June 2010
105 posts
This morning there was a knock at my door. When I answered the door I found a well groomed, nicely dressed couple. The man spoke first:
John: “Hi! I’m John, and this is Mary.”
Mary: “Hi! We’re here to invite you to come kiss Hank’s ass with us.”
Me: “Pardon me?! What are you talking about? Who’s Hank, and why would I want to kiss His ass?”
John: “If you kiss Hank’s ass, He’ll give you a million dollars; and if you don’t, He’ll kick the shit out of you.”
Me: “What? Is this some sort of bizarre mob shake-down?”
John: “Hank is a billionaire philanthropist. Hank built this town. Hank owns this town. He can do whatever He wants, and what He wants is to give you a million dollars, but He can’t until you kiss His ass.”
Me: “That doesn’t make any sense. Why…”
Mary: “Who are you to question Hank’s gift? Don’t you want a million dollars? Isn’t it worth a little kiss on the ass?”
Me: “Well maybe, if it’s legit, but…”
John: “Then come kiss Hank’s ass with us.”
Me: “Do you kiss Hank’s ass often?”
Mary: “Oh yes, all the time…”
Me: “And has He given you a million dollars?”
John: “Well no. You don’t actually get the money until you leave town.”
Me: “So why don’t you just leave town now?”
Mary: “You can’t leave until Hank tells you to, or you don’t get the money, and He kicks the shit out of you.”
Me: “Do you know anyone who kissed Hank’s ass, left town, and got the million dollars?”
John: “My mother kissed Hank’s ass for years. She left town last year, and I’m sure she got the money.”
Me: “Haven’t you talked to her since then?”
John: “Of course not, Hank doesn’t allow it.”
Me: “So what makes you think He’ll actually give you the money if you’ve never talked to anyone who got the money?”
Mary: “Well, He gives you a little bit before you leave. Maybe you’ll get a raise, maybe you’ll win a small lotto, maybe you’ll just find a twenty-dollar bill on the street.”
Me: “What’s that got to do with Hank?”
John: “Hank has certain ‘connections.’”
Me: “I’m sorry, but this sounds like some sort of bizarre con game.”
John: “But it’s a million dollars, can you really take the chance? And remember, if you don’t kiss Hank’s ass He’ll kick the shit out of you.”
Me: “Maybe if I could see Hank, talk to Him, get the details straight from Him…”
Mary: “No one sees Hank, no one talks to Hank.”
Me: “Then how do you kiss His ass?”
John: “Sometimes we just blow Him a kiss, and think of His ass. Other times we kiss Karl’s ass, and he passes it on.”
Me: “Who’s Karl?”
Mary: “A friend of ours. He’s the one who taught us all about kissing Hank’s ass. All we had to do was take him out to dinner a few times.”
Me: “And you just took his word for it when he said there was a Hank, that Hank wanted you to kiss His ass, and that Hank would reward you?”
John: “Oh no! Karl has a letter he got from Hank years ago explaining the whole thing. Here’s a copy; see for yourself.”
From the Desk of Karl
- Kiss Hank’s ass and He’ll give you a million dollars when you leave town.
- Use alcohol in moderation.
- Kick the shit out of people who aren’t like you.
- Eat right.
- Hank dictated this list Himself.
- The moon is made of green cheese.
- Everything Hank says is right.
- Wash your hands after going to the bathroom.
- Don’t use alcohol.
- Eat your wieners on buns, no condiments.
- Kiss Hank’s ass or He’ll kick the shit out of you.
Me: “This appears to be written on Karl’s letterhead.”
Mary: “Hank didn’t have any paper.”
Me: “I have a hunch that if we checked we’d find this is Karl’s handwriting.”
John: “Of course, Hank dictated it.”
Me: “I thought you said no one gets to see Hank?”
Mary: “Not now, but years ago He would talk to some people.”
Me: “I thought you said He was a philanthropist. What sort of philanthropist kicks the shit out of people just because they’re different?”
Mary: “It’s what Hank wants, and Hank’s always right.”
Me: “How do you figure that?”
Mary: “Item 7 says ‘Everything Hank says is right.’ That’s good enough for me!”
Me: “Maybe your friend Karl just made the whole thing up.”
John: “No way! Item 5 says ‘Hank dictated this list himself.’ Besides, item 2 says ‘Use alcohol in moderation,’ Item 4 says ‘Eat right,’ and item 8 says ‘Wash your hands after going to the bathroom.’ Everyone knows those things are right, so the rest must be true, too.”
Me: “But 9 says ‘Don’t use alcohol.’ which doesn’t quite go with item 2, and 6 says ‘The moon is made of green cheese,’ which is just plain wrong.”
John: “There’s no contradiction between 9 and 2, 9 just clarifies 2. As far as 6 goes, you’ve never been to the moon, so you can’t say for sure.”
Me: “Scientists have pretty firmly established that the moon is made of rock…”
Mary: “But they don’t know if the rock came from the Earth, or from out of space, so it could just as easily be green cheese.”
Me: “I’m not really an expert, but I think the theory that the Moon was somehow ‘captured’ by the Earth has been discounted*. Besides, not knowing where the rock came from doesn’t make it cheese.”
John: “Ha! You just admitted that scientists make mistakes, but we know Hank is always right!”
Me: “We do?”
Mary: “Of course we do, Item 7 says so.”
Me: “You’re saying Hank’s always right because the list says so, the list is right because Hank dictated it, and we know that Hank dictated it because the list says so. That’s circular logic, no different than saying ‘Hank’s right because He says He’s right.’”
John: “Now you’re getting it! It’s so rewarding to see someone come around to Hank’s way of thinking.”
Me: “But…oh, never mind. What’s the deal with wieners?”
Mary: She blushes.
John: “Wieners, in buns, no condiments. It’s Hank’s way. Anything else is wrong.”
Me: “What if I don’t have a bun?”
John: “No bun, no wiener. A wiener without a bun is wrong.”
Me: “No relish? No Mustard?”
Mary: She looks positively stricken.
John: He’s shouting. “There’s no need for such language! Condiments of any kind are wrong!”
Me: “So a big pile of sauerkraut with some wieners chopped up in it would be out of the question?”
Mary: Sticks her fingers in her ears.”I am not listening to this. La la la, la la, la la la.”
John: “That’s disgusting. Only some sort of evil deviant would eat that…”
Me: “It’s good! I eat it all the time.”
Mary: She faints.
John: He catches Mary. “Well, if I’d known you were one of those I wouldn’t have wasted my time. When Hank kicks the shit out of you I’ll be there, counting my money and laughing. I’ll kiss Hank’s ass for you, you bunless cut-wienered kraut-eater.”
With this, John dragged Mary to their waiting car, and sped off.
via jhuger.com
May 2010
265 posts
The Galactic Center in Infrared from 2MASS
Credit: 2MASS Project, U. Mass., IPAC/Caltech, NSF, NASA
Explanation: The center of our Galaxy is a busy place. In visible light, much of the Galactic Center is obscured by opaque dust. In infrared light, however, dust glows more and obscures less, allowing nearly one million stars to be recorded in the above image. The Galactic Center itself appears glowing on the lower left and is located about 30,000 light years away towards the constellation of Sagittarius. The Galactic Plane of our Milky Way Galaxy, the plane in which the Sun orbits, is identifiable by the dark diagonal dust lane. The absorbing www.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Mathis/Mathis1.html“>dust grains are created in the atmospheres of cool red-giant stars and grow in molecular clouds. The region directly surrounding the Galactic Center glows brightly in radio and high-energy radiation. The Galactic Center is thought to house a large black hole.
In 1863, the register of the U.S. Treasury, L.E. Chittenden, had to sign 12,500 bonds in a single weekend to stop the delivery of two British-built warships to the Confederacy. He started at noon on Friday and managed 3,700 signatures in the first seven hours, but by Saturday morning he was desperate:
[E]very muscle on the right side connected with the movement of the hand and arm became inflamed, and the pain was almost beyond endurance. … In the slight pauses which were made, rubbing, the application of hot water, and other remedies were resorted to, in order to alleviate the pain and reduce the inflammation. They were comparatively ineffectual, and the hours dragged on without bringing much relief.
He finished, exhausted, at noon on Sunday, completing a mountain of bonds more than 6 feet high. These were rushed to a waiting steamer — and only then did word come that the English warships had been sold to a different buyer. The bonds, in the end, were not needed.
Clouds and Stars over Cotopaxi Volcano in Ecuador
Credit & Copyright: Stéphane Guisard (Los Cielos de America), TWAN
Explanation: What’s happening above the Cotopaxi volcano in Ecuador? Quite a bit, from the looks of the above one-night, time-lapse movie, taken earlier this month. The majestic volcano is first seen through breaks in fast moving clouds as the movie begins. Soon the clouds have dissipated and a sky filled with stars seems to rotate about the snow-peaked volcano’s peak. The band of our Milky Way Galaxy, the dark Coal Sack nebula, and the Southern Cross can all be seen overhead. Satellites streak by from several directions. Soon thin clouds roll by and seem to make the brightest stars sparkle. On the volcano (starting at about 1:13 of the movie), the lights of climbers flash. Near the end of the movie, a bright airplane passes over the peak with a residual trail seen drifting away.
Yesterday I was buying 2 large bags of Purina dog chow at WalMart for my dogs Shadow and Lady.
I was about to check out when a woman behind me asked if I had a dog.
What did she think, that I had an elephant?
Since I had little else to do, on impulse, I told her that No, I didn’t have a dog - that I was starting the Purina Diet again, although I probably shouldn’t because I ended up in the hospital last time.
On the bright side though, I’d lost 50 pounds before I awakened in intensive care with tubes coming out of every hole in my body and IVs in both arms.
I told her that it was essentially a perfect diet and that the way that it works is to load your pockets with Purina nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry and that the food is nutritionally complete so I was going to try it again.
(I have to mention here that practically everyone in the line was enthralled with my story by now.)
Horrified, She asked : “Did you end up in intensive care because the dog food had poisoned you?”
I said: No not at all; I had stopped in the middle of the parking lot to lick my ass and a car hit me.
The guy behind her was laughing so hard, I thought he was going to have a heart attack!
WALMART won’t let me shop there anymore.
May 29, 2010 — Thousands of people were evacuated and airports were closed as Ecuador’s Tungurahua volcano and the Pacaya volcano in Guatemala erupted late on Friday.
The eruptions choked major cities with ash and left two dead, officials said. Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom declared a 15-day state of emergency around the Pacaya volcano, 50 kilometers (31 miles) south of the capital.
In Ecuador, the Tungurahua volcano, seen here, exploded into action Friday, forcing the evacuation of at least seven villages and closing down the airport and public schools in Guayaquil, the country’s largest and most populated city.
Hugo Yepes, director of Ecuador’s Geophysical Institute, noted that the Tungurahua volcano was at one point spewing molten rocks and large clouds of ash and gas 10 kilometers (33,000 feet) into the sky. But he said the volcanic activity had since decreased.
The Tungurahua volcano spews ashes in Huambalo, central Ecuador, on Friday. The Tungurahua has been constantly erupting since 1999.
All images AP Photos. Caption information by AFP.
I recently got this from one of my fantastic friends, I was having a bit of a hard time. Not like everything is shiny now, but gestures like this one always make me feel an awful lot better.
Thanks buddy.
The Hubble Space Telescope caught the Boomerang Nebula in this image taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys in early 2005. This reflecting cloud of dust and gas has two nearly symmetric lobes of matter that are being ejected from a central star.
Hubble Catches Scattered Light from the Boomerang Nebula. Credit: NASA, ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team STScI/AURA)
Each lobe of the nebula is nearly one light-year in length, making the total length of the nebula half as long as the distance from our Sun to our nearest neighbors – the alpha Centauri stellar system, located roughly 4 light-years away. The Boomerang Nebula resides 5,000 light-years from Earth. Hubble’s sharp view is able to resolve patterns and ripples in the nebula very close to the central star that are not visible from the ground.
Considerable excitement was caused in our city last Tuesday evening by the announcement that a hailstone weighing eighty pounds had fallen six miles west of Salina, near the railroad track. An inquiry into the matter revealed the following facts: A party of railroad section men were at work Tuesday afternoon, several miles west of town, when the hailstorm came upon them. Mr. Martin Elwood, the foreman of the party, relates that near where they were at work hailstones of the weight of four or five pounds were falling, and that returning to Salina the stones increased in size, until his party discovered a huge mass of ice weighing, as near as he could judge, in the neighborhood of eighty pounds. At this place the party found the ground covered with hail as if a wintry storm had passed over the land. Besides securing the mammoth chunk of ice, Mr. Elwood secured a hailstone something over a foot long, three or four inches in diameter, and shaped like a cigar. These ’specimens’ were placed upon a hand-car and brought to Salina. Mr. W.J. Hagler, the North Santa Fe merchant, became the possessor of the larger piece, and saved it from dissolving by placing it in sawdust at his store. Crowds of people went down to see it Tuesday afternoon, and many were the theories concerning the mysterious visitor. At evening its dimensions were 29 by 16 by 2 inches.
– Salina (Kan.) Journal, quoted in Scientific American, Aug. 19, 1882
In 1975, firefighters were checking a Greenwich Village apartment building when they entered the flat of 58-year-old attorney Joseph Feldman and discovered more than 15,000 New York Public Library books “piled to the ceiling, covering the stove and filling the bathtub and sinks,” according to a New York Times report.
Feldman, who didn’t even have a library card, explained, “I like to read.” Twenty men removed the books in seven truckloads. A library spokesman said Feldman might be charged the standard fine of 10 cents per book per day, up to the cost of the book, but I can’t find a record of the final judgment.
“Never lend books, for no one ever returns them,” wrote Anatole France. “The only books I have in my library are books that other folks have lent me.”
