Leave no statistic behind.

This caught my eye on the front page of the local paper. Whew. Glad we have only three in our household.

The average human has one breast and one testicle. ~Des McHale

Torture numbers, and they'll confess to anything. ~Gregg Easterbrook

98% of all statistics are made up. ~Author Unknown

Hell froze over?

Yes, another picture in the paper. Yea me.

Blog title is a play on the Chris Rea song: Road to Hell. (frozen over, get it?)

Good excuse for including a great song.

Otherwise, I was thinking of OutKast Hey Ya, "Shake it like a polaroid picture". That song is OK, this is much better.I always loved the lyric, "This ain't no technological breakdown".

Chris Rea

Road to Hell Part II

Well I'm standing by the river
But the water doesn't flow
It boils with every poison you can think of
And I'm underneath the streetlight
But the light of joy I know
Scared beyond belief way down in the shadows
And the perverted fear of violence
Chokes the smile on every face
And common sense is ringing out the bell
This ain't no technological breakdown
Oh no, this is the road to hell

And all the roads jam up with credit
And there's nothing you can do
It's all just pieces of paper flying away from you
Oh look out world, take a good look
What comes down here
You must learn this lesson fast and learn it well
This ain't no upwardly mobile freeway
Oh no, this is the road

Said this is the road
This is the road to hell

Read it in the Sunday papers. (or Wednesday)

Northwest Herald. Local paper. Joe Jackson song at the bottom. He's great.

Olson: Readers find humor in Christmas gag gifts


By Eric Olson
Comments (0)
Last week this space featured thoughts on ways to use the Christmas gift-giving ritual as a way to get a good laugh.

If you suffered through the entire column, you might have thought, “That’s great, gag gifts are funny, but I haven’t found any headless dolls in the street to dress up lately, and my brother already has burned all of his New Kids on the Block paraphernalia. What can I do that will be both devious and humorous at the same time?”

Luckily, some mischievous Northwest Herald readers sent stories of their own.

“Many years ago, in our teens, I think, my brother and I would take the worst albums we had and wrap them up to give to our cousins visiting from Chicago,” wrote Rob Peterson of Hebron. “We never felt they had much taste in music. We would really laugh if they liked them. Cruel.”

Sure. But hilarious when you’re in on the joke.

Peterson’s nieces and nephews were his more recent targets.

“Sometimes we would include a can of soup or dog treats or something like that in with a big gift,” he wrote. “Or sometimes we would just wrap it by itself. It's funny to see the kid open it. Some were puzzled but still said thanks. ... Some were buzzing through the presents so fast they didn't even notice. It was always funny.”

I agree. As soon as I have my own nieces and nephews, they’re getting soup. I don’t think that my wife will let me give my daughter dog treats, though.

Susan Hagerty of Marengo is another one you have to watch. Especially if she visits your house.

“Throughout the year, when visiting friends’ homes, I would sneak around and find something bizarre to steal,” Hagerty wrote. “It had to be something they wouldn't miss. Lo and behold it reappears at Christmastime as their gift. Funny to see the look on their face when they think, ‘Wow. ... I have one of these.’ Well, you do, ’cause it’s yours.”

Nothing like receiving your own stolen property for Christmas.

Hagerty said she and her friends also had a tradition of passing around an “ugly” painting of a naked woman incorporated into different items, like in the center of a holiday wreath.

Because nothing says Christmas like a badly drawn nude portrait sewn into a jean jacket.

Those of you with children might want to borrow an idea that Geri Stockwell of Wauconda used on her 11- and 12-year-old sons years ago.

“I wrapped 2 snow shovels in Christmas paper weeks before Christmas,” Stockwell wrote. “My boys knew where the gifts were and kept trying to guess what they were. A rocket, skis, were a few of the things they thought they were. They still talk about those shovels and that Christmas.”

Given that Stockwell’s children now are in their mid-40s, that’s quite an accomplishment. And really, what’s better than a gag gift that keeps on giving – back to you?

– Eric Olson is the Northwest Herald’s metro editor. Reach him at (815) 459-4122, or by e-mail at eolson@nwherald.com.

Link to article. I feel obligated. All true by the way. And these are not the quirkiest things my family does at holidays. We have even better ones. Trust me. Ha.

Appropriate song Link. (Bolt - no video)