question 1: which is larger – the number of signs for south of the border on interstate 95 or the number of see rock city signs in tennessee?

answer: the staff at kool kangaroo is working as you read this to compile the results of our count. we can say that both numbers are far too large. the worst thing about tourist traps is that, in the end, they let the tourists go.

question 2: what’s the thing with kool kangaroo and no capital letters?

answer: kool kangaroo believes that all people are of value, and that one’s value as a person should be determined by what one does, not the net worth of the family into which one is born. to make that point, kool kangaroo chooses not to capitalize letters based on something as random as being the first word in a sentence. when you see a capital letter in a word at kool kangaroo, it becomes something of meaning.

question 3: what makes you laugh?

answer: my daughter emma, the song “momma don’t allow” by the austin lounge lizards, and bill maher and jon stewart

question 4: who painted the first velvet elvis?

answer: tijuana resident artist carlos vaskecherista is credited, if one can call it that, with the first rendering of the king on black velvet. carlos is probably best known for his biography of vincent van gogh, who carlos insisted on calling vincent van gone throughout the work when referring to events after his death. vaskecherista was actually obsessed with van gogh – his early elvis paintings were frontal face portraits, and, in a gesture to van gogh, elvis was always painted with only one ear. when criticized for this approach to portraying elvis, he compromised by painting profiles, with the missing ear always hidden from view. his transition from using pegboard as a painting surface to working with velvet was widely viewed as visionary. tourists shopping in tijuana today have carlos to thank for the many velvet paintings available, as hordes of artists have since picked up on his technique. the original one-eared velvet elvis is said to be available for less than ten dollars at the bazaar nearest the border.

question 5: so what's the deal with juanita velveeta?

answer: juanita velveeta, the cheese queen, is a kool kangarette, and is penney file's main cheese squeeze. the former lead singer for the inquiring minds, juanita velveeta recently came to the realization that she is a vegan. and when it dawned on her that velveeta is, in fact, a dairy product, she began to sneeze uncontrollably. thinking it was the pollen, she quit her job sharpening the points on golf tees and moved to the polar cap. the sneezing stopped, but she began to freeze. so off she went to her beach house on captiva island, but she found herself unable to adequately manage her hair because of the breeze. realizing that she had been misled about the ease with which one can escape the eeze, she decided against the sneeze and the freeze and opted for the breeze, and today she sits on the beach at captiva staring in the general direction of belize.

question 6: is it true that gilda radner, before marrying gene wilder, had a brief marriage to baseball player frank tanana, and that they had moved to cuba and opened a nightclub?

answer: yes, and it was there and only there that you could order the roseanne roseannadanna tanana havana cabana banana daiquiri.

question 7: are you developing a twelve step program for recovering engineers?

answer: this has been a bittersweet effort. it is a much needed program, but, as a recovering engineer, i find myself overanalyzing the program's development, which has slowed down the process considerably. facing the fact that i am, indeed, an engineer was perhaps one of the most difficult things i've had to do. but standing in front of a group of people and announcing, "i am an engineer" was liberating and allowed the healing process to begin. for a long time i refused to believe that i was an engineer. i told myself that i was just a social math-doer, and that i could stop calculating any time i wanted to, if i wanted to. but i was wrong. the truth hit me one morning when i found myself evaluating the change in ductility in my daughter's breakfast cereal as a function of milk immersion time. as she saw me stick my fingers in her cereal bowl yet again, she looked at me as only a little girl can, and said, "why, daddy, why?" i knew then that i had to put an end to the madness, and the twelve step program development began. right now we have a small group that meets once every 2.65 weeks. hearing a middle aged man with thick glasses get up and say "it has been seven weeks since i last wore a pocket protector" just makes you shiver all over. it really does. there is hope. perhaps someday there will also be a song.............