I just can't resist! You'll just have to look away.....

[BeauV]

[Tigger]

http://www.theonion.com/articles/ugly-c ... avo,36968/

[floating dutchman]

For you Iphone users

http://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/sci-tech/i ... -1.2020158

I wonder how many phones are already trashed!

[Olaf Hart]

For you Iphone users

http://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/sci-tech/i ... -1.2020158

I wonder how many phones are already trashed!

Awesome!

There are so many people around now with little or no technical knowledge, and I bet most of them use Apple.

[Lin]

Puns for Educated Minds...

Venison for dinner again? Oh deer!

A cartoonist was found dead in his home. Details are sketchy.


I used to be a banker, but then I lost interest.


Haunted French pancakes give me the crepes.


England has no kidney bank, but it does have a Liverpool ..


I tried to catch some fog, but I mist.


They told me I had type-A blood, but it was a Type-O.


I changed my iPod's name to Titanic. It's syncing now.


Jokes about German sausages are the wurst.


I know a guy who's addicted to brake fluid, but he says he can stop any time.


I stayed up all night to see where the sun went, and then it dawned on me.


This girl said she recognized me from the vegetarian club, but I'd never met herbivore.


When chemists die, apparently they barium.


I'm reading a book about anti-gravity. I just can't put it down.


I did a theatrical performance about puns. It was a play on words.


I didn't like my beard at first. Then it grew on me.


Did you hear about the cross-eyed teacher who lost her job because she couldn't control her pupils?


When you get a bladder infection you know urine trouble.


Broken pencils are pretty much pointless.


What do you call a dinosaur with an extensive vocabulary? A thesaurus.


I dropped out of the Communism class because of lousy Marx.


All the toilets in New York 's police stations have been stolen. As of now, it appears the police have nothing to go on.


I got a job at a bakery because I kneaded dough.


Velcro - what a rip off!

[cap10ed]

Good share Lin.

[JoeP]

Great fun Lin. Thanks!

[BeauV]

OK Lin, there's only one sort of appropriate response to that lot!

=============

Australian Computer Terminology - Getting ready for Broadband in the bush!!

A little bit of Aussie culcha

LOGON: Adding wood to make the barbie hotter

LOG OFF: Not adding any more wood to the barbie.

MONITOR: Keeping an eye on the barbie.

DOWNLOAD: Getting the firewood off the ute.

HARD DRIVE: Making the trip back home without any cold tinnies.

KEYBOARD: Where you hang the ute keys.

WINDOWS: What you shut when the weather's cold.

SCREEN: What you shut in the mozzie season..

BYTE: What mozzies do

MEGABYTE: What Townsville mozzies do.

CHIP: A pub snack.

MICROCHIP: What's left in the bag after you've eaten the chips.

MODEM: What you did to the lawns.

LAPTOP: Where the cat sleeps.

SOFTWARE: Plastic knives and forks you get at Red Rooster.

HARDWARE: Stainless steel knives and forks - from K-Mart.

MOUSE: The small rodent that eats the grain in the shed.

MAINFRAME: What holds the shed up.

WEB: What spiders make.

WEBSITE: Usually in the shed or under the verandah.

SEARCH ENGINE: What you do when the ute won't go.

CURSOR: What you say when the ute won't go.

YAHOO: What you say when the ute does go.

UPGRADE: A steep hill.

SERVER: The person at the pub who brings out the counter lunch.

MAIL SERVER: The bloke at the pub who brings out the counter lunch.

USER: The neighbour who keeps borrowing things.

NETWORK:What you do when you need to repair the fishing net.

INTERNET: Where you want the fish to go.

NETSCAPE: What the fish do when they discover a hole in the net.

ONLINE: Where you hang the washing.

OFFLINE: Where the washing ends up when the pegs aren't strong enough.

[Lin]

Good one, Beau.

[BeauV]

I was reading an article last night about fathers and sons, and memories came flooding back of the time I took my son out for his first drink. Off we went to our local pub, which is only two blocks from the house.

I got him a Guiness Stout. He didn't like it – so I drank it.

Then I got him an Old Style, he didn't like it either, so I drank it.

It was the same with the Coors and the Bud.

By the time we got down to the Irish whiskey . . .

I could hardly push the stroller back home.

[SloopJonB]

Reminds me of a cartoon I saw years ago - a guy is slumped in a recliner and a toddler in a diaper is standing beside him - the caption was "Now that you can walk, go get me a beer".

[Lin]

From a friend:

I recently picked a new primary care doctor. After two visits and exhaustive labtests, she said I was doing fairly well for my age. (I am almost 65). A little concerned about that comment, I couldn't resist asking her, 'Do you think I'll live to be 75?' She asked, 'Do you smoke tobacco, or drink beer, wine or hard liquor?' 'Oh no,' I replied. I'm not doing drugs, either!' Then she asked, 'Do you eat rib-eye steaks, barbecued ribs or brats?' 'I said, 'Not much ... My former doctor said that all red meat is very unhealthy! ''Do you spend a lot of time in the sun, like playing golf, fishing, boating, hiking, or bicycling? ''No, I don't,' I said. She asked, 'Do you gamble, drive fast cars or have a lot of sex? ''No,' I said ... She looked at me and said, 'Then, why do you even give a shit?'

[SloopJonB]

Exactly.

I always loved George Burns line - he was about 95, on stage with his trademark two beauties and a big stogie. He said "my doctors have been telling me for years that I've got to quit smoking these things - but they're all dead now."

or;

"Doctor, if I give up eating meat, drinking liquor, smoking and chasing after women will I live longer?"

"No, it will only seem longer".

[cap10ed]

Copper Wire

After having dug to a depth of 10 feet last year, British scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 200 years and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network more than 150 years ago.

Not to be outdone by the Brit's, in the weeks that followed, an American archaeologist dug to a depth of 20 feet, and shortly thereafter, a story published in the New York Times: "American archaeologists, finding traces of 250-year-old copper wire, have concluded that their ancestors already had an advanced high-tech communications network 50 years earlier than the British".

One week later, a member of Newfoundland's Dept. of Mines and Resources reported the following: "After digging as deep as 30 feet in Corner Brook, Newfoundland - Jack Lucknow, a self-taught archaeologist, and self-taught beer connoisseur, reported that he found absolutely nothing. Jack has therefore concluded that 250 years ago, Canada had already gone wireless."

Just makes you so damn proud to be Canadian, don't it?

[viktor]

When insults had class

A member of Parliament to Disraeli: "Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease."

"That depends, Sir," said Disraeli, "whether I embrace your policies or your mistress."



"He had delusions of adequacy."

- Walter Kerr



"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."

- Winston Churchill





I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."

Clarence Darrow.



"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."

- William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).



"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it."

- Moses Hadas.



"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it."

-Mark Twain.



"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.."

- Oscar Wilde.



"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend, if you have one."

- George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill.

"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second ... if there is one."

- Winston Churchill, in response.



"I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here."

-Stephen Bishop.



"He is a self-made man and worships his creator."

- John Bright.



"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial."

-Irvin S. Cobb.



"He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others."

-Samuel Johnson.



"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up."

- Paul Keating.



"In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily."

- Charles, Count Talleyrand.



"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him."

- Forrest Tucker.



"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?"

- Mark Twain.



"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.."

- Mae West.



"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go."

- Oscar Wilde.



"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang (1844-1912).



"He has Van Gogh's ear for music."

- Billy Wilder.



"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."
– Groucho

[JoeP]

Excellent Viktor. I really liked those.

[SloopJonB]

They were great. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have been gifted with that sort of world class wit? My best lines always come hours later when I'm on my way to bed.

IMO Dorothy Parker and Churchill were the best in history.

"Every morning I get up, brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue"
"If you don't have anything good to say about anyone, come sit by me".

Sitting at a dinner table with either of them must have made mere mortals feel like clods.

[BeauV]

At dawn the telephone rings,

"Hello, Señor Roy? This is Ernesto, the caretaker at your country house."

"Ah yes, Ernesto. What can I do for you? Is there a problem?"


"Um, I am just calling to advise you, Señor Roy, that your parrot, he is
dead".


"My parrot? Dead? The one that won the International competition?"

"Si, Señor, that's the one."

"Damn! That's a pity! I spent a small fortune on that bird. What did he die
from?"

"From eating the rotten meat, Señor Roy."

"Rotten meat? Who the hell fed him rotten meat?"

"Nobody, Señor. He ate the meat of the dead horse."

"Dead horse? What dead horse?"

"The thoroughbred, Señor Roy."

"My prize thoroughbred is dead?"

"Yes, Señor Roy, he died from all that work pulling the water cart."

"Are you insane? What water cart?"

"The one we used to put out the fire, Señor."

"Good Lord! What fire are you talking about, man?"

"The one at your house, Señor! A candle fell and the curtains caught on
fire."

"What the hell? Are you saying that my mansion is destroyed because of a
candle?!"

"Yes, Señor Roy."

"But there's electricity at the house! What was the candle for?"

"For the funeral, Señor Roy."

"WHAT BLOODY FUNERAL??!!"

"Your wife's, Señor Roy. She showed up very late one night and I thought she
was a thief, so I hit her with your new Ping G20 204g titanium head golf
club with the TFC 149D graphite shaft."


SILENCE...........

LONG SILENCE.........

VERY LONG SILENCE…………

"Ernesto, if you broke that driver, you're in deep shit."

[kimbottles]

You are BAD Beau, very very BAD.

[Lin]

Viktor & Beau, good ones!

[BeauV]

Viktor & Beau, good ones!

OH OUCH! I love it!!! "Don't carrot all!"

[Jamie]

Not a joke....but I was lucky enough to experience this graduation speech. Despite a blinding hangover, I still remember it very well and wanted to share it. I re-read it every once in a while when I get frustrated. It still makes me chuckle.

“10 Ways to Avoid Mucking Up the World Any Worse Than It Already Is"

Russell Baker
Connecticut College, New London, Connecticut USA MAY 27, 1995

In a sensible world I would now congratulate the Class of 1995 and sit down without further comment. I am sure the Class of 1995 wishes I would do so. Unfortunately for the Class of 1995 we do not live in a sensible world.

We live in a world far more slavish in its obedience to ancient custom than we like to admit. And ancient commencement-day custom demands that somebody stand up here and harangue the poor graduates until they beg for mercy. The ancient rule has been: make them suffer. I still remember the agony of my own graduation at The John Hopkins University.

They had imported some heat from the Sahara Desert especially for the occasion, and the commencement orator spoke for two and a half days. That was in 1947.
Luckily, the forces of mercy have made big gains since then. The authorities of Connecticut College have suggested that for me to speak longer than 20 minutes would be regarded as cruel and inhuman punishment and that if I go as long as 30 minutes several strong men will mount this platform and forcibly remove me. But if I can finish in 15 minutes - 15 minutes! - they will let me stay for lunch. They know their man, ladies and gentleman. When I smell a free lunch, I go for it.

So if I can do this right, you’ll see the back of me before we get to minute 16. This will not be easy. Condensing a graduation speech into 15 minutes is like trying to squeeze a Wagnerian opera into a telephone booth. To do it I had to strip away all the frills. This means you don’t even get any warm-up jokes. So those of you who came just for the jokes might as well leave now.

All right, let’s plunge right ahead into the dull part. That’s the part where the commencement speaker tells the graduates to go forth into the world, then gives advice on what to do when they get out there. This is a ridiculous waste of time. The graduates never take the advice, as I have learned from long experience. The best advice I can give anybody about going out into the world is this: Don’t do it. I have been out there. It is a mess.

I have been giving graduates this advice ever since 1967 when I spoke to a batch of them over at Bennington. That was 28 years ago. Some of your parent were probably graduating there that day and went on to ignore my advice. Thanks to the genius of my generation, I told them, it was a pretty good world out there - they went forth into it, they would mess it up. So I urged them not to go.

I might as well have been shouting down a rain barrel. They didn’t listen. They went forth anyhow. And look what happened. Within a year Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were murdered. Then Nixon took us all to The Watergate. Draft riots. Defeat in Vietnam. John Lennon killed. Ronald Reagan and his trillion-dollar deficit.

Over the years I spoke to many graduating classes, always pleading with them: Whatever you do, do not go forth.
Nobody listened. They kept right on going forth anyhow. And look what we have today: Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton.

So I will not waste my breath today pleading with you not to go forth. Instead I limit myself to a simple plea: When you get out there in the world try not to make it any worse than it already is. I thought it might help to give you a list of the hundred most important things you can do to avoid making the world any worse. Since I’m shooting for 15 minutes, however, there is no time to give you all 100. You will have to make do with 10. Short as the public attention span is these days, nobody could remember 100 anyhow. Even 10 may be asking too much. You remember the old joke about how television news would have reported the story of the Ten Commandments: “God today issued 10 commandments, three of which are…”

Here is my list: 10 things to help you avoid making the world worse than it already is.

One: Bend down once in a while and smell a flower.

Two: Don’t go around in clothes that talk. There is already too much talk in the world. We’ve got so many talking people there’s hardly anybody left to listen. With radio and television and telephones we’ve got talking furniture. With bumper stickers we’ve got talking cars. Talking clothes just add to the uproar. If you simply cannot resist being an incompetent klutz, don’t boast about it by wearing a tee shirt that says ‘underachiever and proud of it.’ Being dumb is not the worst thing in the world, but letting your clothes shout it out loud depresses the neighbors and embarrasses your parents.

Point three follows from point two, and it’s this: Listen once in a while. It’s amazing what you can hear. On a hot summer day in the country you can hear the corn growing, the crack of a tin roof buckling under the power of the sun. In a real old-fashioned parlor silence so deep you can hear the dust settling on the velveteen settee, you might hear the footsteps of something sinister gaining on you, or a heart-stoppingly beautiful phrase from Mozart you haven’t heard since childhood, or the voice of somebody - now gone - whom you loved. Or sometime when you’re talking up a storm so brilliant, so charming that you can hardly believe how wonderful you are, pause just a moment and listen to yourself. It’s good for the soul to hear yourself as others hear you, and next time maybe, just maybe, you will not talk so much, so loudly, so brilliantly, so charmingly, so utterly shamefully foolishly.

Point four: Sleep in the nude. In an age when people don’t even get dressed to go to the theater anymore, it’s silly getting dressed up to go to bed. What’s more, now that you can no longer smoke, drink gin or eat bacon and eggs without somebody trying to make you feel ashamed of yourself, sleeping in the nude is one deliciously sinful pleasure you can commit without being caught by the Puritan police squads that patrol the nation.

Point five: Turn off the TV once or twice a month and pick up a book. It will ease your blood pressure. It might even wake up your mind, but if it puts you to sleep you’re still a winner. Better to sleep than have to watch that endless parade of body bags the local news channel marches through your parlor.
Six: Don’t take your gun to town. Don’t even leave it home unless you lock all your bullets in a safe deposit box in a faraway bank. The surest way to get shot is not to drop by the nearest convenience store for a bottle of milk at midnight, but to keep a loaded pistol in you own house. What about your constitutional right to bear arms, you say. I would simply point out that you don’t have to exercise a constitutional right just because you have it. You have the constitutional right to run for president of the United States, abut most people have too much sense to insist on exercising it.

Seven: Learn to fear the automobile. It is not the trillion-dollar deficit that will finally destroy America. It is the automobile. Congressional studies of future highway needs are terrifying. A typical projection shows that when your generation is middle-aged, Interstate 95 between Miami and Fort Lauderdale will have to be 22 lanes wide to avert total paralysis of south Florida. Imagine an entire country covered with asphalt. My grandfather’s generation shot horses. Yours had better learn to shoot automobiles.

Eight: Have some children. Children add texture to your life. They will save you from turning into old fogies before you’re middle-aged. They will teach you humility. When old age overtakes you, as it inevitably will I’m sorry to say, having a few children will provide you with people who will feel guilty when they’re accused of being ungrateful for all you’ve done for them. It’s almost impossible nowadays to find anybody who will feel guilty about anything, including mass murder. When you reach the golden years, your best bet is children, the ingrates.

Nine: Get married. I know you don’t want to hear this, but getting married will give you a lot more satisfaction in the long run than your BMW. It provides a standard set of parent for your children and gives you that second income you will need when it’s time to send those children to Connecticut College. What’s more, without marriage you will have practically no material at all to work with when you decide to write a book or hire a psychiatrist.

When you get married, whatever you do, do not ask a lawyer to draw up a marriage contract spelling out how your lives will be divvied up when you get divorced. It’s hard enough making a marriage work without having a blueprint for its destruction drawn up before you go to the altar. Speaking of lawyers brings me to point nine and a half, which is: Avoid lawyers unless you have nothing to do with the rest of your life but kill time.

And finally, point 10: Smile. You’re one of the luckiest people in the world. You’re living in America. Enjoy it. I feel obliged to give you this banal advice because, although I’ve lived through the Great Depression, World War II, terrible wars in Korea and Vietnam, and half a century of cold war, I have never seen a time when there were so many Americans so angry or so mean-spirited or so sour about the country as there are today.

Anger has become the national habit. You see it on the sullen faces of fashion models scowling out of magazines. it pours out of the radio. Washington television hams snarl and shout at each other on television. Ordinary people abuse politicians and their wives with shockingly coarse insults. Rudeness has become an acceptable way of announcing you are sick and tired of it all and are not going to take it anymore. Vile speech is justified on the same ground and is inescapable.

America is angry at Washington, angry at the press, angry at immigrants, angry at television, angry at traffic, angry at people who are well off and angry at people who are poor, angry at blacks and angry at whites. The old are angry at the young, the young angry at the old. Suburbs are angry at the cities, cities are angry at the suburbs. Rustic America is angry at both whenever urban and suburban invaders threaten the rustic sense of having escaped from God’s angry land. A complete catalog of the varieties of bile poisoning the American soul would fill a library. The question is: why? Why has anger become the common response to the inevitable ups and down of nation life? The question is baffling not just because the American habit even in the worst of times has traditionally been mindless optimism, but also because there is so little for Americans to be angry about nowadays. We are the planet’s undisputed super power. For the first time in 60 years we enjoy something very much like real peace. We are by all odds the wealthiest nation on earth, though admittedly our vast treasure is not evenly shared.

Forgive me the geezer’s sin of talking about “the bad old days,” but the country is still full of people who remember when 35 dollars a week was considered a living wage for a whole family. People whine about being overtaxed, yet in the 1950s the top income-tax rate was 91 percent, universal military service was the law of the land, and racial segregation was legally enforced in large parts of the country.

So what explains the fury and dyspepsia? I suspect it’s the famous American ignorance of history. People who know nothing of even the most recent past are easily gulled by slick operators who prosper by exploiting the ignorant. Among these rascals are our politicians. Politicians flourish by sowing discontent. They triumph by churning discontent into anger. Press, television and radio also have a big financial stake in keeping the county boiling mad. Good news, as you know, does not sell papers or keep millions glued to radios and TV screens. So when you get out there in the world, ladies and gentlemen, you’re going to find yourself surrounded by shouting, red-in-the-face, stomping-mad politicians, radio yakmeisters and, yes sad to say, newspaper columnists, telling you ‘you never had it so bad’ and otherwise trying to spoil your day.

When they come at you with that , ladies and gentlemen, give them a wink and a smile and a good view of your departing back. And as you stroll away, bend down to smell a flower.

Now it seems I have run past the 15-minute limit and will have to buy my own lunch. That’s life Class of 1995. No free lunch.

My sermon is done.

[Tucky]

Thanks Jamie. "Growing Up" is a wonderful book, too.

I was lucky enough to hear Buckminster Fuller speak at a high school graduation in the mid 70's. Seems he generally refused all graduation speech opportunities but would accept one when he felt like it. This was a tiny alternative school (Stowe School- VT) where my younger brother was graduating in a class of maybe 20. Bucky stands up and just looks out and after about a minute says "I love this moment, I have no idea what I'm going to say", and then he spoke for over 2 hours until in desperation the headmaster asked him to stop (The parents were freezing, they were well dressed up in a cold Vermont field in May- the students were all in down). Startled, Bucky agreed and then went on for another 15 minutes, stopped mid sentence and sat down to relieved applause and a standing ovation from the kids and a few of us. I don't remember every word, but he basically predicted the internet, information being everywhere and free. Told the kids this was final exam time for mankind. I can see him standing there today.

[kimbottles]

Thanks Jamie. "Growing Up" is a wonderful book, too.

I was lucky enough to hear Buckminster Fuller speak at a high school graduation in the mid 70's. Seems he generally refused all graduation speech opportunities but would accept one when he felt like it. This was a tiny alternative school (Stowe School- VT) where my younger brother was graduating in a class of maybe 20. Bucky stands up and just looks out and after about a minute says "I love this moment, I have no idea what I'm going to say", and then he spoke for over 2 hours until in desperation the headmaster asked him to stop (The parents were freezing, they were well dressed up in a cold Vermont field in May- the students were all in down). Startled, Bucky agreed and then went on for another 15 minutes, stopped mid sentence and sat down to relieved applause and a standing ovation from the kids and a few of us. I don't remember every word, but he basically predicted the internet, information being everywhere and free. Told the kids this was final exam time for mankind. I can see him standing there today.

Hey! Buckminster Fuller spoke at our university graduation.
I don't remember a thing he said.
At age 27 I was just glad I had finally made it all the way to a degree and had a job promised to me (Peat Marwick Mitchell & Co).
Suzy graduated at the same time and from the same university.
Our two children ages 6 and 4 attended with us.
We had $100 between us.

[Olaf Hart]

Kim, that's sailing close to the wind.

I had to get a job picking Landrover parts for a couple of months between graduation and my Intern year.

I realised after my first 80 hour hospital shift it was not a good idea.

But there were no children in that situation, we were younger and full of optimism.

And no student debt.

[BeauV]

[SloopJonB]

I wonder what Baker would have to say about the anger now?

[BeauV]

[Jamie]

Thanks Jamie. "Growing Up" is a wonderful book, too.

I was lucky enough to hear Buckminster Fuller speak at a high school graduation in the mid 70's. Seems he generally refused all graduation speech opportunities but would accept one when he felt like it. This was a tiny alternative school (Stowe School- VT) where my younger brother was graduating in a class of maybe 20. Bucky stands up and just looks out and after about a minute says "I love this moment, I have no idea what I'm going to say", and then he spoke for over 2 hours until in desperation the headmaster asked him to stop (The parents were freezing, they were well dressed up in a cold Vermont field in May- the students were all in down). Startled, Bucky agreed and then went on for another 15 minutes, stopped mid sentence and sat down to relieved applause and a standing ovation from the kids and a few of us. I don't remember every word, but he basically predicted the internet, information being everywhere and free. Told the kids this was final exam time for mankind. I can see him standing there today.

That would have been a talk to listen to. He was so, so far ahead of the times.

[cap10ed]

Love those critter pictures Beau.