Yogi Berra Quotes
“Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours.”
“Baseball is 90 percent mental. The other half is physical.”
“If the people don’t want to come out to the park, nobody’s gonna stop them.”
“No wonder nobody comes here; it’s too crowded.”
“We made too many wrong mistakes.”
“You can observe a lot by just watching.”
“I usually take a two-hour nap from 1 to 4.” – Yogi Berra
An elderly and somewhat hard-of-hearing man was sitting in a stylish downtown attorney抯 office as his lawyer handed him his will. “Your estate is very complex,” said the lawyer, “but I抳e made sure that all of your wishes will be executed. Due to the complexity, my fee is $4500.”
Just then, the phone rang and the lawyer got involved with a long call. Thinking the lawyer had said “$500,” the old man wrote out his check and left.
When she got off the phone and realized the old man抯 mistake, the lawyer ran after him down the stairs and into the parking lot just as he drove away. Feeling frustrated, the lawyer looked at the check and decided to accept the situation philosophically. “Oh well,” she said to herself, “$500 for half an hour抯 work isn抰 bad.”
A dumb blonde was bragging about her knowledge of the state capitals of the United States. She proudly announced, “go ahead, ask me any of the capitals, I know all of them.”
A red head said, “O.K., what’s the capital of Wyoming?” The blonde replied, “Oh, that’s easy, ‘W’.”
A man walks into a bar has a few drinks and asks what his tab was. The bartender replies that it is twenty dollars plus tip. The guy says, “I’ll bet you my tab double or nothing that I can bite my eye.” The bartender accepts the bet, and the guy pulls out his glass eye and bites it.
He has a few more drinks and asks for his bill again. The bartender reports that his bill now is thirty dollars plus tip. He bets the bartender he can bite his other eye. The bartender accepts knowing the man can’t possibly have two glass eyes. The guy then proceeds by taking out his false teeth and biting his other eye.
A butcher in his shop, and he’s real busy, and he notices a dog in the shop. He shoos him away. But later, he notices the dog is back again. So he goes over to the dog, and notices he has a note in his mouth. He takes the note, and it reads “Can I have
12 sausages and a leg of lamb, please. The dog has money in his mouth, as well.”
The butcher looks inside and, lo and behold, there is a ten pound note there. So he takes the money, and puts the sausages and lamb in a bag, placing it in the dog’s mouth. The butcher is well impressed, and since it’s close to closing time, he decides to shut up shop and follow the dog. So off he goes.
The dog is walking down the street, when he comes to a level crossing. The dog puts down the bag, jumps up and presses the button. Then he waits patiently, bag in mouth, for the lights to turn. They do, and he walks across the road, with the butcher following him all the way.
The dog then comes to a bus stop, and starts looking at the timetable. The butcher is in awe at this stage. The dog checks out the times, and then sits on one of the seats provided.
Along comes a bus. The dog walks around the front, looks at the number, and goes back to his seat. Another bus comes. Again the dog goes and looks at the number, notices it’s the right bus, and climbs on. The butcher, by now open-mouthed, follows him onto the bus.
The bus travels through the town and out into the suburbs, the dog looking at the scenery. Eventually he gets up, and moves to the front of the bus. He stands on 2 back paws and pushes the button to stop the bus. Then he gets off, his groceries still in his mouth.
Well, dog and butcher are walking along the road, and then the dog turns into a house. He walks up the path, and drops the groceries on the step. Then he walks back down the path, takes a big run, and throws himself -Whap!- against the door. He goes back down the path, runs up to the door and -Whap!- throws himself against it again. There’s no answer at the house, so the dog goes back down the path, jumps up on a narrow wall, and walks along the perimeter of the garden. He gets to the window, and beats his head against it several times, walks back, jumps off, and waits at the door.
The butcher watches as a big guy opens the door, and starts laying into the dog. Kicking him and punching him, and swearing at him.
The butcher runs up, and stops the guy. “What the hell are you doing? The dog is a genius. He could be on TV, for heaven’s sake!”, to which the guy responds… “Genius me butt – this is the second time this week that he’s forgotten his key!”
Snowboarding Lessons
When you’re 47 years old, you sometimes hear a small voice inside you that says: “Just because you’ve reached middle age, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take on new challenges and seek new adventures. You get only one ride on this crazy carousel we call life, and by golly you should make the most of it.”
This is the voice of Satan.
I know this because recently, on a mountain in Idaho, I listened to this voice, and as a result my body feels as though it has been used as a trampoline by the Budweiser Clydesdales.
I am currently on an all-painkiller diet. “I’ll have a black coffee and 250 Advil tablets” is a typical breakfast order for me these days.
This is because I went snowboarding.
For those of you who, for whatever reason, such as a will to live, do not participate in downhill winter sports, I should explain that snowboarding is an activity that is popular with people who do not feel that regular skiing is lethal enough.
These are of course young people, fearless people, people with 100 percent synthetic bodies who can hurtle down a mountainside at 50 miles per hour and knock down mature trees with their faces and then spring to their feet and go, “Cool.”
People like my son. He wanted to try snowboarding, and I thought it would be good to learn with him, because we can no longer ski together.
We have a fundamental difference in technique: He skis via the Downhill Method, in which you ski down the hill; whereas I ski via the Breath-Catching Method, in which you stand sideways on the hill, looking as athletic as possible without actually moving muscles (this could cause you to start sliding down the hill).
If anybody asks if you’re OK, you say, “I’m just catching my breath!” in a tone of voice that suggests that at any moment you’re going to swoop rapidly down the slope; whereas in fact you’re planning to stay right where you are, rigid as a statue, until the spring thaw.
At night, when the Downhillers have all gone home, we Breath-Catchers will still be up there, clinging to the mountainside, chewing on our parkas for sustenance.
So I thought I’d take a stab at snowboarding, which is quite different from skiing.
In skiing, you wear a total of two skis, or approximately one per foot, so you can sort of maintain your balance by moving your feet, plus you have poles that you can stab people with if they make fun of you at close range.
Whereas with snowboarding, all you get is one board, which is shaped like a giant tongue depressor and manufactured by the Institute of Extremely Slippery Things. Both of your feet are strapped firmly to this board, so that if you start to fall, you can’t stick a foot out and catch yourself. You crash to the ground like a tree and lie there while skiers swoop past and deliberately spray snow on you.
Skiers hate snowboarders. It’s a generational thing. Skiers are (and here I am generalizing) middle-aged Republicans wearing designer space suits; snowboarders are defiant young rebels wearing deliberately drab clothing that is baggy enough to cover the snowboarder plus a major appliance. Skiers like to glide down the slopes in a series of graceful arcs; snowboarders like to attack the mountain, slashing, spinning, tumbling, going backward, blasting through snowdrifts, leaping off cliffs, getting their noses pierced in midair, etc.
Skiers view snowboarders as a menace; snowboarders view skiers as Elmer Fudd.
I took my snowboarding lesson in a small group led by a friend of mine named Brad Pearson, who also once talked me into jumping from a tall tree while attached only to a thin rope.
Brad took us up on a slope that offered ideal snow conditions for the novice who’s going to fall a lot: Approximately seven flakes of powder on top of an 18-foot-thick base of reinforced concrete.
You could not dent this snow with a jackhammer. (I later learned, however, that you COULD dent it with the back of your head.)
We learned snowboarding via a two step method:
Step One: Watching Brad do something.
Step Two: Trying to do it ourselves.
I was pretty good at Step One. The problem with Step Two was that you had to stand up on your snowboard, which turns out to be a violation of at least five important laws of physics.
I’d struggle to my feet, and I’d be wavering there and then the Physics Police would drop a huge chunk of gravity on me, and WHAM my body would hit the concrete snow, sometimes bouncing as much as a foot.
“Keep your knees bent!” Brad would yell, helpfully.
Have you noticed that whatever sport you’re trying to learn, some earnest person is always telling you to keep your knees bent? As if that would solve anything. I wanted to shout back, “Forget my Knees! Do Something About these Gravity Chunks!”
Needless to say my son had no trouble at all. None. In minutes he was cruising happily down the mountain; you could actually see his clothing getting baggier. I, on the other hand, spent most of my time lying on my back, groaning, while space-suited Republicans swooped past and sprayed snow on me.
If I hadn’t gotten out of there, they’d have completely covered me; I now realize that the small hills you see on ski slopes are formed around the bodies of 47-year-olds who tried to learn snowboarding.
So I think, when my body heals, I’ll go back to skiing. Maybe sometime you’ll see me out on the slopes, catching my breath. Please throw me some food.
How to Argue Effectively
I argue very well. Ask any of my remaining friends. I can win an argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don’t even invite me. You too can win arguments. Simply follow these rules:
-=- Make things up.
Suppose, in the Peruvian economy argument, you are trying to prove that Peruvians are underpaid, a position you base solely on the fact that YOU are underpaid, and you are not going to let a bunch of Peruvians be better off. DON’T say: “I think Peruvians are underpaid.” Say instead: “The average Peruvian’s salary in 1981 dollars adjusted for the revised tax base is $1,452.81 per annum, which is $836.07 before the mean gross poverty level.”
NOTE: Always make up exact figures.
If an opponent asks you where you got your information, make THAT up too. Say: “This information comes from Dr. Hovel T. Moon’s study for the Buford Commission published on May 9, 1982. Didn’t you read it?” Say this in the same tone of voice you would use to say, “You left your soiled underwear in my bathroom.”
-=- Use meaningless but weighty-sounding words and phrases.
Memorize this list:
Let me put it this way
In terms of
Vis-a-vis
Per se
As it were
Qua
So to speak
You should also memorize some Latin abbreviations such as “Q.E.D.”, “e.g.”, and “i.e.” These are all short for “I speak Latin, and you don’t.”
Here’s how to use these words and phrases. Suppose you want to say, “Peruvians would like to order appetizers more often, but they don’t have enough money.”
You never win arguments talking like that. But you WILL win if you say, “Let me put it this way. In terms of appetizers
vis-a-vis Peruvians qua Peruvians, they would like to order them more often, so to speak, but they do not have enough money per se, as it were. Q.E.D.”
Only a fool would challenge that statement.
-=- Use snappy and irrelevant comebacks.
You need an arsenal of all-purpose irrelevant phrases to fire back at your opponents when they make valid points. The best are:
You’re begging the question.
You’re being defensive.
Don’t compare apples to oranges.
What are your parameters?
This last one is especially valuable. Nobody (other than engineers and policy wonks) has the vaguest idea what “parameters” means.
Don’t forget the classic: YOU’RE SO LINEAR.
Here’s how to use your comebacks:
You say: As Abraham Lincoln said in 1873…
Your opponent says: Lincoln died in 1865.
You say: You’re begging the question.
You say: Liberians, like most Asians…
Your opponent says: Liberia is in Africa.
You say: You’re being defensive.
-=- Compare your opponent to Adolf Hitler.
This is your heavy artillery, for when your opponent is obviously right and you are spectacularly wrong. Bring Hitler up subtly.
Say, “That sounds suspiciously like something Adolf Hitler might say,” or “You certainly do remind me of Adolf Hitler.”
BLONDE: “Excuse me, what time is it right now?”
WOMAN: “It’s 11:25PM.”
BLONDE: (confused look on face) “You know, it’s the weirdest thing, I’ve asked that question thirty times today, and every time someone gives me a different answer.”
A man walks into a bar and has a couple of beers. Once he is donem the bartender tells him he owes $9.00.
“But I paid, don’t you remember?” says the customer.
“Okay,” says the bartender, “If you said you paid, you did.”
The man then goes outside and tells the first person he sees that the bartender can’t keep track of whether his customers have paid.
The second man then rushes in, orders a beer and later pulls the same stunt.
The barkeep replies, “If you say you paid, I’ll take your word for it.”
Soon the customer goes into the street, sees an old friend, and tells him how to get free drinks.
The man hurries into the bar and begins to drink high-balls when, suddenly, the bartender leans over sand says, “You know, a funny thing happened in here tonight. Two men were drinking beer, neither paid and both claimed that they did. The next guy who tries that is going to get punched right in the nose.”
“Don’t bother me with your troubles,” the final patron responds. “Just give me my change and I’ll be on my way.”
A old snake goes to see his Doctor.
“Doc, I need something for my eyes…can’t see well these days”. The Doc fixes him up with a pair of glasses and tells him to return in 2 weeks.
The snake comes back in 2 weeks and tells the doctor he’s very depressed.
Doc says, “What’s the problem…didn’t the glasses help you?”
“The glasses are fine doc, I just discovered I’ve been living with a water hose the past 2 years!”
sahil
30 Apr, 2008