The sales lady at the hardware store said, “30 days.” She then smiled and said, “Unless you sit on it.”
“How will I know if it fits?” She looks at me and asks “Are your pants a 42″ waist? Then you’ll fit just fine.”
“What does my waist have to do with it? It’s my package that I’m concerned about. I cant have it hanging in the water!”
So we are going out tomorrow night…
So they did a poll to see if native born, all American citizens know why we celebrate the 4th of July. They found that about three-quarters of residents — 74% — know the U.S. declared its independence from Great Britain in 1776. The bad news for the academic system — 26% do not. This 26% includes one-fifth who are unsure and 6% who thought the U.S. separated from another nation. Countries mentioned are France, China, Japan, Mexico, and Spain.
I think this is an AMAZING result. Considering that a good 10% of Americans probably have Alzheimer’s. Then another 5% are just regular crazy people. And probably 11% of Americans got offended that some annoying academic calling them up during dinner to ask inane question and answered, “The United States won its independence from the country of Bite Me.” You can see in the chart below how we all fared.
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Funny that they didn’t ask “What country was most responsible in financing and supporting the American revolution with their troops and navy?” My guess is that only 3% know that answer.
So enjoy the 4th and be sure to eat a hot dog with some American fries!
So we are all sitting on the tarmac on Maui after the mule pushed us away from the gate awaiting the short flight to Honolulu. But why aren’t we going anywhere? We’re just sitting. Five minutes become ten minutes and not a word from the cockpit. Then we saw several fire trucks come across the field. “It looks like they are heading our way!” WTF! Is the plane on fire? Should we get ready to evacuate? Then they drove right past us to the other end of the airport. Whew! They were only on a training exercise.
So now the pilot comes on the PA. “Sorry folks but our computer has a glitch and we need to re-boot the plane.” Re-boot the plane? Now that is a first for me. He continued, “we will have to shut down all the systems and re-start them in sequence.” “It should only take ten minutes and then we will be off to Honolulu.”
Sure enough that’s what they did. The engines went off, the AC shout down and it got real quiet. Then things started to hum and blow again and our Mokulele Airlines Embraer “E-jet” flight MW203 was off! I gotta admit the plane is new and very cool. Since it uses fly-by-wire technology it makes sense that they needed to re-boot it. My only hope is that they never have to re-boot in the air!
I wonder, do they still call it a “Cockpit” if there is a lady pilot?
I went to the Housewares Convention in Chicago this week. It was cold but dry and nice to be in the windy city. If you want to know why I went.. you have to call me!
So anyway I shook hands with John Edwards, ex-democratic 2004 VP dude at a breakfast with Steve Forbes (the Forbes magazine guy). John was real nice to me. He wanted to know my name and looked me in the eye (a sincere jesture). We shared a few words and it was very nice. I wish I had a camera then!
Then I met Alton Brown and his wife (I forgot her name already). Alton is a favorite of my sister Sue and is a big time celeb from Food Network for his show “Good Eats”. He gave me his newest book and autographed to Pam per my request. I hope they take up my invite to visit us on Maui.
In The Ship of Fools Bosch is imagining that the whole of mankind is voyaging through the seas of time on a ship, a small ship, that is representative of humanity. Sadly, every one of the representatives is a fool. This is how we live, says Bosch–we eat, dring, flirt, cheat, play silly games, pursue unattainable objectives. Meanwhile our ship drifts aimlessly and we never reach the harbour. The fools are not the irreligious, since promiment among them are a monk and a nun, but they are all those who live “in stupidity”. Bosch laughs, and it is sad laugh. Which one of us does not sail in the wretched discomfort of the ship of human folly? Eccentric and secret genius that he was, Bosch not only moved the heart but scandalized it into full awareness. The sinister and monstrous things that he brought forth are the hidden creatures of our inward self-love: he externalizes the ugliness within, and so his misshapen demons have an effect beyond curiosity. We feel a hateful kinship with them. The Ship of Fools is not about other people, it is about us.
A Japanese teen-age motorcycle rider died Wednesday as he turned to give the finger to police officers who had given up pursuing him and slammed into a taxi, police said. A 20-year-old friend of the 19-year-old unnamed boy killed in the crash also sustained a broken jaw. The driver of the taxi into which the motorcycle rider crashed was not hurt. Police said officers in a patrol car noticed the motorcycle riders had ignored a traffic light shortly after midnight, so turned on their siren and began chasing them. But the motorcycle was able to maneuver the narrow roads far easier than the patrol car and soon sped off some hundreds of meters ahead of the police. Realizing the chase was futile, officers turned off their wailing sirens. The two students riding the motorcycle turned around toward the officers and gave them the finger.
Cartoon character Homer Simpson topped the poll of the greatest Americans, beating Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King to the top spot. A survey published today has found nearly two-thirds of the world doesn’t like US president George W Bush. The survey – carried out for the BBC – asked people from eleven countries what they thought of America. ICM and other international pollsters asked people in Australia, Canada, Brazil, France, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Russia, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States for their opinions. Americans as a whole did better, however, with 50% of respondents expressing fairly or very favorable views of people from the US.
Maybe we should run him for president!
Last week Tom Ridge announced that his ridiculous color-coded alert scheme has “drawbacks.” Um, what, you mean like unnecessarily terrifying half the population and being laughed at by the other half? No, Ridge thinks that the alerts are “too general to provide targeted warnings,” according to the Associated Press. Great – so does this mean we can look forward to Green, Light Green, Aqua, Blue, Yellow, Sepia, Burnt Sienna, Orange, Dark Orange, Red, Brown? I hope so! However, some people have noted that during the Orange Alerts we’ve been subjected to over the last few months, there haven’t been any actual terrorism attempts, so perhaps either a) the intelligence isn’t very good, in which case why bother with a stupid threat level, or b) they’ve got other reasons for elevating the level – for example, it’s the kind of thing that comes in useful when you’re trying to persuade America that we need to bomb other countries. I’ve got a better idea though. Whenever the threat level is elevated above yellow, we should raise Tom Ridge up on a large flagpole, with his pants round his ankles and wearing a dunce’s cap, and then pelt him with tomatoes until the level is lowered to yellow again.
Remember the song by Elvis Costello, ‘Accidents will happen’? Well, today I had an encounter with my wall. I was going up the stairs at home with a sandwich in one hand and a glass of Grape Juice in the other, heavy in anticipation of playing ‘Zelda’ on my Game Cube. And then in one swoop. I fell on the stairs and ran my forehead into the facing wall. Dazed with Juice everywhere I looked up to see a 3-inch dent in the wall where my head hit it, and I can see my skin in it too! GROSS!
So today I had a rude reminder that I too can be a victim of just living.