The Michael A. Naso Institute of Comedy

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

The one that isn't trolling.  Er...

The one with posts made by humans and not a spambot.  Uh...

The one that isn't closeted gay Democratic hackery.  Umm...

The one with the personality. Eh, fck it... I need awhile to figure out the difference between the two candidates.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Well I had a conversation with an old Vietnam protest song the other day and it wouldn't stop chanting about how Obama is a Communist.  Funny how pieces of music change, isn't it?

(I hear Okie From Muskogee voted for Nader!)

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

The new version of the "barefoot hippie clergyman with acoustic guitar playing Dylan-inspired sing-along hymns" church of yesteryear.  Why do people insist on merging in their religion and their hobbies into one thing?  This reminds me of the thread on furry Christianity from about a year back from SA.  People were (rightly) wondering what these people's obsession with anthropomorphic animals had to do with God.



Featuring:

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[Snowstalker Mk. II]

I laughed when I saw it, only to give a serious answer instead of a heaping scoop of snark.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Not to self-promote, but I'd like to see if this brief feud qualifies.

Yeah, destroying millions of people and other living creatures in a massive flash flood

never said wrath wasnt part of God's character...just simply said God is the source of humor, which is why the humor within the bible comes from God, not Satan.

----

then effectively forcing Noah to screw his relatives in order to repopulate the Earth is just hilarious.

i think you misread something there

There were about 8 people and 2 of each animal species. Not inbreeding is mathematically impossible, and especially low populations would have massive birth defects and infant mortality rates.

Oh yeah, and it was kind of a joke. Almost as funny as the one where God told Abraham to kill his son, then just said that he was trolling him to see how faithful he was.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

When it comes to the Republican nomination, Christie seems to be the elephant in the room.
He has gravitas, his entrance will make a big splash and will possibly squeeze out some other candidates.

All things said, he sure has a hefty resume and it's pretty obvious why many Republicans see him as the 800-pound gorilla of the presidential field..

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

The MAN is back. So much good is going to come from everything in this thread.

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=139760.0

He has to be messing with us at this point.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

My next brush with an educator with whom I ended up losing respect was in 3rd grade, in late 1997. She was married with children, in her late 20s/early 30s, and was trying to help me understand a math problem. I am not good in mathematics by any means, in fact, it is my worse subject. I couldn't grasp the math problem, and she responded by saying, "Ughh...you make me wanna pull my hair out!" I was shocked by this. A teacher saying something like that to a 9 year old kid trying to understand a math problem? It gave me the impression that "educators" might not be all they're cracked up to be.

By 1998, I had other priorities that didn't match well with kids my age, but nonetheless had friends in school and a couple that I hung out with outside of school. By 1999 my modern interests in weather and politics had grown on me and I was beginning to follow more current events day by day. I became a class clown, and one day my "art" teacher didn't take kindly to that and had the principal escort me to the office. As the principal came to get me, he had a "tough" look on his face, but for this liberal puppy dog, it was about as scary as making a funny face at the camera. Nonetheless, I complied. We walked down the hallways to the office and were in lock-step, walking almost in cadence right next to each other. He said, "Please don't walk behind me." I had noticed the perfect in step cadence we had, and at the age of 11 said calmly, "Oh, I wasn't walking behind you." He looked at me and said, "I can't believe you just said that! That's the rudest thing I ever heard! What you should have said was, YES SIR, I APOLOGIZE FOR WALKING BEHIND YOU!" My days of tears and crying due to yelling were over, and I now felt rage and anger. Once in the office the "counselor" came in, and he told her what happened. He said, "I asked politely not to walk behind me, and he said, "I'm not walkin' behind YOU!" He completely and blatantly lied and made it sound as if I had screamed at him. I scowled and blasted off, "Mr. (PRINCIPAL), you KNOW that's a lie!!" He seemed stunned. After all, I was 11 years old! I had enough and told him to quit telling lies and exaggerations and making things seem worse than they are.

The next day in School, I was sent from class right to the principal's office. He told me that for precautionary reasons, he had to check my book-bag for weapons!!! I was stunned! Why would I ever break the law or threaten people? What had I ever done? So he put his hand in my book-bag and patted it down. It's probably the most action he has seen before or since. Of course, this was likely fueled by the fact that my father was a Police Officer and Columbine had just occurred. Nevertheless, I was insulted and enraged that a merit roll student who happened to be a class clown would be treated this way while the kids who skip school don't get so much as a slap on the wrist. This further intensified my dislike for our education system.

As this was occurring, the 2000 election was going on and clearly my teachers were supporting Al Gore, some of them vocally, others you just knew. This was in contrast to my one teacher who, despite being liberal, was adamantly pro-life and told me she voted for George Bush. By now, the issues made sense. Bush's "I want to let people keep the money they earn" made more sense than speaking of "brackets" and "lock-boxes". At least it did to me.

My teachers had an interesting view of me. On the one had, they always told me they thought I was more mature than people my age and very intelligent, but on the other hand I confronted their teaching tactics often while using political justification and that was not something they were used to, especially not from an 11 or 12 year old kid. Another incident happened in early 2001 when my friend and I were messing around by our lockers one Friday afternoon. The teacher saw this and thought we were really fighting. We tried to explain but weren't given a chance. We ended up in the office and the vice principal made us shake hands. We were trying to hold back our laughter. We were friends, not enemies...but the teachers thought we should use diplomacy to "ease the tensions". Their notion that there were no "bad boys" got under my skin.



Indeed, by Freshman year of High School in 2004, there were bullies who picked on me. Despite repeated attempts to go all the way to the principal's office, nothing was ever done. I was even told once that I was the one they were tired of due to my constant inquiries into trying to make the bullying stop.  One time a teacher tried to sound tough. "Okay Mike...I've had enough of these assholes!" His idea was for me to wear a wire connected to a tape recorder to try and "catch the bullying in the act". My father came in and scalded the teacher for such a stupid idea. When I was confronted with violence, I responded, and I got in trouble as well. Indeed, this solidified the idea that there wasn't good and bad or right and wrong but no matter who started it, it was both our faults. I was dumbfounded as to why this was. Were "educators" cowards? Or did they sympathize but were afraid to take action due to the fears of legality? Indeed, I felt as though I was in George Orwell's 1984 every time I walked into school. Cameras everywhere, locked doors, security guards whom I could probably even take, it seemed almost surreal. What happened to the good old days? Schools were becoming almost like prisons.

I left public school in June 2004 following my Freshman year, and graduated high school via a charter school. Indeed, I was fed up with so-called educators. I later came to realize that liberalism catered to everything that had angered me as a kid. Anti-religion, the "no bad boy" notion, the fear in the post-Columbine world. All of this made me Palin-esque to where when I hear someone is a teacher, I sometimes find myself rolling my eyes as well...

To be continued.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

I was a trouble maker too, and could get angry, but I think class made a difference. I was clearly an upper middle class kid from "south of the boulevard," who was not afraid to make clear I would not be pushed around, so I was given a long leash. I was also not physical in the way Naso was. My dad wrote me 30 absence excuses at once, because I told him my first period biology teacher was a hopeless dumb and a joke, who could not even get the baby talk text book we used right. Thus I chose to sleep in. I got an ASS in that class, rather than an AEE, for non-attendance.   In any event, the teachers in general were not that political, some conservative, and almost all betas, particularly the men. But as opebo keeps reminding me, class does matter.

Great story Naso. I am quite enjoying it.

I was only violent when I stood up for myself after a physical assault.

It's very easy for those who are critical to attack me, demon me, and mock me and think I'm a joke. That's fine. But what I'm trying to get across is that from the youngest age, everything about liberalism, feminism, or the things that catered to them whether in our education system, through pop culture or otherwise, turned me off well before I even knew what liberalism or feminism was. This should be a clue that perhaps political ideology stems from a young age.

Of course, I was fronted the question about the Patriot Act vs. school security. Of course we needed to alter the way the law was after 2001 to help increase security, but to treat our own schoolchildren as if they're the enemy, then refusing to treat any child differently than the child at fault is absurd.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Sorry, jmfcst, but you can't escape this at a Denny's.  Who do you think is going to be waiting your table (Naso) or be on a first date in the next booth (Bushie)?

I'd like to see peoples' expressions as they soak in their first glance at Naso as their waiter..."Hello, my name is Mike, I'll be your waiter this evening..."

jmfcst: "Hi, Mike.  I'll have the panca-"

Naso: "Pancakes remind of an influential moment in my life, circa 1998.  I was eating at a local IHOP with my mom, who was still sporting a wonderful big 80s hair despite the year, and ordered a medium stack with chocolate chips.  I was going through a bit of a chubby phase, much like the character Rudy in later seasons of The Cosby Show.  The waitress, an obvious health nut leftist, looked at me rather odd when I placed this order.   When our food arrived, she returned--not with my medium stack of chocolate chip pancakes--but with a short stack of blueberry.  Ever since that particular incident, I have had no respect for the IHOP chain nor liberal diet policies such as the food pyramid."

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

opebo is the ultimate one, though. Who else would make a topic bragging about eating McDonald's at a Burger King while discussing the evils of overreaching corporations?

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Read the whole thing. Not as beautiful as the others, but I still felt sheer joy.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

And yet this one line reply managed to be even funnier:

Well done Naso.  Those modern-day girls in your photo are fat.

No.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

So a comedy about three middle-aged men taking care of an infant is now right-wing messaging?

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Many people who know me asked why I would vote against Barack Obama? Was I a racist? Was I a misogynist? No.

My vote isn't against the Barack Obama everyone likes personally, or the man who carried out a mission to kill Osama bin Laden. My vote is against the culture, and the types of people who have the mindset and the attitude and thinking that Barack Obama caters to.

For example...I greatly dislike the hip-hop culture. For heaven's sake...we had a hip-hop star create a music video showing the staged execution of a child. I think to myself...how can this stop? I hate this stuff. It needs to end.

Then I turn on the TV and see this:


"Yo, let's get rid of George Bush and Rock the Vote!"

....that makes me want George Bush even more.

Or I see this:



That's like a poison pill. I am always aggravated by "hand signs" let alone hip-hop music. They're endorsing Obama? That leans me the other way. See what I mean?

When I get aggravated by people who make clear they vote Democrat, that makes me want to vote Republican as a protest towards the types of people that aggravate me.

If teachers and I have a rocky past, and I see the teacher's bashing a Bush or Perry and the unions endorsing Obama, that makes me want to vote Perry.

You understand what I'm trying to say? It's not race...after all...I voted for a black man for Governor of Ohio in 2006 when many other Republicans did not on the basis of race. It's not against the man who killed Osama bin Laden, which, as you may recall made me more supportive of him at the time than many in his own party.

If you have to be nice to someone who is being rude or complaining, does that mean you want to be nice? No. You have to. Why? Because of fear of legal action. Okay so where the problem? Frivolous lawsuits, ambulance chasers, ect. Who do those people cater to? The Democratic Party. Bada-bing...voting Republican.

See? So it's not even that I don't give them the chance, it's that when people I dislike cater to a certain political party, I'm making damn sure I'm not voting for them.

I actually believe this has gone on in politics for many years. Hippies and protesters everywhere...America elects Nixon. Protesters and demonstrations everywhere while rap music fills the airwaves promoting social unrest...America elects George Bush.

Do you see what I'm trying to say?

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?action=profile;u=6970
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?action=profile;u=234

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Eh, I've gotten better but need to stop playing my snark too safe.

However, I don't think I've qualified yet for the Institute.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Some have claimed that my unique perspective on things from politics to pop culture make me "America". Or that I epitomize many simple minded folks throughout the country who may vote either way in a Presidential election.

To have an honest discussion, I have some advice for President Obama. Clearly, the odds are stacked against him. If this were an incumbent Republican President, I know people like myself and Keystone Phil and Inks would be saying in conversations almost jokingly, "You know we have no shot, right?" to which an agreeing chuckle would follow. This was much the case throughout 2007 and 2008 when despite the ups and downs we all knew it was over. Indeed, on election night when Ohio was called for Obama, I remember being on the phone with Keystone Phil to which he laughed and said, "Ohio was called ALREADY!?!" and laughed. It was an acknowledgment of defeat that we knew was coming. Indeed, the Obama/Biden ticket is in much the same situation and I think insiders know it.

A few tips.

#1. Acknowledge the bad economy

When Obama tries to say things are tough but getting better, people don't believe him. Honestly, every few months things seem worse. Someone you know can't afford to buy a house, someone you know complains about high gas prices, tax season comes and knocks someone out. Every time they hear Barack Obama say things are "getting better" they get irritated. It's like someone having a broken leg with the bone sticking out and you saying, "It's okay, no big deal". Their response would be, "IT IS A BIG DEAL MY BONE IS STICKING OUT OF LEG YOU IDIOT!!!" I know it's a silly analogy, but it's true.

The only time Carter had a real shot of defeating Governor Reagan in 1980 was when he made acknowledgments of the bad situation and tried to offer new solutions. If Obama says things are getting better, or that we need to spend more money, it's done. Toast. Adios. Buona sera.

#2. Don't attack business

When the economy is down and businesses are prevailing, many people become interested in what is making those businesses tick. Don't attack Romney for saying, "Corporations are people". If you do that, you might garner a few thousand voters you probably already had in New York and Connecticut, but people in hard-hit Michigan or Pennsylvania and Ohio will be offended. "My father worked for a corporation. When Obama attacks them he is attacking my dad." I can see the ads against Obama now. I know liberals hate it, but it's true...corporations are composed of workers, people. If you attack corporations, you're attacking people and you will lose, potentially badly in states such as Michigan and Pennsylvania. Don't attack lower-paying jobs in Texas when many people in America can't get a job at all. You're attacking the little man, which is the only thing defending has allowed the Democratic Party to win three elections in the last 30 years.

#3. Don't misjudge the tea party

I do not consider myself a tea party conservative, but if I were running against a candidate who had the tea party backing, I'd be terrified. The turnout of these voters will be immense next year, and I can imagine a family in Iowa or Colorado or North Carolina registering their 18 year old sons and daughters and coming out in droves, carpools, and unprecedented turnout. Underestimate at your own risk.

That's my two cents.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Guess who.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Check out Naso's sig.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

The boy broke his left arm Friday.  The radius, to be exact, which is the larger of the two long bones in the lower arm.  His school called me in my office around 12:30 and said he was on the playground just after lunch and was going across that thing where you climb up a ladder and make it across using your hands.  (modular overhead challenge for building upper-body strength)  Apparently he'd gone across it several times.  One too many, I suppose.  Usually, when he gets tired, he just drops to his feet, and they have this thick foam rubber pad under it, so it's not a problem, but I guess he was in mid-swing or something and landed on his left arm.  Anyway, so I got on my bicycle and dashed home, got the car, drove the three blocks to his school and picked him up and called the nurses station at his pediatrician and she said to give him 10 mL ibuprofen suspension and take him to be X-rayed. 

I thought about taking him to the nearest hospital emergency entrance, but figured we'd be better off at the clinic nearby.  It turned out to be a good decision.  They have X-ray capability there, and clearly his radius was broken.  And both the GP who initially saw him and the orthopedic surgeon were older guys, which is always best, and it wasn't very busy, so there was no wait.  And the nurses were mostly old as well.  He had a good attitude about the whole thing, surprisingly, and wasn't crying.  Even wanted to play with the Megablocks in the waiting room, while we waited for the X-ray technician to input the files into the system, but he was using his right hand and his teeth to put them together and I was worried about all the snotty children who'd played with them before him, so I made him stop.  Anyway, once the orthopedic surgeon started to manipulate his arm he started wailing.  So they said they could do a total anasthetic or a shot of lidocaine in the arm.  We opted for the lidocaine.  After that, he went numb, kept grabbing his left thumb and saying that it "feels like somebody else's thumb" and all that.  But he and the nurse tortured it and got it all straight, so they were able to set it without operating inside, which is good.  And the post procedure X-rays showed that it was very straight.  All in all, it seems to be a good alignment job.

Nowadays, they let you choose your cast color.  He chose red, of course.  Everything is red.  When we see the balloon man he wants a red sword or a red hat, and when he gets a new bicycle he wants red.  Always red.  Ah, well, my last two cars were red.  Maybe it runs in the family.  Anyway, there was only one color cast when I was 6.  It was white.  You could color it, paint it, get your chums to sign it, but when you left the clinic it was white. 

Also, they don't have a regular X-ray on a plastic sheet that you can photocopy anymore.  It's just an image on a screen.  A centralized system so you could look at it on any computer in any facility in the Wheaton-Saint francis system, but when I asked for a photocopy of the X-ray to show my wife, they said that they don't have a convenient way to print it out, so I ended up having to use my mobile phone to photograph them so I could show her.  I ended up calling her around 3:30 after they finished the cast.  I'd avoided worrying her as long as I could, as I knew she had meetings that afternoon and I didn't, and there's wasn't much she could do except worry.  She was edgy and pretty hard to get along with for about 24 hours, as I expected, but seems to be relaxed now.  Luckily this happened on a Friday, so he could stay high on painkillers for the first couple of days, and so we could use the weekend shopping for shirts that had arm-holes large enough to admit the cast but small enough so they wouldn't hang down to his knees.  Not an easy thing to find, by the way. 

We go for a follow-up exam and X-ray at one week.  And, if all is going well, the cast will be on for 4 weeks. No soccer, no swimming, and no bicycle during that time.  What a drag.  And, no piano for at least a week.  I'll have to call his teacher and cancel the next lesson or two.  He may or may not need a smaller, shorter forearm-only cast for a couple of weeks when this one comes off, but I'm told that the short one will be waterproof so we can start taking him back to the big pool.  We're making him drink lots of Calcium- and Vitamin C-fortified orange juice, and eat lots of tofu, meat, calcium pills, mango, brocolli, blueberry muffins, yogurt, and whatever we can find that has lots of Vitamin C and citrate/phosphate salts of calcium ions.  And a fair bit of codeine for the first couple of days to help with the pain and itching.  We're trying to go easy on that though.

Anyway, on the way home from the orthopedists, he says, "why did the dinosaur cross the road?"  And I think for a while and tried to come up with something clever.  He tells lots of corny jokes now so I'm used to it.  Finally, I say, "why did the dinosaur cross the road?"  And he says, "Because the chicken hadn't evolved yet!"  He was quite proud of that one.  "Get it?  Get it, Daddy?  The chicken is a bird, so it is the descendant of some Triassic reptile who gave rise to all ornithischian dinosaurs as well as birds."  Okay, I'm probably paraphrasing a bit.

But the jokes are becoming a bit more sophisticated.  He's also into word play now.  Lots of bad puns.  And, of course jokes about farts and pee are always a hit. 

It all put me in the mood for another Roberto Rosellini movie.  After all, I knew we wouldn't be going out much this weekend, and I should get some inside entertainment for all of us.  I ended up getting Era Notte a Roma.  It features a very attractive 25-year-old Giovanna Ralli in a prominent roll as Esperia, who at first seems to be a young nun, but is later revealed to be a black-market supplier of goods to the Romans.  She finds it easier to move about in the countryside, procuring prosciutto, wine, medicine, and other goods dressed as a nun, and a very pretty one at that.  The film was a weird combination of neo-realism and didactic, with a good measure of melodrama thrown in for good measure.  Fall 1943.  Three escaped prisoners, one US, one UK, and one Russian, make their way into hiding in Esperia's attic, and much of the action takes place there.  The buxsome young hostess can't speak English and the soldiers can't speak Italian.  The Russian is the loneliest of all, as he can speak neither Italian nor English.  There's much focus on how folks communicate with each other when they can't speak one another's language.  It's all pretty believable, but confusing when the scene goes from that attic to the house of a prince where they hide after Esperia is captured and tortured.  Definitely interesting, but somewhat hard to follow at times. 

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

My favorite part was about the cast color.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

homecoming tonight...daughter went to dance in a limo with a bunch of other girls...wife and I spent couple hours with all the parents and had snacks and drinks....here is a pic, two of our daughters arent too hard to pick out

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=141955.0

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Good luck in 2012, PS-ers.

This is not preceding poster's signature thread, dude.

I just noticed that.