Jokes and Trivia for December 23, 2011

Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune into. – Wayne Dyer

FOR TODAY – DECEMBER 23rd – FRIDAY

357th day of 2011 with 8 to follow.

Holidays for Today:

*Festivus

*Roots Day

*National Pfeffernuesse Day

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TODAY IN BIRTHDAYS:

1822 Sebastian Wilhelm Valentin Bauer, Dillingen, Bavaria, pioneer inventor of submarines
1867 Madam C.J. Walker, Delta, Louisiana, philanthropist and tycoon (First of her family to be born free, first woman too became a millionaire by her own achievements/ developing and marketing line of beauty and hair products for black women)
1902 Norman Maclean, Clarinda, Iowa, author (A River Runs Through It & Other Stories, Young Men and Fire)
1926 Robert Bly, Lac qui Parle County, Minnesota, poet (Silence in the Snowy Fields)
1936 Frederic Forrest, Waxahachie, Texas, actor (Apocalypse Now, Blue Duck/Lonesome Dove, When Legends Die)
1938 Robert E(lliot) Kahn, computer scientist who co-created the packet-switching protocols that enable computers to exchange information on the Internet (Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) & Internet Protocol (IP))
1940 Jorma Kaukonen, Washington, D.C., musician (Jefferson Airplane, Hot Tuna)
1943 Mikhail Gromov, Boksitogorsk, Russian SFSR, USSR, Russian-born mathematician, known for important contributions in many different areas of mathematics
1943 Harry Shearer, Los Angeles, California, actor (The Simpsons, Saturday Night Live, Spinal Tap )
1945 Ron Bushy, Washington, D.C., drummer (Iron Butterfly)
1946 Susan Lucci, Scarsdale NY, actress (Erica Kane/All My Children, Dancing w/the Stars 7)
1958 Joan Severance, Houston, Texas, actress (Lake Consequence , Criminal Passion , Payback)
1964 Eddie Vedder, Evanston, Illinois, musician (Pearl Jam)
1990 Anna Maria Perez de Taglé, San Francisco, California, actress, model, and singer (Hannah Montana , Camp Rock and Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam )

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I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. ~ Charles Dickens

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HAPPENED THIS DAY IN HISTORY:

1783 George Washington resigns as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army at the Maryland State House in Annapolis, Maryland.
1913 Federal Reserve Act is signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson, creating the Federal Reserve.
1938 Discovery of the first modern coelacanth fish in South Africa.
1947 The transistor is first demonstrated at Bell Laboratories.
1954 The first human kidney transplantis performed by Dr. Joseph E. Murray at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.
1970 The North Tower of the World Trade Center in Manhattan, New York City is topped out at 1,368 feet (417 m), making it the tallest building in the world at that time.
1972 A 6.5 magnitude earthquake strikes the Nicaraguan capital of Managua killing more than 10,000.
1972 The 16 survivors of the Andes flight disaster are rescued after 73 days, having survived by cannibalism.
1982 The United States Environmental Protection Agency announces it has identified dangerous levels of dioxin in the soil of Times Beach, Missouri.
1986 Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, lands at Edwards Air Force Base in California becoming the first aircraft to fly non-stop around the world without aerial or ground refueling.
1990 History of Slovenia: In a referendum, 88% of Slovenia’s population vote for independence from Yugoslavia.
2002 A MQ-1 Predator is shot down by an Iraqi MiG-25, making it the first time in history that an aircraft and an unmanned drone had engaged in combat.
2003 PetroChina Chuandongbei natural gas field explosion, Guoqiao, Kai County, Chongqing, China, killing at least 234.
2004 An 8.1 magnitude earthquake hits Macquarie Island in the Southern Ocean.
2005 Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 217 from Baku, Azerbaijan, to Aktau, Kazakhstan crashes shortly after takeoff killing 23 people.
2005 Chad declares a state of war against Sudan following a December 18 attack on Adré, which left about 100 people dead.

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Johnny: Daddy, are caterpillars good to eat?

Father: Have I not told you never to mention such things during meals!

Mother: Why did you say that, Junior? Why did you ask the question?

Johnny: It’s because I saw one on daddy’s lettuce, but now it’s gone.

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ONE-LINERS : Politician’s Blathering

“Let’s jump off that bridge when we come to it.”

“To be demeanered like that is an exercise in fertility.”

“I deny the allegations, and I defy the allegators.”

“If somebody’s gonna stab me in the back, I want to be there.”

“When you’re talking to me, keep your mouth shut.”

“Let’s do this in one foul swoop.”

“I want to thank each and every one of you for having extinguished yourselves in this session.”

“We’ll run it up the flagpole and see who salutes that booger.”

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SOME FACTS ABOUT SANTA CLAUS. . .

1) No known species of reindeer can fly. But there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not completely rule out flying reindeer, which only Santa has ever seen.

2) There are 2 billion children in the world (persons under 18). But since Santa doesn’t (appear to) handle Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, or Buddhist children, that reduces the workload by 85% of the total– leaving 378 million according to the Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that’s 91.8 million homes. One presumes there is at least one good child per house.

3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household, a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding, etc. That means that Santa’s sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3000!times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second – a conventional reindeer can run, at tops 25-30 miles per hour.

4) The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming each child gets nothing more then a medium sized LEGO set (2 lbs), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting the “flying reindeer” can pull TEN TIMES that normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine–we need 214,200 reindeer. This increased the payload–not even counting the weight of the sleigh–to 353,430 tons. Again for comparison, this is four times the weight of the HMS Queen Elizabeth.

5) 353,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance. This will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts re-entering the earth’s atmosphere. The lead pair will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy per second, each. In short, they will burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and creating a deafening sonic boom in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa meanwhile, will be subject to centrifugal forces of 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250 lb. Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by a 4,315,015 pound force. In conclusion, if Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas eve, he’s now dead.

Guess we’d better leave Santa in the realm of magic, so he can do his thing without any problems!

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pic of the day: MERRY CHRISTMAS!

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It was Christmas and the judge was in a merry mood as he asked the prisoner,”What are you charged with?”

“Doing my Christmas shopping early”, replied the defendant.

“That’s no offense”, said the judge. “How early were you doing this shopping?”

“Before the store opened.”

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Ten signs you’re not getting a christmas bonus

10. Co-workers refer to you as “the ghost of unemployment future”

9. The last time you saw your boss was when he testified against you at the embezzlement trial

8. On your door, you find a lovely wreath of pink slips

7. What you call “my new office,” everybody else calls “the supply closet”

6. Boss’s Christmas card says, “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out”

5. You keep getting memos reminding you that employees are required to wear pants

4. When your boss came over for Thanksgiving, he was crushed under an avalanche of stolen office supplies

3. Whenever you ask for a raise, a guy shows up at your house and breaks your jaw

2. In your most recent performance evaluation, the word “terrible” appeared 78 times

1. You’re the starting quarterback for the New York Jets

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WARNING! ENTERING THE PUN ZONE!

Trouser is normally a happy-go-lucky dog. He chases tennismballs, plays with other dogs, and eats his dinner without a fuss. He is a dog without a care.

But on one fateful autumn afternoon, it was to be different. I was walking him along a trail at the park, when suddenly from out of the bushes jumped a man all dressed in black. He had white paint on his face, and Trouser must have thought he was gesturing annoyingly at me. This strange person spoke not a word, but proceeded to pretend that he was trapped in a box and that he was pulling on a long rope.

Trouser took it upon himself to rectify the situation. With a low growl he jumped and sank his teeth into the annoying clown’s leg.

The poor dog immediately got a sickened look in his eyes and began to vomit wildly. He then dragged his tongue all over the ground in an effort to remove the man’s foul essence from his mouth.

For you see, Trouser had learned that … “A Mime Is a Terrible Thing To Taste.”

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Honestly some folk will take offence at anything….I met a bloke with no legs this morning while at the bus stop and all I asked was “How are you getting on?”

Paddy was in the delivery room when the midwife handed him a black baby “Is this yours?” she asked.
“Probably.” said Paddy “She burns everything else!”

My missus has just gone into hospital with two black eyes and a broken jaw. It seems we were on different wavelengths when she said she wanted decking on the patio.

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Dear son,

Just a few lines to let you know I’m still alive. I’m writing this letter slowly because I know you can’t read fast. We are all doing very well.

You won’t recognize the house when you get home – we have moved. Your dad read in the newspaper that most accidents happen within 20 miles from your home, so we moved. I won’t be able to send you the address because the last Irish family that lived here took the house numbers when they moved so that they wouldn’t have to change their address.

This place is really nice. It even has a washing machine. I’m not sure it works so well though. Last week I put a load in and pulled the chain and haven’t seen them since.

Your fathers got a really good job now. He’s got 500 men under him. He’s cutting the grass at the cemetery.

Your sister Mary had a baby this morning but I haven’t found out if it’s a boy or a girl, so I don’t know whether you’re an auntie or an uncle.

Your brother Tom is still in the army. He’s only been there a short while and they’ve already made him a court martial.

Your uncle Patrick drowned last night in a vat of whisky in the Dublin Brewery. Some of his workmates tried to save him but he fought them off bravely. They cremated him and it took three days to put out the fire.

I’m sorry to say that your cousin Seamus was arrested while riding his bicycle last week. They are charging him with dope peddling.

I went to the doctor on Thursday and your father went with me. The doctor put a small tube in my mouth and told me not to talk for ten minutes. Your father offered to buy if from him.

The weather isn’t bad here. It only rained twice this week, first for three days and then for four days. Monday was so windy one of the chickens laid the same egg four times.

We had a letter from the undertaker. He said if the last payment on your grandmother’s plot wasn’t paid in seven days, up she comes.

About that coat you wanted me to send you, your uncle Stanley said it would be too heavy to send in the mail with the buttons on, so we cut them off and put them in the pockets.

John locked his keys in the car yesterday. We were really worried because it took him two hours to get me and your father out.

Three of your friends went off a bridge in a pick up truck. Ralph was driving. He rolled down the window and swam to safety. Your other two friends were in the back. They drowned because they couldn’t get the tailgate down.

There isn’t much more news at this time. Nothing much has happened.

Your loving mum

P.S. I was going to send you some money but I have already sealed the envelope.

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TODAY IN TRIVIA: Pfeffernusse

~Pfeffernusse is a variant of German Lebkuchen, or gingerbread.

~They are rolled into balls and then glazed with powdered sugar after baking.

~Pfeffernusse literally means “pepper nut”, this is likely due to the cookies nut shape and hard texture when first baked.

~Many German people simply say the recipe is from “Oma Zeit” which means time of their grandmother, but being that it is a variant of Lebkuchen we can assume it dates after the invention of Lebkuchen in the 12th century.

~Pfeffernusse is of German origin, though many Scandinavian countries have versions of the cookie as well.

~The recipe became so popular over the ages that the German government actually regulated Lebkuchen production in 1643.

~Pfeffernusse made its way to America with German immigrants in the 19th century, so it was created sometime before 1900 and after 1296.8

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LIFE LESSON: It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day to day basis. – Margaret Bonnano

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QUIP OF THE DAY: There’s a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot. – Steven Wright

THAT’S (ALMOST) ALL FOLKS!

THE LAST WORD: The Grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for. – Allan K. Chalmers