How's your sense of humor?

Mine is strange, or so I am told. Often. By many different people.

I don't laugh at slapstick comedy. Traditional jokes usually fall flat with me. What makes me laugh is the unexpected, the ironic, and the just plain bizarre. The weirder the ideas that are juxtaposed, the funnier it looks to me.

For example, last week my son had to have minor surgery. Before taking him back to the operating room, the anesthesiologist gave him a pretty solid dose of midazolam, which has very potent short-acting alcohol-like effects. Ten minutes after drinking the liquid, my two-year-old was plastered. He was giggling at the ceiling in the asthesiologist's arms because he couldn't hold his head up. To me, this was hilarious. A drunk toddler. You don't see that every day.

Now, mind you, I'm not amused when people are actually harmed. If my son had been drunk on actual alcohol, I would have been horrified and infuriated at whoever had given it to him. The pre-op cocktail incident was funny in part because it was prescribed for him.

Another phenomenon that amuses me is quotes that would sound wrong or bizarre out of context. When I was in college, I kept a piece of paper on the wall where I would write such quotes, and called it "the Random Quote Board." These were not quotes of the stupid things my friends and I would say when drunk. To qualify for the RQB, a quote had to make perfect sense in the context in which it was said, and essentially no other context.

Anywho, the big disadvantage of having a strange sense of humor is that it can be hard to find funny stuff when you want to. If I google "humor," most of what comes up is not funny to me. So, when I do find a website that tickles my funnybone, I make note of it. One of my favorite tricks for a quick laugh is to type something random in Altavista's babelfish website, translate it from English into Russian, from Russian to Japanese, from Japanese to French or Italian, and back into English. Usually what I get back is completely unrecognizable, and for some reason, this amuses the heck out of me. The more idiomatic or colloquial language I enter, the more distant the eventual translation is from the original.

Well, a couple of years ago, I discovered a site that collects examples of this phenomenon in real life: http://www.engrish.com Like any collection, some are funnier than others. But in general, the attempts of commercial enterprise to translate between radically different languages, and the resulting mistakes, can be outrageous. Even funnier is when people buy something that looks cool to them, totally ignorant of the effect, like the Japanese boy wearing a shirt that says "Warning: educated black woman."

Stupidphone

So, I jumped on the smartphone bandwagon about a month ago. Compared to other young professionals, I'm a little slow to adopt new technology, at least if it's expensive. I got my first cell phone in 2003. I got a PDA at the same time, and I have been carrying two separate devices ever since. Until last month.

I got the smartphone because I believe they have finally reached the point of integrating the various communication and productivity tools I use better than I can do manually with two separate devices, and because I thought it would save me enough time to be worth the money invested. So far, I'm not getting much of a return on my investment.

But I'm still optimistic. After all, I expected a learning curve. I still hope that once I know how to use this thing, the ability to check my email instantly, search the web instantly and check my schedule instantly wherever I am will save me time. And if not, hey, at least I look cool!

My favorite salad

I hate dieting. There is so little healthy food that tastes good. But I also hate not fitting in my favorite clothes. Health food sucks, but fat pants suck worse. So I am dieting.

The only way I can stick to a diet is if I find ways to satisfy my sweet tooth. If I deprive myself of sweets, I will cheat on my diet. So, I am very glad to have discovered a salad that tastes sweet enough to me that I don't feel a strong urge to buy cookies.

It's really simple, too. Buy a package of your favorite lettuce, a bag of dried cranberries, a package of praline pecans (or other honey-roasted or sweetened nuts) and a bottle of some fruity vinaigrette dressing. Mix. Eat. Yum.

The key is to measure the portions of everything, so you don't accidentally eat 600 calories worth of fruit, nuts and dressing. I like to use about 2 cups of lettuce, 1/4 cup each of cranberries and nuts, and 1 or 1.5 Tbsp of dressing. That gives me between 450 and 500 calories, just the right size for a dieter's lunch.

Drive through beer shop disturbs me

Every day (or close enough) when I drive to work, I pass by a store called "discout beer and tobacco." This paragon of American commerce has a drive-thru window. For some reason, this really disturbs me.