I've always been somewhat fascinated by the English language.

Oxymoron: a rhetorical figure in which incongruous or contradictory terms are combined

1. State Worker

2. Exact estimate

3. Act naturally

4. Found missing

4. Resident alien

5. Genuine imitation

6. Airline food

7. Good grief

8. Government organization

9. Alone together

10. Small crowd

11. Business ethics

12. Soft rock

13. Butt head

14. Military Intelligence

15. Sweet Sorrow

16. "Now, then..."

17. Passive aggression

18. Clearly misunderstood

19. Peace force

20. Extinct Life

21. Plastic glasses

22. Terribly pleased

23. Computer security

24. Political science

25. Tight slacks

26. Definite maybe

27. Pretty ugly

28. Microsoft Works

29. Working vacation

30. Religious tolerance

Bob H

A version of Dave's list has turned up again. I thought it was impressive.

1. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative the same night.

2. If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be "meetings."

3. There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."

4. People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.

5. You should not confuse your career with your life.

6. Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance. (This one is very important.)

7. Never lick a steak knife.

8. The most destructive force in the universe is gossip.

9. You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.

10. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.

11. There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age 11.

12. The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers.

13. A person, who is nice to you, but rude to a waiter, is not a nice person. (This is very important. Pay attention. It never fails.)

14. Your friends love you anyway.

15. Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.

16. Thought for the day: Men are like fine wine. They start out as grapes; and it's up to the women to stomp the crap out of them until they turn into something acceptable to have dinner with.

Bob H

Perhaps in your daily routine you may find that you spend too much time working at a computer. Strangely enough, when you spend around three weeks away from the internet, you realize that you had forgotten there are a world of other activities at your disposal outside of your computer room.

You also remember that you hate basically all of them because they involve having actual contact with people.

I recently dealt with the experience of being lost outside of cyberspace. For some reason Tech Rehab has yet to be invented, so this situation required that I come up with a strategy for dealing with it. Actually, the first time I took my desktop into the bathroom to pass the time among other things, it should have set off numerous red flags.

Leaving your home and entering society is not an easy step to take. First, upon careful examination I found that my home did indeed contain a front door. And I merely had to turn its handle and I could gain access to the outside world.

The fact that there was nothing out there that I wanted to deal with was beside the point.

The first thing I needed to do was to step away from my television. This was a natural mistake, because your TV screen is bigger than that of your computer monitor.

But there are nearly as many channels of useless information coming from your television as there are from the internet, with most of them coming from Washington. And the only available web sites coming from your television would be found on Animal Planet.

When you spend too much time online and don’t really get out much, you tend to forget the little things about the outside world. As it turns out, January is kind of cold. It was 70 degrees around these parts in early January, but winter recently arrived without giving us any notice.

On days with nicer weather, you will find the outside world to be quite colorful. Your grass will hopefully be green, nicer looking plants in your area may be red, yellow or violet, and the sky will hopefully be blue. You may remember plant life as being similar to one of your screensavers.

Granted, I live in New Jersey. The little snowfall we have had leaves our car’s exterior a lovely shade of crud, and the fumes and smoke leave the sky looking a kind of carcinogenic, ashlike shade.

Upon embarking onto the sidewalk, I remember that I live in a condominium and it’s winter, so thankfully I don’t need to notice how high the grass has grown recently. I later recall that I am not married, so it will not be necessary to reintroduce myself to the wife and kids.

Some of you may have already used the phrase, “So how long have we had three kids?”

But you can’t let that bother you. Our goal is to recirculate into the outside world, and we can do that by walking.

On the street, you will still encounter people who appear to be talking to themselves, in the manner in which you were accustomed the last time you went out in public around 1965.

But not all of them are talking to themselves. You will enjoy the fact that so many people on the street are having cell phone conversations, because that means they won’t be talking to you. And if you’re really lucky, you just might be able to pick up some incredibly useful information from that person’s conversation, like the results from their recent colonoscopy.

A worthwhile idea upon going outside is to get involved in some sort of physical activity. Of course, you always need to exercise extreme caution upon first attempting to exercise. There may be muscles involved here which haven’t been awakened since 1973. Too much time on a computer can limit your physical prowess to dexterity with a mouse by your right hand.

If you prefer to travel, another favorite activity among the displaced computer addicts can be to visit your local coffee house. If you are fortunate enough to find a coffee shop which offers computer access, it becomes like a one stop shopping center for all of your favorite bad habits.

While driving you will find that a newer version of You Tube is taking place in the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels of New York. And the passengers are much more creative.

The second week away from my computer drove me to a better habit, my local library. Remember, when you read books, they don’t come complete with mouse pads so you can avoid the drudgery of turning pages, but you learn to deal with such inconveniences. And you can only download a particular chapter of a book once, and you’ll find that the library tends to frown upon that. So do the local authorities.

But my library has a limited number of computers I could access for one hour sessions at my favorite price range to negotiate: free.
Of course, with a limited number of machines available, there was bound to be an obstacle. People. Fortunately a young lady moved away from a monitor before I had to resort to elbowing a Boy Scout out of his chair.

That wouldn’t have been a wise move, because you quickly learn that there are certain rules of society that apply when you’re not using a computer. Using the laptop is only permitted on private property under parental guidance. Googling in public is punishable with a $100 fine for the first offense. And use of acronyms like ROFL while delivering a public speech is punishable by the death penalty.

But I eventually learned to put my down time from the computer to the best possible use. That would be the organization of the Tech Rehab Foundation. Our motto is: Modern society is not something that should be jumped into too quickly.

If that doesn’t work, hopefully someone will construct new homes in the future that don’t have front doors.

Bob H

The turning of the calendar to another new year can only mean one thing: the holidays are finally over. And you only have about six months remaining to finish paying off Billy's new X-Box 360 that you waited two days outside in line in twenty degree weather to buy and he broke ten minutes after he opened it.

The bad news is that by the time July arrives, and you make your final payments on those long forgotten Christmas presents, guess what happens? Stores greet you with the first sighting of the upcoming season's Christmas ornaments. Start saving those pennies now.

You'll need to save because when you're visiting Atlantic City sometime during the summer, you just might see old Santa Claus roller blading down the middle of the boardwalk. He's busy all year now. Many malls have Christmas stores open twelve months of the year.

But the Christmas holiday is only part of the problem. One holiday just leads into another, usually with at least a two month lead time. Valentines Day started off the vicious merchandising circle on the crack of January 2. Of course, January 2 is much to early for the typical guy, who is more likely to remember his valentine after the 115th reminder he receives around 9:00 PM on February 13.

Before that, he is celebrating his favorite unacknowledged holiday which receives nationwide parties anyway, Super Bowl Sunday. The hype for this holiday begins in earnest the previous July, when a guy's favorite team went to training camp. Many weeks and many beers later, with his favorite team having been eliminated from playoff contention by late October, he looks forward to the pre game ceremonies for some other team he hates Friday night. But he returns to work on Tuesday, as long as there are no wings left.

Then this week, everyone knows that Presidents Day celebrates the important work of Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln by slashing fifty percent off the sticker price of the entire inventory at your nearby Buick dealer. And February 15 signals the time for stores to break out their Easter decorations. You can count on that even during years when that damn Cadbury bunny doesn't come hopping down the carbohydrate trail until late April.

The extra days for Easter promotion allows people more time to rent all of the holiday-related movies which are available like The Greatest Story Ever Told, which Jesus filmed in his younger years, or to watch the latest TV mini-series about Jesus. Granted, even the return of Jesus in a recurring role in that short lived television show Daniel couldn't save network programming today.

By May it's time for Mother's Day, where you try to make Mom forgive you for the mess you've made of your life by bribing her with enough sweets to make her swell up like Mrs. Butterworth's. And you'll have no better luck on Father's Day. You'll have to buy Dad something credible like clothes which symbolizes how you really feel about him, as opposed to something he really wants, like a six pack or a speedboat.

Following those is graduation, an occasion which is not a holiday, yet sees an extended shopping season. I saw my first graduation cards in January this year. What any new graduate needs as a gift, aside from beer money, is soap and water to wash the writing from his car windows after he sobers up and sees it the day after graduation.

Other occasions than graduation which need to be promoted to people are birthdays and anniversaries. And by people, of course, I mean guys. Community stores need to do advertising for their regular customers within a ten mile radius. You should hear it all over: "Bill, you're twentieth anniversary is coming up Tuesday, and she doesn't want a George Foreman grill again this year."

A popular new idea in holiday shopping is often used when you're trying to come up with a gift to buy your stupid brother-in-law who you haven't spoken to in two years. It's the "one for them, one for you" buying plan, which receives its highest popularity at Christmas. You know he's caused you so much stress that you deserve something for yourself too. Merchants call this the stress relief/recycle your credit card method.

Then Back-to-School sales usually begin about the day after Memorial Day. You have much work to do on your summer vacation this year. Your recent high school graduate might want to sober up, wash his car, and head down to the nearest blue light special to pick up some bargains for his freshman year at college.

That summer season will begin with Independence Day. This holiday does not do major business for a lot of merchants, except Ball Park franks and ant and roach killers. People love to celebrate Independence Day by becoming stranded in extended lines of traffic in ninety degree weather while waiting to see fireworks. By this point of the day, Dad is usually so relaxed that he screams at the car in front of him if that car allows six inches to open up between him and the car in front of him. Dad just wants to create the illusion of progress in moving forward in traffic.

If you visit the beach during the summer, in August you might as well get a head start on collecting the Halloween candy, because that will now be available. I realize that the first thing on a person's mind when they're laying on the beach is that special time to set the clocks backward and lose an hour of daylight. But it's okay. By now beach weather is just about done, so you'll be needing that extra bulk around the middle for the cold winter months ahead.

After Halloween, Thanksgiving build-up is mostly ignored, because by November 1 your friends are bothering you about why you haven't finished your Christmas shopping yet. Thanksgiving celebrations usually take place over a few days, or as long as it takes to get your relatives to leave. Your Thanksgiving efforts are for the benefit of two merchants: Shop-Rite and your nearby Weight Watchers.

Then of course, we wind up the year with Christmas. As we've stated, anywhere between this time period and Thanksgiving are strongly recommended as opening day for your Christmas shopping season. During this time you are expected to have finished paying off last year's holiday bills or have completed your community service.

And remember, credit cards are easy to acquire and even easier to melt. With common sense and a reasonable budget, you should be able to survive the cycle of holidays you have to face during the year. But be careful. Billy wants another X-Box 360 for Christmas and Valentines Day is right around the corner.

Bob H

This just in: courtesy of Andy Borowitz

Networks Criticized for Lack of Anna Nicole Smith Coverage

CNN: We Dropped the Ball

A media watchdog group today blasted the major news networks for failing to provide enough coverage of Anna Nicole Smith’s death in the 72 hours following the blonde bombshell’s passing.

The media watchdog group, which calls itself The Media Watchdog Group, took the nation’s 24-hour news networks to task for what it called “scant coverage” of the life, death and legacy of Ms. Smith.

At a press conference in Washington, Carol Foyler, a spokesperson for the group, hit hard at the all-news networks for giving the Anna Nicole Smith story “short shrift.”

“Instead of staying on the Anna Nicole Smith story nonstop, the networks would sometimes cut away to coverage of the war in Iraq for seconds at a time,” Ms. Foyler said. “For a nation struggling with its loss, this was like twisting the knife.”

At CNN headquarters in Atlanta, network president Jon Klein apologized for failing to provide seamless, wall-to-wall coverage of the Smith story, telling reporters, “We dropped the ball.”

“I was watching our coverage of Anna Nicole Smith’s death and without warning we cut away for an 8-second story on Darfur,” he said. “I can assure you that that sort of thing will never happen again – not on my watch.”

Mr. Klein added that for the foreseeable future, “at least 29 of the 30 video monitors on Wolf Blitzer’s ‘The Situation Room’ will feature Anna Nicole Smith, and the other will have that crazy astronaut chick.”

Elsewhere, Nashville Mayor Bill Purcell vetoed a bill that would have made English the official language of the city, saying that it would have discouraged President Bush from visiting.

Bob H