FRIDAY FUNNIES

The play "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus" is being performed in Prescott right now.

Which, since today is FRIDAY(!!!!!) prompts me to show you the difference between how women and men celebrate this great day.

First . . women:

And then . . men:

All right, Gentle Readers, with that explained let's get on with the Friday Funnies.

On that happy note, your Joy Boy will bring this edition to a close.

Now I want you to have an embarrassingly spectacular weekend, Gentle Readers, and always remember to keep laughing!

Here, kitty-kitty . . .

(oh boy . . .)

POLITICS AND BLUE BIRDS

Y'all may have noticed that I haven't commented on Hurricane Harvey.

Well, now I will.

It's a terrible, hideous disaster brought on in part because of climate change.

The waters in the Gulf of Mexico are warmer than they have been in years past and that contributes to the unrelenting rainfall that has accompanied this storm.

No matter how much blather the deniers put out, climate change brought on and intensified this storm.

And then I saw that our President made a trip to Texas this week without meeting any of the survivors of the storm and made some self-serving statements before jetting back to the Beltway.

Vice-president Pence came to Texas today and met and hugged and prayed with survivors and even got his hands dirty carrying some broken tree branches away from the front of a building.

But, then, we all know he's running for President, don't we?

Do I sound a bit cynical?

Oh, yes, the President said today he's giving a million dollars of his own money to the relief effort.

Someone I know very well commented that money will probably come from the Trump Foundation that he doesn't contribute to.

But be that as it may.

I had a visitor this afternoon.

What my friend Mike in Montana will quickly identify as a "camp robber".

Down here in Arizona we call him a Mountain Jay.

He just stopped by for a drink.

Speaking of which . . . . . . .

ONE WEEK LATER

Some of you have expressed interest in my recent Pacemaker/Defibrillator replacement surgery.

I'm going to show you where it is, complete with the scar from the cutting, so if you're queasy you might want to go someplace else right now.

But for those of you who watch medical shows on television (SWMBO) and are still curious, here you go.

That thin red line is where the surgeon opened the skin over my chest a week ago yesterday and tugged and pushed to get the old pacemaker out and the new one inserted.

That bulge isn't swelling as much as it is the actual shape of the pacemaker beneath my skin.

The original leads (wires) that go from the device into my heart have been there since the first installation ten years ago.

They get checked from time to time but so far they're holding up just fine.

I don't think the yellowish color on the left is bruising as much as it is of some of the chemicals that were brushed onto the skin for cleaning.

I was out of the hospital only a couple of hours after the surgery and with an ice-pack on my chest, asleep for about an hour and a half.

After that no more ice and never any pain pills, not even aspirin.

'Course, they gave me quite a cocktail of drugs in the hospital which probably had a day's worth or so of time to wear off.

But, as the old expression goes, "no pain, no strain" and, since this was my fourth pacemaker "surgery", no worries either.

As I say (ad infinitum), "this ain't my first rodeo."

BREAKING NEWS!!!

Light sprinkle dampens windows in Arizona!

(With apologies to residents of Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas)

FRIDAY FUNNIES

This is not the best day to be finding humor in our daily lives with Hurricane Harvey bearing down on the Texas coast.

But I'm going to try to bring some cheer, even if for just a short time.

Today (once again), Gentle Readers, we're going to examine the role of the computer in our lives.

So that's it for another week of toil and trouble, Gentle Readers.

Have yourselves a merry little weekend and keep your spirits bright.

(hmmm, that kinda sounds like a song.)

And always remember, even and especially in the face of bad stuff, to keep laughing.

Here, kitty-kitty . . .

TBT

I have just finished reading a book titled "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay", by Michael Chabon.

It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2001.

I used to see it when Judy and I ran our bookstore but only very recently got around to it.

At just over 650 pages, it is a bit of a challenge.

And it's subject matter may challenge some.

It varies between a young Jewish man making an escape from Prague just prior to the beginning of World War Two, magic tricks and escape stunts, comic book art, the unfairness of the business world, romance, homosexuality, life and death.

But I found it a spellbinder.

And mixing in familiar names like Morton Gould, Milton Caniff, Stan Lee, Harry Houdini, Scarne, Orson Welles, Dolores Del Rio and many more brought memories back to me.

I, too, grew up on comic books and magic.

With my mother's help at costumery, I sported a black cape and (cardboard) top hat as a lad to perform shows for a few friends as The Great Taylor.

I had quite a library of books by the aforementioned Scarne, Houdini, Harry Blackstone and others.

But while I did know a few card tricks, unlike the great Scarne I could never master the art of unerringly producing four aces from a deck on command.

In other words, that picture is as fake as it is fuzzy.

GET OVER IT