the golden age

Maury and Pauly were sitting in the rockers on the front deck of the retirement home. Pauly says, "You know, even though I'm old and full of aches and pains, I don't feel too bad. How about you."

Maury says, "Me, I feel like a newborn baby!!!"

Pauly: "A newborn baby, how's that?"

Maury: "No hair, no teeth, and I just wet my pants."

- Lee Bradley uga2009Oct29

pome

Yesterday,
All those backups seemed a waste of pay.
Now my database has gone away.
Oh I believe in yesterday.

Suddenly,
There's not half the files there used to be,
And there's a milestone hanging over me
The system crashed so suddenly.

I pushed something wrong
What it was I could not say.

Now all my data's gone
and I long for yesterday-ay-ay-ay.

Yesterday,
The need for back-ups seemed so far away.
I knew my data was all here to stay,
Now I believe in yesterday.

- Bill Stebbins w/apologies to John Lennon uga2009Oct27

puzzles for adults

1) The Elder Twin

One day Kerry celebrated her birthday. Two days later her older twin brother, Terry, celebrated his birthday. How come?

2) Manhole Covers

Why is it better to have round manhole covers than square ones?

This is logical rather than lateral, but it is a good puzzle which can be solved by lateral thinking techniques. It is supposedly used by a very well-known software company as an interview question for prospective employees.

3) The Deadly Party

A man went to a party and drank some of the punch. He then left early. Everyone else at the party who drank the punch subsequently died of poisoning. Why did the man not die?

4) Trouble with Sons

A woman had two sons who were born on the same hour of the same day of the same year. But they were not twins. How could this be so?

5) The Man in the Bar

A man walks into a bar and asks the barman for a glass of water. The barman pulls out a gun and points it at the man. The man says, "Thank you" and walks out.

This puzzle has claims to be the best of the genre. It is simple in its statement, absolutely baffling, and yet with a completely satisfying solution. Most people struggle very hard to solve this one, yet they like the answer when they hear it or have the satisfaction of figuring it out.

answers later

for the grandkids - halloween pt 2

Why did the vampire go to the orthodontist?
- To improve his bite.

What do you get when you cross a vampire and a snowman?
- Frostbite.

Why do witches use brooms to fly on?
- Because vacuum cleaners are too heavy.

How do witches keep their hair in place while flying?
- With scare spray.

Do zombies eat popcorn with their fingers?
- No, they eat the fingers separately.

Why don't skeletons ever go out on the town?
- Because they don't have any body to go out with.

What is a vampire's favorite sport?
- Casketball.

What would a monster's psychiatrist be called?
- Shrinkenstein.

What do you call someone who puts poison in a person's corn flakes?
- A cereal killer.

What kind of streets do zombies like the best?
- Dead ends.

What type of dog do vampire's like the best?
- Bloodhounds.

What does a vampire never order at a restaurant?
- A stake sandwich.

What is a skeleton's favorite musical instrument?
- A trombone.

What do birds give out on Halloween night?
- Tweets.

Why do vampires need mouthwash?
- They have bat breath.

Why did the Vampire subscribe to the Wall Street Journal?
- He heard it had great circulation.

Why don't mummies go on vacation?
- They are afraid that they might relax and unwind.

for the grandkids - halloween pt 1

A vampire bat came flapping in from the night covered in fresh blood and parked himself on the roof of the cave to get some sleep. Pretty soon all the other bats smelled the blood and began hassling him about where he got it. He told them to knock it off and let him get some sleep, but they persisted in hassling him to no end until finally he gave in. "OK!" he said with exasperation. "Follow me," and he flew out of the cave with hundreds of bats following close behind him. Down through the valley they went, across the river, and into the deep forest. Finally he slowed down, and all the other bats excitedly gathered around him. "Do you see that tree over there?" he asked. "Yes, yes, yes!" the bats all screamed in a frenzy. "Good," said the first bat, "because I DIDN'T!" - Thomas Ellsworth

moles, gophers, groundhogs, rabbits, meerkats and credit in Canada

a redacted excerpt from an email at work

Log on to ***** today to register.

Please contact ***** ***** with any questions.
　
Canada's Credit Business Practices & Cost of Burrowing Regs - CanReg Development
Overview
Nov 2nd
11:00 to 12:00pm
room *****
**Please note there is no enrollment on ***** for this class only, you may just walk in**

Heteronormativity Is Hot Right Now

As the fall semester gets under way, we must acclimate ourselves to the most important ritual of graduate-student life: the proclamation of our "interests." For those of you not in graduate school, this event occurs at the beginning of every seminar: We all introduce ourselves and make some statement about what we are grooming ourselves to study, or our "interests."

I use quotation marks because these interests are not really interests-at least not in the way that one is interested in music, basketball, or girls. Rather, these are academic formulations of the most careful and artificial sort. One can declare an interest in the rhetoric of suburban bike trails and their relation to the death of the novel, and nobody would flinch or giggle. On the contrary, most of us would nod as if we all knew about scholars doing bike-trail studies.

I know those outside academe think this stuff is pretentious, but I find the practice charming, even though I perhaps use that adjective with a sneer. I can't help sensing that professors get sadistic pleasure out of watching students grasp for interests in an attempt to impress. After all, the students are all too aware of their inexperience, and will do their best to play down their anxiety.

For those of you who are just entering graduate school, or who are in need of a new graduate-school beginning, I have some advice. I don't want you to make the same mistakes I did during my first "interests" session, when I explained that I was interested in the literature of the "margins." The professor gave me a horrified look and suggested that I actually meant American ethnic literature or something like that-it was a euphemism of my euphemism. I also made a joke that piggybacked on three previous students' jokes. I didn't know that four variations of the same joke marked the official point of diminishing returns. (If I remember right, the joke stemmed from someone's interest in institutional monogamy and its polygamous subconscious; three of us followed up with jokes about being in a monogamous relationship.)

So for those of you who are not quite sure what you are interested in, here are some guidelines. (If you are not in a humanities or liberal-arts graduate program, feel free to use this as a template. You can substitute words or phrases like "economic game theory" and "macrogenetics" for any of mine.)

1. Never deviate from introducing your interests with the phrase "I am interested in . ," because this is what you are interested in. Really. You are interested in these things because they are interesting. Especially interesting is whatever your last long paper was about.
   
2. Know your theoretical buzzwords, because you will have to use at least two of them. Here is a crib sheet of recent theoretical terms: liminal, heteronormativity, empire, postempire, trauma, narratography, post-new formalism, posthuman, specism, fecism, culturality, hybridity, hybridism, Lacanimal, bestiality, bestialism, bestialology, postbestiality, and so on. You get the point, but you will notice from those terms that the new hot thing is anything about animals and humans. Our field is evolving with such grace.
   
3. Most of the terms, especially if they end in "ism," "ity," or "ology," can be plural, and you might score extra points with that innovation. This is especially true of "sexualities." Never, ever use "sexuality," because you will be guilty of not acknowledging just how plural the concept is. Do you know how many heteronormativities there are? Probably like seven, maybe eight if you add the liminal space between heteronormativities and homonormativities.
   
4. Take a group of common things or states, like dandelions, dead eyes, hugs, or hubcaps, and add "the rhetoric of" before it. If you prefer the singular, add "studies" after it. (Examples: "the rhetoric of thunderstorms" or "boredom studies.")
   
5. Take two totally unrelated concepts, like bookbinding and waterboarding, and add "the intersections of" before them. This works really well for sexualities: "the intersections between monuments and masculinity" or "the intersections between transgender and Trans Ams." If you can relate two unrelated concepts, you'll get a lot of thoughtful nods, which is your goal.
   
6. You can never go wrong with "shame." Think about it: "I am interested in shame." "Shame studies," "medieval religious shame," "postwar shame." Trust me, shame always works. It sounds just right if you say it aloud. It works well with sexualities. It describes every age other than our own, and it describes every belief system other than our own, and it allows us to look down upon everyone being shamed and theorize over their shame. It's Foucaultian, it's Freudian, it's Zizekian, it's even Agambenian. It's shame.
   
7. Try to sit at one end of the room, so you can go either last or first. Go first and you can set the standard for all other interests. Last, and you can refer back to all other proclaimed interests and combine them with the strategy of No. 5. That, or you can borrow a good interest from someone else and just add "sexualities."
   
8. Never sacrifice originality and erudition for clarity.
   
9. Find out what was popular in the field 10 or 15 years ago, so that you can avoid making the mistake of saying you are interested in it. As a bonus, if someone says something like "antitheatricality" or "metanarrative," you can whisper to your neighbor that nobody is doing that anymore. However, do not whisper that to your neighbor if the topic is race, class, or gender.
   
10. Talk longer than you should. Don't be satisfied with just one "intersections of." Use two. Then explain them and how they pertain to the birth of the prose poem. You should always mention a previous professor you worked with from your undergraduate college while you are talking, unless you went to Brigham Young University, as I did. Never mention Brigham Young or any other religious institution you may have happily attended. You might as well say, "I am naïve, conformist, unthinking, racist, sexist, truthist, Godist, and simple-minded," because that will be the class's, and sometimes the professor's, eager assumption.

Following those 10 rules will dispel all anxiety. Let me end by demonstrating a proper interest statement, one that you can readily use if needed:

I'm James, I'm a second-year in the Ph.D. program, and I am interested in the intersections between vertebrate masculinity and the rhetoric of American monuments, particularly as it relates to T'tanka, the buffalo, and the postbestial tendencies of American empire. Before I came here, I was working on a project at the University of Kansas with George Crabtree in which we located all the moments in captivity narratives when buffaloes came in contact with makeshift American monuments, and I hope to continue studying those hybridities, or contact zones, within the fiction(s) of the 19th centur(ies). I also study shame.

- James S. Lambert is a Ph.D. candidate in English at the University of Iowa
q.nathan sanders
associate professor and graduate program director
department of ecology & evolutionary biology
university of tennessee
knoxville, tn 37996
q.my niece

[The pup thinks a person who has no shame cannot possibly study shame.]

tmi

mellow yellow

woman on the front line

http://www.thelocal.de/society/20091026-22817.html

tweeter -have you seen this?

http://www.thelocal.de/society/20090918-22019.html

what color are your goggles?

Beer goggles, I am told, is a code word for the impairment of judgment, not to say vision, that affects one who has imbibbed alcoholic beverage(s). It is used to explain partner choices, often adverse, made under those conditions.

My experience tells me this metaphor (goggles) is able to be used in a wider context. E.g., I think I have experienced "stress goggles" from both sides. Many people, I have observed, start by changing their voice when stressed - it gets an edge. I have found myself doing that, even of the source of the stress is myself.

This voice change affects the behavior of those around the person stressed. Loving sounds change to belligerent. Requests sound like commands.

The person stressed becomes less aware of the reality of those around them and has a tendency (as I have experinced from both sides) to misjudge others, either because of haste, or as in the case of alcohol, impaired judgment.

N Marietta Loop - the beginning of closure

I signed for a new PT Cruiser today. Used again, white again, but 3 years newer and 25k miles less on the odometer. Delivery on Tu/We.

If only I had gotten the shelf out of the deceased one. If only I had gotten the decals off the windows. My son tells me the 10ID one was from his arrival FtDrum.

The HHR was ok, even with the defective door locks.

On the todo list is "go to Marietta City government and tell them that intersection needs a no u-turn sign". There is no line of sight for west bound traffic at Wallace.

dear children

reality bites. be anonymous.

N Marietta Loop - update

Car is totaled. I am looking at getting another PT - so far two choices - white and black. I think I want another stick.

The console was changed and the headroom seems less. I have insurance company rental up to Thursday.

which one of my darling granddaughters might say this?

Brenda's six-year-old daughter was explaining to the other kids what "extinct" meant:

Well,

she said in all seriousness

it means that the dinosaurs are all dead and have been dead so long they don't stink anymore. That's why they call them exstinked.

- Doc's Daily Chuckle

Benedict - a wild and crazy guy

He certainly knows how to throw red meat to the press - religious and secular. But will he be Catholic enough for Anglo-Catholics?

oh Tom does Oregon have that much sun?

a sunny future for USBank

N Marietta Loop

• I was going from Kennesaw to the KofC meeting at Holy Family. As I entered the intersection with Wallace, a Ford cargo van - the longest wheel base - made a u-turn. I had one of those. The turning radius is about 4 lanes. This guy tried to do it in three. As he was blocking the two driving lanes, I struck the rear passenger side behind the tire -- if he were six more feet further, I would have missed him.
  
  Because it had been raining, the pavement - asphalt - was wet and slick.
  
  The airbags did not deploy.
  
• I have now gone to both doctors. My GP checked me out mostly ok. Just talking to him has calmed my nerves. But I continue to have flashbacks when I enter intersections. Or when I have to deal with an aggressive driver - which in GA is often.
  
  The ortho man found I had no broken bones in my right hand but my index finger is quite swollen. We will see in a few weeks if my neck calms down and my right hand and arm quit hurting. Oh yes and the spot in my not quite lower back.
  
  I shouldn't whine as my son-in-law has much worse problems.
  
• My car was at first glance estimated as needing $4.5k in repairs. At which point their computer and the insurance company told them to dig deeper. The estimate is now $6.5k. I fear they will total it out. In which case I need to come up with about $5k to get a new car. It would have been easier to handle that before the market crash. I suppose I will hear the bad news later this week.
  
• And in travel news, the Kat is in Bangkok.

retirement

Every day is a Saturday, unless it is Sunday.

I still wear a watch because I do not want to be late going nowhere to do nothing.

When asked what am I doing now that I am retired - I answer, little as I can and mostly what I please. - Herr Kemper _ruminations on Retirement_

I don't think I can relate to this. I don't want to retire to become a vegetable, I want to shift the focus of my life to things more enjoyable, but no less work. I would like to teach. I would like to work with people in places and situations where associations can be voluntary. I would like to have time to pray more regularly.

fly the friendly skies

To pass the time while our plane was being de-iced, the flight attendants played a trivia game with the passengers. They asked us to guess the total number of years the three of them had worked for the airlines. After an attendant collected our estimates, we heard the announcement:

The correct answer is 26 years. For the two people who came closest with 28 years, we have prizes. And for the passenger in seat 12F who guessed 85 years, would you please step off the plane once we are airborne.

- Ed q.gcfl

this error message is not pro-life

User setup member NOT updated...User aborted

As far as I know, computers cannot go back in time.

son - read this story

a Wounded Warrior of another kind

1401 + 50 = party

Congratulations! Today marks the 50th anniversary of the announcement of the 1401 on 1959Oct5!

This past year, I've witnessed your pride of successfully designing, developing and bringing to market such a significant system that introduced computing to so many people, businesses, and institutions around the world. Half of all computers in the world by the mid 1960s isn't too bad! ;-)

Quoting from our 1401 two-pager (a precursor to the 14-page booklet to be printed for the upcoming Nov 10th event at the Computer History Museum):

By mid 1959, with a 40-person engineering team working night and day,
trial educational classes underway within IBM, and a running prototype, the 1401
was poised to transform the business world with its low entry cost, outstanding
print quality, powerful magnetic tapes, and the promise of a mass-market
stored-program computer. Only IBM's skeptical forecasting department needed
persuasion to approve the product's launch.

"DAWN OF A NEW AGE": On October 5, 1959, the 1401 was announced via
closed-circuit TV to 50,000 participants in 102 cities. September the following
year the first 1401 was shipped to Time-Life in Chicago and by year end 100
systems had been delivered. By 1965, worldwide installations of 1401s peaked at
9,300 while 1400 family machines-models 1410, 1440, 1460, 7010-comprised half of
all computers (which by 1967 peaked at 15,000 systems).

Regards,

- Robert [B. Garner]

p.s. If you can make it out to California, Nov 9 & 10 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Fran Underwood, Chuck Branscomb, and Shel Jacobs will be there talking about the 1401 development history:

http://www.computerhistory.org/events/

I'll be hosting a "founders luncheon" on Monday the 9th to share stories and have some fun with the 1401 restoration team and Museum staff. I'll send an invitation to those who, according to Jud McCarthy, are able to make it out west to the Museum.
　
IBM Almaden Research Center, San Jose, CA
Office: 408-927-1739
Mobile: 408-679-0976
robgarn [a] us.ibm.com
_______________________________________________
1401_interest mailing list
http://mail.computerhistory.org/mailman/listinfo/1401_interest

requiescat in pacem

William Safire (1929Dec17-2009Sep27)

In memory

a metphorical tribute

old thoughts found while cleaning up

edited to remove the identity of my interlocutor -- it was posted to a website formerly known as St Raphael's. The file this was in is dated 2002Dec3.

Dear #11107 - part 1

I am sorry I did not get to post in your thread now placed in the forbidden zone under pain of excommunication. I am on vacation and a bit out of touch. But it seems to me that the topic you were wishing to address is mission and evangelization. You gave us your take on your personal mission and suggested evangelization approach -- you wish to preach a crusade, this time against other Catholics. Would that this were a novel approach.

It is good that you are thinking about mission, about the journey and meaning of your personal life in God. One of my passions is the communion of the saints, what Pius XII called the Body of Christ. JPII shares this passion. He has held up many models for us to ponder, who invite us into relationship with them.
At the moment I would like to consider one of my favorites, St Mother Teresa of Calcutta. First you may wish to object that I call her a saint. While her name is not yet in the canon (Latin for list), I have never met a Catholic who did not consider her a saint in their heart of hearts. Her cultus is approved. So calling her a saint is to recognize her heroic virtues -- as did the Hindus of her adopted country India, who gave her a state funeral.

Many saints experience a conversion experience -- not a flash of light or a vision, but a turning in one's life to a new mission. SMToC's was different in that she was already a vowed religious when her conversion experience occurred.

The nature of her conversion experience was also special with respect to its goal -- its sense of mission. Here in the United States most Catholics have experienced the mission of vowed women religious. For persons of my certain age, it was typically as an educator or healer or contemplative intercessor. They taught in schools, worked in hospitals, nursing homes, retirement homes, they prayed and worked in enclosure.

SMToC chose to be in the world. She chose to minister in the streets. She was called to minister to those rejected by the world. And she chose not to teach them or heal them -- merely to be present to them as an alter Christus -- to wipe their brow as they died, to share a meager meal as they struggled for life. As she herself said, she was not called to be effective but to be faithful -- faithful to the call of Christ. To paraphrase Francis of Assisi, she preached always, but seldom used words.

Which, Eric, gets us back to your post. You appear to be concerned with a lack of faithfulness in the Church. You call us to orthodoxy and orthopraxy (as Casey Stengel said, you could look it up).

What I think you are doing is rejecting the call of the Spirit to be in, not to be of, but to minister to the world today. You present to us the paradigm of crusade as the way of lifting up Christ. I would submit that the witness (Greek martyrion) of the saints of the twentieth century shows us the two paths indicated by the comments on vow religious women above -- ministry of service and ministry of presence.

Service was modeled to us by Jesus when he washed the feet of the Apostles, when he listened to all, when he preached conversion by love -- of God and of our neighbors all, when he healed the sick.

Presence he modeled to us when he hung on the cross, dying, for us, yet be present to those who shared his fate. He was present to them as brother irrespective of who they were and what they had done.

The opportunities are many; many are called; less than many heed the call; fewer still answer the call.

But if you feel you are called to preach a crusade, then you must be trained and formed. You have many choices -- diaconate, priesthood, vowed religious. Gird your loins and prepare to do battle. Seek the Lord where he may be found.

Dear #11107 - part 2

The second issue that arises from your post is the tendency of some people to seek darkness.

Just about everyone understands the light/darkness dichotomy -- it is found in pop culture such as Star Wars. It was recently the basis of the Gospel reading of the wise and foolish virgins -- a story rooted in real life even to the 20th century (see Barclay's Commentary on Matthew).

But a recent event in my life showed me a new insight into this image. I was on a 2.5 day retreat at a Jesuit retreat House (Ignatius House in Atlanta). There was light everywhere: in the Word, in the retreat master, in the glow in the sky from a major city, in the halls 24x7 for security. Then on Saturday, while it was still light out, a storm went through, knocking out the power. Dinner and the last conference were done with no electric lights, just as night was falling. There was a scramble to find candles to allow us to navigate the dark halls, the emergency power system having been exhausted.

Just as we were retiring, the power came back. But the next morning, just as the morning bell sounded, out again went the power. Breakfast with no power was more limited than would otherwise be the case. This time the power returned in time for the final Eucharist. At that time we shared our experiences of the retreat.

It seems that when the storm came through on Saturday, a number of people were in the nearby woods. Those woods have a number of old large tall trees, not the place to be in the storm. Several stories included the sound of limbs crashing to the ground as the winds blew through. All escaped unharmed but not untouched. Prayer on the occasion of danger burns deeper into our heart.

I am presently in the Washington DC area. The residents are still recovering and remembering the events here associated with the snipers. Last light, at dinner, it was pointed our that, on the way to the restaurant, we passed the site of one of the shootings.

Where I am staying is close to the Pentagon. When I passed through last August, it was pointed out the side that is renewed and rebuilt after the events of September 11, 2001.

Two cases of darkness visiting and passing away, but the memories and therefore emotions, linger.

I have seen on StR's since I have been a member a tendency of some to focus on the dark side of things, specifically the church. In view of the ongoing scandals and their painful resolutions, it is somewhat understandable.

But on that retreat I came to a new appreciation of light and darkness.

We are so bathed in light that we have lost our appreciation of light and darkness. We use light to drive away fear, loneliness, and boredom. The shiny is now mundane.

But when electricity is shut off, we are left with not just darkness but quiet. Then it is when we can disconnect from the world, and connect with God. For as the prophet said, the Lord comes not in the wind and thunder, but in the gentle breeze. We find it difficult to experience it without being still.

Christ is indeed the light of the world. But for his light to be seen, we must remove the glitter that blinds us. For us to sense the Spirit of God, the breathe of God, the gentle breeze that blows through our souls if we let it, we must build a windbreak against the hurricane of Hollywood.

And so we frame a new paradox. We shut off the light of the world that we may be warmed by the Light of the world. We accept the absence of electric light so we may open the window of our hearts to the quiet Presence.

So Eric if you must be a crusader, be a Knight who accepts the responsibility to lift up the light of Christ in the world. You might start where you are going to school. Your bishop, Donald Wuerl, is one of the most influential and respected bishops in the US and in the world (he used to work in the Vatican and is respected there). He is a great communicator. He is also a soft spoken gentleman. Get to know him.

Richard (formerly of Northside Pgh)

Dear #11107 - part 3

I have this exercise derived from an RCIA class I taught. I think it might make a good basis for discussion.

I am posting each question as a sub thread to avoid having nine threads.

1. We have all heard the term "my people." We may have even used it. Consider using this term personally. When you do consider it personally, who is included in your personal "my people?" There may be more than one group this applies to. They may be groups within groups. Name all the groups you can!

2. It is said that the Church is "one." What does this mean to you? Can you name one or more specific ways in which the Church is "one?"

3. Can you name one or more specific ways in which the Church is not "one?"
   E.g., the church does not consist of people of only one color, of only one race, of only one culture; it does not use just one liturgy -- each of the "Rites" of the Catholic Church has its own ancient form of liturgy.

4. It is said that the Church is "holy." What does this mean to you? Can you name one or more specific ways in which the Church is "holy?"

5. Can you name one or more specific ways in which the Church is not "holy?"

6. It is said that the Church is "catholic" with a small "c." That means universal. What does this mean to you? Can you name one or more specific ways in which the Church is "catholic?"

7. Can you name one or more specific ways in which the Church is not "catholic?"

8. It is said that the Church is "apostolic." What does this mean to you? Can you name one or more specific ways in which the Church is "apostolic?"

9. Can you name one or more specific ways in which the Church is not "apostolic?"

pup is restless

see Lynx to get to pup Saints of the Day

0.00

Over there years there have been stories and jokes about getting a bill for 0.00. It happened to me today and I am happy.

The bill was my 2009 Property Tax Notice from the city of Kennesaw GA. Here turning 65 has its advantages.