Shit my dad says...

If you can really use a good laugh, then you gotta read this book. Honest. Definitely don't read it in bed while your partner's trying to sleep because your effort to contain your giggling might send you to your grave. It almost happened to me. I chose to burst into laughter eventually and wake her up instead of passing away. No shit! You got to be some place where you can laugh like your life depended on it. And where that wouldn't bother anyone in the neighborhood. Honest.

I have known about this guy soon after he got a few thousand followers on Twitter as a @shitmydadsays, from hear say in the blogosphere, I don't remember where from exactly. His name: Justin Halpern. He became a Twitter celebrity overnight (he's got 1.33 million followers right now). When I started reading his tweets first time I couldn't stop laughing. I even collected them all up to that point and printed them in a PDF file to send them to friends and enemies.

Justin's tweets are about what he heard his father say to him, thru the years, under a large variety of situations. You gotta understand. His dad is a serious scientist, successful career in Nuclear Medicine, a doctor and a Jewish American. The way Justin (the son) makes him sound reminds me very much of Walter Matthau, the famous comedian (Odd Couple and Grumpy old men are classics).

You see, Justin's dad is very special. He's got a foul language that you'd never expect a normal person use, let alone a scientist of his caliber. But, at the same time, he's got phenomenal principles in raising his children to the point that if one in ten of the world's dads were anything like him, this world could have been a much better place. This dad's got an extremely simple but honest way to place matters into the right context and say things the way they really are. Without being pretentious or sophisticated. One of the most difficult tasks in life is to see thru the noise, to see clear and state your opinions simply and to the point. Justin's dad can do exactly that. And he always spoke in ways that make you piss your pants from laughs, but I'm sure he must have been dead serious when he was busy saying the things he said.

I like his personal beliefs and principles a lot though. Many of them are mine too, I found out reading thru the pages: Support your children when you have to, but don't spoil them. Encourage them to learn to be self-confident and advise them on everything they'll come against in life, but don't treat them in Nepotist ways. Help them financially when they need the money and don't let them wait until you kick the bucket to inherit your assets, because they might not need them by then. It's now they need help. Teach your children integrity and to be righteous and good. And teach them not to worship religious Gods and attend their churches. I wish I had a dad like that...

Of course, you can find this book everywhere. I bought it on Amazon (Kindle format) and read it on the iPad with the free Kindle app. First book ever I read like this. And woke up the spouse many times with my sudden laughters, to the point she almost threw me out of the bed at one time...