Barkerburgh

Reid has upgraded me laterally to Word Press.

I say laterally provisionally because even though he has good things to say about WP, I’m a little gun-shy after primitive blogger (not so primitive now, but still a little luddy) and flashy MT with lots of dialog boxes, and then some more dialog boxes.

We’ll see.

And in other Tek Nyooze, [conga_music]Luisa got her gas stove! Luisa got her gas stove![/conga_music]

But she may have lost her computer because her husband likes to fiddle without trained and certified professional support.

I hope they still have the Space Chair come summer. God knows what’ll happen if Reid gets his hands on that. They should at least back it up first.

(Jeezes, Reid, the saving is lickety split on WP, ain’t it?)

Well, either the Bahais haven’t been around long enough as a religion to have accreted their own corpus of jokes, or nobody thinks they’re funny.

Google string: “how many bahais does it take to change a light bulb”

Google string: “bahai jokes”

Google string: “jokes about bahais”

Hmm, come to think of it, the Heaven’s Gate guys were around for what, a week and a half before they got funny? And I guess, in order for people to think you’re funny, they have to know you exist. Or think You do.

Some of you may know that I was a Mormon once. According to them I still am. I was also almost a Bahai.

So here’s the Google string for “how many mormons does it take to change a lightbulb”.

I recommend this one.

* From the South Park Scriptorium

Episode 602. Jared Has Aides (Original Airdate: 3/6/02)

Mr. Mackey: Uh hey, yeah. We, we woulda never laughed about this before.
Randy: Well don’t you see what this means? It’s been 22.3 years, so… AIDS is finally funny!
People in Crowd: Ooohhh.

(Himself says ‘You had to be there.’)

While searching for Christian light bulb jokes, I found this in a link to Christian Humour.

Anyway, here’s the light bulb jokes.

How Many Christians Does It Take To Change A Light Bulb?

Charismatic: Only one. Hands already in the air.

Pentecostals: Ten. One to change the bulb and nine to pray against the spirit of darkness.

Presbyterians: None. Lights will go off and on at predestined times.

Roman Catholic: None. Candles only.

Baptists: At least 15. One to change the light bulb and three committees to approve the change and decide who brings the potato salad.

Episcopalians: Three. One to call the electrician, one to mix the drinks and one to talk about how much better the old bulb was.

Mormons: Five. One man to change the bulb and four wives to tell him how to do it.

Unitarians: We choose not to make a statement either in favor of or against the need for a light bulb. However, if in your own journey you have found that light bulbs work for you, that is fine. You are invited to write a poem or compose a modern dance about your light bulb for the next Sunday service, in which we will explore a number of light bulb traditions including incandescent, fluorescent, three-way, long-life and tinted, all of which are equally valid paths to luminescence.

Methodists: Undetermined. Whether your light bulb is bright, dull, or completely out, you are loved. You can be a light bulb, turnip bulb or tulip bulb. A church-wide lighting service is planned for Sunday. Bring a bulb of your choice and a covered dish.

Nazarene: Six. One woman to replace the bulb while five men review the church lighting policy.

Lutherans: None. Lutherans don’t believe in change.

Amish: What’s a light bulb?

Bonus Joke

What’s the difference between a Baptist and a Methodist?

A Methodist will acknowledge you when you run into him in the liquor store.

Two cows are standing in a field, and one says to the other “I’m afraid of getting mad cow disease”. The other one replies “I’m not afraid of getting mad cow disease; I’m an ostrich.”

*A fish.

I just got a library card for the first time in twenty five years.

I used to just go to the main branch at Yonge and Bloor, look stuff up and go home.

Now I take stuff out.

Look what I can do!

What’s the best time to go see the dentist?

Move the mouse over this sentence to see the answer.

Or highlight

‘Tooth Hurty’ - say it out loud…

the gap above.

Thanks to a TV listing for a Frenchified version of “Grumpier Old Men”, and Google’s translation page, I now know that the French word for ‘grumpy’ is ‘grincheux’.

I suppose it’s redundant to add ‘hmm….’.

I like the Daily Show. It’s usually on Comedy (cable) at 11:00pm and CFTO (broadcast) at 12:00. I usually aim to watch at least the opening “news” on CFTO before I go to bed. If I can stay awake for the pieces and the interview, then bonus.

I sometimes wonder if the pieces are real. That is to say, are the interviewees real people with real things/issues/museums. Like that guy who didn’t like Bill Clinton and was planning to open a museum dedicated to his foibles, faux pas, and finaglin’.

Sometimes the topics are so silly, or odd, or dumb, and the questions so outrageous, that I think it must really be a setup. On us. The pieces are really well edited, and sometimes it looks like the wacky questions have been edited in later, with the interviewee’s reaction from another question used. I know that’s what I’d do. Kind of like when Weird Al took over Much Music.

I always mean to look those stories up and always forget. But not this time.

Last week I saw an item about some bronze statues of Peanuts characters the city fathers put up in St. Paul’s Rice Park, which already has a statue of Minnesotan famous son F. Scott Fitzgerald.

These little old ladies called the Ross Group actually objected to the placing of the statues in the park because of the city’s and the park’s association with F. Scott, claiming that the statues were trivial of themselves and trivialized the literary association.

Wha-???

I thought to myself “Now this has to be made up. In this day and age, what group of bluehairs is gonna actually think something like that, never mind make it public?”

The Ross Group, apparently. The story is real and the little old bluehair who defended the group’s position in the piece was named Ruby Hunt. Now, I don’t know about your people, but where I come from, ‘Ruby Hunt’ is pretty much what all little old bluehairs are called, not necessarily from birth, but eventually. They go to church (Anglicans or Presbyterians) and harumph pointedly when walking past video game parlours. Swear to God. (And there are no porn shoppes or strip-joints where Ruby Hunt lives, you can be sure of that.)

Reaction by the sensible, kind-hearted and did I say sensible is what you might expect. And this.

Strong evidence that the pieces on the Daily Show might actually be real.

But I’m still investigating. Both the Daily Show and its detractors (think Tucker Carlson and that ilk) have a stake in whether or not I succeed. If all the items on the show are proven false, then they all lose their credibility as fake journalists, but if they’re proven true, then what does that say about humans in general and Americans in particular?

If I disappear, don’t

If there was ever any proof that you never know when any specific bit of school knowledge or book-learning is going to be helpful, useful, or even lifesaving…

From National Geographic News -

Tsunami Family Saved by Schoolgirl’s Geography Lesson

Nat Geo TV Shows Help Tsunami Islander Save 1,500

These stories made me very happy.

I’m a big fan of knowing things and stuff, and using them when they apply, or applying them when they’re useful, but you never know when that will happen. Lives were saved because a British schoolgirl and an ordinary port employee realized - quickly - what was happening. Because of what they had learned, one on TV, one in boring old geography class.

Hurray for learning! And, among other things, hypotenuses, because I never thought they’d ever be useful, other than for doing my impression of the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz. Now I know different.

You can never know enough. I’ve met a few people, male and female, old and especially young, who think they already - or finally - know everything they’ll ever need to know. They couldn’t be more wrong. But there’s just no telling them, because the shop’s closed, the sign’s turned around, the lights are off, and the cash drawer is open to put off burglars.

So go learn something new. And wonderful. And if you never use it for itself, well, at least you know it. Just knowing stuff is cool.

Alien robots on Titan!

Not just SF anymore! Specifically, this!

Woo hoo!

Hurray for exclamation points.