Subject: Daily Dose - 040222 - Quality time, matching golf clubs, Bizarre
News, conversion, DDL, Rotten News
My husband and I decided to take our
two children, then ages seven and three, to our favorite "adult"
restaurant for the first time. The younger child refused to stay in her seat
and danced around our table. Her sister, tears rolling down her face, laughed
loudly at the three-year-old's antics and pounded the table.
Beet-red with embarrassment, my
husband warned them through clenched teeth, "If you don't start behaving,
you'll never eat out with us again!"
The man at the next table leaned over
to his wife. "Look dear," he said. "Quality time!"
___________________________
A man was showing his friend a new
set of matching golf clubs he had just bought.
"Doctor's orders," the man
told his friend. "My wife and I have been gaining too much weight and we
went to see the doctor about it. He said we needed more exercise, so I joined
the country club and bought myself this set of golf clubs."
"What did you buy your
wife?" the friend asked.
The man said, "A new matching
bicycle and lawn mower."
___________________________
BIZARRE NEWS.....
More Bizarre Christmas Traditions
It is a British Christmas tradition
that a wish made while mixing the Christmas pudding will come true only if the
ingredients are stirred in a clockwise direction.
A traditional Christmas dinner in
early England was the head of a pig prepared with mustard.
Sending red Christmas cards to
anyone in Japan constitutes bad etiquette, since funeral notices there are
customarily printed in red.
In Norway on Christmas Eve, all the
brooms in the house are hidden because long ago it was believed that witches
and mischievous spirits came out on Christmas Eve and would steal their brooms
for riding.
***
What a Great Catch
MOUNT DESERT ISLAND, Maine - As a
joke, fishermen Jim Bright and Chris Costello dressed a female lobster in a
Barbie outfit, complete with pink high heels. Their little prank has saved the
crustacean from the steam pot at least 10 times.
Barbie Lobster, as she has been
nicknamed, has been hauled up and thrown back on several occasions.
The radios used by lobstermen buzz
with laughter and chatter every time a new sighting of Barbie is reported.
Costello made a special trip to
Wal-Mart to purchase the blue blouse, red- and white-checkered shirt and shoes
that Barbie Lobster wears. Barbie hasn't been spotted since early December and
apparently was unkempt and almost naked, except for the heels. If she makes it a
few more months, she will be home free for another season.
"We have our spring fashions
all ready to go," Costello said.
***
It's a Good Thing He's Got Nine
Lives
ROCHESTER HILLS - Mich. - Tracker
the cat is one lucky feline. After traveling 150 miles in the engine of a car,
he emerged a little shaken, but otherwise unscathed.
The longhaired gray cat rode unseen
in the engine compartment of a female college student's car as she drove home
for the holidays. He most likely survived the 150 mile-trip in the Chevrolet
Tracker because the woman made no stops.
She only noticed the cat when she
reached home and heard intense kitty-crying. After she and her family searched
around the car, they finally lifted the hood and discovered Tracker perched on
top of the engine.
Officials at Pontiac's Michigan
Animal Rescue League believe the cat probably slipped into the engine
compartment to keep warm. He is currently residing at the League and is waiting
to be adopted.
***
Waste Not, Want Not
BERLIN, Germany - Since Germany has
only a small amount of its own natural reserves, a power plant chief has been
searching for an alternate source of energy and believes he has found it - used
diapers.
"It's an environmentally friendly
source of energy," said Thomas Lesche, director of a Bremen incinerator
plant that made a deal with a nearby retirement home to purchase 100 tons of
used pads and soiled tissues, which is an average of about 10,000 pads.
"The pollution emissions with used pads are far lower than with oil or
coal," added Lesche. "The content of nappies provide a great source
of energy. The demand for used incontinence materials will grow in the
future."
He also mentioned that the materials
make up around one percent of the plant's energy output now, but felt confident
that the percentage would increase.
***
Earring on the Side of Caution
ORLANDO, Fla. - If you have more
than three earrings in each ear, don't expect to get a job in any Orange County
office. Administrators have decided that three earrings in each earlobe is the
maximum amount of "facial jewelry" that workers will be allowed to
wear in Orange County offices.
Any other facial piercings, such as
eyebrow rings, nose rings, or tongue studs, will not be permitted. "They
can't even speak well when they have their tongues pierced," said
Commissioner Mary I. Johnson, 70.
The earring policy also states that
none of the three earrings can be worn on the top part of the ear. The only
holdout among administrators was Homer Hartage, who was overruled.
"Occasionally there will be
employees who are good workers, but they see the world a little bit differently
than the rest of us," he said.
____________________________
A young Jewish lad entered Notre
Dame to play football. At the end of the season, he returned home. As luck
would have it, he ran into his Rabbi at the airport.
The rabbi asked, "Are they
trying to convert you at South Bend?"
The youngster said, "Of course
not, Father!"
___________________________
DDL
I come from a long line of liars.
Both granddads were Civil-war fliers.
Dad wrote War and Peace,
Plus he co-starred in Grease.
And my uncle invented the pliers.
____________________________
"Oh dear, you poor thing."
--Actress Elizabeth Taylor after a
fan said that she'd seen all the star's movies.
***
"There are a lot of people who
want me to get out of acting and want me to run for governor. I think it's
mostly movie critics."
--Hollywood action hero Arnold Schwarzenegger.
***
"In Manila, a man shot a singer
at a karaoke bar because he said the person was singing out of tune. In a
related story, the Backstreet Boys canceled their concert in Manila."
--Conan O'Brien
____________________________
Rotten News.... (true)
Welcome to "Veggieburg"?
Mon Apr 28, 7:49 AM ET
By Dave Graham
HAMBURG (Reuters) - The German port
of Hamburg has been offered 10,000 euros (6,900 pounds) to change its name to
"Veggieburg" by animal rights activists who are unhappy about the
city's association with hamburgers.
"Hamburg could promote animal
welfare and court sympathy for animals by changing its name to
Veggieburg," the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) wrote in
a letter sent to Hamburg Mayor Ole von Beust on Monday.
The German chapter of PETA, which
claims 750,000 members worldwide, said the organisation would give Hamburg's
childcare facilities 10,000 euros worth of vegetarian burgers if the city
changed its name.
But city officials in Hamburg,
Germany's second largest city which traces its roots the ninth century, were
unmoved.
"I cannot afford to waste my
time with this. I don't even want to look at nonsense like this," said
Klaus May, a city government spokesman. "But that doesn't mean we
Hamburgers don't have a sense of humour."
In its letter, PETA said the name
Hamburg conjured up images of "unhealthy beef patties made of pulverised
dead cattle.
"Millions of people fall ill
each year with fatal ailments like heart disease, cancer, strokes and diabetes
from eating hamburgers," PETA said in the letter obtained by Reuters.
The original "hamburger
steak", a dish made of ground beef, travelled west with German migrants to
the United States in the 19th century.
The first mention of
"hamburgers" appeared on a menu in a New York restaurant in 1834.
Some historians trace its origins to a minced beef sandwich once popular with
sailors in Hamburg.
The city name "Hamburg"
comes from the old Saxon words "ham" (bay) and "burg"
(fortress).
PETA recently made a similar offer
to the U.S. town of Hamburg, New York. But their $15,000 (9,400 pound) bid was
rejected.
**********
Restaurant Serves Millionth
Strangled Duck
PARIS (Reuters) - Select guests
gathered at a top Paris restaurant on Tuesday to sample the one millionth duck
to be snatched from grassy marshland, carefully strangled and ritually cooked
with its own blood.
The legendary Tour d'Argent has been
serving up eight-week old ducklings, reared in the west coast Challans marshes,
since 1890, meticulously preparing them according to an age-old tradition, and
serving each one with a souvenir numbered tag.
Former U.S. President Theodore
Roosevelt ate duck No. 33,642 in 1910, Charlie Chaplin guzzled No. 253,652 some
45 years later, and celebrities like Elton John and Nicole Kidman and
footballer Ronaldo have sampled more recent birds.
On Tuesday, the Tour d'Argent will
uncork some of its finest wines and lay on fireworks above Notre Dame
Cathedral, which diners will be able to see from the window as they tuck into
the restaurant's one millionth roast "Caneton" (duckling).
"It's a real spectacle. That's
what you go there for. When it's being prepared in front of the tables with
Notre Dame in the background, it's like a miniature theater show,"
enthused restaurant critic Jean-Luc Petit-Renaud.
"One million ducks. It's
marvelous, really moving," he told French TF1 television ahead of the
feast, which has been reserved for a select 140 aficionados of fine food.
The Queen of England, as a princess,
and Japanese Emperor Hirohito have both sampled a Tour d'Argent Caneton, famous
for being served in a heady, cognac-laced sauce dosed with blood.
The secret, fans say, is in
strangling the ducks, keeping the flesh succulent, rather than slitting their
throats.
A former owner of the 421-year-old
restaurant discovered the method over a century ago from a chef near Rouen who
would buy cheap ducks that had been suffocated on the way to market. He tried
the chef's succulent duck dish and was smitten.
At La Tour d'Argent today, carcasses
of freshly strangled ducks are pressed to extract the blood which is mixed with
cognac and port to make a rich, sizzling sauce.
"If for the chef each dish is a
work of art, for me, it's a story unfolding, a face drawing itself, the return
of a happy moment," said Claude Terrail, a debonair 85-year-old who
inherited La Tour d'Argent from his father in 1947 and will pass it on to his
22-year-old son Andre on Tuesday.
"There is nothing more serious
than pleasure," he adds.
***********
Scientist Uses Panda Dung for Power
AFP
Contributing to Clean Energy?
April 29, 2003 — A Japanese
scientist could soon become stinking rich with an invention to be ready by 2005
that would use Panda dung to create electricity.
Fumiaki Taguchi, emeritus professor
of Kitasato University in Tokyo, embarked on the project five years ago when he
asked Ueno Zoo for a bucketful of one of their most popular residents' feces.
Bacteria inside the panda's belly
must be pretty special to be able to digest tough bamboo leaves and shoots, he
reasoned.