/`] Missile Toe

Whenever Eric prepares to kick a field goal, he stands under the mistletoe.

/`] What's in a name (or three)?

Eric recently sat in for David Letterman, and his opening monologue went something like this:

"We should have known that Iraq was no threat. Just look at the names of their tribes: Shiites, which in English, means 'like women'. (here Eric waited a beat) Not that there's anything wrong with that. "

"Sunnis - a really scary FM radio station? (here Eric dropped into his announcer voice) 'Hey, Sunni 108.5 comin' at you from beautiful downtown Baghdad.' And their Baath party - sounds like a pool party, plus rubber duckies."

"And Kurds - if you're going to go with a Miss Muffet theme, at least choose the spiders."

"Who worries about secretarian violence? What are they going to do, throw their Day Planners at you?"

/`] Orangutan

For the new year, Eric is starting a combination jewelery shop and tanning salon for apes called Earringutan.

/`] Bah

Eric received a strange car for Christmas that was half-Humvee, half-VW Beetle. It was called the Humbug.

/`] Annabella likes bears, not coal

If Annabella were a bad girl, Eric would give her a Stephen Colbert for Christmas.

(partially c/o Deb, who won't let me publish Eric's joke about Asperger's Syndrome and Homer Simpson)

/`] Dear

Eric set out to go hunting, but he was stopped by the Deer Saviour.

/`] Wick

Eric's Christmas candle burned out, so he took it to Wikipedia to be fixed.

(c/o Deb)

Eric's Christmas Song

Eric wrote a state-of-the-art Christmas song, the world's first based on an Ericjoke ("Christmas may be late" 11/25/2006). He calls it "Bipolar Disorder":

The weather, it's changing, the warming, it's global.
So Santa's workshop had to move to the South Pole.

He travelled through Moosejaw, the Panama isthmus,
Peru and the Falklands to try to save Christmas.

He found in the Antarctic, though, so far inland
No wood for his workshop, no lumber from Finland.

And rather than polar bears, Santa found penguins,
Who wanted the elves' jobs, they hounded and begged them.

And then when he started a fire for heat he
discovered he'd broken the Antarctic Treaty.

Because the South Pole was much worse than the North,
He worked twenty-four/seven 'till twelve/twenty-four.

Did it work? You can tell if you see lots of gifts
under Christmas trees December the twenty-fifth.

Technically, it's a Christmas poem, not a song - Eric's a bit tone deaf.

Look before you leash

The last thing we do each evening is feed the horses and take the dogs out for their nightly constitutional. Fin runs free, and Eric is on the leash so he can't escape into the darkness. Imagine my surprise last night when I discovered I had absent-mindedly hooked the leash on the wrong dog!

Skunk No More

Eric went to Uncle Walter's for a bathing and grooming session, and came out looking simply mahvelous:

Note his "carrot tail", the pointy-again ears and the pedicure. Sorry that we had to hang that copper thing strategically.

He smells sweet as the morning dew; well, maybe not quite, but he no longer smells like a skunk. Maybe as sweet as morning doo-doo.

/`] Baby on Board

As Eric savored his Cedar Planked Salmon, it slowly dawned on him that those Baby on Board signs were really recipes.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_28850,00.html
http://www.badfads.com/pages/collectibles/baby.html
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/parental/babysign.asp

/`] Napolean Bonaparte

Eric tried to teach Findlay about the Battle of Waterloo, but Fin misunderstood and started pulling a bone apart.

/`] Buttons

Eric wishes that his TV had an intelligence button because the brightness button doesn't work.

(c/o Keir)

Is this more Ericesque: No matter how far Eric turns the brightness button, TV shows don't improve.