I can go months without hearing a good joke, but yesterday, while trawling the Internets, I came across three that made me chuckle and/or openly weep.

Q: How many Spaniards does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

A: Juan.

* * * * *

Person 1: Knock knock.

Person 2: Who’s there?

Person 1: Control freak.

Person 1: Now you say “control freak who?”

* * * * *

Q: What’s the difference between the Vietnam War and the Iraq War?

A: George W. Bush had a plan to get out of the Vietnam War.

Note: Hundreds of more jokes in the comments.

Language is a funny thing. Take the words “crone” and “cone,” for example. It

1. This morning on the bus there was a man who looked exactly like Saddam Hussein. And not the groomed-and-besuited just-a-regular-guy Saddam we’ve seen in recent courtroom footage, either — I’m talkin’ the bearded-and-bedraggled just-pulled-out-of-a-spider-hole Saddam.

Rides my bus

He was sitting about two-thirds of the way back. As people filed into the coach and wandered towards the rear they would see him, and then start looking around wildly for an available seat; when they spotted one they would dart to it like someone just lifted the needle from the record in a game of musical chairs. No one wanted to get stuck sitting next to Saddam.

Eventually every seat was filled except the one next to Saddam. As more people boarded the bus we craned their necks to see who was going to draw the short straw, and were horrified to see that it was the kind of charming elderly lady that puts you in the mind of gingersnaps. A couple of the men shifted in their seats as if they were going to offer her their spot and take the bullet. But in the end nobody did.

No matter. Without falter she marched down the aisle, smiled at Saddam, and settled into the seat next to him. In response, Saddam did that bus-riding courtesy thing where you kind of hop in your seat to indicate that you are scrunching over in an effort to make more room for your neighbor.

I think we were all a little ashamed of our prejudice, and started thinking that maybe Saddam Hussein was an okay guy. But we were still glad we weren’t sitting next to him.

2. Later, walking in downtown Seattle from the bus stop to my office, I saw a man drop a folder full of papers. The sheets were caught by the wind and scattered in every direction, but everyone around him immediately stopped walking and lunged for whichever document was closest. Within seconds the passersby had collected all the papers and returned them to the man.

Seeing this, I was filled with boundless optimism about the essential goodness of the human soul.

But then I got to work and started surfing the Internet, and quickly returned to normal.

Apparently they are making an Alien vs. Predator movie, perhaps because of the success of last year’s Jason vs. Freddy. That’s cool, I guess, but there are so many other matchups I’d rather see.

In fact, I think they should just go whole hog, pair up all the movie villians March Madness style, and settle the issue once and for all.

Click for larger, office-pool sized sheet.

Go Anne Wilkes — I got five bucks on ya!

Update: Good gravy, how did I forget the Deliverance hillbillies?! Added them at arto’s suggestion.

Also: Jason went ahead and filled out the sheet; Mr. Grooism wrote something similar to this in January.

Waiting for a bus in downtown Seattle, I see a disheveled and possibly deranged man with an enormous duffle bag sidling down the sidewalk, stopping to bellow “Are you going to the library?!” at each and every person in turn. Most ignore him until he moves on, but some — out of compulsive politeness, or because they have somehow mistaken this raving for a sincere query — begin to reply “No, I’m waiting for my –” at which point the man cuts them short with an impassioned and spittle-intensive “GO TO THE LIBRARY!!!”

I dunno. Call me cynical, but I just don’t think Seattle’s literacy program is all that effective.

The weekend started with a literal bang here in the Baldwin household, as the nation of Taiwan attempted to kill me and my child. It was a little after ten on Friday evening, and I was trying to get The Squirrelly to sleep by holding him while bouncing up and down on an exercise ball in a darkened room. Then, just as he closed his eyes and started to breath deeply, the ball beneath us decided to embark on a new career as a big piece of ruptured plastic. One moment we’re merrily boinging up and down, the next we’re laying there with dazed looks on our faces, I sprawled cockeyed against the wall, The Squirrelly several feet away on his back, looking like two guys waking up on the morning after a particularly enjoyable bachelor party.

While I lay there wondering what the hell had happened, The Squirrelly leapt into action, quickly inhaling all of the oxygen in the room and expelling it in the form of a banshee-deafening wail. This was, of course, followed mamaseconds later by The Queen charging into the room (though she had doubtlessly already been mobilized by the sound of a small explosion emanating from our room). She saw The Squirrelly on the ground, bellowed “DID YOU DROP THE BABY?!!,” and then stabbed me in the heart with a screwdriver. Or, at least, she would have, if she had been in possession of a screwdriver, and if I hadn’t hastily gestured towards the limp and damp remains of the ball to justify my apparent decision to lounge nonchalantly in the corner of the room while the kid lay on the floor screaming.

The casualties of the calamity were as follows: one red mark on The Squirrelly’s noggin, one aching tailbone on papa’s hindquarters, and a lot of anxiety for The Queen, who spent the remainder of the evening looking up “brain injuries” in The Baby Book (while I repeatedly pointed out that (a) the baby had not been “dropped on its head,” as some spouses in the household were alleging — he had merely tumbled out of my arms after I hit the floor — and (b) I don’t see anyone looking up “Ass, broken” in The Husband Book, so what say we spread the sympathy around a little bit, hey?).

Later, reading the fine print on the body ball box, we discovered the true culprit: the Taiwanese, who apparently sanction the manufacture of shoddy goods within their borders. Or maybe they encourage it, and intend to seize control of our nation after wiping out an entire generation of American babies (and daddies!) through the export of defective “Gaiam Balance Balls.” America, remain vigilant!

Actually, there is another possibility. In the childcare classes we took prior to the birth, the teacher spoke about the absolutely necessity of a “body ball” to sooth cranky infants. When someone asked if the balls ever pop, the midwife said, oh no, that could never happen, because a typical ball has a burst weight of 800 pounds, at which point I loudly guffawed (because, c’mon: “burst weight” is funny) and the teacher looked a little irked. So I may have been on the receiving end of some midwifey fertility goddess hex. Wouldn’t be the first time.

Anyway, you’ll be glad to know that there was no long-term damage to either the top end of baby or the bottom end of daddy. And the very next day I bought a ball with burst weight of 1000 lbs., taking pains to select a model that had been made in China. TAKE THAT TAIWAN!!!

Appropo of nothing, here’s Louie Cat traipsing through a Squirrelly photoshoot:

I’m going to make a million dollars selling mirrors to idiots and telling them they are ultra-thin flatscreen TVs that only receive reality shows about lazy people.

My barista is jittery and high-strung. I find this comforting, like a barber with well-coifed hair.

I wept because I had no shoes, until I met a man with no feet.

And Christ, all that guy could talk about was having no feet. He’d be, like, “Return of the King? No, I haven’t seen that movie … because I have no feet!” Or “thanks for the pie but I didn’t really enjoy it, what with the having no feet and all.”

So I reminded him that there were men with no legs. That shut him up.

Plus, then I found my shoes under the bed, so everything worked out great.

Today I am The Morning News Non-Expert.