Funny Friday

and that means it's time for some Friday humour, today on the theme of police . . . 

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A Northern Territory farm hand radios back to the farm manager.

"Boss, I gotta helluva problem here. I hit a pig with the truck. The pig's ok, but he's stuck in the bullbars at the front of my truck and is wriggling and squealing so much I can't get him out."

The manager says, "Ok, there's a .303 rifle behind the seat. Take it, shoot the pig in the head and you'll be able to remove him."

Five minutes later the farm hand calls back, "I did what you said boss. Took the 303, shot the pig in the head and removed him from the bull-bars. No problem there, but I still can't go on".

"Now what's the problem?" raged the Manager.

"Well boss, it's his motor-bike. The flashing blue light is stuck under the right-front wheel arch."

"You there Boss?"

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A driver is pulled over by a policeman. The policeman approaches the drivers door. 

"Is there a problem, Officer?"

The policeman says, "Sir, you were speeding. Can I see your licence please?" 

The driver responds, "I'd give it to you but I don't have one."

"You don't have one?"

The man responds, "I lost it four times for drink driving."

The policeman is shocked. "I see. Can I see your vehicle registration papers please?" 

"I'm sorry, I can't do that." 

The policeman says, "Why not?" 

"I stole this car."

The officer says, "Stole it?"

The man says, "Yes, and I killed the owner."

At this point the officer is getting irate. "You what?"

"She's in the boot if you want to see."

The Officer looks at the man and slowly backs away to his car and calls for back up. Within minutes, five police cars show up, surrounding the car. A senior officer slowly approaches the car, clasping his half-drawn gun. 

The senior officer says, "Sir, could you step out of your vehicle please!"

The man steps out of his vehicle. "Is there a problem, sir?"

"One of my officers told me that you have stolen this car and murdered the owner."

"Murdered the owner?" 

The officer responds, "Yes, could you open the boot of your car please?"

The man opens the boot, revealing nothing but an empty boot. 

The officer says, "Is this your car sir?"

The man says, "Yes" and hands over the registration papers. 

The officer, understandably, is quite stunned. "One of my officers claims that you do not have a driving licence."

The man digs in his pocket revealing a wallet and hands it to the officer. The officer opens the wallet and examines the licence. He looks quite puzzled. "Thank you, sir. One of my officers told me you didn't have a licence, stole this car, and murdered the owner." 

The man replies, "I bet you the lying bastard told you I was speeding, too!"

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A man was stopped by the police around 2 am. The officer asked him where he was going at that time of night. The man replied, "I'm on my way to a lecture about alcohol abuse and the effects it has on the human body, as well as smoking and staying out late." The officer then asked, "Really? Who's giving that lecture at this time of night?" The man replied, "That would be my wife." 

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Cop on horse says to little girl on bike, "Did Santa get you that?" "Yes," replies the little girl. "Well tell him to put a reflector light on it next year!" and fines her $5. The little girl looks up at the cop and says, "Nice horse you've got there, did Santa bring you that?" The cop chuckles and replies, "He sure did!" "Well," says the little girl, "Next year tell Santa that the dick goes under the horse, not on top of it!"

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Corn Corner:

Police Officer: "How high are you?" 

Pothead: "No officer, it's "Hi, How are you?" 

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A man was filling his car petrol tank at a service station and filled the tank so full that petrol got onto his shirt sleeve. Unaware that there was petrol on his sleeve, he lit a cigarette and his sleeve caught fire, so he jumped into his car and waved his arm up and down in an effort to put out the flames. He looked into his rear view mirror and saw red and blue lights flashing and heard a police siren. The police officer booked him for having an illegal firearm.

Quote for the Day

"I was only interrupted by my work on a new painting representing the exterior of a night café. On the terrace there are small figures of people drinking. An immense yellow lantern illuminates the terrace, the facade, the side walk and even casts light on the paving stones of the road which take a pinkish violet tone. The gables of the houses, like a fading road below a blue sky studded with stars, are dark blue or violet with a green tree. Here you have a night painting without black, with nothing but beautiful blue and violet and green and in this surrounding the illuminated area colours itself sulfur pale yellow and citron green. It amuses me enormously to paint the night right on the spot. Normally, one draws and paints the painting during the daytime after the sketch. But I like to paint the thing immediately. It is true that in the darkness I can take a blue for a green, a blue lilac for a pink lilac, since it is hard to distinguish the quality of the tone. But it is the only way to get away from our conventional night with poor pale whitish light, while even a simple candle already provides us with the richest of yellows and oranges. . . . You never told me if you had read Guy de Maupassant’s Bel-ami, and what you now think of his talent in general. I say this because the beginning of Bel-ami is precisely the description of a starry night in Paris, with the lighted cafés of the boulevard, and it’s something like the same subject that I’ve painted just now."

- Vincent van Gogh, 1888, letter to his sister after finishing Cafe Terrace at Night

Why have I posted quotes by van Gogh on two of his paintings on consecutive days? Because framed prints of those two artworks hang on the wall in my office behind my chair, that is what clients look at when they are facing towards me in the office.

Cafe Terrace at Night is the first in a trilogy of paintings which feature starlit skies. Starry Night Over the Rhone was painted a month later, followed by Starry Night painted the next year in Saint-Rémy.

The cafe remains today and has been renamed Cafe Van Gogh:

Stopped Clocks and Syndromes

The above saying has given rise to the concept of Stopped Clock Syndrome, the phenomenon that even a crank, denialist or conspiracy theorist can be correct once in a while, even if only by chance.

Examples:

Adolf Hitler's promotion of anti-smoking research and strong support for animal rights.

Lady Nancy Astor (pictured above with husband Lord Astor), right wing British politician who supported anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic conspiracy theories, also supported women’s rights and homosexuality (her favourite son turned out to be gay).

The reverse of Stopped Clock Syndrome is Inverse Stopped Clock Syndrome where someone who is usually logical, rational, or correct does, says or believes something stupid, idiotic or crazy. Also referred to as "Sometimes even geniuses make mistakes," or the common phrase "Nobody's perfect."

Example:

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, human rights activist, early opponent of racism, was also a dogmatic believer in spiritualism and was convinced that the Cottingley Fairies were real.

Quote for the Day

"The starry sky painted by night, actually under a gas jet. The sky is aquamarine, the water is royal blue, the ground is mauve. The town is blue and purple. The gas is yellow and the reflections are russet gold descending down to green-bronze. On the aquamarine field of the sky the Great Bear is a sparkling green and pink, whose discreet paleness contrasts with the brutal gold of the gas. Two colourful figurines of lovers in the foreground." 

- Vincent Van Gogh, letter 1888 

commenting on Starry Night Over the Rhone

Fun street art and installations

Quote for the Day

"For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' And whenever the answer has been 'No' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something."

- Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

Tuesday Trivia

Pandemonium

Meaning: wild uproar or unrestrained disorder; tumult or chaos.

Origin: The word was invented by Milton in his 1667 epic poem Paradise Lost:

A solemn Councel forthwith to be held At Pandæmonium, the high Capital Of Satan and his Peers.

The syllable “Pan” means “all” in Greek, followed by “demon” and concluding with “ium”.

It therefore means the place of all demons.

The word “demonium”, meaning the abode of demons, or Hell, already existed.

Over time the word “pandemonium” came to refer to things akin to Hell and from there to the modern meaning of confusion, tumult, or uproar. 

For a truck driver to feel drowsy can result in death, so that substances and drinks are often used to energise. 

Thai salesman Chaleo Yoovidhya noticed that truck drivers in Thailand liked one of his company’s tonics so in 1976 he began producing his own version. He called the tonic, which contained concentrations of caffeine and other substaces, Krathiung Daeng, Thai for Red Water Buffalo. The logo showed two wild gaur, a bovine species, charging at each other. 

In 1982 Yoovidhya met Austrian toothpaste salesman Dietrich Mateschitz, who drank his product to ward off jet lag, and the two men formed a company in which each had 49%, the extra 2% going to Yoovidhya’s son. Mateschitz added fizz and a blue and silver can, plus he changed the name to Red Bull.

Within two decades Yoovidhya's drink was being sold around the world, with youngsters mixing it with vodka in the evenings, then drinking it neat the next morning to ward off the inevitable hangover. 

Yoovidhya became a billionaire but remained a recluse and died in 2012 aged 90.

As of January 2015, Mateschitz is estimated to be worth $10.7 billion. He is also reclusive. Despite owning two Formula 11 teams, he watches the races on TV.

“The boys on the island vary, of course, in numbers, according as they get killed and so on; and when they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out; but at this time there were six of them, counting the twins as two."

The above is from the original Peter Pan book by J M Barrie. That 1906 book followed a successful 1904 stage production.

What “thins them out” means is open to conjecture and interpretation but many accept that Peter Pan kills the children who grow up. It gets worse. Peter also went on pirate hunts to kill pirates for fun, then sometimes in the middle of a battle would change sides and kill lost boys instead.

The lost boys were babies who had fallen out of their prams and hadn’t been claimed for 7 days, so some interpret the lost boys as already being dead.

Another interpretation is that the pirates, including Hook, are the lost boys who have grown up.  Either they escaped Peter or Peter thinned them out by sending them away, probably the former.

Not everything is cutsey Disney.

To come: the real Pinocchio, Snow White, Pied Piper, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty.

Quote for the Day

"I am most anxious to enlist everyone who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked folly of 'Women's Rights,' with all its attendent horrors, on which her poor feeble sex is bent, forgetting every sense of womanly feelings and propriety. Feminists ought to get a good whipping. Were woman to 'unsex' themselves by claiming equality with men, they would become the most hateful, heathen and disgusting of begins and would surely perish without male protection. I love peace and quiet, I hate politics and turmoil. We women are not made for governing, and if we are good women, we must dislike these masculine occupations."

- Queen Victoria (1819-1901), 

letter to Theodore Martin, 29 May 1870

Compare with:

“All marriage is such a lottery -- the happiness is always an exchange -- though it may be a very happy one -- still the poor woman is bodily and morally the husband's slave. That always sticks in my throat. When I think of a merry, happy, and free young girl -- and look at the ailing aching state a young wife is generally doomed to -- which you can't deny is the penalty of marriage.”

- Queen Victoria, 

letter, 1860

Monday Miscellany: Odds, Ends and Personals

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Readers write . . .

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From Graham E in relation to the item on the death of common sense:

Watching the final Letterman show the other night, he showed a montage of bits with kids over the years. 

Upon asking one small boy if he had many friends, he answered no. 

Upon further enquiry Dave heard they all departed after he was accused of pushing another boy down the stairs. 

Dave asked if he had learnt any lessons from the incident, upon which he pondered and replied, yep, accidents happen!

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Also from Graham E, this time in response to the item on seeing faces in objects:

Hi Mr O, 

Here is a link to one of the many sites that have pics of things that look like male bits !!!! 

http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/advice/g3649/non-penis-things-that-look-like-penis/ 

Regards
Mr G

Some icky looking, warty type images there but I  loved Westminster Bridge and the Michigan news anchor.

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From Byter Brett B, in response to the quote "If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas."

There is a saying that Knowledge is power. 

My corollary is:  

Knowledge shared is power increased. 

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From Byter Tobye P, in response to the story about the Marine who remained by the dying old man’s bedside, knowing that the old man had mistaken him for his son (which I said might be corny but I liked it):

Wow! The corn is really good today Otto-excellent message, thanks for all you do! 

Best Regards,

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Thanks for the input, people.

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Sometimes you come across a story that is the first ripple in what will ultimately prove to be a tsunami of change. Information about the devices and developments that have altered our society in unbelievable ways, which in turn have led to other technological advances – computer developments, video players, DVD’s, mobile telephones, internet – I recall all started by being written about in small items in newspapers and magazines.

A couple of days ago I came across the item below about the use of drones in a restaurant. I was aware of the use of drones by the military and that Amazon used them in their warehouses, also that drones with cameras are proving to be a challenge to rights of privacy, necessitating advances in lawmaking, but I was not aware how advanced drones had become. It is beginning to feel like the future Hill Valley from Back to the Future 2. 

The article:

The future of food? Drones replace waiters in Singapore

Singapore bar and restaurant Timbre @ The Substation is trialling a new way of serving its customers, with food being delivered by drones

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a waiter? None of the above - if you're dining at Timbre @ The Substation, that object whizzing past your table with a precariously perched tray of Singapore Slings is actually a drone. The Singapore bar and restaurant is trialling the robotic waiters, with plans to make them a permanent fixture at the venue by the end of the year.

While they're not yet experienced enough to wait tables, the drones can carry orders weighing up to two kilograms from the kitchen to a designated zone in the restaurant, where they're then picked up by waiters to deliver directly to diners.

The US was the first to experiment with drones as waiters, but the attempt failed due to safety issues. To counter this, Timbre's drones have been programmed to dodge stationary objects (so be careful on your way to the bar), detect their fellow drones and even fly in formation.

The technology presents a double-edged sword for wait staff - for now they're saved the legwork of dashing from kitchen to table, but it could spell a need for less staff - of the human variety, at least - in future.

Source:http://www.buro247.com.au/culture-lifestyle/food-and-drink/drones-that-serves-meals-in-singaporean-restaurant.html

http://www.buro247.com.au/culture-lifestyle/food-and-drink/drones-that-serves-meals-in-singaporean-restaurant.html