SENTIMENTAL SATURDAY |
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Photograph by Bob Gentry 8/5/99
A Thought for Today
A kindness started flows forever.
Nice to be back on a day when we're supposed
to rest and be quiet. In my dreams. This is a work-loaded weekend for me, ah but then I'm
off to see Pet Clark in "Sunset Blvd." again on Sunday Night. Great reward. By
the way for those of you lucky enough to live in San Francisco she starts a month long
engagement with "Sunset Blvd." in the city by the bay next week. That gives me
about 31 good reasons to visit my old hometown.
On to today's stuff.
JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE TO SWIM IN THE RIVER
Nicky and Coral joined in some kind of conspiracy to screw up our sentimental Saturday,
almost before we got started. If you want to avoid even a hint of paranoia, skip over the
next items.
Now That the Official Bar-B-Que season is over . . .
If the government has no knowledge of aliens, then why does Title
14, Section 1211 of the Code of Federal Regulations, implemented on July 16, 1969, make it
illegal for U.S. citizens to have any contact with extraterrestrials or their vehicles?
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If you sneeze too hard, you can fracture a rib. If you try to suppress a sneeze, you can
rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck and die.
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Nearly a third of all bottled drinking water purchased in the US is contaminated with
bacteria.
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Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over 1 million
descendants.
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You are more likely to be struck by lightning than to be eaten by a shark. You are more
likely to be infected by flesh-eating bacteria than you are to be struck by lightning.
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If you urinate when swimming in a South American River, you may encounter the Candiru.
Drawn to warmth, this tiny fish is known to follow a stream of urine to its source, swim
inside the body, and flare it's barbed fins. It will remain firmly embedded in the flesh
until surgically removed.
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When a pilot light in a gas barbecue fails to ignite the gas jets properly, it is easy for
you to inhale gas accidentally while trying to light it by hand. If this has happened,
when the match does light, sometimes a trail of flame will blaze from the jet onto your
mouth, filling your lungs with fire. Oddly enough, you would suffocate before burning to
death as the flame would consume the oxygen in every breath you would take.
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The soft plastic headphones used on airplanes create a warm, moist environment in the ear
canal that is ideal for breeding bacteria. Wearing headphones for just an hour will
increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times.
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On a plane, if the passenger in your seat on the incoming flight had serious gas, then you
are sitting on a cushion full of disease-causing microbes.
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Homely criminals get 50% longer jail sentences, on average,
than good-looking criminals.
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Four sunken nuclear submarines sit at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. One, a Russian sub
resting in deep water off of Bermuda, holds 16 live nuclear warheads. Scientists and
oceanographers are unsure what the impact of the escaping plutonium will have, but warn
that corrosion could create the proper chemical environment for a massive nuclear chain
reaction.
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In 1994, electromagnetic interference (EMI) from a nearby
cellular telephone captivated a power wheelchair at a scenic vista in Colorado, sending
the passenger over a cliff.
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More people working in advertising died on the job in 1996 than died while working in
petroleum refining.
GROAN ALONG WITH MITCH.
Pssst. Kathy gives good groans, pass it around. What I mean is my buddy Kathy always sends
me good groaners. Here's one.
A Horse Laugh . . .
A guy is reading his paper when his wife walks up behind him and
smacks him on the back of the head with a frying pan. He says, "What was that
for?"
She says, "I found a piece of paper in your pocket with 'Betty Sue' written on
it." He says, "Jesus, honey...remember last week when I went to the track?
"Betty Sue' was the name of the horse I went there to bet on." She shrugs and
walks away.
Three days later he's reading his paper when she walks up behind him and smacks him on the
back of the head with the frying pan again. He says, "What was that for?" She
says, "Your horse called."
SO YOU THINK YOU'RE COMPUTER ILLITERATE
Stargirl writes:
"This is TRUE stuff!
Doesn't that depress you? Check out the following excerpts from a Wall Street Journal
article by Jim Carlton."
Do you want to save this? No.
Things Go Better With Mac . . .
-Compaq is considering changing the
command "Press Any Key" to "Press Return Key" because of the flood of
calls asking where the "Any" key is.
-AST technical support had a caller complaining that her mouse was hard to control with
the dust cover on. The cover turned out to be the plastic bag the mouse was packaged in.
-Another Compaq technician received a call from a man complaining that the system wouldn't
read word processing files from his old diskettes. After trouble-shooting for magnets and
heat failed to diagnose the problem, it was found that the customer labeled the diskettes
then rolled them into the typewriter to type the labels.
-Another AST customer was asked to send a copy of her defective diskettes. A few days
later a letter arrived from the customer along with Xeroxed copies of the floppies.
-A Dell technician advised his customer to put his troubled floppy back in the drive and
close the door. The customer asked the tech to hold on, and was heard putting the phone
down, getting up and crossing the room to close the door to his room.
-Another Dell customer called to say he couldn't get his computer to fax anything. After
40 minutes of trouble-shooting, the technician discovered the man was trying to fax a
piece of paper by holding it in front of the monitor screen and hitting the
"send" key.
-Another Dell customer needed help setting up a new program, so a Dell tech suggested he
go to the local Egghead. "Yeah, I got me a couple of friends", the customer
replied. When told Egghead was a software store, the man said, "Oh, I thought you
meant for me to find a couple of geeks."
-Yet another Dell customer called to complain that his keyboard no longer worked. He had
cleaned it by filling up his tub with soap and water and soaking the keyboard for a day,
then removing all the keys and washing them individually.
-A Dell technician received a call from a customer who was enraged because his computer
had told him he was "bad and an invalid". The tech explained that the computer's
"bad command" and "invalid" responses shouldn't be taken personally.
-An exasperated caller to Dell Computer Tech Support couldn't get her new Dell Computer to
turn on. After ensuring the computer was plugged in, the technician asked her what
happened when she pushed the power button. Her response, "I pushed and pushed on this
foot pedal and nothing happens." The "foot pedal" turned out to be the
computer's mouse.
-Another customer called Compaq tech support to say her brand-new computer wouldn't work.
She said she unpacked the unit, plugged it in, and sat there for 20 minutes waiting for
something to happen. When asked what happened when she pressed the power switch, she asked
"What power switch?"
LATE NIGHT WITH LENO
Nicky stays up late to catch the Jay Leno show and reports on a girl's answer when Jay
went into the audience to find the most embarrassing first date that a woman ever had.
Here's the winning answer.
Bummer Sticker? . . .
She said it was snowing and cold and the guy took her skiing. It was
a day trip (no overnight). They were strangers, and truly had never met before.
Well, the date went OK, till they were coming back that afternoon. They were going along
in the car and she had to pee real badly, but it was still about an hour more back to
civilization. He said she should try to hold it, and she did . . . for a while. But it
finally came to the point where she told him that he could either stop and let her pee
beside the road, or in the front seat of his car.
They stopped and she went out beside the car and pulled her pants down and started. Well,
she didn't have real good balance, so she sort of let her butt rest against the rear
fender to steady herself. He was a real gentleman and looked the other way.
When she was finished, she quickly noticed that her warm butt had stuck to the fender.
Thoughts of tongues frozen to pump handle nightmares immediately came to mind and she soon
realized that she had a real problem. She was thinking of every way she could to get
released from his fender. He was getting a bit concerned too, and finally called out to
her asking if she was OK. Well, with a red face, she said she was freezing her butt off!
She finally had to ask for assistance. Now this isn't the worst of the story, there's more
to come. She took off her sweater and covered herself as good as she could and asked him
to came around to see if he could help.
After the laughter subsided, they assessed the situation. They had a real problem. They
agreed that they needed something warm to melt her butt off of the fender. Thinking about
the pee that she just sprinkled on the ground made her think that pee is about the only
thing that they had that could get her free.
Well, after exploring every other possible solution, she looked the other way, and so did
he, and proceeded unzip his pants and pee her butt off the fender. The rest of the trip
home there wasn't much conversation.
FINALLY
RoFred sends along another handful of REAL Bummer Sticker.
If You Can Read These, You're Too Close . . .
Borrowed money is the root of all loan sharks.
No good deed goes far enough.
Nothing's either good or bad but plain yogurt.
A gross error is 144 times worse than an error.
Unless you're in the lead, the scenery doesn't change.
There's no place like here.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but two Wrights made an airplane.
It's not the pace of life that concerns me, it's the sudden stop at the end.
Living on Earth is expensive, but it
does include a free trip around the sun.
The only time the world beats a path to your door is if you're in the bathroom.
If God wanted me to touch my toes, he would have put them on my knees.
Never knock on Death's door; ring the doorbell and run (he hates that).
When you're finally holding all the cards, why does everyone else decide to play chess?
Special thanks to Nicky, Coral, Cathy, Stargirl, Jim Carlton of The Wall Street Journal
& to The Jay Leno Show for today's goodies. Tomorrow I'll be back with the Sunday
feature Some of the Best and I hope you join me. Meanwhile have a peaceful Saturday and
sleep warm.
- RM 10/9/99 Previously unpublished |
