Subject: Daily Dose - 040512 - Japanese soap, BIZARRE NEWS, Murano Glass
Duck, DDL, Rotten News
A Japanese soap manufacturing
company received a complaint that a consumer had bought a box of soap that was
empty. Management tasked its engineers to solve the problem permanently to
avoid any reoccurrence.
The engineers worked hard to devise
an X-ray machine with high-resolution monitors manned by two people to watch
all the soapboxes that passed through the line to make sure they were not
empty. No doubt, they worked hard and they worked fast.
But a rank-and-file employee that
was posed the same problem came out with another solution. He bought a strong
industrial electric fan and pointed it at the assembly line. He switched the
fan on, and as each soapbox passed the fan, it simply blew the empty boxes out
of the line.
_____________________________
BIZARRE NEWS....
Bizarre Patron Saints
Apollonia - Patron Saint of
toothaches.
Fiacre - Patron Saint of venereal
disease and taxi drivers.
Gengulf - Patron Saint of unhappy
marriages.
Vitus - Patron Saint of comedians
and mental illness.
Matthew - Patron Saint of
accountants.
Bernardino of Siena - Patron Saint
of advertising executives.
Luke - Patron Saint of
butchers.
Marin de Porres - Patron Saint of
hairdressers.
Joseph of Arimathea - Patron Saint
of grave diggers and funeral directors.
Bernard of Clairvaux - Patron Saint
of beekeepers.
Sebastian - Patron Saint of
neighborhood watch.
***
You Can Never Be Too Careful
GERMANY - If you need to be insured
against being abducted by aliens, losing a lottery ticket, or marrying a
bigamist - Knut Karsten Eicke is your man.
Eicke's company, Sir Huckleberry
Insurance, also sells policies aimed at covering flyers against being harmed by
turbulence, fathers fainting at the birth of their children, stock market
crashes and employees being fired for playing computer games at work.
"The alien abduction one is a
big seller," says Eicke. Anybody who is taken away to Mars against their
will stands to gain some cash - and there are additional premiums if you wish
to be insured against being used in sex experiments in space.
The company has been in business
since 1985 and covers the usual range of house, fire, flood, life and accident
policies - but the recent addition of "fun insurance" has sent its
stock soaring.
***
History Repeats Itself - Just Press
Rewind
According to a large chunk of the
British population, the Battle of Hastings never happened and Adolf Hitler is a
fictional character. Robin Hood was real, Harold Wilson saved Britain during
World War II and Mussolini was not a real historical figure.
Researchers conducted interviews
with over 2,000 people for Blenheim Palace to mark the 300th anniversary of the
Battle of Blenheim. They made the startling discoveries that a third of the
population believes the Cold War never occurred and another six percent think
The War of the Worlds, H G Well's fictional account of a Martian invasion, did
happen.
This altered view of history is a
result of the strong influence of Hollywood films and the fact that many
individuals are not moved by academia.
***
It All Comes Out in the Wash
AUBURN, California - A 6-year-old
boy was feeling blue after the school principal at Pleasant Ridge Elementary
School washed the bright blue dye out of his mohawk-style haircut.
Levey Padocs Jr.'s distinctive
hairdo was a present from his father over a month ago for behaving better in
class. Parents of the boy's classmates complained the hair style would ruin the
upcoming class picture, so Principal Derek Cooper said he washed the boy's hair
in the nurse's office after the boy's mother apparently gave permission.
However, the boy's father said
neither he nor the mother gave permission for the washing and plan to discuss
the incident with an attorney.
"Leave him alone. He's not a
problem child. He's not hurting anyone," Levey Padocs Sr. said. "He's
an individual, and that's how he's expressing his individuality."
***
Human Sushi Dishes Too Hot To Handle
KUNMINQ, China - A Japanese
restaurant that features near-naked girls covered with sushi has caused an
uproar in the conservative Chinese city of Kunming, Sky News reported.
Manager Li Ailing said she never
expected the "Feast on a Beauty's Body" promotion to be so explosive
and controversial. "The purpose of this promotion is not commercial, but
to spread Japanese culture," Li said.
Known as "Nyotai Mori" in
Japan, the feasts date back to ancient times and are usually offered to
aficionados on request, the report said. The restaurant in southwestern China
charges $120 per person, but the pay for the fair-skinned college girls was not
disclosed.
At Japanese restaurants in Britain
and the United States, women's activists have routinely protested such
occasional "Sushi in the Raw" events, calling them offensive and
degrading.
____________________________
I am an online auction seller and
had a beautiful, collectible, Murano Glass Duck to offer prospective bidders.
Typed up a lovely auction description of the glass duck, and titled the item,
"Stunning Murano Glass Duck."
The description itself was a work of
art, a true masterpiece. Finished writing it, submitted it to the auction site,
and the auction immediately began.
I decided to admire my work once
again and clicked on the link to said auction. What did I see? Big blue
letters...an html extravaganza...and lo and behold, I discovered that I was
selling a: "Stunning Murano Glass Dick."
____________________________
DDL
There once was a girl from Cornell,
Whose tits were shaped like a bell.
When you touched them they shrunk,
Except when she was drunk.
And then they got bigger than hell.
_____________________________
"To be stupid, selfish, and
have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is
lacking, all is lost."
--Gustave Flaubert
***
"The only way to avoid being
miserable is not to have enough leisure to wonder whether you are happy or
not."
--George Bernard Shaw
***
"When they discover the center
of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to discover they are not it."
--Bernard Bailey
_____________________________
Rotten News.... (true)
Leader Says Gold Teeth Out, White
Teeth In...
Tue Apr 6, 8:06 AM ET
ASHGABAT (Reuters) - Turkmenistan's
president has told his people to shun traditional false gold teeth in favor of
white ones, the latest eccentric command after moves to ban beards, ballet and
circuses.
President Saparmurat Niyazov, who
has unlimited powers in the Central Asian nation of six million, set his eyes
on Monday on a student with a full set of gold teeth as she was reading an
address in his honor at a local university.
"Sebildzhan, don't be offended.
You look great with gold teeth, but you would look far better with white
ones," television showed Niyazov as telling her. "Here's the health
minister, himself a dentist. He will give you white teeth."
"I know this fashion (for gold
crowns) appeared when the Turkmen lived in penury," said Niyazov, who
portrays himself as modernizing the gas-rich nation but is criticized in the
West for human rights violations.
Similar statements by Niyazov have
in the past been interpreted as law. Earlier this year he expressed a dislike
for beards and long hair on male students, resulting in their disappearance
from universities.
Displaying a smile full of gold
teeth has long been a sign of prestige and relative wealth in largely
impoverished post-Soviet Central Asia, and many young people buy gold teeth
even if their natural ones are in perfect order.
**********
Activists Scream Over Booze-Flavored
Ice Cream
Mon Apr 5, 8:56 AM ET
SYDNEY (Reuters) - A new
vodka-flavored ice cream launched in Australia provoked an outcry Saturday from
groups worried it would give children a taste for alcohol.
The booze-flavored Illicit Vodka
Cranberry Magnum ice creams hit the shelves just months after biscuit-maker
Arnott's new Tia Maria Tim Tams and Kahlua Slices prompted fears that the
liquor-laced biscuits would encourage children to drink.
"These products normalize
alcohol and suggest to people that they ought to be thinking about alcohol just
about every hour of the day," said Geoff Munro, Community Alcohol Action
Network director.
"It introduces children to the
taste of alcohol at potentially a very early age and I think that should be
avoided," he told Australian Associated Press.
Streets, which makes the Magnums now
on sale in Victoria state as part of its "vice-cream" range, said the
ice creams contained only vodka flavoring and no alcohol.
The firm's marketing general manager
David McNeil told the Herald Sun newspaper the ice creams were promoted only to
adults. He added that rum and raisin has been a popular ice cream flavor for 30
years.
**********
April 6, 2004
In Alaska, spring means betting in the Nenana Ice Classic melt
By DAN JOLING
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Tom Waters
saves all year to indulge in his only hobby: guessing when ice will melt.
For $2.50 a pop, he and thousands of
others try for a piece of a $300,000 US jackpot by predicting the exact minute
when spring will loosen the frozen cover of the Tanana River at Nenana, Alaska,
enough to move it downstream.
Kentucky has its Derby, Indianapolis
its 500. Alaska's rite of spring is the Nenana Ice Classic.
For 87 years, residents of Nenana, a
city of 500 about 90 kilometres south of Fairbanks, have gambled on when the
ice will leave the Tanana. "Breakup" on the Tanana and Yukon rivers
in the early 1900s meant the waterways could again be used by sternwheelers to
haul people and cargo 1,300 kilometres west from the Bering Sea.
In 1917, surveyors for the Alaska
Engineering Commission, the federal agency charged with building the Alaska
Railroad, were waiting for open water so boats could bring up material they
needed to go to work. They passed the time by anteing up about $800 to form an
ice-betting pool.
The kitty grew as people from around
the state began betting. The Ice Classic over the years has paid out nearly $10
million in prize money.
To detect movement in the ice these
days, Ice Classic organizers erect an 8.5-metre wooden tripod 61 metres from
shore just upriver from the 396-metre highway bridge. They hook a cable from
the tripod to the official Ice Classic clock. When the tripod moves 30 metres,
the wire trips the clock.
Former Lt.-Gov. Jack Coghill, 78,
was born and raised in Nenana and presided as mayor for 22 years. Coghill was
one of 10 people to hold a winning ticket in 1952, when the pot was $180,000.
He used his $18,000 to buy a sawmill, cut lumber and build a hotel, since
converted to a combination courthouse, coin-operated laundry, beauty parlour
and two-unit apartment house, where he now lives.
Given the variables, there's no way
the contest could be rigged, he said. "There's no shenanigans and no way
anyone can beat Mother Nature."
The king of the guessers since 1978
has been Waters, 46, of Fairbanks. Most people buy a ticket or 10. Waters this
year purchased 2,250 at a cost of $5,625, with the reluctant blessing of his
wife, Suzetta.
"She kind of cringes when she
sees the debit in the cheque book," Waters says.
The first year he entered, his best
guess was an hour off - his all-time worst finish. Since then, he has kept
meticulous notes on the factors that influence Breakup.
He picked the correct minutes twice,
winning $10,000 in 1979 and $14,700 in 1983. Waters missed the jackpot by two
minutes last year when the ice went out on April 29 at 6:22 p.m. Alaska
Standard Time.
*************
GOLDFISH CAN SWIM THANKS TO SLING
Goldfish can
swim again thanks to sling
Customers of a US restaurant have made a sling for 17-year-old goldfish which
was struggling to swim because of illness.
Regulars at the Sky Port diner, near Schenectady, New York state, came up with
the idea of a creating a sling after Dick the goldfish fell ill.
Patty Sherman, who owns the diner with her two sisters, Joanna Dewey and Mary
Ann Parker, said Dick could barely move across the bottom of his fish tank
behind the counter.
A customer whose daughter is studying to be a veterinarian had his daughter
research fish ailments.
She reported back that Dick was likely suffering from swim bladder disease and
prescribed a diet of cooked peas to be hand fed to Dick three times a day.
Meanwhile, customers devised a sling made up of fishing bobbers, drinking
straws, gauze and string so that he can swim again.
