“Remember. You’re not getting older, you’re getting riper.”
“Remember. You’re not getting older, you’re getting riper.”
Current
Like the Sunday funnies only not on Sunday, not in color, not on newsprint, and there’s no repeating characters. So, not much like the Sunday funnies at all. Though really not all that funny, so like the Sunday funnies after all.
“Take a right at the crossroads. Take that road about
twenty miles, past Area 49, then...”
Filed under Gag Cartoon Gallery 1/15/19
New Month, new year, new decade, old cartoon.
Filed under A Dog’s Breakfast 1/7/20
Yet more “borrowed” J.C. Leyendecker holiday art from the Ye Olde Nostalgia Shoppe. This time, New Year’s Babies. Though those babies are from eighty, ninety or so years ago and would be pretty old by now. Still, Leyendecker being one of the greats his pics are still as good as ever. And plenty o’fun as jigsaw puzzles. I’m hoping. Go see:
Official Terry Colon jigsaw puzzles at TheJigsawPuzzles.com
Filed 1/6/20
It’s a new year and you know what that means. Being 2020 it means an entire year of wordplay between 2020 the year and 2020 vision. How many forecasts, product intros and new releases this year will be “2020 Visions”? If you guessed all of them, you probably won’t be far off. Heck, you’ve likely seen dozens already. Including this one right here. At the end of the year we’ll have year in reviews called, what else, “2020 Hindsight.”
Now then, if you go with Roman numerals it’s MMXX. Another double double. Though what fun you can have with that I haven’t figured out. I have a hard enough time just figuring out what year Roman numerals even mean. They look like some sort of texter acronym or modern musical name, which I’m never up to speed on, either.
Of course none of it works if you say “two thousand twenty” instead of ”twenty-twenty” for the year. You wouldn’t do that, eh? That’s like saying 1776 as “one thousand seven hundred seventy-six.” Just ain’t right. Well, if you’re talking about a year/date, at any rate. All that aside, the new year also means one of my annual “Things that Did Not Happen” in the preceding year lists.
Top Ten Things that Did Not Happen in 2019
Some joke, eh? And to think I had all year to do it.
Filed 1/2/20
Today’s your last chance to finish off that New Years resolution list of things to accomplish in 2019. Or just scratch 2019 off the top and write in 2020. Presto, 366 more days to get it done! Even better yet, chuck that old list ’cause it’s a brand new decade, the Roaring Twenties 2.0 or something, and you just gotta start a new decade with a clean slate, right?
Filed 12/31/19
’Twas the day after Christmas,
and all through the houses,
Not a creature was stirring,
’cause they were all lazy louses…
…Who had on Christmas day pigged out on turkey, taters, pumpkin pie and eggnog and so have decided to skip out on work and play with the adult toys they got as gifts. Besides, it was the second day of Christmas so they were waiting for the pair of turtledoves to be delivered. It was also Boxing Day and so where awaiting… uh… whatever it is that happens on Boxing Day. Ask a Canadian, I don’t know.
Filed 12/26/19
…OK, Christmas eve actually. But, blogs being eternal, this will spill over to the actual day so what the heck. Anyway, this is only the teaser for the real bit, an ultra-exciting, animated Christmas carol without music at the link below:
The Twelve Days of Christmas in Under a Minute
Filed 12/24/19
…Don’t know who, but someone gave to me cold and dark. No birds, no tree, no packets of musical folk or members of the peerage bouncing around. I expect more of the same coming up. And not for twelve days, either. No-o-o-o. More like twelve weeks, give or take a month. Probably give. Yep. Winter is the season that just keeps giving. Guess I’ll just have to take it, like it or not. I’m saying not.
Filed 12/22/19
Yet another “borrowed” J.C. Leyendecker holiday illustration from the Ye Olde Nostalgia Shoppe, 320 Memory Lane, Ferndale 20 Michigan. Yep, an address from before ZIP codes. I remember when those came in. It was 1963, if you really wanted to know. Or even if you didn’t, know you do.
What I didn’t know ’til later was ZIP was an accronym for Zone Improvement Plan. I suppose it still is. Then again could be it’s just three letters now, like IBM which doesn’t stand for anything anymore though it used to mean International Business Machines. Anyway, thats why ZIP should be in all caps even though we say it as a word, like NASA, and not three letters, like IBM.
Official Terry Colon jigsaw puzzles at TheJigsawPuzzles.com
Re-Filed 12/21/19 12/13/19
Not that it’s all that funny, more 1990s pseudo-hipster-quasi-cynical-ish. But it is Christmassy. So maybe ho-ho-ho instead of ha-ha-ha.
Filed under A Dog’s Breakfast 12/16/19
As the man said, golf is a great way to ruin a nice walk in the countryside. Here are a few other things said about golf that sound like fun facts. But aren’t. Or are they?
Filed 12/11/19
The reason the day after Thanksgiving is called Black Friday is not what you may have heard. It actually goes back to what I wrote about in the previous entry (just below, in the usual blog fashion). Back when stores were pretty much only open weekdays, that’s days and not evenings, there wasn’t much opportunity for a working stiff to get to the store since working hours and shopping hours were pretty much a total overlap. So, a lot of people skipped work the day after Thanksgiving and did their Christmas shopping. Widespread absenteeism meant understaffed businesses had a hard time getting things done and so owners and management began calling it Black Friday.
Filed 12/9/19
Why, it’s another “borrowed” J.C. Leyendecker holiday illustration. Though now that Thanksgiving is a thing of the past for the year and the turkey leftovers are no longer left but over, it’s on to the next step of the season —Christmas shopping. Back in the day we used to talk about there being only X number of shopping days until Christmas. These days, with just about everything open seven days a week, that doesn’t much mean much as every day’s a shopping day.
Another old phrase that doesn’t work any more: banker’s hours. If you’re old enough you might remember when banks were never open Saturday, and closed every day a three in the afternoon. Seems strange now, but that was the way it was. Car dealerships were shuttered on week-ends, too. Go back far enough and almost nothing, not even gas stations or your corner convenience store (or bodega or party store or whatever they call them where you live) were open on Sunday.
And so ends another short trip down memory lane. On to the puzzle:
Official Terry Colon jigsaw puzzles at TheJigsawPuzzles.com
Filed 12/5/19
Filed under old pop culture reference you have to be over thirty-something to get. Meaning, is this funny any more?
Also filed under A Dog’s Breakfast 12/2/19
For Thanksgiving, a very special J.C. Leyendecker jigsaw puzzle available for a limited time. (See link. Well, don’t just see it, click it. But not yet, read the rest of the entry. Or not, it doesn’t really make a difference.) Why a Leyendecker and not a Colon? you might ask. Because his stuff is just so much better than mine. The man’s in the illustration hall of fame, for crying out loud. Me? I’m not sure I ever made it to the bigs. If I did, I for sure wasn’t an all-star.
Official Terry Colon jigsaw puzzles at TheJigsawPuzzles.com
Filed 11/28/19
Another old joke acquired, illustrated and interactivated. Mouseover the time tabs to “hear the dialog.”
Filed 11/20/19
More old book illos by yours truly. These from 2005. Presented in fancy-schmancy page-turning click-e-book format. What is that? Click the link and see for yourself.
The Roof-Rack Chronicles Illustrations from the book
Filed 11/15/19
Per the fun part of “Fun and Games” I offer an online jigsaw puzzle of the assembled illustrations for the book Smart & Gets Things Done –Joel Spolky’s Concise Guide to Finding the Best Technical Talent. (Or How to Hire the Best Nerds Money Can Buy.) I even colorized the black and white pics from the printed book so they’re more exciting than ever. More colorful, at any rate. Go and see for yourself at the link coming up right…
…Now: Official Terry Colon jigsaw puzzles at TheJigsawPuzzles.com
Filed 11/13/19
And, lucky you, you don’t have to be a baker, or kitchen minion of any kind for that matter, to assemble and enjoy jigsaw puzzle number thirteen. This one is another old bit of magazine art I did for somebody-or-other edited, amended, and refitted to fill in the blank space left for text. All just a click away. So click away.
Official Terry Colon jigsaw puzzles at TheJigsawPuzzles.com
Filed 11/7/19
I get back in the swing of things with a gag “borrowed” from Reader’s Digest. Only interactivated. And so somehow funnier. Or more picturesque, at any rate.
Mouseover the bottom tabs to “hear them speak.”
Filed 11/5/19
Well, observational humor. So based on a sorta true story. Though not necessarily a funny story. Anyway, on to the gag:
Filed under A Dog’s Breakfast 10/28/19
Another old joke acquired, illustrated and interactivated. Mouseover the bottom tabs to “hear them speak.”
The Lord smiled upon His creation and said it was good. And the setup and the punchline were the first joke.
Filed 10/24/19
The return of the return of old cartoons. And yet another death gag. Wonder how that happened. I don’t think I’m morbidly preoccupied with morbidity. Probably doesn’t mean anything. Probably. I hope not, anyway. OK, on with the joke:
Filed under A Dog’s Breakfast 10/21/19
Per the fun part of “Fun and Games” I offer jigsaw puzzle number twelve. Old Cracked magazine art edited, amended, reassembled and colorized. What could be better? I asked rhetorically.
Official Terry Colon jigsaw puzzles at TheJigsawPuzzles.com
Filed 10/17/19
Well, not real baseball, play dice baseball. If you remember dice baseball from years (and years) gone by, here is your big chance to relive those golden memories. If you don’t remember, or never played dice baseball this is still a golden chance to play dice baseball online, just skip over the reliving memories part.
The reader might think it odd to post a baseball game at the end of the season rather than at the start. Ah, but this is baseball you play indoors, in the winter. Heck, during actual baseball season you go outside and play actual baseball. At least, that’s the way it should be. Whatever the case, here’s the link you’ve been waiting for:
The TerryColon.com Online Interactive Version of Dice Baseball
Filed 10/9/19
Per the games part of “Fun and Games” I offer jigsaw puzzle number eleven. Because, as Spinal Tap might have it, eleven is one better than ten. This one is a reworking of art done for Galoob Toys.
Official Terry Colon jigsaw puzzles at TheJigsawPuzzles.com
Filed 10/7/19
I wrap up “dead man joking” week with a gag “borrowed” from Reader’s Digest. Only interactively animated. And so funnier. Somehow. Maybe.
Mouseover the bottom tabs to “hear them speak.”
Filed 10/4/19
The first movie trailers played after the movie, not before. Now you know why they’re called trailers, in case you ever wondered. But folks wouldn’t stick around after a movie to watch ads, so they started running them before the flick. Which means nowadays, instead of leaving early, theatergoers arrive late.
You’re more likely to die on your birthday than any other day of the year. Just a statistical fluke or some sinister cause and effect? Who knows? For us old farts, just one more reason to not look forward to birthdays.
A dunce cap was supposed to make you brainy. The conical cap was devised in the 1200s by John Duns Scotus (Duns cap, dunce cap, get it?) to funnel ideas from the point to your brain. (I have no word on how this worked, or didn’t as the case may be.) As this notion fell out of favor, wearing these pointy bits of haberdashery became less and less a symbol of smarts, eventually becoming quite the opposite. Nowadays we only wear conical hats at birthday and New Year’s parties. Make of that what you will.
Filed 10/2/19
Like the Sunday funnies only not on Sunday, not in color, not on newsprint, and there’s no repeating characters. So, not much like the Sunday funnies at all.
“What will it take for me to put you in this little number today?”
Filed under Gag Cartoon Gallery 9/30/19
Of course there are only ten total, so… Still, each and every one is tied for the number one slot. You can’t do better than that.
Official Terry Colon jigsaw puzzles at TheJigsawPuzzles.com
Filed 9/25/19
Now available, the ninth official Terry Colon jigsaw puzzle. As for the headline, man, are my pop culture references old. Just like the art in this latest jigsaw puzzle. Of course, the puzzle itself is much bigger than the thumbnail shown above. Go see for yourself:
Official Terry Colon jigsaw puzzles at TheJigsawPuzzles.com
Filed 9/23/19
A short collection of odd little words that sound unreal but are really real. I ran across them in crossword puzzles and in one case an old book by PG Wodehouse. Just try and guess what they mean. Not now, not here, at the word quiz page. There’s a link below. Go. See if your guess is better than mine. I didn’t know any of them.
What’s That Supposed to Mean? The Collected Word Definition Quizes
Filed 9/18/19
The trend here continues. Of couse it does. If it didn’t continue it wouldn't be a trend, what?
Official Terry Colon jigsaw puzzles at TheJigsawPuzzles.com
Filed 9/16/19
Official Terry Jigsaw Puzzle number seven. The smoking best spots of 1999 fished up from the bottom of the Suck.com barrel. To see the page full size you’ll have to go put the puzzle together at the link below:
Official Terry Colon jigsaw puzzles at TheJigsawPuzzles.com
Filed 9/12/19
Today’s episode, a collection of the best Suck.com spots of 1998 dredged up from the digital archives. The puzzle is much bigger than the thumbnail shown here. To see the page full size you’ll have to go put the puzzle together at the link below:
Official Terry Colon jigsaw puzzles at TheJigsawPuzzles.com
Filed 9/10/19
Official Terry jigsaw puzzle number five added to my jigsaw puzzle page. (Link below) This time, a collection of cars a buses. Special bonus points to anyone who knows where I got the headline. This is a meaningless spacer sentence to give the reader time to wonder, “Where have I heard ‘Yeegads, There’s Another One!’ before?” Here’s a little bonus spacer for those who need a little more time. The answer, it’s from the play/movie Arsenic and Old Lace. That’s my frivia for the day. The real entertainment is the puzzle. Go there…
Official Terry Colon jigsaw puzzles at TheJigsawPuzzles.com
Filed 9/9/19
It’s day four of the jigsawlapalooza. Meaning another link to another jigsaw puzzle of another old bit of art. This one adapted from a Cracked piece about proto humans that fell out of the family tree. I call this version “Humans Past Without a Future.” You can read the gag verbiage at the Cracked link under “History’s Least Successful Proto Humans.” If you just want to do the jigsaw puzzle here’s a handy link…
Official Terry Colon jigsaw puzzles at TheJigsawPuzzles.com
Filed 9/5/19
Now there’s three times the puzzles. Three times the fun. Three times the charm. Because three is more than one or two. And the more the merrier and some other apt cliché I can’t think of at the moment. Today’s addition: A panorama of unheard of unseen beings. OK, a rehash of an old bit, but half the fun is building the puzzle. See for yourself…
Official Terry Colon jigsaw puzzles at TheJigsawPuzzles.com
Filed 9/4/19
Today’s new bit of blog, a link to another jigsaw puzzle. This one an old illo from Automobile magazine slightly jiggied for jigsaw purposes. It’s NASCAR drivers using their team sponsor’s products. As they race. It’s a gag.
Tune in tomorrow for another new/old puzzle. You know me, once I find some new gimmick for the site I run with it until exhausted. Though if you noticed I’m easily winded. Think the picture galleries page. When’s the last time I added a soon-to-be-added addition? How many puzzles will there ultimately be? Who knows. The only thing certain is there will only be 30 at any one time. That’s all TheJigsawPuzzles.com allows.
Official Terry Colon jigsaw puzzles at TheJigsawPuzzles.com
I also added a permanent link in the pop-out menu under “Fun & Games” as well as one of those animated widget link gizmos that appear near the top of the home page.
Filed 9/3/19
If you’ve ever dreamed of doing a free online Terry Colon jigsaw puzzle, well, it’s a dream come true. If, on the other hand, you never had that dream, which is more likely, it’s a surprise come true! If that’s a thing. Whatever the case, click the link and go to my personal puzzle page at TheJigsawPuzzles.com for the very first official Terry Colon jigsaw puzzle. Which is an adaptation of some old Reason magazine cover art from some years ago. (It’s a surprise. You’ll have to go to see what it is.)
I plan do do more puzzles soon, some old stuff and some new, but this is a start. At any rate, at least it’s not another rebus or word definition quiz. Enjoy:
Official Terry Colon puzzle at TheJigsawPuzzles.com
Filed 9/2/19
A slightly modified oldie gleaned from someone, somewhere, sometime I don’t know who, where, or when and so can’t give credit where credit is due, sorry. Still, it’s pretty funny so I tossed it in because I needed a blog update and I can’t do anything better on my own.
Bureaucratium – heaviest element yet known to science
Bureaucratium (Bu), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.
Since Bureaucratium has no electrons, it is inert; however, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A tiny amount of Bureaucratium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second, to take from two weekss to five years to complete.
Bureaucratium does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. Unlike working atoms, Bureaucratium’s mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of morons promotion leads some scientists to believe that Bureaucratium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass.
Filed 8/15/19
Name-Calling Names We Called in the 60s
The “We” being me and my friends. These all seem pretty mild today, hardly insults at all. But speech was less crass back in the day, heck they didn’t even curse in the movies. Besides, we were kids back then and real swearing got you in trouble. How insulting and mean were these invectives? Good question. I don’t remember what we meant by any of them specifically, or even generally, the words just somehow sounded insulting in and of themselves. Looking back, these are what I think we thought they meant:
None of these are made up words, just the meanings are not according to Webster. Leastways, not preferred by Webster. These would be:
Another thing we said to insult was, “Get bent.” What did that mean exactly? Who knows? But whatever we intended that person to do or to have happen to them, it sounded painful.
Filed 8/12/19
Like the Sunday funnies only not on Sunday, not in color, not on newsprint, and there’s no repeating characters. So, not much like the Sunday funnies at all.
Filed under Gag Cartoon Gallery 6/27/19
A few hours after hitting the hay, Holmes wakes up and nudges his companion. “Watson, look up and tell me what you see.”
“I see thousands of stars in the sky.” Watson replies.
“And what do you deduce from that?”
“Hm-m. Astronomically, the universe is teeming with objects and energy. Astrologically, Saturn is in Leo. Meteorologically, it should be fair tomorrow. Philosophically, we are but a small insignificant part of the universe. What does it tell you, Holmes?”
“Elementary, my dear Watson.” Holmes says. “It tells me someone has stolen the tent!”
Filed 8/5/19
The Word-of-the-Day word for the first Friday of August is Bulverism. CS Lewis described Bulverism as an insidious rhetorical trick; the device of jumping straight to explaining why something is the case, without first establishing that it is in fact the case. Sort of a combination of begging the question and the genetic fallacy. As described by Bruce Charlton:
“Bulverism is the logical fallacy of assuming without discussion that a person is wrong and then distracting attention from this (the only real issue) by explaining how that person became so silly, usually associating it to a psychological condition. The fallacy deals with secondary questions about ideas rather than the primary one, thus avoiding the basic question or evading the issues raised by trains of reasoning.”
The discerning reader (and all terry colon dot com readers are such) will have noticed Bulverism is widely (ab)used nowadays. Only we don’t label it as such. We just call it social media, politics, and in science, “theoretical proof.”
Filed 8/2/19
Told you I’d remind you. Remember? Thought not. Hence, the reminder. And I’ll tell you right now, February 30th in one month. Anyway, if you want to know the why and how of this nonsense:
Filed 7/31/19 2/29/19
Special because you can turn the cartoon over to read the small text at the bottom by mousing over the picture.
Filed under A Dog’s Breakfast 7/29/19
The best anagrams, if you go in for that sort of thing, are ones where the anagram is a play on the original word’s meaning. On the other hand, perhaps ironically, there is no good anagram of “anagram.” There’s “nag a ram,” “ram a nag,” “rag a man,” and “man a rag.” Silly amusing, perhaps, but no relationship to the original. Here’s half a top ten anagrams that work:
Refiled 7/25/19
Counting down to the top, after the popular fashion, I give you the…
Top Ten Numbers
10. A million.
The number we pull out of our, uh, hat when we want a bigger than everyday life number. As in, “One in a million,” “Never in a million years,” and “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” Well, who doesn’t? Except maybe a billionaire.
9. Two.
As in binary, what makes computers possible. What makes the Interwebs possible. What makes terry colon dot com possible. That’s just gotta rate in the top ten somewhere.
8. Sixty-five.
The magical age of retirement when the pension kicks in and you’re on endless vacation. Well, sorta maybe. Story goes Otto Von Bismarck picked that age to receive a state pension because most Germans didn’t live that long back then. Whatever the case, the retire at 65 stuck in the U.S. and is largely still sticking.
7. Seven.
As in lucky seven. The most common throw of a pair of dice. Also seven seas, seven wonders of the world, and seven virtues. We’ll overlook the seven deadly sins for now.
6. Three.
As in the holy trinity. As in three dimensions. Physically and metaphysically three is everything and everything is three. Ok, three is a crowd but nothing is perfect. Except for ten (see below), but that’s only ideally.
5. Pi.
The most famous non-ordinal number going. Hey, what other numbers have a name and have books written and movies made about them?
4. One hundred.
It’s everything, as in 100%. Plus it’s a perfect score on a test.
3. Zero.
The concept of zero, a number for nothing, makes simple arithmetic possible. Otherwise we’d be stuck with Roman numerals, which weren’t really numerals but letters. Zero makes for nice round numbers, 10, 20, 50, 100. Heck, you can’t get a rounder round number than zero, look at it, it’s a circle: 0
2. Ten.
Perfection! Ten is the top rating of rating things from one to ten. All the most beautiful women are a ten. Who could ask for more?
1. One, of course.
On every top ten list one is the best. Since this is such a list, one must be number one. In fact, one’s the top slot no matter what number of items are on the list. And after all, “We’re number one! We’re number one!”
Filed 7/16/19
Another one from the 2018 Reason magazine “Brickbats” circular file via the wayback machine.
The City of Malibu has pressured the United Methodist Church into ending its twice-weekly dinners for the homeless. Officials were worried that the meals would attract more homeless people to the area.
And possibly attract Methodists. Can’t have that. Though as a sanctuary city they are accepting homeless, ilegal aliens no questions asked.
Filed 7/12/19
Another old Orbit/Cracked cartoon via my own personal wayback machine, i.e. terry colon dot com.
Filed under A Dog’s Breakfast 7/10/19
Top Ten Language Themed
Guy-Walks-into-a-Bar Oneliners
Now the unnecessary punchline for every gag: And the Bartender says, “Is this some kind of joke?”
Filed 7/8/19
This time around it’s either a word-of-the-day in word quiz format or a word quiz with only two words. Of the day. Making it a semi quiz. Or maybe a demi quiz. Whatever it is you can see it all here…
Filed under What’s That Supposed to Mean? 7/6/19
Like the Sunday funnies only not on Sunday, not in color, not on newsprint, and there’s only one cartoon. So, not like the Sunday funnies really.
Filed under Gag Cartoon Gallery 7/3/19
It’s July. Start of the second half of the year. And the hottest month. Remember, because of Julius Caesar July 31st is really February 29th. If you forget, I’ll remind you then. That’s just the kind of silly thing I do. Anyway, if you want my take on the calendar shenanigans of Gaius Julius, I did that in the blog a couple years ago:
Filed 7/1/19
