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!

Vince Gill and Arnold Palmer – Twin Heroes

How cool is it to find out that the hero of your hero is another of your heroes?

Mrs. Zone and I had the privilege of seeing Vince Gill in concert recently. We’ve seen him three times now, and twice had the privilege of meeting with him afterwards. Mr. Gill is a fabulous musician and entertainer, blessed with a wonderful voice and killer guitar chops. But beyond that, he’s a class act, and I don’t mean just his performance. He’s humble, down-to-earth, and genuine. He takes time at the end of a long evening of performing to chat, pose, and sign autographs with fans, including awkward dullards like Joe.

I don’t just look up to and admire the performer, I look up to and admire to the man.

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3D Printers – What Would You Make?

Mountains of hype and hyperbole have been heaped by the media on 3D printers lately. Of course, we expect that type of behavior from the media, because it draws our attention, which increases sales or ratings, which results in more money. (For them, not us.) Perhaps in this case it’s warranted, because 3D printers appear poised to be the Next Big Thing. At least, that’s what the media is telling us.

First, let’s understand and agree that “3D printer” is a horrible name for these devices. It’s not accurate, and is in fact actively misleading. The name probably came from the Society for the Creation of Ridiculous Names (SCORN), which provided such celebrity baby names as Pilot Inspektor , Kal-El, and Moon Unit. The 3D printer is not a printer at all. It doesn’t make copies of letters, family trees, or your grocery list. Rather, it’s a manufacturing device that makes objects from a computer model by layering material successively. Traditional manufacturing machines remove material from a blank.

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Lost without my Floss

Most of us have experienced awkward social situations, like realizing you have coleslaw on your shirt after you’ve been talking to someone you’re trying to impress. The particulars may vary, but I think many will be able to relate to the following story. (This is an abridged version of an article of mine that appeared in a local magazine a few years ago).

 

One look in the mirror confirmed my worst fears: a poppy seed the size of the Hope Diamond was stuck between my front teeth.  Except this diamond was still a black lump of coal.  Why had I given in to temptation, knowing the potential consequences?  Because the poppy roll had looked so scrumptious, that’s why!  And the aroma of fresh baked goods – am I some superhuman who can resist the Siren call of momentary pleasure?  I had known it would be dangerous, and now I was paying the price for my weakness.  So there I was at work, in the men’s room, unfit for social interaction.

I took some hot water in my mouth, and vigorously swished it around.  Swisha, swisha, swisha.   I spit it out through the front teeth, like we used to as kids, then checked my teeth again.  I can’t believe it!  It’s still there! 

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Winter Olympics Have Begun in Russia

The Games of the 2014 Winter Olympics are now underway in Sushi, Russia, or some similar place, and appear to be off to a flying start, at least for the ski jumpers. After tense moments when some bad press was being generated due to unfinished hotels, and an apparent mixup between drinking water and urine samples, the games seem to be running smoothly now. (I have just been handed a bulletin stating that the games are actually in Sochi. Who knew?)

The USA team got off to a fast start when Sage Kotsenburg won the first gold medal, for falling off a cliff on a snowboard while twisting his body into a pretzel and spinning at 33 1/3 rpm, before regaining consciousness and landing on his feet. Afterward, he commented, “Cowabunga, dude! You should see the dream I just had!” Many other competitors also gave awesome impressions of skydivers who forgot their parachutes, but in the end, the gold went to Sage. When asked if he had ever attempted that particular maneuver before, he replied, “Not while I was awake.”

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Polar Vortex Has Joe Circling the Drain

The polar vortex is making multiple visits to much of the United States this winter, inflicting misery on millions of people, animals, polliwogs, and mosquitoes. Unprecedented bitter cold, ice, and snow have been ravaging the country, pillaging and looting along the way.

Winter has apparently taken umbrage with some words that could be interpreted as negative in my previous blog post, “The Four Seasons, Part 4: Winter” (December 22, 2013). So, we can safely add “no sense of humor” to winter’s shortcomings. Fortunately, the Joe Zone has access to the world’s foremost authorities and smartypantses (note: remember to check on plural of smartypants).

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The Four Seasons, Part 4: Winter

As regular Zoners know, we have been toasting and roasting the arrival of each new season. We last hailed the autumnal equinox (“The Four Seasons, Part 3: Autumn Falls at Our Feet,” September 23, 2013). The series finally reaches its end (praise be!) with this fourth and final installment. So once again we fire up the Joe Zone nuclear-powered microscope, and objectively examine the hated season of winter, that abysmal time of year when death would be welcome relief, and you feel yourself curling up like one of the dry, lifeless leaves shriveling and shivering on your lawn, under six inches of ice.

Of course, winter isn’t all bad.  Some people actually like winter, and in fact look forward to it. They enjoy the cold, the snow, the lack of light, the misery, the depression, the soul-sucking numbness that winter brings. Scientific study has shown that many of these people are on hallucinogens.

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The Night the Christmas Tree Fell

Christmas memories encapsulate some of the most cherished moments of our childhood. We remember warm family gatherings, presents that delighted us, church services celebrating the Infant’s birth. Often, however, our memories also include grim tableaus seared into our brains by events gone horribly awry. These are the exclamation points rising above the landscape of periods; they are cymbal clashes in the lush, hushed strings of the soundtrack of our youth. And for me, one of the harshest, most discordant cacophonies of my childhood has to be the night the Christmas tree fell.

It began as a Normal Rockwell night. My father had come home from work in a good mood, bolstered by a wonderful hot meal prepared by my mother. Cups of steaming tea for my parents, bittersweet hot chocolate for us kids, helped us forget the December winds blowing outside. Christmas was my mother’s favorite time of year, and I could see the joy of the season in her eyes. The magic day was right around the corner, and my two sisters and I were working ourselves into a frothing frenzy of Yuletide anticipation. Ornaments! Lights! Presents! No school!

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Secrets of the Hunger Games

Catching Fire, the second movie in the Hunger Games series, is rocking the box office as expected, bringing in something like eighteen quidzillion dollars in just a few weeks. To put that into perspective, the federal government, even on a slow day, spends that much money in about eighteen seconds. And Katniss thought her Capitol was bad!

The Joe Zone, in our passion to bring you the hottest scoops and the truest truths, is bursting with pride and sickeningly smug self-satisfaction to bring you the lowest lowdown on the Hunger Games. Yes, it’s time to dust off, rev up, and shake down the Joe-ma-Tron! As regular Zoners know, the Joe-ma-Tron is a combination time machine, teleporter, dream extractor, fantasy generator, and deluxe snack and gourmet beverage machine. It is equipped with interstellar radio, back-up beepers, and a Magic All Language Translator (MALT), so we can talk to anyone (some may recall the pre-MALT Julius Caesar/Latin fiasco).

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English as a First Language – the Premier Episode

We are tingling with excitement in the Joe Zone as we launch our newest series in informative blogs (or web toots, as we call them in the JZ). Sound the trumpets and blast the bagpipes, here comes “English as a First Language” (EFL). We’re so excited, we’ve quivered our liver with a righteous shiver right out of our abdomen, and down our leg onto the floor. Hang on, I need to grab some paper towels.

In addition to the Joe Zone’s “Startling Science” series bringing you all the latest lowdown on that heady scientific jazz, we’re now also going to wake up, dust off, and polish your language skills such as you never thought possible. We’re going to clarify your clauses, pump up your participles, and juice up your gerunds into the high octane zone like you always dreamed of, but were afraid to hope for. (Holy preposition!  This is insane!)  Yes, I once had the language skills of a paramecium, but I elevated myself to at least the level of a slug, if not a sloth. And I can turn you into a sloth as well! I know it’s possible, because my pet paramecium recently signed a three-book deal with a major publisher, for a vampire protozoa series. 

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It’s our First Anniversary!

Celebration time! Heaven knows that in the Joe Zone we’ll celebrate anything, from a new tube of toothpaste to a healthy, blow-the-pictures-off-the-wall sneeze, but today we have a legitimate reason: the Joe Zone has reached its one-year anniversary.

Yes, it’s true. One year ago, the Joe Zone exploded onto the internet like a doomsday disease. The web has never been the same. Since the inaugural post on my blog page (“Reflections in a Misty Mirror”), the number of Joe Zone fans, zealots, and stalkers has increased by a factor of ten (from the initial fan base consisting of Mrs. Zone). I want to thank the loyal readers of my blog – you know who you are.

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