Subject: Daily Dose - 060516 - Keep the Change, BIZARRE NEWS, Marriage
Anonymous, DDL, Rotten News
Keep the Change
A world leader met with Bush in the
Oval Office. George said, "To show my appreciation for all the
things you've done for our country, I want to present you with a brand new
Cadillac. It's loaded! It has everything! Here you go. Here are the keys."
The other world leader said,
"Now, George, you know that I can't accept that!"
George said, "Oh, yeah, right!
Gift limits and all that! Here! I'll sell it to you for half a dollar!"
His guest said, "Okay, Mr.
President," and gave him a dollar.
George said, "Oops! I don't
have change!" He pocketed the dollar.
His guest said, "That's okay.
I'll just take two Cadillacs."
______________________________
BIZARRE NEWS...
Bizarre Beer Facts
Studying the experimentally induced
intoxicated behavior of ants in 1888, naturalist John Lubbock noticed that the
insects that had too much to drink were picked up by nest mates and carried
home. Conversely, drunken strangers were summarily tossed in a ditch.
The familiar Bass symbol, a red
triangle, was registered in 1876 and is the world's oldest trademark.
Pennsylvania has had more breweries
in its history than any other state. In 1910 alone, 119 of the state's towns
had at least one licensed beermaker.
In their efforts to regulate beer
quality, the ancient Babylonians, who were among history's earliest brewers,
decreed that any commercial beermaker who sold unfit beer would be drowned in
his/her own libation.
Bottle caps, or "crowns,"
were invented in Baltimore in 1892 by William Painter. Painter proved his
invention's worth when he convinced a local brewer to ship a few hundred cases
of beer to South America and back and they returned without a leak.
An 18-year study by the National
Institute on Aging found that 50-plus men who consumed a drink a day during
middle age scored significantly better on cognitive tests later in life than
did non-drinkers.
In ancient Babylon, women brewers
also assumed the role of temple priestesses. The goddess Siris was the patron
of beer.
On October 17 of 1814, a rupture in
a brewery tank containing 3,500 barrels of beer caused a flood of fatal
proportions in the London parish of St. Giles. The wave of beer swept victims
off their feet, dashed them against walls, and buried them under debris. Two
houses were demolished in the sea of beer suddenly loosed upon town, and nine
people lost their lives in the flood of suds.
There are 19 different versions of
Guinness.
According to a diary entry from a
passenger on the Mayflower, the pilgrims made their landing at Plymouth Rock,
rather than continue to their destination in Virginia, due to lack of beer.
The original text of the
Reinheitsgebot only had three ingredients: Barley, hops, and water. Yeast
wasn't mentioned for another 35 years.
[From the Opinionated Beer Page]
***
Miracle Turns Water Into Beer
OSLO, Norway - In what I, and most
other guys I know, would consider a miracle, a woman turned on her kitchen
faucet this past weekend to discover the water had turned into beer.
Two flights down from Haldis
Gundersen's residence, patrons and employees at the Big Tower Bar were
horrified when water flowed from the beer taps. It took a lot of clumsy
plumbing, but someone at the bar had managed to hook the beer hoses to the
water pipes for Gundersen's apartment.
Gundersen's amazement quickly turned
to disappointment when she realized the beer was flat and not tempting.
Per Egil Myrvang, of the local beer
distributor, said he helped bartenders reconnect the pipes by telephone.
***
Incident Leaves Bad Taste In The
Mouth
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. - A man thought
he could strike it rich by planting a dead mouse in a burrito at a Taco Bell
restaurant. Ryan Daniel Goff planted the dead rodent and then complained to an
employee that his burrito tasted "funny."
Court documents said that Goff later
called Taco Bell's regional manager, Robert Buckle, saying he wanted
"something that would make my ears tingle" to settle the matter.
Goff was arraigned Thursday on an
attempted extortion count, but laughed and smiled as District Judge Thomas
Phillips read the charge. "I don't recall seeing anything like this
before," Grand Traverse County prosecutor Alan Schneider told the Traverse
City Record-Eagle.
***
Flipping the Bird - Freedom of
Speech?
PITTSBURGH - A man accused of making
an obscene gesture to a construction worker has filed a federal suit claiming
his rights were violated, reports said.
Thomas Burns of Newcastle, Pa., said
his April 2005 arrest on a charge of obscene disorderly conduct violated his
constitutional right to free speech and protection against unreasonable
searches and seizures. Burns' suit also sought damages for emotional trauma,
humiliation and distress, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported.
Burns was accused of raising his
middle finger to a construction worker to express his frustration with
slow-moving traffic. However, the charge was dropped in October when the
construction worker and police officer Samuel Johns failed to show up in court.
***
Festival Offers a 'Taste' of
Literary Culture
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -
"Devouring" a book takes on a whole new meaning at the upcoming
Edible Books Festival at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The April event, held in conjunction
with the International Edible Books Festival, celebrates the book arts and the
literal ingestion of culture. Participants create edible books that are
exhibited, documented, then consumed on the spot, the university said in a
release.
April 1, along with being April
Fool's Day, also is the birthday of the celebrated French gastronome
Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826).
The event's creator, California
artist Judith A. Hoffberg, calls it "the perfect day to eat your words and
play with them, too."
Hoffberg started the festival in
2000, inspired by a Thanksgiving dinner in Pacific Palisades. This year's event
is April 3.
______________________________
Marriage Anonymous
There is a new, specialized service
called "Marriage Anonymous"
WOMEN:
When you feel like getting married,
you call Marriage Anonymous and they send over a man in a dirty T-shirt who
hasn't shaved in three days, smells like stale beer, and whines at you to make
him a snack while he lies on the couch, emits various bodily gases and their
accompanying noises, and watches football.
MEN:
When you feel like getting married,
you call Marriage Anonymous and they send you an overweight woman dressed in a
sloppy bathrobe and sporting curlers in her hair. She will have no makeup on,
and will harrangue you to pick up your clothes off the floor.
______________________________
DDL
There was a young man named
Crockett,
Whose balls got caught in a socket.
His wife was a bitch,
So she turned the switch,
And Crockett went off like a rocket
______________________________
President Bush is back. He finished
up his trip to India. He accomplished all he wanted to accomplish there. He
signed a nuclear agreement, he got their pledge to help fight terrorism and he
got his laptop fixed."
--Jay Leno
***
"The makers of "Sesame
Street" have decided not to have Russell Crow on as host of the show
because he is not a good role model. Crow was disappointed because he wanted to
host an episode that was brought to you by the letters F and U."
--Conan O'Brien
***
"The Neverland Ranch has been
closed in California. Good to see them nip that in the bud."
--Dave Letterman
***
This bird flu is pretty is pretty
scary. I spent an hour last night rubbing Vicks Vapo-rub on my parakeet."
--Jay Leno
***
A man went to a zoo but all it had
was a dog. It was a Shitzu.
***
My husband seems to feel one should
get their money's worth on vacation. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to frolic
every minute or not. But once when I was sitting in a beach chair on the
sand, he came out of the surf and said, "This is costing us $300 a day -
and you sit there reading a book!"
______________________________
Rotten News.... (true)
March 23, 2006
Dutch family bites back
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - The
Bruintjes family says a city inspector was barking up the wrong tree when he
handed them a bill for the equivalent of $110 Cdn for the Dutch dog tax. The
family insists it does not have a dog - only a barking doorbell.
It was the second consecutive year
in which the family has had a run-in with authorities over their doorbell,
which plays 15 different barking noises, the Dutch news media reported
Thursday.
"Last year it was a huge effort
to convince the inspector that we didn't have a dog, and now it's happened
again," Gerrit Bruintjes was quoted as saying by RTL Nieuws.
In the Netherlands, dog owners are
required to pay the "hondenbelasting," a hated annual tax that is
frequently evaded.
After pressing the doorbell and
hearing the barks, the inspector in the city of Oldenzaal simply pushed a bill
through the family's mail slot.
"My wife came home shortly
afterward and was able to grab the inspector at the end of our street. After a
lot of yipping and yapping, she was finally able to convince him,"
Bruintjes said.
He said he had chosen the doorbell
in honour of the family's German shepherd, which died several years ago.
**********
Bored Canadian bureaucrat begs for
escape online
Wed Mar 22, 1:12 PM ET
OTTAWA (Reuters) - A bored Canadian
bureaucrat fed up with office drudgery is seeking C$1 million (491,000 pounds)
in donations so he can quit his job and "do something that makes a
difference in my life and the lives of others".
The unnamed man, who claims to have
worked for a large civil service organisation for over 10 years, has set up a
Web site -- saveabureaucrat.com -- on which he explains he is desperate to
escape his job.
"After a while it starts to sap
the energy and soul out of you and you realise that you have become a true
bureaucrat ... I feel like an old curmudgeon frustrated by having to deal with
paper being passed around at a snail's pace," he writes. "Retirement
will free up my time for volunteer activities such as tutoring children and
counselling people who are going through rough patches in their life. On a
daily basis I will be a much more pleasant person to be around," he adds.
Despite promising not to spend
donations on "Rolls-Royce cars, 10 bedroom houses, airplanes", the
bored civil servant has quite a way to go.
As of Wednesday morning, five
sympathetic souls had sent in a total of just C$59.26.
($1=$1.16 Canadian)
**********
Hospital ER Offers Free Movie
Tickets For Slow Doctor Response
POSTED: 10:42 am EST March 21, 2006
CHESTERFIELD, Va. -- A hospital is
promising emergency room patients they'll be seen by a doctor in 30 minutes or
less -- or else receive an apology and free movie tickets.
Shortening emergency room waiting
times is part of a hospital-wide initiative aimed at improving patient care,
said Pam Hash, administrative director of emergency services at the newly
opened St. Francis Medical Center. The free movie tickets were the marketing
department's idea.
Other hospitals around the country
have offered 30-minute guarantees to make themselves competitive. If the wait
times are exceeded, patients are compensated with everything from restaurant
gift certificates to free medical care.
There are exceptions to St. Francis'
30-minute guarantee, such as when the emergency department has multiple
critical-care patients or is so crowded that ambulances are being diverted to
other hospitals.
**********
