Web Log Archive, December 16th through December 29th, 2007
Saturday, December 29th, 2007
"Slow is the
time when we are bored. Slow is the time when we are ill. Fast is the time when
we are on vacation. Fast is the time when we are young. How is it, my neighbor
said to me this morning, that the days are slow, but the years are fast?"
Christopher
de Vinck
Friday, December 28th, 2007
"I was named after the French feminist writer,
Anais Nin, until the Observers looked at my underside and found out I am a boy. Now
I'm just Nin. I used to wander as a stray in Vermont. Since I am a one-cat household kind of guy, it was decided to find a new home
for me at the summit of Mount Washington. I am the latest in a long and
famous line of Observatory felines."
"Nin is 17 or 18 years
old, so he's getting up there. We wanted to do the most humane thing for him."
Scot Henley, executive director of the Mount
Washington Observatory.
The regal Tomcat with a bright white coat and black splotches was carried
off the mountain Wednesday for the last time and will live with some park
rangers in the valley below.
Associated
Press
Thursday, December 27th, 2007
So this gorgeous twenty-something blonde walks into a thirty-something
doctor's office. Dazzled, he asks her to remove her pants and sit up on the
examination table while he 'incidentally' rubs her thighs.
"Do you know what I'm doing?", he
asks, trying to sound casual.
"Yes, you're checking me for abnormalities."
she answers.
Encouraged, he requests that she remove her blouse and
her bra and she promptly complies. After a feint
with his stethoscope, he begins to gently massage her ample breasts with his
clean (and now lightly-lubricated) hands.
"Do you know what I'm doing now?",
he ventures.
"Yes, you're checking me for cancerous lumps."
she replies.
Now priapic,
driven by animal urges and heedless of professional code, he eases her back on
the table, raises her legs and slides off her panties. Soon he himself is
undressed...on top of and coupling with his beautiful patient.
"Do you know what I'm doing now?",
he whispers in her ear.
"Yes, you're getting herpes...that's what I came
in for!"
Wednesday, December 26th, 2007
Boxing Day
A
man is as old as he feels. A woman is as old as she looks.
Brute animals have the vowel sounds; only man can utter
consonants.
How like herrings and onions our vices are in the morning
after we have committed them.
Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm.
Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, 1772-1834
Tuesday, December 25th, 2007
"Merry
Christmas! What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without
money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time
for balancing your books and having every item in them through a round dozen of
months presented dead against you? If I could work my will, every idiot who goes
about with 'Merry Christmas' upon his lips should be boiled with
his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart!"
Charles Dickens, 1843
Monday, December 24th, 2007
Spot-On Department
"If
you were building a Republican presidential candidate from a kit, imagine what
pieces you might use: an athletic build, ramrod posture, Reaganesque hair, a
charismatic speaking style and a crisp dark suit. You'd add a beautiful wife and
family, a wildly successful business career and just enough executive government
experience. You'd pour in some old GOP bromides - spending cuts and lower taxes
- plus some new positions for 2008: anti-immigrant rhetoric and a focus on
faith."
The preamble to Saturday's
'anti-endorsement' of Mitt Romney in Saturday's Concord Monitor.
Sunday, December 23rd, 2007
seven
commonly accepted myths:
1-You need to drink eight glasses of water every day to stay healthy.
2- Reading in dim light ruins your eyesight.
3- Shaving makes hair grow back faster or coarser.
4- Eating turkey makes you drowsy.
5- We use only 10 percent of our brains.
6- Hair and fingernails continue to grow after death.
7- Mobile phones are dangerous in hospitals.
Dr.
Aaron Carroll, MD
Saturday, December 22nd,
2007
Winter Solstice: the shortest
day of the year.
Friday, December 21st, 2007
How Lots of Folks See it:
"Joe
started when his alarm clock (made in Japan) went off at 6 AM. And while his coffee pot
(made in China) was perking, he shaved with his electric razor (made in Hong
Kong). Then he put on a dress shirt (made in Sri Lanka), designer jeans
(made in Singapore) and some tennis shoes (made in Korea). After cooking his breakfast in
an electric skillet (made in India), he sat down with a calculator (made
in Mexico) to see how much (or how little) he could
afford to spend. After setting his watch (made in Taiwan) to his radio
(made in Switzerland) he got in his car (made in Germany), filled it with
gas (from Saudi Arabia) and continued his search. But at the end of
a discouraging day on his Computer (made in Malaysia), he decided to just
relax for a while. So he put on some sandals (made in Brazil), poured himself a glass of wine
(made in France), turned on his TV (made in Indonesia) and wondered why he
couldn't find a decent job in America."
Forwarded to me by a Redneck
friend.
Thursday, December 20th, 2007
Wednesday, December 19th, 2007
"It's
easiest to suggest the solution when you don't know much about the problem. The
more a man learns, the more he knows he doesn't know."
"Legislative assaults on motorcyclists are totally emotional, disproportionate and unfair...instigated by people who know nothing about motorcycling."
"Let your children go if you want to keep them."
"Judge the
character of a man by the way he treats those who can do nothing for him."
Malcolm Forbes (1917-1990)
Tuesday, December 18th, 2007
It
has become quite impossible, anymore,
to engage in simple communication with big-huge companies. In just the last
three days I have had two experiences which illustrate this reality. The
first was with AT&T ("used to be Cingular").
All I wanted to do was to cancel the second line on my
cell phone account on account of the non-mysterious fact that I no longer
need it. So, silly me, I went to the Web site...the same one where I can monitor
the phone usage. But of course there
is no place to click if you want to discontinue one of your lines. But there are
several places to click if you want to add a line! Then...suppose
you decide to send them an email about what you want to do? Well, see...it's not
that easy. First, you have to choose the topic of your email...while
being alerted to the suggestion that 'perhaps your
question has been answered before' in one of the FAQ's (that's
Frequently Asked Questions' for you neophytes).
Then...if you're not already exhausted from the attempt, you get to write your
heart out in a 'secure message area'. That's what I
did. I told them I wanted to cancel my second line. I phrased my request three
different ways, noting which number I wanted to lose. No ambiguity. After
clicking 'submit', I was assured once again that I
was a valued customer and that my query would be addressed within twenty-four
hours.
Anyway, they sent back a tear-stained reply describing their grief over my decision to 'discontinue service'...and that such a grave matter must be handled 'personally': by phone, they meant. So I called...and it got worse. I fully expected to be talking to someone with a thinly-veiled Indian accent but no! The guy who answered (after three minutes of entering my phone numbers [and being assured how much they understand that my time is important to me] and choosing the number corresponding to the nature of my call and being told that my call was so important that it would even be recorded for 'quality control purposes' but that 'for security purposes' I might have to repeat my phone numbers and didn't I know that I could access their Web site to 'manage my account') was clearly an American speaker of English: my native tongue! Oh goody! When I explained the purpose of my call (I'd already been on the phone for at least ten minutes), he said, 'I can do that for you.' 'You can?', I thought! But it was not to be. He told me that he would have to transfer me to someone who could 'do that' for me...and here's where my good humor evaporated. This American joker managed to screw up the transfer and so, I was not really on 'hold' but was, rather, 'off the hook', so to speak, listening in on an open line in their call center to customer service representatives negotiating late payments on accounts. Phrases like, "Well, that payment only bought you current up through October, but you still owe the payment for November and unless we receive...."
Oh Jesus! So I hung up and called back. But
this time, after getting as far as to the equivalent of the American
speaker (only now it was an Hispanic lady), I was in an ugly frame of mind. I
explained, once again, the purpose of my call and begged her 'Please!
Don't hang up until you're sure the call transfer is successful.' So
the transfer was made this time and the first thing the chick said who
answered the line was 'How are you today, Mr.
Shine?' That did it! And rather than attempt to
service my request, she launched into a pre-emptive spiel (doubtless reading
from a laminated page) about what a valued customer I am and, because of that, I
am now entitled to special deals on new cell phones. I rudely interrupted
her. To this lady's credit, she came off it pretty fast and morphed from
robotic to real. As much as was possible (considering that she knew her boss
might listen to anything she said), she admitted that she endures lots of abuse
from butt-holes like me who, by the time they get to talk to her, are hopping mad! I told
her that I realized that not any of this was her fault and she and me got
along famously for the next three or four minutes that it actually took for her to
process my request. (She wouldn't tell me if she was married...or
fat...or whether she likes bald guys.)
Next: American Express!
Monday, December 17th, 2007
"The
soldiers that I was with stood at attention and saluted and I put my hand on my
heart, and tears begin to well in [my] eyes, as you can imagine in a
circumstance like that. I have five boys of my own. I imagined what it would be
like to lose a son in a situation like that As I looked up there, every single
hand was on every heart, and I recognized this is a nation that comes together
and respects and reveres those who serve this great nation, and who joins in
mourning when one of them is lost
I'm a normal person. I have emotions just like anyone
else and I'm not ashamed of that at all! "
Mitt
Romney speaking today in New Hampshire, where he wants voters to know that
he's not just one more multi-millionaire chicken hawk
politician.
Sunday, December 16th, 2007
"It's more important to go
to a funeral than to a wedding because people need you more at a funeral."
Harold
Giuliani