37th-Day Adventist Fibbing Friday

This is Pensitivity101’s Pass The Buck version of Fibbing Friday.  Thanks to Jim Adams who supplied the questions this week. You can check out his blog here.

1. Why did all the dinosaurs die?

Fred Flintstone opened an automobile dealership, and sold cars to almost all of them.  T-Rex had trouble steering his, because of his short arms.  Then a Brontosaurus learned how to make fern wine.  Within a couple of years, dinosaur drunken driving accidents had reduced their numbers below the breeding survival limit.  They didn’t want to admit that they were a bunch of saurian sots.  They blamed it on a single meteor, but really, it was Fords, Meteors, Monarchs, and a few Taunuses.

2. Why are there so many stories about the great flood?

What with Global Warming, wildfires and decades-long droughts, it’s just a way for people to fondly remember the good old days when illegal Mexican immigrants needed at least a raft, or an inner tube, to sneak across the Rio Grande into Texas.  Now they can do it with a skateboard.

On the other hand, if Iceland’s glaciers continue to melt, and sea levels rise, London’s East Enders will be living on houseboats, and Paris will be a deep-water port.

3. What happened at Hadrian’s Wall?

A drunken Scotsman (Are there any other kinds?) fell off it, while trying to get over it on his way home from the pub.  He landed on his sporran, spraining it badly, and dropped his takeaway packet of chips and Scottish egg.

4. How long was the hundred years war?

576 miles, 3089 feet, 7 ¾ inches.  Any longer than that, and it would have reached past the Maginot line, into Germany – and we all know how grumpy those folks can get when you interrupt their Oktoberfest parade.

5. Why was it all quiet on the western front?

There was a COVID-caused supply chain problem, and an entire shipment of hearing-aid batteries were not allowed across the border, because the truck driver was a vaccine-denier, who refused to wear a mask.

6. What was the Boxer Rebellion all about?

That was when I firmly put my foot down when the wife tried to get me to change over to bikini briefs.  The very idea! 😳   At my age my underwear has to cover a lot of territory.  I just silently (But very rebelliously) declined to buy any.

7. What caused the Titanic to sink?

Leonardo DiCrapio’s enormous ego.  If he hadn’t been standing up at the bowsprit with his arms spread, doing an impersonation of Amelia Earhart, the ship’s pilot might have been able to see past his swelled head, and avoided that delivery of ice for the ship’s bar.

8. Why do they want us to remember the Main?

Americans would like Brits to remember that it was a battleship named after the State of Maine.  Its sinking in the Havana harbour in 1898 was the putative cause of the Spanish/American War – the first made- for- television newspaper conflict.  Publisher/producer William Randolph Hearst told a photographer who was on the scene, “You get me the photographs.  I’ll get you the war.”  😯

9. What happened to Amelia Earhart?

She was originally Flighty Spice, the 6^th member of The Spice Girls, but she became so embarrassed that she got plastic surgery, changed her name, and came back as Britney Spears – far less demeaning.

10. Who was involved in the Iran Contra scandal?

If you can believe the testimony, – and who would think that anyone, especially respected American politicians, would lie under oath? – Nobody was involved!  It was all just a fig newton of our collective imagination, and never really occurred at all.

Walk This Way

We all do it, to some extent.  Christians do it more than Atheists.  What is IT??!

“IT” is to assume that other people think, feel, and act just like you do.

It is like comparing British English to American English.  The words are the same, but the conclusions they reach and the information they convey, are vastly different.  I think that I felt it, but I had it clearly pointed out to me by a young, Atheist YouTuber.

He had been raised as a fervent, evangelical Catholic.  In his teens, he began to question!!  By twenty, he admitted that he had become an Atheist.  His Bible-thumper Mother was appalled, and tried to lure/force him back.

First, she accused him of “Just blindly believing what those Atheist books say.” – because she blindly believed in a book.  He explained that he had not read most of the books she was worried about, and the couple that he had, he had not read until after he had declared himself an Atheist.

While he had not read the evil Atheist books, and had arrived at his position through years of careful study and research, she then accused him of just unquestioningly accepting the non-religious claims of Atheists who establish themselves in authority – because she unquestioningly accepts the self-declared authority of The Catholic Church.

I recently listened to a Christian apologist try to wiggle out from under an Atheist complaint about the Christian concept of infinite punishment in Hell, for the finite crime of not believing.  His justification was that, the infinite punishment was not for merely not believing, but that Atheists die, and go to be judged, and are cast into Hell, and the infinite punishment is because, even in Hell, they continue to ‘deny God.’

I find this apologist scenario preposterous.  Any Atheist who dies, expecting to just fade out, who finds his spirit, his soul, his consciousness, his personality, still coherent and miraculously transported to Heaven, faces God, is condemned to Hell, and who is suffering horrible tortures – would admit to observed reality and accepted truth – not petulantly continue to ‘deny God,’ whatever that means.  But the Christian apologist believes that the Atheist would – because he would!

Frank Turek, a Christian debater, whose slick, used-car-salesman face beams down from the top of this post, was asked if there was any information or argument that might make him change his mind.  He responded with a Bible verse which orders the loyal to reject anything which might cause them to doubt.  No matter how reliable, proven, or convincing the facts and evidence are, Turek and his ilk will simply deny it!  😳

To even try for a non-believer to have a discussion with a Christian about morals/morality, seems doomed to failure.  It will not become a debate or a conversation.  It is like two solitudes, shouting past each other.

The Christian will allege that there are Objective Morals, things which are good or evil, whether or not people exist.  Without any evidence that either of them exists, they claim that God defines and enforces morals, despite the fact that great swathes of Good Christians disregard and disobey them, filling prisons, divorce courts and rehab facilities.

The very words morals, and morality have been hijacked by Christian debaters.  Like sin, they are something that their God wants mankind to do, or not do.  Atheists have ethics, and evolution-induced empathy.  If Atheists can get Christians to agree that reduction of harm and increase in happiness and wellbeing is an acceptable subjective basis, then we have Objective Atheist Morals, and all without God.

Holy One-Liners

 

TV evangelists….
….do more than lay people.

People treat me like a God….
….They ignore my existence until they need something from me.

I hope I never get addicted to skiing….
….That can be a slippery slope.

The mailman just told me a joke….
….It wasn’t very funny, but he delivered it well.

When you die, people cry and beg you to come back….
….but when you do, there’s screaming and running.

Thieves stole twenty cases of Red Bull….
….I don’t know how these people can sleep at night.

My drug test came back negative….
….My dealer has some real explaining to do.

There’s no official training for trash collectors….
….They just pick things up as they go.

My wife wanted to learn to drive….
….I didn’t stand in her way.

The shinbone is a device….
….for locating furniture in a dark room.

I went to an acupuncturist….
….When I got home, my voodoo doll was dead.

Time may be a great healer….
….but it’s a lousy beautician.

Spiders are the only web designers….
….who are happy when they have a bug.

So, a burglar broke into the house….
….I put a red dot on his chest, and the cat did the rest.

If God had meant for us to vote….
….He would have given us candidates.

You read my doormat….
….That’s enough social interaction for today.

I told my wife to embrace her mistakes….
….so she gave me a hug.

Day 12 without chocolate….
….Lost hearing in my left eye.

A dog accepts you as the boss….
….A cat wants to see your resume.

OOPS….
….Did I roll my eyes out loud?  😳

36-24-36 Fibbing Friday

Pennsitivity101 is going with Alter Egos this week.
Prominent figures, but who would you match as their alter ego?

1. Boris Johnson
   

Bozo the Clown.  No-one would suspect that one orange-haired, goofy-talking fool was really a different orange-haired, goofy-talking fool.  The only danger might be that there would accumulate a critical mass of inane silliness, and we could have a political and philosophical meltdown, and a severe case of Estonia Syndrome – because China wouldn’t want anything to do with it.
2.  Madonna

Mae West.  The bloom is off Madonna’s rose.  The line, ‘Come up and see me sometime.’ is beginning to sound a little desperate.
3.  Victoria Beckham

The Wicked Witch of the West.  Don’t tell me that you haven’t thought that too!  😳  “Fly, my pretties – and bring me back all the profits that my Nigerian Prince scams legitimate businesses earn.”
4.  Roger Federer.

John McEnroe.  Finally, Roger the quiet, Roger the stoic, Roger the well-mannered, could let his internal Dennis the Menace loose once in a while.
5.  James Bond

Thomas Stewart, owner/proprietor of the finest artisanal oat-based vodka distillery in all of Scotland.  ‘Tell the Sassenachs that it’s exclusive and eco-friendly, with a low carbon footprint, and soon they’ll be at Hadrian’s Wall, throwing Pounds and Euros at Glencoe, to purchase it.  They will be shaken – and stirred.
6.  Ebenezer Scrooge

Stay-Puft, the Marshmallow Man.  Give him a little scare three times in one night and he goes all soft and mushy and sweet.  If this keeps up, soon I’ll be the only grumpy old dude left.  😉
7.  H.G. Wells

Project manager for Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space project.  He could show them how to actually get off their butts, and off the surface of the planet.
8.  Agatha Christie

Madame DeFarge.  Actually, Agatha Christie has caused more deaths, as she sat knitting, knitting, knitting her devious murder plots together.
9.  Liberace

A bank manager.  A critic once savaged one of Lee’s programs in a newspaper review.  An assistant told him of the pan, and asked if it upset him.  Liberace replied, “I cried all the way to the bank.”
10. Winston Churchill

A Cuban cigar-maker with a pet bulldog.

Flash Fiction #289

PHOTO PROMPT © Alicia Jamtaas

I’M STUFFED

For those of us Baby-Boomers, and even pre-Boomers, who remember the Second World War, and perhaps the lingering results of the Great Depression, (All hail modern medicine!) many of us succumb to the Keep it.  It might be useful someday Syndrome.

Boomers are not the only ones who do it, but we’re a bit crazy.  We leave our valuable cars in front of the house, and fill our garages with junk.  As memories deteriorate, we’re not sure we still have what we search for, and usually don’t find it.

“Why am I here?  Oh yeah, to turn off the light.”

***

If you would like to join the Friday Fictioneers, go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

Pillow Talk

I was comfortably lounging on the couch, and doing it in a highly competent, professional manner.  I was searching for a blog theme – something that I could compose a post about without too much work, but still interesting to my readers.  Suddenly I thought, Eureka, (or maybe it was Gesundheit – one of those Greek words)!  I’ll do a bit of research, and write about us seniors’ new BFF, the pillow.

The word “pillow” dates back to the 12^th century.  It comes from the Latin pulvinus, which means “cushion,” but archeologists say that pillows of various kinds, ranging from plant-filled skins, to comfortable rocks, have probably been used far back into human prehistory.

The oldest known pillows date back to the oldest civilizations, with references to pillows in ancient Sumerian cuneiform texts.  Ancient Egyptians placed feather-filled pillows in the tombs of their mummified dead.

Pillows are mentioned in the Bible, but they are not referred to favorably.  The Book of Ezekiel says, Woe to those who apply pillows to their elbows.  Scholars believe that the text refers to ‘false prophets,’ who Ezekiel felt were insufficiently austere.

You know how your pillow sometimes feels too warm, and you have to keep turning it over to get to the cool side?  Well, now a company called “Sooth-Soft” has come out with The Chillow, “a fluid-filled, eco-friendly, cushioning device, that keeps you cool without electricity.”  It’s actually gotten rave reviews, and they make one for dogs, too.

Are you the laziest person on Earth?  (Why else would you be reading my post about pillows?)  The PerCushion Pillow Phone could be made just for you.  It’s a combination pillow/cell phone, with a microphone, loudspeaker, and Bluetooth wireless connection built in.  When the pillow rings, just lie there and answer it.  Genius!

In 2015, Jeanette Hall, a taxidermist in Nevada, started offering to transform deceased cats and dogs into pillows – for $75-$100.  Unfortunately, the offer led to “hundreds of hate emails from around the globe.”  The outrage baffled the taxidermist, who claimed that she had many happy customers.  “Most people were happy that Fluffy was still on the couch.” She said.

Sleep researchers have discovered that, when clocks are set back an hour at the end of Daylight Saving Time, car accident rates plummet, probably because of the extra hour of sleep.  Try to get some additional sleep on your comfy pillow, but don’t wait an extra hour to read my next exciting, informative post.  😀

***

BTW:
Happy birthday to me.
Happy birthday to Me.
Happy birthday, happy birthday,
Happy birthday to me!

With the help of my pillows, and all my other helpers – eyeglasses, magnifying glasses in every room, as of 2:00 AM, E.S.T. I have achieved 78 years of age.  I have not matured like fine wine.  More like milk – chunky and bitter.  😳

’22 A To Z Challenge – M

 

 

 

 

 

 

Forgotten Words – Forgotten Attitudes

What do we want?

GOOD MANNERS

When do we want them?

Right now!

Are we likely to get them??!

F*&@ no!

In a world where the words we use, and our attitudes, are supposedly of utmost importance, words are regularly passing out of use from the English language.  We become dumbed down intellectually, ethically, and spiritually. Here are a few words which have been forgotten, though they were in regular use just a few decades ago. Interestingly, they’re all related in meaning:

Modesty

Humility

Courtesy

Honesty

“I pray thee then, write me as someone who loves his fellow man.”  (Abou ben Adhem)

Donald Trump is gone, although, if he can evade the FBI on his magpie collection of classified documents, he’s threatening to return in 2024.  While he facilitated much of the above, and vindicated it to a too-large swath of the American population, he was not the cause of it.  He was merely a visible symptom of the cultural rot.

As ye sow, so shall ye reap.

Be nice to each other out there.  Okay?  The life you save may be your own.

Thus endeth the reading of the first lesson.  More of the usual drivel soon.

XXXV Fibbing Friday

Pensitivity101 is in a silly mood this week so she decided to invite us to mix and match.
Fictional characters or real people, who would you pair the following with? If you wish, you could give your reasons.

Interviewer;  If you could have dinner with anybody, alive or dead, who would you choose?
Beauty-Contest Blonde;  The live one.

1. William Shakespeare

Daniel Webster.  As fast as Will With a Quill could make up new words, old Danny Boy could put them in the dictionary.
2. Donald Trump

I was going to pair The Donald, and BoJo, but that’s Dumb And Dumber double jeopardy.  If Dashing Don doesn’t get smart and learn to keep his mouth shut, I’ve located a wholesale importer of Personal Lube that he’s gonna need when he gets sent to Club Fed.
3. Margaret Thatcher

I asked both The Rock, and Jason Momoa, if they would be interested in being her escort, but they both said that she was a better man than either of them.  Instead, I found a SCA armourer who could keep her in steel underpants.
4. Peter Piper

Not that Charlie Brown!  This Charlie Brown!    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbBr2bgAbcM
Why’s Peter Piper always pickin’ on me??!
5. Gordon Ramsay

If Iron Lady Thatcher’s armourer wasn’t too busy, perhaps we could get him to fashion the equivalent of a chastity belt for Ramsay’s tongue, and be able to dine in peace and quiet
6. Jessica Rabbit

Jessica said that she wasn’t really bad, she was just drawn that way, so I would swipe her left with James Dean – the ultimate Bad Boy.
7. Boris Johnson

These guys won’t hang out with him anymore because they claim he stole their act.  He could use a good cartographer to chart his course into political obscurity.  Donald Trump’s hairdresser is free, as is the guy who never got a chance to build that Mexican wall.  BoJo could have him start one at Dover to keep the Eurotrash out of Avalon.
8. Einstein

If we introduced Steven Hawking to Einstein, perhaps he could teach the old dog some new quantum tricks.  If the battery in Hawking’s voice synthesizer didn’t run out of juice, they could discuss The Whichness of the Why until a philosophical black hole formed, and we all rotated into an alternate reality where Woke, and Cancel Culture didn’t exist.
9. Wolverine

He could form a Siskel and Ebert-type duo with Freddie Kruger, and create a podcast about the social significance of Charlie Chan movies.  There would be a lot of sharp dialog and pointed comments.
10. Worzel Gummidge.

I would introduce him to the Oz Scarecrow.  They could debate which one was outstanding in his field, which of them was just a stuffed shirt, who couldn’t keep it in his pants, and how to get a good roll in the hay.

Book Review #28

Days of Future Passed

The shape of things to come!  This author was prescient.  This is where it all began, or at least, a big part of it.

The book: Neuromancer

The Author: William Gibson

The Review:
This book was written in 1984.  I had a chance to read it over 30 years ago.  The son read it, but I passed on the opportunity.  It would not have had the effect on me back then, as it did to read it recently.  I read a post by a blogger who was doing what I am doing, taking old Science Fiction books out of storage, and re-reading them.  His description intrigued me, so I got a 2010 re-published copy from the library.

The story itself is not all that exciting –by today’s standards.  His protagonist is a computer hacker who can mentally access, not merely individual computers, but can surf the entire Internet.  Of course, the author doesn’t call it that.  The term, and the function, did not exist back then.  He did not coin the term Cyberspace, but this book popularized it.  Soon, readers and other authors were regularly using it.

In 1984, computers, and their interconnectivity, were far less common than in his then-future fiction.  Since he couldn’t call it the Internet, he coined the term The Matrix.  While this author, and this book, are not completely responsible, they both heavily influenced Tron, and the three Matrix movies.

The précis reminded me of Johnny Mnemonic.  A bit of research revealed that, 17 years later, he shuffled some concepts around and wrote the novel that another Keanu Reeve movie was based on.  Microsoft had incorporated in 1981, but the microsofts (small m) that the hacker uses to jack in, are nail-sized inserts that plug into a socket at the base of his skull, like Sim-cards, or SD cards.  They contain relevant data, and operating code – the Apps of their time.

The plot involves the hacker either slicing or surreptitiously oozing past security protocols, to free a manacled A.I. – Artificial Intelligence.  The story also contains a couple of computer ‘Constructs’, which are essentially the uploaded knowledge, experience and personality of hackers who were killed while online.

This author impresses me like the deaf composer, Ludwig von Beethoven.  He conceptualized huge amounts of technology that he couldn’t see, but which later came to exist.  Finally, there is another peculiarity, not of the story, but of the particular copy of the book that I received.

It is in the page numbering.  Each page is numbered in the lower corner.  Each number is underlined.  The underlining on the right-hand, or Recto page, extends to the edge of the page, across the thickness of the sheet, and continues till it underlines the number on the left-hand, or Verso page.

Infinitesimally and imperceptibly, the numbers and the underlining rise and fall several times through the book.  If you firmly close the book and look at the lower edge, the ink forms an EEG brain-scan readout.

Make Book On Humor

Subject: Muslim Bookstore

So, I was walking in the mall and I saw that there was a Muslim Bookstore.

The sign outside led me to wonder just what exactly was in a Muslim bookstore, so I went in.

As I was wandering around taking a look, the clerk gave me the stink eye, but asked if he could help me.

I know I didn’t look like his normal clientele, so I asked, “Do you have a copy of Donald Trump’s Book on his U.S. Immigration policy regarding Muslims and Illegal aliens?”

The clerk said, “Kiss my ass, Get out, and Stay Out!”

I said, “Yes, that’s the one. Do you have it in paperback?”

***

This Ought to Make All Grandpas Feel Warm and Fuzzy

A six-year-old goes to the hospital with her mother to visit her Grandpa. When they get to the hospital, she runs ahead of her mother and bursts into her Grandpa’s room. “Grandpa, Grandpa,” she says excitedly,  “As soon as my mother comes into the room, make a noise like a frog!

“What?” said her Grandpa.

“Make a noise like a frog because my mum said that as soon as you croak, we’re all going to Disney World.”

***

A retired older couple returned to a Mercedes dealership where the salesman has just sold the car they had been interested in to a beautiful, leggy, busty blonde in a mini skirt and a halter top. The old man was visibly upset. He spoke to the salesman sharply, “Young man, I thought you said you would hold that car till we raised the $55,000 asking price. Yet I just overheard you closed the deal for $45,000 to the lovely young lady there. And if I remember right, you had insisted there was no way you could discount this model.”

The salesman took a deep breath, cleared his throat and reached for a large glass of water.

“Well, what can I tell you? She had the cash ready, didn’t need any financing help, and, Sir, just look at her, how could I resist?”, replied the grinning salesman sheepishly.

Just then the young woman approached the senior couple and gave the car keys to the old man.

“There you go,” she said. “I told you I could get that idiot to lower the price. See you later Dad, Happy Father’s day.”

***

Better than a Flu Shot!

Miss Beatrice, the church organist, was in her eighties and had never been married. She was admired for her sweetness and kindness to all.

One afternoon the pastor came to call on her and she showed him into her quaint sitting room.  She invited him to have a seat while she prepared tea. As he sat facing her old Hammond organ, the young minister noticed a cut glass bowl sitting on top of it. The bowl was filled with water, and in the water floated of all things, a condom!

When she returned with tea and scones, they began to chat.  The pastor tried to stifle his curiosity about the bowl of water and its strange floater, but soon it got the better of him and he could no longer resist.

“Miss Beatrice”, he said, “I wonder if you would tell me about this?” pointing to the bowl.

“Oh, yes,” she replied, “Isn’t it wonderful? I was walking through the park a few months ago and I found this little package on the ground. The directions said to place it on the organ, keep it wet and that it would prevent the spread of disease.”

“Do you know I haven’t had the flu all winter?”