So a commonly asked question that no one has ever asked me is, “How much time do you spend working on Flush Twice?”
And honestly, it varies. If I have enough jokes in my e-mail, then it’s pretty much a snap. I copy/paste the jokes into the queue, along with some editing to correct spelling, grammar, and fix any other errors that one typically finds in the copypasta. It’s just a mere five jokes a week, so I like to get it all done in an evening. Takes about an hour or two if things are going well.
These rants are just like any other “twittube” or “facespace” post that people make. I just type whatever nonsense comes off the top of my head. Other than ensuring that spelling, grammar, and paragraphing is adhered to, I make no claims that you’re reading the Journals’ of Ernest Hemingway. In fact, if you’re reading this, you’re probably more bored than I am and need to find a better hobby. All in all, it’s about an hour’s worth of my time, because I really don’t rush it, and there are frequent breaks and digressions.
The amount of time I spend on the comic is the real wildcard. Some weeks I spend a lot of time trying new stuff, while others I just quickly toss it together because I’m really not feeling it. Interestingly, the comic you see, and the stuff I’m working on, are not necessarily connected. The panels I publish are based on tried and true techniques that I feel comfortable using. Occasionally I might create something that looks really cool, but if creating it is very tedious or I’m just not able to consistently create that kind of work, then I’m not going to post it. A lot of really interesting (and sometimes disturbing) stuff ends up on the cutting room floor.
So there you have it. Jokes and rants take two to three hours a week, but the comic itself could be anywhere from 15 minutes to ten hours of time spent each week.
Pax,
-f2x
PS:I also just wanted to add that the tomatoes have finally ripened, and I’ve been enjoying the most delicious tomato sandwiches. Here’s the recipe:
Pick ripe tomato off of your tomato plant.
Put 2 slices of bread in toaster.
Slice tomato.
When bread pops up, spread on Miracle Whip (or mayo).
Add tomato slices and smash together.
Enjoy.
I suppose you could add bacon to this sandwich if you wanted to, but honestly they are so juicy and delicious by themselves, it’s almost a shame to mess with it.
Also, I wanted to touch on what makes a home grown tomato so much better than any store bought:
They have a more concentrated tomato flavor.
They are tender without being mushy.
Juicy without being drippy
…and they have that fresh tomato plant smell on them!
Once upon a time, a Prince asked a beautiful Princess, “Will you marry me?”
The Princess immediately said, “No!”
And the Prince lived happily ever after, and rode motorcycles and dated thin, long-legged, full-breasted women, and hunted and fished and raced cars, and went to “gentlemen’s clubs” and dated ladies half his age, and drank whiskey, beer, and Captain Morgan, and never heard bitching, and never paid child support or alimony, and dated cheerleaders, and kept his house and guns, and ate spam and potato chips and beans, and blew enormous farts, and never got cheated on while he was at work, and all his friends and family thought he was friggin’ cool as hell, and he had tons of money in the bank, and left the toilet seat up.
An elderly couple was having dinner one evening when the husband reached across the table, took his wife’s hand in his and said, “Martha, soon we will be married 50 years, and there’s something I have to know. In all of these 50 years, have you ever been unfaithful to me?”
Martha replied, “Well Henry, I have to be honest with you. Yes, I’ve been unfaithful to you on three occasions during these 50 years, but always for a good reason.”
Henry was obviously hurt by his wife’s confession, but said, “I never suspected. Can you tell me what you mean by ‘good reasons?'”
Martha said, “The first time was shortly after we were married, and we were about to lose our little house because we couldn’t pay the mortgage. Do you remember that evening I went to see the banker and the next day he notified you that the loan would be extended?”
Henry recalled the visit to the banker and said, “I can forgive you for that. You saved our home, but what about the second time?”
Martha asked, “Do you remember when you were so sick, but we didn’t have the money to pay for the heart surgery you needed? Well, I went to see your doctor one night and, if you recall, he did the surgery at no charge.”
“I recall that,” said Henry. “And you did it to save my life, so of course I can forgive you for that. Now tell me about the third time.”
“All right,” Martha said. “So do you remember when you ran for president of your golf club, and you needed 53 more votes?”
All the members of the company’s Board of Directors were called into the Chairman’s office, one after another, until only Ted, the junior member, was left sitting outside.
Finally it was his turn to be summoned.
Ted entered the office to find the Chairman and the other four Directors seated at the far end of the boardroom table. Ted was instructed to stand at the other end of the table, which he did.
The Chairman looked Ted squarely in the eye, and with a stern voice, he asked, “Have
you ever had sex with my secretary, Miss Foyt?”
“Oh,no, sir, positively not!” Ted replied.
“Are you absolutely sure?” asked the chairman.
“Honest, I’ve never been close enough to even touch her!”
“You’d swear to that?”
“Yes, I swear I’ve never had sex with Miss Foyt, anytime, anywhere,” insisted Ted.
A man got a prescription for Viagra, and went home to get ready for when his wife got home.
He called her on the phone, and she told him, “I’ll be home in half an hour.”
This was perfect for the man because the Doctor told him to take his Viagra half an hour beforehand. He took the Viagra and waited.
The half hour went by, the man was ready to go, but his wife was a no show. He called her cellphone and she informed him, “Traffic is terrible. I won’t be there for another hour and a half.”
Out of frustration, the man called his doctor for advice.
The Doctor replied, “I suppose it would be a shame to waste it. Is your housekeeper around?”
“Yes, she is.” the man replied.
“Well, maybe you could occupy yourself with her instead?” said the Doctor.
A bit dismayed, the man replied, “But I don’t need Viagra with the housekeeper.”
Saturday, about noon, I started getting a migraine again. I was in the middle of developing some new stuff for the comic when it hit. Needless to say, I never got done with my comic development that evening. I did finish it tonight though, and while I can still feel a residual dull ache, the migraine has subsided enough that I can at least function around the house.
So basically the whole weekend was shot. Didn’t go anywhere or do anything. For all I know (or care) the tomatoes all dried up and died. But sometimes you need that downtime. It helps to have that break in your day to day life. a couple of days where nothing gets done or matters.
Actually I do have some happy news. I got a promotion at work, and I start tomorrow in mold set up. Having a couple days of downtime to calibrate my focus might just be a good thing too.
I suppose I should start by telling you how it happened. It was an otherwise nondescript day back in February. I went to get out of my rocker-recliner and when I scooched forward to get up, the front armrests bottomed out on the floor as they always do. Unbeknownst to me, Alex just happened to be laying down there that fateful day, and his left arm managed to get pinched.
Of course he yowled the loudest I'd ever heard him yell in his entire life and shot off into the basement. I felt terrible about it, but then I had no way of knowing he was down there when I went to get up. After a short while, Alex came back upstairs, and I was able to check for injury.
Shockingly, there were no broken bones, no blood, and Alex was able to walk just fine. It almost seemed cartoonish at the time, but down the left side of his left arm was a ribbon of flattened fur. He seemed somewhat indifferent to this, and acted like he just wanted to put the whole thing behind him. Seeing as Alex didn't appear to be in immediate danger, I took a "wait and see" position.
Over the next month, the "ribbon" began to shrink inward towards his elbow. I took this as a good sign that his injury was healing naturally and everything would be fine... But things were not fine. After a month and a half, his elbow began to swell. By mid-April I had to take him in to the vet for an exam.
The vet did a fair bit of Hmmm'ing and scrunched her face a lot. She didn't want to poke it with anything for fear it might introduce something. She took some measurements and expressed a "wait and see" attitude. I then scheduled a follow up appointment two months out.
Only a month later in mid-May, the swelling on his elbow had increased to the point that it started to ulcer. I called the vet and got him in immediately. This time they tried to drain it, but it went horribly. After the first stick, Alex started squirting blood all over the place, and the vet and technician freaked out and were running around looking for towels while I had to hold my cat down in a growing pool of his own blood.
After they got things back under control, she tried again with a larger needle, and went in from a different direction. After plunging to the center of the mass, she remarked that it was solid and that the fluid had probably dispersed into the surrounding tissue. She then went on to suggest that it might even be "malignant" and recommended a biopsy. They gave me an estimate for the procedure that ran from $500 to $800. I immediately left and made an appointment with another vet that I had gone to in the past.
The next day, my alternate vet didn't have any good news. By now, Alex's arm was very infected. At first he suggested that the arm would have to come off, but after noting Alex's age, he pulled back and recommended palliative care. I pushed for a quote on the cost of an amputation, and he informed me it would be around $3500 at the lowest, and that at his age, Alex would only live another 6 months after the surgery, and to just stick with palliative care.
They gave Alex a shot of antibiotics, a shot for long term pain management, prednisolone tablets and a liquid antibiotic, along with an appointment to come back about a month later.
Over the memorial day weekend, I cleaned Alex's wound and administered his meds. Alex was still Alex though. He obviously wanted to live, so I began making phone calls. Eventually I got in touch with the Humane Society. It took week and a half to finally get in, but after looking at Alex's arm, their surgeon said that the arm was "not compatible with long term survival" and agreed to amputate it... in two weeks.
That was the longest two weeks of my life.
Every day that thing on his elbow grew bigger and bigger. In the final week, it started to split open. It looked like something out of a horror movie. The outer layer of skin died off and eventually I had to cut the hard chunk of dried flesh off with scissors. Fortunately the antibiotics prescribed by the second vet kept the wound site free from infection.
And through all of this, Alex was still Alex. He just kept on living his life like nothing was wrong. Even with that thing on his arm, he still walked normal, climbed up and down the stairs, jumped on the bed, table, dresser, et cetera. Part of me knew this cat was gonna make it, but part of me was scared that his arm was going to go septic and Alex would die.
I felt relieved on the day of the surgery. We made it through to this day! Alex would be a tripod, but he was going to live! I dropped Alex off at the Human Society and went to work expecting to pick him up between 4:00 pm and 5:00 pm.
My phone rang a little before noon. The voice on the other end informed me that the surgery had gone fine, and they didn't notice anything wrong during the procedure, but in the recovery room, Alex's heart rate began to drop, he went non-responsive, and his pupils dilated. The surgeon explained that sometimes a blood clot will break free during the surgery and make its way into the brain. Alex had had a stroke. There was nothing more they could do.
Moments later, Alex died.
Usually I show off pictures of Gail here, (she's doing find by the way). Gail is a fun dog who loves to constantly run and play, but Alex was the one that I could really count on for affection. He would hop up on my chest when I was resting in my recliner and purr. He would be there at the door to greet me when I came home. He would keep me company when I pooped. He would wake me in the morning, and insist I gave him a thorough petting before I went to sleep at night. He talked to me with his incessant meows, and made sure I never left the house without filling the food and water bowls. Alex loved to get his "full kitty massage" complete with belly rubs, and he was the kind of cat that would walk up and headbutt me to let me know I was his as much as he was mine.
Flush Twice has been around since May of 2003. It started out as a JOTD (Joke of the Day) website. New jokes were published every weekday. Over the years, good jokes were increasingly hard to come by, and eventually they got so rare that I just stopped trying to publish them.
Since 2004 there has also been an eponymous comic. I still occasionally publish a new one on Saturdays. It’s also rare anymore, but sometimes it happens.
Here lately I’ve been posting a “Link of the Day”. For the time being, I will be featuring a new website from my enormous collection of bookmarked websites every weekday. None of it is solicited promotions, and no one is paying me to feature their site. These are just websites that at one time I thought were interesting enough to add to my bookmarks folder.
I highly encourage using some kind of ad blocking extension before clicking on any of these links. You’ll also hear me say this phrase a lot about these posts: “They can’t all be winners.” But it’s better than just leaving the site abandoned.
The jokes were generously provided by friends and visitors such as yourself. I want to express my eternal thanks to everyone over the years who helped contribute to the collection.
So what is it that makes a joke funny?
It all boils down to a sudden shift in perception. The story starts you thinking one way, then the punchline turns that thinking on its ear. The art of the joke is to craft a short story that isn’t overly contrived, then deliver a punchline that suddenly shifts your perception about the story you were being told.
Many of the jokes on this site are offensive, and I make no apologies for it. Offensive jokes work by making the reader uncomfortable through the use of a taboo subject thus enhancing the underlying humor. Without the offensive element, the joke would simply not be as funny.
