A long time ago, in a remote village deep in the Amazon jungle, there lived a tribe. The king of this tribe wanted to display his power and so sent out 50 of his best men to find gold. They happened across a mountain cave, lined with gold and brought back all they could carry. When they returned with all this gold, they gave it to the king who ordered them to build him a throne of solid gold. This they did, creating a beautiful ornate throne for their leader.
Unfortunately, the throne was too small for the rather overweight king and so a grass hut was built to contain the throne over the rainy season whilst the king went on a diet and tried to lose some weight.
Where was once a beautiful golden throne, lay a dark green/brown throne covered in moss and swarming with beetles.
The Tribe vowed never to build another throne and for years afterwards the tribe passed down the moral of this tale to their children....
"People who live in grass houses shouldn't store thrones"
Cat's Diary
An Englishman is being shown around a Scottish hospital.
Towards the end of his visit, he is shown into a ward with a number of people with no obvious signs of injury. He goes to speak to the first man he sees and the man pipes up:
"Fair fa' yer honest sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the puddin' race!
Aboon them a'ye tak your place, painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o'a grace as lang's my arm."
The Englishman, being somewhat taken aback, goes to the next patient and immediately the patient launches into:
"Some hae meat, and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it.
But we hae meat and we can eat,
And sae the Lord be thankit."
This continues with the next patient:
"Wee sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need not start awa sae hasty,
Wi bickering brattle
I wad be laith to run and chase thee,
Wi murdering pattle!"
The Englishman turns to the doctor accompanying him on the visit and asks what sort of ward this is. A psychiatric ward?
"No, No," replies the doctor, "It's the acute Burns unit."
(True Story ... with a kicker at the end)
Outside a small Macedonian village close to the border between Greece and strife-torn Yugoslavia, a lone Catholic nun keeps a quiet watch over a silent convent. She is the last caretaker of the site of significant historical developments spanning more than 2,000 years.
When Sister Maria Cyrilla of the Order of the Perpetual Watch dies, the convent of St. Elias will be closed by the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch of Macedonia.
However, that isn't likely to happen soon as Sister Maria, 53, enjoys excellent health.
By her own estimate, she walks 10 miles daily about the grounds of the convent, which once served as a base for the army of Attila the Hun. In more ancient times, a Greek temple to Eros, the god of love, occupied the hilltop site.
Historians say that Attila took over the old temple in 439 A.D. and used it as a base for his marauding army.
The Huns are believed to have first collected and then destroyed a large gathering of Greek legal writs at the site.
It is believed that Attila wanted to study the Greek legal system, and had the writs and other documents brought to the temple. Scholars differ on why he had the valuable documents destroyed - either because he was barely literate and couldn't read them, or because they provided evidence of democratic government that did not square with his own notion of rule by an all-powerful tyrant.
When the Greek church took over the site in the 15th Century and the convent was built, church leaders ordered the pagan statue of Eros destroyed, so another ancient Greek treasure was lost. Today, there is only the lone sister, watching over the old Hun base.
And that's how it ends: No Huns, no writs, no Eros, and nun left on base.
"Ode To Spell Checker"
Eye halve a spelling checker
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marks four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word
and weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My checker tolled me so
For Triple-Nipplers
How many Internet mail list subscribers does it take to change a light bulb?
1,3431 to change the light bulb and to post to the mail list that the light bulb has been changed.
14 to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light bulb could have been changed differently
7 to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs
27 to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about changing light bulbs
53 to flame the spell checkers
41 to correct spelling/grammar flames
6 to argue over whether it's "lightbulb" or "light bulb"
another 6 to condemn those 6 as anal-retentive
156 to write to the list administrator about the light bulb discussion and its inappropriateness to this mail list
109 to post that this list is not about light bulbs and to please take this email exchange to litebulb-l
203 to demand that cross posting to grammar-l, spelling-l and illuminati-l about changing light bulbs be stopped
111 to defend the posting to this list saying that we all use light bulbs and therefore the posts *are* relevant to this mail list
306 to debate which method of changing light bulbs is superior, where to buy the best light bulbs, what brand of light bulbs work best for this technique and what brands are faulty
27 to post URL's where one can see examples of different light bulbs
14 to post that the URL's were posted incorrectly and the post the corrected URL's
3 to post about links they found from the URL's that are relevant to this list which makes light bulbs relevant to this list
4 to suggest that posters request the light bulb FAQ
44 to ask what is "FAQ"
33 to link all posts to date, then quote them including all headers and footers and then add "Me too"
19 to quote the "Me too's" to say "Me three"
12 to post to the list that they are unsubscribing because they cannot handle the light bulb controversy
4 to say "didn't we go through this already a short time ago on USENET?"
143 to ask "what's Usenet?"
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