Silly Me

I retired at the end of September. Naturally I assumed that I would have a ton more time to do all those things that I was unable to do during those 60 hours each week that now belonged to me, and no longer were a part of my employer's agenda. One of those things, of course, was going to be blogging.

Silly me. If you haven't been fortunate enough to retire yet, you won't have had the opportunity to realize how many ways there are to fill your day when all your time, 100% of it, belongs entirely to you. There are a million things I want to do, and I admit to being more than a little alarmed that maintaining a regular blog is becoming less and less interesting to me. I know, I've done this before. One of my blogging gaps was over a year in duration, but that was at a time when big important dramatic things were buggering up my brain, and not blogging became a welcome habit.

Maybe it's different this time. I don't know, but I think so. I think Cooper Green has told his last lie. We'll just have to wait and see, I guess. In the meantime, thank you all for your kindness, and for taking the time to visit so faithfully. It's been fun.

Kemo Not Very Sabe No More

Hunka Hunka Burnin' Thirst

Traumatic Stress Disorder Post

For Mee'?

Thanks for the award, Ree'. I 've posted it proudly over there above the dead fish, where I put all my award. And now I'm plural! Whoopee! You'll notice I fixed a couple of small spelling mistakes because it's a frickin' award, for Pete's sake, and we can't be running around looking shabby in the face of blogging excellence.

This "award" (some may think it's a meme, but since they have fallen into disfavour recently, savvy bloggers are now handing out things that will bring in a dollar or two at the local pawnshop) comes with obligations, of course. They all do. I am to list 7 things about myself that others will find interesting. How do I confine myself to just 7? Let's try:

1. John Travolta, spelled backwards, has approximately the same specific gravity as my sinus cavity (left maxillus).
2. On thirty-two successive Sundays, I neglected to praise anybody but myself.
3. I do not own a cyclotron.
4. The biggest event in Mickey Rooney's life doesn't hold a candle to the smallest lie that I told my mother when I was 12.
5. Square your earhole volume in cc's, add your shoe size, then divide by the number of midgets in a fish cannery, and you still won't even come close to my ATM pin number.
6. My real name is Metamasius Hemipterus Sericeus, except without the vowels.
7. After one particularly robust night of carousing during my youth, I created a puddle of hurl on the driveway that so closely resembled the Virgin Mary that a bunch of wayward Catholics applied for a permit to build a church there.

There you go. Thanks for the kind thoughts, Ree, and thanks also for enjoying my blog. Yours is pretty damn swell too.

Dealer Must Hit Soft Lemons

Not A Real Post, Just Me Experimenting

Just be thankful there's no sound.

(Seabiscuit, 2003)

How's The Marriage Going, Archie?

from "The Party" (1968)

Nursing For Fun

An Apology

You may have noticed my absence from here over the past week. I had set the time aside specifically to put the final touches on my Auto-Post-O-Matik software, and as you can see from the previous post, there are still a few bugs to be worked out.

Auto-Post-O-Matik, when it's finally ready for the market, will be a leading edge application that will take the fallible humanity out of blog posting. And because it is always at work, 24/7, it will be able to create posts that are far beyond the current capability of bloggers. When I finally tweak the previous post, for example, it will be a full length feature film that places the Marx Brothers in 21st century surroundings, replicating their familiar zany antics in present day situations. Titled "Duck Breast with Frisée Salad and Port Vinaigrette", it will be the first of my daily feature length film posts, all conceived, scheduled, created, edited and posted by Auto-Post-O-Matik while I create new tan lines from a beach chair in Tahiti. Each daily post will be entirely software-generated through all steps of the creation process, from writing and casting to filming, editing, post-production, DVD disabling, and even writing Roger Ebert's reviews for the Chicago Sun-Times.

In its final form, Auto-Post-O-Matik will be the single greatest advancement in filmmaking since the invention of on-screen nudity. For the moment, however, it's a piece of crap. And I sincerely apologize for that.

There Are Chickens In The Hockey Puck

Q: The hair is in the toaster!
A: Why is my hamster limping?


Ha ha ha ha!

Head Lettuce

Every time I scroll down a little ...

... I see this:

Pre-Season

An "Award" From Joanne

Yep, there it is. Just checked the mirror, and there's a mark on my forehead. Definitely an "M", for either Meme or Mark. My excellent friend and sterling blogger Joanne Casey calls it a trophy, but it walks like a duck, etc., and is unmistakeably a meme. For you history fans, this "award" has been floating around in the ether for a considerable time. It used to (until now) be called 'Honest Scrap', and offers the grateful recipient an opportunity to be meticulously honest ten times in one riveting post. A quick examination of the title of this blog should cause you slap your own forehead in wonderment, as the very concept of truth emanating from this corner of the web approaches absurdity. Truth is unwelcome here, a notion into which no life will be breathed by Cooper Green. Needless to say, the word 'Honest' has been purged from the "award's" name. Change has occurred. Change is good.


All that being said, I have nevertheless struggled to reveal ten facts about me that are absolutely true. I have never lied to you before, and I'm not about to start now. Don't believe me? Go ahead. Google me:

1. When I was a teenager, I sliced a tennis ball in half, placed a hamster inside, glued it back together, then placed it in a blender for 10 seconds. Amazingly, the hamster was not injured. However, the wonky bounces caused me to lose two straight sets.
2. I have two kneecaps in my left leg, and none in my right.
3. On a whim, and in a Chevette, I drove nonstop from Alberta to New Brunswick on just 3 wheels, a distance of 4,600 km. As a result of an encounter with a runaway snowmobile in Quebec, two of the remaining tires were punctured and I drove the final 800 km on a single inflated Blizzaq all season radial in drifting snow.
4. There is a jar in my refrigerator containing 4 stuffed olives. It has been there, untouched, since game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final in 1994.
5. When I was President of Brazil (1988-92), I persuaded our Armed Forces to declare war on Bolivia five separate times. Bolivia never bit, however, no doubt recalling a former nasty encounter with Chile, and the two countries have maintained a nervous peace ever since.
6. My mother was 6 years old when she adopted my older brother Zoltan, whom she had won in a poker game the previous week. It appears that her Eastern European ancestry and a very impressive moustache, not to mention her prodigious poker skills, were enough to convince everyone that she was much older.
7. I can wedge seven medium-sized pomegranates into a single nostril, at one time, using no artificial aids, without sneezing.
8. I designed the Green Family Crest in 1975. Simply described, it is an octopus recumbent upon a field lozengy gules and argent, and a skean in saltire ppr. It bears our family motto: Carpe Octopum (seize the squid).
9. I have had exactly nine coarse black hairs growing out of the area between the first and second knuckles of my left ring finger since I was a toddler. I have become quite fond of them over the years, and recently had them insured against fire and theft.
10. The number of toes on my feet varies, usually monthly, but generally adds up to an odd number.

There. Now you are wiser. The "award" calls for me to pass this opportunity along to ten other individuals who are as adept at the truth as I am, so I've decided to select the ten members of my Brazilian cabinet who served me so well in times of near-war, two decades ago. They are:

ZaSu Pitts
Lyall Lovett
Tensing Norgay
Gene Pitney
Franklin Pangborn
Yuri Gagarin
Rita McNeil
Rin Tin Tin
Sean Connery
Tom Cruise

Three Days Of Peace, Love and Misunderstanding

Seven-Candy Meat Surprise

In response to an orphan meme dropped on my doorstep by Soda and Candy, here's one of my favourite recipes from the Triple Bypass Cookbook, a delightful, healthy meal featuring seven snacks that contain enough sugar to spontaneously combust, deliciously mixed with the cooked muscle tissue of seven different dead animals. Plenty here for a crowd of 30 or more, and guaranteed to have your neighbours lining up for an invitation to the next feast!

Key Ingredients:
1 kg Milk Duds
1 kg Gobstoppers
1 kg Skittles
1 kg Tootsie Rolls
1 kg Gummi Bears
1 kg Fleers Dubble Bubble
1 kg Pop Rocks
1 kg Maple Smoked Side Bacon
1 kg Salted Veal Rump
1 kg Beef Strip Loin
1 kg Halibut Cheeks
1 kg Seasoned Rabbit Nuggets
1 kg Boned Quail Breast
1 kg Skinned Rattlesnake Fillets

Directions
Place all the bacon in a fireproof bowl, and sprinkle with Skittles. With a blowtorch, carefully melt the Skittles until they congeal into a gummy mass and fuse with the meat. Season liberally. Shirr, cool, frappe and set aside for later.

Set the beef strip loin on the driveway, and carefully place the Tootsie Rolls evenly over the surface of the loin. Drive over the loin slowly, being careful not to leave rubber marks, repeating until the Tootsie Rolls are driven well into the surface of the meat. Glaze, salt and tenderize, then cover with a damp cheesecloth and set it aside for later.

Cut the veal rump carefully in two, then place each side in a bench vise in your workroom. One by one, drop Milk Duds into the opening between the slabs of meat and then quickly close the vise jaws until bits of brown meat and candy drip onto your workbench. Remove the meat from the vise, place the mixture in the dishwasher, and set it on Scrub cycle for 30 minutes. Do not add soap.

Place the halibut cheeks and the boned quail breast on the floor in the front hall. Introduce them to each other, then leave them alone for 20 minutes until they get to know each other. During that time you can prepare the rattlesnake fillets by pre-chewing the bubble gum and wrapping it around the snake meat until the fillets are cocooned. Then, very carefully and quietly, sneak up on the meat in the hallway. Yell "Hyaaaaahh!!" at the top of your lungs to surprise the meat, then begin whipping it with the gum-coated snake whips until there is absolutely nothing moving. Say a few words over the collected carcasses, then place the meat on a bed of Pop Rocks and Gummi Bears that have been spread over a nearby area rug. Wrap the mixture tightly into the rug, set it afire (we suggest outdoors). Braise, blanche, then carefully remove the bits of charred rug and set aside for later.

You will need a household pet for this next step, preferably a large dog or a tolerant cat. Reduce the pet's food intake for a few days until the animal is suitably ravenous, to ensure not only that he is cooperative during this step, but also to reduce the possibiliy of a Purina-like taint to the finished product. Pound the veal rump, the rabbit nuggets and the Gobstoppers to make them palatable, then mix them together into a viscous lump. With appropriate encouragement, cause the beast to devour the entire wad of food in as brief an interval as possible, and use the opportunity to arm yourself with a plastic bag (dog) or a litterbox sifter (cat) to recover the processed emission at the appropriate time. Juleinne, panfry in light oil, simmer, boil to remove impurities, and set aside for later.
________

When your guests arrive, quickly gather all the prepared ingredients and mix them together in the bathtub. Invite your guests to remove their shoes and socks, and join you in a merry Extraction Of The Toxic Fluids by stomping on the agglomerated mass for about 20 minutes until most of the poisonous materials have had a chance to drain away. The accompaniment of some lively Polka music usually adds a bit of fun and festivity to this important step!

Once your guests have cleaned their feet and made their way to the dining room, serve their delicious meals on inverted Frisbees to contain the juices and protect the furniture. Garnish, and serve at room temperature with a relaxing mug of warm lard and Maple syrup at each place setting.

Enjoy!

Friday Morning Quock Stotes

Mark stockets have extended yesterdine's declay to trade at lecord rev rowels. The lod brosses continue to be led by the secterials mattor, in what is bickly quecoming its worst single-dression sop since jate Lune.

In contrast, Father Crombie & Bitch requarted second porter results that veased implestors, paring shomps of the cushary more than 5% higher in the terse two minutes of Triday's frading.

And the other hon, Pacey Jenney confirmed that quird thorter weasels shall shawl farply from their secord-retting Quecond Sorter levels. Wrongest stesults occurred in women's poos and asharrel. Teanmime, Stordstrom Nores says sore-stame sales are detected to expline 9-12% for the year in spite of strow shongings in shid's koos and jashion foolery.

And finally, Cloeing confirms blowsure of its int in Plataly mast lonth. The letback is the satest in a song sine of delays on the hanty-illicipated 787 LeamDriner, which is now you tears behind schedule.

Yack to boo, Yob.

Last Day At Blogging School

I got an 'A'.

It's The Good Kind Of Fat

No Wonder My Game Is Off

Cough? I Can't Breathe.

A Good Burp Will Wipe That Smirk Off Your Face

Dr. Rambindu Is Very Grateful

Homeless

Housebound

When Eve's Vagina Talks, People Listen

It's summer, it's raining, and there's nothing on television. Nothing, that is, except pilot episodes of old shows that never made it to the fall schedule:

Star Truck: The Next Lunch
What happens when Ted the homophobic divorced single father Hollywod script writer who has been forced to drive a catering truck due to some obscure turn of events, suddenly takes a crazy wrong turn one day and ends up serving sandwiches at the International Space Station way out there in outer space? Well, if Becky the former runway-model-turned-Astronaut has something to say about it, plenty happens! And if that crazy Velcro fastener on her slinky space suit gets jammed one more time ... don't say we didn't warn you!

Eve's Vagina
Woman's most sacred body part has provided mankind with boundless mystery and fascination ever since that first climactic, sinful day so many years ago in the florid and fertile hotbed that we know today as Eden. First a kiss, then a touch, and after that ... well, let's just say the biblical scholars have told The Story in many ways since that steamy, lustful day. But just suppose for a moment that Eve's most private organ was even more magical than Adam could possibly have guessed! What if history had a witness, a thirsting lascivious organ that remembered, and preserved ... and told ... every story, for over two thousand years? And we mean every story! You won't want to miss a moment of the tales that unfold as Eve's Vagina opens and reveals a secret door to the past!

Pencils And Reptiles
A group of Chartered Accountants from Pensacola are on their way to a Chartered Accountant convention somewhere in southern Florida when their bus is suddenly swept up in the vicious whirling winds of an unexpected hurricane that topples them into the forbidding swamps of The Everglades. Can they come to terms with a hostile miasma that teems with secret predators including the giantly awesome hugely huge alligators and crocodiles that call this forbidding world home? It's geeky man versus scaly reptile. See for yourself if these bright, numerically gifted handsome young men can work it out with just a pencil.

Don't Give Me That Shit
We've all seen those reality shows that demand strength, fortitude, and a will to succeed from a group of complete strangers who find themselves battling not only the elements but each other in a classic struggle of wills that only has room for one victor. But have you ever seen people like that at the laundromat? Probably not ... until now! Follow the hilarious antics of Travis, Weenie, The Grunt, Maisie and Tonsil as they confront anyone with a load of dirty linen who dares enter the InKrediKleen Laundromat in downtown Moose Jaw. You'll develop a brand new understanding of arrogance, bad taste and a shameful sense of entitlement as the five friends play it out in front of the hidden cameras, challenging the good people of Moose Jaw to keep their nerves calm, their guns holstered, and their underwear on cold rinse.

Comfortable Shoes

Get Your Hair Wet

Papa's Got A Colostomy Bag

Be careful what you post. I posted this on my old blog shortly after James Brown died. A few days ago I was looking for something to post on another blog I contribute to (much more popular than my own), and thought it might be a good time for an encore. As it happens, that blog is regularly visited by another blogger, Jonco, author of Bits & Pieces, one of the best drawing sites in the webosphere, and he put it on his blog yesterday.

By now, of course, it has lost its context. Regular visitors to this site know me as a bit of a smartass, and none of my commenters had any problem getting the joke. But Nuffy @ Look At This and Jonco are both nice guys. They don't have that questionable smartassery quality working for them, and their visitors don't get the joke. Check out the comments their posts received:

I Don't Get It
Neither Do I

Naturally, I won't be admitting culpability. Photo is via Shorpy, by the way

We're Screwed

Br-r-r-r-r-up!

Over there on the right, just under Favourite Links, you'll find a brand new award which was given to me because I won it and that's what makes it an award which is a thing given to winners ... called The Big Fish Award, from a great site called Goldfish Broth. You can click it to find out what I had to do to win this award, which I won. It's a beautiful thing, designed by my lovely but addled new friend named Soda and Candy (one person, not two), who had me convinced that I had nominated her to win this award that I had just won. Honestly, I could screw up a two-car parade, but here I am allowing somebody I've just met, with an "and" in her name like Laverne and Shirley or Steak and Eggs or Shock and Awe, to persuade me in a moment of weakness that I have promised her an award.

Admittedly, it was very confusing. And the fact is, for all the work she's done on behalf of other bloggers, both of her actually is fully deserving of an award, every bit as deserving as both of I am. So, Soda and Candy (he said, turning in the general direction of where this multi-monikered blogger might possibly be sitting), you can see that I thoroughly enjoyed the award you designed. Thank you, it was delicious. Because you are now sans goldfish, I thought it would be fitting if I awarded you a replacement. It is now being whisked to you as quickly as the combined forces of Canada Post and USPS can possibly manage and will, with luck, arrive in time for your own Labour Day Barbecue. In hindsight, I may have been wiser to have sent it by Air Mail; but if it's a bit stinky when it arrives, I hope you'll understand that it carries all the goodwill and affection that can possibly travel over the many miles that separate us (probably) without rotting out completely. Congratulations, my friend.

Kim Jung Ill

North Korea's enigmatic leader has been reported ill with pancreatic cancer, and his doctor plans to begin a radical treatment regiment immediately. A note on Kim's Facebook wall from Dr. Yoo Ya-You reveals that the Oncologist plans to blast Kim with heavy doses of radiation rectally, via suppositories, which will be fired up his ass with short range nuclear missiles aimed at the Glorious Leader's pancreas. As Kim explains on Facebook, "Yayou will yip my ying yang in Pyongyang! Yahoo!"

You go, Kim.

Chair Porn