Subject: Daily Dose - 080207 - St.
FRANCIS, THIS is TRUE, Taxed, DDL, News from the British Tabloids
GOD: Frank, you know all about gardens and nature. What in the world is going on down there on the planet? What happened to the dandelions, violets, thistle and stuff I started eons ago? I had a perfect no-maintenance garden plan. Those plants grow in any type of soil, withstand drought and multiply with abandon. The nectar from the long-lasting blossoms attracts butterflies, honey bees and flocks of songbirds. I expected to see a vast garden of colors by now. But, all I see are these green rectangles.
St. FRANCIS: It's the tribes that settled there, Lord. The Suburbanites. They started calling your flowers "weeds" and went to great lengths to kill them and replace them with grass.
GOD: Grass? But, it's so boring. It's not colorful. It doesn't attract butterflies, birds and bees; only grubs and sod worms. It's sensitive to temperatures. Do these Suburbanites really want all that grass growing there?
ST. FRANCIS: Apparently so, Lord. They go to great pains to grow i t and keep it green. They begin each spring by fertilizing grass and poisoning any other plant that crops up in the lawn.
GOD: The spring rains and warm weather probably make grass grow really fast. That must make the Suburbanites happy.
ST. FRANCIS: Apparently not, Lord. As soon as it grows a little, they cut it-sometimes twice a week.
GOD: They cut it? Do they then bale it like hay?
ST. FRANCIS: Not exactly, Lord. Most of them rake it up and put it in bags.
GOD: They bag it? Why? Is it a cash crop? Do they sell it?
ST. FRANCIS: No, Sir, they pay to throw it away.
GOD: Now, let me get this straight. They fertilize grass so it will grow, and, when it does grow, they cut it off and pay to throw it away?
ST. FRANCIS: Yes, Sir.
GOD: These Suburbanites must be relieved in the summer when we cut back on the rain and turn up the heat. That surely slows the growth and saves them a lot of work.
ST. FRANCIS: You aren't going to believe this, Lord. When the grass stops growing so fast, they drag out hoses and pay more money to water it so they can continue to mow it and pay to get rid of it.
GOD: What nonsense. At least they kept some of the trees. That was a sheer stroke of genius, if I do say so myself. The trees grow leaves in the spring to provide beauty and shade in the summer. In the autumn, they fall to the ground and form a natural blanket to keep moisture in the soil and protect the trees and bushes. It's a natural cycle of life.
St. FRANCIS: You better sit down, Lord. The Suburbanites have drawn a new circle. As soon as the leaves fall, they rake them into great piles and pay to have them hauled away.
GOD: No. What do they do to protect the shrub and tree roots in the winter to keep the soil moist and loose?
ST. FRANCIS: After throwing away the leaves, they go out and buy something which they call mulch. They haul it home and spread it around in place of the leaves.
GOD: And where do they get this mulch?
ST. FRANCIS: They cut down trees and grind them up to make the mulch.
GOD: Enough! I don't want to think about this anymore. St. Catherine, you're in charge of the arts. What movie have you scheduled for us tonight?
ST. CATHERINE: "Dumb a nd Dumber", Lord. It's a story about...
GOD: Never mind, I think I just heard the whole story from St. Francis.
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THIS is TRUE
WELL THERE'S YOUR PROBLEM! After a 4:00 a.m. blackout, electrical system workers went to a substation in Youngstown, Ohio, to diagnose the problem. They found it: a man had cut through the security fence, climbed up a ladder, and cut a 23,000-volt line to steal the copper wire. The surge through his body quick-fried him, and he then fell 20-25 feet, investigators say. His body was still smoking when it was found; a pair of bolt cutters was welded to his neck by the shock. Police identified the man as James Leach, 50, and said that he had been arrested in an electrical substation last month, and had been released from custody the two days before on another theft charge. Detective Kenneth Centorame found the death surprising. "He ought to know better than that," he said. (Warren Tribune Chronicle)
...He does now.
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HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL: State troopers in Michigan were called out to a home in Westland. The caller "wanted us to be on guard," Trooper Rocco Daversa said, because a party at the home could "get out of hand." The caller, Geraldine, was the birthday girl; the "home" was a senior citizen center -- Geraldine was turning 92. Daversa made a stop on the way to pick up a birthday card. "It was just such a cute story when the dispatcher told me, I had to go out there and drop off a card," he said. When he arrived he found that Geraldine was even more confused than he thought: the party wasn't scheduled until the next week. (Detroit News)
...She didn't really want a cop. She wanted a stripper dressed as a cop.
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YOUR CALL WILL BE ANSWERED IN THE ORDER RECEIVED: Hannah King, 51, of Milford Haven, Wales, had a problem with her new telephone installation, so she called British Telecom to complain. After waiting on hold for 8 hours she gave up and tried again the next day. She waited on hold for another 8 hours, and then 4 more hours the next day -- but still didn't get to the top of the queue. "I was so frustrated and angry I broke down in tears," King said. "The problem is that if something goes wrong you have no other point of contact." A spokeswoman said "BT would like to apologize for the length of time this customer was left on the phone." (London Times)
...And they'll happily deliver that apology the next time she calls.
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BY HOOK OR BY CROOK: "From what I understand, two guys were out fishing on Friday night," reported Massillon (Ohio) Police Sgt. J.J. DiLoreto. But instead of catching a fish, they caught a snapping turtle. "I think they were planning to eat it," he said, so the fishermen decided to shoot the turtle. But "his foot got in the way," DiLoreto said. "He shot himself in the foot" with a 9mm pistol. The unnamed victim may face a misdemeanor charge of illegal firearms discharge. And in all the resulting confusion, "I think the turtle got away." (Massilon Independent)
...The "big one" always does.
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OVERKILL: "Orlando Police Ask for Guns, Get Missile Launcher"
-- Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel headline
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Interesting Things That Have Been Taxed
Bachelors (England in 1695 A.D. and Missouri in 1820 A.D.)
Beards (Russia, 1702 A.D.)
Cooking Oil (Ancient Egypt, approximately 2000 B.C.)
Souls (Russia, approximately 1682 A.D. This is why Russia fell--they claimed they had no souls.)
Urine (Rome, 1 A.D.)
Besides taxing beards and souls, Peter the Great of Russia also taxed: hats, boots, beehives, basements, chimneys, food, clothing, birth, marriage, and burial.
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DDL
There once was a lady from Arden
Who sucked off a man in a garden.
He said, "My dear Flo,
Where does all that stuff go?"
And she said, "(swallowing hard) - I beg pardon?"
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"Beer, the cause of and solution to, all life's problems."
-Homer Simpson
***
"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal labotomy."
-Tom Waits
***
"All right, brain, I don't like you and you don't like me - so let's just do this and I'll get back to killing you with beer."
-Homer Simpson
***
"I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day."
-Frank Sinatra
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News from the British Tabloids....
HELP! I'M STUCK IN MY DOG
A MUM was trapped for an hour with her hand stuck inside her pet boxer's mouth.
Pregnant Vicky Morl speared her hand when she tried to pluck out a fishing hook which was stuck in the animal's jaw.
It was a case of becoming too attached to her agitated pet - for whenever he moved, poor Vicky had to move with him.
She was finally released by a fire crew and paramedics and taken to hospital. Her left hand was so badly injured she needed a skin graft.
Husband James said: "Both Vicky and the dog were very upset. But the emergency services managed to calm them down and set them free."
Vicky, in her late 20s, became trapped after her pet rummaged round the garden of her home in Maidenhead, Berks. Somehow, he ended up with a lethally sharp fishing hook in his mouth. Vicky tried to wiggle it free. But as she did so, the hook penetrated her hand and she was caught up as well.
Luckily she was able to hit a phone pad with her free hand to let James know of her predicament. He dialled 999 and emergency services went to the scene. It took more than hour to untangle the pair.
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Breasts ruled too sexy for bus
In a baffling reaction to the sight of some breasts, a German bus driver threatened to throw a 20-year-old sales clerk off his bus in the southern town of Lindau because he said she was too sexy, a newspaper reported on Monday.
'Suddenly he stopped the bus,' the woman named Debora C. told Bild newspaper. 'He opened the door and shouted at me "Your cleavage is distracting me every time I look into my mirror and I can't concentrate on the traffic. If you don't sit somewhere else, I'm going to have to throw you off the bus."'
The woman, pictured in Bild wearing her snug-fitting summer clothes with the plunging neckline, said she moved to another seat but was humiliated by the bus driver.
A spokesman for the bus company defended the driver.
'The bus driver is allowed to do that and he did the right thing,' the spokesman said. 'A bus driver cannot be distracted because it's a danger to the safety of all the passengers.'
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Rugby player finds tooth stuck in head
A rugby player in Australia somehow managed to keep competing for more than four months, without realizing he had an opponent's tooth lodged in his forehead.
Ben Czislowski, a former National Rugby League prop playing for Brisbane team Wynnum, had a clash of heads with opposing forward Matt Austin during an April 1 match against the pleasingly-named Tweed Heads. He had a head wound stitched up afterwards, the Australian Associated Press reported on Tuesday.
But Czislowski later suffered an eye infection and complained of lethargy and shooting pains in his head. A visit to his doctor last week revealed a tooth still embedded in his head.
'I can laugh about it now, but the doctor told me it could have been serious, with teeth carrying germs,' said Czislowski. He kept the tooth as a souvenir.
'I've got the tooth at home, sitting on the bedside table,' he said. 'If he (Austin) wants it back he can have it. I'm keeping it at the moment as proof that it actually happened.'
In 2004, Australian rugby league hooker Shane Millard also had an opponent's tooth removed from his head while playing for English club Widnes. And two years earlier, Australian Jamie Ainscough's arm became so badly infected while playing for Wigan in England there were fears it would be amputated before the source - an embedded tooth - was discovered.
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Photo News from the British Tabloids....
Homemade Bacon Vodka
I admit, I can’t remember the singular event that conspired to the creation of this bacon vodka. It came to life this Christmas and found home in a tasting kit of vodkas I made for friends and family. If you have time, bacon and vodka, you too can have this tasty elixir in your hands.
What to do with it you ask? You can give it away as a gift, use it in a Bloody Mary, Make a Bastardized Cloudy Martini (a real martini doesn’t have vodka) with it and a blue cheese stuffed olive. I haven’t tried this one, but I can recognize the appeal of a Pickle Juice Sport made with bacon vodka (that’s pickle juice mixed with vodka).
It is also wonderful when mixed with date syrup for a sweet bacon cordial. It can also be poured into a spray bottle and used to spritz just a touch of smoky bacon flavor to salads, toasts or stews… wherever you want to add a touch of flavor.
Perhaps a dab behind the ears?
Bacon Vodka
makes up one pint
Fry up three strips of bacon.
Add cooked bacon to a clean pint sized mason jar. Trim the ends of the bacon if they are too tall to fit in the jar. Or you could go hog wild and just pile in a bunch of fried up bacon scraps. Optional: add crushed black peppercorns.
Fill the jar up with vodka. Cap and place in a dark cupboard for at least three weeks. That’s right- I didn’t refrigerate it.
At the end of the three week resting period, place the bacon vodka in the freezer to solidify the fats. Strain out the fats through a coffee filter to yield a clear filtered pale yellow bacon vodka.
Decant into decorative bottles and enjoy.