Miscellaneous Stuff That I Can't Put Anywhere Else
What the world is like in TV land:
1. If a woman is running away from someone she will trip and fall.
2. Your car will always start immedaitely unless you are being chased by a maniacal killer or a monster of genetic creation.
3. Crazed maniacs have super-human strength.
4. The suburbs are exciting.
5. Good guys always shoot better than bad guys.
6. Good guys are always outnumbered.
7. Good guys always win and get the girl.
8. Good guys are always good looking.
9. Ugly people are always bad guys.
10. Teenagers who have sex are destined to die in grotesque ways.
11. There are no ugly women, only ugly men.
12. Court cases are all solved with a suprise witness.
13. Good guys are the only ones who have a sense of humor.
14. Cars will explode in all accidents.
15. Everyone has a 'dark' secret.
16. Cream pies are made to be thrown, never eaten.
17. Haunted houses are never locked.
18. The police are smart.
19. good guys will only get shot in the arm or leg.
20. All Chinese people know Karate.
21. Murders will always be accompanied by sinister music.
22. Rich people are unhappy.
23. Teenagers are smarter than their parents.
24. Indians make good cannon fodder.
25. Thunderstorms spontaneously create murders.
26. Computers never crash.
a) Teenagers can access any computer by using their PC's.
b) Computers know everything.
c) The same 2 keys are used to do everything
d) The user is typing constantly just to display screens of info
27. When someone is dead or dying, there will be a trickle of blood from the corner of their mouth.
28. No one farts, except after eating beans.
29. Nothing cures the blues like killing 30 ot 40 bad guys.
30. Bad guys make elaborate inventions to kill the good guys, but never stick around to see if it works.
31. Christmas Eve and halloween night last for three or four days.
32. Movies based on true stories are made up.
33. Police never wait for back-up.
34. Undercover cops are too good to be spotted.
35. Private detective work is glamorous.
36. All baseball games will be wom with a home run in the bottom of the ninth and two outs.
37. All police killings are in self-defense.
38. Everyone wins in Las Vegas.
39. Good guys don't take drugs.
40. The world is teaming with voluptuous, young women who are desperate to have sex with pennyless young guys.
41. Nobody ever has trouble finding good parking spots when they are in a hurry.
42. High School students look thirty years old.
43. Women never do housework, but their homes are always clean.
44. Street vendors' carts are magnetically attracted to high-speed car chases.
45. Everyone knows how to pick a lock with one tool.
46. To kill a vampire, you must set out 5 min before sunset.
47. Nobody ever realizes until the end of a monster movie that everyone that went into that dark cellar never came out.
48. The group always splits up to look for the alien.
49. The last 5 minutes of any TV show will explain the entire plot.
50. The last 5 minutes of any TV show will be stretched out for 20 minutes with commercials.
51. The crazed killer always steps out from behind the door without the victim seeing or hearing him until the he is about to drive a huge carving knife or pitchfork into them.
52. Whenever someone hears a noise in the dark they always have to check it out.
53. The crazed killer always walks and still catches the person he wants to kill.
54. All people chasing someone can catch up to a constant distance behind them quickly, but can't use that speed to actually catch the person they're chasing.
55. No-one ever locks a car when they get out of it (even in NY).
A few of these seem new...
Idiot of the Year Awards
Idiot # 1
*I* am a medical student currently doing a rotation in toxicology at the poison control centre. Today, this woman called in very upset because she caught her little daughter eating ants. I quickly reassured her that the ants are not harmful and there would be no need to bring her daughter into the hospital. She calmed down, and at the end of the conversation she happened to mention that she gave her daughter some ant poison to eat in order to kill the ants. I told her that she better bring her daughter into the Emergency room right away.
Here's your sign, lady. Wear it with pride.
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Idiot # 2
Seems that a year ago, some Boeing employees on the airfield decided to steal a life raft from one of the 747s. They were successful in getting it out of the plane and home. When they took it for a float on the river, a Coast Guard helicopter coming towards them surprised them. It turned out that the chopper was homing in on the emergency locator beacon which activated when the raft was inflated. They are no longer employed at Boeing.
Here's your sign, guys. Don't get it wet, the paint might run.
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Idiot # 3
A true story out of San Francisco: A man, wanting to rob a downtown Bank of America, walked into the branch and wrote "this iz a stikkup. Put all your muny in this bag." While standing in line, waiting to give his note to the teller, he began to worry that someone had seen him write the note and might call the police before he reached the teller window. So he left the Bank of America and crossed the street to Wells Fargo. After waiting a few minutes in line, he handed his note to the Wells Fargo teller. She read it and, surmising from his spelling errors that he wasn't the brightest light in the harbor, told him that she could not accept his stickup note because it was written on a Bank of America deposit slip and that he would either have to fill out a Wells Fargo deposit slip or go to the Bank of America. Looking somewhat defeated, the man said "OK" and left. He was arrested a few minutes later, as he was waiting in line back at Bank of America.
Don't bother with this guy's sign. He probably couldn't read it anyway.
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Idiot # 4
A motorist was unknowingly caught in an automated speed trap that measured his speed using radar and photographed his car. He later received in the mail a ticket for $40 and a photo of his car. Instead of payment, he sent the police department a photograph of $40. Several days later, he received a letter from the police that contained another picture, this time of handcuffs. He immediately mailed in his $40.
Another sign (though this guy might be onto something worth thinking about!)
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Idiot # 5
Guy walked into a little corner store with a shotgun and demanded all the cash from the cash drawer. After the cashier put the cash in a bag, the robber saw a bottle of scotch that he wanted behind the counter on the shelf. He told the cashier to put it in the bag as well, but he refused and said, "Because I don't believe you are over 21." The robber said he was, but the clerk still refused to give it to him because he didn't believe him.
At this point the robber took his driver's license out of his wallet and gave it to the clerk. The clerk looked it over, and agreed that the man was in fact over 21 and he put the scotch in the bag. The robber then ran from the store with his loot. The cashier promptly called the police and gave the name and address of the robber that he got off the license. They arrested the robber two hours later.
(Remind me to have more signs printed up) Give this guy his!
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Idiot # 6
A pair of Michigan robbers entered a record shop nervously waving revolvers.
The first one shouted, "Nobody move!" When his partner moved, the startled first bandit shot him.
(This guy doesn't need a sign, he probably figured it out himself.)
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Idiot # 7
Arkansas: Seems this guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He decided that he'd just throw a cinder block through a liquor store window, grab some booze, and run. So he lifted the cinder block and heaved it over his head at the window. The cinder block bounced back and hit the would-be thief on the head, knocking him unconscious. Seems the liquor store window was made of Plexi-Glass. The whole event was caught on videotape.
(Oh, that smarts. Give him his sign!)
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Idiot # 8
Ann Arbor: The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into a Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan at 12:50 am flashed a gun and demanded cash. The clerk turned him down because he said he couldn't open the cash register without a food order. When the man ordered onion rings, the clerk said they weren't available for breakfast. The man, frustrated, walked away.
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Also see: Idiot Sightings
Scientist Says Mind Continues After Brain Dies
By Sarah Tippit
Reuters
LOS ANGELES - A British scientist studying heart attack patients says he is finding evidence that suggests that consciousness may continue after the brain has stopped functioning and a patient is clinically dead.
The research, presented to scientists last week at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), resurrects the debate over whether there is life after death and whether there is such a thing as the human soul.
"The studies are very significant in that we have a group of people with no brain function ... who have well-structured, lucid thought processes with reasoning and memory formation at a time when their brains are shown not to function," Sam Parnia, one of two doctors from Southampton General Hospital in England who have been studying so-called near-death experiences (NDEs), told Reuters in an interview.
"We need to do much larger-scale studies, but the possibility is certainly there" to suggest that consciousness, or the soul, keeps thinking and reasoning even if a person's heart has stopped, he is not breathing and his brain activity is nil, Parnia said.
He said he and colleagues conducted an initial yearlong study, the results of which appeared in the February issue of the journal Resuscitation. The study was so promising the doctors formed a foundation to fund further research and continue collecting data.
During the initial study, Parnia said, 63 heart attack patients who were deemed clinically dead but were later revived were interviewed within a week of their experiences.
Of those, 56 said they had no recollection of the time they were unconscious and seven reported having memories. Of those, four were labeled NDEs in that they reported lucid memories of thinking, reasoning, moving about and communicating with others after doctors determined their brains were not functioning.
FEELINGS OF PEACE
Among other things, the patients reported remembering feelings of peace, joy and harmony. For some, time sped up, senses heightened and they lost awareness of their bodies.
The patients also reported seeing a bright light, entering another realm and communicating with dead relatives. One, who called himself a lapsed Catholic and Pagan, reported a close encounter with a mystical being.
Near-death experiences have been reported for centuries but in Parnia's study none of the patients were found to have received low oxygen levels, which some skeptics believe may contribute to the phenomenon.
When the brain is deprived of oxygen people become totally confused, thrash around and usually have no memories at all, Parnia said. "Here you have a severe insult to the brain but perfect memory."
Skeptics have also suggested that patients' memories occurred in the moments they were leaving or returning to consciousness. But Parnia said when a brain is traumatized by a seizure or car wreck a patient generally does not remember moments just before or after losing consciousness.
Rather, there is usually a memory lapse of hours or days. "Talk to them. They'll tell you something like: 'I just remember seeing the car and the next thing I knew I was in the hospital,"' he said.
"With cardiac arrest, the insult to the brain is so severe it stops the brain completely. Therefore, I would expect profound memory loss before and after the incident," he added.
Since the initial experiment, Parnia and his colleagues have found more than 3,500 people with lucid memories that apparently occurred at times they were thought to be clinically dead. Many of the patients, he said, were reluctant to share their experiences fearing they would be thought crazy.
A TODDLER'S TALE
One patient was 2-1/2 years old when he had a seizure and his heart stopped. His parents contacted Parnia after the boy "drew a picture of himself as if out of his body looking down at himself. It was drawn like there was a balloon stuck to him. When they asked what the balloon was he said, 'When you die you see a bright light and you are connected to a cord.' He wasn't even 3 when had the experience," Parnia said.
"What his parents noticed was that after he had been discharged from hospital, six months after the incident, he kept drawing the same scene."
The brain function these patients were found to have while unconscious is commonly believed to be incapable of sustaining lucid thought processes or allowing lasting memories to form, Parnia said -- pointing to the fact that nobody fully grasps how the brain generates thoughts.
The brain itself is made up of cells, like all the body's organs, and is not really capable of producing the subjective phenomenon of thought that people have, he said.
He speculated that human consciousness may work independently of the brain, using the gray matter as a mechanism to manifest the thoughts, just as a television set translates waves in the air into picture and sound.
"When you damage the brain or lose some of the aspects of mind or personality, that doesn't necessarily mean the mind is being produced by the brain. All it shows is that the apparatus is damaged," Parnia said, adding that further research might reveal the existence of a soul.
"When these people are having experiences they say, 'I had this intense pain in my chest and suddenly I was drifting in the corner of my room and I was so happy, so comfortable. I looked down and realized I was seeing my body and doctors all around me trying to save me and I didn't want to go back.
"The point is they are describing seeing this thing in the room, which is their body. Nobody ever says, 'I had this pain and the next thing I knew my soul left me."'
09:45 06-28-01
Copyright 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
There is one flaw with this, and that is that there is no proof that people had these memories while their brains were shut down. This was posted in an atheist newsgroup.
--Katie
Say the word "cow" BEFORE each word
1. Cows
2. Purple
3. About
4. Cat
5. Talking
6. Internet
7. Idiot
8. Contest
9. This
10. You
11. Got
12. Yes
13. I
14. Program
15. Long
16. Time
17. How
18. Maybe
19. Look
20. Course
Now say the word "cow" AFTER each word.
1. Cows
2. Purple
3. About
4. Cat
5. Talking
6. Internet
7. Idiot
8. Contest
9. This
10. You
11. Got
12. Yes
13. I
14. Program
15. Long
16. Time
17. How
18. Maybe
19. Look
20. Course
Now say the word "cow" BEFORE AND AFTER each word.
1. Cows
2. Purple
3. About
4. Cat
5. Talking
6. Internet
7. Idiot
8. Contest
9. This
10. You
11. Got
12. Yes
13. I
14. Program
15. Long
16. Time
17. How
18. Maybe
19. Look
20. Course
Now read the odd-numbered words from the bottom up.
1. Cows
2. Purple
3. About
4. Cat
5. Talking
6. Internet
7. Idiot
8. Contest
9. This
10. You
11. Got
12. Yes
13. I
14. Program
15. Long
16. Time
17. How
18. Maybe
19. Look
20. Course
Winners of a New York Magazine contest who were asked to take a well known expression in a foreign language, change a single letter and provide a definition for the new expression
RIGOR MORRIS
The cat is dead.
RESPONDEZ S'IL VOUS PLAID
Honk if you're Scottish
HARLEZ-VOUS FRANCAIS?
Can you drive a French motorcycle?
VENI, VIPI, VICI
I came, I'm a very important person, I conquered
VENI, VIDI, VISA
I came, I saw, I shopped.
COGITO EGGO SUM
I think, therefore I am ... a waffle
QUE SERA SERF
Life is feudal
LEROI EST MORT. JIVE LEROI
The king is dead. No kidding
POSH MORTEM
Death styles of the rich and famous
PRO BOZO PUBLICO
Support your local clown
MONAGE A TROIS
I am three years old
HASTE CUISINE
Fast French food
QUIP PRO QUO
A fast retort
ALOHA OY
Love; greetings; farewell; and from such a pain you should never know
MAZEL TON
Tons of luck
VISA LA FRANCE
Don't leave your chateau without it
CARNE DIEM
Seize the meat
Also see: Contemporary Latin Phrases
PROFESSOR EPPENDORF'S LABORATORY NOVELTIES AND
PRACTICAL JOKES
by Zev
Winicur
X-RAY SPECS
Forget the cheap, plastic x-ray specs from yesteryear. These battery powered spectacles contain a real x-ray! Hold your hand in front of your face to see your bones wiggling around. Count your friends' vertebrae and locate joint articulations. Great at lab parties!
$11.99 each
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LEONARD THE TALKING LAB MOUSE
Turn Leonard on and he occasionally twitches in his cage. Pick him up by his tail and he says, ``Hey, put me down!'' Covered with real mouse fur, Leonard is the most realistic looking ersatz mouse on the market.
$14.99 each
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REMOTE-CONTROLLED GEIGER COUNTER
Looks and acts like a real Geiger counter but you can make the needle ``jump'' at the press of a button. Hide the remote control in your pocket and make the needle move when people check themselves for radiation. They'll go into hysterics thinking they have received a lethal dose! Yuks galore!
$259.99 each
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GLOW-IN-THE-DARK PIPETTE TIPS
You will be the talk of the lab with these handy glow-in-the-dark pipette tips. They fit standard 20, 200, and 1000 microliter pipetmen.
$19.49 for bulk bag of 1000
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SNAKE-IN-A-REAGENT-JAR
Three spring snakes fit into our realistic chemical reagent jar. People expecting to weigh out chemicals will be ``attacked'' by the snakes! A laugh riot!
$4.99 for reagent jar and three snakes
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CENTRIFUGE NOISES
This mini tape recorder fits behind any standard ultracentrifuge. As the centrifuge accelerates, the mini recorder makes incredibly loud scraping sounds to simulate the rotor becoming unbalanced. Watch them run for cover as they think the rotor is about to go through the wall!
$13.99 each
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THE SPILLED EXPERIMENT GAG
Based on the old ``spilled beer gag'', an Erlenmeyer flask is tipped on its side with the ``contents'' spilling out. The ``liquid'' is really a transparent, solid plastic but only you will know that. Perfect for dealing with neatness nuts in the lab.
$4.99 each
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DRIBBLE BEAKER
Looks like a real beaker but when the researcher pours out any fluid, it dribbles down the side! More fun than a barrel of monkeys!
$5.99 each
THE RULES OF CHOCOLATE
~ If you've got melted chocolate all over your hands, you're eating it too slowly.
~ Chocolate covered raisins, cherries, orange slices & strawberries all count as fruit, so eat as many as you want.
~ The problem: How to get 2 pounds of chocolate home from the store in hot car. The solution: Eat it in the parking lot.
~ Diet tip: Eat a chocolate bar before each meal. It'll take the edge off your appetite and you'll eat less.
~ A nice box of chocolates can provide your total daily intake of calories in one place. Isn't that handy?
~ If you can't eat all your chocolate, it will keep in the freezer.
~ But if you can't eat all your chocolate, what's wrong with you?
~ If calories are an issue, store your chocolate on top of the fridge. Calories are afraid of heights, and they will jump out of the chocolate to protect themselves.
~ If I eat equal amounts of dark chocolate and white chocolate, is that a balanced diet? Don't they actually counteract each other?
~ Money talks. Chocolate sings.
~ Chocolate has many preservatives. Preservatives make you look younger.
~ Q. Why is there no such organization as Chocoholics Anonymous? A. Because no one wants to quit.
~ If not for chocolate, there would be no need for control top pantyhose. An entire garment industry would be devastated.
~ Put "eat chocolate" at the top of your list of things to do today. That way, at least you'll get one thing done.
Any guess as to who this is? Email me if you think you know...
Time's up! It's Bill Clinton!
41 Reasons to Smile
1. Love is grand; divorce is a hundred grand.
2. I am in good shape. Round is a good shape... for oranges.
3. Time may be a great healer, but it's also a lousy beautician.
4. Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark. Professionals built the Titanic.
5. Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good.
6. Talk is cheap because supply exceeds demand.
7. Stupidity got us into this mess-why can't it get us out?
8. Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
9. Politicians and diapers have one thing in common. They should both be changed regularly and for the same reason.
10. An optimist thinks that this is the best possible world. A pessimist fears that this is true.
11. There is always death and taxes; however, death doesn't get worse every year.
12. People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them that Benjamin Franklin said it first.
13. It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
14. I don't mind going nowhere as long as it's an interesting path.
15. Anything free is worth what you pay for it.
16. Indecision is the key to flexibility.
17. It hurts to be on the cutting edge.
18. If it ain't broke, fix it till it is.
19. I don't get even, I get odder.
20. In just two days, tomorrow will be yesterday.
21. I always wanted to be a procrastinator, never got around to it.
22. Dijon vu-the same mustard as before.
23. I am a nutritional overachiever.
24. My inferiority complex is not as good as yours.
25. I am having an out of money experience.
26. I plan on living forever. So far, so good.
27. Not afraid of heights-afraid of widths.
28. Practice safe eating-always use condiments.
29. A day without sunshine is like night.
30. I have kleptomania, but when it gets bad, I take something for it.
31. If marriage were outlawed, only outlaws would have in-laws.
32. I am not a perfectionist. My parents were, though.
33. Life is an endless struggle full of frustrations and challenges, but eventually you find a hair stylist you like.
34. You're getting old when you get the same sensation from a rocking chair that you once got from a roller coaster.
35. One of life's mysteries is how a two-pound box of candy can make you gain five pounds.
36. It's frustrating when you know all the answers, but nobody bothers to ask you the questions.
37. The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right time, but also to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.
38. Brain cells come and brain cells go, but fat cells live forever.
39. Age doesn't always bring wisdom. Sometimes age comes alone.
40. Life not only begins at fifty, it begins to show.
41. You don't stop laughing because you grow old, you grow old because you stopped laughing.
Awesome picture was taken in Bitteroot National Forest in Montana on August 6, 2000. The photographer, John McColgan, is a fire behavior analyst from Fairbanks, Alaska.
He took the picture with a digital camera. Because he was working at the time he took the picture he cannot profit from it; however, whoever sent me this email feels the picture is a once-in-a-lifetime shot and should be shared.
Some of these are old, some are new.
1. I can only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow is not looking good either.
2. I love deadlines. I especially like the whooshing sound they make as they go flying by.
3. Tell me what you need, and I'll tell you how to get along without it.
4. Accept that some days you are the pigeon and some days the statue.
5. Needing someone is like needing a parachute. If they aren't there the first time, chances are you won't be needing them again.
6. I don't have an attitude problem, you have a perception problem.
7. Last night I lay in bed looking up at the stars in the sky, and I thought to myself, where the heck is the ceiling?
8. My reality check bounced.
9. On the keyboard of life, always keep one finger on the escape key.
10. I don't suffer from stress. I am a carrier.
11. You are slower than a herd of turtles stampeding through peanut butter.
12. Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, because you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
13. Everybody is somebody else's weirdo.
14. Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.
15. A pat on the back is only a few centimeters from a kick in the butt.
16. Don't be irreplaceable - if you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.
17. After any salary raise, you will have less money at the end of the week.
18. The more crap you put up with, the more crap you are going to get.
19. You can go anywhere you want if you look serious and carry a clipboard.
20. Eat one live toad the first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.
21. If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would get done.
22. When you don't know what to do, walk fast and look worried.
23. Following the rules will not get the job done.
I do have to wonder a little about this whole story when the photographer is quoted as saying that he snapped the shutter at the moment that he heard the sonic boom. The boom should have arrived quite some time (seconds?) *after* the plane actually passed through the speed of sound. Add to that some reaction time, and it seems impossible to take a photo like this by reacting to an audible signal. Still, regardless of the story, the photo is incredible.
Begin forwarded note:
Awesome -- Want to see a sonic boom?
Through the viewfinder of his camera, Ensign John Gay could see the fighter plane drop from the sky heading toward the port side of the aircraft carrier Constellation. At 1,000 feet, the pilot drops the F/A-18C Hornet to increase his speed to 750 mph, vapor flickering off the curved surfaces of the plane. In the precise moment a cloud in the shape of a farm-fresh egg forms around the Hornet 200 yards from the carrier, its engines rippling the Pacific Ocean just 75 feet below, Gay hears an explosion and snaps his camera shutter once. "I clicked the same time I heard the boom, and I knew I had it, "Gay said. What he had was a technically meticulous depiction of the sound barrier being broken July 7, 1999, somewhere on the Pacific between Hawaii and Japan. Sports Illustrated, Brills Content and Life ran the photo. The photo recently took first prize in the science and technology division in the World Press Photo 2000 contest, which drew more than 42,000 entries worldwide.
"All of a sudden, in the last few days, I've been getting calls from everywhere about it again. It's kind of neat," he said, in a telephone interview from his station in Virginia Beach, Va. A naval veteran of 12 years, Gay, 38, manages a crew of eight assigned to take intelligence photographs from the high-tech belly of an F-14 Tomcat, the fastest fighter in the U.S. Navy. In July, Gay had been part of a Joint Task Force Exercise as the Constellation made its way to Japan. Gay selected his Nikon 90 S, one of the five 35 mm cameras he owns. He set his 80-300 mm zoom lens on 300 mm, set his shutter speed at 1/1000 of a second with an aperture setting of F5.6. "I put it on full manual, focus and exposure," Gay said. "I tell young photographers who are into automatic everything, you aren't going to get that shot on auto. The plane is too fast. The camera can't keep up." At sea level a plane must exceed 741 mph to break the sound barrier, or the speed at which sound travels. The change in pressure as the plane outruns all of the pressure and sound waves in front of it is heard on the ground as an explosion or sonic boom. The pressure change condenses the water in the air as the jet passes these waves. Altitude, wind speed, humidity, the shape and trajectory of the plane-all of these affect the breaking of this barrier The slightest drag or atmospheric pull on the plane shatters the vapor oval like fireworks as the plane passes through, he said everything on July 7 was perfect, he said.
"You see this vapor flicker around the plane that gets bigger and bigger You get this loud boom, and it's instantaneous. The vapor cloud is there, and then it's not there. It's the coolest thing you have ever seen."
Word Spy
What a neat Net site: http://www.logophilia.com/WordSpy/. It's a daily word troll, bringing adventures in vocabulary building. Recent offers:
Dot snot (n.): A young person with an arrogant and self-important manner because he or she has become rich by creating a dot-com company. See also millionerd, optionaire, sneaker millionaire.
Mission creep (n.): The process by which a mission's methods and goals change gradually over time. See also creeping featurism, mission from God, missionware.
Genre kill (n.): The process of destroying a cultural category by inundating the category with copycat products (Ed. Note: As with, say, megagreed quiz shows). See also innovicide, Gulliver effect.
Back-channel media (n.): Media, such as tabloid-style newspapers and television shows, preferred by populist politicians over traditional political forums such as op-ed pages and political talk shows. See also paparazzification, schmooseoisie.
Bambi (n.): TV lingo for a person who freezes in front of a camera (like the proverbial deer caught in headlights).
Beat sweetener (n.): A flattering, non-critical profile of a public figure written by a reporter whose regular beat includes coverage of that person. See also bummer beat, inhuman-interest story, muffin-choker, notebook dump, thumbsucker.
Why English Ain't Easy
The bandage was wound around the wound.
The farm was used to produce produce.
The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
We must polish the Polish furniture.
He could lead if he would get the lead out.
The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
The present is a good time to present the present.
At the Army base, a bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
The dove dove into the bushes.
I did not object to the object.
The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
They were too close to the door to close it.
The buck does funny things when the does are present.
A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
After a number of injections my jaw got number.
Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
I spent last evening evening out a pile of dirt.
Quick Q & As
Q. What occurs more often in December than any other month?
A. Conception.
Q. What separates "60 Minutes," on CBS from every other TV show?
A. No theme song.
Q. Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of what?
A. Their birthplace.
Q. Most boat owners name their boats. What is the most popular boat
A. Obsession
Q. If you were to spell out numbers, how far would you have to go until you would find the letter "A"?
A. One thousand
Q. What do bullet proof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers, and laser printers all have in common?
A. All invented by women.
Q. What is the only food that doesn't spoil?
A. Honey
Q. There are more collect calls on what day than any other day of the year?
A. Father's Day
Q. What trivia fact about Mel Blanc (voice of Bugs Bunny) is the most ironic?
A. He was allergic to carrots.
Q. What is an activity performed by 40% of all people at a party?
A. Snoop in your medicine cabinet.
Did You Know . . .
The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time television were Fred and Wilma Flintstone.
Coca-Cola was originally green.
Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the US Treasury.
Men can read smaller print than women; women can hear better.
The state with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska
The percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28%
The percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38%
The cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven: $6,400
The average number of people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000.
Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair
The world's youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.
The youngest pope was 11 years old.
The first novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer.
That San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments.
Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history.
Spades - King David
Clubs - Alexander the Great
Hearts - Charlemagne
Diamonds - Julius Caesar
111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; If the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; If the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.
"I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
The term "the whole 9 yards" came from WWII fighter pilots in the South Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got "the whole 9 yards."
Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like it's kissing the conveyor belt.
The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the "General Purpose" vehicle, G.P.
The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth II, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.
No NFL team which plays its home games in a domed stadium has ever won a Superbowl.
The only two days of the year in which there are no professional sports games (MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day after the Major League all-stars Game.
How about this.... The nursery rhyme "Ring Around the Rosey" is a rhyme about the plague. Infected people with the plague would get red circular sores ("Ring around the rosey..."), these sores would smell very badly so common folks would put flowers on their bodies somewhere (inconspicuously), so that it would cover the smell of the sores ("...a pocket full of posies..."). People who died from the plague would be burned so as to reduce the possible spread of the disease ("...ashes, ashes, we all fall down!")
40 USELESS THINGS THAT YOU SHOULD KNOW (some of them are also in the last part):
1. Debra Winger was the voice of E.T.
2. Pearls melt in vinegar
3. It takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year's supply of footballs.
4. Thirty-Five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
5. The 3 most valuable brand names on earth: MARLBORO, COCA-COLA, and BUDWEISER, in that order.
6. It's possible to lead a cow upstairs. . .but not downstairs.
7. Humans are the only primates that don't have pigment in the palms of their hands.
8. Ten percent of the Russian government's income comes from the sale of vodka.
9. The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." uses every letter in the alphabet. (Developed by Western Union)
10. The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.
11. Stewardesses' is the longest word that is typed correctly with only the left hand.
12. No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, and purple.
13. "I am" is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
14. Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.
15. A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.
16. The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.
17. The airplane Buddy Holly died in was the "American Pie." (thus the name of the Don McLean song)
18. Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history. Spades - King David, Clubs - Alexander the Great, Hearts - Charlemagne, and Diamonds - Julius Caesar.
19. 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
20. Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them used to burn their houses down - hence the expression "To get fired."
21. Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.
22. Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like its kissing the conveyor belt.
23. An Ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
24. The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen seconds.
25. The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the "General Purpose" vehicle, G.P.
26. The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.
27. Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.
28. If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar.
29. No NFL team which plays its home games in a domed stadium has ever won a Superbowl.
30. The only two days of the year in which there are no professional sports games (MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day after the Major League All-Star Game.
31. The mask used by Michael Myers in the original "Halloween" movie was actually a Captain Kirk mask painted white.
32. If you put a raisin in a glass of champagne, it will keep floating to the top and sinking to the bottom.
33. Snails can sleep for 3 years without eating.
34. Actor Tommy Lee Jones and vice-president AL Gore were freshman roommates at Harvard.
35. The fingerprints of Koala Bears are virtually indistinguishable from those of humans, so much so that they could be confused at a crime scene.
36. Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a "Friday the 13th."
37. James Doohan, who plays Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott (Scotty) on Star Trek, is missing the entire middle finger on his right hand (lost it on D-Day).
38. The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.
39. There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
40. All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" are stuck on 4:20.
THINGS THAT TRY YOUR SANITY
You have to try on a pair of sunglasses with that stupid little plastic thing in the middle of them.
The person behind you in the supermarket runs his cart into the back of your ankle.
The elevator stops on every floor and nobody gets on.
There's always a car riding your tail when you're slowing down to find an address.
You open a can of soup and the lid falls in.
It's bad enough that you step in dog poop, but you don't realize it till you walk across your living room rug.
The tiny red string on the Band-Aid wrapper never works for you.
There's a dog in the neighborhood that barks at EVERYTHING.
You can never put anything back in a box the way it came.
Three hours and three meetings after lunch you look in the mirror and discover a piece of parsley stuck to your front tooth.
You drink from a soda can into which someone has extinguished a cigarette.
You slice your tongue licking an envelope.
Your tire gauge lets out half the air while you're trying to get a reading.
A station comes in brilliantly when you're standing near the radio but buzzes, drifts and spits every time you move away.
There are always one or two ice cubes that won't pop out of the tray.
You wash a garment with a tissue in the pocket and your entire laundry comes out covered with lint.
The car behind you blasts its horn because you let a pedestrian finish crossing.
A piece of foil candy wrapper makes electrical contact with your filling.
You set the alarm on your digital clock for 7pm instead of 7am.
The radio station doesn't tell you who sang that song.
You rub on hand cream and can't turn the bathroom doorknob to get out.
People behind you in a supermarket line dash ahead of you to a counter just opening up.
Your glasses slide off your ears when you perspire.
You can't look up the correct spelling of a word in the dictionary because you don't know how to spell it.
You have to inform five different salespeople in the same store that you're just browsing.
You had that pen in your hand only a second ago and now you can't find it.
You reach under the table to pick something off the floor and smash your head on the way up.
The Wisdom of Youth
Never trust a dog to watch your food.--Patrick, Age 10
When you want something expensive, ask your grandparents. --Matthew,Age12
Never smart off to a teacher whose eyes and ears are twitching. --Andrew, Age 9
Wear a hat when feeding seagulls. --Rocky, Age 9
Sleep in your clothes so you'll be dressed in the morning. --Stephanie, Age 8
Never try to hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk. --Rosemary, Age7
Don't flush the john when you dad's in the shower. --Lamar, Age 10
Never ask for anything that costs more than five dollars when your parents are doing taxes. --Carol, Age 9
Never bug a pregnant mom. --Nicholas, Age 11
Don't ever be too full for dessert. --Kelly, Age 10
When your dad is mad and asks you, "Do I look stupid?" don't answer him. --Heather, Age 16
Never tell your mom her diet's not working. --Michael, Age 14
Don't pick on your sister when she's holding a baseball bat. --Joel, Age12
When you get a bad grade in school, show it to your mom when she's on the phone. --Alyesha, Age 13
Never try to baptize a cat. --Laura, Age 13
Never do pranks at a police station. --Sam, Age 10
Beware of cafeteria food when it looks like it's moving. --Rob, Age 10
Never tell your little brother that you're not going to do what your mom told you to do. --Hank, Age 12
Remember you're never too old to hold your father's hand. --Molly, Age 11
Listen to your brain. It has lots of information. --Chelsey, Age 7
Stay away from prunes. --Randy, Age 9
Never dare your little brother to paint the family car. --Phillip, Age 13
Interesting trivia to start your week...
? In Cleveland, Ohio, it’s illegal to catch mice without a hunting license.
? Dr. Seuss coined the word “nerd” in his 1950 book “If I Ran the Zoo”
? It takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year’s supply of footballs. (Now there is a waste of good moo!)
? Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
? There are an average of 178 sesame seeds on a McDonald’s Big Mac bun.
? The world’s termites outweigh the world’s humans 10 to 1.
? Pound for pound, hamburgers cost more than new cars.
? The 3 most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.
? When Heinz ketchup leaves the bottle, it travels at a rate of 25 miles per year.
? It’s possible to lead a cow upstairs... but not downstairs.
? The Bible has been translated into Klingon.
? Humans are the only primates that don’t have pigment in the palms of their hands.
? Ten percent of the Russian government’s income comes from the sale of vodka.
? Ninety percent of New York City cabbies are recently arrived immigrants.
? On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.
? In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all the world’s nuclear weapons combined. (Guess we need to ban hurricanes, eh?)
? Reno, Nevada is west of Los Angeles, California.
? Average lifespan of a major league baseball: 5 pitches.
? Average age of top GM executives in 1994: 49.8 years. Average age of the Rolling Stones: 50.6.
? Elephants can’t jump. Every other mammal can.
? The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
? Five Jell-O flavors that flopped: celery, coffee, cola, apple, and chocolate.
? According to one study, 24% of lawns have some sort of lawn ornament in their yard.
? Internationally, Baywatch is the most popular TV show in history.
The top 16 long term affects of listening to country music
16. Gun rack mysteriously appears in the back of your car.
15. You name your kids Garth, Reba, Conway and Merle.
14. You form a deeply-rooted mistrust of relationships, fashion trends, and foreign automobiles.
13. Big hats, big buckles, & big bills to the Home Shopping Network.
12. You start to notice just how doggone attractive yer sister is.
11. Thinking more and more the trash can lid would make one helluva belt buckle.
10. Diet of chicken-fried steak and Budweiser gives skin an unearthly glow.
9. At each of life's major crossroads, you ask yourself, "what would Willie Nelson do?"
8. You become unable to discriminate between one too many and Whoooodoggie!
7. You take to speaking in cornball analogies like achin' takes to a cheatin' heart.
6. You find yourself turning tricks to support $100-a-day hair spray habit.
5. You can "Lather, Rinse and Repeat" until the cows come home, but your hair still looks like it has a quart of 30-weight in it.
4. Yet *another* worn-out 8-track player.
3. Your Bleedin' Ear.
2. You begin to worship Jeff Foxworthy the way the French worship Jerry Lewis.
...and the Number 1 Long-Term Effect of Listening to Country Western Music...
1. Strong urge to visit a barber and ask for "The Lovett."
Last updated Monday, October 15, 2001
Katie Tyson