ACK ~ Sometime In The Evening Thoughts

I'm sorry ~ I know I said that I'd be back with more of the Shakespeare Experiment on Sunday . . . let's just say it will be tomorrow before I have a chance to sit and write ...

In the meantime .... how about some humor (humour) to pass the time???

Do you think this might catch on??




And this should keep people busy for a bit ....(I am not responsible for broken keyboards .... I'm just saying ... )



Without comment ....

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY # 233 !!!

It's the time for serious thought, heavy reflection and ... who am I kidding?

It's time for a few good laughs ...

Suppose Twitter had been available 233 years ago??? (click on picture to enlarge)

(that was from historicaltweets.com)



And let's not forget the e-cards just waiting to be sent (to everyone we know!)





And when all else fails .... Cue the Muppets!!!




Have a wonderful day everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I Really Goofed ~ Very Early Evening Thoughts

I removed the Elegant Time Waster post as I had no idea it was creating problems with some systems - and the game was not as quiet as it is on my computer.

I'm thinking of forming a PAC to deal with errant games that don't perform as they should.

THINK!!! ~ Some Mid-afternoon Silliness

I don't very often post videos on my blog, but after I cleaned up the coffee I spewed and dropped on my computer keyboard ... I just couldn't resist!!

And I refuse to be responsible if you get offended ...

Out Of The Pun, Into The Fire ~ Early Evening Thoughts

(update 8-19-2007) I received a delightful e-mail giving me authorship information on the 2003 winner Gary Roma of http://www.ironfrog.com/. He will be publishing a book soon of his stories, including Love Letters. Thanks Gary for bringing me up to speed.
----

Each year, in Austin TX. there is an O.Henry "pun-off" where contestants compete to win the best of that years puns. While this years winners have yet to be punsted posted I did find some rather delightful puns and stories from previous years.

I posted some winners of the actual contest before, but these were voted on by the Save The Pun Foundation members as best stressed puns.

from Best Stressed Puns of 2004.

Ascent..An aroma.
Brisket..To speed something up.
Castrate..To evaluate all the actors in a movie or play.
Dollop..To dress up attractively.
Exposed..A retired model.
Forthcoming..Three visits weren't enough.
Germination..The birthplace of Beethoven.
Hi-fidelity..A devoted couple.
Institute..A spontaneous session of wind and brass instruments.
Logarithm..Tapping out the beat of a tune on a tree trunk.

From 2003: Love Letters by Gary Roma - see updated version --->HERE<---

Words are just lucky letters. How do letters get lucky? They go to bars. Let's listen:

A consonant goes into a bar and sits down next to a vowel.
"Hi!" he says, "Have you ever been here before?"
"Of cursive," she replies, "I come here, like, all the time"
He can tell from her accent (which is kind acute) that she is a Vowelly Girl. He looks her over. She's short and has a nice assonance.
She sure is a cipher sore I's, thinks this consonantal dude. He remains stationery, enveloped by her charm. "And what an uppercase!" His initial reaction is so pronounced, he doesn't know what to say. He is, at present, tense. Admiring her figure of speech, he falls into a fantasy.
He pictures a perfect wedding: They exchange wedding vowels.
The minister says, "I now pronouns you man and wife."
They kiss each other on the ellipsis. "I love you, noun forever," he whispers. The conjugation is in tiers. In a word, they are wed.
He awakens from his daydream and proposes a dance, but she declines.
Ferment there, she looks like she's going to bee [sic].
"Gee, are you okay?" he asks her.
"I'm, like, under a lot of stress ... I've got a yeast inflection."
"I knew something was brewing."
He calls the bartender. "Listen, bud, my beer is warm."
The bartender takes the bottle and empties it in the sink.
The dude watches as his hops go down the drain.
"Let's go outside," he says to her. "I'd like to have a word with you."
"Are you prepositioning me?"
"I won't be indirect. You are the object of my preposition."
"Oh my God, you're, like, such a boldfaced character!"
"I see your point. But I'm font of you. C'mon let's go."
"Do I have to spell it out? You're not my type, so get off my case.
Reluctantly, he decides to letter B. "Now my evening lies in runes," he laments. He leaves, hoping to have letter luck next time.

And last (but not least) from 2001:

The Peter Pan club? Never. Never.

The quarterback club? I'll pass.

The compulsive rhymers club? Okey‑dokey.

The Spanish optometrists club? Si.

The pregnancy club? That's conceivable.

The Self‑Esteem Builders club? They probably won't accept me.

The Agoraphobics Society? Only if they meet at my house.

Porpourri - Answers From Earlier ~ Very Late Night Thoughts

I realized that during my brief time away, I had forgotten neglected to give the answer to the puzzles I had posted. I have given myself twenty lashes with an old Games Magazine and here are the answers ~

First Puzzle ~ (sometimes called "The Vowels Holy Holiday")

"In an old church in Westchester county, N.Y., the following consonants are written beside the altar, under the Ten Commandments. What vowel is to be placed between them, to make sense and rhyme of the couplet?"

P.R.S.V.R.Y.P.R.F.C.T.M.N.
V.R.K.P.T.H.S.P.R.C.P.T.S.T.N

This one is missing all the "E"'s that would help it make sense.

PERSEVERE YE PERFECT MEN
EVER KEEP THESE PRECEPTS TEN.

Second Puzzle ~

A new bride was required by her husband to show him all her correspondence. She did manage to get important information to her best friend, with the following letter.

Revealing the Secret

"The key is to read every other line!!"

I cannot be satisfied, my dearest Friend,
blest as I am in the matrimonial state,
unless I pour into your friendly bosom,
which has ever beat in unison with mine,
the various sensations which swell
with the liveliest emotion of pleasure,
my almost bursting heart. I tell you my dear
husband is the most amiable of men,
I have now been married seven weeks, and
never have found the least reason to
repent the day that joined us. My husband is
both in person and manners far from resembling
ugly, cross, old, disagreeable, and jealous
monsters, who think by confining to secure –
a wife, it is his maxim to treat as a
bosom friend and confidant, and not as a
plaything, or menial slave, the woman
chosen to be his companion. Neither party
he says, should always obey implicitly;
but each yield to the other by turns.
An ancient maiden aunt, near seventy,
a cheerful, venerable, and pleasant old lady,
lives in the house with us; she is the de-
light of both young and old; she is ci-
vil to all the neighborhood round,
generous and charitable to the poor.
I am convinced my husband loves nothing more
than he does me; he flatters me more
than a glass; and his intoxication
(for so I must call the excess of his love)
often makes me blush for the unworthiness
of its object, and wish I could be more deserving
of the man whose name I bear. To
say all in one word, my dear, and to
crown the whole — my former gallant lover
is now my indulgent husband; my husband
is returned, and I might have had
a prince without the felicity I find in
him. Adieu! may you be as blest as I am un-
able to wish that I could be more
happy!


Third Puzzle ~ (probably already known to anyone who's taken a training class!!)

Wood,
John,
Mass.

It was delivered to John Underwood - Andover, Mass.

Once A Pun A Time ~ Early Morning Thoughts

On May 19th, Austin, TX will play host to an annual event of non-earthshaking proportions.

THE O. HENRY PUN-OFF:
AUSTIN'S THIRTY LITTLE SECRET

A little history is in order - starting with the ISTPF -International Save The Pun Foundation (who knew??):

Founded by the late John Crosbie in 1979, the International Save The Pun Foundation has become the world's largest and fastest-growing apocryphal society. Since one person in five in North America is a functional illiterate, and since everywhere the little red schoolhouse is full of too many little-read students, the Foundation exists to arouse a greater interest in reading by encouraging people to have fun with words.

To quote from their history:

The current chairman of the bored, Norman Gilbert, is a financial planner based in Toronto, Ontario. He first subscribed to the pundit in 1984, after hearing John Crosbie in a radio interview, and has never looked back. When John died in 1994, Norman acquired the rights to the Foundation from John's estate, the transaction taking place, appropriately, on April Fool's Day.

Under Norman's leadership, the Foundation's 1,600 members continue to stumble onward, spreading the good (and sometimes not-so-good) words, and scattering their gems of linguistic libertinism about them like Johnny Appleseed, although perhaps not always with the same level of appreciation. Hysterically screaming "Up the pun!", this unruly band of rebels may be found waving tattered copies of the pundit, and storming the barricades of grammatical rules and regulations around the world. From Australia to Zimbabwe, wherever they are erected by the steadily retreating phalanxes of pedants and self-appointed guardians of our language, the barriers are falling, and people are having fun with the language, thanks to the unceasing efforts of Norman and his plucky crew.

With great hesitancy, I bow to my love of words - and my admiration for the truly awful pun - and present two of last years winners of the pun-off.

There is a time-limit of 90 seconds for contestants...to which can be added 30 seconds making a total of 2 minutes. Quite long enough to listen to a string of puns I would say. There are two divisions: Punniest of Show and High-Lies & Low-Puns - and each division is limited to 32 participants.

AURAL SEX
(hint: read it carefully)

The graffiti on the PLATHroom wall was simple: "For hot one-on-one word play, call 1-800-WORDCORE.

And so I call, and she answers, and she jumps right into it.

She says, "Are you ready for some aural sex?"

And I say, "Oh, yes!"

And she says, "What are you drinking?"

And I say, "A tall tequila mockingbird, what are you drinking?"

And she said, "A nice vodka milkSHAKESPEARE. You sound so buff...have you been working out? I can tell you have tight vocabs. I'll bet you have a huge dictionary."

And I said, "Oh yes, indeed, it's the Oxford English Language Dictionary. 151 pounds of pure...definition."

And she said, "I want you to give me multiples right now!"

So, I purred, "Onomatopaea!"

And cried, "More! More!"

So, I moaned, "Supracalifragilisticespialidocious!"

And she said, "Don't fake it. Give it to me RILKE."

So, I whispered, "Antidisestablishmentarianism..."

And she screamed, "Affirmative! Affirmative! I want you to rap for me! Now!"

And I said, "What? Rap? I can't rap!"

And she said, "But rappers are SO sexy!"

And I said, "I can't rap! I was a Lit Major!"

And she said, "Oh, go PLATH yourself! I know you've got a superior WHIT, MAN, so just pull out your DICKENSON and start KEROUACKing now!"

So, I said:

"Uhm... Yo...

My words are warm wool slippers, put your poor, cold feets in
they'll lock you up like Alexander Solzenitzen!

I'm cooking up lyrics like I was a chef, see?
I'll give you Rhymes and Punishment like Dostoyevski!

Before you step to me, you better back the heck off,
'cuz I've got more plays that Anton Chekov!"

She said, "You need to slow down, why you be Russian? By the way, you sound a little gay... Are you a homophone?"

And it was then that I realized this wasn't really working for me. We were just two relationships passing wind in the night, crashing into the same GINSBURG.
--Eirik Ott (copyright 2006)

AN ANIMAL DICTIONARY

Four years ago I stood here and presented an ABC primer on animal puns. Since Richard Lederer and I now have a new book out (titled THE GIANT BOOK OF ANIMAL JOKES), I thought it would be appropriate to present an all-new alphabetical primer on animal puns, with completely different animals. Here I go:

I will not cast ASPersion on my previous performance, but I will BUCK the trend of not using the same theme. I just hope it doesn't become a CATastrophe and I start DRAGON my feet. And I hope no one will feel any EEL will towards me, as I just want to have a lot of FAWN. In fact, I'll GOAT to any length to keep these animal puns going forever and HEIFER. I'll tow the line and try not to give up an INCHworm, as I dig for more animal puns. If I have to search for animal puns at night, I'll use a JACKAL lantern. My goal, as always, is to keep up the KOALAty of these animal puns. If I can offer any tips to anyone, just LEMUR know. If you're not sure, merely MULLET over for a while. But don't be bashful; because, in this case, no news is bad NEWTs. If I'm ever in your neighborhood, I'll stop by for a visit if OPOSSUM by your house. And I'll drive carefully, since I don't want to be accident PRAWN. If I come, I promise not to QUAHOG the conversation. You must think I'm a RAVEN lunatic to keep up this SHRIMPly awful animal punning, when in fact it actually makes me THRUSHed with delight and URCHIN to tell even more. So, are you VIXEN to invite me over? If so, I think WEEVIL have a good time. We could sit around and talk about the death of some skate and ray fish, commonly know as X-
RAYS. Or we could dress up, go out, and YAK it up. Finally though, if a female is invited, she should be sure to wear (as the French say) ZE BRA.
--Jim Ertner (copyright 2006)

Potpourri ~ Late Night Thoughts

I thought I would be able to move from a rather "silly" Saturday to a more sedate Sunday. However, a couple of friends decided I needed some puzzles and such to liven up my day. The first item, however, I found by myself ...

From a science post I found:

This compound, C4H5As, is known as arsole.

When it's fused to a benzene ring, it's called benzarsole.

And yes, the poster and I DID go there.



"In an old church in Westchester county, N.Y., the following consonants are written beside the altar, under the Ten Commandments. What vowel is to be placed between them, to make sense and rhyme of the couplet?"

P.R.S.V.R.Y.P.R.F.C.T.M.N.
V.R.K.P.T.H.S.P.R.C.P.T.S.T.N

(And you thought I would automatically post the solution? - I'll post it tomorrow)


Adolph Blaine Charles David Earl Frederick Gerald Hubert Irvin John Kenneth Lloyd Martin Nero Oliver Paul Quincy Randolph Sherman Thomas Uncas Victor William Xerxes Yancy Zeus Wolfe­schlegelstein­hausen- berger­dorffvoraltern­waren­gewissenhaft­schaferswessen­schafewaren­wohlgepflege­und­sorgfaltigkeit­beschutzen- ­von­angreifen­durch­ihrraubgierigfeinde­welche­voraltern­zwolftausend­jahres­vorandieerscheinen­wander­ersteer- ­dem­enschderraumschiff­gebrauchlicht­als­sein­ursprung­von­kraftgestart­sein­lange­fahrt­hinzwischen­sternartigraum- ­auf­der­suchenach­diestern­welche­gehabt­bewohnbar­planeten­kreise­drehen­sich­und­wohin­derneurasse­von­ver- standigmen­schlichkeit­konnte­fortplanzen­und­sicher­freuen­anlebens­langlich­freude­und­ruhe­mit­nicht­ein­furcht-­ vor­angreifen­von­anderer­intelligent­geschopfs­von­hinzwischen­sternartigraum, Senior, was born in Hamburg in 1904.

It's not known whether he worked at the Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeam- tengesellschaft —
(the office that governed steamboat passage on the Danube)—
but he certainly should have.



A new bride was required by her husband to show him all her correspondence. She did manage to get important information to her best friend, with the following letter.

Revealing the Secret

I cannot be satisfied, my dearest Friend,
blest as I am in the matrimonial state,
unless I pour into your friendly bosom,
which has ever beat in unison with mine,
the various sensations which swell
with the liveliest emotion of pleasure,
my almost bursting heart. I tell you my dear
husband is the most amiable of men,
I have now been married seven weeks, and
never have found the least reason to
repent the day that joined us. My husband is
both in person and manners far from resembling
ugly, cross, old, disagreeable, and jealous
monsters, who think by confining to secure –
a wife, it is his maxim to treat as a
bosom friend and confidant, and not as a
plaything, or menial slave, the woman
chosen to be his companion. Neither party
he says, should always obey implicitly;
but each yield to the other by turns.
An ancient maiden aunt, near seventy,
a cheerful, venerable, and pleasant old lady,
lives in the house with us; she is the de-
light of both young and old; she is ci-
vil to all the neighborhood round,
generous and charitable to the poor.
I am convinced my husband loves nothing more
than he does me; he flatters me more
than a glass; and his intoxication
(for so I must call the excess of his love)
often makes me blush for the unworthiness
of its object, and wish I could be more deserving
of the man whose name I bear. To
say all in one word, my dear, and to
crown the whole — my former gallant lover
is now my indulgent husband; my husband
is returned, and I might have had
a prince without the felicity I find in
him. Adieu! may you be as blest as I am un-
able to wish that I could be more
happy!

"The key ____________________"
(Oh dear, I'll have to post this solution to this tomorrow also.)
– Charles Bombaugh, Facts and Fancies for the Curious From the Harvest-Fields of Literature, 1860

In The Queer, the Quaint and the Quizzical (1882), Frank H. Stauffer describes a letter with the following puzzling address:

Wood,
John,
Mass.

It was delivered to ____________________.
(Ah, once again the answer posted tomorrow!)

Microsoft And Poetry ~ Haiku's For The Day

It's not often that Microsoft and poetry appear in the same sentence, but I was sent these yesterday by a dear friend and immediately fell in love with them. I have no way to verify the truth of them, but even if they are not (which is highly likely) the time someone spent to create them makes it worthwhile.

"In Japan, they have replaced the impersonal and unhelpful Microsoft error messages with Haiku poetry messages. They're used to communicate a timeless message, often achieving a wistful, yearning and powerful insight through extreme brevity. Here are 13 error messages from Japan [in the original English]

The Web site you seek
Cannot be located, but
Countless more exist.

Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.

Program aborting:
Close all that you have worked on.
You ask far too much.

Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.

Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.

Your file was so big.
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.

Stay the patient course.
Of little worth is your ire.
The network is down.

A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.

Three things are certain:
Death, taxes and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.

You step in the stream,
But the water has moved on.
This page is not here.

Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.

Having been erased,
The document you're seeking
Must now be retyped.

Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.

Truth Or ... What The ~ Late Night Thoughts

I'll be the first to admit it ... I've needed some good laughs over the last couple of days. And along with a couple of dear friends sending me some good solid belly laughs, I also found some "true" stories. I put the true in quotations, not to say I question their accuracy - but rather to accent the word. After all, truth is almost always stranger than fiction. (A famous writer stated the difference as: Fiction has to make sense.

Guns have been banned in Britain for years, so now swords are getting to be a menace. "Imitation" samurai swords have been identified as a weapon of choice in various attacks, so the Home Office has announced it wants to ban the weapons by the end of the year as part of a "wider crackdown" on knives and other bladed weapons. "Samurai sword crime is low in volume but high in profile," a Home Office spokesman said. "It is already illegal to have a samurai sword in a public place but I want to restrict the number of dangerous weapons in circulation." Those caught with swords, whether used in an assault or not, would face up to six months in jail and a 5,000-pound(US$9,800) fine. (London Telegraph) ...The ultimate conclusion: half of all Brits will be sentenced to break rocks into sand so the other half can't throw them.

Lawyer Balthazar Napoleon de Bourbon, 48, of Bhopal, India, has always loved France, and even gave his children French names. And, he has recently learned, he may be first in line as king of France. His lineage has been traced to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and apparently also the Bourbon king of Spain. He is willing to take a DNA test to confirm the link. (London Guardian) ...You know, this "outsourcing" thing is really getting out of hand

Students from rival campus organizations at the Dawood Engineering College in Karachi, Pakistan, had fistfights and threw furniture at each other in a January confrontation over which group should get credit for putting up posters urging students not to fight on campus...sounds as if reading class had gotten a little behind.

Two Bulgarian nationals were arrested in San Marcos, Texas, in January after being caught allegedly robbing coin-change machines at an apartment complex, and police subsequently found apartment guides for several cities in their van, along with a half-ton of quarters ($18,700)...Now there's a commercial in the making!!

And last, but not least - from California Driver education Exam (where else and what else?)

Q: Do you yield when a blind pedestrian is crossing the road?
A: What for? He can't see my license plate.


Q: Who has the right of way when four cars approach a four-way stop at the same time?
A: The pick up truck with the gun rack and the bumper sticker saying, "Guns don't kill people. I do."

Q: What are the important safety tips to remember when backing your car?
A: Always wear a condom.

Q: When driving through fog, what should you use?
A: Your car.

Q: How can you reduce the possibility of having an accident?
A: Be too drunk to find your keys.

Q: What problems would you face if you were arrested for drunk driving?
A: I'd probably lose my buzz a lot faster.

Q: What changes would occur in your lifestyle if you could no longer drive lawfully?
A: I would be forced to drive unlawfully.

Q: What are some points to remember when passing or being passed?
A: Make eye contact and wave "hello" if he/she is cute.

Q: What is the difference between a flashing red traffic light and a flashing yellow traffic light?
A: The color.

Q: How do you deal with heavy traffic?
A: Heavy psychedelics.

But The Map Says ~ Afternoon Laughter

There have been several stories recently about people who take their GPS directions ahead of common sense. The latest I read was about someone who drove into a canal, simply because the direction finder said "turn left, now." However, I have always believed that Google maps are accurate.

It appears they are a little too accurate. Someone was wondering what would happen if you planned a trip from Chicago to London.

Part of the resulting itinerary shows that Google not only has a sense of humor but is either very interested in physical fitness, or only wants Olympic swimmers to use their directions.


To prove to all the doubters that this is real ... Here is the link to the actual itinerary. (Just make sure to print the directions on waterproof paper!)

An Afternoon Case Of WHAT??? ~

As I was digging around today (OK, surfing around) two absolutely amazing little pieces of news caught my eye ... the first an invasion, the second a complete lack of .... well, you decide what is lacking.....

Imagine reading this on a headline service this morning: (or being a news "puller")

Yes, it's a screen shot of an actual posted headline. However, before anyone feels that they need to start looking for some kind of shelter - the truth is quite amusing - and far more mundane.

Once upon a time, there was a training exercise ... and a few soldiers got lost in the process.

The second story caused some clean-up of my monitor and keyboard from the coffee spilled (OK, spewed) on them as a result of this little tale.

Remember awhile ago when Boston was shut down over a publicity campaign? I thought you might. If you remember, the offending hardware that caused so much Police panic were a Light-Brites cast around for people to find and (if you ever watch Cartoon Network's Adult Swim) recognize.


It seems that today** Wednesday, the City of Boston placed traffic counters around. You know, those identifable boxes attached by chain to a pole with a small cable running across the road that counts the cars as they drive over it.

I'll let Wonkette tell the tale:

Well, the brave anti-terrorism officials of Boston most certainly do not know of these common devices — so they shut down the city today, again, and blew up the traffic counter. You know, the traffic counter the City of Boston was paying for ….

(Article and picture here)

Now that I have cleaned up the keyboard and monitor - I can go back to feeling safer in knowing that any car I ride in Boston is going to go uncounted.

Why do people make up news, when there's so much really interesting (insert any other word here) true news to look at?

**edited correction of date

Late News And An Even Later Joke ~

Yesterday afternoon my cable and internet connection decided they deserved a vacation -- this, of course, without arranging for any kind of vacation coverage or even the courtesy of letting anyone know they were going. It caused a number of problems, but thankfully management took the situation in hand - and made it worse then it was before. So, the lower levels revolted and solved the problem. And, now my connection is back and running --

It doesn't hurt to take a good hard look at yourself from time
to time, and this should help get you started.

During a visit to the mental asylum, a visitor asked the Director what the criterion was which defined whether or not a patient should be institutionalized.

"Well," said the Director, "we fill up a bathtub, then we offer a teaspoon, a teacup and a bucket to the patient and ask him or her to empty the bathtub."

"Oh, I understand," said the visitor. "A normal person would use the bucket because it's bigger than the spoon or the teacup."

"No." said the Director, "A normal person would pull the plug. Do you want a bed near the window?"

Check Those Bills ~

I can only begin to imagine the shock:

Perhaps his $24 billion electric bill will teach Richard Redden not to leave the heat running. Thanks to a printing error, Redden and more than 1,300 Weatherford utility customers this week received billion-dollar electric bills marked as late notices.

Irving-based DataProse, which prints customer bills for Weatherford Electric, said the company was embarrassed by the error.

“Obviously, this is not something we are pleased about,” said Curtis Nelson, DataProse vice president and general manager.

Weatherford Electric spokeswoman Pam Pearson said customers can expect their correct bills later this month. She said the company's records were correct and showed the right balances.

"I know they raised the rates on kilowatt hours a little bit," Redden said. "I guess we shouldn't have run the heater quite so much this month."

As they say - things are bigger in Texas!!!

Blogging Is Better Then ~

A number of years ago (in a galaxy far away) a dessert called "better than sex" became very, very popular. Of course, that lead to so many things being called better then sex.

Yesterday I ran across this delightful post by Engtech and I laughed and chuckled for quite some time (even at the party last night I was still chuckling about it).

5 Reasons Why Blogging Is Better Than Sex (With Me)
(Please don't call the SPCA)

1. Reason number one

• Blogging: I can connect anonymously with thousands of strangers a day.
• Sex: I can connect anonymously with thousands of strangers a day *IF* I move to New York City.
  

2. Reason number two

• Blogging: Technorati will show all the people who are linked to me and it doesn’t make me look like a big slut.
• Sex: Six degrees of Paris Hilton. (as one of his comments said: that's enough to make me celibate)

3 Reason number three

• Blogging: I can get the cat involved without the horribly judging eyes of friends and strangers.
• Sex: Fur is hard to clean

4. Reason number four

• Blogging: Increased visibility means more page views and a larger audience.
• Sex: Increased visibility means someone is going to call the cops

5. Reason number five

• Blogging: Googlebot will crawl your pages quite often and share them with the world.
• Sex: Googlebot never calls you back.

And For Your Listening Pleasure ~

Who knew that Rachmaninoff had such huge hands - that made playing some of his music so difficult ... Ah well, where there's a will - there's a way!!!!

Darwin Awards (2) ~ Early Morning Thoughts

After all that had gone on with and around me in the last few days, I felt that a good laugh/chuckle was in order for a Monday morning - especially if you are one of the ones that does not have today off ...

As I mentioned previously there are several lists that I enjoy each year. The Darwin Awards is one of my favorites. I'm continually amazed at what people continually do to themselves and others. Here are some of this years nominees. Here are a couple of entries for the 2007 awards. Some have been reprinted exactly as they were sent to the committee.

A demise by train is almost too common for Darwin Award merit. Yet, some people still forget the three most important rules about trains:

1) Trains cannot be stopped easily. 2) Trains cannot swerve.
3) And most important -
in any confrontation with a train,
the train will always win.

Forgetting these rules, an unnamed 20-year old man was walking down the railroad tracks in Comstock Township (near Kalamazoo) Michigan. This in of itself in not even close to Darwin stupidity. Trains are loud and noisy and usually announce their approach from quite a distance, allowing anyone in their path ample time to clear out of the way. However, our Darwin contender decided to up the odds in the trains favor by wearing a pair of headphones with the music turned up quite loud (louder than the train horn apparently). It wasn't mentioned what song he was listening to, but I'm guessing it was "Don't Look Back" by Boston. Not looking back sealed his fate. Despite three or four loud blasts of the horn by the train engineer, our unnamed Darwin contender kept strolling along between the rails in musical bliss until being removed from the gene pool courtesy of Amtrak.

Here’s another attempts at removing genes from the pool:

I used to ride a scrambler motorcycle in my younger days. Mine was a 250-c.c. Kawasaki KL ‘Off-Road’ bike. These machines have very small gas tanks, probably no more than about 3 gallons. As South Africa uses ‘Self-Service’ gas stations, we fill our own gas tanks. It is common practice with bikers to simply straddle a scrambler whilst refueling, place the nozzle in the tank and watch to see when the tank is nearly full as these machines lack a fuel gauge.

Now, when standing up and straddling said scrambler, the tank nestles nicely in the groin area. This day, I was not paying attention while refueling and the tank overflowed. “Oops!” I said as I quickly released the handle of the pump. Too late.

Quite a bit of gas had spilled down the side of the tank onto the forecourt and quite a lot had also run down the front of the tank and soaked my groin area. This was no big deal as I was wearing jeans. I duly replaced the fuel nozzle in the holder and THEN it hit me.

Gasoline on your hands is almost imperceptible other than a cold feeling. In the groin area, it is like rubbing “Deep Heat” on yourself. Fortunately, I had managed to replace the motorcycle’s gas tank cap BEFORE I dropped the bike, did a sideways leap off the saddle and proceeded to rip off my jeans in full view of quite a few bemused onlookers. Once the jeans were around my ankles, I discovered I couldn’t move very well and fell over as I struggled with my gas-soaked underwear, trying to get them away from my very tender skin.

Public indecency laws aside, I tore at my underwear, managed to rip them off and covered myself with my hands. There I sat, waiting for the gas on my jeans to evaporate sufficiently so I could pull up my jeans. It was EXTREMELY painful. My gene ‘repository compartment’ was red-raw, my ‘extension’ to release said genes was equally burnt and the tops of my legs looked like I had ridden a horse bareback and naked for three days.

By now, the forecourt was thronged with very interested onlookers. The interesting thing is; no-one came to my aid! In true ‘biker’ style, I nonchalantly walked back to my motorcycle, kicked it into action and then VERY slowly so as not to lose any ‘cool’, I drove off, gritting my teeth against the searing pain.

Future fueling sessions were performed with a large towel between my anatomy and the motorcycle’s tank. For those who are interested, the gas station in question was the last one at the top of the hill in Hillbrow, Johannesburg, just before the road winds down the hill towards the Ponte apartment complex. I suffered no lasting effects and the redness vanished in a few days.

GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Power was restored to 6,500 people on the southeast side of Grand Rapids after a man nailed a sign on a utility pole and pierced the casing that holds a cable for overhead distribution lines.

The pole, located on the northeast corner of Breton and 28th Street SE, affected the entire Breton substation. There is a protective case around the cable, but the nail pierced it, making contact with 7,200 volts.

The impact started some of the pole on fire, knocked out power to 6,500 customers, and sent a current through the man trying to hang the sign. Witnesses stated that there was smoke coming from his head.

A cashier at the Shell gas station at that corner called 911. The manager ran out and used a fire extinguisher to cool the man down. The victim was taken to a hospital, and it appears he will be fine. The power company was able to restore power to everyone affected around 9:20 a.m..

The company that owns the utility pole, one of 1.5 million it owns across the state, recommend you not post signs on their poles.

My husband worked in 1995 for a farmer from Germany. Franz on Gilkey road in Crabtree OR.

Franz believed that electricity is like a cow. The raw material goes in the mouth and good electricity exited out the tail and left over energy was waste the cow pooped out, i.e. the 3 wires you see in your house black (hot),white (Hot) and green (cold for waste energy). Deryl worked for Franz from August 1995 until this event in around the end of November 1995. A windstorm blew through and took out the electricity for the area. Franz had Deryl hook up a generator. When the electricity came back on the Generator had to be taken off line. Remember, this is a full size dairy, with large leads into the circuit box.

Franz was a cheap man, and had the circuit box 2 times smaller than required. He never kept master plans for the property, so no one really knew where the wiring or the plumbing went, everything had been committed to his memory…

Franz convinced my husband to reconnect the dairy, he would not spend $60.00 to have the main breaker pulled at the pole, so everything in the small box was hot. Deryl put on long rubber gloves, and taped up his wrench. Franz never wore socks so his leather slip on shoes were wet with cow urine and feces, Humidity in Oregon was high (87% or greater), so there was a lot of moisture and cow urine,feces everywhere at the dairy. Franz stood 10 feet back in a shirt and rolled up pants, while my husband wore long sleeves and welding clothes. Deryl got half way through pulling the leads off of there protective poles, 2 off and 2 on.

Suddenly, the poles arced and the lid to the box instantly vaporized. Both men flew backwards, and fortunately, for once, Franz learned that the cow can butt. I met my husband at the door that night to see a man with no face hair, smoking, and a good portion or his chest hair gone. I never saw Franz after this event, but I can imagine. He had less protection. The power company was called the next day and they put things right. Franz never had children, nor should he, thank goodness.

An unidentified man in Xuzhou, China, learned the hard way that it pays to use a bathroom when you have to go. Our hero broke into a power supply office with the help of a partner to relieve it of some spare electrical equipment. However before leaving the premises Mother Nature called, and our hero obediently responded. Without a commode handy, and being in an office that he had just robbed, he decided to simply relieve himself where he stood. Unfortunately he ended up urinating on a fully functional electrical supply switch, resulting in an electric shock and a hasty trip to the hospital.

During a party in Budapest, Hungary, on the 26th, November, 2006, a 26 years old man put the hose of a fire extinguisher into his mouth, and fired the device. While he did this presumably for fun, the outcome proved to be fatal, as he was instantly killed from injuries caused by the pressure, which is up to 14 times of the normal atmospheric pressure.

A 63 year old man in East Germany (Zingst)electrocuted himself when running high-voltage lines (380V) through his yard in an effort to get rid of a mole on his vacation property. Apparently he put several metal rods into the ground and connected these to high-voltage lines. The police had to remove all circuit breakers before they could get on his property. They do not know yet how long he had been lying there before they found him on Wednesday. No word about what happened to the mole.

further nominations later ..

Through The Eyes Of ... ~ An Extensive Time-Waster

There is an old(er) saying: At closing time in a bar - everyone is gorgeous. Ah, if that were only true...Much like the lie on a t-shirt I want that says: "drink 'till I'm cute."

Leave to science to work out exactly how this transformation works!!!!!



Would I make this up????

Researchers at Manchester University worked out a formula to calculate how "beer goggles" affect your vision. Apparently there are more factors than just the open bar from 10-12. Additional factors include the level of light, your own eyesight, the room's smokiness, as well as the distance between you and your future regret.

Here’s the formula, and just think how cool you'll look with your calculator at happy hour. (I dare you to bring a slide rule as well!!! )

• An = number of units of alcohol consumed

• S = smokiness of the room (graded from 0-10, where 0 clear air; 10 extremely smoky)
• L = luminance of 'person of interest' (candelas per square metre; typically 1 pitch black; 150 as seen in normal room lighting)
• Vo = Snellen visual acuity (6/6 normal; 6/12 just meets driving standard)
• d = distance from 'person of interest' (metres; 0.5 to 3 metres)

And what does it all mean?
(Oh and since it uses meters - It will need to be translated!).

A formula rating of less than one means no effect.

Between one and 50 the person you would normally find unattractive appears less "visually offensive". (Visually offensive? There's a t-shirt in the making!!)

Non-appealing people become suddenly attractive between 51 and 100.

At more than 100, someone not considered attractive looks like a supermodel.

Let me know those scores -- Inquiring Minds Want To Know!!!

Yes ~ At White Castle ~ Mid-Day Chuckle

I ran across this item on Consumerist website - and decided that the article was worth quoting in full:

Are you broke? Or cheap? Or weird? Or...do you really like White Castle? From their website:
(WD's note: The website allows you to check which White Castle is close to you!!)

Make your Valentine's day STEAMY! Take your Valentine to White Castle on Wednesday, February 14 between 5 and 8 p.m. and enjoy hostess seating, candlelit dining and your own server. Reservations are required, so check the list below for participating Castles near you!

Special this year, you can also treat your honey to a romantic White Castle dinner in your home! Cupid's Crave Kits include eight cheeseburgers, one sack of fries, two regular soft drinks, coupons and keepsake items to heat up your homespun romance. Now, ain't that sweet?

Um...—MEGHANN MARCO

Just think of the possibilities this opens up for other markets! Tell me what you would consider an off-shoot of this marketing idea??

Disclosure: The picture is NOT from their website - I just couldn't resist!!

But I Did Wash - I Promise!!

We all were told to wash up - before dinner, before going out and especially after using the bathroom. Of course, we all promised that we did...even if we didn't! However, someone with a lot more time on their hands did a survey and found out that even though 92% said they washed their hands after using the bathroom 34% were lying. (and I thought the government was spying on other things!!!) So, the JWT agency in Toronto decided to come up with a more direct campaign to encourage ablutions of the right sort.

I'm not sure how effective it will be, but it would be interesting to see people's reactions on turning the knob!!



picture from Houtlist covering non-profit advertising campaigns -
http://blogger.xs4all.nl/marcg/