Monday, July 19, 2010

On Quotations

Still waiting on the other accounts of the Run Gabriel Saga. . . soooo here are some quotes from quotationspage.com I found fun.

"Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance." -- Will Durant

(Someone has been reading some Plato! Mr. Durant is one of my favorite authors. I'm unsure what book this quote comes from. Normally he writes ancient history. I recommend "The Story of Philosophy" to anyone who (like me) has an amateur interest in philosophy). (was that an aside within and aside? (I think it was)).

"The Multitude of Books is making us ignorant." -- Voltaire
(What would you think of Google, sir.)

"The love of truth lies at the root of much humor." -- Robertson Davies

(I unfortunately have to admit ignorance as to who Mr. Davies is. That’s ok. The quote isn't that deep. See "It's funny cause its true." I suppose the link between humor an cynicism has its place somewhere in this thought.)

Feel free to post a favorite quote of your own below and why you like it. OOOORRR If you’re feeling mean you can post your least favorite quote you've seen on someone’s facebook page. (no need to share who your making fun of, unless your wish to publicly declare war on them, although that might be more fun.)

Like Matt Patton could say, "my least favorite quote is on Kyle Myers' (a friend of mine) Wall. It says, 'If you can laugh at yourself loud and hard every time you fall, people will think you're drunk.' - Conan O'brien. I don't like it because Kyle's an alcoholic."

Wow, seriously Matt. That was really judgmental of you. Why don't you get off you high horse and go help inner city kids at some kind of camp like thing. Jerk.

I recently took a Kant quote off my facebook page because it was there out of pure pretention. (Is pretention a word? Yes it seems so, it is the act of being pretentious. (see how unpretentious it was of me to ask whether pretention was a proper form of pretentious? This post has layers.) Here's another quote for you. "Verbing weirds language." -- Calvin and Hobbes)

And here's a link!: KANSAS LAWYER

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Finals Totally Eclipses My Heart...

This video simultaneously freaks me out and makes me laugh.



Yeah. That just happened.

TOPEKA AUTO ACCIDENT ATTORNEY

Thursday, April 22, 2010

No new posts for a while

I probably won't post anything more until after finals. So coming soon: awesome report on why finals are bad for the human soul.

TOPEKA AUTO ACCIDENT ATTORNEY

Monday, April 5, 2010

Matthew's Account

Don ‘t Drink and Drive or You Might End up in Mike’s Blog

While driving back from a wonderful evening at odooley’s pub, me bobbing my head to Rufus Wainwrite in a very masculine manner, Greyson and I came across a concerning sight at 21st and Wanamaker. The SUV of our friend James Porter had been rear ended by an old sedan with sharp, boxy edges. Immediately the driver of the sedan opened his door and literally fell out of his driver’s seat onto his face on the concrete. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen such a dramatic gesture of drunkenness. Kyle (the backseat passanger of the assailed vehicle) in his desire to see state law satisfied and this vagrant come to justice dialed the authorities with slightly impaired motor function. Upon becoming aware of the imminent arrival of the authorities, the drunken man crawled back into his driver’s seat. He was going to try to drive off. I really wish that this post could capture the sound of this poor man’s attempt at speech. Sadly you’ll just have to make due with, “oooov, uhhhh neeeee to go hoooo.” Kyle with great authority stood in the path of the driver with his hand outstretched.

Within minutes the police arrived. “What happened here?” The Officer asked.
“Well officer, let me explain.” replied Kyle. “My friend J. P., while we were driving back from odooley’s ,got rear ended by this drunk guy…I’ll be honest with you officer I’m a little drunk…I’ve had 4...or maybe 6 drinks. One of them was a Belfast which admittedly hits me a little hard, but I wasn’t driving. As I said my friend was driving…” (before Kyle could offer up any more impertinent and incriminating information he was interrupted.

“So you weren’t involved in the accident?” said the officer. “No.”Kyle replied. The police officer walked past Kyle to get the account from the drivers.
After this amusing display, I looked over to see Gabe(the passenger of J.P.’s SUV)bouncing and crossing his legs intermittently. “Guys, I’ve really got to pee.”Gabe said.

“Well go on the Hardies building.” Replied Kyle.

“I don’t want to go with the cop standing right there.”

“He’s busy, he’ll never notice.”

“Fine.”
While Gabe was going over to the hardies building at a very brisk pace, Kyle yelled out. “RUN GABE.” The police officer swung his maglight over to where Gabe was standing in the middle of the street with his legs Crossed.

“Hey, where are you going” the officer yelled.

“I’ve really got to Pee!” replied Gabe.

After much deliberation the police officer said. “Fine, hurry back.”
This scene finally ended with the drunken man getting in the backseat of the police cruiser in handcuffs. That image alone will be reason enough for me never to try to drink and drive.

Note from Mike: Thanks for the post Matt, Apparently the plan is to author 4 different accounts of this story from the other participants. Consider them the “4 Gospels of the Run Gabriel Saga.” Blasphemy you ask? Not at all. It’s an apologetic. To demonstrate how 4 tales of the same events can bring out different details. None are wrong, they just differ from perspective.

TOPEKA PERSONAL INJURY LAWYER

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Upon The Realization that I have no Creativity

I often have trouble keeping my blog updated. My goal is to post about once a week. However, I realize that 100% of my posts involve a funny thing that happened to me or a funny observation. I’m not sure that things worthy of note or comment actually happen to me this often. My days are pretty boring. I go to class. I go to work. I’m not really allowed to discuss work and no one wants to hear about class. (Although I bet I could write a funny blog about my US tax class that is taught by an obnoxious Canadian. Such Irony tickles me to my core.)
So what is a person to do? What I don’t want is the blog to read like a personal diary. Filled with introspection and selfishness (continuing with the theme of irony.) I am afraid it teeters towards diary. I could write about things with no point, a series of observations. I try for my stories to be self contained. Quick conflict with a punchline. Old lady calls me gay. Funny attempt to get a car out of a ditch. Plus my mind wanders so if I don’t have a point I start talking about random stuff. (like how when men are gearing up for a fight they act very strangely. Rather ape like. It seems like they bounce around a bit. Test the waters by invading the opponent’s body space. Increase profanity. Attempt to form intimidating insults without their voice cracking. Poo flinging would not be all that out of place. But I digress.)
I thought I would remedy this by writing a pure fiction. Come up with a character and situation and tell a story. This resulted in total, utter failure. (I will not bore you with the result unless one night I foolishly mix drinking and computer use. This has in the past resulted in writing random messages on Luke Aadalens facebook wall. I know very strange person to drunk-facebook but I made my choice.)
I have also thought about writing short poems. But despite my last blog post I’m not sure my masculinity can afford this blow.
After much thought-pondering (self-reference high five. (Scrubs reference during self reference high five, high five)) at last the remedy has revealed itself. I have some very funny friends. Some of whom may become funny professionally. (funny just like normal. Just more professional.) I think some of you, my funny friends read this. (Mark I’m calling you out and testing you: Text me when you read this.) In the last year all of you have probably had very funny things happen to you. E-mail them to me at michaelp35@gmail.com. I’ll read edit, post and comment. We all can enjoy. Thank you for your time.

TOPEKA ATTORNEY

Saturday, March 20, 2010

On Little Old German Ladies

On Friday I went to the local store to buy some firewood since it was suppose to snow (Wasn't Saturday the first day of spring? Weather=fail). While I was at the store I picked up a rose fo' my lady. When reaching the check out line a little old German woman who had a full cart insisted in a thick accent that I go in front of her since I only had a rose and some wood (heh, immature joke).

I replied, "are you sure?"

She said, "of course"

Me: "Thanks"

German lady: "My pleasure, and the young lady who is receiving that rose is very lucky." She then paused thoughtfully and added, "or young man."

huh.

I replied, "uh thanks... its for my wife. A lady wife...thanks..."

My first thought was, what a remarkably tolerant old German lady. My second, more sobering thought was, I must be giving off a really different vibe than I thought.

Later I was pondering my second thought. (can you ponder a thought? Ugh, redundant. If I wasn't so shocked by an old German lady insinuating I might be gay, I wouldn't be so sloppy.)I think of myself as a kind of masculine guy. I'm 6'5" 245. I like beer. And and... Sports. But if I'm honest I'm not always into the most masculine things anymore. I dig Rufus Wainright, musical theater and I laughed at my wife when she suggested I chop my own wood. (heh). I feel dual pressures. I don't want to be a slob but it's my worst fear to be considered metro...

Ultimately, I think the problem is that there is so little in society that allows men to be men in a positive way. We are either bumbling idiots or effeminate. Well, I refuse to be labeled. I choose be balanced. Intelligent, masculine and Pensive. I can make the immature "wood" jokes, read philosophy, drink a beer, watch a UFC fight and chill out to "cigarettes and chocolate milk" (a rufus song...) I choose to be the Dos Equis Man. End of Blog. (You may chant something masculine if you like. Even the ladies. Especially the tolerant German ones.)

TOPEKA ATTORNEY

Monday, March 8, 2010

On the Sum of Human knowledge

We live in an age of instant access to infinite amounts of knowledge. There is little you can't learn without two quick seconds on google. Bar debates over beers are now quickly settled by the iphone mediator. So I was wondering how we as humans use this instant resolution of quandaries both great and small. Well, I'm sure more scientific studies have been done but I noticed that google likes to finish my sentences with what I assume are popular searches. These often puzzle me or make me laugh. I will share some of these with you. I will note if you wish to conduct a similar experiment hit the clear button at the bottom of the drop-down list otherwise you will only be engaging in introspection (although not a totally unworthy goal)

These are the first suggestions google has for certain queries:

If you type in "how to r" google finishes your thought with "how to roll a joint"

"How to t" google finishes with "how to tie a tie"

"how to y" google finishes with "how to yodel"

"How to u" = "how to unlock an iphone"

So far the google profile we have created is an inexperienced joint smokin, tie tying, yodeler who likes to hack iphones. (This is a man I want to meet)

This is it folks. We have infinite access to knowledge and we want to conduct illegal activity, look nice at work and yodel. The yodeling I get. . .

You guys should create your own funny google profiles of the American knowledge seeker and post it in the comments section! We could have all kinds of fun. Nothing too inappropriate please :)

TOPEKA ATTORNEY

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Lizzy Patton and the half froze grass (or Lizzy Patton and the prisoner of F-150skaban)

Saturday was going to be a rather lazy day. It was supposed to snow/ice so I wasnt planning on going anywhere. Liz was working in Wichita, so Joey (who just got a promotion) was going to come over and we were going to play some Wii and generally chill out. About an hour into our Wii extravaganza. My wife called and said she had been in an accident, that she was fine and then hung up on me... Ok. Well I'm glad she's ok but the use of hanging up as a use of tension was not necessary. I felt sufficiently tense. After calling back she said, "I'm getting into a Red F-150 here's the license plate number." She then told me the number using the phenetic alphabet for the letters. "TENGO TENGO BRAVO 956!" (yeah I married an army brat)I was confused. I replied,

"what?"


Liz:"TTB TTB!Quickly! TENGO TENGO BRAVO 956!!!"

Me: "uh, ok. got it. I think. . . Why am I writing this down again?"

Liz: "Just in case they take me. You can find me."

Me: "huh. good thinkin. Do they look like they are going to take you?"

"gotta go"

click.

(sigh)"My wife's been taken."

About 5 minutes later she called back and told me the car (which happened to be my car) wasn't starting and she would need me to come pick her up. I was pretty confused/freaked out so I was already half way out the door ready to track down a red f-150 who was selling my wife into the slave trade. She also told me she was about 30 miles south of Topeka (an important detail) and asked me for the AAA info. After driving too fast in the poor weather and turning around in one of those breaks in the median that your not supposed to turn around on, I arrived at the scene of the accident. Liz got out of the F-150, thanked her captors and stepped into our Taurus. (Very kind of the slave traders to let her go. Also the nicest looking slave trader ever. Looked like a grandma.) I made the trek through the thick mixture of grass mud and ice to my car which she had wrecked.

The 2002 Nissan Altima vaguely reminded me of the car Harry and Ron had lost to the forbiden forest in the 2nd Harry Potter book. Half frozen grass and mud was hanging all around the bottom of the vehicle. The front grill was stuffed with mudd and the entire left side of the car was spattered as well. The tail pipe was roughly gagged with the muddy mixture (which was the reason for vehicle not starting).

A police officer arrived on the scene to help. He asked whether I had been following her I said no, I had just arrived. He asked me how I got there so fast. I thought the better question was what took him so long. (possibly in cahoots with the red f-150 slave traders). After we cleared the tail pipe of the icy mixture the car started relatively easily. After rocking the car back and fourth we managed to get the car dislodged from its position of post-mobility. (during which the police officer kept reaching his arm in my car in order to turn the stearing wheel while I was driving. I appriciated his help, however, I felt that this was a good way for him to become one with the mud.)

After we got the car "unstuck" we stood basically on a hill with the trench in between me and getting the car back on the highway. I became very aware of how sharp the drop off is from the shoulder to the grass. The police officer gave me instructions:

"Now what your gonna wanna do is go forward on this hill and gain some speed so you dont get stuck in the trench then, when your past the trench, drive parallel to the shoulder for a ways and try to get up to 35 mph. Otherwise you won't be able to pop back onto the highway. But make sure you dont take to long because theres that bridge up there and I don't wanna half to fish you outa that creak."

Huh. Fair Point. Ok. I gave it a go. Made it past the trench ok but ran into a problem on the stretch for which to gain speed for the "pop" back onto the highway. The car couldn't get past about 25 miles per hour in the muddy-ice-grass. But the bridge was coming on fast so I went for it. I made it over! But not without severly scraping the undercarriage of my car. (sigh) oh well it had grass hanging down from it anyway. I followed Elizabeth back to Topeka. She drove about 50 miles an hour. Understandable. We made it as far as my parents house and we parked my car there. A day later we returned to the car. On the bright side it started. On the down side we can't shift it out of park. (sigh)

TOPEKA ATTORNEY