- Joan Rivers
Friday, September 30, 2022
FUNNY FRIDAY
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Yesterday was my wedding anniversary so weddings and anniversaries are the theme for this Funny Friday but, I hasten to add, the jokes are no reflection on my matrimonial state or on The Boss.
Some of the jokes are somewhat risqué, also not a reflection on The Boss.
Enjoy, dear readers.
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SOME HUMOUR:
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A loving couple was celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary, privately, at home with a couple of bottles of champagne.
A bit tipsy and feeling very intimate the husband turns to his wife and asks, "Tell me truthfully, have you ever been unfaithful to me?"
"Well," she replied, "since you ask, to tell you the truth I have been unfaithful on three occasions."
"What? How could you?"
"Let me tell you about it," she said. "The first time was back when we were first married. You needed open heart surgery and we didn't have the money, so I went to bed with the surgeon and got him to operate for free."
"Gee! That was noble of you. And, besides, I guess I should be grateful. But, tell me, what about the second time?"
"Do you remember that you wanted the position of the, and they were going to pass you over for someone else? Well, I went to bed with the President and the Vice President and they gave you the job."
"Hell, I think I could have done it on my own. But, then again, I guess I should be grateful. And so, what about the third time?"
"Do you remember two years ago when you wanted to become President of the Baseball Team, and you were missing 53 votes...?"
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On their 50th wedding anniversary and during the banquet celebrating it, Tom was asked to give his friends a brief account of the benefits of a marriage of such long duration.
"Tell us Tom, just what is it you have learned from all those wonderful years with your wife?"
Tom responds, "Well, I've learned that marriage is the best teacher of all. It teaches you loyalty, meekness, forbearance, self-restraint, forgiveness -- and a great many other qualities you wouldn't have needed if you'd stayed single."
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It’s our wedding anniversary today. My wife and I have been happily married for two years now.
1995 and 2009.
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A gynecologist waits on his last patient, who does not arrive...
After an hour, he makes a gin and tonic to relax. After he settles into an armchair to read the newspaper, he hears the doorbell ring.
It’s the patient, who arrives all embarrassed and apologises for the delay.
“It doesn't matter,” answers the doctor.
“Look, I was having a gin and tonic while waiting. Do you want one to help you relax?”
“I accept, thanks!” She answers.
He gives her a drink, sits down in front of her and they start talking.
Suddenly someone is heard opening the entrance office door.
The doctor looks worried, gets up, and says:
“My wife! Quick, take off your clothes and spread your legs, otherwise, she might think there is some nonsense going on!”
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The Tax Office suspected a fishing boat owner wasn't paying proper wages to his deckhand, so they sent an agent to investigate him.
Tax Office agent: “I need a list of your employees and how much you pay them."
Boat Owner: “Well, there's Clarence, my deckhand, he's been with me for 3 years. I pay him $1,000 a week plus free room and board. Then there's the mentally challenged guy. He works about 18 hours every day and does about 90% of the work around here. He makes about $30 per week, pays his own room and board, and I buy him a bottle of Bacardi rum and a dozen bottles of beer every Saturday night so he can cope with life. He also gets to sleep with my wife occasionally."
Tax Office agent: “That's the guy I want to talk to - the mentally challenged one."
Boat Owner: “That would be me. What would you like to know?"
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Some explanations to gather the true beauty and cleverness of the following limerick . . .
- Styli is the plural form of stylus, a small implement with a pointed end used for engraving and tracing.
- For Freud, the snake is the symbol of the penis. A woman experiencing a snake dream represents her sexuality and relationship with men. The styli are probably similarly symbolic.
- Wemyss is a parish on the south coast of Fife, Scotland, lying on the Firth of Forth, as it is for anyone with that name.
The Honourable Winifred Wemyss
Saw styli and snakes in her demyss
And these she enjeud
Until she heard Freud
Say: “Nothing is quite what it semyss.”
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GALLERY:
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RELIGION SPOT:
God the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit are going on vacation...
God the Father says "Let's vacation in Israel".
God the Son, Jesus, says "Too many bad memories there. Let's vacation in Berkeley."
God the Father says "I'm not into the Mother God, hippy vibe."
The Holy Spirit says "I know, let's go to Rome and visit The Vatican"
God the Father and Son ask - "Why?"
The Holy Spirit shrugs and replies "I've just never been there."
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CORN CORNER:
At first there were only 25 letters in the alphabet.
Nobody knew why.
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Anyone know where a guy can find someone to hang out with, maybe have a few beers with, talk to, and kinda just enjoy spending time with?
Asking for a friend.
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I told my mum I won the Leslie Nielsen award at school today
"What's that?" she asked
"A big building full of children and teachers, but that's not important right now" I replied
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My wife and I talked about it, and we decided we don't want children.
We're telling them tonight. Hope they understand.
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Thursday, September 29, 2022
EMAILS: READERS WRITE AND MORE COMMENTS
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I recently posted an item on tips and advice on emails, then added some of my own comments and observations. I asked what others thought and very quickly received some responses, which are set out below. It also reminded me of an email bugbear that really p’s me off, which I hadn’t mentioned previously but also do so below.
Thanks to those who responded.
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From Steve M:
My biggest bugbear is when you ask a question or two within an email and people don’t answer the question! Sometimes I even put them in dot point to make it easier, but it makes no difference – still no response.
Patient: People are ignoring me, doctor!
Doctor: Next!
Steve m
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From Philip C:
G’day Otto,
My only addition to your email protocols is more about sensible behaviour than email but here it is …
Never send an email in anger regardless of the provocation. If you need to send a response (1) draft it first
(2) don’t include the recipients email address on the draft, to prevent accidents
(3) delete your draft after 24 hours and call the intended recipient.
My very best regards my friend 😊
Philip
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From Sandy J:
I agree wholeheartedly with the email etiquette.
I hate using Dear Mr Smith when responding or writing emails, they might be proper bastards, or paedophiles, serial rapists, the list could go on and on, and I am sending them a nice salutation. It will be Mr Smith in future.
Sandy
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Which brings me to my gripe . . .
- Having been blindsided by it, I hate the use of BCC, which stands for Blind Carbon Copy.
- It means that the sender of an email can include one or more recipients whose identities and presence cannot be seen by the other recipients. In other words, secret invisible recipients who see and read what is happening but only the sender who has included them/him/her is aware.
- Normally when you send an email, recipients can see who else received the email because they can see the To and CC fields. But they cannot see the BCC field which means that if you BCC someone on an email, the other people who received the same email will not know.
- Some people have referred to it as digital eavesdropping.
- If you can’t see a BCC function on your toolbar, click on Options, you will find it.
- Some people BCC to themselves for record purposes and archiving.
- It has also been justified to keep email addresses private in group sends.
- So far as I am aware, if a BCC person hits “Reply All”, the BCC person’s identity gets disclosed and every recipient becomes aware of the BCC person’s presence. Hardly the stuff to engender warm fuzzy feelings in the group.
- Call me a fuddy duddy but I think the use of BCC is sneaky and unethical.
- It also reinforces that if you don’t want other people to see it, don’t post it, whether it be an unkind comment or a sex tape.
- I personally think the day will come when photographs of children under 18 will be banned from social media – how many children have been embarrassed by photos they don’t want others to see being dredged up from past sites?
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One final word for the younger readers . . .
The term carbon copy comes from the days before computers, before copiers, when people used typewriters and inserted sheets of carbon paper to make instantaneous multiple copies.
Wednesday, September 28, 2022
ANECDOTES
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Einstein was once travelling from Princeton on a train when the conductor came down the aisle, punching the tickets of every passenger.
When he came to Einstein, Einstein reached in his vest pocket. He couldn’t find his ticket, so he reached in his trouser pockets. It wasn’t there, so he looked in his briefcase but couldn’t find it. Then he looked in the seat beside him. He still couldn’t find it.
The conductor said, ‘Dr. Einstein, I know who you are. We all know who you are. I’m sure you bought a ticket. Don’t worry about it.’
Einstein nodded appreciatively.
The conductor continued down the aisle punching tickets. As he was ready to move to the next car, he turned around and saw the great physicist down on his hands and knees looking under his seat for his ticket.
The conductor rushed back and said, ‘Dr. Einstein, Dr. Einstein, don’t worry, I know who you are. No problem. You don’t need a ticket. I’m sure you bought one.’
Einstein looked at him and said, “Young man, I too, know who I am. What I don’t know is where I’m going. That’s why I am searching my ticket”
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In a session of the Academy of Sciences of the (former) USSR, the agronomist Lysenko, founder of “Creative Darwinism,” gave a talk on the inheritance of acquired traits.
When he finished his report, Lev Landau, who was in attendance, asked, “So, you argue that if we will cut off the ear of a cow, and the ear of its offspring, and so on, sooner or later the earless cows will start to be born?”
Lysenko replied, “Yes, that’s right.”
“Then,” started Landau, “how you explain the virgins still being born?”
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Theodore Maiman was an American engineer and physicist credited with the invention of the first working laser.
The laser was successfully fired on May 16, 1960. On July 7, 1960 in a press conference in Manhattan, Maiman and his employer, Hughes Aircraft Company, announced the laser to the world.
But Maiman found his invention the centre of controversy when he admitted to reporters that the laser, an acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation, could be used as a weapon.
To Maiman`s dismay, national headlines exaggerated what he had said. A large, red headline in one publication said, “L.A. man discovers scientific death ray.“
The late actress Bette Davis even came up to Maiman at a party once and asked how it felt to be responsible for the possible destruction of humanity.
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Two English boys, being friends of Charles Darwin, thought one day that they would play a joke on him.
They caught a butterfly, a grasshopper, a beetle and a centipede, and out of the creatures they made a strange, composite insect. They took the centipede’s body, the butterfly’s wings, the grasshopper’s legs and the beetle’s head and they glued them together carefully. Then, with their new bug in a box, they knocked at Darwin’s door.
“We caught this bug in a field,” they said. “Can you tell us what kind of bug it is, sir?”
Darwin looked at the bug and then he looked at the boys. He smiled slightly.
“Did it hum when you caught it?” he asked.
“Yes,” they answered, nudging one another.
“Then,” said Darwin, “It is a humbug.”
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In 1938, Louis Pasteur was evicted from Paris because he insisted that infection was caused by microbes and that immunity could be gained through vaccines.
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At a French airport one day, the customs official looked suspiciously at Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s passport, in which his occupation was listed simply as “Producer.”
“What do you produce?” he asked.
“Gooseflesh,” Hitchcock replied.
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The U.S. Bureau of Internal Revenue astounded Capone by demanding millions of dollars in back taxes.
“They can’t collect legal taxes from illegal money,” he objected.
They could; in 1931 Capone was imprisoned for tax evasion.
Tuesday, September 27, 2022
BADASSES FROM HISTORY, continued
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CHINGH SHIH
Ching Shih, also known as Zheng Yi Sao (1775–1844) was a Chinese pirate leader who was active in the South China Sea from 1801 to 1810.
About:
- A Chinese prostitute, she married a pirate named Zheng Yi at age 26 in 1801. She was renowned for beauty, intelligence and business acumen.
- She was named Zheng Yi Sao ("wife of Zheng Yi") by the people of Guangdong.
- After the death of her husband in 1807, she took control of his pirate confederation with the support of his adopted son Zhang Bao, with whom she entered into a relationship and later married.
- As the unofficial commander of the Guangdong Pirate Confederation, her fleet (known as the Red Flag Fleet) was composed of 400 junks and between 40,000 to 60,000 pirates in 1805.
- Her ships entered into conflict with several major powers, such as the East India Company, the Portuguese Empire, and Qing China.
- She ran her ships with an iron fist and was super successful. Murder and torture were used by her when she thought the situation required.
- As leader of the Red Flag Fleet, Ching Shih laid down a strict code of laws for her men in order to maintain unity and discipline in the fleet. The code was strictly enforced.
- Anyone giving their own orders contrary to those given by a superior or, disobeying orders that came from a superior, was beheaded on the spot.
- A common collective fund was created for the use of the loot by all members of the Red Flag Fleet. After a piracy expedition, the loot was put up for group inspection. Then it was registered and accounted for by a purser and then distributed by the fleet leader. The ship that brought a particular lot of loot was paid twenty percent of the amount and the rest eighty percent went into the common fund. Anybody withholding booty for the first time was whipped and afterwards was beheaded. In case of withholding large amount, even first-time offenders could be beheaded.
- Deserters had their ears chopped off.
- No member of the pirate fleet was allowed to steal from the common fund or rob the villages that supplied the fleet.
- If women were captured during a raid, the ones deemed unattractive were released unharmed and those deemed attractive were ransomed. Pirates raping women were beheaded, and if there was consensual sexual intercourse then the pirate was beheaded and the woman was thrown overboard with cannon balls tied to her legs. Any pirate wishing to take a captive woman as his wife could do so under the condition that he would have to be faithful to her all his life.
- In 1808, the Qing dynasty government of China launched a naval expedition against the Red Flag Fleet, but it was defeated. The Qing imperial government reportedly had only boats left for its naval use after this expedition as all their ships were captured by her.
Cheng Shih depicted in an 1836 history of piracy
- They fought for two years and even brought in Dutch and British ships.
- From September 1809 to January 1810, the Red Flag Fleet suffered a series of defeats at the hands of the Portuguese navy flotilla stationed at the island of Macau. This series of battles is collectively known in Chinese history as the ‘Battle of the Tiger’s Mouth’. This made the fleet weak and it became impossible for Ching Shih to continue in the business of piracy.
- Following her defeat in the Battle of the Tiger’s mouth, in the same year, she accepted an amnesty offer by the Qing imperial government that enabled her to surrender and retain the wealth earned from piracy. Her army of pirates was also pardoned and most of them had to merely surrender their weapons in exchange for their freedom.
- At the time of her surrender, she personally commanded 24 ships and over 1,400 pirates.
- She died in 1844 at the age of about 68, having lived a relatively peaceful and prosperous life since the end of her career in piracy, having owned and run a brothel and gambling den.
- She has been described as history's most successful female pirate, and one of the most successful pirates in history.
- She was also a pioneer, albeit in a life of crime and brutality, a powerful woman at a time when women in positions of power were a rarity. Especially in the world of crime in Asia, it was impossible for a woman to rise to the top given the various social and religious restrictions on wome
- By the way:
In Disney’s ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ franchise, she is the inspiration behind the character ‘Mistress Ching’, who is one of the nine pirate lords.
Monday, September 26, 2022
EMAILS
Plus some of my comments:
- I know there are people with a contrary view, but I hate getting long email chains where the previous emails no longer have any relevance. Delete them when responding.
- I am not fond of salutations such as “Dear Mr Smith“, "Dear Colleague" etc – a lot of the time I don’t even know the other party so they are not dear to me. I simply start my emails “Mr Smith:” and then go to the next line.
- For the same reason, I feel “Regards” and “Kind Regards” are unnecessary.
- Use “reply all” when that is appropriate but be clear that there may be persons in the “all” you may not want to see your response.
- Read again before sending.
- Make sure your attachments are attached. Saves having to send again.
- Don’t use wanky fonts and stick with black unless quoting slabs of information etc.
- Respond quickly or otherwise at least say that you will be responding.
- Forgive Otto if he breaks the above rules.
What do readers think. Agree or not? More personal rules you follow or you feel others should follow? Would like to hear.
There is truth in the following . . .
Sunday, September 25, 2022
SITESEEING
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Some items from various sites . . .
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23 September 2022
Over 1,600 Books Were Banned During the Past School Year (US)
PEN America, a body which has monitored book banning in the US since 1982, has released figures that 1,600 books were banned in schools in the last year. Whether or not you agree with the subject matter or the content, censorship is a matter that should concern us all.
Between July 2021 and June 2022, the report—Banned in the USA: The Growing Movement to Censor Books in Schools—found 2,532 instances of individual bans, which covered 1,648 unique books. The bans took place in 138 school districts across 32 states; in total, those school districts enrol nearly 4 million students. PEN believes more exist than those detected.
About 41 percent of the banned titles explicitly address LGBTQ themes, making these the biggest target of the bans. Books involving sexual content—such as stories about teen pregnancy, sexual assault and abortion—account for 22 percent of the titles. About 21 percent directly address race and racism, while 40 percent feature major characters of colour.
The team behind Banned in the USA wanted to determine where book bans originated. They found that in many instances, the bans were the calculated result of work by advocacy groups.
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22 September, 2022
Cross Writing: A Peculiar Way to Save Paper And Postage
Back in the 1800s, when both paper and postage were expensive (the cost of posting a letter depended on how many sheets of paper you used), it was common among folks to write on a sheet of paper the regular way, and once they had run out of room, turn the paper sideways and keep writing. The practice was called cross-writing or cross-hatching.
A crossed letter might seem illegible at first, but once you become familiar with it you adjust and learn to ignore the script across. Still, a crossed letter was not enjoyable to read, even in its heyday. In his essay Eight or Nine Wise Words about Letter-Writing, noted author Lewis Carroll wrote: “When you get to the end of a notesheet, and find you have more to say, take another piece of paper—a whole sheet, or a scrap, as the case may demand: but whatever you do, don’t cross! Remember the old proverb Cross-writing makes cross reading.”
Examples of cross writing:
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22 September 2022
Prairie dogs build their burrows with a flat orifice at one end and a mounded one at the other. During a breeze, the different surface geometries create a pressure differential via the Bernoulli effect, forcing air to flow from the flat end to the mounded end, ventilating the burrow.
Byzantine princess Theophano, wife of Holy Roman emperor Otto was resented by the emperor’s courtiers for her peculiar habits, including “luxurious tastes”, like demanding to take a bath daily and using “a golden double prong to bring food to her mouth”, instead of eating with her hands.
When Madonna’s first single was released, the record label promoted her as a Black artist, down to making the cover a collage of downtown New York featuring Black people rather than a picture of her. This ended when she convinced the label to let her shoot a music video.
Flowers exposed to the playback sound of a flying bee produce sweeter nectar within 3 minutes, with sugar concentration averaging 20% higher.
Shopping carts were not popular when they were first invented. Men found them to be effeminate and women thought they looked too much like a baby carriage.
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22 September 2022
The Ocean Cleanup Conceptualizes Its Third Massive Apparatus to Remove Trash from the ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch’
Sadly known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a wide swath of ocean between the U.S. coast and Japan is an enormous vortex of trash. A gyre, or system of currents, surrounds the area and sucks debris and litter into its rotation, trapping hundreds of millions of kilograms of plastic waste within its 20 million square kilometers.
Back in 2018, The Ocean Cleanup engineered a slow-moving apparatus called System 001 designed to wade through the patch to retrieve garbage with a massive net. The nonprofit, which wants to remove 90 percent of floating plastic by 2040, is now conceptualizing its third iteration of the machine that will be the largest and most efficient model to date. System 3 will now be comprised of three vessels that rely on drones to identify waste hotspots. The ships will haul a massive 2,500-meter wide and four-meter deep net system that sweeps the targeted areas to gather debris and funnel it to a sizable retention zone. Once collected and hauled from the water, the waste is organized into shipping containers and sent for recycling or repurposing.
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22 September 2022
Why Hunger Stones Are Terrifying People In A Drought-Ravaged Europe
Recent heatwaves and ensuing droughts in Europe are not exactly causing people to be comfortable – but the re-emergence of “hunger stones” due to low water levels definitely are not helping matters at all.
Hunger stones are a hydrological monument found in some Central Europe rivers and are revealed when water levels drop. They date back to the 15th-19th centuries, purposefully embedded to warn future people of hard times ahead.
Some also bear watermarks with dates of previous droughts, which is delicious primary evidence for those interested in historical weather patterns.
Researchers from Masaryk University recently studied one of the most famous hunger stones in Czech history. “It expressed that drought had brought a bad harvest, lack of food, high prices, and hunger for poor people. Before 1900, the following droughts are commemorated on the stone: 1417, 1616, 1707, 1746, 1790, 1800, 1811, 1830, 1842, 1868, 1892, and 1893.”
The stone lies in the Elbe River near the German border, and bears the inscription “if you see me, weep.”
Europe’s current drought is the worst in over 500 years, and combined with record-breaking heatwaves, people are understandably already on high-alert.
That said, the hunger stones have emerged before, most recently in 2018.
As things regarding the worldwide climate continue to deteriorate, we’re likely to see them again, and sooner rather than later.
Scientists believe things will get significantly worse, in fact, with shifting wind and weather patterns making it more likely that air pressure systems will hang around longer, creating even lengthier droughts.
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