MORE LAUGHS, PLEASE: Collect funniest DU threads or other sites here

[Nothing Without Hope]

Such terrible things are happening, it's getting harder to remember to stop and breathe, and laugh when we can.

So, I'm starting another "cheering up" thread. This time, let's post things that we find anywhere at DU or, if they're funny enough and not already in a thread at DU, other web sites. We need to be able to check in from time to time and find something to make us laugh.

I am hoping that the KIND of humor posted here will be the non-sarcastic sort that can make us laugh without pain or sourness. You know what I mean. I'd rather not see more disparaging pictures of Camilla, for example, because that doesn't make me feel better.

Let's see where this takes us. Everyone in the KOEB/ASTB has a wonderful sense of humor and loves to laugh. Let's bring in eclectic, silly stories and whatever else catches our fancy and won't let it go without a giggle.

ed:sp

[Nothing Without Hope]

1. Friday Classic Movie-"Gone With The Wind" ....in SMILIES!

Posted by underpants here on April 8, so you can still go comment:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=3011855

Absolutely unbelievable, but there it is. You have to keep scrolling down as the wordless story unfolds with rank upon rank of smilies. For obvious reasons, I can't cut and paste - you'll have to go there. Besides, something mysterious was done with some groups of smileys that march around like soldiers.

Reminds me of the Monty Python piece that was, what?, Wuthering Heights or some other Bronte gothic novel, done in semaphore. The comments are great too.

Edited to add: The sound track of the movie (the Percy Faith version in .wav format) is in Reply #47, by Thtwudbeme (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=3011855&mesg_id=3015013). Really does improve the overall experience!

[Gogi]

2. You mean like the rooster that was arrested for crowing too loud .........

and often near Springfield, MO? Someone complained about this woman's rooster and the cops came and took him away. Unfortunately, they got the wrong rooster, they took 'Peaceful' by mistake. When the mayor of Springfield heard that the cops had a rooster in jail she pardoned 'Peaceful' and took him back to his farm where he now lives happily ever after.

[RevCheesehead]

3. So, instead of "Oddball," this is "Highball" ??

I like! :thumbsup:

[Gogi]

4. Someone just posted an hilarious satire 'Unitarian Jihad'.

Don't know how to transfer it to this thread, tho. Will someone enlighten me?

[Nothing Without Hope]

6. Yes, that is delightful, I saw it too - here it is

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3456445
Title: "SFChronicle: "Unitarian Jihad" by Jon Carroll"

(You don't have to transfer the whole thing, just the link and an idea what it is.)

(This is a faux series of radical jihadist communiques from a Unitarian group. It's not very bloodthirsty, as you can imagine! )

[gorbal]

103. Love that thread

I love that "Unitarian Jihad" article. It's so witty.

[Nothing Without Hope]

5. Simply indescribable but very funny: "The Depressionist Museum"

You have to go and poke around, click on pictures to get the lowdowns, visit the sculpture wing. There's just no end of amazing things, this site has obviously been a cherished hobby for some time.
http://dearauntnettie.com/museum

[Nothing Without Hope]

7. A Boston art museum you probably HAVEN'T heard about...

...is the Museum Of Bad Art (MOBA). It's a real place, and they do museumish things like sell greeting cards with prints of from their collection. As you can imagine, there is a great deal of tongue-in-cheek fun in all aspects of the MOBA.

Here's the home page of their web site:
http://www.museumofbadart.org/index.html

If you click on one of the three collections, you can choose the option "take a tour." Be sure to read the stories and comments - they're often hilarious!

[Nothing Without Hope]

8. Some very funny surprises along with the familiar at the Museum of Hoaxes

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com

This is an extensive site - look at the drop-down menus at the top. You can view hoaxes that were perpetrated at different times in history, photo hoaxes, so much more. Some are familiar and not all that funny - like Rosie Ruiz "winning" the Boston Marathon, but some are quite silly and bizarre. Just explore and see what you find.

There is also a hoax-themed weblog on the home page, where the current newest entry includes this web site, which, like many others at this site, is difficult to describe:
http://www.bovineunite.com/index.htm

If you lie and sign in as a cow (a sort of freeping, I suppose), there are many activities available, including but not limited to cow blogging (you can join and sign in with a cow name like Clarabelle), playing hangman with bovine themes (I have to tell Cheese, there's one with her name in it), and much else. I haven't signed in as a human yet, but expect dire things to happen when I do. Apparently there's this bovine jihadist plot...

[RevCheesehead]

10. Moo-Ooooo!

[kliljedahl]

9. This is one of my favorites

It's a spoof, but so very accurate.


http://www.mytrailerpark.com/


http://www.kliljedahl.net

[RevCheesehead]

11. One of my favorites: Jesus of the Week.

http://www.jesusoftheweek.com/

[Nothing Without Hope]

13. Now THERE's a different kind of site - they had THREE with Johnny Damon

The commentary on the various, ah, incarnations was great too. Though it must be said, Johnny Damon himself was pretty good at it during last year's championship season, remarking that some people didn't think it was fair for the Red Sox to have Jesus playing center field.

[bleever]

68. Shouldn't there really be sound here? "The nights on Broadway..."

But of course you already know that if you take the letters from BG and step up the first letter by one step and the second letter by three steps (the trinity), you get CJ, for Christ Jesus.

Sorry to state the obvious.

[RevCheesehead]

12. And for all you Packers fans (you know who you are!)

http://packerpalace.com/rock03.html
The fun stuff is in "The Rockwood Lodge."

Lots and lots of good stuff here. Be sure to check out the archives.

[greenmutha]

14. An oldie but goodie...

Nude Man Carrot:
http://www.liamselwyn.com/nudecarrot/nudecarrotwarning.html

Thanks for the laughs everyone, I needed some! (Been sick all week... bleh!)

[Nothing Without Hope]

15. LOL! And oldie, but I hadn't seen it!

I walked over for a closer look, and sure enough, this carrot was no ordinary carrot.  It was  Nude Man Carrot and was not shy about it at all.  Although one of his legs was shorter than the other due to clinical trials of a new fertilizer by his mother, he was fully anatomically correct.  It didn't take me long to start blushing and I offered him one of my fine Hawai'ian sarongs.  But no, not for nude man carrot.  He explained to me that he finds clothes to be cumbersome at best and downright unnatural for a carrot.

Unsurprisingly for such a lewd vegetable, he came to a sad end... :-(

Edited to add: if this hadn't been an oldie, I'll bet Nude Man Carrot would have achieved fame on eBay!

[Nothing Without Hope]

16. This one is dedicated to our Spiritual Advisor

Be sure to scroll through everything - they even have something on the history of your username!
http://unbecominglevity.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2004/4/24/42547.html
Title: "Cheese Is Funny"



Quite an amazing assemblage of the history of cheese as being funny, in fact. Who knew? And this is only one page for a whole site called "Unbecoming Levity" - looks very promising.

[RevCheesehead]

17. NEVER

And I do mean never underestimate the power of cheese! :evilgrin:

[Nothing Without Hope]

18. Hey, you're preachin' to the converted!

We KNOW!!!!

:hug: :woohoo:

[gkhouston]

19. I believe many of us are of an age to appreciate

The Gallery of Regrettable Food:

http://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/index.html

I swear, I have personally seen some of these dishes served at church suppers. Maybe some of those "Christian smiles" hid evil intentions....

[Nothing Without Hope]

20. Very funny - and also interesting for what it reveals about earlier times

in this country. For example, one of the ads shows something that would be utterly unthinkable today but what was apparently normal back then:


The beginning of the ad text (another difference is the higher proportionof text to pictures) in the original magazine (Life, published 1950):

More "Family Cars" Park Here...

It's a pretty good sign, when you see a pram parade lined up outside a store, that mothers are inside doing a smart bit of shopping.... (caption continues)

Comments by the person displaying this ad at the web site:

This is the sort of image that makes no sense today, no sense at all. The idea that women would leave their kids outside the grocery store - well, you might as well send out invitations to all the creeps & tot snatchers. But obviously things were different in 1950, or this ad would have struck the majority of Life subscribers as ludicrous nonsense.

A VERY different time! As to why they would leave their children outside, this really amazed and puzzled me. Might the aisles have been too narrow for a pram? :shrug:

[gkhouston]

21. The aisles may indeed have been too narrow.

I'll bet those women shopped with a hand-basket or a string bag, not a cart. They probably shopped on a daily or near-daily basis so it's not like they left the kids unattended for long. Those monster prams look like they were meant to carry the shopping as well as the kids. ;-)

[Nothing Without Hope]

22. I bet you're right on all counts. And the emphasis on SUPER market

in the ad shows that even this modest-sized store (by modern standards) was strikingly large for the time. Shopping trips would be short - just something picked up for dinner, walking quickly through a small store with a carry bag. The ad has captured the moment of transition between small neighborhood markets and the supermarkets of today.

[Gogi]

23. This reminds me of a website which had.....................

old weight watchers recipe cards on it. Rats! I can't think of the addy. They were truly wretched.

Here's a new one: www.tornadoattack.com

Anybody want to drive into an F1 tornado with these losers? I'll wait until they learn how to spell the plural of tornado.

On edit; FOUND IT www.candyboots.com/wwcards.html

[Nothing Without Hope]

25. The tornado chasing one was auctioned on ebay.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5570178839
There were 13 bids with a high bid of $145,100. This didn't meet the reserve set for the auction, they wanted more: a BIGGER idiot.

The 1970 Weight-Watchers cards are beyond weird! I mean, how many people would ever think of:



Thanks for these gems!
:hi:

[Gogi]

24. How about them buildings!

www.badarchitecture.org


Scroll down to and click on 'buildings that look like other things',then
scroll down to The Mr. Fu, Mr. Lu and Mr. Shou Hotel.

[crispini]

26. THIS page is hysterical

and particularly appropriate to the KOEB:

Romance Novels (revisited): :evilgrin:

http://www.worldoflongmire.com/features/romance_novels/

[Nothing Without Hope]

27. OH. MY. GAWD. crispini hits the jackpot!

I thought the 2nd group (scroll down) was even funnier than the group on top, which already had me :rofl: . And don't miss the reader submissions - they're at a link near the bottom of the page.

This is not the funniest one - I'm going to let you discover that for yourself - but it gives the idea.



One of the many funny things about the bodice-ripper romance genre is that the people who write them under those outrageous pen names are often, well, not exactly what might be imagined. I did a Google Image search under "bodice rip" and found this illustrated article about a successful author in the genre - too funny!.

http://tinyurl.com/4yvut

Note - the bare-chested hero in the cover illustration of one of her books in this one-page article is hairy-chested, which is most unusual. (Indeed, his hairy chest and the fact that it's a photograph rather than one of the characteristic paintings suggests a very low budget.) Whatever the TEXT may say -- and the rather poetic descriptions of the hero there are usually of hairy-chested (but NEVER hairy-backed) men -- the COVERS almost invariably feature men with perfectly hairless, extremely muscular chests. It's one of the many curious quirks of the genre, and thus, presumably, of the romantic fantasies of many women. And of course the relative popularity of the various plot devices is a rich territory for psychological analysis.

[crispini]

29. I think this one is my favorite.

Not laugh out loud funny but certainly snickerworthy....

[gkhouston]

28. ROFLMAO

I've got tears running down my cheeks, crispi. These were truly amazing. And I see that Cheese's favorite title was here, too. :woohoo:

[RevCheesehead]

30. Actually, there are many which would qualify....

But this would have to be the classic of the classics:



and, here's one for Botany:

[Nothing Without Hope]

33. Yes, those were my choices as the absolute funniest ones too

The top one put me into such hysterics that I had to go do something else for a while - and now I'm back into hysterics! So absolutely perfect! And it's typical in that the heroine has red hair and the hero has black hair, no shirt, and a hairless chest.
:rofl:

The lower one is another of my choices for funniest and very much like the "feel" of some bizarre romance novels that use the genre of "ancient Druid priestess" - of which, judging by the titles on booksellers' shelves there are a remarkable number. The boyfriend is generally an overbearing and overmuscled but stalwart and honest warrior of the opposition, often a Roman. I think that the psychology that makes this so popular is that the women who like these enjoy the idea of having magical nature powers or ESP that the man doesn't have and then showing him what's what - his physical power and leadership position in the "man's world" are inferior to her intuition and whatall in the "women's world." And of course, it's a given that he will be rendered helpless by his sexual attraction (even when you'd think he was too sick to care) and also by his hunger for her affection. Most typically, he has been wounded in an attack and left to die by an evil plotter who is jealous of his popularity but not smart enough to actually kill him. He begins by being physically helpless - another telling psychological element - and because of this, he has no choice but to trust her and follow her instructions. She nurses him back to health in her secret cottage in the woods, and then he finds that with the aid of her magical powers he can go back and win the day against the evil plotter who tried to kill him. Though he often ends up giving it all up afterwards and moving into the secret cottage in the woods with her, where his only apparent functions are chopping firewood and making whoopee. In this battle of the sexes, she's demolished him, though the description assures us he's really happy about it. In a few of the more progressive variants, he discovers he has magical powers too and they work together or he returns to a leadership role and brings her along with him, where she becomes a force for all sorts of good things. At least that's better than chopping wood.

As I mentioned somewhere else, I'm fascinated by the psychological implications of the various romance novel plotlines, genres which have been shown in intensive and detailed marketing studies to appeal to a significant segment of readers. If I were a man, they'd make me nervous for sure--THAT'S what women really want? (Even as a woman, most of them creep me out even apart from the bad writing.) I think that most of the women who like a particular genre like this popular Druidic Priestess one - of which I am most definitely not one - comprehend that it's just a fantasy that would never really work even if they did have that secret cottage in the woods and a wounded Roman to play with. But it's telling that so many like the fantasy enough to pay for these books. I think it's a sort of disease caused by the cultural pressures of our society. That's why I'm actually serious about it: these are unhealthy fantasies that come from cultural propaganda and don't help at all in building a real relationship.

Love the Botany connection you point out in the second title - I hadn't thought of that. It's got me :rofl: again.

[gkhouston]

34. wow, I can see I've missed a bit more than I thought by not

spending any time on this genre. ;-) Perhaps I should pick up a few of these at Half-Price Books if I can stop giggling long enough... nah, I think I'd rather re-read _To Say Nothing of The Dog_ -- guaranteed good fun, romance of a sort, and not so psychologically disturbing! (I'm really starting to think back on a friend I used to spend a lot of time with who read those things by the crate-load... what world did she live in?)

[Nothing Without Hope]

36. Yeah, I do think there's a lot of significance to be learned from the

popularity of some of the common romance novel plot devices. Too many women have been indoctrinated to believe they have no power except by "catching" a man, who of course must the be the extreme "rich powerful ultra-manly man" ideal of our sick society. Only then will their life be meaningful. Further, they believe that their only ways of attracting this prize - who generally totally overpowers them both physically and socially - are by their beauty, their "charm," their "childlike innocence," and their ability to "nurture." Many of these heroines are overtly childish in their ignorant and destructively impulsive behavior (the "spitfire" phenomenon, which the men in the novels inexplicably always fall for) and even sometimes in their age. Virginity is weirdly prized, another trait relating to the desirability of childishness.

In the sickest romance genres, there is rape and other overt violence and the women manipulate the men using guilt, which never fails to work. Very, very ugly. These women have no other power except their ability to catch a man using their physical appearance and their ability to make him feel guilty for what he has done to her and pity for her virtuous suffering. A common plotline in these is for him to rape her while drunk or in some other contrived situation so that he does not recognize her later, then accuse her of being a trollop when she is pregnant. Naturally, everything works out and we're supposed to believe this sick relationship will make everybody happy.

All of these sick romance genres are big sellers, I think, because they provide a fantasy world where these rules, which the women have been trained to believe in, actually work to make people happy. They want to escape into them because in the real world, of course, it NEVER works that way.

EDITED TO ADD: There are some books which are romances in the sense that they have guaranteed happy endings, that are NOT like these sick genres and are a real pleasure to read. Some of them are quite well-written. I've managed to surprise several serious literature types who would never have touched anything remotely like this in a million years (I used to be one myself) by handing them a couple of my favorites along with a bookcover to hide the lurid and misleading pictures (the marketing strategy used does these books a grave disservice). Without exception they loved them and wanted to find more. Unfortunately, these "quality" romance novels are rare and the badly written and psychologically sick ones are very common. Interesting, since the few "quality" titles I know of were also especially popular sellers. Vast untapped market here, I think.

I went through about 6 months of a lot of reading - well, skimming - of the various genres about 10 years ago - the local libraries had a good supply. I was so amazed and appalled by what I found that I looked at a LOT of them to try to make sense of the patterns. I still glance at the covers of the big sellers from time to time to see if the same patterns are holding. For the most part, they are.

[crispini]

44. This quote:

"they provide a fantasy world where these rules, which the women have been trained to believe in, actually work to make people happy. They want to escape into them because in the real world, of course, it NEVER works that way."

hit the nail on the head, girl! :thumbsup: No matter what twists and turns these things go through, they are guaranteed to end with happiness and smooth sailing.

Although I do think the "strong woman" variant of romance -- or at least, moderately strong woman -- is a little more common than that. Maybe it's just the particular ones I ran across? I always seem to remember that the heroine was often a nurse, a decorator, or some other kind of sex-role-approprate "career" .... but it *was* a "career" at least. But it's been forever since I read these things, though, I went through a phase when I was much much younger and haven't really been back. Would be interesting to revisit them for research purposes -- hmm.....

[Nothing Without Hope]

52. Yeah, sometime we'll have to find a place to discuss what are the

best books of all kinds that we've been reading (fiction and nonfiction) and maybe even set up a book exchange among ourselves. Book rate mailing is cheap and convenient, and the discussions would be enjoyable and informative, I have no doubt.

[crispini]

37. Well, the "woman takes care of the helpless man" plotline

is certainly not restricted to the "Druid priestess" variant of the romance genre. (I don't think I've actually *read* any of those, heh.) There's a lot of "nursing" and "rescue" scenarios in other types of romances as well. I don't really think of it as a *disease* so much as a *symptom* of our cultural values. Like it or not, our society still expects women to be nurturers, caregivers, etc., and the fact is that many women DO find fulfilment in those roles. I see these types of fantasies more as an expression of a wish that these feminine nurturing tendencies *would* be more powerful and/or valued by our society -- they're really NOT valued as much as the masculine competitive ego type of thing.

Now as to whether or not this kind of thing might help (or not) in building a real relationship ... :shrug: It depends on what model of relationship you buy into, ya know? The male=masculine, female=feminine dyad fits pretty neatly into it.

Romance novels intrigue me precisely *because* of their popularity... almost any element of popular culture, even the most banal, when taken apart in the right way, can be really revealing. I once wrote a fifty page paper on "Love Connection." Took it to a conference, even! :7

[gkhouston]

38. I'll reveal my cultural ignorance

what is "Love Connection"? (Ooh, right now I'm getting earwormed by "Love Shack" and I don't think that's quite the connection you had in mind, although perhaps it's close!)

[crispini]

40. TV show popular in the late 80s,

Dating game type show. Chuck Woolery was the host. IIRC, the guest had three prospective dates to choose from. We met the guest and the three prospective dates. The audience then votes on who THEY think would be the best date for the guest. Then we find out who the guest picked, and the guest and the date tell us about the how the actual date went.

THEN, we find out who the audience picked for the guest. The guest then has the option of going out on a free date with the person the audience picked, regardless of who they actually went out with.

It was interesting, because the audience was sort of "second-guessing" the guest. My paper was a lot of fun to write -- my theory was that the whole thing was tapping into the family dynamic, with Chuck Woolery as the "dad" role (advising, chastising) and the audience as the "mom" role (sympathising, encouraging, and ultimately second-guessing.) Drag in parental archetypes and Foucault and Derrida and you've got one fun paper. :7 I should try to find it sometime....

[Nothing Without Hope]

43. Interesting - and it does seem to tap into some cultural archetypes

50 pages, huh? That must have been fun - hope you can find it.

[gkhouston]

39. "woman takes care of helpless man"

:mad: I said to someone many years ago, "when I have children, I intend to bear them, not marry them." Yeah, we all need some nurturing from time to time and kindness can actually be a very attractive feature in a prospective partner. But helpless? Who truly desires that on a daily basis, long-term? We make our vows, and sometimes that's what we get at the end of the day, but to romanticize about it? :wtf:

[crispini]

42. Right, but in a lot of these romance novels

it's usually a temporary thing, like Hope said. Broken arm, something like that. See, because the guy is usually the uber-masculine captain of industry type, it's a plot device used to slow him down and sort of force him to recognize the "hidden virtues" of the heroine, who in this type of novel is probably the "mousier" variant of heroine. :shrug: He recovers, but has been forced to be "weaker" for a while due to some deus ex machina, and often thereby learns some proverbial lesson about the values of the feminine, stuff like that.

[gkhouston]

45. and the women who find these plotlines plausible would be

the same ones who kept telling me that Star Trek: Voyager was good science fiction? :freak:

[Nothing Without Hope]

47. I'm not sure they find the plotlines plausible, but they do find them

SATISFYING. They satisfy some kind of hunger. That's why the wild popularity of some of the sicker genres is a symptom.

But I do suspect that on some subconscious level they are dissatisfied when real men don't behave like the ones in their favorite novels. As of course, no man would EVER behave - so they do encourage impossible expectations. No wonder they feel perpetually unloved!

[crispini]

48. Heh.

Oh, "plausible" and "entertaining" don't really have much in common a lot of times. I'm going through a huge mystery phase right now. The average mystery? Not realistic in the least. But quite often fun as heck. :)

[Nothing Without Hope]

49. Some time we'll have to start a thread for discussing books- but where?

There's a Science Fiction Group and a Fantasy Group, but I didn't see a Mystery or a Fiction Novel group. I do like some SF and some fantasy, but those are fairly narrow classifications.

[gkhouston]

50. we could start a thread here in the group for our own

edification. Then I could find out which kind of mysteries crispi's reading right now. Those I've actually read, off and on over the years. Romance novels -- only if there was a romantic subplot in something else I was reading. Somehow, "Rowena's Ravished Reticule" just doesn't get me going.

[crispini]

56. Mysteries:

I *adore* Agatha Christie era female authors ... the golden age of British mystery. Josephine Tey, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy
Sayers. I wish I could find some more in their era that are similar. Also Rex Stout -- I have all of his books, I think. At the moment, I'm reading one of Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody Egyptian archeology mysteries. They're pure mind candy, complete and total escapism. Fun stuff. :7 What about you -- what are you reading?

[Nothing Without Hope]

58. We have similar tastes! And I've just gotten Peters' new Emerson/Peabody

novel The Serpent On the Crown. I absolutely ADORE that series and am looking forward to seeing what they're all up to. In this series the mystery element was always less obsessively plotted out than the human and archaeological ones. Here's what I wrote as an Amazon review just after Children of the Storm came out:

In truth, my five stars are intended for a subset of the general reading population, those who have been enjoying the continuing saga of this most peculiar and lovable Egyptological (and much else) family. In my experience, people either get a kick out of the quasi-Victorian tongue-in-cheek flavor of these adventures and dote on their favorite characters, or they don't have the patience or whimsy for them. I am unabashedly in the pro-Amelia (and Ramses and Emerson and Sethos and so on) group, and I loved this book. Unlike many "mainstream" mysteries, these books will not depress you but are excellent company in a comfortable chair, preferably with a cup of "the genial beverage" nearby. (This is not necessarily tea -- Amelia clarifies that when sufficiently stressed, her choice of genial beverage is a whiskey-and-soda.) I wouldn't say it is the very best in the whole series, but it is definitely in the top half. I enjoyed it very much, and if you like this series, you will too. Besides, who could resist Emerson as a grandpa? I also have a strong amateur interest in archaeology and always value the Egyptological tidbits this knowledgable author shares along the way. I also appreciate her essentially compassionate, constructive and anti-authoritarian worldview. These stories are entertaining, but they're not fluff.

I think The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey is one of the finest mystery novels ever written as well many other things. I've left behind a trail of used copies of this book given to friends. The Rex Stout books are fun, pure and simple. The Tony Hillerman books have gone downhill, I feel, and have a certain bleakness about them, but have much to recommend them.

I've heard of Ngaio Marsh of course, but haven't read any. I LOVE the Peter Wimsey mysteries of Dorothy Sayers - it's so clear that she fell in love with him herself, and she really enjoyed those literary word games and donnish university settings and characters.

I'll have to give this some thought. I generally don't read as much mystery as other things, but I have some more favorites I'm not thinking of just now.

ed:sp

[crispini]

61. Isn't Sayers wonderful?

I'd fall in love with Lord Peter myself. :) If you like her, you'll like Marsh too; they have certain similarities-- an academic policeman hero and, in some of them, his artistic wife. Plus, lots of New Zealand for local color, which is soooo enjoyable.

What fun, mysteries! :)

[gkhouston]

65. I couldn't even begin to count how many times I've

read _Gaudy Night_. My oldest sister is a huge Anglophile and got me hooked on Sayers. Actually, she was engaged to an Oxford don for a while but I glad she didn't marry him; I wouldn't see her nearly so often if I had to fly to England to see her. She remains the only person I've ever met who went to England for a vacation and came back with a suntan.

[Nothing Without Hope]

70. "Went to England for a vacation and came back with a SUNTAN"!?!?

Wow, if that's not proof of global warming I don't know what is! Seems a lot of the mystery novels adapted for the old PBS Mystery series had to do with Oxford University in one way or another. The ones that come immediately to mind are those of Inspector Morse, whom John Thaw played to such perfection, but I think several others featured donnish scenes too. In these, as in Dorothy Sayers' Wimsey movels (and long may he wave), there were so many inside jokes about Oxford that some were discernible even by aliens from across the Atlantic.

[gkhouston]

64. I'm not reading anything just now

too much work x( but I've been a Sayers fan for decades and have read a *lot* of the "golden age" authors. Semi-off-topic: have you read Connie Willis' _To Say Nothing of the Dog_? You would especially like it if you've read a lot of golden age British mysteries.

I've read some of the Amelia Peabody mysteries, but can never keep track of which ones I've read and which I haven't. I liked Dorothy Dunnett's suspense/mystery series about Johnson Johnson, although she's better known for her historical fiction. I also like Dick Francis' work -- got turned on to him by a college professor years ago who kept raving about "Nerve". And I like Sharon McCrumb, too. And there's any number of cosies that I've read and mostly forgotten the moment I put them down although a few authors go beyond that.

[Nothing Without Hope]

71. Have not read Willis or Dunnett, do like some Dick Francis and pretty much

all Sharon McCrumb. The Dick Francis ones I finally tried reading seemed sort of uneven, with some much better than others. I'll definitely look for To Say Nothing Of the Dog in the library.

Re the Amelia Peabody series - PM me if you want a list of them in order. I wrote it up for a friend who was interested but unfamiliar with these books. You really do have to read them in order to get the full effect, since the central characters' lives evolve steadily throughout. They also vary a lot in the tone of the story that accompanies the mystery line, with some being broadly slapstick and others being quite serious and even tragic.

[gkhouston]

73. I'll PM you for a list if I ever get any time to read

agreed about the Francis. Some (like Proof) I've read multiple times, others only once.

Connie Willis is considered a Science Fiction/Fantasy author, but I'm almost certain you'll enjoy To Say Nothing of the Dog. Check it out and give it a try; I think you'll be hooked after a chapter or two.

[Nothing Without Hope]

76. Sounds good. In SF, I especially like Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan

series. I read tonight that she currently has no plans for another one in that series - :cry:
I do have to respect her view that until and unless she has a story she wants to tell, she won't respond to pressure to write another book in that enormously popular series. But I really want another Miles Vorkosigan book!

If you want to know more about this series, we'll have to discuss it sometime. It's really political and psychological and has huge amounts of humanity and humor and wonderful hard Sci Fi and often mystery. Have to be read in order; they start with Miles' formidable parents meeting.

[gkhouston]

77. I think the only thing I've read by her was "Falling Free"

Liked it much.

[Nothing Without Hope]

78. "Falling Free" is set in the same universe as the Miles Vorkosigan books

but something like 400 years earlier. You do meet the Quaddies again late in the MV series, and the author - whose beloved father had a career as a failure engineer - continues to show her respect for true engineers, though Miles himself is not one. If you like, I'll PM you with the titles of the first few Miles Vorkosigan books. They are superb, and in general they get better as the people and the story get more evolved and deeper over the series. You can find these books in the library, but like I said you have to read them in order. There are a lot of inside jokes and references back to earlier books in the series, like old family stories. And also, I found upon rereading the series after a couple of years, I understood a lot more in the earlier books than on the first reading.

[gkhouston]

81. sure. Don't know when I'll get around to reading 'em, but I

can stuff the PM away in a safe place until I find some reading time. Thanks.

[crispini]

51. There are Fiction and Nonfiction *forums*

they're just not groups. But if *we* wanna chat about stuff there's no reason (IMO) *we* can't do it here if we keep the threads to a reasonable minimum and flag 'em off-topic. It's just us chickens in the clubhouse after all!

Our first choice for the KOEB Book Club could be the Unauthorized History of ESPN. :evilgrin:

[gkhouston]

53. I know my husband's gonna roll his eyes when I bring that

book home... and he's gonna snag it off the couch the minute I get up to do the dishes. :7

[Nothing Without Hope]

54. Sounds good to me

I've not read that one - maybe we can start with people putting in suggestions of their own favorite books in various categories and go from there.

[crispini]

55. It's the tell-all book that features a lot of input by KO.

Very appropriate. ;)

[Nothing Without Hope]

57. odd - couldn't find it just now on Amazon.com

Can you give me the author's name? I saw it referred to once in a google search, but they didn't give the author.

[crispini]

59. A-ha! I knew I got the title wrong.

ESPN : The Uncensored History
by Michael Freeman

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0878332707/qid=1113432164/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/103-8638655-7964600?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

[Nothing Without Hope]

62. Hmmm...one of the Amazon reviewers says that Keith Olbermann is cast as

"the tortured genius." This reviewer gave the book just one star, but even he was caught by what was said about our Keef. Overall, the average is about 3.5 stars out of 5, so there were a lot of people who enjoyed the book. Opinion seems to be more polarized than usual.

Lots of very cheap used copies!

[gkhouston]

66. "tortured genius"? Poor baby. Don't tell me... did someone

paddle him and pour syrup on him? :evilgrin:

[Nothing Without Hope]

46. Generally the sicker the novel, the more dire and long-lasting the injury

to the uber-manly hero. Sometimes he's so weak that he can't even feed himself for a prolonged time. He is literally brought low and made powerless, though after he learns to "love" the woman he regains his physical strength. I do suspect a deliberate element of hostile fantasy fulfulment in these.

I can think of only two of the "good" romance novels I've read that started this way - in one, the man recovered very quickly and in the other the woman rescued him from some attackers with a gun in her reticule (this was a historical) and took him to his home, where he quickly recovered from his injury. In both of these cases, the woman saved the man's life but he didn't really become powerless and she didn't rub it in. The ones where the man truly becomes like a baby, totally dependent on the woman, are invariably of the sick variety in my experience. (That is, my experience 10 years ago when I skimmed a LOT of all kinds of romance novels to try to see the patterns.)

[Nothing Without Hope]

41. Yes, I agree. "Symptom" is better than "disease."

Some of them are truly sick, but the popularity of those is a symptom.

And you're right - a few of my favorites among the "good" romance novels also have the "rescued man" device as a way of introducing the protagonists in a setting where they would not have crossed paths otherwise. But in these, unlike the sick ones, the woman has her own self-confidence and abilities and the interaction is a much more balanced and satisfying one. The people are not perfect but they are recognizably human and very likable, and the environment of setting and other characters is rich and engrossing, even educational. There's also good writing and clever humor. These books are like an occasional hot fudge sundae treat when you're really in the mood for one, just as many "mainstream" novels are. So I have to disagree when someone attacks ALL romance novels as trash.

[crispini]

31. LOL! This thread in the Lounge!

Big crack in my windshield today, what should I do?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x3037035#3037074

[AmyJCNJ]

32. ok here's my contribution...

A Brief History of the Codpiece

http://www.thehendricks.net/codpiece_history.htm

[Nothing Without Hope]

35. Love it!!! Though I do suspect some of the historical documentation... n/t

[Nothing Without Hope]

60. The auto accessory for people who think their Prius (or other ugly hybrid)

isn't "priapic" enough. OK, it's in bad taste, but I think it's HILARIOUS. And be sure to click on the explanatory descriptions for the different color variations offered in the links on the left side of the page. This whole site makes me laugh. Who needs the expensive symbolism of a Jag? These are much cheaper and make the same statement!

http://www.bumpernuts.com

[bleever]

67. OH! Just laughing and laughing....

And what a wonderful concept, Hope.

I gotta check the clubhouse more consistently.

:)

[Nothing Without Hope]

69. Yeah, it isn't all just gossip about bodice-ripper novels, ya know!

Though some of that has its moments too - hope you saw crispini's site with the, ah, retitled romance novel covers, it is not to be missed!
:evilgrin:

[Catchawave]

63. GOPBasher's "I'm a Republican Candidate, ask me anything"

..is hysterical. Of course, I'm a huge fan of 'serious wit'..enjoy:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x3036433

[Nothing Without Hope]

72. Okay, I posted this in the Lounge myself some time back. I STILL think it

is hilarious:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=2806602
Title: "Norwegians can get...kinda STRANGE in the winter. Check this out!"

Some of the comments are funny too.

[gkhouston]

74. well, when they've missed their chance with the EDVs, I

guess there's nothing left but "tree-hugging" if you know what I mean...

[Nothing Without Hope]

75. LOL! ...yep, I'm afraid I DO know what you mean!

poor babies!
:evilgrin:

[SharonRB]

83. And here's some good Blivet** humor

You have to read all the way to the end to get to the punch line... no fair skipping ahead...Which newspaper do YOU read?

1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.

2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.

3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country and who are very good at crossword puzzles.

4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand The New York Times. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts.

5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country -- if they could find the time -- and if they didn't have to leave Southern California to do it.

6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and did a far superior job of it, thank you very much.

7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.

8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who'srunning the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.

9. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores.

10. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't surethere is a country ... or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped minority feminist atheist dwarfs who also happen to be illegal aliens from any other country or galaxy provided, of course, that they are not Republicans.

11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.

12. None of these are read by the guy who is running the country into the ground.

[crispini]

87. Excellent! I hadn't read that one!

I just sent it to my boss.

I read 1, 3, and 4. And the Dallas Morning News, which is read by the people who DO run the country. Texas is a country, right?

True story. I was at a Dem function last night talking to the husband of one of our new judges. She's already been sued by the leaders of the Republic of Texas on the grounds that she was illegally elected because she wasn't elected under THEIR charter, because, Texas, after all, is a country, not a state.

So the other guy we were talking to -- who is a former Democratic party county chair -- says, "Well, you know, they're right."

Then we all had a good laugh, but STILL.... :7

[Nothing Without Hope]

79. Oldie but goodie from the Lounge - CONDI RICE PHOTOSHOPPING CONTEST

Some of these are so wonderful. I think the premise of the contest was to portray Condi in a setting that would explain the murderous expression on her face in that famous photo of her by a curtain at a meeting.

Here's the thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=2838734
Thread title: "MUST SEE - Condi Rice photoshopping contest entries"

Many of the best shots are in the DU thread, so scroll down. There are four in the OP and more in the replies. The original link has so many photos that it loads very slowly; the DU thread with some of the best ones loads much faster.

[crispini]

85. Dude. She makes a GREAT Klingon.

That's too funny. :rofl:

[gkhouston]

86. but don't Klingons know something about HONOR?

I think she's a fake Klingon. Sure she's not a Cardassian spy, cleverly disguised?

on ed: although the bad teeth are certainly a Klingon trait. :spank:

[CC]

80. Its not from DU but it is funny....

got these in email and actually never saw them before so sharing here...




One recent morning I was driving in Miami on I-95, which should have
a sign that says "Warning:HIGH TESTOSTERONE LEVELS NEXT 15 MILES. In the left hand lane, one behind the other, were two well-dressed middle-aged men, both driving luxury German autos. They looked like responsible business executives, with good jobs and nice families and male pattern baldness, probably named Roger; the kind of guys whose most violent activity, on an average day, is stapling. They were driving normally, except that the guy in front, Roger One, was thoughtlessly going only about 65 mph, which in Miami is the speed limit observed in car washes. So Roger Two pulled up behind until the two cars were approxamately one electron apart and honked his horn.

Of course Roger One was not about to stand for THAT. You let a guy honk at you, and you are admitting that he has a bigger stapler. So Roger One stomped on his brakes, forcing Roger Two to swerve onto the shoulder, where, showing amazing presence of mind in an emergency, he was able to make obscene gestures WITH BOTH HANDS.

At this point both Rogers accelerated to approxamately 147 mph and began weaving violently from lane to lane through dense rush hour traffic, each risking numerous lives to get in front of the other, screamingand getting spit all over their walnut dashboards. Their co-workers probably wondered what happened to them. "Where the heck is Roger?" they probably said later that morning, unaware that even as they spoke the two dueling Rogers, still only inches apart, were approaching the Canadian border. This is not unusual guy behavior. One time in a D.C. traffic jam I saw two guys, also driving nice cars, reach a point where their lanes were supposed to merge. But neither one would yield, so they slowly-we're talking maybe one mph-DROVE INTO EACH OTHER.

Why do guys do these things? One possible explanation is that they believe women are impressed. However, most women have the opposite reaction to macho behavior. You rarely hear women say things like, "Norm, when that vending machine failed to give you a Three Muskateers Bar and you punched it so hard that you broke your hand and we had to go to the hospital instead of my best friend's wedding, I became so filled with lust for you that I nearly tore off all my clothes right there in the emergency room".No, women are far more likely to say, "Norm, you have the brains of an odor-eater".

But the real explanation for macho behavior is not that guys are stupid. It's really because of that complex and subtle hormone-based chemical reaction occurring in their brainsthat guys sometimes ACT stupid. This is true throughout the animal kingdom, where you have examples such as male elks, who, instead of simply flipping a coin, will bang their heads together for hours to see who gets to mate with the female elk, who is on the sidelines, filing her nails and wondering how she ever got hooked up with such a moron species, until eventually she gets bored and wanders off to bed.

At least human males don't do that...they have tanks.







So you think you're computer-illiterate? Check out the following excerpts from a Wall Street Journal article by Jim Carlton --

1. Compaq is considering changing the command "Press Any Key" to "Press Return Key" because of the flood of calls asking where the "Any" key is.

2. AST technical support had a caller complaining that her mouse was hard to control with the dust cover on. The cover turned out to be the plastic bag the mouse was packaged in.

3. Another Compaq technician received a call from a man complaining that the system wouldn't read word processing files from his old diskettes. After trouble- shooting for magnets and heat failed to diagnose the problem, it was found that the customer labeled the diskettes then rolled them into the typewriter to type the labels.

4. Another AST customer was asked to send a copy of her defective diskettes. A few days later a letter arrived from the customer along with Xeroxed copies of the floppies.

5. A Dell technician advised his customer to put his troubled floppy back in the drive and close the door. The customer asked the tech to hold on, and was heard putting the phone down, getting up and crossing the room to close the door to his room.

6. Another Dell customer called to say he couldn't get his computer to fax anything. After 40 minutes of trouble-shooting, the technician discovered the man was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in front of the monitor screen and hitting the "send" key.

7. Another Dell customer needed help setting up a new program, so a Dell tech suggested he go to the local Egghead. "Yeah, I got me a couple of friends, "the customer replied. When told Egghead was a software store, the man said, "Oh, I thought you meant for me to find a couple of geeks."

8. Yet another Dell customer called to complain that his keyboard no longer worked. He had cleaned it by filling up his tub with soap and water and soaking the keyboard for a day, then removing all the keys and washing them individually.

9. A Dell technician received a call from a customer who was enraged because his computer had told him he was "bad and an invalid". The tech explained that the computer's "bad command" and "invalid" responses shouldn't be taken personally.

10. An exasperated caller to Dell Computer Tech Support couldn't get her new Dell Computer to turn on. After ensuring the computer was plugged in, the technician asked her what happened when she pushed the power button. Her response, "I pushed and pushed on this foot pedal and nothing happens." The "foot pedal" turned out to be the computer's mouse.

11. Another customer called Compaq tech support to say her brand-new computer wouldn't work. She said she unpacked the unit, plugged it in, and sat there for 20 minutes waiting for something to happen. When asked what happened when she pressed the power switch, she asked "What power switch?"

12. True story from a Novell NetWire SysOp:
Caller: "Hello, is this Tech Support?"
Tech: "Yes, it is. How may I help you?"
Caller: "The cup holder on my PC is broken and I am within my warranty period. How do I go about getting that fixed?"
Tech: "I'm sorry, but did you say a cup holder?"
Caller: "Yes, it's attached to the front of my computer."
Tech: "Please excuse me if I seem a bit stumped, It's because I am. Did you receive this as part of a promotional, at a trade show? How did you get this cup holder? Does it have any trademark on it?"
Caller: "It came with my computer, I don't know anything about a promotional. It just has '4X' on it."
At this point the Tech Rep had to mute the caller, because he couldn't stand it. The caller had been using the load drawer of the CD-ROM drive as a cup holder, and snapped it off the drive!





Smiling is infectious, you catch it like the flu.

When someone smiled at me today,
I started smiling too.

I passed around the corner
and someone saw my grin.
When he smiled I realized
I'd passed it on to him.

I thought about that smile.
Then I realized its worth,
A single smile, just like mine
could travel round the earth.

So, if you feel a smile begin,
don't leave it undetected.
Let's start an epidemic quick,
and get the world infected!

[SharonRB]

82. Not from DU, but some funny Jewish humor

JEWISH JEOPARDY: We give the answer, you give the question

A: Midrash
Q: What is a Middle East skin disease?

A: The Gaza Strip
Q: What is an Egyptian Belly Dance?

A: A classroom, a Passover ceremony, and a latke
Q: What are a cheder, a seder, and a tater?

A: Sofer
Q: On what do Jews recline on Passover?

A: Babylon
Q: What does the rabbi do during some sermons?

A: Filet Minyan
Q: What do you call steaks ordered by 10 Jews?

A: Kishka, sukkah, and circumcision
Q: What are a gut, a hut, and a cut?

And speaking of circumcisions: An enterprising Rabbi is offering
circumcisions via the Internet. The service is to be called..."E-MOIL."

[SharonRB]

84. And one more...living will humor

I get stuff all the time at work. This one is very funny -- I'm happy to share.

Subject: Living will is the best revenge

Like many of you, I have been compelled by recent events to prepare a more detailed advance directive dealing with end-of-life issues. Here's what mine says:

In the event I lapse into a persistent vegetative state, I want medical authorities to resort to extraordinary means to prolong my hellish semi-existence. Fifteen years wouldn't be long enough for me.

I want my wife and my parents to compound their misery by engaging in a bitter and protracted feud that depletes their emotions and their bank accounts.

I want my wife to ruin the rest of her life by maintaining an interminable vigil at my bedside. I'd be really jealous if she waited less than a decade to start dating again or otherwise rebuilding a semblance of a normal life.

I want my case to be turned into a circus by losers and crackpots from
around the country who hope to bring meaning to their empty lives by
investing the same transient emotion in me that they once reserved for Laci Peterson, Chandra Levy and that little girl who got stuck in a well.

I want those crackpots to spread vicious lies about my wife.

I want to be placed in a hospice where protesters can gather to bring
further grief and disruption to the lives of dozens of dying patients and families whose stories are sadder than my own.

I want the people who attach themselves to my case because of their deep devotion to the sanctity of life to make death threats against any judges, elected officials or health care professionals who disagree with them.

I want the medical geniuses and philosopher kings who populate the Florida Legislature to ignore me for more than a decade and then turn my case into a forum for weeks of politically calculated bloviation.

I want total strangers - oily politicians, maudlin news anchors, ersatz friars and all other hangers-on - to start calling me "Bobby," as if they had known me since childhood.

I'm not insisting on this as part of my directive, but it would be nice if Congress passed a "Bobby's Law" that applied only to me and ignored the medical needs of tens of millions of other Americans without adequate health coverage.

Even if the "Bobby's Law" idea doesn't work out, I want Congress -
especially all those self-described conservatives who claim to believe in "less government and more freedom" - to trample on the decisions of doctors, judges and other experts who actually know something about my case. And I want members of Congress to launch into an extended debate that gives them another excuse to avoid pesky issues such as national security and the economy.

In particular, I want House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to use my case as an opportunity to divert the country's attention from the mounting political and legal troubles stemming from his slimy misbehavior.

And I want Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to make a mockery of his
Harvard medical degree by misrepresenting the details of my case in ways that might give a boost to his 2008 presidential campaign.

I want Frist and the rest of the world to judge my medical condition on the basis of a snippet of dated and demeaning videotape that should have remained private.

Because I think I would retain my sense of humor even in a persistent
vegetative state, I'd want President Bush - the same guy who publicly mocked Karla Faye Tucker when signing off on her death warrant as governor of Texas - to claim he was intervening in my case because it is always best "to err on the side of life."

I want the state Department of Children and Families to step in at the last moment to take responsibility for my well-being, because nothing bad could ever happen to anyone under DCF's care.

And because Gov. Jeb Bush is the smartest and most righteous human being on the face of the Earth, I want any and all of the aforementioned directives to be disregarded if the governor happens to disagree with them. If he says he knows what's best for me, I won't be in any position to argue.

[RevCheesehead]

88. God help me - - this DU thread is hysterical!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x3046182

(be sure to see what the smartass posted at #13)

[crispini]

89. .

:eyes:

:spank:

:P

[gkhouston]

90. isn't that Sparky's job?

then again, Comcast has been pretty unreliable this week...

[crispini]

91. .

:rofl:

[gkhouston]

92. okay, it's not his *job*

just his favorite hobby. :evilgrin:

[CC]

93. A picture

[Nothing Without Hope]

94. Viagra ruled kosher for Passover

...but it has to be swallowed in a special kosher capsule. I kid you not.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3481570

This is a current DU thread, so you can go post some comments and appreciation!

[Nothing Without Hope]

95. Republicans sued over W bumper stickers...by a Bush supporter!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1403195#

This thread is in LBN now, and it is priceless! Read the story and you'll understand the large number of :rofl: s in the replies! The irony is truly magnificent. The plaintiff is a Bush supporter - which is what makes the story funny - but I'll forgive him if he can win this suit and generate lots of press coverage in the process. And maybe one of those "activist judges" can get some of his/her own back.

[Nothing Without Hope]

96. Take this quiz: WHICH WIFE OF HENRY VIII ARE YOU?

The questions are a gas. Though no one in their right mind would want to marry Henry VIII.

http://www.spookbot.com/quiz/index.html

[WhirlyGirl]

98. I am incurably romantic Catarina of Aragon.

. . . As if the test were really necessary to find this out. :eyes:

:loveya:

[Catchawave]

102. Jane Seymour !

He liked her best too :woohoo:

[RevCheesehead]

104. Somewhere in Time -

I think you're Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. :)

[Nothing Without Hope]

105. Oooooooh! Yeah, wish that had been on the list!

But then, she'd have given old Henry what-for and left the premises on a wonderful and useful adventure before his thugs could grab her. What a woman!

I do wonder what would have happened if Jane Seymour had survived. She was his one true love, but they didn't really have all that long a marriage. Would he have tired of her and decided she was unfaithful or a witch or whatever? I'm betting it would have happened eventually. She did give him a living, legitimate son, which would have gone a long way toward saving her, and so much the better if she had had additional children. He loved Catherine of Aragorn (to use the English spelling) but turned against her in part because of the repeated failures to produce a living child, let alone a son, after Mary.

He wasn't always the monster he became. Lots of what-ifs.

[Catchawave]

106. That's what I thought too ...LOL

until I realized this Jane died in childbirth :shrug:

[gkhouston]

108. Anne of Cleves

No way am I going to wear that dorky hat

[Nothing Without Hope]

97. Here is the official URINAL POSITION CHOICE TEST to separate the men

from the non-men. I failed it miserably myself, so it appears to have some merit in identifying unqualified test participants. Memo to that asinine Harvard president that said women have less scientific ability, here's the only evidence I've seen that there may be an area of math where MEN have an edge. Even here, though, it's probably training:

http://www.drinknation.com/urinaltest.php

[Catchawave]

99. 30 out of 60 !

At least they knew I was a girl ! LOL, that was fun, and educational.

[Nothing Without Hope]

100. Cheese got 40/60 (impressive!), I got 10/60 (guess they caught me) and

Sparky ACED it. Amazing!

[Nothing Without Hope]

101. Another Quiz: WHICH OF THE GREEK GODS ARE YOU?

Come on, you know it's only appropriate! :evilgrin:

http://quizilla.com/users/truly-dippy/quizzes/%3F%3F%20Which%20Of%20The%20Greek%20Gods%20Are%20You%20%3F%3F/

[WhirlyGirl]

107. Aphro-frickin-DITE, facryinoutloud!!!

. . . A love goddess?-- I dunno.

Always considered myself more along the lines of Artemis (feminist), or Athena (learning).

[gkhouston]

109. but you're an incurable romantic, so maybe that's what came

through here? :shrug: I got Aprhodite/Eros also.

[WhirlyGirl]

110. gk, maybe Venus just = EDV ... LOL!

. . .

[gkhouston]

111. LOL, lucky she's got that man to occupy her

while the tiger cubs are napping!

[RevCheesehead]

112. *snort*

You made me snort! :rofl:

[gkhouston]

113. how very un-ladylike

and you thought it was the vixenish behavior that scares 'em off. It's really the snorting. Either that, or they're afraid they don't have enough energy to fully service doubly-divines... not everybody's got the strength for that. :9

[WhirlyGirl]

115. Nicole Kidman has an affliction: She snorts when she laughs.

. . . She was on Ellen recently and couldn't stop laughing -- so she kept snorting.

It was both funny and tragic. :cry:

:rofl:

[WhirlyGirl]

114. Oh mercy, will we EVER be able to think of ...

. . . nips any more without tigers popping into our minds a second later?!

[WhirlyGirl]

116. This is no big knee-slapper, but I was looking for pics of Keith & Dan ...

. . . and came across somebody's endearing conception of
Dan Patrick as Good Old Charlie Brown --



AWWWWWWWWW!
:-)

[WhirlyGirl]

117. I don't see this on here; hope nobody already posted because it is FUNEEE!

- - -
EGG ON THEIR FACES?-- NO, IT'S THEIR FACES ON EGGS
"Page 6"
The NYPost
4-30-05

IS it the ultimate tribute, or a bad yolk, that an artist is painting the portraits of all the Fox News Channel stars on grade-A farm eggs?

Painter Alex Gardega says: "I have finished, and delivered, Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade and I am working on Ann Coulter as well as Judge Napolitano ... My hero is Salvador Dali, and we both share an egg obsession, but he never did egg portraits ...

:rofl::rofl::rofl: "My best egg portrait was Bill O'Reilly until I dropped him on his head. So I am repainting him." :rofl::rofl::rofl:
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You couldn't make this stuff up. I hope Keith mentions it on Monday. :-)

[Nothing Without Hope]

118. Classic Toy Museum - and "Wooly Willy" looks just like JimmyJeff "Gannon"!

Here is an important clue as to how no one caught on to his faux identity or the odd fact that he had unprecedented access to the White House on all those day passes... With that bald head (the blivet** REALLY goes for those), all he has to do is rearrange his eyebrows and he looks like a new man!

Fun to read about some of the other "Classic Toys" at this site too. Some of them are VERY familiar to me and I bet they will be to you too. On the Ant Farm page, for example, read how long the ants usually live and what usually fiinishes them off.
http://burlingamepezmuseum.com/classictoy/wooly.html