Lefthanded and Colorblind

• Where did you get that hat?
• To his wife, the Queen, immediately after her coronation

• The only active sport I will follow is polo - and most of the work is done by the pony.

• British women can't cook.

• The bastards murdered half my family.
• When asked if he would like to visit the Soviet Union

• What do you gargle with - pebbles?
• Said to Tom Jones after the The Royal Variety Performance

• Everybody was saying we must have more leisure. Now they are complaining they are unemployed.
• Said during the 1981 recession

• You must be out of your minds.
• To Solomon Islanders on being told that their population growth was 5% a year

• You are a woman, aren't you?
• Said in Kenya to a native woman who had presented him with a small gift.

• If you stay here much longer, you'll all get slitty-eyed.
• Said to British students in China

• If it has four legs and is not a chair, has wings and is not an aeroplane, or swims and is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it.
• Said at a World Wildlife Fund meeting

• Your country is one of the most notorious centres of trading in endangered species in the world.
• Said in Thailand after accepting a conservation award

• You can't have been here that long - you haven't got a pot belly.
• Said to a Briton in Budapest, Hungary

• Aren't most of you descended from pirates?
• Said to an islander in the Cayman Islands

• How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to get them through the test?
• Said to a driving instructor in Scotland

• If a cricketer, for instance, suddenly decided to go into a school and batter a lot of people to death with a cricket bat, which he could do very easily, I mean, are you going to ban cricket bats?
• Said amid calls to ban firearms after the Dunblane shooting

• Bloody silly fool!
• Referring to a Cambridge University car park attendant who failed to recognise him

• You managed not to get eaten, then?
• Said to a student who had been trekking in Papua New Guinea

• It looks like it was put in by Indians.
• Said after he saw a poorly constructed fusebox

• Deaf? If you are near there, no wonder you are deaf.
• Said to young deaf people in Cardiff, referring to a school's steel band

• Oh! You are the people ruining the rivers and the enviroment.
• Said when he met three young employees of a Scottish fish farm

• Oh, it's you that owns that ghastly car - we often see it when driving to Windsor Castle.
• Talking to Elton John after he told Prince Philip that he had sold his gold Aston Martin

• Do you still throw spears at each other?
• To an Aboriginal man on Australia's Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park

• You were playing your instruments, weren't you? Or do you have tape recorders under your seats?
• Said to a children's band in Australia

• Do you know they have eating dogs for the anorexic now?
• Said to a blind woman with a guide dog

• If you travel as much as we do you appreciate how much more comfortable aircraft have become. Unless you travel in something called economy class, which sounds ghastly.
• Commenting during the Jubilee tour

• The problem with London is the tourists. They cause the congestion. If we could just stop tourism, we could stop the congestion.
• Commenting on the London traffic debate after mayor Ken Livingstone launched his plan to charge motorists £5 to enter the city

• French cooking's all very well, but they can't do a decent English breakfast.
• Aboard the floating restaurant 'Il Punto' on the river Orwell in Ipswich, after thoroughly enjoying an excellent full English breakfast (Il Punto is owned by Frenchman Regis Crepy)

• It doesn't look like much work goes on at this University.
• Overheard at Bristol University's BLADE (Bristol Laboratory for Advanced Dynamic Engineering) facility, which had been closed in order that he and the Queen could officially open it

• You look like you're ready for bed!
• Said to the President of Nigeria, who was dressed in traditional robes

• Never pass up a chance to go to the loo or to take a poo.
• When asked his secret for dealing with public appearances

• If people feel it has no further part to play, then for goodness sake, let's end the thing on amicable terms without having a row about it.
• On sentiment against the British monarchy

• If you see a man opening a car door for a woman, it means one of two things: it's either a new woman or a new car!

• [To Lord Taylor of Warwick, who is black]: And what exotic part of the world do you come from?
  Lord Taylor: I'm from Birmingham.

• To the Queen: "Shut up woman, otherwise i'll turn you out of the car!"
• Said to the Queen in the presence of Countess Mountbatten of Burma whilst Prince Philip was driving at high speed through Windsor great park and the Queen insisted he slowed down.
  

While waiting for a flight last week, I sat across from a couple who were busy preparing for the flight. They were gathering their reading material, arranging and re-arranging their carry-on luggage and having a quick snack.

In between each step of this business, they each would pause to disinfect. In a ten minute span, they literally squirted their hands a half-dozen times with every germophobe’s favorite liquid, Purell.

But in today’s New York Times, I found a better solution. Rather than subjecting germophobes to a continuous and never-ending Purell lathering, this solution offers a quick, simple fix. A solution that I’m sure my lawyer, Howard Hughes, will be surfing out to purchase in bulk, City Mitts.

City Mitts are a textile glove imbued with bacteria-fighting properties. They contain tiny silver ions, the same magical silver ions used in antimicrobial soaps, lotions and Captain James Kirk’s hair gel. And because of the neurotic nature of typical City Mitt customers, a hole was added in the back of the glove to stave off claustrophobia.

Claustrophobia? Feeling closed-in because of your gloves? I’m beginning to understand why there are more neurotic people in places like California than there are in cold-winter climates like Canada and Minnesota.

The best thing about City Mitts is their website. A hot, neurotic babe picture on the front site and a handy list of diseases you can catch if you’re not wearing your body armor:

Germs found in the NYC Subway (thanks NYC Daily News!)

• Grand Central Station: toxic shock syndrome
• Penn Station Toilet Seat: meningitis
• Penn Station Ticket Machine: feces, skin infection
• R Train: e-coli
• C Train: urinary infection
• 7 Train: diarrhea
• 4 Train: influenza, cold virus

Upcoming “City” Brand Additions

• City Socks – for those nasty athletes foot germs
• City Diapers – what could possible contain more germs that baby shit?
• City Hats – think of all the unseen germs floating through the air
• City Bed – don’t let those bed bugs bite
• City Underwear – never let dirty underwear trigger a neurotic attack again!
• City Toiletpaper – carry it everywhere you go….just in case.

Germophobe Guide To Dirty Surfaces

Watch out for these unhealthy surfaces! 99 reasons to become even more neurotic!

One of my favorite joys of San Francisco is to visit Joe’s Crab Shack on Embarcadero near Pier 49. If you ask, all the employees will do a wonderful rendition of the song “Car Wash”.

(Workin' at the) car wash.
Workin' at the car wash yeah !
Come on and sing it with me car wash.
Get with the feelin' y'all car wash yeah.

But the best aspect of Joe’s Crab Shack is it’s unprecedented view of Bush Man. Bush man is a fixture in San Fran. He sits on a milk crate, behind freshly cut bushes and scares unsuspecting tourists as they walk along the waterfront. I’ve never quite figured out how the oblivious walkers don’t notice the normal 200-300 other tourists watching Bush Man scare others but they do get scared. Often with hilarious results.

But Bush Man life has not always been so good. In 2004, Bush Man got sued. And not even by Scientologists (“you are soooo sued”), but by litigious Americans.

Wednesday, March 24, 2004

“After a week and a half of legal motions, three days of jury selection and a four-day trial in which one witness was flown in from Southern California, the leaf-shaking boogeyman who makes his living scaring the daylights out of Fisherman Wharf tourists is back in business

‘There was an incident where a woman was injured,'' said juror Gerald Keene, who works at Pacific Gas and Electric Co. "But it came out during the trial that her husband had bumped her, and she tripped over her child and twisted her ankle.'’

Then there was the case of Maury Polse, a charter boat skipper who said the Bushman was ruining business by blocking the sidewalk.

Finally, there was the Southern California man who, after getting the full Bushman treatment, complained that his young child "got scared and started crying'' as onlookers laughed.”

I’ve always thought Bush Man needed a publicist. T-Shirts, mugs, pictures, a market untapped. I wonder if Bush Man needs a partner?

con·ser·va·tive
adj.
Favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose change.

When I used to play a lot of hockey, I was a right winger. I never considered the term with any other context other than being beside my center and opposite the left wing position. But after viewing the following web site, I think I should’ve played left wing.

I’m rather apolitical and don’t like political blogs or commentary. But when you run across such narrow-minded bigots, it’s hard not to comment.

Fred from Texas, a U.S. Government Employee, publishes the following:

• ”I do not believe in learning another language to communicate with immigrants.”
• “I do not accept hyphenated Americans. Your are either an American or you're not. Take your pick. Most Blacks haven't had an African descendent in the last 12 generations. I'm third generation. Does that make me a German-American?”
• “Guns are not the great scourge of mankind. It is the murdering SOB's using them. Instead of punishing the criminals and KEEPING THEM IN PRISON, there are those who wish to punish everyone EXCEPT the criminals.”

I think perhaps Mr. Schroeder may consider getting a passport and getting out of Texas more often.

And a few more disturbing images. Charlton Heston would be proud. From an advertisement on a web site titled “Military Strategy”.

I cannot believe these images and writings on these two web sites are today in America considered “traditional values”. Something is very wrong.

I started typing in the fourth grade, approximately age nine. I began early because my father was teaching a typing class in the high school in which he taught.

I remember with great pride an early typing test. I remember achieving 72 words per minute on an IBM Selectric with one error. I felt so proud pounding away at that keyboard. I remember wanting to be a court stenographer because of my immeasurable typing skills. About the same time I wanted to work in Alaska too. I wanted to be a court stenographer in Alaska. Just think of the possibilities!

I still have no idea what typing 72WPM on an IBM Selectric has to do with typing on a keypad that looks like that of a court stenography machine , mainly because a court stenographer's keypad looks like this:

That was more than thirty years ago and just now I took another typing test on this web site See How Fast You Can Type. I achieved 71.17 words per minute (322.86 characters per minute) with 3 errors and a hyper four-year-old clamoring about my side. On a QWERTY keyboard as well. I'm definately slower with age.

Dvorak layouts

The other day, I saw the guy that sits in the office next to me taking all the keys off his keyboard and putting them back in a seemingly random order. I said "what are you doing?". He indicated that he was switching to an alternative keyboard layout, a Dvorak keyboard, because "it is more efficient". It goes without saying that he was an engineer.

Dr. August Dvorak was an educational psychologist and professor of education. He and his brother-in-law, Dr. William Dealey, are best known for creating the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard layout in the 1930s as a replacement for the QWERTY keyboard layout. They designed the new layout as an efficient layout for those one-handed typists. Shown below is a two-handed Dvorak keyboard. They also come in left-handed and right-handed varieties.

Typing Facts

• On average, a typist’s left hand does 56% of the typing. I guess the left-handed Dvorak keyboard must be über efficient.
  
  
• The words ‘’stewardesses'’ and ‘’reverberated'’ are the longest words (12 letters) typed with only the left hand.
  
  
• The longest words that can be typed using only the right hand in proper typing form are ‘’lollipop” and “monopoly”.
  
  
• On a QWERTY keyboard, the only ten letter word that you can spell with the top row of letters is “typewriter”. On a two-handed Dvorak keyboard, they only word you can spell is "PYFCRLG".
  
  
  
• Skepticisms is the longest word that alternates hands when typing.

Moose Lake, Minnesota is proud home to Agate Days. Each summer, when people from all over the area come out of winter hibernation, the Agate Day festival begins. The next Agate Days festival is this weekend, July 15-16, 2006 and the “Agate Stampede” begins at 2pm Saturday.

It takes careful preparation for this important festival, first, the city must find a dump truck, fill the dump truck with tons of gravel and dirt, then they add 300 lbs. of Agates and $300 in quarters from the 1st National Bank, the Star Gazette, and the Lake State Federal Credit Union, and they pour the mixture onto the main street. Elm Street. Check out this interesting video of the dump truck and the crowds of excited rock hounds.

I think Elm Street was chosen because this is the only street in town with a stoplight, an important attribute when you’re pouring tons of rocks onto the main thoroughfare in town.

Then comes “a wild scramble of Finders-Keepers that everyone, young and old, can enjoy”.

An important tourist attractive this festival is as “Thousands of rock lovers come to the Agate Capital of the World each summer to enjoy the camaraderie of being with fellow rock hounds. This is the 35th year that the Carlton County Gem & Mineral Club has organized this event”.

Even the local bank gets in on the action: “Moose Lake is home to the Largest Lake Superior Agate, weighing in at 108 pounds and can be seen in the lobby of the First National Bank of Moose Lake”. A giant rock in the bank! How exciting!

But, you may ask yourself, “what is an agate?”. Thanks to the people at Agates R Us, we have an answer.

The Minnesota State Gemstone

Agates were formed over 1 billion years ago. Molten rock came spurting up from cracks in the earth's surface. Inside of these flows, gas bubbles were trapped in magma as it cooled and then hardened. Ground water then carried a solution of dissolved silica and other minerals and entered into these vesicles and crystallized until they were completely filled.

Later, during the Great Ice Age, four major glaciations occured, The Wisconsin, The Kansan, The Illinoian and The Nebraskan. The Wisconsin Glaciation, also known as the Superior Lobe, moved south over these old lava flows and washed away and then re-deposited the Lake Superior Agates along the way. Deposits of these rare semi-precious gemstones are found in Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa.

Searching For Agates

First, you must find someplace that looks like the terrain in this photo. The only piece of realism not captured by the photo is the mosquite bites.

Metaphysical Properties of Agates

And what fantastic gems they are these agates! From the Agates R Us site: “Agates provide for balancing of yin-yang energy and for harmonizing our physical, emotional, and intellectual aspects. They can stabilize our aura, provide for a cleansing of dysfunctional energy, and can both transform and eliminate negativity. They can help us to examine ourselves as well as the circumstances relevant to our well-being. Agates can be used to stimulate analytical capabilities and precision. They increase our perceptiveness in complex situations and can help awaken our inherent talents.”