The Dartnel

 

June 30, 2006

 

If anybody’s interested, I have some interesting items for sale.  One:  Slightly used duct tape.  Actually used by George Washington to plug boat leaks on the Delaware River.  $47.01 or best offer.  Two:  Stan Smith’s autobiography, Eye Kan Two Right!  Would make good substitute for fire-burning logs.  May pay to take off my hands.  Three:  Time machine.  Only sends you back to 1957.  Not as memorable as certain songs lead you to believe.  JK  No recall to present, so have to live 49 years in past.  Will take garbage bags in trade.

 

We continue to rehearse for Annie.  (And it starts…)  Earlier, I mentioned that I would not be singing.  Unfortunately, I do have to dance!  (Here’s hoping I get a cute woman to dance with!!!)  I actually thought of something, though.  This time around, my minor role consists of me getting chased and backed up by a drunk.  This happens to be the exact reverse of last year, when I was the drunk who was chasing and backing up people!  (Oh, wait, I should be talking about on the stage…)  We still don’t know what my choreography is going to be (and when I say we, I’m including the director, so stop calling me nuts), but as long as I look unbelievably handsome, I don’t care.  (Wait…  Shouldn’t I be slamming myself instead?)  I just wonder what stories are circulating about me when I’m not there.  One of my cast mates from Hello, Dolly! is also in Annie, and she has stories about my insanity.  Our director has stories about my insanity.  Everybody else involved thinks of me as the drunk.  To top it all off, I’m trying to project the image that I am completely insane!  Of course, all you reading this know better, don’t you?  J

 

New Joke:  According to surveys, the number one fear of most people is public speaking.  The number two fear is death.  People are dying to get out of giving speeches!

 

Before proceeding, you should take your anti-nausea pills now.  I am going to tell a story.  Maybe it happened; maybe it didn’t.  In South Asia, a family’s cows ran off.  You must understand, in that area of the world, people are heavily dependent on their animals to help them perform their work.  These people began praying to their gods to help them find their cows.  While searching, a storm blew through.  The family feared that their cows were lost.  A few months before this incident, a missionary team had shared the gospel of Jesus with the family.  With all other options gone, the family prayed to Jesus for help with their cows.  Immediately thereafter, the storm broke, and the family saw their cows mere meters from them.  As a result of this incident, that South Asia family now believes in Jesus Christ.

 

Just to prove I’m not a liar, here’s the URL link to this story’s point of origin:  http://ime.imb.org/Theme/stories.asp.

 

Now for proof that I am a liar, here’s this week’s…

 

Word of the Week:  timorous – adj. meaning 1. Full of apprehensiveness; timid; fearful; 2. Indicating, or caused by, fear (pronounced TIM-uhr-uhs)

 

Okay, I’ll say it.  They fixed the barn door after the cows came home.

 

(I can’t believe you were expecting that lame excuse for a joke!)

 

Darrell

 

June 22, 2006

 

It has been brought to my attention that there are people out there who want to immure my glabrous visage.  Those same people need to stop using the Word of the Week against me.  If they don’t, there will be an audio file posted on this website featuring my unique renditions of such classics as “My Way”, “Hound Dog”, and the ever popular “Flowers on the Wall”.

 

A couple of bear stories for you.  (Yes, Ms. Japan, I know that’s a fragment! J )  These are true stories that actually happened.  (See if you can spot the redundancy in the previous sentence.)  One:  An extremely territorial cat managed to chase a bear up a tree not once, but twice.  A mere housecat!  Meyow!  Fear the cat!  Old Smokey would have never done anything like that.  He would have slept through the bear’s visit.  Two:  In a reverse from Goldilocks and the Three Bears, a bear broke into a home and sat down to a big bowl of oatmeal.  After finishing the oats off, the bear simply left, rather leisurely.  A bear’s got to eat!  Don’t mess with a bear when he’s not bothering anybody.

 

On This Date:  In 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the GI Bill.  This bill provided financial aid to World War II veterans.  The GI Bill is still in effect today.

 

Now for some true stories that never happened.  (WHAT???)  One:  I was Wil Wheaton’s stunt double in the sixth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation.  I was paid on a per-episode basis.  (Somebody could have told me he had left the show a couple of years beforehand. L )  Two:  The original host of The Tonight Show was a little-known used car dealer from I Don’t Know, Idaho, by the name of Dritz Quixlez.  He was fired for running back odometers.  Three:  The game show Truth or Consequences was actually named for a community in New Mexico.  (Don’t believe me?  Look up Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, in a road atlas!)  Four:  The actual winner in the 2000 Presidential Election?  Burger King!

 

Okay, I made the previous paragraph up.  So immure me.

 

Now, for something not made up, it’s the…

 

Word of the Week:  ephemeron – n. meaning 1. Something short-lived or of no lasting significance; 2. ephemera (plural form): Items, especially printed matter (as posters, broadsides, pamphlets, etc.), intended to be of use or importance for only a short time but preserved by collectors (pronounced ih-FEM-uh-ron [plural pronunciation: ih-FEM-uh-ruh])

 

Hopefully, this immurement people are threatening me with will only be an ephemeron.

 

Don’t call me glabrous!

 

Darrell

 

June 13, 2006

Happy Birthday to Me!  (Like anybody cares…)

 

Here it is, my birthday yet again.  I have to keep telling myself that it’s no big deal; we all get older.  I’m 24 now.  You’re 27.  Oh, right.  As I turn 39, 27, you dummy!  Oops.  As I turn 27, I can’t help but think that I’m still alive and kicking!  This, despite the fact that my left knee has been acting as though it belongs on a 96-year-old person.  My memory is awful, as well.  Last Monday the fifth, when leaving rehearsal, I managed to forget my black portfolio that I use to haul my papers around in!  At least I no longer lock the keys in the car.

 

I thought of something completely uninteresting related to last Tuesday.  There is a highway in the four corners area designated Route 666.  Years ago, as memory recalls, the Arizona stretch of this highway was renumbered as Route 191.  The reason:  There were inordinate numbers of accidents on Route 666.  I think that after the renumbering, the new Route 191 saw a drastic reduction in accidents.  It’s been years since I heard about this, but it makes you think.  About what a loon you are, maybe.  I wish I knew who was butting into my Dartnel with these indigo-colored comments.

 

Today’s Link to Star Trek (hardly a recurring motif, and probably the last time we’ll ever see this one):  The 2006 Atlantic tropical storm names chart was released.  Assigned to the letter K:  Hurricane Kirk.  Assigned to the letter W:  Hurricane William.  Happy 40th Anniversary, Star Trek!  (The nerd in me would like to point out that it’s actually the 42nd anniversary, but I won’t let him do that.)

 

Allow me to ramble for a moment.  We should get rid of all traffic signs.  My viewpoint is this:  Nobody follows them, anyway, so why waste money on them?  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people run stop signs, pass in no passing zones or on road shoulders (incidentally, it’s been a loooong time since I’ve seen a “Stay Off the Shoulder” sign on the highway), exceed the speed limit, or use the Poteau River as a shortcut to get to Ft. Smith faster.  (Okay, I made the last one up.)  Speaking of road signs, our state, Oklahoma, has recently changed the state route signs.  Instead of the classic white oval on a black background, the sign is now all white, with a black outline of the state on it.  All I can think is, what a waste of taxpayer dollars!  You’ve got to change, I’m guessing, nearly a million state highway signs, replace the oval on interstate exit signs with the new, supposedly improved design, and confuse longtime residents of this state.  I mean, I think the new signs are ugly!  Bleech!  I mean, come on!  Use the money on repairing the bridges, not on a needless replacement of a million road signs!  Egads!

 

Speaking of “Egads!”, here’s the…

 

Word of the Week:  immure - transitive v. meaning 1. To enclose wwithin walls, or as if within walls; hence, to shut up; to imprison; to incarcerate; 2. To build into a wall; 3. To entomb in a wall (pronounced ih-MYUR)

 

I know some people who would love to immure me, like Annie’s director, but I digress.

 

May you never give birth on the 13th of June; those who have it as a birthday grow up to be completely nuts!

 

Darrell

 

June 7, 2006

 

Okay, yet again, I’ve let this website collect dust for a couple of weeks without a Dartnel update.  There’s a reason for that.  My director has a vendetta against me and has threatened to make my life uncomfortable if I persist in posting my nonsensical ramblings.  Then I realized, my life’s already uncomfortable!  (That was a joke.  Anybody who actually thinks someone would be nuts enough to direct me concerning this website should take two aspirin and call their physician in the morning.)

 

First off, two good pieces of news:  (1) Annie is back on!  After some legal mumbo-jumbo that makes the Dartnel seem clear as crystal, our theater group now has permission to do this beloved musical.  (2)  I will not be singing in it!  (And the crowd goes wild!  People of Poteau were dancing in the streets upon hearing the news, so I went to them and sung a medley of Cathedral Quartet classics until they paid me lots of money to shut up and go away!  MWH-HA-HA!!!)  Actually, although my singing has improved, I still don’t think I’m capable of singing and dancing at the same time.  Too bad; it’s good cardio!  More information will come later.

 

Incidentally, Stan’s now taking bets on how many times I use the sentence We continue to rehearse for Annie.  Contact him to make a bet.  His number is 1-800-IAmNuts.

 

Today’s uplifting thought from the Dartman:  It’s always a good time for Jell-O!  Just don’t laugh at me while you’re eating it.

 

Yesterday was June 6.  6/6/06.  The sign of the devil.  Leave it to Vegas, though, to take advantage of it.  People will bet on anything!  There was actually a betting pool in which you could bet that the world would end yesterday!  If you won, and the world did end, you would receive $100,000 for every $1 you betted, if my memory is correct.  Here’s my question:  Had the world ended, and had you won the bet, just how were you going to collect your winnings?  Yes, I’ve won!  The world’s ending!  For my $25, I’ve won $2.5 million…  Wait!!!  The world’s ending!!!  I CAN’T collect my money!!  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Of course, you know there were some goofballs out there who actually betted that the world would end.  I wonder what their rationale was.

 

Next Tuesday, I turn xy years old.  I can’t believe it.  Seems like yesterday I was only 22=3x-17 years old.  (Huh?)  As I look at my life over these past mhph years, I can come to only one conclusion:  The sky is falling!  No, wait; that’s my hair.  Seriously, I’ve concluded that I’ve turned out okay.  Sure, I’m a bit of an enigma, but then again, who isn’t?  We’re all unique, and that’s good.  It’s what makes life interesting.

 

For those of you who find this interesting, it’s the…

 

Word of the Week:  glabrous – adj. meaning smooth; having a surface without hairs, projections, or any unevenness (pronounced GLAY-bruhs)

 

Please, no bald jokes.

 

Darrell

 

Return to Journal Index

 

Return to Home