One good way to find out the limits of your lung capacity

Try sprinting as far as you can while singing 'The Hills are Alive', from the Sound Of Music, as loud as you can. It's a humbling experience.

Wisdom for the Ages

'Beware thy hindquarters from gunblasting.' - Benjamin Franklin

Band names

The Little Engine that Could Have Molested You
Read Along with Art Garfunkel
Abe Lincoln Died for Your Sins
Spider-Man Died for Your Sins
Avenging Geek-Boy
Multiple Entendre
Slow Boat to Mundo Fine
The All-Male Amazons
Henry Kissenger Dance Explosion
The Dumb Ones
Donner Party BBQ
B Funky B Cool
2 Funky 2 Cool
2 Funky B Cool
B Funky 2 Cool
Dirty Sanchez and the Rusty Trombones
Generalissimo Francisco Franco and his Fun-Loving Fascists
Scum Monkey
Scumbitch Troll
Angry Sock Puppets of the World, Unite!
We Have Nothing to Lose but Our Minds
Dirt Nap
Deep Space Mime
Kicked by an Angel
Dingoes Ate my Grandma
Monkey Wrench of the Gods
The Podiatrists
Electric Pagoda
Steam Punk
Lampshade Aura
My Parents Never Liked Me
Probed by an Alien
Fantastic Lemon
Psalm 420
St. Thomas, Swimming Instructor
Book of Tobit
The Rock, The Chain, The Lightning
The Amazing Dr. Thing and his Thang
Shopping Cart of Dooooom!
Rhymes w/Orange
Baby-Punching Daddies

Any other suggestions?

Story while polishing boots

Many a year ago, before the crazy house, or the Army, or the circus, or New York, I bought me a pair of combat boots. Why? Who can say? In those bygone times, the salad days if you will, I was prone to such flights of fancy. A young man does these things.

One evening shortly afterwards, I made my way some miles to the home of my parents, to get free food. And enjoy their company. Of course. Anyway, I brought my new boots along, and asked my sainted father if he would show me the proper way to apply a shine to such a style of footlery. My father, bless his fine heart, was sanguine that his long-gone expertise as a young Cockney bootblack would return to him anon, and that said expertise could be imparted to his youngest scion, namely, me.

And so pere et fils laid hands upon the necessary rags and polish, and commenced to apply much elbow grease to the pristine leather, in hopes of achieving a sheen in which one could confidently comb one's coif, or trim one's nose-hair, with supreme confidence. As our labors were undertaken, my father was moved to reminisce about some of the more interesting aspects of his long-gone time in the Basic Training which our esteemed Armed Forces require of all young men engaged to become soldiers.

So a story emerged, detailing how each callow recruit was outfitted with two sets of combat boots; one set to be worn, and the other to repose in glistening perfection beneath the bunk of each citizen-soldier, with one pair alternating with the other in a day of use and a day of rest.

My father detailed, also, how some of the gentlemen in question sought to avoid the daily necessity of removing the marks of use from the hardy leather in which they had been shod, by the simple expedient of keeping one pair of boots in constant use while merely dusting the finely polished specimens of their footwear each morning. By doing so, each such individual managed to husband a little more of their never-copious free time.

The tale continued, however, with the description of the day in which each young man was ordered to fall in for formation with both pairs of boots, one to be worn, while the other was to hang about the neck of each individual. All of the smart young men who had kept one finely shined pair of boots untouched by the rigors of time in the field naturally wore this pair of boots around their necks, while having the besmirched pair, in which they had labored for weeks and were well broken-in, on their feet. So, there was some consternation expressed in the ranks, when the fine sergeants in charge of these proto-soldiers ordered the men to take off the boots on their feet, and replace them with the pair which hung from their necks. Many of the young men were now wearing their well-shined boots for the first time, causing some slight groans of worry.

Following the twenty-mile hike which followed, the groans were more than slight. Boots made for hard working soldiers are notoriously punishing on one's feet when they are first being worn, and walking long distances in such a pair before they are well broken-in is, as you might guess, not recommended.

And so my father and I shared a gentle laugh at the folly of these men, recalled many years later in the soft light of my parents kitchen. This story led me to ask my esteemed pater if he had been caught in such folly.

Poppo related to me how he had been apprised of such a possibility, amongst other possible traps laid for the nascent soldier, by his own father, a career military man himself, who had risen to the rank of Lt. Colonel in his time. My father also received a weekly letter from his own patriarch, with name and rank of my grandfather listed in clear, large writing upon it; as such, it was understood, though never stated, that the command structure under which my father labored knew that there was someone of rank, somewhere at large in the Army, who had a very clear interest in the well-being of then-Private Lee.

Truly, I am heir to a noble lineage.