All Entries in the "Fractured Opinion" Category

Speed Limit Increased on Mountain Passes

From The Gold Creek Erotic and Collector
(Parlin, Colorado – May 25, 2015)

An across the board speed limit increase is now in effect for all Colorado mountain passes. Policy makers in Denver have decided to raise the per hour velocity after studying time-distance charts posted on the walls in the C-DOT men’s room this morning.
The heavy-handed Front Range contingent feels very strongly that “nobody should be allowed to spend that much time going nowhere.”
The mountain routes that will soon see 75 miles per hour are Engineer, Kebler, Cinnamon, Ophir, Ohio, Corkscrew, Pearl, Black Bear, Juanita, Imogene, Owl Creek, Cottonwood, Schofield and Cumberland Passes.
Speed limits of 65 will remain for drivers on Mosquito, Marshall, McClure and Paradise Divide.
“We figure we’ve done everything else to lure these jeep enthusiasts and other motorists to Colorado so we just as well let them loose on the passes,” said one legislator. “Certain natural confines are in play that may result in dire circumstances for those who don’t respect the conditions up there, especially at night.”
In other business the Colorado House voted to fine all RV operators who do not possess a chauffeurs license and denied other motorists the right to fire on slow moving vehicles holding up more than 10 vehicles in a row. Jeepsters are asked to leave their cash and credit cards down in town in case of a serious accident or disappearance. – Sergio Jingles

Famous Bow Tie Enthusiasts

(continued from Parlin’s Gilded Age Review – May 10, 2015)

Albert Schweitzer & Mickey Mouse
C. Everet Koop & Saul Bellow
Daniel Moynihan & Irvin R. Levine
Louis Farrakhan & Gene Shalit
Alfred Kinsey & Winston Churchill
Dave Garraway & Porky Pig
Orville Redenbacher & Dagwood Bumstead
Krusty the Clown & Indiana Jones
Mr. Hooper & Elton John
Franklin Roosevelt & Wally Cox
Karl Marx & Harry Truman
Pee Wee Herman & _____.
Can you name another 20 or 30 famous bow tie wearers?
Send us your list and we’ll throw it in the trash with this worthless roster.
Did Hitler ever wear a bow tie? Dick Cheney?

Next time: “The Children’s Book of Wine” with McGeorge Normandie.
McGeorge interviews Tammy Tanat, author of “What to Tell Your Lover About Dog Food”. Elmo don Hatchette, author of “Zen Will You Shovel the Snow”, will join the stunning duo.
Later a bad studio band will crank it up. The final segment could get wild as Rev. Carlo Pique-Stinge, of Harlem/West Palm Beach debates the question of Affirmative Action with former House Republican, Steve Scalise, now of Louisiana.

The Happy Horseshoer

by Xanander Hollandaise
CALL ME FARRIER

What a Ringer!

Dear Xanader:
I’m considered a very attractive forty-one-year-old woman. For many years I have enjoyed a wonderful marriage with what I always thought was an erotic exposure to the game of horseshoes. But when I participated at a recent tournament I was hurled into a state of heightened awareness, so that now I am climbing the walls in what can only be called “enhanced anxiety”. Here are the sordid details.
One night a couple of weeks ago my husband and I has an unusually nasty fight, just as he was leaving for an extended business trip. We hadn’t played horseshoes for a long time and certainly did not that night. That’s when I met the Uncompahgre Pitcher’s Club. Ten handsome players who all wanted to play with me. A strong flirtation with the stake, the feel of the sand, and the cold beers convinced me to throw caution to the wind. Ringer, leaner, point…I became uncontrollable. Another point, a ringer, a skunk. It went on and on until the wee hours of the morning.
After I woke up I felt anything but guilty for the night before. The temptation to seek another encounter has been with me to this very day. My husband came home to a more expressive, less inhibited pitcher. Now the two of us sneak off and play shoes over our lunch hour or sometimes throw a few before work. Here’s hoping my experience helps your reader get over the fear of the pit. – DA

Sounds great to me! I suggest you sign up for another tournament the next time your husband leaves town. Remember that he could be tossing a few himself between meetings. – Xanader

Fear of Trying
I hope you can help with my problem, Xanander. I am a twenty-year-old college student who has never played a game of horseshoes, and its really starting to get to me. My sister’s friends tell me I’m a gifted athlete and I’ve had plenty of experience watching films and reading but whenever I pick up a set of shoes I turn to putty. It’s getting so that I break into a sweat when I think of attending a county affair or a simple backyard barbecue. I think I’m afraid that I will miss the pit and embarrass myself. I have fantasized about virility and a winning form but to no avail.
What’s even worse is to hear my friends talk about their conquests as if it were nothing at all. I’ve avoiding their piercing questions, their appraisals. I’d hate to think what they would say if they knew I had written to you. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. – RD

I suspect that your sisters friends know very little about sensualities and the drive that makes males want to succeed. Why not hire a professional to get you over the rough spots? – Xanander

Secret Desires
My wife and I make up a truly remarkable horseshoe tram, although recently she has expressed a strong attraction to playing with others. I can’t stand the thought of competing with her on that level. The situation has deteriorated to new lows and I have lost my concentration causing my shoe to fall short of expectations. The thought of her playing with another partner has led me to lose faith in my abilities as a pitcher.

Falling short of the pit is normal. Don’t get melodramatic over a simple game. Maybe a higher performance threshold will win her back. If not summer is short and there are lots of other potential partners.

All correspondence is treated in confidence. Send your questions to Xanander Hollandaise at this website. We regret that no private responses will be supplied.

Local Firm Awarded Honduras

(Paonia Piggie – April 25, 2015)
Koch Brothers Industries has just awarded itself the Central American country of Honduras. In an unprecedented move the firm took control of the former nation Friday, deporting the entire population.
“It was a dress rehearsal for what’s coming up in “America”,” said a clandestine lobbyist for the new colonist.
Rumors circulating lofty circles suggested that Dick Cheney might be tapped as CEO, but those were vehemently denied by lawyers for the Koch Brothers.
“We are running a clean invasion and prefer to distance ourselves from the former vice President,” said an attorney on the beach in Honduras.
Where the displaced people will go is not clear. Many have taken to sleeping on the floor at the United Nations. – Holly Burton

New Highways, Free Parking To Aid Tourism

Gubernatorial Spelling Bee – Montrose, CO — April 25, 2015
Free parking in Colorado’s National Forests and on state highways will go a long way toward making tourists feel welcome this summer according to Governor John Hickenlooper. Speaking in downtown Cahone, the state’s chief executive shared plans to purchase used highways from Texas and slap a tariff on goods coming into the state from Oklahoma.
“Our current highways are terrible. They don’t stand a chance with our brutal weather,” he said. “Who in their right mind is going to bump and tumble their way from Cortez to Burlington on chuckholes, buckled asphalt and rocks?” These are topographic nightmares meant for sheep and locals not money-spending visitors.”
Funds generated from the new tariffs should be plenty to cover the new highway acquisitions. Traditionally highways don’t retain much resale value and states don’t expect to recover expenses on used roadways.
“Most are in the bargain bin or left out on some back lot to rot, or whatever old highways do,” said an aide to Hickenlooper, who had now retired for an afternoon siesta. “The simple fact remains that their used highways are far better than out new ones.”
Not only are the discarded highways coming our way, Texas is even throwing in the road signs and exit ramps. The Lone Star State is demanding a surcharge (a little extra y’all fee) on bending the highways to accommodate curves and drops of various proportions. The Texas highways will be hauled to Colorado by the millions of four-wheelers that visit the Rockies each summer.
“We hope someone takes our efforts seriously,” cuffed the aide. “We’re tired of being seen as just another hungry mouth to feed in the gravy train parade.”
Hickenlooper plans a visit to Japan in May to promote this spruced-up Colorado as a pleasant and beautiful place to negotiate by automobile. For centuries the Japanese have shown a strong preference for Utah due in part to cultural and religious ties but these norms appear to be shifting in the favor of the Centennial State. – Fred Zeppelin

The prominent San Juan peaks…

An interview at 14,000 feet

This interviewed has been compiled under duration by a crack team of investigative journalists trying to rationalize spending a good chunk of the long, hot summer stumbling around high in the San Juan Mountains. It in no way reflects the shortsightedness, political bias or intolerant stands common to this newspaper. The report is not intended to substitute for the eerie harbingers, half-truths, crisp dialogue, educational opportunities, fantasy time travel or twisted focus presented in the mainstream funny papers.
Patriotic readers are instructed to eat this article after consuming its content so that code data and shared intelligence do not fall into the hands of rogue governments and/or sophisticated international terrorist cells. Your support is essential. We could not be who we are without your negligence.

Horseshoe: (crawling up the last few feet to the top of Mount Sneffels) Good day, Ms Sneffels. I hope we aren’t intruding so early in the morning. Did you sleep well?

Sneffels: Sleep well? Up here, with sheets of bedrock? You must be kidding. It snowed last night. I’m soaked to the strata and haven’t even had time to fix my face. I must look hideous.
Horseshoe: On the contrary…you look…quite majestic.
Sneffels: Why thank you. How about a nice hot cup of tundra tea. I have it imported from the Sangre de Cristos.
Horseshoe: Sure. I guess you’re wondering what I’m up to here so early.
Sneffels: We don’t get a lot of visitors until about noon, then the lightning scares them off by two and things calm down again. (A rock falls down almost hitting me). Damn mountain goats. Clumsy bastards. No consideration. No sense of design. They never used to come up this high until the humans started the jeep tours and helix skiing.
Horseshoe: My publisher sent me up here to get a story on the Pacific Rim and climate change…
Sneffels: Well you’re 800 miles off course.
Horseshoe: But I came to talk to you and several other mountains here in the San Juans to get your angle on it all. Even though there are few actual volcanoes here, the whole place is the largest erosional remnant of a complete volcanic field. Scientists say the San Juans were created by five volcanic eruptions each with a magnitude ten times greater than Mt St. Helens.
Sneffels: When was all of this to have happened?
Horseshoe: About 35 million years ago.
Sneffels: Before my time.
Horseshoe: Did you ever meet La Garita Caldera?
Sneffels: I knew her during the Precambrian Era when we were a lot younger. She was an eruption waiting to happen. All talk-no action.
Horseshoe: Are there mountains like her in the San Juans today?
Sneffels: You mean volcanoes? Say it. It’s not so bad. Yes, Lone Cone still fancies himself an active volcano but most geologists laugh him off the stage when he starts in. He’s the only mountain in this range with enough hot air to almost pull it off.
Horseshoe: A real hot head, huh?
Sneffels: Oh he’s a genuine volcano all right…though extinct from what I hear. We don’t talk about that in front of him. You should stop and ask Old Man Wilson about him. They’ve been neighbors for millenniums. No love lost there. I’d go with you but I think I’ll just stay here and be high.

After crossing into the Western San Juans the hard way we finally reached the crest of Mt Wilson. We carefully ascended the steep rock face and scrambled up to the top of the magnificent 14er.
Horseshoe: Hello Mount Wilson. Are you there?
Mt Wilson: Yes I’m there. I’m here. I’m pretty much everywhere up here. But please get off my chest. It’s hard enough to do crunches when you’re made of metamorphic rock.
Horseshoe: Oh sorry.
Mt. Wilson: Men who move mountains, huh. What a crock of lava.
Horseshoe: May I speak with you for a moment about global warming and seismic energy and…
Mt Wilson: So you’ve been talking to Mount Sneffels? That bony broad doesn’t know if she’s coming or going. Not well grounded if you know what I mean. What did she say about me?
Horseshoe: Only that I should talk to you about Lone Cone.
Mt Wilson: So that’s it. I should have known. That Lone Cone gets all the attention. Don’t know what the ladies see in him. He’s always been a punk in my book. I knew him at Vesuvius Junior College. He was very active in a lot of underground volcanic activities there.
Horseshoe: Do you think he plans to erupt in the future?
Mount Wilson: He has too many faults and that crater face ain’t gonna win him any friends. His volcanic block along with his personal hygiene could dictate anything.
Horseshoe: When was the last time he blew his stack?
Mt Wilson: During the Haleyolithic Era he got all huffy about some pterodactyls using him for nesting. Up here…mind you. He shot a few rounds of steam and they split. If you don’t believe me, ask him yourself. He’s over there toward Norwood with his head in the clouds. Just do yourself a favor and don’t say anything about his faults. He’s also touchy about the word dormant…something about his twisted male ego.
Horseshoe: Thanks Mr. Wilson.
Mt Wilson: You betcha. Hey if you run into Last Dollar Mountain on your travels tell him he still owes me money from a poke game in 450, will ya.

We proceeded to climb the south ascent to Lone Cone despite warnings of electric fields and unfriendly ptarmigan. As we approached his conical mound he resembled a medieval castle. We yelled a greeting like before.
Horseshoe: Greetings Mr. Cone. We’re from the San Juan Horseshoe. I understand you’re a volcano.
Lone Cone: Well I’m not a Chevrolet.
Horseshoe: I’ve been talking a lot of your neighbors about volcanoes and global arming and I…
Lone Cone: Those ninnies over by Ouray? Bunch of angular nonconformists. I went to a barbecue over there a couple of hundred years ago and it took me three years to get home. Damn.
Horseshoe: Are you extinct like they say?
Lone Cone: I certainly was not that Fourth of July. It was a Carnival atmosphere. Extinct? I should say not. It started as an impulsive glance and ended in a landslide. I’m known as quite the ladies’ mountain you know.
Horseshoe: You know La Garita Caldera?
Lone Cone: Garita babe? We saw quite a little of each other during the Triassic Period, but the commute cooled things off. Have you ever tried to get a mountain into the back seat of a 57 Ford?
Horseshoe: Not recently.
Lone Cone: Oh a wise guy? How would you like a little eruption or maybe a landslide aimed in your direction? Didn’t your momma ever teach you any manners?
Horseshoe: Yes but I gave them up to go into journalism. But do you plan to erupt soon?
Lone Cone: Only if I get another real estate sign stuck in the side of my head. The other day some lady asked me for my listing. Was she coming on to me? You people ski all over our faces. You take our pictures. You gaze in our direction but when it gets dark you leave us out here…all alone. Lone as it were. Lone.
Horseshoe: So…the eruption potential?
Lone Cone: Yeah, I think I will. Imagine the attention from the rest of the world if I spewed out and made a mess. I’d probably qualify for federal assistance. A disaster area right here in the San Juans. The Andes and the Urals and the Alps would be green with envy. Maybe I’ll do it for Christmas. Back in the old days the tribes would throw me a virgin princess or two…to calm me down…but with civil rights and all I can’t expect that this go round.
Horseshoe: Those days may be gone forever. Thanks for talking to us. We’ll send you a copy of the story. – Gabby Haze