One Lump, Or Two With Your Coffee?

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

I’ve said before in other blog posts that part of the reason for the problems we suffer these days is the direct result of the staggering number of stupid lawyers who are being allowed to qualify from our universities in spite of the fact that they are clearly unfit to hold down a proper job in the legal profession. 

Thus we have many of them turning into ambulance chasers to try to eek out a living, whilst others encourage equally dumb people into taking spurious law suits against decent people and  businesses.

The judiciary does not help by their tolerance of junk law suits and by some of their decisions, the stupidity of which take one’s breath away.

We’ve had the morons who sue people like McDonalds because they say they didn’t know their hot coffee was hot or their iced coffee was cold.

But just when you thought you’d heard it all, in one recent case a man claimed caffeine drove him to molest women.

Kenneth Sands was convicted July 3 for groping two women and three teenage girls after a volleyball game in Onalaska, Oregon, on Oct. 18, 2011.

His sorry-assed defense?

Blame it on the caffeine.

Sands, a school bus driver for the Rainier School District, attempted to argue in court that caffeine “caused a psychotic episode,” reported KOMO News. “My son-in-law and daughter have never seen that kind of behavior from myself,” Sands, 51, told the court.

This “behavior” that Sands claims caffeine induced includes grabbing a 46-year-old woman’s breasts several times during the game and later trying to grab her butt as she tried to get away; grabbing a 15-year-old’s butt outside of a bus after the game, and then slapping a 16-year-old’s butt as she was getting on the bus. Sands climbed aboard the bus and touched yet another volleyball player before he was kicked off, the Lewis County sheriff’s office told KOMO.

Thankfully some sanity prevailed on this occasion and the court ruled that caffeine was not, in fact, the reason behind Sands’ aggressive and lewd behavior. He was sentenced to 30 days for each of the five counts of fourth-degree assault.

Sands’ caffeine defense might have been inspired by the “Twinkie defense,” ABC News suggests. San Francisco supervisor Dan White successfully avoided a first-degree murder conviction for the 1978 assassination of San Francisco City Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone, claiming his sugary diet caused depression.

Dr. Martin Blinder, the psychiatrist who presented the “Twinkie defense” during the 1979 trial, told ABC News that caffeine could not hold up as a defense because it is made from coffee beans, which are all-natural. “We have no evidence that coffee is harmful,” Blinder told ABC.

Rest assured: drinking too much coffee will not turn you into a serial groper.

One lump, or two?

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

Dating In The Early 1960s

”Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

It's not absolutely necessary, but readers who can remember this era may enjoy this the most...

It was a hot Saturday evening in the summer of 1960 and Fred had a date with Peggy Sue.

He arrived at her house and rang the bell.

"Oh, come on in!" Peggy Sue's mother said as she welcomed Fred in. "Have a seat in the living room. Would you like something to drink? Lemonade? Iced tea?"

"I'll have an Iced tea, please," Fred said.

Mom brought the iced tea.

"So, what are you and Peggy planning to do tonight?" she asked.

"Oh, probably catch a movie, and then maybe grab a bite to eat at the malt shop, maybe take a walk on the beach..."

"Peggy likes to screw, you know," Mom informed him.

"What???" Fred spluttered, his mouthful of iced tea almost launching itself across the room.

"Uh...really?" he continued, eyebrows raised, as he tried to gather his wits about him. He wasn’t at all used to this type of liberal parenting, which was very progressive for the early 1960s.

"Oh, yes!" the mother continued very matter-of-factly. "When she goes out with her friends, that's all they do!"

"Is that so?" asked Fred, incredulous.

"Yes," the mother continued. "As a matter of fact, she'd screw all night if we let her, but of course we don't!"

"Er no, I suppose not," Fred answered, still surprised that Peggy Sue’s parents would countenance such a thing at all.

"Well, thanks for the tip," he continued as he quickly began thinking about alternate plans for the evening.

A wicked smile began to play on his lips.

A moment later, Peggy Sue came down the stairs looking pretty as a picture. She was wearing a pink blouse and full circle skirt, and had her long hair tied back in a bouncy ponytail. She greeted Fred.

"Have fun, kids," the mother said as they left.

Fred was sure that they would.

Half an hour later, a completely disheveled Peggy Sue burst into the house and slammed the front door behind her.

"Whatever is wrong, darling?" her puzzled mother inquired.

"The Twist, Mom! It's the twist!!" Peggy Sue angrily yelled at her mother.

"The damned dance is called the TWIST! "

;)

A Short Moment Of Triumph, And Then An Idiot Walked In

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

When I was writing the post “When One Door Shuts Another One Closes” a couple of days ago it reminded me of a short time I spent on a very small island in the West Indies. I was there with a couple of colleagues to reconnoiter the area for a small development that was being planned.

We were there for four or five days (I can’t exactly remember, it was a long time ago) but I had rented a little island house for us. It was a nice place, spotlessly clean and had everything we needed. There was no air conditioning but there were huge ceiling fans so it was comfortable enough.

The only problem was that the net on the screen door into the main living room from the patio had been torn by whoever was in the house previously and not repaired, It was just a little tear on the bottom right corner where someone had accidently put their foot through it, but it was more than enough to allow the dreaded mosquitoes access any time they wanted. And they wanted access most of the time!

I reported the problem to the guy in charge and he said that he would get their maintenance people to look after it. Sounded good, and I’m sure he meant every word of it, but I had some experience of Caribbean island life and let’s just say urgency is definitely not one of the things they major in. Life on all the islands is very relaxed and easy going, and in my opinion all the better and healthier for it.

So realizing help would not be at hand during our short time in the house I had a look round the kitchen for something I could use to fix the problem myself. I finally found part of a role of duck tape and a few other bits and bobs. It took me a number of attempts, the air was so hot and humid that it was extremely difficult to get the tape to stick to the net and the door frame. But eventually I managed it.

A pretty job it was most definitely not, but I slid the door screen closed, got myself a cold beer from the refrigerator and sat back in one of the living room chairs to admire my hard work and ingenuity.

And then along cam Bill and something like this happened. Some days you just can’t win!  

The Stupidest Fish In The River

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

Most of the time, about 90 percent, in this blob we look at stupid humans and the various ways we interact with them and they themselves interact with society.

Sometimes these incidents have involved animals and other species. But animals and the rest can be dumb in their own right and do dumb things.

A while ago one of my posts, “Care To Dance”, featured, let’s say a less than successful but very funny fisherman called Bill Dance from Tennessee

If Bill had just gone to the Wabash River in Indiana he might have been a lot more successful with his catch!

Have a look at the video and you’ll see what I mean.

Enjoy!

Hidden In Plain Sight

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”




I always remember during the Vietnam War how the Viet Cong soldiers were able to hide themselves in plain sight of the South Vietnamese and US forces. In one remarkable incident a Viet Cong intelligence officer rented a house beside the local police station. Then there were the remarkable tunnels of Chu Chi. Remarkable for two things, one, because of their vast size and the number of enemy soldiers that they provided a base for; and two, because of the unbelievable courage of the Tunnel Rats whose unenviable job it was to enter this tunnel complex and search out the enemy. Remarkable indeed.  


On a much lighter note, I’m sure you are all very aware of the saying, “It’s as plain as the nose on your face.”


The strange thing is that although our own nose is constantly in view of our eyes we never see it, because somehow our brain filters this image out of our vision as unimportant, or rather, unnecessary. Good job too for some people. I know a couple of dudes with enormous honkers! If their noses were in their vision they wouldn’t see anything else.


Joking aside, however, this got me thinking as to how much other information does our brain filter out of our vision equation without letting us know. How much do we not see although it is right in front of us? It can be a rather scary thought.


I have always been particular about what I write and I always check to see that everything is spelled okay and sentences make sense. (Proof reading you own work however is one of the hardest things to do, because you know what you meant to write an after a while loss of a little concentration can lead to mistakes.)


But it turns out I have just been wasting my time because, spell checkers be damned, apparently they aren’t even necessary. I guess some of you will already have seen this piece about how the mind works when reading. If you haven’t you’re in for a bit of a surprise.


Can you read this:


Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.



Which written normally is this:


According to a researcher (sic) at Cambridge University, it doesn't matter in what order the letters in a word are, the only important thing is that the first and last letter be at the right place. The rest can be a total mess and you can still read it without problem. This is because the human mind does not read every letter by itself but the word as a whole.

During a period in my life when I was in the construction business I once drew out a plan and asked the carpenters working for me to assemble it out of some 2 x2 timber that was lying around. Strangely none of them could manage it, but a couple of them puzzled over it for quite a while. The drawing I gave them was much more detailed than this with measurements and fitting instructions, but the finished object was to look like this. Officially it is called a Penrose triangle.

Then there are loads of very interesting and amusing optical illusions based on the eye-to-brain ability to process information. One of my favorites is this Einstein rotating head. Is it hollow or is it protruding? Depends how your brain processes what it sees.

There is also the Ballerina illusion which is interesting. If you stare at a girl’s feet she appears to be swiveling back and forth. But if you look at her head she appears to be rotating 360 degrees. Try it out. Weird!

And there’s another spinning dancing girl who, if the right side of your brain is dominant appears to be rotating clockwise, and if the left side of your brain is dominant she appears to be rotating anti-clockwise. To make things even more weird if you stare at it for a little while you can make her change direction. Duh…

But by far the weirdest thing of all is our ability to concentrate and count baseball passes. I hope you haven’t seen this one before, but even if you have, take another go at it. I won’t tell you the answer and don’t read the rest of this blog post without viewing the video, or you will spoil the whole thing for yourself.

It explains it on the video too, but there is a team in black and a team in white and what you must try to do is count the number passes the white players make to each other and ignore what’s happening with the team in black. It’s quite fast and there is a lot of movement so you do have to concentrate. Also, if you happen to be on a slow internet connection let the whole video load before you play it.

Basket ball count test

So how did you do?

Did you get the correct number of passes?

Actually I’m not going to say any more about this just now, but I’ll return to the subject in a few days hopefully, because there is an interesting and slightly disturbing question that arises from all this.

Meantime, if you feel like it let me know how you got on with the basket ball count.

And rmeemebr trohw aawy that slpel ccehekr.

The Funniest Game Show Incident I Have Seen

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

Just a short blog post today, but a real little gem.

This is actually a follow-on from Sunday’s post, “I like Watching Game Shows” which featured some US (or US versions) of popular shows such as Wheel of Furtune, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and Family Feud. I hope you enjoyed those.

But the funniest game show incident I have seen comes from a British show called “Catch Phrase” hosted by a comedian called Roy Walker.

If you’ve never seen the show, the idea is to guess the answer (usually a well known phrase or saying) from the picture/animation on the screen which is slowly revealed in nine different random parts.

I don’t know what is funnier here, the actual animation or the presenter and male contestant laughing, or the fact that the poor dumb girl contestant hasn’t the slightest clue what all the laughing is about.

Anyhow here it is.

Enjoy – you’ve got to!

I Like Watching Game Shows

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”



Don’t start me on soaps which I don’t watch. Except, a few years ago, for SOAP which was a soap about how bad soaps could be and was quite good indeed. Confused, as they said? Quite possibly but you’re inside my mind now and this is how it operates.

But Game Shows like Family Feud, Family Fortunes, Wheel of Fortune, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, etc., I do like. 


Sometimes I try to answer the questions just to limber up a brain cell or two, but really I watch them in the hope that a complete twit will take the stage – usually the first one out of town, as it happens, after they’ve been asked a few questions! 


Here are a few examples of what I mean.


Enjoy!



The worst Wheel of Fortune fail ever?


Probably not but what an idiot!







The dumbest Who Wants To Be A Millionaire contestant ever?


Probably not but once again, close.












There are surprises too, when the people questioned in the sample give just as dumb an answer as the contestant.








And my favorite, something that gets passed around

Be Very Careful How You Grab A Granny

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”




I think the moral of this blog post is, if you have to grab a granny at all then be very careful how you do it; and if you do do it hang on as tightly as you can no matter how much she struggles.


It rather strange advice I know, but there is a reason for giving it.


First of all, here’s granny Lucerne.

As you can see she is in good spirits. I don’t know whether she had a bucket list, but one of the things that this 80 year old granny wanted to do and had been planning for a decade was to skydive.


As for myself, it has never been an ambition of mine to jump out of an airplane that wasn’t in trouble. Although I would much rather that they would stick a parachute under my seat on an airplane instead of a bit of glorified polystyrene, I mean on a flight from L.A. to New York for example how much ocean is there to be worried about?


But back to 80 year old granny Lucerne. For a while everything went well. She was very happy and excited by the prospect of her first skydive parachute jump.

The trouble started when she got to the door of the small plane and peered outside at planet earth below.

As her skydiving buddy, to whom she was attached, also tried to push through the open door ready for the jump, granny’s reluctance turned to panic.

She was heard shouting “No”, but by that time it was too late, the whole process had gained its own momentum.

And out they tumbled.

And tumbled, and tumbled, plummeting earthwards at an accelerating rate

By now granny must have been in a blind panic because instead of relaxing and going with her skydiving buddy, she flailed about and started to slip out of the harness that was holding them together. Remember just the buddy had the chute.

The next few shots show just how far out the harness her struggling had caused her to slip. By the way, the hand in the bottom left of the photo belongs to the photographer who had realized what was happening and guided himself over to them to try to help.

Another photo also showing just how far out of the harness granny had managed to wriggle.

Eventually her skydiving buddy gets the chute opened. (He has got a complete right leg in case you’re wondering, it’s just the angle of the photo!)

And with granny held in what had to be a vice like grip they both made it to the ground, a little worse for wear but thankfully, alive.

Here's the video.


Enjoy!

It Always Surprises Me How One Thing Leads To Another!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

I have no idea why that should be, I mean why it always surprises me how one thing leads to another. After all where else can one thing go? It’s the logical sequence, it has to happen that way. I think what I really mean is, the surprise is what you are led to. It is hardly ever the thing you were expecting.

Every one of us knows from hours of experience how difficult it is to switch on the computer or log on to the internet on a smart phone or other device and be self-disciplined enough to just search for the thing we initially wanted to look for. Countless times in my experience I have gone on to the internet with the sole purpose of maybe checking some stats or looking up some information relating to a business problem, or a health issue perhaps, only to find an hour or so later that I’m on a completely different tack, forgotten completely about why I started, and now absorbed in some other information that has nothing to do with the job at hand.

Entertaining it certainly is. Enjoyable too, without a doubt. Informative, yes it can be (although you shouldn’t believe everything you read on the internet – unless it appears in this blog of course). And a waste of time? That one is debatable. I think not. Nothing is a waste of time if it is providing any or all of the above attributes – entertainment, enjoyment or information.

One of my favorite sayings is, “It’s a sad day you don’t learn something,” and I am glad to report that in that regard I do not have any sad days. Every day I learn something, usually not what I expected and sometimes the lessons can be very harsh, but it all counts towards bettering oneself and providing valuable experience for the future.

So when I looked at my blog today I had a very different subject in my head to write about. Then I read a comment from my blog-friend coastalcrone on yesterdays blog post “Today Is A Beautiful Day”, part of which sparked off what you are now reading.

Coastalcrone said, “For me words are so visual… they have to look right for me too.”

Now one can analyze any writing from a grammatical viewpoint, or the construction of sentences and paragraphs, or the balance and rhythm of the words, or on its aesthetic content, or on many other different levels. That’s what they do when they study literature at universities, tearing apart and analyzing writing and writers. Sometimes I think that is valuable and informative; at other times I think that they don’t have a clue what they are talking about and have read far, far more into a piece than the writer originally intended. (Most writers, though, are happy to go along with such academic pronouncements because it makes them appear a bit more clever that they would be if they denied them.)

However, all that academic stuff aside, the part of coastalcrone’s comment that promoted all this was really the first part, “… words are so visual”.

Words are visual. Indeed they are. A good description of a person, or a scene, or an incident, conjures up the image in the reader’s mind, and so it should. The better the writing and the writer, the better the visuals the reader experiences.

But, and it’s a big bold BUT, the visual experience is not the writer’s, it always belongs to the reader. The writer is simply the catalyst.

No matter how precise and detailed a description is, if it is a description of something we have not personally witnessed (in other words someone describing a fictitious person or place, or even for example a valley or lake in Australia or India which most of us will never have seen, as opposed to a $10 bill or a laptop computer) a different image will be conjured up in the minds of each individual.

I’m sure you have read a book and then later gone to see the movie. Very seldom if ever does your own visual image agree with the film maker’s. At the moment I can only think of one occasion when my own visual interpretation of a book almost exactly matched the movie interpretation. That was Alastair MacLean’s “Where Eagles Dare”, an excellent World War II espionage thriller and an equally excellent movie. That was probably because MacLean wrote the book and movie screenplay more or less at the same time. (Btw, I don’t mean that I had Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood in my visual picture – that would have been too crazy, even for me!)  

Of course the converse is easier to come to grips with. If you see the movie and then read the book, the movie-maker’s visuals, rather than your own, are already in your head. Sometimes that’s okay, if the movie has been a reasonably close interpretation of the book. If they don’t gel well then the one can easily spoil the enjoyment of the other.

And visual interpretations also hold for the spoken as well as the written word. If one hears something described on the radio, for example, it can produce visual images in one’s mind. Not only that, however, but one often gets an imaginary picture of what the person speaking looks like. It can sometimes come as a bit of shock when you see the person on tv or in real life. I’ve heard people remarking on more than one occasion that so-and-so “isn’t like his voice”.

Even when you meet people, you can also have preconceived ideas about them in the few seconds between seeing them and hearing them speak. Some say that that is conclusive proof that light travels faster than sound, i.e. that most people seem bright until you hear them speak.

Of course one should be mature enough to accept people as they are. What one should definitely not do is laugh at some unfortunate with a voice that doesn’t fit them. Admittedly it can be funny, as this talk show host found out when carrying out a tv interview some years ago.

Let’s have a little experiment and see how good you are. You know you shouldn’t laugh but I rather think you might. I did! Quite a lot L But at the host, naturally! :) 

Enjoy!  

Today is a beautiful day

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy” 


I know an architect.

Nothing very unusual in that.

 Except for one thing, this one is blind.

 He hasn’t been blind all his life but from his late teens, when he was training to be an architect, he started to lose his sight due to an inherited disease and eventually it went altogether.

To his credit he hasn’t let it stop him leading as full a life as possible. Although there have been good and bad results.

For example, he insists on helping around the house but on one occasion he picked up a kitten along with the dirty clothes and promptly dumped all in the washing machine. Both the clothes and the kitten were clean at the end of the washing cycle, but the unfortunate kitten was also dead.

He also tells a story about doing some shopping at a time when his sight was almost gone, but not quite. He was in a local pharmacy and queued up at the counter waiting to hand over his prescription. He waited and waited, but the pharmacy assistant kept ignoring him. He could hear other people getting served, but never him. He waited and he waited and he waited some more, but nothing. The girl behind the counter just kept ignoring him.

Finally his patience just ran out. He was angry. He thought he was being deliberately ignored because of his disability and that other 'seeing' customers were being allowed to jump the queue. He spoke to the assistant who was standing right in front of him. She didn’t respond. Then he spoke louder. Still no reaction. Then he started to give forth some abuse which included a good bit of strong language. The other customers in the pharmacy all stopped what they were doing and watched what was going on.

People were a little embarrassed. Nobody intervened except for one gentleman, who walked up to my friend, put his hand on his shoulder and said quietly buy firmly, “Come over here son, and this other person will attend to your order." 

He found out later that he had been patiently queuing up in front of one of those body and head mannequins that was sitting on the counter and which the pharmacy was using to display a ladies wig, and had been hurling his abuse and angst at it and not to a real person at all.

A few incidents like that aside, he has coped quite well. He has compensated for his lack of sight by developing an extremely good memory and equally good recall. I think that proves that the more you use your brain the better it works.

What a pity so many people these hardly use theirs at all!

For a lot of years his way of designing houses was very laborious. He would plan the whole thing out in his head and then give verbal instructions to his son who would dutifully draft out a sketch of the proposed building. It was slow and tedious for the recipient of the instructions, although he reveled in the task himself - a little bit too much and too long for most people’s liking if truth be told. I know because I was the unfortunate recipient of the drafting instructions on a couple of occasions.

And then a possible solution hit me like a brick.

A Lego brick actually.

I bought a few large base sheets and he got himself some small Lego bricks and from then on he was able to draft his own floorplans, and to scale using each little brick as equivalent to one foot or whatever. It worked well for him and gave him a bit more freedom to plan and re-plan without involving anyone else in the process. I don’t know whether he still uses it or not, but I kind of hope so.

Now, what sparked this blog post in my head wasn’t him at all. It was a video that I watched recently. It’s not about architects either, but it is about someone who is blind. And it is also about the power of words which as a blogger and writer I appreciate, as I’m sure many of you do too.

It’s a nice video.

I hope you enjoy it.

You’d Think It Should Be Easy, But You’d Be Wrong!

“Fight Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

One of my best friends is a farmer. Or was, he sold up a few years ago, tired of the long hours in all sorts of inclement weather. But he did it for many years and has a host of good stories about incidents that happened during that time.

He was a dairy farmer for a good part of his farming career. As a result he has a healthy respect, but also more than a little contempt for cows. In fact he says they are probably the stupidest animal he has ever come across. (He hasn’t met our dog that thinks it’s a cat yet!)

He says that a cow is probably the only animal that is stupid enough to get stuck behind a open gate. Actually I’ve seen this happen myself. If a field gate is partially open at least one of them will get between it and the hedge or fence and they don’t seem to be able to figure out how to reverse and take a new route out of the field.

If you’re having a laugh at that, good. It’s even funnier when you see it in person I assure you. But there’s something even stupider than the cow I fear. That is people, some people! Take this lady in the video below.

All she has to do is reverse her car out of the garage.

Simple?

Of course not!

Have a look (I’m not sure I would like her driving my kids around, would you?)

(Acknowledgements and thanks to Pradeep for finding this one)

On The Oul Timers’ Ward

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”




“I’ll never forget what’s his name,” is something I have a habit of saying. I’ve always had a good memory and recall for most things, particularly numbers, but sometimes I’m terrible with names. I can be trying to hold a sensible conversation with someone, usually someone who I haven’t seen for a long time, and while I know their face perfectly, can I remember the name! It makes for awkward times and sometimes amusing ones as well.


I hope it doesn’t get any worse as I get older! I’d hate to end my days with “oul timers” as we call it in our family, my aunt having been so afflicted for a few years before her passing.


But like all adversities there are the funny sides. 


Here’s a report from an old issue of the Southland Times in New Zealand that I thought was amusing.



The police were called to the Whangarei ward at the Aged Care Centre in Kaikohe, New Zealand, because a fight had broken out.


When they arrived, they could see that the two elderly protagonists had been involved in a mighty punch-up. Both were covered in blood, their clothes were torn, one had a broken nose and half his hair ripped out, and the other had a broken arm and a hypodermic needle stuck in his penis.


Furniture and equipment had been smashed flat, beds had been overturned, and the other patients on the ward were terrified.


When the matter came to court, Police Sergeant Maurice Loveridge reported as follows:


"…. the fight took place in a ward full of elderly Alzheimer's patients, and it has gradually become clear that nobody can remember what happened, or who was responsible.


One patient keeps repeating the phrase 'we ought to have more manure', but frankly this gives us no clue.
The two accused men do not recognise each other, nor do the other patients, and the ones who initially reported the incident to us had forgotten that there even was a fight by the time we tried to question them.


Therefore, because nobody can now recall the incident, the Police Prosecution Department has reluctantly decided to withdraw the case against both men."





These aren’t the same old boys as in the New Zealand fracas, but they’re the best I could come up with. They made me laugh.

Enjoy!

Is Your Glass Half Full, Or Half Empty?

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

“Some people see the glass half full.

Others see it half empty.

I see a glass that's twice as big as it needs to be.” 

George Carlin

Just a short post today, but it covers a big philosophical question.


How do you look at things in life?


Is your glass always half full or half empty?


The Australian airline Quantas has never had a major accident. Does this mean that you have confidence that it is the safest airline in the world? Or does it make you think that maybe the odds are that it’s due for an accident?


If you’re playing the tables in Vegas or Atlantic City or somewhere, does the fact that you’ve lost the last ten hands make you think that your luck is out for the night and you leave. Or do you think the laws of probability mean your luck must be due to change shortly and you hang in there?


There’s no right or wrong answers here. It just depends on what type of person you are.


People who are naturally in the glass half empty category tend to be the ones who play it safe. Work for someone else, are content with a lesser but safer position, don’t over extend themselves financially, etc. For that type of person such decisions make for a much happier and contented life.


Other people, me for example, are more in the glass half full category. More prone to taking risks, trying new things (like blogging even!), and starting their own businesses. That can bring great rewards, but it can cause more than a little turmoil financially and otherwise in your life too, particularly in the economic times we are currently living through. The safe option it is not!


It takes both types to make the world go round and both are equally important.


There’s no point in starting your own business if there’s no one willing to be employed; and there’s no point in looking for a job if there’s no one willing to take the risk and start a business (they all had to start somewhere, even the giant multi nationals).


So what’s the best? It depends on you.


What’s right? Again, it depends on you.


Just don’t waste your time with the stupid pursuit of wondering if the grass is greener somewhere else if you don’t have the courage to go and find out.


Whatever way suits you at least be content with your decision.


That my friends is the simplest secret to enjoying your life. 


(According to me anyhow!)

Here's a video. 


Enjoy!

Drivers Ed. Exam Answers

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

Still on the theme of driving today, but in a bit lighter vein than yesterday. This time it isn’t drunks, although one could be forgiven for thinking that some of these bozos were ‘well oiled’ when they took their test.

The following are a sampling of real answers received on written exams given by the California Department of Transportation's driving school. Some of those taking the exam may have deliberately trying to be funny, but sadly I suspect the vast majority were answering as best they could.

Here you are.

Enjoy!

Q: Do you yield when a blind pedestrian is crossing the road?

A: What for? He can't see my license plate.

Q: Who has the right of way when four cars approach a four-way stop at the same time?

A: The pick up truck with the gun rack and the bumper sticker saying, 'Guns don't kill people. I do.'

Q: What are the important safety tips to remember when backing your car?

A: Always wear a condom.

Q: When driving through fog, what should you use?

A: Your car.

Q: How can you reduce the possibility of having an accident?

A: Be too sh*t-faced to find your keys.

Q: What problems would you face if you were arrested for drunk driving.

A: I'd probably lose my buzz a lot faster.

Q: What changes would occur in your lifestyle if you could no longer drive lawfully?

A: I would be forced to drive unlawfully.

Q: What are some points to remember when passing or being passed?

A: Make eye contact and wave 'hello' if he/she is cute.

Q: What is the difference between a flashing red traffic light and a flashing yellow traffic light?

A: The color.

Q: How do you deal with heavy traffic?

A: Heavy psychedelics. 

Some people like these must have passed their driver's exam. Check out the video. 

Don’t Drink And Drive, Please!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy” 


 I did a post a while ago about how I hate thieves (I still do).

Well, me being me, there are others on my hate list too. It isn’t a long list but one prominent group on it is drunk drivers.

 There is a simple rule that everyone should follow.

 If you want to drink don’t drive and if you want to drive don’t drink.

 There are no gray areas. Don’t think you can follow stupid rules made by stupid bureaucrats. There are no minimum amounts that suit everybody. Drink is like shoes, people take different sizes. I know some people who could drink a bottle of vodka and you wouldn’t even know they’d had a drink. And I know people who if they even sniffed the open bottle would be on their way to being drunk. This has a lot to do with the body’s size, metabolism, how much alcohol it can cope with and in what timescale and so forth. But it also has to do with the person’s psychological make up too.

Some people will get drunk just because they think they should be drunk. Not because they actually are. You know the type, people who run about like headless chickens if they drink a can of Red Bull even though there’s just about the same amount of caffeine in it as in a cup of tea or coffee. What they’ve really done is swallow the advertising hype as well as the Red Bull. Personally I think it’s lovely stuff, but I’m able to down a couple of tins and still go straight to sleep.

 I’ve actually tried an experiment to prove my point. One night at a party at my house I gave real beer to most of the people and alcohol free beer to a couple of the others (without telling them of course). You can guess what happened. Yes, the people who were drinking the non alcoholic beer got just as drunk and had just as good a time as everyone else, and they probably had hangovers to prove it the next morning!

 But getting back to drinking and driving, or rather drinking and not driving, I have seen one or two macho morons drinking away and driving away and doing it quite publicly. That’s their real reason of course, doing it publicly. If you are intellectually challenged you imagine that the stupider things you do makes you the bigger man. Truly it doesn’t.

 I have also seen one of these morons plough into another car and severely injure some poor innocents, which is very sad. And I’ve also seen the remnants of a car that another moron drove into a tree while drunk. He killed himself, and quite frankly that isn’t so sad at all.

 There are a couple of videos below just to prove the dangers, if you want to look at them, but first I’ll end with the inevitable joke.

 Enjoy!


 “I would like to share an experience with you, about drinking and driving. 


 As you well know, some people have been known to have had brushes with the authorities on our way home from the odd social session over the years. 


 A couple of nights ago, I was out for a few drinks with some friends and had a few too many beers and some rather nice red wine. 


 Knowing full well I may have been slightly over the limit, I did something I've never done before. 


 I took a bus home. 


 Sure enough there were police checks, but they waved the bus through without a problem. 


 I arrived home safely and without incident, which was a real surprise. 


 I’ve have never driven a bus before and I’m not even sure where I got it.”



 Now for the videos. I haven’t included any gory stuff. You all get the point and if you want to research the subject there are a number of videos on youtube.com.

 The first I have selected shows a drunk trying to park a car. If one hasn’t the coordination to do something as simple as that when drunk, imagine how much control there would be on the road, particularly in a critical situation.

 The second video is a bit long but shows another drunk weaving back and forth across the road (albeit with a rather irritating commentary from the cameraman, sorry about that). But the drunk gets his just desserts in the end and only injures himself.

Stick It Where The Sun Don’t Shine!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

You’ve possibly heard of the saying, “Stick your head where the sun don’t shine”? If you haven’t, or you are not sure what it means just take a quick look at my logo/gravatar for this blog and you’ll get the picture.


My blog post starts in Paderborn, Germany, where an elephant was under the care of overzealous zookeeper Friedrich Riesfeldt.


The problem was that the poor elephant was constipated and had been for a few days. Not a pleasant affliction if you’ve ever had to suffer it.


In his desperation to help the poor elephant Stefan had given it twenty-two doses of animal laxative and more than a bushel of berries, figs and prunes.


Not content with that explosive mixture, Fredrich also thought he would give the plugged-up pachyderm an olive oil enema as well.


As he was doing so, however, the first concoction must have done its work. The elephant let fly and dumped two hundred pounds of poop on top of Fredrich.


Unfortunately, according to flabbergasted Paderborn police detective Erik Dern, "The sheer force of the elephant's unexpected defecation knocked Mr. Riesfeldt to the ground, where he struck his head on a rock and lay unconscious as the elephant continued to evacuate his bowels on top of him".


With no one there to help him, he lay under all that dung for at least an hour before a watchman came along, and during that time he unfortunately suffocated.


It seems to be just one of those freak one-in-a-million accidents that happens.


Er…. Better make that two-in-a-million.


Here’s a video.


Enjoy! 

You May Feel A Lot Smaller Today, But You Should Feel A Lot Better Too

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

"The happiest people don't have the best of everything,

they just make the best of everything they have."

I should warn you that if you haven’t seen it before the subject of today’s post might make you feel a lot smaller than you were before you looked at it. But I hope it inspires you as well. It inspired me to be a more thankful for what I have and to try to do a bit more, with a smile on my face. (Mind you I reserve the right to complain about the SABs!)

First a joke to set the mood today.



A guy who had turned down every job he had ever been offered walks into the local welfare office, marches straight up to the counter and says

"Hi...You know, I just HATE drawing welfare. I'd really rather have a job."

The social worker behind the counter says,

"Really? Your timing is excellent.  We just got a job opening from a very wealthy old man who wants a chauffeur and bodyguard for his nymphomaniac daughter. You'll have to drive around in his Mercedes, but he'll supply all of your clothes.


Because of the long hours, meals will be provided. You'll be expected to escort her on her overseas holiday trips. You will have to satisfy her sexual urges. You'll have a two-bedroom apartment above the garage. The starting salary is $200,000 a year".

The guy says, "You're bullshittin' me!"

The social worker says, "Yeah, well... you started it."



If you are a regular reader of my blog you’ll realize that my tolerance level for stupidity and bureaucracy is rapidly heading towards zero, in fact it may already be there.

I despise, detest, and abhor three types of people, (1) those who think the world owes them a living without them doing a damn thing for themselves, (2) those who are clearly too dumb for the jobs they have been given, and (3) those who make the stupid rules the stupid people try to enforce.

But there’s a flip side to everything. My hatred of the above categories of people is equaled by my admiration of three other groups of people, (1) those who do make the best of what they have, (2) who work hard for themselves and their families, and (3) those who get on with their lives regardless of the obstacles that have been put in their way.

Thankfully there are thousands upon thousands of such good and decent people everywhere in every country. This little fella in the video below is a great example.

As I said above, it may make you feel a bit smaller that you thought you were, but if this doesn’t inspire you and make you take a think about your own life and all the good things you have then, like I always say, “it’s not my fault, there’s something wrong with you!”