Daily Dose - 030427 - BRONCO MACHINE, THIS is TRUE, petty argument, DDL, Rotten News

BRONCO MACHINE

Billy Joe and Jim Bob went to the fair. They came across a small crowd gathered around a stall and went over to take a look.

"What's going on?" Billy Joe asked one of the crowd.

"We're watching to see if some idiot can ride that bronco machine," he said nodding towards a fearsome looking machine. No body has managed to stay on for the full three minutes yet. And there's a prize of $100 for anybody who can.

"I can do that," Billy Joe said confidently.

"You can't! You'll get yourself killed if you try and ride that thing," said Jim Bob.

"Watch this," said Billy Joe and climbed aboard the bronco machine.

The machine thrashed wildly, up and down, from side to side, around in circles but still a grim-faced Billy Joe clung to its back. After two minutes the machine was bucking almost vertically and spinning until Billy Joe was a blur. But when the three minutes were up Billy Joe was still on the machine's back acknowledging the cheers and cries from the small crowd. He dismounted, collected his winnings and rejoined Jim Bob.

"Where in hell did you learn to ride a bucking bronco like that?" Jim Bob asked.

"Remember three months ago," Billy Joe said. "When my wife had whooping cough...?"

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THIS is TRUE....

LET'S PRETEND THIS MAKES SENSE: Students at King High School in Tampa, Fla., staged a play sponsored by Mothers Against Violence in America to explore school shootings. "Bang, Bang, You're Dead" does not include a gun or any shooting but rather relates how the victims of a fictional school shooting come back to talk to the student gunman about why he did it, "making him realize how he's done something really, really horrible," says King's drama teacher. The victims show him "how he's ended their lives and his parents' and his own." Principal David Steele says "the moral of the story is a good one" -- but he has banned students from seeing it because its theme is a "sensitive subject". (St. Petersburg Times)
...You wouldn't want teens to understand of the horror of school shootings until after they've had the chance to experience one.

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BUGGER! "Strine" -- Australian slang -- is invading American speech, says Tom Dalzell, the author of two books on U.S. slang. Thanks to more Australian movies and TV shows becoming hits in America, not to mention the 2000 Olympics, terms such as "no worries", "agro" (aggravated), "walkabout" and "crikey" (exclamation of surprise) are being heard in the States more frequently. (Brisbane Courier-Mail)
...That's shonky! If that drongo thinks the trend is new, he's berko.

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TACTICAL ADVANTAGE: Australian Prime Minister John Howard is being criticized for spending A$15 million (US$8.9 million) on a "terrorism kit" that is being mailed to every household in the country. The kit contains a booklet on how to spot a terrorist and a refrigerator magnet with emergency telephone numbers. Howard defends the effort, saying it "gives people useful information," but critics say the money could be better spent elsewhere. (Sydney Morning Herald) ...In the U.S., Bush just told everyone to buy duct tape and plastic sheeting. It cost the government nothing, and the rush on hardware stores gave the economy a nice boost.

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HIGHWAY TO HELL: New Mexico's Gov. Bill Richardson has announced he is working to change the highway number of U.S. 666, which cuts through a corner of his state, as well as Utah and Colorado. Rhonda Faught, Secretary of New Mexico's Highway and Transportation Department, claims the number "discourages tourism and economic development in the area." The number, assigned in the 1940s, designates the road as the sixth offshoot from Route 66. (Santa Fe New Mexican)
...Suggested new designation: Highway 13.

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BUT NOT CHARGED WITH IMPERSONATING AN OFFICER, SINCE SHE DIDN'T PIN ON A BADGE: "Shirtless Woman Joyrides in Stolen Police Cruiser"
-- Denver Post headline

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A husband and wife were involved in a petty argument, both of them unwilling to admit they might be in error.

"I'll admit I'm wrong," the wife told her husband in a conciliatory attempt, "if you'll admit I'm right."

He agreed and, like a gentleman, insisted she go first.

"I'm wrong," she said.

With a twinkle in his eye, he responded, "You're right!"

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DDL

These stories I tell are no joke,
On radio they're told by some bloke
And here's one more recent,
And slightly more decent:
Try douching, girls, with Diet Coke.

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"When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity."
-Albert Einstein

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Abstinence makes the church grow fondlers.

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"It's morally wrong to allow a sucker to keep his money."
-WC Fields.

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Rotten News... (true)

No Dibs on Cleared Parking Spaces

PHILADELPHIA-February 19, 2003 — A cracked barstool. An armless armchair. A beat-up storage trunk emblazoned with a sticker that read "Deathwish."

Those were the items seen occupying city parking spots recently as residents tried to hold on to the spots they'd shoveled out – a reservation, of sorts, that can raise tempers.

In 2000, Louis Mockewich, 35, of Philadelphia was sentenced to 30 years in prison for killing neighbor Michael Kirkpatrick, 31, during a dispute over snow shoveling. Mockewich, who had been piling the snow near the victim's red Ford pickup, shot Kirkpatrick after the victim confronted him.

Officials say "reserving" a parking spot is illegal, even one you've shoveled.

Inspector Bill Colarulo, a Philadelphia police spokesman, said barricading a parking space is punishable by a $100 fine.

"We're trying to avert any conflict that might escalate into tragedy," Colarulo said. "We're asking neighbors to pull together."

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Sunday, 9 February, 2003, 16:26 GMT
Couples offered 'dirty' weekend

The couple will sip champagne at the sewage works

A water company is offering a chance for a romantic couple to spend Valentine's weekend at a sewage works.

Yorkshire Water says it is running the competition through its website to promote greater public interest in what goes on once we pull the plug or flush the toilet.

But there will be a sweeter-smelling side to the prize.

The winners will be spending the weekend at the five star Oulton Hall Hotel in Leeds and will be driven to the Esholt sewage works near Bradford in a Rolls Royce.

They will also receive £500 in Harvey Nichols gift vouchers.

Graham Dixon, from Yorkshire Water, said: "Many people dream of a romantic weekend overlooking the Seine in Paris

"But our Valentine couple will be having a romantic drink next to a river of sewage stemming from the people and businesses of Bradford."

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'John Piss' loses passport bid
March 20, 2003

A MELBOURNE man is going nowhere with his adopted name, Prime Minister John Piss The Family Court and Legal Aid, a federal magistrate ruled today.

The 57-year-old, from suburban Seaford, already uses the name on his driver's licence and on banking and medical records.

And after adopting the name in 1997, he ran as a candidate with it in the 1998 federal election in Prime Minister John Howard's seat of Bennelong in NSW.

But the man, who happily answers to John, ran into trouble when he decided to go international with his unique moniker.

The Melbourne office of Passports Australia initially granted him a passport with that name - minus the "the" - in 1998 but later cancelled it altogether.

The office said the name could reasonably be considered to be offensive because it contained an expletive and a title not legitimately acquired.

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal upheld that decision and Federal Magistrate Murray McInnis also agreed in a ruling handed down today.

The passports office had the power to use its discretion to reject the name and "correctly made reference to dictionary definitions", Federal Magistrate McInnis found.

"It was entitled to find that the name `piss' is offensive having regard to the ordinary definitions," he said.

AAP