David's blog

Next week, there's a 50 kilometer race in Connecticut.  A hundred of my new best friends (whom I'll likely never see again) as well as a few of the gang I've been running with for years are going to head up to Danbury, hurl ourselves into the void, and give it a try.  What the heck?  Why not?  How hard could it be?  Running 50 K is just like running 5 K only we get to do it ten times instead of just once.

The point is, you never know what will happen when you get out there and do something.

"You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar,

When I met you.

I picked you out, I shook you up, and turned you around; turned you into someone new.

Now five years later on you've got the world at your feet, Success has been so easy for you. 

But don't forget it's me who put you where you are now, and I can put you back down too." 

Needless to say, by the end of the song, it is clear that she has dumped him. 

My column this week is a "slippery slope" or "reducio ad absurdum" about what could happen if the kind of thinking in this piece:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonma/2012/04/01/why-to-start-preparing-for-college-in-sixth-grade/ 

were to flow to its natural conclusion.  Here's an except from the article that appeared in Forbes:

Here's a riddle you may enjoy:  What do Winnie the Pooh and Atilla the Hun have in common?

Of course, the answer will be supplied next week--unless a gentle reader posts a reply in the comments section on the website.  In the meantime, the following hint--from Groucho Marx--may be of help:  "A child of five would understand this.  Send someone to fetch a child of five." In other words, young ones may have more luck with this riddle than do their parents. 

Here's a joke from 40 years ago.  Let me know if you recognize it:  A man comes home from work to see his two year-old son on the kitchen floor happily playing in a puddle of spilled milk.  In the next room, the man observes his older son, age five, shaving the cat with an electric razor.  Walking gingerly past dirty laundry and piles of dishes, the man heads upstairs through a maze of toys.

Not, how do you win a chicken?  I can only assume that there are any number of country fairs across our great nation that allow you to put down your cotton candy, pick up a baseball, and win a chicken.  Referenced here is the "game" of chicken involving two cars, two drivers, and one deserted (hopefully) stretch of highway.