Friday The 13th, Part Two.

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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What do you know, it’s Friday 13th AGAIN.

Second one in two months and there will be another in November 2015 too.

How lucky is that?

Well, I guess not so lucky if you suffer from paraskevidekatriaphobia (also known as friggatriskaidekaphobia), which is a fear of Friday the 13th, or even triskadekaphobia which is the scientific name given to a fear of the number 13 itself.

It shouldn’t be that much of a surprise really. The longest period that can occur without a Friday the 13th is 14 months, and every year has at least one and sometimes, like this year, three Friday the 13ths.

There is no written evidence for a “Friday the 13th” superstition before the 19th century, the first reference to an unlucky Friday the 13th coming in an 1869 biography of the composer Rossini who died on Friday November 13, 1868.

The superstition only gained widespread distribution in the 20th century, although the origin is believed to have come from the Bible, the association stemming from the idea that the 13th guest at the Last Supper was the one who betrayed Jesus prior to his death, which occurred on a Friday.

Hotels, skyscrapers and even hospitals have been known to skip out on creating a 13th floor due to its unlucky connection and even airports sometimes quietly omit gate 13. The Curtis Hotel in Denver, Colorado, on the other hand uses the superstition as a gimmick to amuse guests by playing the “dun, dun, dunnnnn!!” theme in the elevator shaft for guests as they arrive on the 13th floor.

Sometimes research seems to add weight to the superstition. A study in Finland, for example, has shown that women are more likely to die in traffic accidents on Friday the 13th than on other Fridays.

And, according to a report from U.K.’s newspaper, The Mirror, 72 percent of United Kingdom residents have claimed to have had bad luck experiences Friday the 13th. The readers polled admitted to avoiding traveling, attending business meetings and making large purchases on this unlucky day, with 34 percent admitting to wanting to “hide under their duvet” for the upcoming dates. The study did not speculate if their luck would have been better if they had gone about their normal business!

Former US President Franklin D. Roosevelt had a strong fear of the number 13 and refused to host a dinner party with 13 guests or to travel on the 13th day of any month. US President Herbert Hoover had similar fears.

Maybe he did what superstitious diners in Paris do – hire a quatorzieme, or professional 14th guest.

I don’t think Cuban leader Fidel Castro had the same fears because he was born on Friday, August 13,1926, as was the celebrated outlaw Butch Cassidy (born on. Friday, April 13,1866).

Speaking of outlaws, Oklahoma bandit Crawford “Cherokee Bill” Goldsby murdered 13 victims, and was captured after a reward of $1300 was posted. At his trial, 13 eyewitnesses testified against him, the jury took 13 hours to render a verdict of guilty. He was hanged on April 13,1896 on a gallows with 13 steps!

Stock broker and author Thomas W. Lawson, wrote a novel in 1907 entitled “Friday the Thirteenth,” about a stockbroker’s attempts to take down Wall Street on the unluckiest day of the month. Reportedly, stock brokers after this were as unlikely to buy or sell stocks on this unlucky day as they were to walk under a ladder, according to accounts of a 1925 New York Times article.

The independent horror movie Friday the 13th was released in May 1980 and despite only having a budget of $550,000 it grossed $39.7million at the box office in the United States – not unlucky for it’s backers. In fact the “Friday the 13th” film franchise continues to sweep up its box-office competition. According to  BoxOfficeMojo.com, the dozen films named after the haunted holiday have raked in more than $380 million nationally, with an average gross of $31 million per feature.

Another director noted for his suspenseful psychological thrillers, Alfred Hitchcock, was born on the Friday 13th in August 1899, although he also had a run in with bad luck on that date too when his directorial debut movie called “Number 13,” never made it past the first few scenes and was shut down due to financial problems. He is supposed to have said that the film wasn’t very interesting. We’ll never know!

Also with movies in mind there was a feature film based on the unlucky events of Apollo 13, launched on 13:13 CST, April 11,1970, which barely escaped becoming a doomed flight when an explosion disabled the craft occurring on April 13th (not a Friday in case you are interested).

According to Thomas Gilovich, chair of Psychology at Cornell University, our brains are known to make associations with Friday 13th in a way that would give favor to the “bad luck” myths. He explains this by saying that “if anything bad happens to you on Friday the 13th, the two will be forever associated in your mind and all those uneventful days in which the 13th fell on a Friday will be ignored.” It’s a bit like remembering the good old days and forgetting the bad ones!

Always contrary, pagans believe that 13 is actually a lucky number since it corresponds with the number of full moons in a year and in Spanish-speaking nations, Tuesday The 13th is regarded as unlucky rather than Friday!

So I guess you just have to make up your own mind whether you believe Friday 13th is unlucky or not.

I’m hoping of course that the fact that you have landed on this blog today is good luck rather than bad.

It was good luck for me, please call again.

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Herbs For Sale: Please No Thyme Wasters!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Are you are looking for some really funny jokes?

Well, never mind.

Try these instead.

It’s Pun Day!

Enjoy or endure!!

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I just saw a bird playing chess in the park.

Toucan play at that game.

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If a vacuum is a volume of space

that contains no matter or particles,

why did someone bother to invent a cleaner for it?

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My son got straight A’s in his italics exam.

Which actually cost him quite a few marks.

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24 years ago today the doctor delivered me.

I can’t believe I’ve survived so long without a liver.

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I just bought my 6 month old son one of those baby bouncers.

£10 an hour but he keeps the kid safe

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My wife used to be a regular customer at McDonalds.

These days, she’s more of a large.

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Hearing aid for sale.

Give me a shout if you’re interested.

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A man came up to me and said,

“Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.”

I said, “That is very annoying.”

He said, “Well I can only apologize.”

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I’m lucky, I can always count on my wife.

She wears a lot of beads.

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“What’s done cannot be undone.”

They obviously didn’t have shoelaces in Shakespeare’s day.

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So these two morons were making fun

of an old guy on the bus yesterday.

My friend said,

“You have to respect him, he’s a Vietnam vet.”

They just said

“What’s it to us if he helps animals in Vietnam.”

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Why did I say I’d win that giant butterfly contest?

Me and my big moth.

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I just saw two bits of sellotape stuck to a lamppost.

Must have been a missing poster.

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My girlfriend was devastated to find out

that my friends call me

‘The Love Machine’

because I’m terrible at tennis.

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Finally for today, this ring cymbalizes so much to me.

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http://instantrimshot.com/index.php?sound=rimshot&play=true

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Two Important Rules In Life

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Some days is good days and some days is bad days.

Today started off as just another quiet Sunday. I was going to write a short sermon, but decided against it since you’d already had one of those from me on Wednesday.

Then I got a life changing opportunity from the most unlikely of sources. On offer was a cool $5 million!

How good is that!!

I just had to tell you about it.

The opportunity came from my good friend General Abdul Aziz Jassem al-Shallal, one of the generals who have defected from the Syrian Army.

It turns out that the office of General Abdul Aziz Jassem al-Shallal monitors and controls the affairs of sensitive institutions in Syria that takes to do with foreign contract payments.

It also turns out that General Abdul Aziz Jassem al-Shallal thinks that I am a respected and honest person suitable for handling this project/transaction with sincerity, trust and confidentiality. Perhaps he had read some of my posts about the folly of getting involved in the Syrian conflict.

Luckily – for him – before he defected, the General was able to get his hands on all the paperwork necessary to retrieve unclaimed deposits and over invoiced sums to do with foreign contracts.

And luckily – for me – he can arrange it so that it appears that all this unclaimed money is owed to me. All I have to do is agree to give him 70 percent of the proceeds, and for my trouble I can keep 25 percent, with the remainder going on expenses.

That’s a cool 25 percent of $20 million for me!

WOW!!

Have I ever been this lucky?

Well, no I haven’t. Never. Not once. And sadly I’m not lucky this time either.

You see I know that the General Abdul Aziz Jassem al-Shallal who emailed me isn’t the real one, this one only exists in the mind of a Nigerian crook.

The real General Abdul Aziz Jassem al-Shallal, not the one who emailed me!

I also know that this is the latest variation of the infamous Nigerian 419 scam, designed to con greedy and gullible people out of money, not give them the opportunity to make money.

And I know that if I was foolish enough to reply to General Abdul Aziz Jassem al-Shallal all that would happen is that eventually the fictitious money transfer would run into problems that would either require me to pay some cash upfront to clear the way for the transfer (known as Advance Fee Fraud) or hand over bank account or other personal details that would allow these criminals to try to steal my money.

So will I be taking advantage of this great life-changing opportunity?

Sadly no.

The only reason I am mentioning this at all is to highlight the scam for those who maybe have not yet fallen victim to it, and as a warning to ignore all such “opportunities”. And there are a lot of them.

So why do scams like these keep happening?

Sadly the answer is, because a lot of the time they work, and they continue to work because people are so bloody stupid!

It has been estimated that there are a quarter of a million active scammers and that they cause $1.5 billion in losses each year, an average of $20,000 per victim. Some of the victims are just greedy idiots who think they are on to an illegal windfall, but others (also idiots) think they are contributing to things like charities and orphanages. On occasion some of these hapless victims have suffered more than financial losses, having been beaten, tortured, and even murdered.

There are two rules in life that you should apply to everything.

Rule # 1, believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see, and

Rule # 2, if it sounds too good to be true then it usually is.

No matter how great the temptation always try to remember these.

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A Lot Of Idiots Kill Themselves….But….

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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A lot of idiots kill themselves accidently. I’ve highlighted a few examples on this blog of people whose stupidity led to their demise.

But some do it on purpose.

If they are really dumb, however, they don’t quite manage to do it the way they had planned.

Here are some examples.

 

1. Objective Attained – Method Unexpected

Frenchman Jacques LeFevrier left nothing to chance when he decided to commit suicide.

He stood at the top of a tall cliff and tied a noose around his neck.

He tied the other end of the rope to a large rock.

He then drank some poison.

Then he set fire to his clothes.

He even tried to shoot himself at the last moment.

The plan seemed foolproof. Alas it was not.

As he jumped he fired the pistol.

However, the bullet missed him completely and instead cut through the rope above him.

Free of the threat of hanging, he plunged into the sea.

The sudden dunking extinguished the flames and the salty water he ingested made him vomit the poison.

He was dragged out of the water by a kind fisherman and was taken to a hospital, where he subsequently died of hypothermia.

There must have been an easier way. 

Jacques LeFevrier

 

2. Strike another one Elvita!

One Sunday while on a visit to the Empire State Building in New York City, Elvita Adams clambered over an 8 foot high iron fence surrounding the observation deck at about 8.25pm.

She jumped off the building and plummeted earthwards.

But only for a few feet.

A strong gust of wind, possibly as high as 30mph, pushed her back towards the building and she landed on a balcony on the 85th floor, with nothing more than a broken leg.

Asked why she had wanted to commit suicide she said it was because she had been a failure at everything she tried.

Strike another one Elvita!

Empire State Building

 

 

3. She Fell For Him Big Time

Back in France again, suicides at the Eiffel Tower are apparently quite common. In fact France has one of the highest suicide rates at 17.5 suicides per 1000 people!

Killing yourself with the 1,063 foot “Iron Lady” is the third most popular French suicide method behind poisoning and hanging (both of which the guy in the first incident tried unsuccessfully).

A few times, people have attempted to kill themselves but failed to do so. One man was blown onto a rafter by the wind and he was spared. But the most curious case was one in which a woman who jumped, landed on the roof of a car and later married the man who owned it!

Boy did she fall for him!!!

Eiffel Tower, Paris

  

4. Taxi!

In Buenos Aires, Argentina, a woman threw herself off the 23^rd floor balcony of the Hotel Crown Plaza Panamericano in an apparent suicide bid. However her attempt failed when a taxi caught in traffic below cushioned her fall.

Although the impact of her landing on the car shattered its windscreen and made a huge dent in its roof, the impact was not hard enough to end her life.

Instead, the 30-year-old woman was left with broken hips, ribs and significant internal bleeding.

The driver of the taxi, Miguel Cajal, told a local TV station that he noticed policemen stopping traffic and were looking upward. This made him instinctively jump out of his car.

“I got out of the car a second before. If I had not got out, I would have been killed,” the BBC quoted him as saying. The impact, he added, “made a terrible noise.”

The aftermath of a suicidal woman landing on a taxi

 

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Little Dumb And Large Dumber

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

Are there some people who are too dumb to live?

It’s an interesting, if not much asked, question.

Certainly people do get killed in unusual ways. Of course that is not always their fault. Sometimes they are the victims of circumstances beyond their control. No one can plan for the drunken idiot who slams his car into another. Nor should we live our lives in fear of such things. Take as much care as necessary without impacting on your own life and enjoyment is the best we can do. And usually that is more than enough to get us by.

Back to the initial question.

I think there is a lot of evidence to show that there are indeed some people who are just too dumb to live. There’s a thing called the Darwin Awards that every year highlights some of the people who have, as they put it, strengthened the gene pool by doing away with themselves under the stupidest of circumstances. Some of them are very amusing indeed and I hope to feature other examples in this blog from time to time.

This one is about two people meeting their end in a peculiar, and for the rest of us, funny way.

It happened in the little town (called a city) of George, in Grant County, Washington. As well as being a play on the President’s name, George, Washington, with a population of little over 500, is famous for the similarly sounding Gorge Amphitheatre. This is a 20,000+ seat concert venue located above the Columbia River, that offers lawn-terrace seating and “concert friendly weather”.

Actually it is considered to be one of the premier and most scenic concert locations in the US, and some say even the world. It has been the host to artists such as The Who, David Bowie, Coldplay, and Pearl Jam, the latter even releasing a box set album featuring their entire performances from 2005 and 2006.

However the group that caused the trouble for the two intrepid zeros who are the subject of today’s blog post was Metallica. When they were playing at The Gorge, Robert Uhlenake (24) and his friend, Ormond D. Young (27) decided they wanted to go along.

However, unable to get any tickets for the sold out gig the two instead decided to stay in a nearby parking lot and drink. By the time the show had started they had made their way through eighteen beers.

That was when they did something that stupid people, especially drunk stupid people, should never do.

Yes, they hit upon an idea.

And that idea was to scale the seven foot wooden security fence around the perimeter of the site and sneak in. The rest of the plan involved moving their truck up to the edge of the fence, get on top of it and simply jump over the fence.

So far, so good.

Then they decided that Young would go over first and assist Uhlenake later.

Again, so far, so good.

But what they had not figured into their plan was that, while the fence was seven feet high on the parking lot side, there was a twenty-three foot drop on the other side.

Young, who weighed around 255 lbs and was quite inebriated, jumped up and over the fence and promptly fell about half the twenty-three foot distance before a large tree branch broke his fall AND his left forearm.

Not content with that he also managed to get his shorts caught on the branch.

There’s a kind of a rule in life, I don’t know whose it is (it’s not Murphy’s, maybe I’ll claim it for fasab if no one else has it), that when things start to go wrong they have a tendency to keep on going from bad to worse. So it was for young Mr Young.

He was now in a lot of pain and his broken arm made it impossible for him to extricate himself and his shorts from the tree in the normal manner. But hanging there and looking at the bushes down below, he thought the thing to do was to cut his shorts off and fall to the ground. The soft bushes would cushion the impact of his fall.

This he did and when he cut the last bit of fabric from himself, he suddenly plummeted to earth.

As he did so he also lost his grip of the knife.

The “soft” bushes that Young had cleverly spotted from fifteen foot up in the air hanging from the branch were actually holly bushes and landing in them caused a massive number of cuts, and jags.

All that would have been bad enough for a mere mortal but Young wasn’t done yet.

He also had the misfortune of landing squarely on a holly bush branch; effectively impaling himself.

Then the knife, which he had accidentally released fifteen foot above where he landed, now joined him stabbing him in his left thigh.

Apparently, he was in a lot of pain.

Enter his friend Robert to the rescue.

Robert Uhlenake had apparently observed the last bit of this fiasco and, despite his inebriated state, had the awareness to realized that his fiend Young was in trouble.

Then he also did that thing that stupid drunk people should never do.

He hit upon the idea too, this time of lowering a rope to his friend and pulling him up and over the fence.

The problem with this plan was that Uhlenake was outweighed by his friend by a good 100 lbs. But undaunted by this he was still determined on a rescue bid and figured he could use their truck to pull his friend Young back up.

Unfortunately, because of his state, Uhlenake put the truck in reverse, rather than drive, broke through the fence, landed on Young (killing him), and subsequently died of internal injuries himself.

The two were found dead at the Gorge Amphitheater after the show. Uhlenake was in the pickup that was on top of Young at the bottom of a 20 ft drop. Young was found with severe lacerations, numerous fractures, contusions, and a branch in his anal cavity. He also had been stabbed and his pants were in a tree above him, some 15 ft off the ground.

For a while it was a mystery but the story as outlined above was eventually pieced together.

The final words on the story should perhaps go to Commissioner Appleton who summed it all up saying,

“So that’s how a dead 255 lb man with no pants on, with a truck on top of him and a stick up his ass came to be”.

 

 

Is Your Glass Half Full, Or Half Empty?

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

“Some people see the glass half full.

Others see it half empty.

I see a glass that’s twice as big as it needs to be.”

George Carlin

 

Just a short post today, but it covers a big philosophical question.

How do you look at things in life?

Is your glass always half full or half empty?

The Australian airline Quantas has never had a major accident. Does this mean that you have confidence that it is the safest airline in the world? Or does it make you think that maybe the odds are that it’s due for an accident?

If you’re playing the tables in Vegas or Atlantic City or somewhere, does the fact that you’ve lost the last ten hands make you think that your luck is out for the night and you leave. Or do you think the laws of probability mean your luck must be due to change shortly and you hang in there?

There’s no right or wrong answers here. It just depends on what type of person you are.

People who are naturally in the glass half empty category tend to be the ones who play it safe. Work for someone else, are content with a lesser but safer position, don’t over extend themselves financially, etc. For that type of person such decisions make for a much happier and contented life.

Other people, me for example, are more in the glass half full category. More prone to taking risks, trying new things (like blogging even!), and starting their own businesses. That can bring great rewards, but it can cause more than a little turmoil financially and otherwise in your life too, particularly in the economic times we are currently living through. The safe option it is not!

It takes both types to make the world go round and both are equally important.

There’s no point in starting your own business if there’s no one willing to be employed; and there’s no point in looking for a job if there’s no one willing to take the risk and start a business (they all had to start somewhere, even the giant multi nationals).

So what’s the best? It depends on you.

What’s right? Again, it depends on you.

Just don’t waste your time with the stupid pursuit of wondering if the grass is greener somewhere else if you don’t have the courage to go and find out.

Whatever way suits you at least be content with your decision.

That my friends is the simplest secret to enjoying your life.

(According to me anyhow!)

Here’s a video.

Enjoy!