cantankerous |

Coots Lesson #6: Never Underestimate Sarcasm

Posted by Justin at 06:02 Coots Lessons, Plain 'ol Cantankerous

Mar 232012

: Image via Wikipedia

I am working hard to refine my Cantankerosity and hone it to the rusty butcher knife edge that Ralph has achieved. One of the tools that must be used to acheive fine Cantankerosity is Sarcasm. Sarcasm, done correctly, is one of the finest things the English Language ever produced.

Done poorly, well, you may as well type it out and let a computer try to read it. It just doesn’t have the same punch. Kids will cry and adults will tremble when they are faced with a truly masterful sarcastic stream of consciousness. I have heard say that the British are the 7th degree Jedi Masters of Sarcasm, I am working up to that. I believe that I am at about level 5.

Now, Sarcasm is not for everyone. Some people try, but most of their sarcastic powers are lost in turns of the language that either make no sense or are trying so hard to be sarcastic as to just be a joke. Sarcasm is like Cantankerosity. Many can try, but only a few can truly wield the power. It must be learned and then practiced in order to be effective.

Sarcasm can sometimes be misinterpreted. Subtle digs at peoples lineage are usually sarcastic. Calling someone a Son of a Whore is more descriptive and probably truthful. You see how I wove sarcasm into the end of that sentence? Subtle sarcasm is something that must be deftly handled or you are just muttering under your breath. Of course, maybe you are doing that as well, there is plenty of room at the Coot house for you people.

Sarcasm is also able to fit just about anywhere you are. It can be laced with enough profanity to make a sailor fall to the ground weeping or it can be clean enough for church, I just would keep it out of the prayers. The big guy has a way of making lightning hit juuuussstt where he wants to. Personally, I think it is more difficult and requires a higher mastery of the sarcastic ways to leave the profanity out.

Even the lowest most uneducated lout can spout off a string of profanity, but it may not be sarcastic. The Definition of Sarcasm tells us that it comes from the greek word that means to tear flesh. That is exciting. Not only is Sarcasm fun, but if you take the word very literally, you will be a murder suspect.

That is where the mastery comes in. You can give someone a complex that will take years and thousand of dollars in therapy to undo. You can make the weak cry. You can make your dad punch a wall and hit a stud. Your goals will have been realized.

So take this from Coots Lesson #6, Never Underestimate Sarcasm. If you use it correctly, you will not only be Cootish but very Cantankerous. If you use it incorrectly, you will just sound like an idiot. If you want some really good sarcastic training, go watch some British Comedy. Monty Python has some of the best ever filmed.

Your homework has been assigned.

That is all.

-Justin

Justin

Justin is the young Coot with a Cantankerous Soul who continues to be educated by older, more cootish Ralph and Bob. His Cantankerosity is his own.

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook

Travel Like a Coot

Posted by Ralph at 04:12 principles

Feb 082012

Life’s a bitch..and then you die!

Coot Kiss (Photo credit: stewartmorris)

Heaven knows that the lifestyle of a Cantankerous Old Coot isn’t easy. It might seem glamorous and all but fame and fortune don’t come without a price. And then there is actually living up to the title. You have to be on your toes every minute, With all those messages urging you to take the well-worn path of ordinary, charting your own course through life takes determined and dogged commitment. You have to fight the urges to just settle for what everybody else does and do something special. Travel is no exception.

Travel these days means cruises. You can’t avoid the commercials showing happy people eating or playing on cruise ships. It’s like water torture except with pretty pictures. It is so hard to resist. What’s not to like? Lots of food in exotic locals while you are safely isolated from any of the harsh realities of actually visiting a foreign country, trying to understand a foreign language and deal with a foreign culture. You are quarantined in luxurious digs surrounded by shlubs just like you. And you have a crew whose job is to make sure you are happy while you float through alien cultures without ever having to engage. And did I mention the food?

Disclaimer.

SAN DIEGO - NOVEMBER 11: Stranded Carnival Spl...

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

OK, I confess that this Coot has never been on a cruise. I have been tempted by the commercials just like everyone else. I feel the call of all that fun, all that service and the promise of 24 hour food service. Even a committed Coot finds it difficult to resist the Siren call of the seven day cruise to paradise. In spite of everything, however, this Coot is still a cruise virgin and it’s not so much from my own inner strength as from that of my wife who has an overwhelming fear of any endeavor designed to make her happy. Logic tells her that the parties involved are either very sick or have some ulterior motive.

I think this probably comes from exposure to the Love Boat TV show back in the day but that is just my guess. I’ve invested a life-time in trying to understand my wife and I am still a long way from mastery. The best I can manage is to accept that I’ve have inexplicably got myself a good thing and to avoid doing anything that messes it up. So it is that the Carlson’s have escaped cruise mania.

So how does a committed Coot travel?

Engage in a new culture

Cruises may be off the table but still what’s the point of retirement if it means staying home and staring at the walls? Waiting around to die is so unsatisfying. Any Coot worth his salt wants new experiences to sweeten the wait. Not the empty calories of a seven day cruise or a Caribbean resort but something with high fiber and micro nutrients to feed the soul. No pre-digested travel pablum will satisfy a real Coot. Coots need to engage real life in a foreign clime.

So what is our plan?

The goal is to immerse ourselves into life in some exotic locale and avoid the tourist mentality by learning what real life is all about in a foreign land. So to start, we picked a city we would love to know better and rented an apartment. Two weeks is not enough to become a native but it is surely long enough to test the practicality of our plan. If we start longing for our old conventional lifestyle before our visit is over then maybe a cruise is all we want out of life. On the other hand if two weeks only tells us how much there is left to explore then we are ready for Plan B- a month or two for the next trip.

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook

A Coots Retrospective

Posted by Justin at 10:08 Coot Smirk

Jan 202012

Image via Wikipedia

This post today represents the 199th post on Cantankerous Old Coots. I thought we could take a peek back at the year that was and explore a bit about this site, and the snarky comment that started it all.

It is only appropriate that Ralph will have the 200th post on the Coots. Not only has he posted the most on this site, it was his comment over on my blog Catharsis of the Bogue that started all of this madness. It was March 22nd of last year that I started this site. On the 23rd I wrote the following post:

Well folks I did something very impulsive last night. I was sitting here trying to come up with some topic to write on. I am tired and only partially fueled by caffeine. My wife said I had that “look” and tonight’s post would be a doozy. She has seen the writing frenzy that exhaustion and caffeine has wrought.
The problem was this. Carlos sucked all of the ideas out of me during the PreWriting Challenge! Ok not really but it has been a day of writers block for post titles. I have a couple of story ideas though. I had a thought this morning after taking the kids to school that I hope I was not running dry of ideas. I am almost at my 3 month mark and ready to push past it.
I know there are more ideas, I just either need more sleep or more caffeine to make them flow. Or some good inspiration. I went and read some blogs, left some comments and tweeted a bit. After that I went back to look at my comments just hoping there was something there.
And there was! My internet buddy and purveyor of many life experiences Ralph(http://ralphcarlsonblog.com/) had left a comment. The discussion was about niches, and fitting in, when Ralph says,
“I am not sure that there is any market for cantankerous old coots but if there were, I’d claim it.”
I laughed and replied that I would sign up for the RSS feed of that. I didn’t think much more about it until Dave Doolin pipes up with his sage advice to go claim it. So I did. Coming in the next week or so, I will have a bunch of work with another blog at www.cantankerousoldcoots.com.
I think I am going to fill the blog with the wisdom and rants of those older than me, even though I am getting up there myself. I hope to get Ralph to fill the first guest post with something profound, and later Dave with something that would be totally inappropriate on his site.
I need to create a badge….crossed Preparation H and Ben Gay over a grouchy old guy’s face…. Our motto could be “Whatever” and our niche is “Advice for life from old coots.” We of course would have to adopt a Red Green type lodge… Hmmmm there are many possibilities. I would love to hear suggestions. We would have bylaws too…if you are under 40 you need to have an old coot persona or you can’t be published. Only rants on things that were better in the past could be posted. Any bowel problems are better off on your own site unless they have a really funny punchline and a cute nurse involved.
Wow I must be tired. This is going to be huge amounts of fun. Let me know what you think in the comments and sign up for my newsletter, I will keep updates in that as well!
Thanks for reading!
-Justin

And now here we are 200 posts, 6 authors and 134,000 words published. It has been a good year. If you are new to this blog, thanks for coming! Sign up for our newsletter and get the first Coots e-book from Cantankerous Old Coots University. If you are one of our long time readers, thanks for sticking around and boosting our numbers! If you have never commented, now is a good time to do so! If you feel feverish, head on over to one of the Coots other blogs: Ralph’s, Bob’s or mine.

Also, Bob is a little under the weather this weekend and will not be spending it in his yurt where he belongs. Send him a message over there to the right or to bob@cantankerousoldcoots.com and let him know you are thinking about him. Hopefully he will be back at full strength soon!

Have a great weekend

-Justin

Justin

Justin is the young Coot with a Cantankerous Soul who continues to be educated by older, more cootish Ralph and Bob. His Cantankerosity is his own.

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook

Ask a Coot Saturday: Holiday Confusion

Posted by Justin at 04:23 Ask A Coot!

Sep 252011

Hello folks. Today marks the first installment of our Ask A Coot segment! To submit questions, use the form over on the side of this page or use askacoot@cantankerousoldcoots.com. Today’s question comes from “Rachael” (names have been changed to protect real identities) in Grand Rapids, MI.

“Rachael” writes: “Dear Cantankerous Old Coots, Long time reader, first time writer. I was at the store on November 1st when I saw Christmas items for sale while the Halloween stuff was just being pulled off of the shelf and the Thanksgiving stuff was being put on clearance. What do you think of that?”

Now in order to get a proper Cantankerous response from your favorite coot, we are all going to respond, independently and then debate in the comments.

Bob answers Rachael’s question with:

“Frankly, I’ve quit shopping anywhere that puts out Christmas stuff before Halloween, and I’ve mostly quit buying Christmas stuff at stores that put it out before Thanksgiving. That means my shopping locations are limited, so I make most presents I give, mostly baked goods like cookies, pies, and cakes.

One of these days I’m going to walk down the baking aisle at Kroger and the sugar is gonna be on a Christmas sale before Thanksgiving…then I’ll have to sharpen my pocketknife and learn to whittle Christmas presents.”

Ralph chimes in with: ”

Dear Long time reader,

You describe a situation that I find very frustrating as well – the stores seem to have a completely different t holiday schedule than I do. Clearly there is something going on here but it isn’t so clear to this coot what it is. I think that perhaps there is some kind of evil plan at work to encourage us to buy more, whether from confusion about what holiday is up next or our eagerness to find a bargain. I think it is really a big game of chicken. They want their holiday goods up early so that anal compulsive people will stock up. Then they wait as long as they can hoping that people will get excited about holiday shopping and buy it all. Then as the holiday approaches, they start gaming us. They want to clear their shelves so they are willing to cut prices but they wait as long as they can. Customers are on to this game and so savvy shoppers wait for the pre-holiday sales. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. If they economy is good, the stores don’t have to start their sales early. When they economy is as bad as it is today those sales start right away and escalate.

This coot refuses to play the game any more. Unfortunately this means that when I want to buy Christmas stuff the week before Christmas, it’s already on clearance and the choices are limited. The best solution I have come up with is that I buy whatever they are selling when I want to buy. This, of course means that my Christmas presents are Valentines and our trick-or-treaters get toy turkeys but somehow it all works out. Those stores won’t get the best of me!

My advice is for you to follow my example and block out all that store propaganda and keep you own holiday schedule like this coot.

Sincerely,

Ralph”

And Justin finishes up with: “Dear Rachael, as much as it pains me to say it, this is just the world we must live in now. I miss the days of seasons to the stores. When the Fourth of July stuff came out in late June, Back to school sales were Mid august, and you never saw a pumpkin before October 10th. In those days Thanksgiving was important. People looked forward to the kick off of Christmas season when Santa Claus waved from the back of the Macy’s parade.

Now, we are just filled with money grubbing Christmas pimps who want to get as much money as they can. Sure you could call that capitalism and in a way it is, but there should be a freaking law. My wife wants to put up the Christmas tree this weekend, before Thanksgiving and it hurts my head. Literally.

It is very hard to have any season. But until I am in charge (sometime about 14 years after Hell freezes solid) we will have holiday’s early so that the stores can grub all of the cash that they can. Pretty soon it will be Christmas all year round with a small section of shelf dedicated to the holiday at hand. And when we fail to spend all of the money that they expect for each little holiday it will dissappear and it will be Christmas all year long.

I am fairly certain that other religions would revolt at that time and boycott. Hopefully that will solve the problem but it may not. Be prepared to take matters into your own hands, don’t shop at those stores who have such a need to pimp Christmas for their own gain. Do your kids a favor and make them something for Christmas this year.

And for the love of all that is Holy and Right, do not give them cash. They will only be spending it on Labor day merch 2 days after Christmas.

Go forth and revolt, you can build some cool things.

-Justin”

I hope you enjoyed this first question from the Cantankerous Old Coots advice department. Please send us more! askacoot@cantankerousoldcoots.com

The comments are open below….we want to know what you think of this feature and of our first question. Leave a comment below and put this out on all of the social networks you can before your eyes start bleeding. Me, I am going to play some flag football.

Justin

Justin is the young Coot with a Cantankerous Soul who continues to be educated by older, more cootish Ralph and Bob. His Cantankerosity is his own.

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook

Are they ready to rumble? I am.

Posted by Bob@HayleStorm Interactive at 12:08 rants

Sep 082011

The three of us resident coots…Justin, Ralph, and me…were talking the other day about ways to improve Cantankerous Old Coots. We kicked around a few ideas, some of which you’ll see us roll out over the next month or two, and some of which (thank God) will never see the light of day.

After about an hour of discussion (and not a few snarky comments from Ralph) Justin and Ralph suggested…rather pointedly I thought…that no matter what else we did, if we didn’t keep the writing quality to a high standard, COC would founder.

By virtue of my paranoia acute observational skills, even over the Skype connection I could tell they were talking about the dumb redneck boiled peanut salesman from Georgia, namely me.

Being the reserved, quiet, non-confrontational sort I quietly informed them both that I could outwrite both of them with half a keyboard tied behind my back, even before having my first cup pot of coffee in the morning, and if anyone needed to pick up their writing skills it was them. I know I did it quietly because the feedback in my headset was tolerable.

Painful…but tolerable.

I mean…com’on…how much kettlebell crap and retirement sackcloth and ashes do you folks want to listen to, huh? Wouldn’t you much prefer my astute observations on Washington idiocy, TSA sexual assaults at airports, and the sad state of public education…and the pithy way I present that information?

In their defense, Justin and Ralph DO have some limiting factors in their pitiable attempts to match my writing skills.

Besides writing, both here at Cantankerous old Coots AND at JustinsBrainPan (what the hell kinda blog name IS that, anyway?) AND being a stay-at-home dad…and playing those silly kettlebells, Justin doesn’t have a lot of time and energy to put into quality writing, so his dragging COC down is understandable, if unfortunate.

As for poor, poor Ralph…well, we all use a certain amount of brain power on each blog we write, and we all only have so much brain power to start with, and Ralph does have to keep try to keep quality work on his blog RalphCarlsonBlog, and…well…there just isn’t much left over. I wouldn’t want to say he doesn’t have much to work with, but he did choose to live in Californeeee, after all. Not just that, but he chose to be right next door to UCBerkley, for God’s sake! His limitations are obvious.

As for ME…well, I’ve known for years I am the Smartest Man in the World, and frankly I’ve never been short on the willingness to share that fact…with family, neighbors, friends, and now y’all…so it’s obvious to me that MY writing certainly is up to snuff, both here and over at MY blog, JuicyMaters.com, but…

Justin and Ralph don’t agree. Actually, they disagree quite vemnt…vehamtl…veamentall…oh crap…strongly, so we are leaving it up to you, my our readers, to decide who is best. This week’s post comments will be counted, and the post with the most comments wins the Golden Coot Award for best, most cantankerous coot on this blog.

If I win it will prove to Justin and Ralph who is REALLY the best writer here at COC.

You ask, “IF you lose?” Well, I don’t think that’s possible, but if it happens it proves you, the readers, have a mental acuity on the level of Justin and Ralph, and I truly feel sorry for y’all.

Bob@HayleStorm Interactive

Bob comes to us with a skeptical attitude and a full cup of Cantankerousness. He also writes about homesteading and yurts over at JuicyMaters.com and rants about politics at Common-Sense-Conversation.com Most of the time, though, you'll find him at HayleStorm.net, cranking out great websites for clients OR writing tutorials teaching them to build their own sites.