"My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right." - Ashleigh Brilliant More than five million Americans are overweight. These, of course, are round figures. I went out to buy some goose feather pillows, but I found they were so expensive I couldn't even afford the down payment. While making rounds, a doctor points out an X-ray to a group of medical students. "As you can see," she says, "the patient limps because his left fibula and tibia are radically arched. Michael, what would you do in a case like this?" "Well," ponders the student, "I suppose I'd limp too." Leon Blum, the former Socialist Premier of France, once met David Ben Gurion. He introduced himself this way, "I had better tell you right away, Mr. Ben Gurion, that I am a humanist first, a socialist second, and only then a Jew. Whenever I write my name, that is what I believe." Ben Gurion replied with a smile, "Never mind, we Jews read from right to left anyway!" Sitting behind a couple of nuns at a baseball game (with their habits partially blocking the view), three men decided to badger the nuns in an effort to get them to move. In a very loud voice, the first guy said, "I think I'm going to move to Utah, there are only 100 nuns living there." The second guy spoke up and said, "I want to go to Montana, there are only 50 nuns living there. The third guy said," I want to go to Idaho, there are only 25 nuns living there." One of the nuns turned around, looked at the men, and in a very sweet calm voice said, "Why don't you go to Hell...... there aren't any Nuns there." Did you hear of the little boy who came home from kindergarten with a blue ribbon. When his mommy asked him "What is the blue ribbon for?" he proudly announced, "I won!" When pressed for details he simply said, "The teacher asked all of us to guess how many legs a cow has. When my turn came, I guessed FIVE." "Five???" his mother gasped, "but a cow only has FOUR legs." "I won because my guess was the closest." A couple in their nineties is having problems remembering things, so they decide to the go the doctor for a checkup. The doctor tells them that they are physically okay, but they might want to start writing things down to help them remember. Later that night, while watching TV, the old man gets up from his chair. His wife asks, "Where are you going?" "To the kitchen," he replies. She asks, " Will you get me a bowl of ice cream?" The husband says, "Sure." She gently reminds him, "Don't you think you should write it down so you can remember it?" He says, "No, I can remember that!" She then says, "Well, I'd like some strawberries on top. You'd better write it down 'cause I know you'll forget it." He says, "I can remember that! You want a bowl of ice cream with strawberries." She adds, "I'd also like whipped cream. Now I'm certain you'll forget that, so you'd better write it down." Irritated, he says, "I don't need to write it down! I can remember that! Ice cream with strawberries! And whipped cream!" He then grumbles into the kitchen. After about 20 minutes the old man returns from the kitchen and hands his wife a plate of bacon and eggs. She stares at the plate for a moment and says, "Where's my toast?" Oops An out-of-breath 7 year-old girl ran up to her grandfather, who was tinkering in his workshop, and confronted him with the universally dreaded (by adults) question, "Grandpa, what is sex...?" He was surprised she'd ask such a question at her tender age, but thought, if she's old enough to ask, she's old enough to get a straight answer. He wouldn't shirk his responsibility. Steeling himself to leave nothing out, he proceeded to describe for her all the variations of human sexuality he could conjure, careful to impress upon her the joys and responsibilities of intercourse and procreation. When finally Grandpa was done pontificating, the little girl stood frozen, as though nailed to the spot, and looked at him with her mouth open, eyes wide in amazement. Seeing she was flabbergasted and overwhelmed, he asked what had caused her sudden curiosity. His granddaughter shook off her reverie and replied, "Gran'ma says dinner will be ready in a couple of secs." YOU KNOW YOU ARE LIVING IN 2005, WHEN........ 1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave. 2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years. 3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of four. 4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you. 5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses. 6. You go home after a long day at work and still answer the phone in a business manner. 7. You make phone calls from home and accidentally dial "9" to get an outside line. 8. You've sat at the same desk for four years and worked for three different companies. 10. You learn about your redundancy on the 11 o'clock news. 11. Your boss doesn't have the ability to do your job. 12. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries. 13. Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen. 14. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it. 15. You get up in the morning and go on line before getting your coffee. 16. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. :) 17. You're reading this and nodding and laughing. 18. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message. 19. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list. 20. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list. AND NOW YOU ARE LAUGHING AT YOURSELF. Go on, forward this to your friends ..you know you want to! DID YOU EVER WONDER .... ! Some interesting thoughts. Some are old (and still need an answer), some are new. Why the sun lightens our hair, but darkens our skin? Why women can't put on mascara with their mouth closed? Why don't you ever see the headline "Psychic Wins Lottery"? Why is "abbreviated" such a long word? Why is it that doctors and lawyers call what they do "practice"? Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavor, and dish washing liquid made with real lemons? Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker? Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called rush hour? Why isn't there mouse-flavored cat food? Why didn't Noah swat those two mosquitoes? You know that indestructible black box that is used on airplanes? Why don't they make the whole plane out of that stuff?! Why don't sheep shrink when it rains? Why are they called apartments when they are all stuck together? If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress? If flying is so safe, why do they call the airport the terminal? Why do we press harder on a remote control when we know the batteries are getting weak? Why do banks charge a fee on "insufficient funds" when they know there is not enough? Why does someone believe you when you say there are 4 billion stars, but check when you say the paint is wet? Why doesn't glue stick to the bottle? Why do they use sterilized needles for death by lethal injection? Why doesn't Tarzan have a beard? Why does Superman stop bullets with his chest, but ducks when you throw a revolver at him? Why do Kamikaze pilots wear helmets? Whose idea was it to put an "S" in the word "lisp"? If people evolved from apes, why are there still apes? Why is it that no matter what color bubble bath you use the bubbles are always white? Is there ever a day that mattresses are not on sale? Why do people constantly return to the refrigerator with hopes that something new to eat will have materialized? Why do people keep running over a string a dozen times with their vacuum cleaner, then reach down, pick it up, examine it, then put it down to give the vacuum 1 more chance? Why is it that no plastic bag will open from the end you first try? How do those dead bugs get into those enclosed light fixtures? When we are in the supermarket & someone rams our ankle with a shopping cart then apologizes for doing so, why do we say, "It's all right?" Well, it isn't all right so why don't we say, "That hurt, you stupid idiot?" Why is it that whenever you attempt to catch something that's falling off the table you always manage to knock something else over? In winter why do we try to keep the house as warm as it was in summer when we complained about the heat? How come you never hear father-in-law jokes? If at first you don't succeed, shouldn't you try doing it like your wife told you to do it? And obviously if at first you don't succeed, then don't take up skydiving! The statistics on sanity are that 1 out of every 4 persons is suffering from some sort of mental illness. Think of your 3 best friends, if they're okay, then it's you. Instructions for Microsoft's TV Dinner: You must first remove the plastic cover. By doing so you agree to accept Microsoft rights to the TV dinner. You may not give anyone else a bite of your dinner as outlined in the TV Dinner Piracy section of the user agreement. You may, however, let others smell and look at your dinner and are encouraged to tell them how good it is. If you have a PC microwave oven, insert the dinner into the oven. Set the oven using the command line: mstv.dinn.//08.5min@@50%heat// Then enter: ms//start.cook_dindin/yummy|/yum~yum:-)gohot#cookme. If you have a Mac oven, insert the dinner and press start. The oven will set itself and cook the dinner. If you have a Unix oven, insert the dinner, enter the ingredients of the dinner, the weight of the dinner, the desired level of cooking and press start. The oven will calculate the time and heat and cook the dinner exactly to your specification. Be forewarned that Microsoft dinners may crash, in which case your oven must be restarted. This is a simple procedure. Remove the dinner from the oven and enter: ms.no.good/tryagainagain/again.crap. This process may have to be repeated. Try unplugging the microwave and then doing a cold reboot. If this doesn't work, contact your hardware vendor. Many users have reported that the dinner tray is far too big, larger than the dinner itself, having many useless compartments, most of which are empty. These are for future menu items. If the tray is too large to fit in your oven you will need to upgrade your equipment. Dinners are only available from registered outlets, and only the chicken XP variety is currently produced. If you want another variety, call MicrosoftHelp and they will explain that you really don't want another variety. Microsoft Chicken XP is all you really need. Microsoft has disclosed plans to discontinue support for all smaller versions of their chicken dinners. Future releases will only be in the larger family size. Excess chicken may be stored for future use, but must be saved only in Microsoft approved packaging. Microsoft promises a dessert with every dinner after Chicken XP. However, that version has yet to be released. Users have permission to get thrilled in advance. Microsoft dinners may be incompatible with other dinners in the freezer, causing your freezer to self-defrost. This is a feature, not a bug. Your freezer probably should have been defrosted anyway. No other company is allowed to create items to be used with Microsoft dinners without first partnering with Microsoft. This is solely to protect the consumer and is not intended to impede progress and creativity in the dinner industry. This includes, but is not limited to dessert. You may not play a game or use an application while you eat your Microsoft dinner unless that game or application was designed by a Microsoft partner and is certified by Microsoft to be %100 compatible with your Microsoft dinner. You are only leasing your Microsoft dinner, you agree to not "reverse engineer" your Microsoft dinner or send it out of the country. You may store one backup Microsoft dinner for personal use. How To Simulate The Life Of A Sailor ~ Buy a steel dumpster, paint it gray inside and out, and live in it for six months. ~ Run all the pipes and wires in your house exposed on the walls. ~ Repaint your entire house every month. ~ Renovate your bathroom. Build a wall across the middle of the bathtub and move the showerhead to chest level. When you take showers, make sure you turn off the water while you soap down. ~ Raise the thresholds and lower the headers of your front and back doors so that you either trip or bang your head every time you pass through them. ~ Disassemble and inspect your lawnmower every week. ~ On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, turn your water heater temperature up to 200 degrees. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, turn the water heater off. On Saturdays and Sundays tell your family they use too much water during the week, so no bathing will be allowed. ~ Raise your bed to within 6 inches of the ceiling, so you can't turn over without getting out and then getting back in. ~ Sleep on the shelf in your closet. Replace the closet door with a curtain. Have your spouse whip open the curtain about 3 hours after you go to sleep, shine a flashlight in your eyes, and say "Sorry, wrong rack." ~ Make your family qualify to operate each appliance in your house - dishwasher operator, blender technician, etc. ~ Have your neighbor come over each day at 5 am, blow a whistle loudly, and shout "Reveille, reveille, all hands heave out and trice up." ~ Have your mother-in-law write down everything she's going to do the following day, then have her make you stand in your back yard at 6 am while she reads it to you. ~ Submit a request chit to your father-in-law requesting permission to leave your house before 3 pm. ~ Empty all the garbage bins in your house and sweep the driveway three times a day, whether it needs it or not. ~ Have your neighbor collect all your mail for a month, read your magazines, and randomly lose every 5th item before delivering it to you. ~ Watch no TV except for movies played in the middle of the night. Have your family vote on which movie to watch, then show a different one. ~ Make your family menu a week ahead of time without consulting the pantry or refrigerator. ~ Post a menu on the kitchen door informing your family that they are having steak for dinner. Then make them wait in line for an hour. When they finally get to the kitchen, tell them you are out of steak, but they can have dried ham or hot dogs. Repeat daily until they ignore the menu and just ask for hot dogs. ~ Bake a cake. Prop up one side of the pan so the cake bakes unevenly. Spread icing real thick to level it off. ~ Get up every night around midnight and have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on stale bread. (midrats) ~ Set your alarm clock to go off at random times during the night. At the alarm, jump up and dress as fast as you can, making sure to button your top shirt button and tuck your pants into your socks. Run out into the backyard and uncoil the garden hose. ~ Every week or so, throw your dog in the pool and shout, "Man overboard port side!" Rate your family members on how fast they respond. ~ Put the headphones from your stereo on your head, but don't plug them in. Hang a paper cup around your neck on a string. Stand in front of the stove, and speak into the paper cup "Stove manned and ready." After an hour or so, speak into the cup again "Stove secured." Roll up the headphones and paper cup and stow them in a shoebox. ~ Place a podium at the end of your driveway. Have your family stand watches at the podium, rotating at 4 hour intervals. This is best done when the weather is worst. January is a good time. ~ When there is a thunderstorm in your area, get a wobbly rocking chair, sit in it and rock as hard as you can until you become nauseous. Make sure to have a supply of stale crackers in your shirt pocket. ~ Make coffee using eighteen scoops of budget priced coffee grounds per pot, and allow the pot to simmer for 5 hours before drinking. ~ Have someone under the age of ten give you a haircut with sheep shears. ~ Sew the back pockets of your jeans on the front. ~ Lock yourself and your family in the house for six weeks. Tell them that at the end of the 6th week you are going to take them to Disney World for "liberty." At the end of the 6th week, inform them the trip to Disney World has been canceled because they need to get ready for an inspection, and it will be another week before they can leave the house.