Irish Ayes Are Smilin’

 

 

 

 

 

Two Irishmen, looking to get rich, open a pub. After a year, they’re deep in red ink. One says, “I know, let’s turn it into a brothel.” The other replies, “Don’t be daft! We can’t get ‘em to drink beer. How are we goin’ to get ‘em to drink broth??”

***

A group of chess enthusiasts had checked into a
hotel and were standing in the lobby discussing
their recent tournament victories. After about an
hour, the manager came out of the office and
asked them to disperse. “But why?” they asked,
as they moved off. “Because,” he said, “I can’t
stand chess nuts boasting in an open foyer.”

***

Do you know what is black and blue and found in a ditch?

A man who told one too many blonde jokes.

***

Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day.
Teach him how to fish and you can sell him equipment.

***

Error, no keyboard – press F1 to continue.

***

The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working
the moment you get up in the morning and doesn’t
stop until you get into the office.

Robert Frost

***

The Pentagon recently found it had too many
Generals and offered an early retirement bonus.
They promised any general who retired straight
away, his full annually benefits PLUS $10,000.00
for every inch measured in a straight line along
the retiring general’s body between two points
he chose. (Something only Congress came up with!)

The first General accepted. He asked the pension man
to measure from the top of his head to the tip of
his toes. 6 feet. He walked out with a check of
$720,000.00.

The second General asked them to measure from the
tip of his outstretched hands to his toes. 8 feet!
He walked out with a check for $960,000.00.

Meantime, the first General had tipped off the
third. When he was asked where to measure, he
told the pension man. “From the tip of my penis
to my balls.” The pension man said that would be
fine, but he’d better get the Medical Officer to
do the measuring.

The Medical Officer attended and asked the
General to drop ’em. He did. The Medical Officer
placed the tape on the tip of the general’s penis
and began to work back. “My God!” he said.
“Where are your balls?”

The General replies, “In Viet Nam!”

***

The kindergarten teacher is trying to explain to
her class the definition of the word “definitely”
to them. To make sure the students have a good
understanding of the word, she asks them to use
it in a sentence.

When called upon, the first student says
“The sky is definitely blue”. The teacher
said “Well that isn’t entirely correct because
sometimes it’s gray and cloudy”.

Another student says “Grass is definitely green”.
Teacher again replies “If grass doesn’t get enough
water it turns brown, so that isn’t really correct”.

A third student raises his hand and asks the
teacher “Do farts have lumps?”  The teacher
replied, “No, and that is not a suitable question
for class discussion”. The student replies,
“Then I definitely shit my pants”.

 

Flash Fiction #43

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 ©David Stewart

Tuba Or Not Tuba

“We can’t all be first-violinists!  Someone has to push wind through the tuba.”

“Take it easy, Bob.  We’re just a little brass band.  There are no first-violinists, and you’re the blowhard who volunteered to play the tuba.”

“Okay everyone, I know this is our first actual public concert, but we’ve been rehearsing for weeks.  You guys are ready; I know you are.”

“I’ll tell you what though, if any of you are unsure that you can do it, just fake the motions until you feel comfortable to join in.”

The conductor dropped his baton….and was greeted with a crashing silence.

 

Got to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story

Check My Bitchy Office

 

You show me yours, and I’ll show you mine.  Please remember to wipe your feet – on the way out.

HEEllis recently treated us to some photos of her pristine, well-organized office.  If she weren’t a great little writer, (double accent on little) and the second nicest person in the world, right behind me, I might think that a neat, clean office is a sign of a diseased mind.  (Could still be right.) 😯

I recently stepped into my office to begin a post, this one as it turns out, and looked at my private pigsty.  The wife has given up on it.  I am only visited by wild animals.  It started life as a small, third bedroom, and has devolved into the recent cover photo of Mess & Clutter Magazine.  Work in there??  I don’t know how I even think in there!

This is a craft table, which can’t be accessed, because it is topped with two thrones of the Alien Overlords who rule me.  Oh look, one of them has beamed in.

 

 

 

 

 

Many of my ideas do not work out, and much note paper is thrown out.  I really need the cute garbage pail the son produced at his plastic parts plant.

 

 

 

 

 

A paperless society, indeed.

 

 

 

 

 

This is where neurons flux, and ideas flow – when I get back with a sandwich.  You may have noticed, I file by the sedimentation system.  Oldest papers on the bottom.

 

 

 

 

 

When I can’t convince a cat to vacate my Captain’s Chair, I sit in the Navigator’s Chair.  It affords an alternate viewpoint, which I have to share with dirty laundry.

 

 

 

 

 

Just a little business humor – which sadly has carried over to blog themes.

There’s a floor down there somewhere, shared by a sewing machine and hassock, and a crosscut shredder to guarantee destruction of any documents with names and addresses.  Hoodoo, voodoo, identity thieves.

 

 

 

 

 

The wife’s hand-tatted lace doily, made from bequeathed crochet cotton that her aunt bought, along with the antique pattern it was made to, in the 1940s.

One of Granma Ladybug’s ladybugs clinging to the wall, beside a shadowbox full of visual drivel.

 

 

 

 

 

A couple of her stuffed mascots, guarding wheat bags which are heated in the microwave, to ease arthritis pains.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe not a typical man-cave, but I’ve taken it and made it mine a mess.  Perhaps you can now understand the strange and varied mix that gets spewed onto my blog-site.

Evolution of Intelligence

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is Evolution Proven?

A reader complained that two Provincial politicians have gone out of their way to deny evolution.  These politicians are correct.  The root word for evolution is evolve, and the word evolving means an on-going process.

Taken in that light, are those who believe in evolution not humans, or are they not humans anymore?  When a farmer plants corn seeds in the spring, does evolution – an ongoing process – yield a different crop?

And by the way, did corn, trees, weeds, flowers also originate from the same cell that developed monkeys, humans and animals?  Did stones also originate from that same cell?  Is evolution a proven fact? (1)

The writer also stated that politicians cannot express their Christian beliefs because, “their religion does not belong on Parliament Hill.”  Yet he implies that it is OK to bring his religion to Parliament Hill, because, when I do a Google search for a definition of religion, among the Oxford Dictionary meanings given is, “a pursuit or interest followed with great devotion.”

This man puts his trust in man, and believes that man can save himself, and Christians believe in God, knowing that God is the only one who saves. (2)

Ignorance is not a quality I value in my government, nor should you, yet this letter writer demonstrates that very ignorance.

Faithful Christian

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Evolution Not Debatable

I wonder if Faithful Christian’s anti-evolution objections are cynical, straw-man arguments, or merely the ignorant type.

To even suggest that crops would evolve in a single growing season displays a disturbing ignorance of the mechanics and time-line of evolution.  It doesn’t happen overnight.  It usually takes millennia, or eons.  Guided by farmers, knowledgeable in its workings, the corn grown today only vaguely resembles that found by explorers, 500 years ago.

The intelligent humans of today who believe in evolution, evolved from ignorant Neanderthal cavemen.  And yes Faithful, the first living cell, produced by God, obeyed His directives, and split many times, in many ways, to evolve into the almost infinite range of life here on His Earth.

To speak of stones having cells is, at best, hypocritical, but even stone evolves.  Spewed lava eventually evolves into basalt, and plain, loose sand, crushed beneath the weight of miles of seawater, evolves into firm sandstone.

“Evolution” is not a test of faith; it’s a test of intelligence.  God is not lying to us.  Fossils really are millions of years old.

Grumpy Old Archon

 

So, I was forced to miss yet another chance to keep my mouth shut.  Several newspaper readers had been writing about how much salt they had to use to achieve the municipally-mandated ‘bare concrete’ walkways in front of their houses.  Salt kills grass, pollutes waterways, ruins shoes and rusts out cars.

I was going to send in a letter suggesting that people try Urea crystals.  It melts like salt, but is a fertilizer, without salt’s bad side effects.  The biggest problem is finding it, and cheaply.  As a fertilizer, summertime and agricultural Co-ops yield the best results.

When I saw the above letter, I couldn’t resist tweaking the nose of another ‘Good Christian’, especially when he claimed to decry ignorance, and then asked such ignorant questions, and made such ignorant claims.

(1)

I cringed when I read the original subject letter, with its claim that evolution is a ‘fact.’  It appears to have more supporting evidence, but must still be taken on faith, just like religion.

(2)

This passage has absolutely nothing to do with the validity, or lack, of evolution.  The letter writer just throws it in to provide an emotionally-charged, fear-of-Damnation-raising, broad, believable base, for his otherwise baseless objections.

Flash Fiction #42

 

 

 

 

© Copyright – Rachel Bjerke

Thinking Outside The Box

Fountain, where are all the people?

I don’t know, Barbecue.  We used to be the center of entertainment.  They cooked meat and roasted corn on you, and splashed fingers and sailed little boats on me.  They had picnics.  They enjoyed the sunshine and fresh air.  They laughed, and talked, and joked, and played out here.

Now, the few times I see a person, they carry something in their hand that glows.  I hear them complain, “There’s no bars out here!”

I fear we’ve been abandoned.  Now they’re trapped inside, not merely the house but their heads also.  It’s not healthy!

 

Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

Being Canadian

 

 

 

 

 

Recently, there was a viral media story about an immigrant Muslim woman who appeared in court in the province of Quebec.  Her teen-aged son had been pulled over by the police with a suspended licence.  In a case like that, the car is impounded for 30 days.  If someone can show reason to need the car back before that, they have to appeal to the court.

Already, at that point in the story, I was having trouble with it.  Despite the public wanting safer roads by having dangerous drivers taken off them, do you know how hard it is to suspend this teen’s licence??!  As a minor, and a Good Muslim, to whom alcohol is forbidden, was he caught drunk driving?  Has he been convicted of multiple traffic offences, like speeding, racing, leaving the scene of an accident?

On her side, has she been blithely unaware of multiple traffic offences, at least one court case, and the suspension of his licence?  If she was aware of his suspension, did she uncaringly allow him to illegally use the car?

 

 

 

 

 

When she appeared before the judge, a lovely lady judge, she did so with her Muslim tea-towel wrapped around her head.  The female judge told her that she would have to remove her head covering, as a mark of respect for both the judge, and the court.  Things like scarves and sunglasses were not allowed, and must be removed, or her case would not be heard.

She chose to leave the court without recovering her car.  Instead of hiring a lawyer, she chose to arrange a pity party news conference.  Instead of claiming religious discrimination, she told enthralled TV and print reporters that she had worn her dish rag when she became a Canadian citizen, and now the judge had made her feel like she was not a true Canadian citizen.  Wah, wah, wah!    😦

The judge had already told her that scarves and sunglasses were not allowed.  Canadian-type rednecks, with tattoos and 2-digit IQs, are told to remove their ball caps.  These rules apply to everyone.  The closest she came to playing the religion card was to claim that Jewish men were not forced to remove their yarmulkes.

For pious Jewish men, the wearing of the yarmulke is a decreed portion of their religious observance.  Her wearing of some window curtain is merely personal preference, not a dogmatic Muslim tenet.  I now wear my glasses at all times, yet when I go to have my passport photo taken, I am told to remove them for better identification.

She whined about not feeling like a “real Canadian”, yet every member of every level of ‘Canadian’ police, every ‘Canadian’ EMT tech, every ‘Canadian’ firefighter, and every member of ‘Canadian’ Armed Forces, male and FEMALE, remove their head covering in court.  That’s what “real Canadians” do, they show respect, and they obey the law.

Militant Islamism is more dangerous, but this type of Muslimism is more insidious.  Many Muslims come to North America with the honest hope for a better way of life.  Far too many though, come here saying they want a change, but the only change they want is to our way of life.  They play the long game.  They plow their twisted view of the Koran, and sow our welcoming multiculturalism, so that they can eventually reap the crop of the universal Caliphate.

 

 

 

 

This woman is no more a ‘real Canadian’ than the two, fortunately inept, terrorists who were going to dump a Niagara train and bridge into the gorge.  She’s just more subtle and long-range manipulative about it.  Sadly, there are too many politicians loaded with gullibility and White Man’s Guilt, who will feel sorry for her.

An Englishman arrives at his mate’s flat, to find him desperately packing. “Where are you goin’, an’ why??” “Well, it’s about homosexuals!” “What about ‘em?’ “Two hundred years ago, if you were gay, you were hanged, drawn and quartered.  A hundred and fifty years ago, you were flogged and sent to a penal colony.  A hundred years ago, you went to prison for life.  Fifty years ago, it changed to ‘live and let live’.  A few years ago, that became ‘Don’t ask – don’t tell.  I’m gettin’ to Hell out, before it becomes mandatory!”

Only three days after her little video went viral, she had crowd-sourced $20,000 to pay for a lawyer to represent her, to thumb her nose at Canadian traditions and the legal system.  I don’t know if I’ll be more disappointed to find that the bulk of the funds came from apologetic Christians, or hard-core Muslims, financing the firm insertion of the thin edge of the wedge.  Sharia law, here we come!

 

Fully Insured

The following are actual statements found on insurance forms, where car drivers attempted to summarize the details of an accident in the fewest words possible.  These instances of faulty writing serve to confirm that even incompetent writing may be highly entertaining.

Coming home, I drove into the wrong house and collided with a tree I don’t have.

The other car collided with mine without giving warning of its intentions.

I thought my window was down, but I found out it was up when I put my head through it.

I collided with a stationary truck coming the other way.

A truck backed through my windshield into my wife’s face.

A pedestrian hit me and went under my car.

The guy was all over the road.  I had to swerve a number of times before I hit him.

I pulled away from the side of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law and headed over the embankment.

In my attempt to kill a fly, I drove into a telephone pole.

I had been shopping for plants all day and was on my way home.  As I reached an intersection, a hedge sprang up, obscuring my vision and I did not see the other car.

I had been driving for 40 years when I fell asleep at the wheel and had an accident.

The telephone pole was approaching.  I was attempting to swerve out of its way when it struck the front end.

I was on my way to the doctor with rear end trouble when my universal joint gave way causing me to have an accident.

As I approached the intersection, a sign suddenly approached in a place where no stop sign ever appeared before.  I was unable to stop in time to avoid the accident.

To avoid hitting the bumper on the car in front, I struck the pedestrian.

My car was legally parked as it backed into the other vehicle.

An invisible car came out of nowhere, struck my car and vanished.

I told the police that I was not injured, but on removing my hat, found that I had a fractured skull.

I was sure that the old fellow would never make it to the other side of the road when I struck him.

The pedestrian had no idea which direction to run, so I ran over him.

I saw a slow moving, sad faced old gentleman as he bounced off the roof of my car.

The indirect cause of the accident was a little guy in a small car with a big mouth.

I was thrown from my car as it left the road.  I was later found in a ditch by some stray cows.

***

 

 

 

 

 

Consistent with the Bi-Cultural Policy, the Canadian Government is now considering changing the National Emblem from the Maple Leaf, to the condom.  The reasons are that the condom withstands inflation, slows down production, protects a bunch of pricks, and gives a false sense of security while one is being screwed.   🙄

Flash Fiction #41

 

 

 

 

 

 

Deep Freeze

Everything was black and white.  He was right, and that’s all there was to it.  He’d be damned if he was going to grovel and apologise.

Everything about their relationship had become frozen, coated with icy exchanges, every detail covered with the rime of discord.

“Honey?  I’m sorry!  I shouldn’t be so rigid.  You have the right to your opinions too.  We should learn to compromise and get along better.”

….and the sun of their former love began to shine again, bringing back the warmth and glorious colors of their past.  He could visualize a bridge back to former happiness.

 

Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

 

Storm-Stayed

 

 

 

 

 

On my Digging In – Digging Out post about heavy snowfalls, I got a comment from a fellow writer who used to truck produce from the ferry dock, to the other side of Newfoundland, a large island-province off Canada’s east coast.  It is affectionately known to its residents as ‘The Rock.’

He told of a time when he and several other truckers were stranded for three days at a truck stop, when 125 inches (That’s 10+ feet!) of snow fell, accompanied by high winds.  I admitted that Ontario’s weather problems were often puny, compared to Newfoundland’s.

My familiarity with all things “Newfie” has been gained both online, and by association with many ex-pats, now working up here, but he apparently felt it was from personal experience.  The following is an explanatory email.

If, by your comment, “Ha, you’ve been, I see.” you mean to The Rock, the answer is no.  My financial, and the wife’s medical, restrictions make that nearly impossible.  However, there are almost as many Newfies up here, as there are left down there.  I worked for four years in the Hespeler section of Cambridge, ON, where the population is about half Portuguese, and half Newfie.  Drive down the street and yell, “Hey Joe (Joao), and all construction stops. Every second Newfie is named Sean or Shawn, and that includes the women.

At my auto-parts plant, there were 2 dozen Newfies for 200 employees, including four from Bell Island.  Add my online friends…. and I’d like to add you as one.  Would you wish to admit where you’re currently parked, so that I can overwork my map program?

At the risk of clogging your email, I have a snowing/driving story I wish to share.  In my Location, Location, Location post, I wrote of Kitchener being just far enough from three Great Lakes to miss ‘a lot’ of snow.  Also, it’s mildly hilly, cutting the wind and preventing a lot of drifting.  Just to our west, it soon becomes flatter, and drifting can be serious.  If the Ontario Provincial Police shut down Southern Ontario’s main artery, Highway 401, it’s almost always just past Kitchener.

A brother-in-law drove for years for Koch Transport.  His run was from Kitchener, 70 Km to St Mary’s, and back each day.  He (and wife) were taking two weeks holidays, and going to Hawaii, flying out on a Saturday morning.  On the Friday, he made his run, and got back to Stratford, where he found police blocking the road to Kitchener.  They waved him into a strip mall with two other big-rigs, and a half-dozen cars.

He left it running, and climbed down to talk to the others.  One of the car drivers asked what he was going to do.  He replied, “I’m going to wait until there’s an accident, and the cops leave, and then I’m going to move that barricade and make a run for it.  I’ve got to get home.  I have a flight out tomorrow.”  The guy replied, “I’m going on a trip tomorrow too.  Can we follow you guys?”

And so, they convoyed out, with the semis breaking trail, and the cars following.  With the trucks leading, the driving really wasn’t all that bad, and they all soon got back home safely.  The next morning, as he was boarding the plane to Hawaii, he ran into Mr. Sedan-Driver again, on the same flight.

 

Archon

 

 

My First Time

 

No, no, you nosy deviants!  That happened when I was 17.  What I’m talking about is knives – and magazines about knives.

While never needing or wanting to actually use them, I’ve always had a fascination for all types of weapons – how they’re built, how they’re used.  Early in 1991 I’d been noticing a particular magazine among others on the sales rack, Knives Illustrated.  Finally, in the summer, it was my first time to purchase a copy.

It carried a story about a $20,000 sword, inlaid with gold, and adorned with jewels.  I had discovered Art Knives.  I was hooked!  Soon, I was sending away money to ensure a year’s worth of these printed treasures.  This was my first time that I’d ever subscribed to a magazine.

For the first several years, they had a contest where you could send in a postcard to be put into a draw to win a hand-made, donated knife, from a maker looking for some cheap promotion.  Every issue, I faithfully sent in a card, even if the featured knife was not to my taste or use.

Suddenly, in my third year of trying, back before the Internet, I received a real letter.  I had been chosen to receive a little three-finger skinning knife, made by a cutler in Orlando.  All I had to do was send a letter to the magazine, lauding them and proving the contest was real, and a letter of thanks to the maker.  Done and quickly done.  Soon a package arrived, and it was my first time to own a handmade knife.

The letter from the magazine said that it was worth $35, a ridiculous claim.  The handmade leather sheath alone is worth that much.  Somebody slipped a zero; the package is worth $350.  Note the grooves milled into the top and bottom, to control the blade, and prevent slipping.

I told the maker that, if I ever got near Orlando, I’d stop in and personally thank him – and forgot about it.  A couple of years later, my brother had bought a trailer in a park in central Florida, and needed to go down to get it opened up and ready to rent for the winter season.  Would I like to accompany him on a whirlwind, 9-day trip.  Oh boy, my first time going to Florida!

The brother’s trailer park was close to Orlando.  I tried to call the maker, but later found that the phone was in his wife’s name.  After about 4 days, when the brother could spare both me and the van at the same time, I drove over to his address, fuelled by hope.

I was fortunate.  He was at home, and gave me a couple of hours of his morning.  I got to see his neighbor’s lovingly restored 1963 Chevrolet Corvair Monza; he gave me a tour of his workshop, showing me all his tools, and different styles of knives he built.  While the Internet might have existed, this was before I even had dial-up connection, much less high-speed.  I couldn’t just research him.

Since he couldn’t research Ontario, he didn’t know that most residential, and all farming is below the Great Lakes, with mining to the north.  He had a map with pins stuck in it, of all the people who’d received one of his knives.  He had my pin in the muskeg, somewhere off Hudson Bay.  I moved it.

His wife was some kind of medium-sized wheel at the University.  Several years later, she accepted a more prestigious position at the University of Connecticut, and he quietly loaded all his tools and moved north.  His production may have gone down a bit, because of the need to shovel snow.

This knife is well designed and built, though there’s not much of it.  I’m not a hunter/skinner, so I have no actual use for it.  It languishes away in a drawer, with several other of my acquisitions.  I keep it because it was a first, accompanying several other firsts.  Perhaps one day my heirs can get a little money for it.