This cartoon was inspired by a Facebook post from Kim G.  Kim has now been made an Honorary WoodChip for her insightful question and inspiration.  You can see her name listed among other luminaries in our prestigious Honorary WoodChips list – click here at Honorary WoodChips.

Kim is also the Go To Guru of all things in Social Media.  So whether you are a professional looking to increase traffic to your site, or a FaceBook poster that wants to be better at it than all your friends (not that any of us are competitive or anything, heh, heh), you will want to visit her site at Kim’s Site – click here.

If you agree that a woman can’t have to many pairs of shoes, you might like the bag, card, or T-Shirt shown below – and many more choices and fun things -  at the WoodChips Store.  Just click here or the image below to go to the store.

And have a nice day – J. Daniel

OK, so a lot of you have gotten your free 2012 WoodChips Calendars by now.

And then, some others haven’t gotten around to it yet.  Hey, it’s only March, right? (chuckle).

So for you ultimate procrastinators, and believe me, I admire your staying power, we’ve created the Ultimate Procrastinators Calendar, featuring the Mayan End Of The World – which, oh by the way, ends before the year is out.

Our top level meetings here at WoodChips Central lead us to believe this would help you get around to downloading the calendar.  This special calendar has the holidays after the end of the world conveniently grayed out so you won’t accidently plan something.

So go ahead and click here to get your free calendar, featuring all the cool holidays like Belly Laugh Day, Black Friday, Talk Like A Pirate Day and many more – before the world ends. And yes, it has all the old boring holidays as well.

And I’d get cracking on that bucket list while your at it (chuckle).

Have a great day – J. Daniel

Here’s a new word for you that recently showed up on the internet – Ineptocracy.  It was brought to my attention by astute WoodChips reader Marty C.

Ineptocracy noun. (in-ep-toc’-ra-cy) – a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

This word kind of confirms a nagging suspicion I’ve had that our politicians are granting political favors to blocks of voters so they can get re-elected.  Now that’s rather cynical of me, but I keep running into these things that make me think we have the best government money can buy.

Like alcohol, for instance.  Only the government could screw up such a wonderful product. You just aren’t going to believe this.  Now, I’m not talking about the good kind of alcohol, but rather it’s anemic cousin used for fuel to run your car.  This kind of alcohol is supposed to be a Read the rest of this entry »

Cartoon Text:

Elmer: What are Chip and Cherry doing?
Maple: They’re playing their favorite game called Federal Government.
Elmer: It looks like they are just kicking a can down the road.
Maple: Like I said, they are playing Federal Government.

Wow, no arguing with Mimosa on that one – she’s sharp as a tack, isn’t she?

I guess Woody was expecting a more conventional answer like the Giants or the Patriots.  Anyhow, have a great Super Bowl Sunday — and I hope your favorite team wins – J. Daniel

Text of Cartoon:
Woody: So who’s going to win the Super Bowl, Mimosa?
Mimosa: That’s easy, Woody.  The team with the most points.

Can you believe some of the things these Presidential candidates are saying these days?  I swear, some days I think they will say and do anything to win the election — but that’s just cynical and crass of me, now isn’t it.

Have a nice day (and wear your hip boots) – J. Daniel

Cartoon text:
Presidential Candidate: And I am not a Flop Flipper.
DeadWood: It’s Flip Flopper.
Presidential Candidate: Uh, for the record, I was a Flip Flopper before I wasn’t a Flop Flipper.
Caption: Well, that certainily clears things up

Sometimes after I’ve drawn a cartoon I come up with a variation that may be better, have a different meaning, or be clearer.  In this case I took out the Y2k reference and just kept it simple, i.e. the Mayan’s calendar ended in 2012 just because they ran out of steps.  I think this variation is clearer to most people.

The Y2k reference, which I like as well, is really pretty subtle.  What do you think?

Have a nice day – J. Daniel

Text of cartoon:
1st Mayan: So why did you stop at 2012?
2nd Mayan: I ran out of steps.
1st Mayan: Ha, that’s so far in the future no one will ever notice.
Caption: How the ancient Mayans 2012 end of the world prediction really happened

So here’s how the Mayan Calendar really came to predict the end of the world.  And being such an advanced civilization, they invented the first Y2k problem as well.  Jeez, now we’re going to have to go through the whole Y2k problem all over again.  In 2012.

And then the worlds is going to end.  Again.  This time on December 21, 2012 – the winter solstice.

Just thought you might want to know – J. Daniel

P.S.  The Mayans also were the first to invent silly hats (chuckle) – I think for the tourist, maybe.

With the New Year approaching, many of us are figuring out resolutions, and maybe some are stumped.

I have a simple one for you that I heard from an old friend long ago.  It has stuck with me all these years.

His name is Wayne and I worked with him for some time.  I grew to appreciate the fact that Wayne had more common, practical sense than just about anyone I knew.  This is a big compliment because I consider common sense to be one of the most valuable skills in life, and we could sure use a lot more of it (particularly in Washington, D. C.).

So what Wayne told me was that he tried to learn one new thing a day – so that at the end of the year he knew 365 new things.  Now how simple, achievable, and practical is that?  And it must be a great goal because he went on to achieve significant professional success (and I’m sure was learning many new things a day, actually).

In today’s Internet age, there’s a zillion ways to do this, but just in case you need a kick start, here are two sites to begin with.  Every day, go to www.wikipedia.com and / or www.dictionary.com and look something up.

So what should you look up?  Well, anything from whimsical to news related.  Here are three off the top of my head I just looked up on Wikipedia while writing this post.

Look up something whimsical – Ice Cream. Who isn’t interested in ice cream?  Seriously, I’m pretty open-minded, but don’t think I want to know anyone not interested in ice cream (kidding – in case you are lactose intolerant).

Did you know the Persians probably created the first version of ice cream before 400 BC by pouring fruit juice over snow in a bowl?  And it looks like the Arabs were the first to use milk as a major ingredient in its production, sweeten the ice cream with sugar, and produce it commercially.  Ice cream was widespread by the 10th century among many of the Arab’s major cities, such as Baghdad, Damascus and Cairo.

I can see it now, a chain of Baghdad-Robbins 31 flavors ice cream tents in the crowed bazaars.

By the way, do you know when you pig out on ice cream (I call it ice cram) and get that brain freeze headache in your forehead that the pain really isn’t in your forehead?  The top of your mouth, which got really cold and is having problems, sends signals back to your brain via the trigeminal nerve, which also serves the facial area.  So the brain interprets the pain as coming from your forehead.  This is known as “referred pain” (something also seen during heart attacks).

So back to the ice cream, and seriously, folks, regardless of the turmoil in parts of the Arab world today, you have to give them credit for creating ice cream.  Clearly they had it going on back then.

Look up something news related – Rare Earths.  I just read in the news that China is going to restrict export of rare earths.  So I checked it out.  Rare earths (elements) are a collection of seventeen elements in the periodic table that have special qualities, are scarce minerals and most people probably haven’t heard about them.  Contrast that to some of the elements you are familiar with — like gold, silver, iron, oxygen, etc.

Interestingly, it turns out that they aren’t that rare, they are just more dispersed in the earth (which makes them hard to get).

As a photographer, it interest me that the rare earth element lanthanum is used to make highly reflective glass for camera lenses.  Didn’t know that.  Now I do.  Also, I find it interesting they all end in um, although this may not be all that useful (chuckle).

And my favorite is scandium.  Probably rare except in two places – Washington D.C. and Hollywood.  I’m constantly reading about scandiums in those places (I might have made that last part up).

Look up something spiritual – Chocolate.  Bet you didn’t think I was going there, did you?  But clearly, chocolate IS a spiritual experience, don’t you agree.

So let’s pay proper homage to our past “Americas” cousins, the Aztecs, for creating chocolate!  Good to know.  Here’s another new chocolate fact.   One theory, among many, about the origins of the word chocolate is that it came from their word “xocolātl” (/ʃo.ko.laːtɬ/) made up from the words “xococ” meaning sour or bitter, and “ātl” meaning water or drink.

Personally, I have problems with words beginning in X, so whatever caused the corruption of the word to the more pronounceable chocolate was a major advance in civilization akin to the discovery of fire, the invention of the steam engine, ATM’s and Facebook (I might have left a few out but just go with me on this).

So there you have it – three new things just like that.

Now, in the true spirit of common sense, I have a very practical New Year’s resolution suggestion for you here.  And it is to forget everything you just read in this post.  Then, on January 1, come back to the WoodChips site and read this post over again.  That way, you will have learned THREE new things on the first day of the year, and started the New Year two days ahead of schedule!

So how good is that?!?!

Carpe datum – J. Daniel

Trees make New Year’s resolutions too, you know.  After all, they grow a tree ring every year, so they like to plan for their future ring.  Lately it seems I’ve been growing a few too many rings, and some pretty thick ones at that, so I’ll touch on what to do about that later in the post.

But right now, here’s Elmer, sipping on a little Hard Water on New Year’s Eve and writing his New Year’s resolutions.

I think he’s got a pretty good list going here, don’t you?

He’s resolving to hit the hard water just a touch less and to eat less junk fertilizer, so he’s got the health improvement thing going on — always a good idea.  And he’s going to be nicer to his neighbors in the forest by not putting them so much in the shade.

And he’s doing something larger than himself — he’s going to help save the planet by resolving to absorb 25% more carbon dioxide in 2011 — a very environmentally friendly plan.  Of course, all the trees are environmentally green in their heartwood.

I really like his stretch goal of growing twelve feet next year — and his personal enlightenment goal of growing toward the sun.

But I favor most of all his resolution to pay more attention to his Tree Mate and shelter his saplings.  After all, family and friends are the most important thing when it comes right down to it.

Noticeably absent are some weight loss and exercise (swaying in the wind) goals.  There’s a very practical reason for this.  I ran out of space in the cartoon bubble (chuckle).  Actually, I could have worked them in, but chose instead to discuss these in a separate post called the Crystal Harris vs. Twinkie Diet.

Crystal Harris is  a 24 year old former Playboy Playmate who just became engaged to 84 year old Hugh Hefner.  Now the women in the auduence are going to read this with noble intentions of finding out what kind of diet she’s on to mantain a fit form.  But candidly, I have some REAL suspicions about why the guys are going to read this and click on the link I provide (G-Rated, Not X-Rated) … remember guys, for those of you that have ever bought a Playboy, you got it for the articles, right!?!?

Anyhow, I think you’ll find it most interesting.  I also show a chart of how I lost 30 pounds in six months using the Crystal Harris style diet, and the easy way I did it.  So you might want to check that out.

Meanwhile, back to Elmer, what do you think of his resolutions.  Can you think of any more “tree oriented” things he could resolve to do (example from above – swaying in the wind for exercise)?

If so, just click on the title of this post, and write your suggestions to Elmer in the comment box that appears below.

And Happy New Year to you from the WoodChips and myself – J. Daniel