The Weirdest Of Coincidences

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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The hospital was just like any other.

It had accident and emergency, medical, surgical and all the other usual departments and wards. It also had an Intensive Care Unit, well staffed and managed, just like any other.

Except that this Intensive Care Unit wasn’t just like any other. Patients kept dying in this unit.

Not only that, but they always died in the same bed, and at the same time, on Sunday mornings at about 11:00 am, regardless of their medical condition. 

It had been that way for a while and doctors, nurses and the hospital management were not only puzzled, but rather nervous too.

What could possibly be the reason? The laws of probability made this occurrence way more than one in a million.

Some even thought it had to have something to do with the super natural.

Had something terrible happened in that ward sometime in the past?

Was the hospital built on the site of some awful tragedy that had taken place years ago?

Was there some kind of portal to another dimension where evil entities could enter and leave?

There were many more questions than answers, but no one could solve the mystery as to why the deaths always occurred in the same bed and around the same time, 11:00 am Sunday.

Eventually a worldwide team of experts was assembled to investigate the cause of the incidents. It included scientists, medical experts, a crew with electronic detection equipment, several clergymen  and even a medium. 

They were prepared for anything and everything.

Or so they thought.

The next Sunday morning, a few minutes before 11:00 am all of the doctors and nurses nervously waited with the team of experts outside the ward to see for themselves what the terrible phenomenon was all about. 

Some were holding wooden crosses, others prayer books and other holy objects to ward off the evil spirits. 

Then, just when the clock struck 11:00 am, the ward door suddenly burst open.

The crowd of watchers gasped.

Pookie Johnson, the part-time Sunday sweeper, entered the ward.

He walked over to the wall beside the offending bed, unplugged the life support system and plugged in his vacuum cleaner.

Turns out the culprit was Pookie and not a spookie after all.

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Time To Put The Fears Behind Us

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Yes, time to put the fears behind us. This is the final selection of curious and sometimes amusing fears and phobias that affect some people. Irrational but very real to them. Irrational and very silly to the rest of us.

So here we go, ‘T’ thru ‘Z’.

Enjoy.

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Tachophobia ……….fear of speed.

 

Taijin Kyofusho ……….a phobia which occurs most typically in Japan, is the fear of offending others by one’s inappropriate social behavior or appearance

 

Taeniophobia or Taeniophobia ……….fear of tapeworms.

 

Taphephobia Taphophobia ……….fear of being buried alive or of cemeteries.

 

Tapinophobia ……….fear of being contagious.

 

Taurophobia ……….fear of bulls.

 

Technophobia ……….fear of technology.

 

Teleophobia ……….fear of 1) definite plans; 2) religious ceremony.

 

Telephonophobia ……….fear of telephones.

 

Teratophobia ……….fear of bearing a deformed child or fear of monsters or deformed people.

 

Testophobia ……….fear of taking tests.

 

Tetanophobia ……….fear of lockjaw, tetanus.

 

Teutophobia ……….fear of German or German things.

 

Textophobia ……….fear of certain fabrics.

 

Thaasophobia ……….fear of sitting.

 

Thalassophobia ……….fear of the sea.

 

Thanatophobia or Thantophobia ……….fear of death or dying.

 

Theatrophobia ……….fear of theatres.

 

Theologicophobia ……….fear of theology.

 

Theophobia ……….fear of gods or religion.

 

Thermophobia ……….fear of heat.

 

Tocophobia ……….fear of pregnancy or childbirth.

 

Tomophobia ……….fear of surgical operations.

 

Tonitrophobia ……….fear of thunder.

 

Topophobia ……….fear of certain places or situations, such as stage fright.

 

Toxiphobia or Toxophobia or Toxicophobia ……….fear of poison or of being accidently poisoned.

 

Traumatophobia ……….fear of injury.

 

Tremophobia ……….fear of trembling.

 

Trichinophobia ……….fear of trichinosis.

 

Trichopathophobia or Trichophobia ……….fear of hair. (Chaetophobia, Hypertrichophobia)

 

Triskaidekaphobia ……….fear of the number 13.

 

Tropophobia ……….fear of moving or making changes.

 

Trypanophobia ……….fear of injections.

 

Tuberculophobia ……….fear of tuberculosis.

 

Turophobia ……….fear of cheese

 

Tyrannophobia ……….fear of tyrants.

 

Uranophobia or Ouranophobia ……….fear of heaven.

 

Urophobia ……….fear of urine or urinating.

 

Vaccinophobia ……….fear of vaccination.

 

Venereophobia ……….fear of catching a venereal disease.

 

Venustraphobia ……….fear of beautiful women.

 

Verbophobia ……….fear of words.

 

Verminophobia ……….fear of germs.

 

Vespertiliophobia ……….fear of bats.

 

Vestiphobia ……….fear of clothing.

 

Virginitiphobia ……….fear of virgins.

 

Virginitiphobia ……….fear of rape.

 

Vitricophobia ……….fear of step-father.

 

Vokephobia ……….fear of returning home.

 

Walloonphobia ……….fear of the Walloons.

 

Wiccaphobia ……….fear of witches and witchcraft.

 

Xanthophobia ……….fear of the color yellow or the word yellow.

 

Xeniaphobia ……….fear of foreign doctors, usually having to do with strong foreign accents making it difficult to understand their English. Also, if travelling in a foreign country, the fear that doctors may have inadequate medical skills.

 

Xenodochiophobia ……….fear of foreign hotels that could include the fear that there won’t be soap, the kind of toilet paper that you like, clean towels, or good maid service.

 

Xenoglossophobia ……….fear of foreign languages.

 

Xenonosocomiophobia ……….fear of foreigners who are pick-pockets.

 

Xenophobia ……….fear of strangers or foreigners.

 

Xerophobia ……….fear of dryness.

 

Xeroxophobia ……….fear of using anything made by Xerox, or fear of office equipment in general.

 

Xylophobia ……….fear of 1) wooden objects; 2) Forests.

 

Xyrophobia ……….fear of razors.

 

Zelophobia ……….fear of jealousy.

 

Zemmiphobia ……….fear of the great mole rat.

 

Zeusophobia ……….fear of God or gods.

 

Zoophobia ……….fear of animals.

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Day Two 2013, Are You Scared Yet?

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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If you aren’t scared yet the chances are you are not afflicted with anything on the following list of phobias or irrational fears that seem to grip some unfortunate people. For them 2013 will be as frightening as 2012. Imagine, for example, spending the whole year with proctophobia – what a bummer!

In today’s list are the ‘O’s and the ‘P’s. 

Enjoy.

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Obesophobia……….fear of gaining weight. (Pocrescophobia)

 

Ochlophobia……….fear of crowds or mobs.

 

Ochophobia……….fear of vehicles.

 

Octophobia ……….fear of the figure 8.

 

Odontophobia……….fear of teeth or dental surgery.

 

Odynophobia or Odynephobia……….fear of pain. (Algophobia)

 

Oenophobia……….fear of wines.

 

Oikophobia……….fear of home surroundings, house. (Domatophobia, Eicophobia)

 

Olfactophobia……….fear of smells.

 

Ombrophobia……….fear of rain or of being rained on.

 

Ommetaphobia or Ommatophobia……….fear of eyes.

 

Omphalophobia……….fear of belly buttons.

 

Oneirophobia……….fear of dreams.

 

Oneirogmophobia……….fear of wet dreams.

 

Onomatophobia……….fear of hearing a certain word or of names.

 

Ophidiophobia……….fear of snakes. (Snakephobia)

 

Ophthalmophobia……….fear of being stared at.

 

Opiophobia……….fear medical doctors experience of prescribing needed pain medications for patients.

 

Optophobia……….fear of opening one’s eyes.

 

Ornithophobia……….fear of birds.

 

Orthophobia……….fear of property.

 

Osmophobia or Osphresiophobia……….fear of smells or odors.

 

Ostraconophobia……….fear of shellfish.

 

Ouranophobia or Uranophobia……….fear of heaven.

 

Pagophobia……….fear of ice or frost.

 

Panthophobia……….fear of suffering and disease.

 

Panophobia or Pantophobia……….fear of everything.

 

Papaphobia……….fear of the Pope.

 

Papyrophobia……….fear of paper.

 

Paralipophobia……….fear of neglecting duty or responsibility.

 

Paraphobia……….fear of sexual perversion.

 

Parasitophobia……….fear of parasites.

 

Paraskavedekatriaphobia……….fear of Friday the 13th.

 

Parthenophobia……….fear of virgins or young girls.

 

Pathophobia……….fear of disease.

 

Patroiophobia……….fear of heredity.

 

Parturiphobia……….fear of childbirth.

 

Peccatophobia……….fear of sinning or imaginary crimes.

 

Pediculophobia……….fear of lice.

 

Pediophobia……….fear of dolls.

 

Pedophobia……….fear of children.

 

Peladophobia……….fear of bald people.

 

Pellagrophobia……….fear of pellagra.

 

Peniaphobia……….fear of poverty.

 

Pentheraphobia……….fear of mother-in-law. (Novercaphobia)

 

Phagophobia……….fear of swallowing or of eating or of being eaten.

 

Phalacrophobia……….fear of becoming bald.

 

Phallophobia……….fear of a penis, especially erect.

 

Pharmacophobia……….fear of taking medicine.

 

Phasmophobia……….fear of ghosts.

 

Phengophobia……….fear of daylight or sunshine.

 

Philemaphobia or Philematophobia……….fear of kissing.

 

Philophobia……….fear of falling in love or being in love.

 

Philosophobia……….fear of philosophy.

 

Phobophobia……….fear of phobias.

 

Photoaugliaphobia……….fear of glaring lights.

 

Photophobia……….fear of light.

 

Phonophobia……….fear of noises or voices or one’s own voice; of telephones.

 

Phronemophobia……….fear of thinking.

 

Phthiriophobia……….fear of lice. (Pediculophobia)

 

Phthisiophobia……….fear of tuberculosis.

 

Placophobia……….fear of tombstones.

 

Plutophobia……….fear of wealth.

 

Pluviophobia……….fear of rain or of being rained on.

 

Pneumatiphobia……….fear of spirits.

 

Pnigophobia or Pnigerophobia……….fear of choking of being smothered.

 

Pocrescophobia……….fear of gaining weight. (Obesophobia)

 

Podophobia……….fear of feet.

 

Pogonophobia……….fear of beards.

 

Poliosophobia……….fear of contracting poliomyelitis.

 

Politicophobia……….fear or abnormal dislike of politicians.

 

Polyphobia……….fear of many things.

 

Poinephobia……….fear of punishment.

 

Ponophobia……….fear of overworking or of pain.

 

Porphyrophobia……….fear of the color purple.

 

Potamophobia……….fear of rivers or running water.

 

Potophobia……….fear of alcohol.

 

Pharmacophobia……….fear of drugs.

 

Proctophobia……….fear of rectums.

 

Prosophobia……….fear of progress.

 

P-P-P-P-P-Psellismophobia……….fear of stuttering.

 

Psychophobia……….fear of mind.

 

Psychrophobia……….fear of cold.

 

Pteridophobia……….morbid fear of fearns.

 

Pteromerhanophobia……….fear of flying.

 

Pteronophobia……….fear of being tickled by feathers.

 

Pupaphobia ……….fear of puppets.

 

Pyrexiophobia……….fear of fever.

 

Pyrophobia……….fear of fire.

 

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How are you after all that? Are you developing symptoms or are you feeling good?

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Some More Witty Sayings, Inspired By George Carlin

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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There was a lot of love for the short series of quotes from George Carlin. I was pleased that he is remembered well and still giving amusement to people, despite no longer being with us.

Today I have a selection of other witty sayings, not attributed to anyone in particular, but in the same spirit as last week’s post.

I hope you enjoy these too.

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Dickson’s Gardening Rule: When weeding, the best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it. If it comes out of the ground easily, it is a valuable plant.

 

The easiest way to find something lost around the house is to buy a replacement.

 

Sex is like air; it’s not important unless you aren’t getting any.

 

Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.

 

One good turn gets most of the blankets.

 

There are two kinds of pedestrians — the quick and the dead.

 

Life is sexually transmitted.

 

An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys.

 

If quitters never win, and winners never quit, then who is the fool who said “Quit while you’re ahead”?

 

ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI. (One for the nerds and geeks to LTAO.) 

 

Willie was a Chemist, But Willie is no more, What Willie thought was H2O Was H2SO4.

 

A closed mouth gathers no feet.

 

Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

 

It’s not hard to meet expenses, they’re everywhere.

 

Jury — Twelve people who determine which client has the better lawyer.

 

Never lick a gift horse in the mouth.

 

The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.

 

Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience.

 

Before marriage, a man yearns for the woman he loves. After marriage, the ‘Y’ becomes silent.

 

If you want your spouse to listen and pay strict attention to every word you say, talk in your sleep.

 

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When Your Bank Gives You A Load Of Sh1t, Just Give It Right Back To Them!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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It isn’t often that there is the opportunity to report a victory of the common man over the banksters. But a few years ago one did happen when a 71-year-old British farmer, from Northumberland, won a £300,000 settlement from his bank after what he described as years of frustration and pain.

Although the bank settled, shortly before the case went to the British High Court, the farmer, Mr David Cannon, said he still felt as though he had not got justice. “They could give me every penny on the planet, but it still couldn’t put it right. It’s taken 10 years away from me. To them it’s monopoly money, but to me it’s all I’ll get.”

His problem was with the National Westminster Bank plc, and began in May 1990. It centered on £70,000 which Mr Cannon claimed went missing somewhere between his own account, his son’s personal and business accounts and an account belonging to his son’s business partner.

He is convinced the money had disappeared gradually during “dozens and dozens” of transfers between the accounts. Naturally the NatWest Bank always strongly denied that the money went astray.

The legal proceedings started way back in 1991, and the Cannons were forced to sell their 300-strong herd of prize-winning Ayrshire cows to fund their case. Mr Cannon said: “It was heart-breaking having to sell the herd, and soon I, and especially my wife, had problems with our health.”

After four-and-a-half years of deadlock with the legal proceedings Mr Cannon decided enough was enough. He borrowed a muck-spreader and chugged into Newcastle-upon-Tyne on his tractor.

In a little over two minutes, he blasted four tons of slurry over NatWest’s Mosley Street branch.

Phew!!!

Stonemasons spent two weeks clearing up and Mr Cannon was fined £2,000. But undeterred, a year later, he subjected the bank’s Ponteland branch to the same exterior decoration.

He really was giving them shit!

Still the dispute dragged on, until December 1998, by which time Mr Cannon had lost patience once again. This time he blocked the door of the Grey Street branch of the bank with his tractor.

Ten months later he returned to the Ponteland branch, baffling staff by measuring the entrance. The next day he forced the doors open with his tractor and barricaded himself inside, nailing fence rails across the doorway. This bank job cost him another £600.

His final fling occurred the following June 12, when he dumped a five-ton load of shit on the doorstep of the Ponteland branch and returned to his farm – pursued by police. Amazingly, he managed to reload and chugged back to the bank, where he made a second five-ton deposit. A low-speed chase ensued, the police puncturing the 10mph tractor’s tyres with a ‘stinger’.

Mr Cannon was charged with criminal damage, dangerous driving, driving without an excise licence and failing to stop for a police officer. He was given a 60-day suspended sentence and ordered to pay £845.60 compensation plus £250 costs.

Mr Cannon, a former bare-knuckle boxer, said: “But fortunately it was in my nature to fight them. Breeding cattle was my life.”

The bank, NatWest issued a token 63-word statement which denied any admission of liability. They refused to add to it when questioned by reporters.

Simon Pitkeathley of the British Bankers’ Association, says angry customers would do better to follow the conventional complaints procedure or move your account elsewhere, said: “Mr Cannon’s behaviour obviously can’t be condoned.”

But I liked it. Good one Mr C.

The big question is, by awarding £300,000 to a man who has taken direct action, has the bank set a dangerous precedent for those distressed customers contemplating direct action? Wouldn’t it be great if they were in for loads more shi……I mean, bother?

 

Farmer David Cannon giving his bank some shit

We’ve Looked At Beautiful Numbers, Now How About Some Really BIG ones!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Taking a break from the funny stuff today.

A while ago I did a post about Beautiful Numbers. And yesterday I was having a look at the debt situation in various countries, which sparked off this post about numbers, BIG ones.

I will post links to the US debt figures and a couple of others at the end of this post. They are kind of fascinating because they are real-time counters, continually updating.

However, to get on with the post, everybody knows 1 (one), 10 (ten), 100 (hundred), 1,000 (thousand), and 1,000,000 (million). We are all familiar with 1,000,000,000 (billion) although none of us have ever counted that far. In fact oil mogul John Paul Getty once said that if you could count your money you weren’t a billionaire. I can, and I’m not, so perhaps he was right!

And, thanks to the massive debt that the US and other countries are building up, we are also getting more and more familiar with 1,000,000,000,000 trillion.

After that, however, most people would be stuck. Here are the next big numbers.

1,000,000,000,000,000 quadrillion

1,000,000,000,000,000,000 quintillion

1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 sextillion

1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 septillion

1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 octillion

1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 nonillion

1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 decillion

1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 vigintillion

10¹⁰⁰ better known as a googol from which the search engine google derived its name.

10³⁰³ centillion

And finally for now, a googolplex which is 10^googol

That’s a lot of zeros!

You may have noticed in all this that the names for a lot of the larger numbers end in “illion”. This is also true for the names used to describe numbers that don’t actually exist and that are of no specific size.

For example, words like , ‘jillion’, ‘gadzillion’ and ‘squillion’ (there are many other variations). Their size is dependent upon the context, but can typically be considered a very very large number. And if you are talking about the super rich then all you have to do is stick ‘-illionaire’ on the end.

But the best term for describing a number is one that also doesn’t really exist. I mean it exists as a word, but it is not a precise mathematical term and it just describes a big number rather than a specific big number.

The term I’m talking about is ‘Umpteen’. From the name you would imagine that it should represent a number somewhere in the teens, but it can be used to describe virtually any number, real or imaginary. A useful term if you don’t have a specific number in mind.

Now for the clocks. Here are the links. Hope you find them interesting, maybe a little scary in some cases.

Probably the best of these is from the wonderfully named poodwaddle.com

http://www.poodwaddle.com/clocks/worldclock/

Some others to look at too if you are interested in this type of thing

US Debt clock   http://www.usdebtclock.org/index.html

World Debt Clock   http://www.usdebtclock.org/world-debt-clock.html

And some real time world counters on a variety of things

http://www.worldometers.info/

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America, My Friends, Is Fast Becoming The Land Of The Stepford Grin

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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People nowadays have an obsession with teeth, particularly so in America where the whole thing has gotten completely ridiculous. The only people benefiting are the dentists, or orthodontists as the braces branch like to call themselves, who are making an absolute fortune on the vanity of others.

There’s the usual drilling and filling too, but the main work nowadays is straightening and whitening and so forth. Nearly every unfortunate kid has to undergo months of a hideous looking steel grid in their gobs otherwise they think that they will stand out from their friends, and of course individuality is out of the question, conformity is king!

Poor kid with steel grid in gob

 

Their beleaguered parents, who seem to have lost the ability to say “no” to their children, go along with it and hand over their wallets like it’s the normal thing to do.

America, my friends, is fast becoming the land of the Stepford grin and nobody seems to find it at all the least bit odd. And just like baseball caps, the fashion is spreading throughout the world.

The Stepford Grin

 

But it wasn’t always this way. A few decades ago dentistry was, let’s say, a lot more primitive. There was still the drilling and filling bit and in a pre-fluoride environment there were more cavities than there were people. There were also a lot of teeth that, whilst they could be easily saved and repaired today, in those days had to be extracted. Therefore many people ended up requiring dentures.

 

dentures

 

John was a case in point. He got to the stage where all his teeth were gone and his dentist was taking moulds and measuring him up for a new set of dentures.

After spending some time toothless, which made eating some of his favorite foods difficult and frustrating, John was anxious to get his new teeth. The day arrived and off he went to the dentist who fitted them and adjusted them.

All seemed to go well. They felt like a bit of a mouthful but John put that down to the fact that they were new and probably needed a few hours to bed down properly in his mouth. He was happy enough.

Until he got home that is.

His daughter met him at the door and immediately let out a loud shriek and fell on to the floor laughing uncontrollably.

Then his wife walked in.

“Oh my good God, John” she exclaimed, “Whatever have they done to you?” And with that she too started to laugh.

John protested vigorously. He tried to ask them what was wrong, why was everyone laughing. But he hadn’t gotten used to the teeth in his mouth and he sounded as if he had a mouthful of pebbles. Naturally this made the others laugh all the harder.

He went into an adjoining room where there was a mirror.

“Fos hate, way awen’t wat bad,” he protested from the other room.

But the more he talked with his mouthful of teeth the more they laughed and the more they laughed the more irritated he became.  After a while they got themselves calmed down and decided they would review the situation in the morning.

The next morning John’s wife was first up as usual. She went downstairs to prepare breakfast for the family while he washed, shaved and got dressed. When the breakfast was ready she shouted on the others and they all assembled at the kitchen table.

For a few minutes all went peacefully, everybody keeping their heads down and studying their eggs and bacon intently. But curiosity eventually got the better of them. First John’s daughter looked up. She couldn’t control herself and immediately returned her concentration to the scrambled egg on her plate, but shaking noticeably with more laughter.

Then John’s wife looked across the table at him. Again she burst out into fits of laughter.

“It was like sitting there looking at a horse smiling at you across the breakfast table,” she would tell me later when recounting the story.

John’s Horsey Smile

 

This time it was all too much for John. He angrily stomped off to the garage and set to work on his new teeth with an electric grinding stone.

But it was a lost cause. All he did was grind away a good part of the teeth, which obviously did make them smaller, but now he was left with more gum than teeth. If anything, this looked even funnier than the original, as his wife and daughter confirmed by again falling about the place in more fits of laughter.

After that those teeth, or what was left of them, were never seen again.

The next time John would go to another dentist, one who made teeth for people and not horses.

 

 

Mandatory Private Health Insurance – Whatever Next?

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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I wrote a post on my blog a while ago called “It Always Surprises Me How One Thing Leads To Another!” and so it has again. I was intending another subject for today’s post but a recent comment got me thinking about Obamacare and the recent SCOTUS ruling.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to go into an analyses of that just now apart from making this small point. When Obamacare (some people call it The Patient Protection and Affordable Healthcare Act), became law on March 23, 2010, it contained a provision that requires all Americans to have private health insurance coverage starting in 2014.

Further than that, any American who does not, will have to pay a penalty, up to 2.5% of his/her income, to the IRS.

Now I know that, if you can afford it, having an adequate health plan is a sensible thing. But legislating to make it compulsory, well, that’s a different thing entirely.

I am astounded that more people haven’t been kicking up their heels and screaming about this, which is in effect a tax or fine for something you didn’t do, rather than something you did. But they haven’t. Maybe it is because 2014 is way in the future, like just a few months away, (duhh) and therefore nothing needs to be done.

So, I’m thinking if they get away with this, whatever is next. And then it hit me, so to speak.

Sex.

Some moron either in the Oval office or in a square office in the Senate or Congress will come up with the idea of legislating sex. I don’t mean they’re going to make it compulsory or otherwise, just that we’ll all need to take out relevant insurance to cover it, so to speak.

Although it is not always immediately apparent, fasab is a helpful blog. Always going the extra mile to assist people where possible, either by highlighting the bureaucratic bunglers in our midst, or trying to amuse, or being informative.

Today it’s the latter (it isn’t really, it’s the middle one), because I have come across a list of the correct insurance companies for sex. The list can be found below.

Enjoy!

 

THE correct Insurance Companies for sex, depending on your tastes) are:

 

SEX with your wife – Legal & General

 

SEX with your future wife- Mutual Trust

 

SEX with your secretary – Employers Liability

 

SEX with a prostitute – Commercial Union

 

SEX on the telephone- Direct line

 

SEX with your biographer – Quote me Happy

 

SEX in a hurry- Insure & Go

 

SEX with your boyfriend – Standard Life

 

SEX with a transvestite – Confused . com

 

SEX with some one different – Go compare . com

 

SEX with a wild animal – Compare the meerkat . com

 

SEX with a fat bird – More Than

 

SEX on the back seat – Sheila’s Wheels

 

SEX with an o.a.p – Saga

 

SEX with a posh bird – Privilege .com

 

SEX with yourself – John Hancock Insurance

 

SEX with safety in mind – Protective Life

 

and finally,

 

SEX with a sheep – Farmers Union

 

 

Let’s All Raise A Glass Of Milk To The Late Mr Sam J Porcello

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

 

Taking a little break from the normal blog post.

I guess that a lot of you are asking who the heck is Sam J Porcello and why should we be raising a glass of milk in his honor?

Well Sam is perhaps a lot better known as ‘Mr.Oreo’ the scientist who in a career at Nabisco that spanned 34 years, invented that creamy sticky stuff in the middle of Oreos.  He died recently at the age of 76.

You can’t just take one

Sam J Porcello was one of the world’s foremost experts on cocoa, the raw material of chocolate, and the go-to guy for all Oreo related matters at Nabisco. He also created the chocolate-covered and the white chocolate-covered Oreo, and held five patents relating to Oreos.

Almost half a trillion Oreos have been sold worldwide since they hit the market in 1912, one hundred years ago this year, so I think you could say that they have been pretty successful.

oreo cartoon

And that just leaves the big question.

So how do you eat yours?

Are you a dry biter and cruncher?

Or a dunker?

Or a twist and licker?

However you do it, the next time you do it, save a thought for people like Sam J Porcello.

Oreos classic

 

 

FACTOID ALERT!

Oreos are sold in Argentina (with banana filling and with caramel filling in the same package; in Canada (where they are manufactured and sold under the Christie brand); in China (where they were introduced only in 1996 but have now become the best-selling cookie in the People’s Republic of China, after altering its recipe to have a lower sugar content to suit local tastes); in Croatia (since February 2011); in India (introduced in March 2011 under Cadbury brand); in Norway (since 2004); in Poland (from February 2011); and in the United Kingdom from May 2008). They are also to be found in shops and supermarkets in many other countries.

If your interested Nabisco has an Oreo web site

http://www.nabiscoworld.com/oreo/

 

Speaking personally I’m a Wagon Wheels man. Good luck finding those but they’re truly scrumptious!

Scrumptious Wagon Wheels!

 

It Always Surprises Me How One Thing Leads To Another!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

 

I have no idea why that should be, I mean why it always surprises me how one thing leads to another. After all, where else can one thing go? It’s the logical sequence, it has to happen that way. I think what I really mean is, the surprise is what you are led to. It is hardly ever the thing you were expecting.

Every one of us knows from hours of experience how difficult it is to switch on the computer or log on to the internet on a smart phone or other device and be self-disciplined enough to just search for the thing we initially wanted to look for. Countless times in my experience I have gone on to the internet with the sole purpose of maybe checking some stats or looking up some information relating to a business problem, or a health issue perhaps, only to find an hour or so later that I’m on a completely different tack, forgotten completely about why I started, and now absorbed in some other information that has nothing to do with the job originally at hand.

Entertaining it certainly is. Enjoyable too, without a doubt. Informative, yes it can be (although you shouldn’t believe everything you read on the internet – unless it appears in this blog of course). And a waste of time? That one is debatable. I think not. Nothing is a waste of time if it is providing any or all of the above attributes – entertainment, enjoyment or information.

One of my favorite sayings is, “It’s a sad day you don’t learn something,” and I am glad to report that in that regard I do not have any sad days. Every day I learn something, usually not what I expected and sometimes the lessons can be very harsh, but it all counts towards bettering oneself and providing valuable experience for the future.

So when I looked at my blog today I had a very different subject in my head to write about. Then I read a comment from my blog-friend coastalcrone on yesterdays blog post “Today Is A Beautiful Day”, part of which sparked off what you are now reading.

Coastalcrone said, “For me words are so visual… they have to look right for me too.”

Now one can analyze any writing from a grammatical viewpoint, or the construction of sentences and paragraphs, or the balance and rhythm of the words, or on its aesthetic content, or on many other different levels. That’s what they do when they study literature at universities, tearing apart and analyzing writing and writers. Sometimes I think that is valuable and informative; at other times I think that they don’t have a clue what they are talking about and have read far, far more into a piece than the writer originally intended. (Most writers, though, are happy to go along with such academic pronouncements because it makes them appear a bit more clever that they would be if they denied them.)

However, all that academic stuff aside, the part of coastalcrone’s comment that promoted all this was really the first part,

“… words are so visual”.

Words are visual. Indeed they are. A good description of a person, or a scene, or an incident, conjures up the image in the reader’s mind, and so it should. The better the writing and the writer, the better the visuals the reader experiences.

But, and it’s a big bold BUT, the visual experience is not the writer’s, it always belongs to the reader. The writer is simply the catalyst.

No matter how precise and detailed a description is, if it is a description of something we have not personally witnessed (in other words someone describing a fictitious person or place, or even for example a valley or lake in Australia or India which most of will never have seen, as opposed to a $10 bill or a laptop computer) a different image will be conjured up in the minds of each individual.

I’m sure you have read a book and then later gone to see the movie. Very seldom if ever does your own visual image agree with the film maker’s. At the moment I can only think of one occasion when my own visual interpretation of a book almost exactly matched the movie interpretation. That was Alastair MacLean’s “Where Eagles Dare”, an excellent World War II espionage thriller and an equally excellent movie. That was probably because MacLean wrote the book and movie screenplay more or less at the same time. (Btw, I don’t mean that I had Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood in my visual picture – that would have been too crazy, even for me!)

Of course the converse is easier to come to grips with. If you see the movie and then read the book, the movie-maker’s visuals, rather than your own, are already in your head. Sometimes that’s okay, if the movie has been a reasonably close interpretation of the book. If they don’t gel well then the one can easily spoil the enjoyment of the other.

Visual interpretations also hold for the spoken as well as the written word. If one hears something described on the radio, for example, it produces visual images in one’s mind. Not only that, however, but one often gets an imaginary picture of what the person speaking looks like. It can sometimes come as a bit of shock when you see the person on tv or in real life. I’ve heard people remarking on more than one occasion that so-and-so “isn’t like his voice”.

Even when you meet people, you can have preconceived ideas about them in the few seconds between seeing them and hearing them speak. Some say that that is conclusive proof that light travels faster than sound, i.e. that most people seem bright until you hear them speak.

Of course one should be mature enough to accept people as they are. What one should definitely not do is laugh at some unfortunate with a voice that doesn’t fit them. Admittedly it can be funny, as this talk show host found out when carrying out a tv interview some years ago.

Let’s have a little experiment and see how good you are. You know you shouldn’t laugh but I rather think you might. I did! Quite a lot  But at the show host, naturally

Enjoy!