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While sitting in a chair, lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles with the foot. While doing this, draw the number "6" in the air with your right hand. Your foot will change direction and there's nothing you can do about it. But, if this is too exciting for you, instead of a number “6,” draw a number "9" in the air. Your foot will not change direction.
Safe Excitement – from Finland – on the Internet Following Jeep’s unexcitable approach to car design September 5, 2005 I visit web-pages, where one can compare the design changes of Jeep grilles and tailgates. They haven’t changed that much from 1940 until today. As a matter of fact the tailgate design was almost unchanged from 1945 to 1970. The Jeep factory should get some credit from their unexcitable approach to car design. Lauri Wiren + + + + + + + Dear Lauri, Right on. That’s what so great about Jeeps. Just like dull men. Predicable, Sincerely, DMC
Mole Chasing
Running of the Sheep . . . and Running of the Slugs
Thesaurus FunDecember 16, 2003 Dear DMC,
thank you.
June 21, 2003 Dear DMC, Pat Highgate
They talk turkey in Cuero, Texas. The town holds a big turkey fest every year. For as long as anyone can remember the town has always advertised itself as the Turkey Capital of the World. In 1972, townspeople discovered that Worthington, Minnesota, also advertised itself as Turkey Capital of the World. The two towns agreed to hold an annual turkey race to decide which town could claim the title for the following year. Click here to read more.
Exercise Program November 9, 2002 Dear DMC I came across this exercise program which seems quite fitting for your club. Yours dully, Pat WARNING THIS EXERCISE MAY BE TOO STRENUOUS FOR SOME PEOPLE >
Observing Ways of Tying Shoelaces [Letter edited by the DMC to remove an exclamation point] August 18, 2002 Sir, Have you noticed the number of different ways people tie shoelaces? Some will wrap the right hand lace around the looped left hand lace; some will wrap the left around the looped right. Another popular method is to form a loop with each lace and then reef knot the two loops at the same time. Lord Baden Powell in his popular Scouting for Boys? circa 1920 advocated a method where one lace was left inside the shoe. Excuse me while I just check on that . . . . . . sorry to have taken so long. I was diverted by my collection of cheese labels and someone had indexed the Baden Powell book under P for Powell rather than B for Baden Powell. Aah, indexing . . . now there's a subject worth talking about . . . . Regards John Osborne
Dull Walking . . . estimating the steps [Edited a little by the DMC, e.g., removing exclamation points] August 13, 2002 Dear DMC What an interesting web site. Congratulations. It?s great. I'm a dull man and proud of it. Here?s my typical day and how I get through it. I walk to work each morning (driving is too exciting.). Obviously day after day. This can get pretty dull. To "liven" up my walk here?s what I do: I pick a spot in the distance and then mentally calculate how many steps it may take to reach that spot. I then count mentally my steps until I reach that spot. I am rarely wrong. I?m sure that this skill may come in handy at some stage of my life. It's not too exciting and the mental work takes my mind off the more exciting visual stimuli that I may come across on my way to work (e.g. a noisy vehicle, a pretty Lady with nice legs etc. all way too exciting for me.). I work 9 - 5 in a dull job (records management ? archiving paper). Now that's DULL. Just the way I like it. On the way home I repeat the step calculating game, but I have to consider that I am more tired and therefore my steps are shorter, and my brain is dulled by the work of the day. I can normally adjust my calculations accordingly though, and still be 98-99% accurate. By the time I get home and have a soft drink (fizzy drink or alcohol are just Too stimulating), I fall asleep on the sofa until supper time. I urge dull walkers to try my "little game". It?s not too exciting. Best wishes Steve Cowley
Visiting the Zoo
Safe Excitement on London Eye . . . except it could be better
Safe Excitement in the Ice Box
Safe Excitement on Elevators and the Underground Dear DMC For Safe Excitement section: Over the years I have found many dull things to do on holidays. I once spent a day in the Sears Tower elevator pretending to want to get off on another floor whenever anyone got in or out. The doors opened 475 times and closed 474 times. I could not include the last door closing as I had got out, so it could not count. The elevator stopped at 18 floors, but not in any set pattern which added to the element of surprise. I did note with satisfaction though that the most common stops were the viewing floor on 103 and the lobby. I also like underground trains. A one way ticket on the London underground Circle Line from Tower Hill station to Monument station at a cost of 85 UK gives a world of interest by simply staying on the train. You can do maybe six or seven laps of the Circle line a day before you get off - great value for money and you can guess how many people will get into your carriage at each stop. I was right 15 times out of 156 stations. You should do 2 laps Clockwise, followed by two laps anti clockwise, etc, etc. [the DMC prefers to say counter clockwise instead of anti clockwise ― we don?t want it to appear that we have anything against clocks]. This evens out the wear on your clothes as you tend to lean to the left going clockwise and to the right going anticlockwise. Russel J Withers, 11 June 2002
Paper Clip Packaging -- the Truth Dear DMC, For inclusion in the safe things to do section. Steal boxes of paperclips from the office [the DMC suggests "borrow" instead of "steal" the boxes], 150 boxes will do. Find out if the "Average contents = 100" is in fact correct. I have done this many times now and have found that the average contents is in fact 98. From Rob Jones, June 9, 2002
Safe Excitement at Railway Crossings Dear DMC, In the area where I live there are many Railway level crossings. I have found that when I am held up in traffic because of a passing train I can pass the time by counting the train cars as they pass. From Doug Brown, June 7 2002
Counting Grebes Dear DMC, I would like to share with you all the magnificent delights of walking against the wind. You go out of doors on a particularly windy day, maybe to the park to count the grebes, to the library to check out their new fire extinguishers in the foyer, or even to the open air market to stock up on cut price shoe polish ( generally brown, tan, or grey parade gloss), but do it in slightly flared cord trousers, you know the ones, the tan or camel coloured ones you keep for best, or indeed those special times like this. Come on chaps, share this with me, it's fun, free, and, best of all, dull. From Graham Huxley, April 30 2002 PS -- don't know what grebes are? Click here to learn
Changing Clocks Today is a fun day for dull men in the U.S. Clocks change. Some of us tried to stay up until 2:00 a.m. this morning to watch our clocks change. Not all could stay up that late. Most dull men are accustomed to going to bed early. But all of us are up today . . . enjoying going around our houses, offices, and cars changing the time on the clocks. Our European members had this fun a week ago. And we know of two dull men who were in Europe last weekend for the clock changing there, then flew to the U.S. to have the fun all over again.
Safe Sex at the Laundromat
I take my girlfriend to the Laundromat. I bring my bag of dirty clothes. She brings her bag of dirty clothes. When we get there, we walk up to a laundry machine. We look around to make sure no one is watching us, then we put her clothes and my clothes into the same machine. We start the machine. We pull two chairs up in front of the machine. We sit down and watch our laundry. We watch her clothes swishing around together with my clothes. Her little lacy things getting right up next to my boxer shorts. Sometimes her panties are on top of my boxer shorts, sometimes my boxer shorts are on top of her panties. The way I look it, that?s safe sex. [Thank you Nigel Basher for sending this to us.]
Enjoying a Palindromic Day
See a nice cartoon from The Daily Telegraph in London . . . click here
Flying Around
One of our members, who lives in Brooklyn, New York, reports that, for a little excitement, he walks over to the local grocery store. Above the cash register, there usually are three or four flies flying in perfect four-inch circles over top of the cash register. The store?s owner, when she feels that things are too dull, catches a fly, knocks it out, plucks out one of her long hairs, ties the hair around the fly?s head, tapes the other end of the hair to the top of the cash register. When the fly wakes up, it flies around the cash register in circles, sometimes clockwise, sometimes counterclockwise.
Tracking Shipments A truly enjoyable thing we do is track packages being shipped to us. Carriers like UPS (United Parcel Service) and FedEx (Federal Express) have a wonderful feature on their websites that allows us to type in "tracking numbers" for our orders. The websites then tell us where at any given moment the packages are. Our new Dull Stuff merchandizing program will also have this feature once it is fully up and running.
Kite Flying Returns to Afghanistan
Kite flying is allowed again now in Afghanistan. Flying kites is a favorite activity of dull men. In Afghanistan, kite flying was banned by the Taliban. They were afraid they might discover electricity. [Converted from joke told by Jerry Seinfeld a while back, thanks Jerry]
Rotating a Mattress A dull activity in the making . . . Bob Westerlund writes to ask, "I am hoping for some advice. I got a new mattress two weeks ago. The instructions say to rotate it every two weeks for the first few months, then monthly after that. The instructions aren't clear though. Do they mean turn it completely over or just rotate it without turning it over? And how should it be rotated, clockwise or counterclockwise? Any advice would be greatly appreciated as it's now two weeks and the mattress needs to be rotated. Thank You." Any readers know the answers? Meanwhile, Bob . . . don't tear off the label . . . which of course as you know is against the law to do.
Sneakers in Dryer Ben Hasse writes, "Toss your sneakers in the dryer . . . by themselves . . . listen to the beat. If you listen carefully and long enough, you will hear the beats to every song ever written. I've counted four songs so far." Thanks Ben . . . what are those two songs?
Wood to Coal to Oil &Gas Bob Jordan writes to us that for years he watched a piece of wood turn into coal. Then he put the coal n a jar and is waiting for the conversion to oil & gas. Thanks Bob . . . how old are you?
Daylight Savings Time - Changing our Clocks We like to change the time on our clocks. The more clocks we have, the more enjoyment we have. Some of our members stay up to 2:00 a.m. to watch time change. We hear debating on the radio as to whether daylight savings time should be eliminated. We hope we can keep it. We've been asked which we like best, changing clock in the Spring or in the Fall. Some of our members like the Spring better. In the Fall, clocks in the U.S. and in the E.U. change at the same time, this year it's October 28. In the Spring. The U.S. changes one week after the E.U. —April 1 in the U.S., March 25 in the E.U. Some of our members made their travel plans so that they were in the E.U. on March 25 and then fly to the U.S. to be there April 1 so they could change their clocks twice, plus a third time on the trip to the U.S.
Cement A new activity for us: watching cement set. [We find it hard to believe that we hadn't thought of this before. Thanks to Con Crete for telling us about this favorite activity of his.]
Watching Water Boil (a myth exploded): We keep hearing people say, "A watched pot never boils." We have proved that this is not true. We like to watch pots of water boil. We have been doing it for quite a while now. The water always boils. We were going to do a scientific experiment to see whether a watched-pot boils comes to a boil slower than a not-watched-pot. We found that we couldn?t do this. Without watching the pot, we would not be able to see when it starts boiling.
Computer Defragging: Watch your computer defrag. J.T. (at audi_murphy@yahoo.com) writes to us that he?d rather do this than watch corn grow, that corn growing is nice, but from the good old days.
Ice Melting:
Watch ice melting. Martin (ticktock@bright.net) writes to us that he?s from a town in central Ohio that is too small to be on the map. He attends a Dull Men's Club meetings there where they watch a 300 pound cake of ice melt.
Windshield Wipers: Cliff Snyder (cliffordsnyder@home.com) informs us that he is really fascinated with windshield wipers. We agree. Windshield wipers are really fun to watch. —Double your pleasure, double your fun, get a car with wipers on the front as well as on the bum—.
Travelator Riding:
Epitome Eastenders Omnibus New Year's Eve Tractor Spotting: Dull Man's Bus Tour:
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Go to your favorite department store. Ride the escalators.
