davintosh

Here’s the funniest joke I’ve heard all day. Enjoy!

An elderly man lay dying in his bed. In death’s agony, he suddenly smelled the aroma of his favorite chocolate chip cookies wafting up the stairs. He gathered his remaining strength, and lifted himself from the bed.

Leaning against the wall, he slowly made his way out of the bedroom, and with even greater effort forced himself down the stairs, gripping the railing with both hands. With labored breath, he leaned against the door frame, gazing into the kitchen. Were it not for death’s agony, he would have thought himself already in heaven. There, spread out upon newspapers on the kitchen table were literally hundreds of his favorite chocolate chip cookies.

Was it heaven? Or was it one final act of heroic love from his devoted wife, seeing to it that he left this world a happy man?

Mustering one great final effort, he threw himself toward the table, landing on his knees in a rumpled posture. His parched lips parted; the wondrous taste of the cookie was already in his mouth; seemingly bringing him back to life. The aged and withered hand, shaking made its way to a cookie at the edge of the table, when it was suddenly smacked with a spatula by his wife.

“Stay out of those,” she said, “they’re for the funeral.”

I heard Rush Limbaugh announce that he would run for President of the United States. If, that is, he’s wins the Nobel Peace Prize he’s been nominated for.

He’d probably fare better than the current crop of Republican candidates. And he’d do a better job than any of the Dems that are running. But can you imagine the howls from the left if he actually ran? And if he won? Oh, that would be fun!

Update: Rush won’t be running, because AlGore was picked to receive the Nobel. And the Nobel Committee lost any shred of credibility it ever had. And with Jimmy Carter and Yasar Arafat on the same list of Peace Prize recipients, those were some small shreds that were left over.
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Gadgetopia’s got some ad content going on right now that’s pretty entertaining; Sprint’s waitless.org. They’ve got a pile of Flash videos with helpful timesaving tips, along with how many days/weeks/years using that tip will save you throughout your life.

My favorite is the Turbo Parking. Best part is watching the guys at the food vendor cart run for cover when the car slides into the parking spot ahead of them! (I’d link to it, but that dratted Flash won’t do that; just go there, hover over the “See more Sprintcuts” button, and look for it.)

Definitely worth the wait. For the Flash to load, that is…

Today is my birthday! I don’t feel any older, but I guess I am; at least the calendar says so. How old? 29 (but don’t ask how many time’s I’ve celebrated that milestone!) Miss Cellania has the same birthday, and put up a big birthday post for the occasion, so I thought I would too.

Just out of curiosity, I poked around on the web to see how many notable figures we share the birthdate with; lots and lots. Some of the more notable names (at least the ones I recognize) include Google (9 years old today!), Samuel Adams, Gwyneth Paltrow, Shaun Cassidy, Meat Loaf (Marvin Lee Aday), Randy Bachman, and many others that I’ve never heard of.

Another amazing thing is how many lists of useless facts (aka: trivia) there are on the web. I found several that listed the notable events that happened on this date; the New York Times “On This Day”, Wikipedia’s Sept. 27 entry, BBC’s “On This Day”, Sympatico.ca, and others.

Somebody stop me before this gets too boring. Uh oh. Too late.

There’s a great PSA being aired now for the the inventnow.org website; The Cat Magnet. It’s my new favorite. Click the image below to see the commercial on YouTube.

Last Sunday morning we had a guest speaker at Central; Bob Thune, senior pastor of Southwest Community Church. Pastor James is out of town, and Bob happens to be the brother of Senator John Thune, who happens to attend Central.

Bob’s sermon was very good and all (listen here), but the thing that got me rolling this morning was a poem he shot from the hip while doing a sound check.

There are strange things done ‘neath the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold.
The arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold.
The northern lights have seen queer sights
But the queerest they ever did see,
Was that night on the marge of Lake LeBarge
When I cremated Sam McGee.

Of course I didn’t remember all of that, only the last line. But I had never heard the poem before, and I wanted to find out more about it; being the geek that I am, to Google I went. Holy cow; how have I not heard that poem before! The poem “The Cremation of Sam McGee” was written by Robert Service and published in 1907. And the story surrounding the writing of the poem is at least as interesting as the poem itself.

While the character and the events in the poem are purely fictional, it was based in part on some factual events. According to the Wikipedia article about the poem, while visiting the Yukon Territory, Service heard a story from a doctor there about how the doctor had once cremated the remains of an unnamed prospector after finding him dead & frozen while making a house call. Later, Service happened across the name of Sam McGee while working at a bank in Whitehorse, Alberta. Service contacted McGee to ask permission to use his name in the poem, which resulted in making “Service famous and McGee the subject of ridicule.” The Wikipedia information is backed up in part by an article on UpHere.ca

One of the first links Google returned was an NPR page about the poem; they even had the audio of Johnny Cash reciting it. Give that a listen here or click through to read the poem in its entirety.

Oh; it’s also interesting to read some of Bob Thune’s writings. Found some of them on Musings Link

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