Thursday 28 February 2013

Unorthodox treatment...

Mrsgunka sent us this joke:

A woman went to the doctor's office where she was seen by one of the younger doctors. After about four minutes in the examination room, she burst out screaming as she ran down the hall. An older doctor stopped her and asked what the problem was, and she told him her story. After listening, he had her sit down and relax in another room.


The older doctor marched down the hallway back to where the young doctor was writing on his clipboard. "What's the hell is the matter with you?!" the older doctor demanded. "Mrs. Terry is 71 years old, has four grown children and seven grandchildren, and you told her she was pregnant?"

The younger doctor continued writing and without looking up said,

"Does she still have the hiccups?"

Thank you, MrsG.

Wednesday 27 February 2013

Bird lover


This guy is a bird lover like us...

Trevor Maltby took this photo upon returning to his car after leaving it at the Cairns International Airport in Australia for six days while away on business. The photo, taken on Feb. 19, features a small bird, a nest and tiny eggs, all perilously perched atop the back window wiper blade of an Audi hatchback.


Maltby told us about the discovery. "At first I thought it was just trying to 'blend in,' then I noticed it looked like it was trying to make a nest. As I got closer it appeared it was not about to fly away. I called over a colleague who had just arrived on the same flight and got him to come have a look. ... I took a picture of it sitting there, then we both tried to give it a bit of a hurry up—we could basically pet it if we wanted too—and my colleague put his hand right up to it's face, and that's when it raised its wings and exposed those eggs."

Maltby spent an hour on the phone with wildlife officials. They confirmed that the bird was a native peaceful dove. "They are known for nesting in awkward places," Maltby said. He was told he could either ask somebody to come down and "relocate the nest" or he could leave the car there and wait for the eggs to hatch.

Being the good guy that he is, Maltby offered to leave his car and got a ride home. "The next day I got a call from the airport to say that the wildlife officials had come and removed the nest as its location was deemed to be far from ideal, and that I could come and collect my car. The eggs have been taken to an incubator and the mother was unable to be caught and taken with them, though they figured she would probably lay again in the very near future."

Monday 25 February 2013

Funnies

View_From_Here sent me some funny stuff, which is always welcome... Thanks, View.









Sunday 24 February 2013

Saturday 23 February 2013

Happy crowd

Oops! I got so engrossed in the rugby match (Italy v Wales), that I forgot to do a post... There's another match a bit later on (England v France).

As it's been snowing all day and it looks pretty miserable outside, let's have a colourful picture to cheer us up. I know the weather in the US is even worse than here!



Thursday 21 February 2013

Nina Simone

Nina Simone would have been 80 years old today. Here are some of my favourites:







Wednesday 20 February 2013

Old fashioned band

I'll stay with the old photo theme... Here's another sweet picture:


Tuesday 19 February 2013

New shoes

This touching photo was snapped by Gerald Waller in 1946, in Austria. The little boy, who lived in an orphanage, had just been given new shoes by the American Red Cross.





Sunday 17 February 2013

Logic...

View_From_Here sent me this excellent joke:

Lady: Do you drink beer?

Man: Yes.

Lady: How many beers a day?

Man: Usually about 3.

Lady: How much do you pay per beer?

Man: $5 with a tip.

Lady: And how long have you been drinking?

Man: 20 years, I suppose.


Lady: So a beer costs $5 and you have 3 beers a day which puts your spending
each month at $450. In one year, it would be $5400 correct?

Man: Correct.

Lady: If in 1 year you spend $5400, not accounting for inflation, the past
20 years puts your spending at $108,000, correct?

Man: Correct.

Lady: Do you know that if you didn't drink so much beer, that money could
have been put in a step-up interest savings account and after accounting for
compound interest for the past 20 years, you could have now bought a Ferrari?

Man: Do you drink beer?

Lady: No


Man: So where's your Ferrari?


Thank you, View.

Saturday 16 February 2013

The joy of singing

A priest decided to try something a little different.

He said, "Today, I am going to say a single word and you are going to help me preach.. Whatever single word I say, I want you to sing the hymn that comes to your mind"

He shouted out,

"CROSS."

Immediately the congregation started singing in unison, "THE OLD RUGGED CROSS."


The priest hollered,

"GRACE."

The congregation began to sing "AMAZING GRACE."

The priest said,

"POWER."

The congregation sang "THERE IS POWER IN THE BLOOD."

The priest said,

"SEX."

The congregation fell into total silence.

Everyone was in shock. They all nervously began to look around at each other, afraid to say anything.

Then, all of a sudden, way in the back of the church, a little old 89 year old grandmother stood up and began to sing...


"MEMORIES."

Friday 15 February 2013

Good dog

Some silliness from the UK:

The Crown Prosecution Service (equivalent to the DA office) demanded a statement from "PC Peach," who is actually PD Peach. [PC stands for police constable, PD is police dog] They were told several times Peach was actually a police dog but insisted on a written statement, so the case handler sent them this:


Thursday 14 February 2013

Wednesday 13 February 2013

Cool


I really like this. Merci to my friend Dominique!

Tuesday 12 February 2013

Interesting video

View_From_Here sent me this video, which was made for a high school project. It's been hotly debated on youtube, but the majority of the comments are positive. It makes sense to post it on Darwin's Day...

Thank you, View.



[The video was uploaded twice by the author, so the discussion about it happens on two separate threads, the one above and also on this LINK.]

Monday 11 February 2013

Gotcha!


A guy approached a girl at the college library: "Do you mind if I sit beside you?"

The girl replied with a loud voice: "I DON'T WANT TO SPEND THE NIGHT WITH YOU!"

All the students in the library started staring at the guy; he was truly embarrassed and decided to sit at another table.

After a couple of minutes, the girl walked quietly over to the guy's table and said:

"I study psychology, and I know what a man is thinking. I guess you felt embarrassed, right?"

The guy then responded with a loud voice: "$500 FOR ONE NIGHT? THAT'S FAR TOO MUCH!"

All the people in the library looked at the girl in shock. The guy whispered in her ear:


"I study law, and I know how to screw people."

Sunday 10 February 2013

In the mood

Seventy three years ago today, "In The Mood" hit #1 in the charts.



[Curiosities: Another Glenn has something to celebrate today. Glenn Beck was born on February 10, 1964. He's only one day older than a certain person associated with Alaska, whose birthday is tomorrow...]

Curiosities won't spoil the mood, though. This song never gets old.

Saturday 9 February 2013

Hang in there!

GrannyJ sent me this joke:

Eleven people were hanging on a rope, under a helicopter.

Ten men and one woman.


The rope was not strong enough to carry them all, so they decided that one had to leave, because otherwise they were all going to fall.

They weren't able to choose that person, until the woman gave a very touching speech.

She said that she would voluntarily let go of the rope, because, as a woman, she was used to giving up everything for her husband and kids or for men in general, and was used to always making sacrifices with little in return.

As soon as she finished her speech, all the men started clapping...

Thank you, GrannyJ.

Wednesday 6 February 2013

Eye candy



David Beckham has far too many tattoos for my taste, but still...

Tuesday 5 February 2013

Moving to new Disqus... gently

Let's inaugurate the new Disqus with a couple of aww pictures. It should help soften the blow...



Monday 4 February 2013

Disqus

I mentioned in a previous thread that Disqus is going to implement their new version of the system on all sites from March and discontinue all older versions. Pallottine suggested we change it sooner rather than later so we can get used to it. I tend to agree with him.

This is the appearance of the new Disqus. I have already switched to it on the other blogs and can't change it back anymore.



The new features, in a nutshell:

1. The avatars are small and can't be enlarged anymore
2. Comments may be voted up or down via the arrows on the left
3. The nested threads (replies, replies to replies and so on) will cut off after 10 comments automatically
4. They promise real time updating, but I haven't seen any evidence that it works
5. They have discontinued pagination and will have a "load more comments" button at the bottom of the thread
6. They have removed most options for customizing any of it

Some of these features won't affect us greatly because we never have too many comments (the beauty of a small community!), but I'm not happy about small avatars and have made my feelings known to Disqus. I also suggested they stop tweaking the bloody thing. Every time they "improve" it, everything goes wrong.

In the past, they offered more options and we could stick to an older, stable version. They left the old versions alone and concentrated on "improving" the most recent one. Now they offer a single version, take it or leave it!

I'm toying with the idea of switching to the new version as we won't be able to avoid it for much longer. Let me know if you want to make the most of the few weeks left on the old version or bite the bullet and take the plunge now!

Sunday 3 February 2013

Warning: E-mail virus!


I thought you would want to know about this e-mail virus. Even the most advanced programs from Norton or McAfee cannot take care of this one. It appears to affect those who were born prior to 1963...

Signs of infection:

1. Causes you to send the same e-mail twice. Done that!
2. Causes you to send a blank e-mail! That too!
3. Causes you to send e-mail to the wrong person. yep!
4. Causes you to send it back to the person who sent it to you. Aha!
5. Causes you to forget to attach the attachment.Well darn!
6. Causes you to hit "SEND" before you've finished. Oh , no not again!
7. Causes you to hit "DELETE" instead of "SEND.." And I just hate that!
8. Causes you to hit "SEND" when you should "DELETE." Oh No!

IT IS CALLED THE "C-NILE VIRUS."

Friday 1 February 2013

Ah... to be young and have a Lambretta!

Peter and I were rummaging through some old stuff, looking for old birth certificates - Peter is hellbent on finding his ancestors - and we came across this photo.

Peter was only seventeen, and as you can see, he was always a short little fella. Ha ha! Already 6'3"!


We managed to go back to 1845, when Peter's great-grandfather was born. The birth certificate is in a very sorry state but the names and dates are still legible. We also found loads of photos, among them this one of Peter's grandfather Rupert (born in 1869) which was taken around 1910/1915. I can see similarities between the two of them, especially now that Peter is older.


The woman in the next photo is Elizabeth, Rupert's mother, born around 1847.


Doesn't she look a bit like Alex Kingston?


It's very interesting to go down memory lane and unearth such old photographs, taken more than a hundred years ago!