I think this is my favorite quote out of George Carlin:

Why is the man (or woman) who invests all your money called a broker?

I'm not sure why I'm all of a sudden so facinated by George Carlin in the wake of his death. Its odd. Maybe its because I went to one of his comedy shows. Maybe it was because he's the narrator in those Thomas the Train videos that my kids so loved to watch. In anycase, I'm sad that you're gone, George. And I am thankful for the tidbits of wisdom that you have imparted on us.

In memory of George Carlin.... good night.

More quotes from George (Carlin)

• When someone asks you, A penny for your thoughts, and you put your two cents in, what happens to the other penny?
• If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn't it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted?
• When someone is impatient and says, "I haven't got all day," I always wonder, How can that be? How can you not have all day?
• I thought about how mothers feed their babies with tiny little spoons and forks so I wondered, what do Chinese mothers use? Toothpicks?
• Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.
• Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.
• Before they invented drawing boards, what did they go back to?
• Why do croutons come in airtight packages? It's just stale bread to begin with.
• If the #2 pencil is the most popular, why is it still #2?
• "I am" is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that "I do" is the longest sentence?
• Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?
• Why is the man (or woman) who invests all your money called a broker?
• I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.
• The very existence of flame-throwers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I'm just not close enough to get the job done.
  

:-)

In Honor of George Carlin... (BASEBALL RULES!)

This is a reprint of George Carlin's classic bit "The Difference Between Baseball and Football." Excerpted from Brain Droppings by George Carlin, Copyright 1997, Comedy Concepts Inc. Published by Hyperion. All rights reserved.

Baseball & football are the two most popular spectator sports in this country. And as such, it seems they ought to be able to tell us something about ourselves and our values.
I enjoy comparing baseball and football:

• Baseball is a nineteenth-century pastoral game.
• Football is a twentieth-century technological struggle.
• Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park. The baseball park!
• Football is played on a gridiron, in a stadium, sometimes called Soldier Field or War Memorial Stadium.
• Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life.
• Football begins in the fall, when everything's dying.
• In football you wear a helmet.
• In baseball you wear a cap.
• Football is concerned with downs — what down is it?
• Baseball is concerned with ups — who's up?
• In football you receive a penalty.
• In baseball you make an error.
• In football the specialist comes in to kick.
• In baseball the specialist comes in to relieve somebody.
• Football has hitting, clipping, spearing, piling on, personal fouls, late hitting and unnecessary roughness.
• Baseball has the sacrifice.
• Football is played in any kind of weather: rain, snow, sleet, hail, fog...
• In baseball, if it rains, we don't go out to play.
• Baseball has the seventh inning stretch.
• Football has the two minute warning.
• Baseball has no time limit: we don't know when it's gonna end — might have extra innings.
• Football is rigidly timed, and it will end even if we've got to go to sudden death.
• In baseball, during the game, in the stands, there's kind of a picnic feeling; emotions may run high or low, but there's not too much unpleasantness.
• In football, during the game in the stands, you can be sure that at least twenty-seven times you're capable of taking the life of a fellow human being.

And finally, the objectives of the two games are completely different:

• In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line.
• In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! — I hope I'll be safe at home!

I hope that I will be safe at "home" someday, the home that God has built for me. Farewell, George.

john