Gloves VS Mittens

   Somebody once told me that a great test of character is to see if people wear gloves or mittens.  It's a style vs comfort issue.  The dexterity argument is over-rated.  There's not much you can do in gloves that you can't do in mittens, except have cold hands.

   Unless you're talking examination gloves - and that leads to some unpleasant associations, so we'll leave those out of this.
   My mother wanted all her little Hausers in mittens because she wanted us to be warm.  Cool was not an issue for Mom.  For some reason she thought cuteness was a reasonable substitute for cool.

   I won't dwell on that, either.
   Not long ago, I had a discussion with a co-worker about celebrities - whether they were gloves or mitten people - or, as mitten people put it, image-obsessed or genuine characters.

 
















 Our guesses (we didn't google,) weren't too far off, though she insisted that Johnny Depp was a mitten person.

  Finger-less gloves was all I could find for him.  We were also both certain that George Clooney was a glove guy.

   A surprising number of pictures on a google search show that Clooney is neither a glove nor mitten person.  He likes to put his hands in his pockets.
   But let's go to the people we got right.

Gloves

  Kim Kardashian is a committed glove wearer.  She's not so committed to wearing other clothing, but glove?  She's all for it.

   Diane Keaton is also a big glove-lover.  Unfortunately, the gloves only conceal her hands - not her lack of talent.

  We both guessed Susan Sarandon as a glove wearer, and I guess we were right.  But they don't seem to add to her cool factor - what are those, lunch-lady gloves?

   Tom Cruise wears gloves sometimes, but they look weird.  It's not like anything else about Tom is weird.

   And, or course, the easiest guess was O.J.  But there's something about those gloves that just doesn't fit.

Mittens

   I know I've seen Al Roker in gloves, but I figure that was the official Today Show wardrobe.  Al doesn't seem to be obsessed with image.  Not only are these mittens, but they're Canadian.  That's a pretty bold statement.

   Of it would be if Oprah wasn't wearing the same mittens.  Maybe Al gave them to her.  After all, Oprah doesn't have much money.

   Anne Hathaway seems to be a fearless type.  I applaud her choice of hand-ware - especially as it's really hard to make a good clapping noise when you're wearing thick wool on your hands.

   Is there any more genuine celebrity than Santa?  If you can drive a reindeer-powered sleigh faster than the down of a thistle, then why does anyone really need gloves?

AND

   Of course, not all hand-ware consists of mittens or gloves.

   But there's something about this that creeps me out.

John Oliver and his mittens of disapproval for Jack Warner and FIFA.

Things That Don’t Work on a Stupid Blog

So it’s late on a Wednesday night and I’ve got a blog post due in 8 hours. I could use something one of my helpful colleagues at Go Figure Reads offered, or I could try to come up with something new.

But so far – all I can think of is stuff that won’t work. Stuff like…

Traffic Safety

I’ve never seen anything intentionally funny on traffic safety. When I was in school (and especially in Driver’s Ed,) I saw plenty of film strips that were hilarious about traffic safety, but none of them were intended to be. Our Driver’s Ed teacher, Mr. Dripple was perhaps one of the most amusing people I’ve ever met. His class was like a Steven Wright monolog, and he made the best noises when I drove the training vehicle.

But none of it was intentional. Traffic safety is just not a funny subject.

Congress

I know that late night comedians have a wonderful time with congress and politics in general, but all I can think of is the small army of immaculately dressed porters on the Titanic, elegantly keeping the lounge chairs in place as the ship sinks.

Kim Kardasian and Kanye West

While I’m certain that funny stuff about this couple is abundant, I am unable to share it. I’m certain because every time I’m in the checkout line, I see their photos staring at me from just above the Skittles. The reason I can’t share it is for better or worse, I installed a personal news filter on this engaging couple that’s been so effective that I can’t even tell you why they’re famous.

There has to be a reason – right?

Muslim Extremism

Actually – there is tons of hilarious material on this subject. I had a hundred and twenty thousand word novel written entitled, To Allah, With Love. It was far funnier than Trouble in Taos link and Volition Man link combined. I sent it off to my friend Salman Rushdie who agreed it was first rate comedy, but then he listed the body parts I would lose for publishing it.

Perhaps not.

Gourmet Cooking

You really should know something about a subject before you write about it.

Baby Prince George

I’m of the opinion that if all members of the royal family remained barely ambulatory and pre-verbal, that Britain’s movement to dump the royals would die in a great cascade of cuteness.

But just like his grandfather, the royal baby is not really funny.

Sex?

Yeah… See Gourmet Cooking.

Blogging

So here I am on an even later Wednesday night, just finishing a post on the least appropriate subject of all – writing a blog post. As someone I didn’t bother to Google once said, “It’s like sausage; focus on the product, not how it’s made.”

Here’s a bit from Steven Wright. What a Driver’s Ed instructor he would have made!