Joe Potts – Author, Blogger, Humor-For-Hire.

You're traveling through a wondrous dimension of humor and shadow, of imagination and mist. Welcome to my website! Wander around a bit and see what’s up. If the mists get too thick, well, some things look better in the fog anyway. So come back often to The Joe Zone – and bring your friends. That way, if you get lost, or marooned here, at least you’re together. Not that people get marooned here. Very often. For very long. Signpost up ahead, your next stop – The Joe Zone!

Joe-Pourri Anniversary Special

Hard as it is to believe, the Joe-Pourri news feature of the Joe Zone is now one year old. Like most one-year-olds, it can’t speak coherently, but that doesn’t stop it. So here’s your news told straight and true, like no other source will do:

  • The 2016 primary season is now mercifully behind us, with Donald “Mexico will pay for the wall” Trump and Hillary “What difference does it make?” Clinton emerging from the muck as the presumptive nominees of their parties. This is wonderful news for America, if “presumptive” means “there’s no way on God’s green Earth this person is the victor.”
  • Hillary Clinton is to be congratulated for achieving a first in American politics. She has become the first woman nominated for president while being the subject of an FBI investigation. With her usual calm demeanor, and not looking at all like a loon, she remarked, “I can be a better president than Trump even if I have to do it from the Big House instead of the White House.”
  • Hillary husband, Bill “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is” Clinton expressed his readiness to step in if Hillary becomes – uh, incapacitated. “We were a tag team before, we can do it again,” he said. “And I’m not talking about our White House jello matches.”
  • In response to the Orlando tragedy, Donald Trump became the first presidential candidate to endorse the Archie Bunker solution to bad guys with guns. The “pass out pistols to the passengers” approach to ending hijacking would be expanded under his watch to include night clubs, malls, Wal-Marts, and daycare centers. Only children who can prove they are potty-trained would be given weapons, though.
  • Hillary upped the ante (politicians rarely down the ante) on personal attacks by revealing that her team has discovered that the “J” in Donald J. Trump stands for “Jalapeno,” adding further to the speculation he was born in Mexico.
  • TV networks are reportedly battling over who will air the next gen reality show, either “Keeping Up with the Clintons” or “ Trump – Apprentice President,” depending on election results.
  • Leaving the mundane behind, Joe-Pourri now takes you into the realm of “even harder to believe than American politics.” Yes, we’re going into outer space – unfortunately, only figuratively. NASA’s Jupiter spacecraft Juno recently set a record for the longest journey by a solar-powered probe. It has traveled over 500 million miles. Although it has not yet reached Jupiter, Juno has already discovered the remains of a failed Trump casino, and a stash of Hillary Clinton emails.
  • In a patriotic bit of timing, Juno is scheduled to enter orbit around Jupiter on July 4. Unfortunately, there is also bad news – NASA announced that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are not on board the spacecraft.

Luckily, that’s all we have time for, as Joe is obviously overdue for a nap. Join us the next time the hands on the Joe Zone digital clock are pointing straight up, for our straight-up news. And remember the Joe-Pourri motto: A half-truth is twice as good as a quarter-truth.

 

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Joe Zone Product Mini-Review: Super Grain Snack Bars

I stumbled onto the curious world of “super grain” snack bars the other day (I often do things like that). I’ve been eating various grains, as we all have, for most of my life. I must admit, however, that I had no idea which grains, if any, qualified as super grains. I’m also not sure what a grain has to do to meet the requirements. Are we talking saving Metropolis, or will getting a kitten down from a tree suffice?

     The wrapper claimed the bar had lots of protein and fiber, and no bad stuff like trans-fats, GMO’s, or lead, and only government-approved levels of arsenic. What the heck, I thought, let’s go healthy. Once I ate the snack bar, I was guessing “super grain” had more to do with the amount of damage it did to your teeth. I mean, this thing had some serious CRUNCH to it. It wasn’t the bar, but rather my teeth, that were going snap, crackle, pop.

     After reading the ingredients, and scheduling a dental appointment, I came to the conclusion that the main super grains are oats, millet, quinoa, and gravel. I mean, this alleged treat technically isn’t a snack bar – it’s more like a snack brick.

     I recall that some reptiles and birds eat rocks to aid digestion. My personal experience is that gravel does NOT aid human digestion. I suppose it might help clear out some things – if you’re worried about that small Lego piece you accidentally ingested some years ago, for example. But I don’t believe gravel aids anything except making a proper mixture for concrete. In a pinch, you could make a pretty fair house foundation with these super grain bars.

     For those who haven’t tried a super grain bar, I believe you could approximate the experience with a 50/50 mixture of unshelled pistachios and buckshot.

     Bon appetit!

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Spring Rears its Ugly Head

Run, take cover, for the scariest reason,

We’re under assault from the meanest season.

One day we freeze, the next we swelter.

God help us, it’s spring, gimme shelter!

Happy first day of spring! Can I join you in your bomb shelter? Seriously, I have no idea why spring has such a wonderful reputation. If you like tornados, severe thunderstorms, blizzards, and hail the size of cannon balls, then spring is your thing. If none of those suit you, wait till next week. Spring probably has a tsunami or volcano eruption up its sinister sleeve. Or maybe some good old-fashioned Biblical flaming hailstones.

Yet millions anticipate spring’s arrival as if she’s the Easter bunny, your fairy godmother, and the good witch of the north all wrapped into one. I say more like Attila the Hun, Hitler, and Jack the Ripper.  She rips us almost daily with some of the foulest weather this side of Saturn. When she gives us a beautiful, soft, warm day, that’s what it usually is – one day.  Then – WHACK! A vicious smack in the side of the head with a cold front, ice pellets, and fifty mile-an-hour winds.

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Tote That Trash!

My wife and I recently had an epiphany. No, we weren’t visited by three Wise Men, though I imagine that would be an enlightening experience. A shadowy menace that had been sneaking around suddenly smacked us squarely in the face, and we knew we had more to deal with than the twilight years and Medicare. As we gingerly weaved about the basement paraphernalia one day, we realized that forty-plus years of marriage and twenty-five years of living in the same house had transformed us into hoarders. We were precariously close to having a reality show on A&E.

I don’t think I’m exaggerating to say that we had not only voluminous stacks of bric-a-brac, but every useless piece of flotsam, jetsam, and then some, we had ever come upon. We shelved and stored this load of junk as if every piece was a national treasure, and our home was a branch office of the Smithsonian Institution. But we had actually created our own private landfill.

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Joe-Pourri: Super Tuesday and Other Shocking Developments

Joe-Pourri is ready to rock you with the latest news that we see fit, so pull up a digital chair and sip on our latest slushee of news and views sure to confuse.

  • “Super Tuesday” is mercifully behind us, as it turned out to be ‘way less fun than Super Bowl Sunday. Joe-Pourri has been sorting out the wreckage so that, just like NBC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, ad nauseum, we can tell you what to think about it.
  • The main takeaway from yesterday’s primaries is that a majority of Americans think the solution to the divisiveness tearing our nation apart is to nominate for president the two most polarizing people in the country.
  • Astronaut Scott Kelly returned to Earth last night after spending 340 days aboard the International Space Station. He traveled more than 144 million miles in space, and, surprisingly, ended up in Kazakhstan. “At least I didn’t suffer the fate of “The Martian,” Kelly said. “That poor guy was stranded on Mars, and didn’t even win the Oscar.”
  • Kelly stated that he would have spent longer in space, but he realized he had to return to Earth to file his taxes. Events took a dark turn when Kelly discovered Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were the frontrunners for president. He immediately volunteered to spend the next four years in space.
  • On the weather scene, a series of lows crossed the country recently, with blustery conditions and intermittent squalls leading to poor visibility. Meteorologists were puzzled as to the source of the recurring instabilities, until they realized the paths coincided with the campaign trails of the candidates. Joe-Pourri is hoping it all blows out to sea.
  • On the sports scene, March Madness is right around the corner. Get your brackets ready! Although Joe-Pourri is doubtful that more madness is possible than we’re seeing now.
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Leap for Leap Day!

Today, February 29th, is Leap Day. Leap Day is the extra day inserted into the year to keep our calendar from getting out of whack with the seasons. Without Leap Day, Christmas and Groundhog Day would soon be crashing into each other. And I really don’t think Santa and Punxsutawney Phil are compatible.

The trouble started soon after the Big Bang, when the planets didn’t get into their correct orbits around the sun. Pesky Venus was its usual pushy self, shoving its way past Earth so it would be second instead of third. This caused orbital perturbations of such magnitude that Earth’s year was no longer an even multiple of its day. What a pain! (For more on this spacey topic, pre-order your personal copy of “Joe’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics, and Other Fairy Tales.”)

These solar system shenanigans meant that at the end of a year, there was some day left over that no one knew what to do with. Julius Caesar solved this enigma in 45 BC, by realizing he could keep the partial day in his pocket each year until he had saved one complete day. He could then insert it into the new calendar he had invented, which he somewhat self-centeredly called the Julian Calendar. This was right after he had invented Caesar salad. 

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Gravity Waves Hello to Earth

In the latest Joe Zone Startling Science News, high-ranking physics aficionados announced last week that gravitational waves had been detected in Washington and Louisiana. Why the waves chose to reveal themselves there is unclear. Some senior astrophysicists speculate that the waves may have come to Louisiana for Mardi Gras. Others wonder if the fierce El Nino Pacific storms may have washed the waves onto the Washington shoreline. Sounds right to me.

Gravitational waves are ripples in the fabric of space-time, which can be caused by black holes and undamped Kardashian derriere tremors. In this case, binary black holes that collided 1.3 billion light-years away from Earth were responsible. Twin LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory) detectors, uh – detected them. (Well, what else would detectors do? I mean, if a detector can’t detect, what good is it?)

The Joe Zone Bureau of Science (JZ-BS) is all over this. Once again, the JZ-BS has contracted the services (and possibly the flu) of Dr. Miso Kooku, World Authority on Cosmic Knowledge and Ostentatiousness (WACKO). In the following interview, Dr. Kooku commented exclusively for our cameras (which are “audio only”).

 

JZ: Welcome, Dr. Kooku. Can you explain what gravitational waves are?

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If You Could Be Someone Else – Would You?

“Who would you like to be?” the Angel of God asked. She flipped through the bubble gum cards of available identities. “I’ve got Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonas Salk, Fred Fricklenitz, Donald Trump, Donald Duck, Buck Rogers, Kenny Rogers, Roy Rogers, Rogers Hornsby, Father Mike O’Reilly, Bill O’Reilly, Bill Bailey, George Bailey, Prince William, Prince Albert, Prince, or a dachshund that I prognosticate will have a life filled with doggie treats.” Her radiance made it difficult to see the photos on the cards. “Oh, wait a minute, there’s another card stuck to the back of the dachshund card. Ah – it’s Joe Potts.”

“Ooooooo – that Joe Potts guy sounds pretty interesting. Yeah, I’ll be him.”

“That’s funny – most people pick Fred Fricklenitz.”

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Joe-Pourri News Flashes, Updates, and Such

Joe-Pourri is ready to ramble again. Whenever big news breaks, or when we feel like it, Joe-Pourri will sputter and flutter down the internet runway, to bring you the latest on what may or may not actually be happening – just like the major news sources. Let’s get started!

  • In the world of sports, Super Bowl 50 saw the Denver Broncos, with a stifling defense, emerge victorious over the heavily favored Donald Trump. Trump supporters pointed out the inherent unfairness of the matchup, as The Donald was the only player in the stadium older than Peyton Manning.
  • In the Iowa caucuses, Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton won the coin toss, and elected to receive. In honor of Groundhog Day, she showcased her prognostication skills by declaring herself the winner, hours before the results were in. Bernie Sanders took it in stride, saying that under his socialist rule all votes would be equally divided. On the Republican side, Donald Trump claimed to have received the most votes of any American, finishing second only to Canadian Ted Cruz. Thirty-seven candidates split the remaining five votes. A number of bottom-dwellers threw in the towel, including Rand Paul and Punxsutawney Phil.
  • The New Hampshire primary featured strong showings by Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Sanders said that his message of “free stuff for all” is really resonating with the younger college-debt crowd. Meanwhile, Trump proposed his own solution to debtors: “We’ll deport them and build a wall to keep them out,” he said.
  • In economic news, the Dow Jones average continues to tumble, sparked by fears of the Dow Jones tumbling. On the employment scene, thousands of job seekers became discouraged enough to drop out of the job market, including Carly Fiorina. This artificially lowered the unemployment rate to 4.9%. A White House source remarked, “Our strategy is working.”

Fortunately, that’s all we have time for today, as Joe’s cats say it’s time for a group nap, and the hands on the JZ digital clock agree. Join us next time for all the news we think you can use. Remember our Joe-Pourri news motto: A half-truth is twice as good as a quarter-truth.

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Joe-Pourri Celebrates 2016

The Joe Zone is pleased as all poppycock to present the inaugural Joe-Pourri of 2016, and the tenth or eleventh in the series, depending on whether you use Common Core math. And they said it couldn’t last. Actually, they said it shouldn’t last. They said, please, no, anything but that! But when the news-scape is a vast and nasty veracity-starved wasteland, then Joe-Pourri is poised to step in through the straits of straight-scoop and lay the poop on you. Figuratively speaking.

  • Speaking of inaugural, a sigh of relief wheezed its way across the country as weary Americans rejoiced that the long presidential campaign finally ended. This was followed by a shriek of horror as Americans realized it only seemed like the campaign had been going on forever, but in reality the first caucus and primary had not been held yet. Calls to suicide-prevention hotlines skyrocketed.
  • On the sports scene, North Korea claimed to have scored on a long bomb of the hydrogen variety, but the United States threw the challenge flag and demanded the blast be reviewed by U.N. officials. During the confusion, Iran tried to sneak on the field with the hidden ball trick, but was thwarted by a mandatory self-inspection, which revealed they had been cheating, incurring a 15 yard penalty with loss of down.
  • El Nino continued to ravage the western states with floods and the eastern states with record high December temperatures. Panic ensued in Australia due to the intense heat, until cooler heads prevailed and pointed out it was summer there.
  • Financial markets are off to a good start for 2016, with the Dow only plummeting 900 and some odd points (I don’t know why they’re never even points) in the first four trading days. Boy, now those naysayers predicting a plunge look mighty foolish. The White Hose, I mean House, pointed out that the positive economic effects of the Affordable Care Act are largely responsible for the market staying as healthy as it is.
  • As Joe-Pourri likes to end with a good joke, we scoured the country (and boy, did it need it) for the best jokes, and found this the clear winner: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are still the leading presidential candidates. No, really. I’m not kidding.

Once again the hands on the digital clock show it’s nap time in the Joe Zone, so join us next time when Joe-Pourri takes a look at the news in alternate universes, where we’re hoping things are going better.

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