I don’t know if you would find this shocking, or funny, or amazing, or ... I’m reading a book entitled CHINA ROAD by Bob Gifford, who is an NPR (National Public Radio) correspondent. This is a true account of his trip on a Chinese highway, about which I will write more in a later posting. I found the following fascinating:
“I tell of the time I visited a racetrack outside of Beijing where people were clearly placing bets on horses. I was astounded to discover that this was going on, since gambling is illegal in China. I thought I would give it a try too, so I approached what looked like a betting window and said that I would like to place a bet. The woman told me that I couldn’t place a bet (betting is illegal in China, she confirmed) but if I wanted to, I could place a guess on one of the horses.
A guess! I could place a guess on one of the horses! So I put down 20 yuan ($2.50) and stood cheering the horse on. The horse didn't win, but it didn’t matter. I would have paid a lot more than $2.50 for the experience, and what it told me about modern China. That a horse-race track (not some secret gambling joint, but an out-in-the-open, everyone-can-see-you horse-race track) was able to operate openly, taking bets on horses, simply by calling the bets something else is quite fantastic.”
Humor -
The wife thought her old sofa was pretty shabby, so she talked her husband into buying a new one. And it looked great! But it made the living room look shabby, so they had the living room repainted. And it really looked good! But it made the rest of the house look shabby, so the convinced her husband that they should have the rest of the house redecorated. And when that was done, WOW! did it look good! But now the house made the exterior look shabby, so they redid the gardens, both front and back. Now their home was a showcase, but that made her husband look shabby, ...
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
A MOST UNUSUAL STORY
I’m always looking for something to read, so I check the New York Times best seller list on Sundays. Then I go down to the local library with my list of titles and authors, and ask, “Do you have any of these available?” Often they do not because the books are so popular. One title that caught my eye is most unusual: “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society,” by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows.
So when I was at the library the other day, there was a copy of the Guernsey book available, which the librarian retrieved for me. She had laid the book on the table while she went looking for another volume for me, when another woman came sweeping by. She glanced at the book, then at me, and said, “Oh, that’s a good one. You’ll enjoy it!”
Well, of the three books I brought home, I had to read that one first. It’s a narrow book -- only 274 pages long, but I assure you, it is most unusual. This is a work of fiction. In addition to the strange title (which is explained in the story), the format is unique. It is all letters, with a few notes and a couple of telegrams thrown in, from various people to various other people. But it all ties together to tell a most unusual story. It takes place in England in 1946 -- mainly in Guernsey, the Channel Islands. Much of it recounts the 5 year German occupation, which is not pretty. But there is also delightful humor and marvelous interaction among the people involved.
Even the authorship is somewhat unusual. Mary Ann Shaffer says, “The seed for this book was planted quite by accident. I had traveled to England to research another book, and while there learned of the German Occupation of the Channel Islands.” She goes on to say that she flew to Guernsey on a whim, and was struck by the beauty as well as the history of the islands. What makes this authorship unusual is that before Ms Shaffer could finish the book, health issues interferred, so her niece Annie Barrows, who also is an author, completed the story.
So as the woman at the library predicted, I certainly did enjoy this story. You will, too.
The "humor" for today has me being a bit of a stinker. This is a quiz, and the answers are at the bottom. Now I may have shown these at some previous time, but I'm not sure, so we'll give it a try. One half today, and the remainder on another day. No cheating, please. What does each picture portray?
Answers:
One - hole milk
Two - tap dancers
Three - eye pod
Four - card shark
So when I was at the library the other day, there was a copy of the Guernsey book available, which the librarian retrieved for me. She had laid the book on the table while she went looking for another volume for me, when another woman came sweeping by. She glanced at the book, then at me, and said, “Oh, that’s a good one. You’ll enjoy it!”
Well, of the three books I brought home, I had to read that one first. It’s a narrow book -- only 274 pages long, but I assure you, it is most unusual. This is a work of fiction. In addition to the strange title (which is explained in the story), the format is unique. It is all letters, with a few notes and a couple of telegrams thrown in, from various people to various other people. But it all ties together to tell a most unusual story. It takes place in England in 1946 -- mainly in Guernsey, the Channel Islands. Much of it recounts the 5 year German occupation, which is not pretty. But there is also delightful humor and marvelous interaction among the people involved.
Even the authorship is somewhat unusual. Mary Ann Shaffer says, “The seed for this book was planted quite by accident. I had traveled to England to research another book, and while there learned of the German Occupation of the Channel Islands.” She goes on to say that she flew to Guernsey on a whim, and was struck by the beauty as well as the history of the islands. What makes this authorship unusual is that before Ms Shaffer could finish the book, health issues interferred, so her niece Annie Barrows, who also is an author, completed the story.
So as the woman at the library predicted, I certainly did enjoy this story. You will, too.
The "humor" for today has me being a bit of a stinker. This is a quiz, and the answers are at the bottom. Now I may have shown these at some previous time, but I'm not sure, so we'll give it a try. One half today, and the remainder on another day. No cheating, please. What does each picture portray?
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Answers:
One - hole milk
Two - tap dancers
Three - eye pod
Four - card shark
Five - assaulted peanut How many did you get?
Saturday, November 7, 2009
IT’S A BEAUTIFUL WORLD
I received these photos a few days ago, and knew I had to share them with you. No explanations from me required. Enjoy!
Humor -
STRING THEORY
A string walks into a bar with a few friends and orders a beer. The bartender says, "I'm sorry, but we don't serve strings here."
The string walks away a little upset and sits down with his friends. A few minutes later he goes back to the bar and orders a beer. The bartender, looking a little exasperated, says, "I'm sorry, we don't serve strings here."
So the string goes back to his table. Then he gets an idea. He ties himself in a loop and messes up the top of his hair. Then he walks back up to the bar and orders a beer.
The bartender squints at him and says, "Hey, aren't you a string?"
And the string says, "Nope, I'm a frayed knot."
Humor -
STRING THEORY
A string walks into a bar with a few friends and orders a beer. The bartender says, "I'm sorry, but we don't serve strings here."
The string walks away a little upset and sits down with his friends. A few minutes later he goes back to the bar and orders a beer. The bartender, looking a little exasperated, says, "I'm sorry, we don't serve strings here."
So the string goes back to his table. Then he gets an idea. He ties himself in a loop and messes up the top of his hair. Then he walks back up to the bar and orders a beer.
The bartender squints at him and says, "Hey, aren't you a string?"
And the string says, "Nope, I'm a frayed knot."
Friday, November 6, 2009
KEEPING WARM
This sweater has a story. Amalie loved to go down to Carmel, California (also known as Carmel-by-the-Sea) sometime around her birthday, which was near the end of December. This particular year the sun was out, and it was really nice. She loved to window shop, we’d stop for ice cream, and then sometime later we planned to find a nice restaurant for dinner.The day was so pleasant that I had not worn a jacket, but around 5 p.m. a breeze came up and I was getting chilled. Am suggested we buy me a sweater, and we ducked into a men’s store right there on the main drag. Now nothing in Carmel is considered inexpensive, and this store was no exception. After we told the clerk what we wanted, he showed us several gorgeous, expensive items, to which we demurred. Finally the clerk brought out this one, saying it had a tiny flaw. How much? He told us, and that sounded all right to me. And I couldn’t see any flaw, but my dear, frugal wife took it, examined it for a while, and found a tiny, tiny hole in an inconspicuous spot. A flaw? This was a hole! How much of a discount would he give us for that? He didn’t even hem and haw over it, but gave a figure, to which Amalie agreed.
I’ve now had it for many, many years, and it still keeps me warm on cool days.
Don't know if you would consider this funny, but it is certainly fascinating:
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Giant farm dog saves baby pig's bacon by adopting it
A giant farm dog and a tiny piglet cuddle up as if they were family after the baby runt was dismissed by its own mother.
Surrogate mum Katjinga, an eight-year-old Rhodesian Ridgeback, took on motherly duties for grunter Paulinchen - a tiny pot-bellied pig - and seems to be taking the adoption in her stride. Lonely Paulinchen was luckily discovered moments from death and placed in the care of the dog who gladly accepted it as one of her own. Thankfully for the two-week old mini porker, Katjinga fell in love with her at first sight and saved her bacon.
And the unlikely relationship has made the wrinkly piggy a genuine sausage dog. In these adorable images Paulinchen can even be seen trying to suckle from her gigantic new mum. The two animals live together on a huge 20-acre farm in Hoerstel , Germany , where Katjinga's owners Roland Adam, 54, and his wife Edit, 44, a bank worker, keep a pair of breeding Vietnamese pigs.
Property developer Roland found the weak and struggling piglet after she was abandoned by the rest of her family one evening after she was born. He said: "The pigs run wild on our land and the sow had given birth to a litter of five in our forest.
"I found Paulinchen all alone and when I lifted her up she was really cold.”
"I felt sure some local foxes would have taken the little pig that very night so I took it into my house and gave her to Katinga. She had just finished with a litter of her own, who are now 10 months, so I thought there was a chance she might take on the duties of looking after her. "Katinga is the best mother you can imagine. She immediately fell in love with the piggy. Straight away she started to clean it like it was one of her own puppies.”
“Days later she started lactating again and giving milk for the piggy. She obviously regards it now as her own baby."
Humor -
A fellow is in a bar with his friends, and says to them, "Watch this." He pulls out his cell phone, and punches in a random phone number.
"Hello?"
"Is Charlie there, please."
"I'm sorry you must have the wrong number. There's no one by that name here." Hangs up.
The guy in the bar calls the same number.
"Hello?"
"I'd like to speak to Charlie, please."
"I told you -- there's no one by that name here!" Hangs up.
The guy in the bar calls a third time.
"Hello!"
"Hi. This is Charlie. Any messages?"
Surrogate mum Katjinga, an eight-year-old Rhodesian Ridgeback, took on motherly duties for grunter Paulinchen - a tiny pot-bellied pig - and seems to be taking the adoption in her stride. Lonely Paulinchen was luckily discovered moments from death and placed in the care of the dog who gladly accepted it as one of her own. Thankfully for the two-week old mini porker, Katjinga fell in love with her at first sight and saved her bacon.
And the unlikely relationship has made the wrinkly piggy a genuine sausage dog. In these adorable images Paulinchen can even be seen trying to suckle from her gigantic new mum. The two animals live together on a huge 20-acre farm in Hoerstel , Germany , where Katjinga's owners Roland Adam, 54, and his wife Edit, 44, a bank worker, keep a pair of breeding Vietnamese pigs.
Property developer Roland found the weak and struggling piglet after she was abandoned by the rest of her family one evening after she was born. He said: "The pigs run wild on our land and the sow had given birth to a litter of five in our forest."I found Paulinchen all alone and when I lifted her up she was really cold.”
"I felt sure some local foxes would have taken the little pig that very night so I took it into my house and gave her to Katinga. She had just finished with a litter of her own, who are now 10 months, so I thought there was a chance she might take on the duties of looking after her. "Katinga is the best mother you can imagine. She immediately fell in love with the piggy. Straight away she started to clean it like it was one of her own puppies.”
“Days later she started lactating again and giving milk for the piggy. She obviously regards it now as her own baby."
Humor -
A fellow is in a bar with his friends, and says to them, "Watch this." He pulls out his cell phone, and punches in a random phone number.
"Hello?"
"Is Charlie there, please."
"I'm sorry you must have the wrong number. There's no one by that name here." Hangs up.
The guy in the bar calls the same number.
"Hello?"
"I'd like to speak to Charlie, please."
"I told you -- there's no one by that name here!" Hangs up.
The guy in the bar calls a third time.
"Hello!"
"Hi. This is Charlie. Any messages?"
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
EXERCISE WORKS
I did mention recently that I’d been able to stand up from my scooter, and then from my bed, which is also a little higher than most chairs. I’d tried getting up from a chair, but could scarcely get my rear end up. But I keep trying. Ugh. No go. Once more. Ummmph! Ach! Plunk!
Then a few days ago I found I could stand from the dining room table chair. It is an office type chair on wheels, and with a swivel base that can be raised. Cliff had raised it a bit for me some while ago, and that may account for my success there.
But the biggest surprise came yesterday. I do all my exercising in the bedroom where I can lean against the file cabinet to do knee bends, sit on the bed for the sitting exercises, and lie back for those on my back. Then for my last one, I need to sit in an ordinary chair, which is moderately low. Cliff has had to pick me up from that one, but yesterday (and again this morning), I said I wanted to try. It was a struggle, but I did make it both times. Success!
More funny signs -
Then a few days ago I found I could stand from the dining room table chair. It is an office type chair on wheels, and with a swivel base that can be raised. Cliff had raised it a bit for me some while ago, and that may account for my success there.
But the biggest surprise came yesterday. I do all my exercising in the bedroom where I can lean against the file cabinet to do knee bends, sit on the bed for the sitting exercises, and lie back for those on my back. Then for my last one, I need to sit in an ordinary chair, which is moderately low. Cliff has had to pick me up from that one, but yesterday (and again this morning), I said I wanted to try. It was a struggle, but I did make it both times. Success!
More funny signs -
BE SURE TO CHECK THE LICENSE PLATE ON THIS BUGGY
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
BULWER-LYTTON BAD WRITING CONTEST
Every year San Jose State University holds an international literary parody contest. The competition honors the memory (if not the reputation) of Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873). The goal of the contest is childishly simple: entrants are challenged to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels. Bulwer-Lytton opened his novel Paul Clifford (1830) with the immortal words that the "Peanuts" beagle Snoopy plagiarized for years, "It was a dark and stormy night." Here are a few examples:
Emperor Wu liked cake, but not exploding cake!
The dawn blushed; not because it was embarrassed (that doesn’t even make sense), but because light bends funny.
His eyes were brown, although you wouldn't know it just by looking.
It happened exactly like this... well, maybe not exactly, but I'm fairly confident about the major points—not that I was there, though.
Jeremy didn't remember eating corn or, for that matter, wearing his good loafers.
Gwendolyn, a world-class mountaineer, summoned the last of her strength for one more heroic haul on the nylon strap (for she was, after so many failed attempts, dangerously close to exhaustion) and looked heavenward with resolve, aware that, in spite of her fatigue and anguish, she must breach the crevice in one well-coordinated movement, somehow cleave the smooth fissure with the flimsy synthetic strand even though she was chaffed raw by her repeated efforts, or more sensibly, just give the heave-ho to this new-fangled (and painfully small) Victoria's Secret thong and slip into her well-worn — and infinitely more roomy — knickers.
Fleur looked down her nose at Guilliame, something she was accomplished at, being six foot three in her stocking feet, and having one of those long French noses, not pert like Bridget Bardot's, but more like the one that Charles De Gaulle had when he was still alive and President of France and he wore that cap that was shaped like a little hatbox with a bill in the front to offset his nose, but it didn't work.
She walked into my office on legs as long as one of those long-legged birds that you see in Florida - the pink ones, not the white ones - except that she was standing on both of them, not just one of them, like those birds, the pink ones, and she wasn't wearing pink, but I knew right away that she was trouble, which those birds usually aren't.
The dame sauntered silently into Rocco's office, but she didn't need to speak; the blood-soaked gown hugging her ample curves said it all: "I am a shipping heiress whose second husband was just murdered by Albanian assassins trying to blackmail me for my rare opal collection," or maybe, "Do you know a good dry cleaner?"
Darnell knew he was getting hung out to dry when the D.A. made him come clean by airing other people's dirty laundry; the plea deal was a new wrinkle and there were still issues to iron out, but he hoped it would all come out in the wash - otherwise he had folded like a cheap suit for nothing.
Warily-as if his hands were a green-bean casserole in a non-tempered glass dish that had just come out of the freezer, and the patient was an oven that had been preheating for a good 75 minutes at 450F-the surgeon slowly reached into the incision and groped for the bullet fragment in the pancreas, at last finding it nestled near one of the Islets of Langerhans like a small wrecked lifeboat foundered on a sandbar as it floated in the fog, adrift in the Sea of John's Innards.
Mortimer froze in his tracks; the rhythmic clicking on the stones of the path (well . . . not really a clicking sound so much as a kind of clinking sound, more like the noise made by shaking a charm bracelet filled with Disney characters to a salsa beat) made him suddenly realize he had forgotten to buckle one of his galoshes.
Emperor Wu liked cake, but not exploding cake!
The dawn blushed; not because it was embarrassed (that doesn’t even make sense), but because light bends funny.
His eyes were brown, although you wouldn't know it just by looking.
It happened exactly like this... well, maybe not exactly, but I'm fairly confident about the major points—not that I was there, though.
Jeremy didn't remember eating corn or, for that matter, wearing his good loafers.
Gwendolyn, a world-class mountaineer, summoned the last of her strength for one more heroic haul on the nylon strap (for she was, after so many failed attempts, dangerously close to exhaustion) and looked heavenward with resolve, aware that, in spite of her fatigue and anguish, she must breach the crevice in one well-coordinated movement, somehow cleave the smooth fissure with the flimsy synthetic strand even though she was chaffed raw by her repeated efforts, or more sensibly, just give the heave-ho to this new-fangled (and painfully small) Victoria's Secret thong and slip into her well-worn — and infinitely more roomy — knickers.
Fleur looked down her nose at Guilliame, something she was accomplished at, being six foot three in her stocking feet, and having one of those long French noses, not pert like Bridget Bardot's, but more like the one that Charles De Gaulle had when he was still alive and President of France and he wore that cap that was shaped like a little hatbox with a bill in the front to offset his nose, but it didn't work.
She walked into my office on legs as long as one of those long-legged birds that you see in Florida - the pink ones, not the white ones - except that she was standing on both of them, not just one of them, like those birds, the pink ones, and she wasn't wearing pink, but I knew right away that she was trouble, which those birds usually aren't.
The dame sauntered silently into Rocco's office, but she didn't need to speak; the blood-soaked gown hugging her ample curves said it all: "I am a shipping heiress whose second husband was just murdered by Albanian assassins trying to blackmail me for my rare opal collection," or maybe, "Do you know a good dry cleaner?"
Darnell knew he was getting hung out to dry when the D.A. made him come clean by airing other people's dirty laundry; the plea deal was a new wrinkle and there were still issues to iron out, but he hoped it would all come out in the wash - otherwise he had folded like a cheap suit for nothing.
Warily-as if his hands were a green-bean casserole in a non-tempered glass dish that had just come out of the freezer, and the patient was an oven that had been preheating for a good 75 minutes at 450F-the surgeon slowly reached into the incision and groped for the bullet fragment in the pancreas, at last finding it nestled near one of the Islets of Langerhans like a small wrecked lifeboat foundered on a sandbar as it floated in the fog, adrift in the Sea of John's Innards.
Mortimer froze in his tracks; the rhythmic clicking on the stones of the path (well . . . not really a clicking sound so much as a kind of clinking sound, more like the noise made by shaking a charm bracelet filled with Disney characters to a salsa beat) made him suddenly realize he had forgotten to buckle one of his galoshes.
FUNNY SIGNS
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