibility, assuming intramural games back in the Twentieth Century don’t count) require the services of an extra target who can be pressed into service to fill a roster spot in a pinch, contact me and we’ll arrange terms. In the meantime, he’s always welcome to work out with the Funsville Funsters, semi-pro though they may be.

Uncle Fun

P.S. Thanks but no thanks, Unk. The Funsters’ idea of ‘semi-pro’ involves me paying them…and by certified cheque.



Dot...dot...dot...not...not...not...

Reasons you don't want to get the flu that's going around my neck of the woods: it fogs up your mind and makes you think things like this...what if things were just a little different in the comedy of humours/casebook of obsessive-compulsive behaviour known as Harvey Comics?

Say, for example, Little Dot had been fixated, not on dots...

...but on plaid?

Or, heaven forbid, paisley?

Drawing Little Dot may not have been the most rewarding occupation, but those other possibilities would have been good for a staffroom full of nervous breakdowns at Harvey. I don't even want to think about the repercussions if they'd let her follow fashion trends in the 60's and got her hung up on tie-dying.

The prospect of her and Little Lotta becoming Deadhead groupie-chicks has me tripped out, man...I need another Sudafed.



What’s a Greek urn? The EU’s still trying to figure that one out…

Aristotle would have analyzed the debt and broken it down into its constituent parts, but would have done nothing else about it.

Plato would have said that the actual debt represented an imperfect imitation of the ideal of the concept of debt, and would have offered to pay back two cents on the dollar.

Socrates would have asked the European Union to define the term ‘debt’, thereby buying a little time before Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy passed him the hemlock.

Alexander the Great would have tied Merkel and Sarkozy into a Gordian knot, and cut them into little pieces.

Zorba would have just danced.