Saturday, August 7, 2010

Underestimated Sources of Amusement

What do you find amusing?  Are there things that you routinely come across that always bring a smile or a laugh to you?  While some things almost always work, there's a few things that I probably take for granted, but still find amusing.  Here's a couple of sources of my amusement.


Stupid people in public.  Humans provide an endless source of amusement for me.  Sometimes they are frustrating, and I find that I have no desire to hang out with crowds of people.  There are, however, always enough folks around that do incredibly stupid things in public.  How about those people that will walk up to a strange dog and attempt to pet it?  Let's think about this one: Hmmmm. Large, potentially dangerous animal that I don't know...I wonder what will happen if I stick my hand in its face? 


Flashy junk on cars.  You've seen the car I'm talking about.  You know that 1983 clunker that parked next to you in the Wally World parking lot?  The one with a blue book value of about 200 bucks, but has 2,000 dollars in junk from J.C. Whitney bolted onto it?  Yep.  That's the one.  I love seeing the beat up old cars with the silly accessories from some mail order catalog hanging all over them.  Thinking about who drives these cars is sort of like trying to picture what the radio DJ looks like, based on the sound of their voice. 


Text Speak.  I know that some people are addicted to sending text messages from their mobile phones.  As this feature blossomed over the last few years, people began establishing shortcuts for many words (LOL, IDK, etc).  People still use these shortcuts, despite the advent of full QWERTY keyboard features for modern mobile devices, and commonly refer to this form of typing as text speak.  Some people will use this text speak stuff when typing at their home computer, or even at work.  Have you ever received an e-mail from someone that was full of the text speak stuff, and you knew that they sent it from their computer?  Have you caught yourself doing it?  How many kids today are growing up with this trend, and how many of them will be incapable of writing a clearly worded document? 


Clothing.  I don't even know where to begin on this one...Some of the garbage that is being sold as high fashion is amusing to me.  I saw a couple of shirts at the PX that looked like they were pulled from the bottom of a trash pile; they were pure junk, and looked like hell.  Perhaps they contained gold within the fabric, because the price was through the roof.  Some of the stuff I see people wearing causes me to giggle a little, and I have to watch them for a few minutes to determine whether or not they meant it as a joke.  I'm not just talking about kids; there's no shortage of adults wearing whatever some dim-witted celebrity tells them is cool.  Another thing about clothing that is amusing is that some styles today seem eerily familiar.  Some of the stuff that was popular in my childhood seems to be coming back around.  Does that mean that we got it right when I was a kid?  





Piercing.  This one is a huge source of amusement.  Have you seen some of the crap that people are now shoving through their ears, noses, lips, etc?  I wonder if they ever get that stuff caught on things.