Coffee Klatch

Most people don’t know that back in 1912 Hellman’s mayonnaise was manufactured in England. In fact, the “Titanic” was carrying 12,000 jars of the condiment scheduled for delivery in Veracruz, Mexico, which was to be the next port of call for the great ship after New York. The people of Mexico, who were crazy about the stuff, were eagerly awaiting delivery and were disconsolate at the loss. So much so that they declared a National Day of mourning which they still observe today.

It is known, of course, as… Sinko de Mayo

The old Cherokee chief sat in his reservation hut, smoking the ceremonial pipe, looking at the two US government officials sent to interview him.

“Chief Two Eagles,” one official began, “you have observed the white man for many generations, you have seen his wars and his products, you have seen all his progress, and all his problems.”

The chief nodded. The official continued, “Considering recent events, in your opinion, where has the white man gone wrong?”

The chief stared at the government officials for over a minute, and then calmly replied. “When white man found the land, Indians were running it:

• No taxes.
• No debt.
• Plenty buffalo
• Plenty beaver
• Women did the work
• Medicine man free
• Indian men hunted and fished all the time.”

The chief smiled and added quietly, “White man dumb enough to think he could improve system like that.”

A green horned northerner went down to Texas on vacation. One evening he decided to go for a drink at his hotel’s bar. Swinging a leg over the stool he calls out, “Barkeep, I’d like a beer.”

The barkeep asks, “You want a Texas size beer?”

Without hesitation the northerner answers, “Yep! I want it Texas sized.”

The barkeep goes to get the beer and brings back a barrel of beer. The northerner looks in surprise at the size of his beer. “Well, if I’m going to drink all this I better get some popcorn.”

“Texas size?” The barkeep ask.

Nodding the northerner says, “Yep! Texas size.”

The barkeep leaves and brings back a bushel basket of popcorn and puts it beside the northerner. A long time later the barrel of beer is almost empty and the popcorn gone. The northerner sees the barkeep and motioning him over slurs out, “Where’s the bathroom?”

The barkeep points down a hallway. “Just go down that hall and take the first door on the left.”

The Northerner stumbles and staggers down the hall but instead of taking the first door on the left he takes the first door on the right. He goes into the dark room looking for a light switch and falls into the hotel swimming pool.

“HELP! HELP!” He cries out. The barkeep runs into the room and turns on the light.

The northerner in a panic cries out. “Don’t flush it! Don’t flush it!”

After she woke up, a woman told her husband, “I just dreamed that you gave me a pearl necklace for our anniversary. What do you think it means?”

“You’ll know tonight.” he said.

That evening, the man came home with a small package and gave it to his wife.

Delighted, she opened it to find a book entitled The Meaning of Dreams.

Something I thought of this morning while pumping some gas. So many other technologies have cartridge-ized things or developed ways of refilling fuel (or similar liquids or powders) in cleaner, less accident-possible ways. That seems to be the way of technological development. So why hasn’t gasoline done that?

It used to be that copy machines and printers required pouring toner into them when they ran out, but eventually the technology people developed ways of putting the toner into a cartridge, so the end user just replaces a cartridge. No more spills or messes. The same has been true in variety of other media, such as laundry detergent and even coffee. So why not gas?

Gasoline is often touted as bad for the environment. In pollution-sensitive areas, there are stickers on the gas pumps saying “Please do not top off tank” because it’s an environmentally protected area and top-offs can lead to gas spilling out onto the ground. Gas tanks underground are notoriously pollutive and if they leak, all kinds of precautions have to be taken. So for all the dangers of gas spills and for all the millions of people who pump gas and are human, why hasn’t there been a method developed for getting the gas into the vehicle tanks without humans having to actually handle the liquid? I’m not asking why we’re not battery-powered or solar-powered or anything. I’m just saying that some kind of container or even hose that latches on and delivers the gas to the tank would eliminate spills and help protect the environment.

If the foreseeable future involves gasoline-powered vehicles, somebody should develop a cleaner, simpler way of delivering the fuel to the gas tanks.

My $0.02.

Current music: Glassworks, by Philip Glass

Here are some tips for Rednecks.
————–

GENERAL

Never take a beer to a job interview.

Always identify people in your yard before shooting at them.

It’s considered tacky to take a cooler to church.

If you have to vacuum the bed, it is time to change the sheets.

Even if you’re certain that you are included in the will, it is still rude to drive the U-Haul to the funeral home.

DINING OUT

When decanting wine from the box, make sure that you tilt the paper cup and pour slowly so as not to “bruise” the fruit of the vine. If drinking directly from the bottle, always hold it with your
hands.

ENTERTAINING IN YOUR HOME

A centerpiece for the table should never be anything prepared by a taxidermist.

Do not allow the dog to eat at the table, no matter how good his manners are.

HOW TO STOP PEOPLE FROM BUGGING YOU ABOUT GETTING MARRIED

Old aunts used to come up to me at weddings, poking me in the ribs and cackling, telling me, “You’re next.”

They stopped after I started doing the same thing to them at funerals.

Here are some prayers based upon the Myers-Briggs personality types. Look up your type and that’s your prayer for the day. (If you’d like to take the test to see what type you are, here’s a link.)

MYERS-BRIGGS PRAYERS

ISTJ: Lord, help me to relax about insignificant details beginning tomorrow at 11:41:23 a.m. E.S.T.

ISTP: God, help me to consider people’s feelings, even if most of them ARE hypersensitive.

ESTP: God, help me to take responsibility for my own actions, even though they’re usually NOT my fault.

ESTJ: God, help me to not try to RUN everything. But, if You need some help, just ask.

ISFJ: Lord, help me to be more laid back and help me to do it EXACTLY right.

ISFP: Lord, help me to stand up for my rights (if you don’t mind my asking).

ESFP: God, help me to take things more seriously, especially parties and dancing.

ESFJ: God, give me patience, and I mean right NOW.

INFJ: Lord, help me not to be a perfectionist. (Did I spell that correctly?)

INFP: God, help me to finish everything I sta

ENFP: God, help me to keep my mind on one th - Look a bird! - at a time.

ENFJ: God, help me to do only what I can and trust you for the rest. Do you mind putting that in writing?

INTJ: Lord, keep me open to other’s ideas, *wrong* though they may be.

INTP: Lord, help me to be less independent, but let me do it my way.

ENTP: Lord, help me follow established procedures today. On second thought, I’ll settle for a few minutes.

ENTJ: Lord, help me slow downandnotrushthroughwhatIdo.

You’ve probably heard of Tag Clouds by now. This morning I read on Michael Stephens’ blog about a site called Wordle. It’s a similar idea to that of tag clouds, but instead of collecting the tags that have been applied to something and visually displaying their popularity, Wordle looks at all the words in any text you provide and creates a cloud based on the most commonly used words in the text. It doesn’t look like there’s much of a word limit in this Java-based application. I was able to copy and paste a 15-page paper and generate the cloud from it and Michael’s example was the first two chapters of his dissertation. You can either save your resulting image to their Wordle Gallery or else save the screenshot by hitting Print-Screen and pasting it into Paint, MS Word, Adobe Photoshop or Acrobat or whatever.

One very cool thing about this program (apart from its existence) is that the “cloud” not only has the words in different sizes, but different colors, fonts, and alignments. Some words are vertical and some are horizontal, with the resulting image being a mishmash of words in different directions, sizes, and colors. You can even customize the layout and choose “mostly vertical,” “all horizontal,” or even “every which way.” Pretty cool!

The day has finally arrived. Imagine my disappointment when I got up this morning and couldn’t download the new version of Firefox. After poking around a bit (eventually finding the answers in the FAQ), I found out that “Download Day” starts at 10:00am Pacific Time today. So now I’ve got almost five more hours to wait. Sigh….

To get the latest status, visit their Twitter posts. After 1:00pm Eastern Time today, you can download the new Firefox from their Download Day Headquarters. If you download it from this site, you’ll receive a customized certificate showing your participation in their quest for the Guinness record.