ISSUE 4 28TH OCTOBER 2004

Del

n Earth

ISSUE 4 28TH OCTOBER 2004

No food at the desk rule stretched to breaking point.

After being reprimanded for eating a sandwich at her desk, one office worker decided to rebel against the management by use of a food/drink loophole. A thin chicken soup from the vending machine was clearly a permissible beverage, so what about a thicker soup, or one with pieces such as Minestrone? Over the next week, Eleanor pushed the soup envelope. What about chicken pieces? Some soups clearly require a spoon...but does this make them food or are they still defined as drink? The liquid majority is drinkable, and it can still be served in a cup, so theoretically it was closer to "drink" than "food". Cannot porridge or cereal also be served in a cup and eaten with a spoon if you so desire? This would certainly be considered food, unless the porridge was very runny indeed.

Questions to her line manager were posed: How viscous does the soup have to be before it no longer counts as a drink? Eleanor was considering other factors; perhaps it is the need for cutlery which determines something to be food? What about custard? Broth? Various sauces? Perhaps it would be possible to transform any foodstuff into some kind of homogeneous slurry with a food processor?

Before the legal wrangling could be sorted out, Eleanor unfortunately suffered a fatal soup overdose and passed away- she was only 19. Let this be a reminder to all of those people who think they can tamper with such dangerous sauces without consequence.

Rubbish modern art, but with a serious message: do not underestimate the many dangers of soup.

Quiz Corner

It takes 2 men a quarter of an hour to pick 100 apples, and they're standing on one bank of a river, with a fox, a chicken, and a bag of grain. The trains are currently 65 miles apart and Kevin is 14 inches taller than George. Each wife had seven sacks, each sack held seven cats, and you can only cross each bridge once. Apples are worth twice as much as oranges, and if Kevin is driving the train at 30 mph, how many students get an "A"?

Answer below:

A Mexican in a hat frying an egg

David Letterman and Dr Phil talk child rearing politics.

Relationship advice guru, Dr Phil
from Oprah quizzed chat show host David Letterman what he'd do if his son Harry bit him.

With consideration, Dave replied hesitantly "quietly extricate my flesh from his jaws..." <pause>"don't make a fuss" The audience chuckled slightly...they weren't sure of what the correct answer was either...
"Why?" he jested "what should I do chase him with pliers?" <laughter>
"Bite the child back??!"

Dr Phil interjected with the correct answer... "or tell them "no" in a firm way and remove them from the situation. You need to set an example...overreact and he'll bite you right back".

We've all seen them....bad parents, screaming, badly children in supermarkets. If you're the daddy, then you've got to act like one. It's a lot easier for a parent to spank a child rather than examine themselves, what did I do wrong? Did I neglect the child? Did I treat his siblings differently giving preferential treat to one over the other? The logic of treating people sensibly applies universally to toddlers and adults alike.

After watching Tonight with Letterman, George W concluded that they were a pair of liberals, and he probably should have beaten the twins more often. The USA got badly bitten on 9/11. What do you think will happen if the "chase with pliers" approach is applied to world politics and terrorism? Don't you feel safer already?

Concerned citizen unable to absorb any more Michael Moore material.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't like his work, or agree with his opinion. Stupid White Men was a real eye opener, and I even watched Bowling for Columbine twice...but I just can't take it, the feeling of anger, and helplessness to do anything about it. I don't want to care more...I'm fed up being concerned; I'd rather not give a damn.

I'm supposed to be a liberal and yet I'm beginning to get some sick sense of pride that "our" soldiers are better than the other lot. Ok, so they don't shoot each other accidentally, but is it really right in having pride about the deadly efficiency of our war machine? I don't wish them any ill, but I'd rather they didn't help to cut any more heads off the Hydra for all our sakes. Even the papers against the war are guilty of saying things like "let's go give them what for.” “Hip hip hooray” “Be proud of our boys".

Don't even ask me about the Oswaldian dreams I've been having recently... unfortunately liberal assassins are a bit of a rarity. Occasionally I just wake in my sleep, it beggars belief that nobody has killed that bastard yet.

The bad things happening in this world polluting my existence. I'd rather not get worked up about what Bush has gone and done now, they say Ignorance is bliss, this time I'm going to stick my head in the sand, even if the sand is this mind numbingly tedious inane garbage entertainment...it's purpose made. Now stop bothering me, Pop Idol is about to start.

Brittany claims "prerogative" to act daft on her new single.

After setting herself up as an example to teens everywhere promoting Christian values in stark contrast to her "dirty" competition, and by doing so helping to forge a rather lucrative "music" career, pop tart Brittany is onto her second marriages in months and is now part of a dysfunctional family which wouldn't look out of place on redneck TV show.

To show just how much she doesn't care about the media criticism of her "trailer trash lifestyle", she went to the effort of writing a song about it.

Spiers now claims she shouldn't be criticized for promoting moralistic values to teenagers then to acting contrary to those same values, as it's her "prerogative". It's unclear why she thinks she has a natural right to immunity from criticism, but one suspects that she misunderstood the exact meaning of that particular S.A.T. vocab-builder.

Preroga what?

Schwarzenegger's wrists: extremely strong and not at all limp.

Offered yet another role in a musical, Arnie reiterated: I don't do jazz hands.
The "governator" has B cup man breasts and a history of waxing his body hair, yet is proud that he isn't some kind of girly man.

Internet geek on forum has better computer than you do

Monday, October 1, 2004 at 12:42 am
Posted by Gr8ness

Gr8ness

Rank: Super Member

Joined: Oct 2003

Location: NY

Status: Online

Correction: Internet geek has better life than you do.

Racist has diverse genetic mix.

You're not British" says Daily mail reading, UKIP voting xenophobe, whose surname is of Saxony origin. "bloody French" he said, blissfully unaware that a dozen generations ago, his paternal line was thriving in Normandy.

His refusal to even try pizza, made even more ridiculous by fact that his existence was due to the ancestors on his grandmother's side of the family; Romans, who decided to settle in York two thousand years ago and bred with the mixed anglo- Scandinavian population who had Viking ancestors.

He doesn't hold the Scots or the Irish in very high regard, yet doesn't hold this prejudice against his own flesh and blood. His son is a skin headed, pit bull owning, Sun reading, and of an even more multicultural background with the blood of Celts and Picts coursing his veins along with that of Galles. Such a staunch nationalist, he'd rather claim to be inbred than admit having diverse roots from the continent.

"we've got too many immigrants already" he complained, not realising that ancient man migrated to Britain whilst it was still joined to the rest of Europe by a land bridge- technically he's one too. So, it turns out he's absolutely right, and without thinking too hard I can name of at least one bloody immigrant we could do without.

Welcome to the friendliest Tourist Information office in the world.

GLASGOW -- I see you looking at our car bumper stickers…don’t be shy now…where ye fae anyway?

Yes that’s right “Scots: the friendly race.” That’s what it says…now how about a wee anecdote to pass the time?

Last weekend I passed a pub in the toon, where two guys were having a discussion about who was “more Scottish”. It wasn’t the usual in depth debate of ancestry to see who could trace their family tree back the most number of generations. Oh, no, 'Twas more a case of them both shouting “I’m mer Scot-ish than yoo!” “No yer naw!” “Aye I am” “Naw...I’m mer Scot-ish than yoo are!”

These two characters, not unlike many you may meet on holiday in this beautiful kingdom, were so full of enthusiasm, 'twas a proud moment to see how much passion they have in our rich heritage. “What happened?” I hear you ask… thought I didn’t wait to see who finally won the discussion; I think they may have indulged in a little noble pugilism…all to prove who was the purer member of “the friendly race”. Where else in Europe would you see such refreshing national pride?!

We do our best to make foreigners feel welcome...for instance a couple who moved here to escape the gun-violence, rape, hijacking and brutality that is South Africa. You can only imagine their delight when "we discovered that the place we arrived in was an even greater hive of scum and villainy than the place we'd left." You see...we make everyone feel quite at home. You're in the '92 city of culture!! The locals are always happy to relieve you of any change or possessions that might be weighing you down. It's a complimentary service.

Of course, we Scots don’t suggest that other nations are less friendly than ourselves, just that we are more so than them. You will take a complimentary bumper sticker, won’t you? Yes, you will... No, I'm not asking ye, I'm telling ye.

Bush doesn't know where the explosives in Iraq went.

Just as we were sure that the WMD (we hadn't seen) were a clear and present danger, we're now sure that the high explosives that we have seen aren't a danger to our troops...(even though we don't know where they are at the moment).

Lord Of The Rings DVD review by Geoff T Orc.

Firstly, apologies to those of you who've been waiting a while for this...it takes a couple of months for things to reach us in middle earth (just like American films in the UK).

Ok...now let me get straight to the point: Why does nobody want to admit that LOTR isn't actually that good? The few film reviews and all seem to be carbon copies of the same opinion...I'm not saying it's a conspiracy...but have you even thought about the movie?

It's the next bandwagon since one in every two "free-thinking" males born after 1975 seems to have Star Wars as their number one film ever, it's time for an equally epic film to take over. However this one is ever less challenging, more simplistic, and far more predictable than even Star Wars. The absolute simplicity of the good and evil in the film echoes the views of the time the book was written at, and unfortunately the views of a few today.

You may laugh, but the Orcs were shown to be highly sentient beings, however no attempt was made at exploring their motivation, they were merely mindless minions, evil cannon fodder deserving of death. All of unnatural birth, bread for one purpose - killing. Species-ism could be considered the fantasy world equivalent of racism. We’re not all bad. This good and evil, light and dark view of the world may have been true at the time of writing, but no longer is it the case. Even Darth Vader turned good in the end, but there's no sympathy at all for the Orcs...the film didn't end until every last one of them was dead. It’s no longer acceptable or possible to class a whole species, race, or group as “good” or “evil”, that is unless you’ve got a serious prejudice, or ulterior motives to go into battle.

Didn't we see the reinforcements arrive just in time to save the day in the last film? It was an old story, and would have been a classic film in it's day, but in the 21st century it's sadly formulaic- there was nothing ground breaking, nothing that made me think "wow...I didn't see that coming". Nothing at all to challenge my views or engage me on a deeper level. I hadn't read the book, but still nothing during the whole 9 hours was a surprise. Though I'm told the book has a great descriptive atmosphere, on the silver screen...this is a given. Where were the plot twists? If the book is as tedious as this, I'd rather (dare I say it) wait for the next instalment of Harry Potter.

Is it not time we got over the computer generated effects? All three of the films positively ramble, nay, plod at snails pace, complete with inbuilt sentimentality woven into the story. Aren't you glad to be at the journey's end? Yes. My tailbone is sore and I want to go home. Yes, it was just a film, a piece of escapism, but what was the moral of this tale? That it's within the right of the good to utterly destroy what they consider to be evil with a "Ring of mass destruction"? Overtones of Hiroshima at the end didn't go un-noticed. Preservation of the simple way of life of the Hobbit. I'm surprised we didn't see suicide Orcs! No wonder the people in the "free world" love it. I'm not saying it was a bad film...it can't fault the direction, music, effects, acting, and certainly was a popular film...but as for being the best film of the year? Where was the soul? So I reluctantly give this film a claws up 6.5 out of ten. Don't even get me started on the latent racism in Predator films with the dark scaled, dreadlocked enemy...

Perhaps I should forget about it, relax and watch a movie or go slay some humans.

Regular criminal becomes master criminal thanks to TV education.

DISUSED WAREHOUSE, LOWER HAMPTON-- The FBI met the horrific scene of a mutilated torso, with a note stapled to it. The fifteenth unsolved murder in two decades. A crucial uncaught criminal mastermind learnt all he needed to know from TV.

Thanks to CSI Miami, I had an education in forensics and forensic pathology. Quincy was good...covered a lot of the basics, but with a 20 year history of murders, I need to keep up to date with the latest techniques used to track down and capture maniacs like myself. Now...I'm not only careful enough to avoid leaving fingerprints or shoeprints, I also know about fibre matching, blood spatter patterns, gun residues, bullet fragment matching, tyre prints. Don't try and trace the ink from this note; it's generic, as is the paper and you don't think I was foolish enough to lick the envelope and leave my DNA on it do you?

Any attempts to second guess my next move are futile...Cracker taught me all about criminal profiling, and as for Colombo...he wouldn't have a chance...I always make sure my victims aren't linked to me in anyway whatsoever! "Oh, one more thing.." I don't think so!!

So if you're going to thank anyone for the trail of unsolved murders in the lower Hampton district, thank the fertile minds of the TV crime writers, oh, and the sick mind of yours truly!

The "Murder-she-wrote" killer was caught typing that very letter at the crime scene and is currently detained at the governor's pleasure until the next election when he'll be fried.

House of Toffs proposes hunting "compromise".

The house of the unelected has rugby tackled the government legislation banning fox hunting, instead proposing a bill of compromises. The upper house of the government don't seem to realise that the area of contention isn't how often horses and hounds charge about the countryside...or whether they're licensed or not...but merely whether they kill any foxes!

Possible compromises:

Only kill foxes who have asked for it, those trouble making "terrorist" foxes as identified by home office.
Strictly controlled hunts only for those special hounds with a dog "licence to kill"
Hounds don't rip apart fox at end of hunt but merely demean them with a nasty taunts about being ginger.
Hunting with cats instead of dogs.
Only hunt volunteers from the animal liberation front
Indulge in the healthy, not-cruel-at-all, country pursuits of badger baiting and cock fighting instead.
Chase a scapegoat agenda instead of pursuing any really important government policy.

TV advert fails to demonstrate new TV technology

LAST NIGHT ON TV Advertisements for brand new televisual technology didn't quite manage to demonstrate the benefit of the superb advancements on standard sets around the country.

"In one ear and out the other: Only Nicam stereo can do this" Do what exactly? pondered Gareth from Wolverhampton "it sounds exactly like me old telly".

The advert also failed to inspire positive buying decisions in those who were sure they could hear the "Nicam effect" on the advert, "Wow....my telly can do that!" Which begs the question "if my telly can already do that...why do I need to fork out for a new one?" The only achievement the 30 second segment seems to assure people who've bought the new TV that they've made a good choice.

The the superior brightness and colour contrast of new Japanese technology, flatness of the screen, quality of picture a DVD player can offer, and the amazing effect of digital 5.1 sound, were also absent from publicity viewed on a standard set. Historically, TV adverts weren't widely used during the advent of colour televisions- marketers figured the effect would be lost on black and white sets, so unfortunately the infamous "Ooh Martha, you can really see the green!" advert was only shown once.

Reformed drinker's anecdotes a lot less exciting.

The water cooler, Monday 9.30am: Scintillating stories of booze fuelled weekend sadly missed, co-worker report. "Brian arrived in work again without a hangover for the 3rd Monday in a row, and failed to amuse any of his workmates with tales of how he didn't get completely pissed at the weekend. Non-highlights included how he didn't have to apologise to his girlfriend's mother for phoning her at 4am, didn't find sick in his shoe, nor did he find the remains of a kebab in his jacket pocket.

Other crazy antics he didn't do: getting in a fight with a bouncer, arrested by the police, or waking up in a hedge. I remember the time he head butted someone, but he wasn’t really one of our mates, so it was slightly amusing. Or when he asked the fast food guy why the cans in the fridge are upside down - now that was funny! Instead; boring us with tales of rock-climbing, 5-a-side game (he'd normally have missed on Sunday morning), the film he saw. How is that going to perk up my spirits?

Sure, we knew about his condition, but who are we to encourage sensible drinking? Some kind of police priests? A glass with five separate spirits in it? Guaranteed party juice -that's doing him a favour! Who's going to recall the person who didn't ruin an engagement party by swearing at the groom-to-be’s gran, then not puking on the dance floor? We would have missed passing him in the taxi as he was staggering along the grass verge, somehow having managed to loose his shirt. Not this little nicey, nicey story of a quiet night in with his girlfriend which contained absolutely no shame to ease our own guilt. We preferred the old Brian. Ok, so he was an alcoholic and the doctor told him he might die...but is becoming a boring git really a price worth paying?

Man gets unsuitable, expensive loan over the ‘phone, because he

“couldn't get to a bank"?

Spelling B whiz can’t do math for shit.

Killer cereal kills serial killer.

Serial killing killer cereal

Doctors disappointed to discover things are nothing like in hit TV series "ER".

Teachers disappointed to discover things are exactly like in shit TV series "teachers"

Holy trinity outsourced to India; Punjabi JCs.

"Never let nobody stop you voting"

Slogan from 20ft wide American poster translated into correct English:

"Always let somebody stop you voting".

Children in arguments take liberties with the concept of ∞.

Which part of ∞+1 don't you understand?

Suggestions or comments?

Worker falls three storeys into vat at "death by chocolate" factory.

Submarine sold to Canadians turns out to be a giant lemon..

Strange...the weapons sold to Argentina, China, Colombia, India, Mozambique, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Iraq and Nigeria (the ones with the lovely dictatorship) worked just fine. Guess this particular "sub of the day" wasn't such a bargain.

Terrorist accepts responsibility but strenuously refutes "henchman" claim.

"I planned it...I did it, and to suggest that I'm some sort of lackey to Osama is just plain offensive."

Kirsten saves South Africa

An Internet headline today confused a woman not familiar with the world of cricket, causing mild heart palpitations at the thought of a whole country being in danger. A mouse click later revealed that no diffusing nuclear devices or stopping any madman with a giant "Laser" was required... merely by hitting that little red ball with stick, Kirsten saved the day. Phew.

Ant and Dec in bitter feud.

Last Saturday night shouting was heard in the boy's dressing room:

Who’s funnier, you?!!? Anyway, who’s copying who here? Why not Dec and Ant? Why do we have to share a bed just because Morecombe and Wise did it! Who's taller? Dec. Why can't I stand on the left for once? NO...that would mess up the Ant & Dec order! Why isn't it Dec & Ant? Who’s got more fans? Why can't you be the straight one? Why didn't you stay in the damn jungle? Why weren't you blinded for real? Why can't you be more Geordie for once?

You've gone too far this time Donnelly!

Liberate us from the monotony of celebrity tripe.

"More unique" than you.

Competition broke out in the latest scene to see who was the least "mainstream". He got an earring, she got a nose ring. She cut a scar into his arm, he cut a scar into his face. She cut a toe off, he cut a finger off, she sliced her tongue in half, he cut his nose off to spit his face. He got his entire body tattooed green like a lizard, She said "oh f#ck this...you're the most different, ok? You happy now, freak?"

Weird looking kid working in local convenience store has deep spiritual understanding of the universe.

Mahmood regrets move to McMurdo, South Pole during Ramadan.

Say, when does it get dark here? (Dusk to dawn fasting: not such a good idea in the land of the midnight sun.)

Cat burglar sentenced to 9 consecutive life sentences.

Back 2 school essentials

If it's not called the watershed because the programs after 9pm make you sweat, then why is it?

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