Not Funny

dark brown
dirt and sand
edges sticky
directed verdict?
one thing I do know:
I hate bananas.

Now that (fucking) winter is rolling in, I thought I’d comment on a couple things I’ve always wondered about. If any of you can shed any light on this, let me know.

On any self-respecting weather station/weather website/random source of meteorological information, right next to the big picture of the sun (or, these days, the big gray cloud with lots of drops coming out of it) it’ll have the actual temperature in big numbers, and usually, right under it or next to it, it’ll have the words "feels like" and another temperature, in much smaller letters.

Here’s what I’m wondering:  shouldn’t the "feels like" temperature be the bigger one? I mean, does anyone really care that it’s actually 45 degrees when it really feels like it’s 12?

And another thing:  how exactly do they ascertain what the "feels like" temperature is?  Do they have a guy whose job it is to stand outside all day and report how cold it feels? (A "reasonable meteorological man," so to speak?  Sorry, law school joke.)  Or do they just interview random people? "Excuse me, sir, how cold does it feel
to you?" "Pretty fucking cold!" "Um, no, sir, I’m going to need a quantitative answer." I will say this: they definitely aren’t consulting with my mom. It could be 75 degrees and sunny and she’ll still say it’s freezing.

Three days ago, in a sudden moment of insanity brought on by an unexpected bout of coughing, I took out the three packs of Marlboro Reds (there was a "buy 2, get 1 free" special) out of my drawer — two sealed, one half-full — and spread them on a heavy wood cutting board (Crate & Barrel outlet special, $5).  I then pulled a big cleaver ($15, IKEA) off the knife magnet ($5, also IKEA) on my kitchen wall and proceeded to chop, or should I say cleave, the three packets into little pieces. Four minutes later I was smiling and sweating and there was tobacco fluttering all around me. 

Israelis hate being suckers.  They hate it more than anything.  What’s
even worse than getting taken by others is getting taken by what they perceive to be their own
stupidity.  I am no exception.  I will force myself to have fun at a club I paid a $20 cover to get into.  This is why I am not surprised at what happened two days later. I was seriously craving a smoke, and almost bought a pack
when I realized I’d just destroyed about a week’s worth of cigarettes
two days ago.  Which meant I had about five days to go in order to
mitigate the damage induced by my attempted quitting.  So I didn’t smoke.  I haven’t yet.  I still have four days to go, at least.  I mean, if I start now, I might as well never have tried to quit.  It’s just plain dumb.  And I don’t mind being an addict, so long as I’m not a sucker of an addict.

Who knows, maybe in four days I’ll buy a pack and chop it to fucking pieces again.  It’s way more satisfying than puffing on a stick, I’ll tell you that much.

A friend of mine recently mentioned that traditional jokes should be "modernized" by giving them realistic endings, the kind that we would actually expect to hear in the real world.

His example:

A man calls a lawyer and asks him, "how much do you charge?" to which the lawyer responds, "five thousand dollars for three questions." So the man asks, "really? That much?" And the lawyer replies [new realistic ending], "yes, now would you like to ask me those three questions?"

My example:

- What’s worse than finding a worm in an apple?
- [new realistic ending] The death of a close friend.

E-mail me with your suggestions, or, if you’re a history buff and you’d like to know the traditional, outdated punchlines to these jokes.