From fridayfunny at internetgremlin.com Fri Feb 1 06:02:12 2008 From: fridayfunny at internetgremlin.com (The Friday Funny) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 06:02:12 +0000 Subject: [Friday Funny] Doomed! Message-ID: <47A2B5E4.6060705@minstrel.org.uk> Another old one - it seems I haven't seen any decent humour for months now! ----------------------------- Sometimes, it seems like some people are just plain doomed. If you don't believe it, consider these weird deaths and other generally unlucky experiences: A fierce gust of wind blew 45-year-old Vittorio Luise's car into a river near Naples, Italy, in 1983. He managed to break a window, climb out and swim to shore-where a tree blew over and killed him. Mike Stewart, 31, of Dallas was filming a movie in 1983 on the dangers of low-level bridges when the truck he was standing on passed under a low-level bridge - killing him. Walter Hallas, a 26-year-old store clerk in Leeds, England, was so afraid of dentists that in 1979 he asked a fellow worker to try to cure his toothache by punching him in the jaw. The punch caused Hallas to fall down, hitting his head, and he died of a fractured skull. George Schwartz, owner of a factory in Providence, R.I., narrowly escaped death when a 1983 blast flattened his factory except for one wall. After treatment for minor injuries, he returned to the scene to search for files. The remaining wall then collapsed on him, killing him. Depressed since he could not find a job, 42-year-old Romolo Ribolla sat in his kitchen near Pisa, Italy, with a gun in his hand threatening to kill himself in 1981. His wife pleaded for him not to do it, and after about an hour he burst into tears and threw the gun to the floor. It went off and killed his wife. In 1983, a Mrs. Carson of Lake Kushaqua, N.Y., was laid out in her coffin, presumed dead of heart disease. As mourners watched, she suddenly sat up. Her daughter dropped dead of fright. A man hit by a car in New York in 1977 got up uninjured, but lay back down in front of the car when a bystander told him to pretend he was hurt so he could collect insurance money. The car rolled forward and crushed him to death. Surprised while burgling a house in Antwerp, Belgium, a thief fled out the back door, clambered over a nine-foot wall, dropped down and found himself in the city prison. In 1976 a twenty-two-year-old Irishman, Bob Finnegan, was crossing the busy Falls Road in Belfast, when he was struck by a taxi and flung over its roof. The taxi drove away and, as Finnegan lay stunned in the road, another car ran into him, rolling him into the gutter. It too drove on. As a knot of gawkers gathered to examine the magnetic Irishman, a delivery van plowed through the crowd, leaving in its wake three injured bystanders and an even more battered Bob Finnegan. When a fourth vehicle came along, the crowd wisely scattered and only one person was hit - Bob Finnegan. In the space of two minutes Finnegan suffered a fractured skull, broken pelvis, broken leg, and other assorted injuries. Hospital officials said he would recover. While motorcycling through the Hungarian countryside, Cristo Falatti came up to a railway line just as the crossing gates were coming down. While he sat idling, he was joined by a farmer with a goat, which the farmer tethered to the crossing gate. A few moments later a horse and cart drew up behind Falatti, followed in short order by a man in a sports car. When the train roared through the crossing, the horse startled and bit Falatti on the arm. Not a man to be trifled with, Falatti responded by punching the horse in the head. In consequence the horse's owner jumped down from his cart and began scuffling with the motorcyclist. The horse, which was not up to this sort of excitement, backed away briskly, smashing the cart into the sports-car. At this, the sports-car driver leaped out of his car and joined the fray. The farmer came forward to try to pacify the three flailing men. As he did so, the crossing gates rose and his goat was strangled. At last report, the insurance co mpanies were still trying to sort out the claims. Two West German motorists had an all-too-literal head-on collision in heavy fog near the small town of Guetersloh. Each was guiding his car at a snail's pace near the center of the road. At the moment of impact their heads were both out of the windows when they smacked together. Both men were hospitalized with severe head injuries. Their cars weren't scratched. In a classic case of one thing leading to another, seven men aged eighteen to twenty-nine received jail sentences of three to four years in Kingston-on-Thames, England, in 1979 after a fight that started when one of the men threw a french fry at another while they stood waiting for a train. Hitting on the novel idea that he could end his wife's incessant nagging by giving her a good scare, Hungarian Jake Fen built an elaborate harness to make it look as if he had hanged himself. When his wife came home and saw him she fainted. Hearing a disturbance a neighbor came over and, finding what she thought were two corpses, seized the opportunity to loot the place. As she was leaving the room, her arms laden, the outraged and suspended Mr. Fen kicked her stoutly in the backside. This so surprised the lady that she dropped dead of a heart attack. Happily, Mr. Fen was acquitted of manslaughter and he and his wife were reconciled. An unidentified English woman, according to the London Sunday Express was climbing into the bathtub one afternoon when she remembered she had left some muffins in the oven. Naked, she dashed downstairs and was removing the muffins when she heard a noise at the door. Thinking it was the baker, and knowing he would come in and leave a loaf of bread on the kitchen table if she didn't answer his knock, the woman darted into the broom cupboard. A few moments later she heard the back door open and, to her eternal mortification, the sound of footsteps coming toward the cupboard. It was the man from the gas company, come to read the meter. "Oh," stammered the woman, "I was expecting the baker." The gas man blinked, excused himself and departed. -- Peter SJF Bance http://www.minstrel.org.uk/ XMPP: GreyMinstrel at jabber.org | AIM: GreyMinstrel MSN: Minstrel at minstrel.org.uk | ICQ: 254652398 From fridayfunny at internetgremlin.com Fri Feb 8 06:10:51 2008 From: fridayfunny at internetgremlin.com (The Friday Funny) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 06:10:51 +0000 Subject: [Friday Funny] Church Bulletins Message-ID: <47ABF26B.6070006@minstrel.org.uk> They're Back! Those Wonderful Church Bulletins! Thank God for church ladies with typewriters. These sentences appeared in church bulletins or were announced in church services (Summer, 2007 Release). ------------------------------------- The Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals. The sermon this morning: "Jesus Walks on the Water." The sermon tonight: "Searching for Jesus." Our youth basketball team is back in action Wednesday at 8 PM in the recreation hall. Come out and watch us kill Christ the King. Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale. It's a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands. The peacemaking meeting scheduled for today has been canceled due to a conflict. Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our community. Smile at someone who is hard to love. Say "Hell" to someone who doesn't care much about you. Don't let worry kill you off - let the Church help. Miss Charlene Mason sang "I will not pass this way again," giving obvious pleasure to the congregation. For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs. Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get. The Rector will preach his farewell message, after which the choir will sing: "Break Forth Into Joy." Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days. At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be "What Is Hell?" Come early and listen to our choir practice. Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones. Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children. Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered. The church will host an evening of fine dining, super entertainment and gracious hostility. Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM - prayer and medication to follow.. The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon. This evening at 7 PM there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin. Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10 AM. All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B.S. is done. The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday. Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM. Please use the back door. The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare's Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7 PM. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy. Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use the large double door at the side entrance. The Associate Minister unveiled the church's new tithing campaign slogan last Sunday : "I Upped My Pledge - Up Yours". -- Peter SJF Bance http://www.minstrel.org.uk/ XMPP: GreyMinstrel at jabber.org | AIM: GreyMinstrel MSN: Minstrel at minstrel.org.uk | ICQ: 254652398 From fridayfunny at internetgremlin.com Fri Feb 15 21:49:17 2008 From: fridayfunny at internetgremlin.com (The Friday Funny) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 21:49:17 +0000 Subject: [Friday Funny] Inside the Mind of an Insomniac Message-ID: <47B608DD.3010708@minstrel.org.uk> Sorry it's late today! This one definitely struck a chord... -- Peter SJF Bance http://www.minstrel.org.uk/ XMPP: GreyMinstrel at jabber.org | AIM: GreyMinstrel MSN: Minstrel at minstrel.org.uk | ICQ: 254652398 ---------------------------------------- Inside the Mind of an Insomniac Copyright 2008 W. Bruce Cameron www.wbrucecameron.com I often lie awake at night worrying about the ill effects of getting too little sleep. Recent news has reinforced my concern; for example, scientists have discovered that when laboratory mice are deprived of sleep for an extended period of time, the little rodents have trouble performing certain tasks, like running mazes and operating heavy machinery. I have even read that not sleeping can cause you to gain weight, especially if you get out of bed in the middle of the night to eat a chocolate pie. My problem is that my brain seems to come alive when I try to sleep, though it does a good job of being dormant whenever my editor calls to ask where my column is. Lying there, I wind up having an interior dialogue, like this: Me: Okay, lights are out. Time to sleep. Brain: Now would be a good time to worry about your credit-card bills. Me: No! There's nothing I can do about them right now. Brain: I disagree. We can calculate how long it will take to pay them off, based on your current rate of debt reduction. I'm coming up with the winter of 2012. Me: How is that supposed to help? Brain: Our feet are itchy. Me: What? Brain: I've got a question. How do you explain the career of Ben Affleck? Me: Just stop, okay? No more thoughts. Let's try counting sheep. Brain: Do you think the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals would be okay with that? I mean, sheep don't exist just for you to count them, you know. They have their own lives and worries, thank you very much. How'd you like it if someone made you into a sweater? Me: Are you crazy? They're not even real sheep! Brain: And that somehow makes it right? Hey, what does that roll of blankets at the foot of the bed look like to you? Me: It looks like a roll of blankets. Brain: Could be a snake. Me: This is madness. How could a snake get in here? Brain: A copperhead. Me: There is no snake. Go to sleep. Brain: Copperheads are poisonous, you know. Shhh! Listen! Me: What is it? Brain: I think I heard someone coming in the window carrying an axe. Me: Oh for heaven's sake. Brain: You should have asked Beverly Ballou to the Winter Dance. Me: Wha-- That was in seventh grade! Why are you thinking about that now? Brain: I'm just saying. Sixty. Me: You're just saying sixty? Brain: I'm counting sheep, like you asked me to. I'm up to sixty. Are you sleepy yet? Me: Yes! Let's go to sleep. Brain: Beverly Ballou, you sure blew that opportunity. What a fool. We'll regret that forever. Have you noticed how much hair you've lost lately? Me: I have not! Brain: Okay, excuse me. The hair must be growing out of the shower drain, then. What are you worried about, anyway? Bald men are considered "very sexy" by focus groups comprised primarily of bald men. Me: I am not going bald. Brain: Maybe you should get up and check in the mirror. Hey, what are the symptoms of the Ebola virus? I think we've got it. Me: We're not getting out of bed, we're going to lie right here and go to sleep. Brain: Oh yeah right. Did you remember to turn off all the burners on the stove? Me: Yes, I did. Brain: Are you sure? I think I smell smoke. You cheated. Me: I... huh? Brain: High school algebra class. You looked over and saw Todd Smith's answer for question number four. How can you live with yourself? Me: I didn't mean to! Brain: It's not too late to set the record straight. I'll bet you we could track down our teacher. What was her name? Waters? Rivers? Something wet. Mrs. Drip Faucet? Mrs. Dribble Drink? Can you seriously not smell something burning? I can practically hear the flames. Me: Fine! When I get up to check the burners, I usually raid the refrigerator. (As long as I'm not sleeping, I figure I might as well get a chocolate pie out of it.) -- W. Bruce Cameron From fridayfunny at internetgremlin.com Sat Feb 23 15:29:18 2008 From: fridayfunny at internetgremlin.com (The Friday Funny) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 15:29:18 +0000 Subject: [Friday Funny] Remember When... Message-ID: <47C03BCE.4040002@minstrel.org.uk> [Sorry it's late this week!] DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN...? * It took five minutes for the TV to warm up? * Nearly everyone's Mum was at home when they got home from school? * Nobody owned a purebred dog? * When a shilling a week was decent pocket money? * White dog poo in the street? * You only had to be home when the street lights came on? * Your Mum wore stockings that came in two pieces? * All your male teachers wore ties? * Female teachers had their hair done every day and wore high heels? * You got your windscreen cleaned, oil checked, and petrol pumped, without asking, all for free, every time? * Cereals had free toys hidden inside the box? * It was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents? * Schools threatened to keep kids back a year if they failed. . .and they did? * When a Ford Capri was everyone's dream car? * No one ever asked where the car keys were because they were always in the car, in the ignition, and the doors were never locked? * Lying on your back in the grass with your friends and saying things like, "That cloud looks like a? ? * Playing footy and cricket with no adults to help kids with the rules of the game? * Stuff from the shop came without safety caps and hermetic seals because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger? * When being sent to the headmaster's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited you if your parents heard that you had been sent to the headmaster? And with all our progress, don't you just wish, just once, you could slip back in time and savour the slower pace, and share it with the children of today? Basically we were in fear for our lives, but it wasn't because of drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc. Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat! But we survived because their love was greater than the threat. Send this on to someone who can still remember Laurel and Hardy, The Famous Five, Secret Seven, Biggles, the Lone Ranger, Phantom, Roy Rogers and Trigger at the flicks. As well as summers filled with bike rides, cricket games, Hula Hoops, monkey bars, Frozen jubblies, visits to the beach and lemonade powder. Didn't that feel good, just to go back and say, "Yeah, I remember that"? I am sharing this with you today because it ends with a double dare to pass it on. To remember what a double dare is, read on. And remember that the perfect age is somewhere between old enough to know better and too young to care. How many of these do you remember? * Sweet cigarettes, * pogo sticks, * marbles, * Home milk delivery in glass bottles with foil tops * Newsreels before the movie * Sandshoes/Desert wellies * Four digit Telephone numbers * Press button A then button B * 45 RPM records * Hi-Fi s * Metal ice cubes trays * Mimeograph paper * Spud guns * Ford Capris * Twin Tubs * Izal toilet paper * Reel-To-Reel tape recorders * houses made of cards * Meccano Sets * Anglo/Bazooka Joe pink bubble gum * MoJos/black jacks/fruit salads * Two bob for a gallon of petrol Do you remember a time when... * Decisions were made by "eeny-meeny-miney-mo"? * "Race issue" meant arguing about who ran the fastest? * It wasn't odd to have two or three "Best Friends"? * The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was "boy or girl germs"? * Having a weapon in school meant being caught with a catapult? * There were no Saturday morning cartoons with 30-minute adverts for action figures? * Spinning around, getting dizzy, and falling down was cause for giggles? * The worst embarrassment was being caught playing doctors and nurses by your parents * Putting playing cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle? * Taking drugs meant the Polio injection in school * Nitty Nora * Water balloons were the ultimate weapon? If you can remember most or all of these, then you have lived!!!!!!! Pass this on to anyone who may need a break from their "grown-up" life ... I double-dare-ya! -- Peter SJF Bance http://www.minstrel.org.uk/ XMPP: GreyMinstrel at jabber.org | AIM: GreyMinstrel MSN: Minstrel at minstrel.org.uk | ICQ: 254652398 From fridayfunny at internetgremlin.com Fri Feb 29 05:18:27 2008 From: fridayfunny at internetgremlin.com (The Friday Funny) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 05:18:27 +0000 Subject: [Friday Funny] More Nostalgia - How did we Survive? Message-ID: <47C795A3.9050103@minstrel.org.uk> CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE KIDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE1920's, 30's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's!! First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us and lived in houses full of asbestos. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese & tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer. Then after that trauma, our baby cots were covered with bright coloured lead-based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets or shoes, not to mention, the risks we took cadging lifts. As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. A trip to the coast on a warm day was always a special treat. We drank water from the stream and NOT from a bottle. Take away food was limited to fish and chips, no pizza shops, McDonalds, KFC, Subway or Kebabs. Even though all the shops closed at 6.00pm and only opened for a few hours at weekends, somehow we didn't starve to death! We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this. We could collect old drink bottles and cash them in at the corner shop and buy fruit Spangles and some bangers to blow up frogs with. We ate buns, white bread and real butter and drank soft drinks with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because...... WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!! We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No mobile phones - no one was able to reach us all day.. And we were always O.K. We would spend hours building our trolleys out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes.. We built tree houses and dens and played in streams with matchbox cars. We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on Sky, no video tape or DVD movies, no surround sound, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms..........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them! We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no Lawsuits from these accidents. Only girls had pierced ears! We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever. You could only buy Easter Eggs and Hot Cross buns at Easter time.......no really! We had air guns and catapults for our birthdays, We drank milk laced with Strontium 90 from cows that had eaten grass covered in nuclear fallout from the atomic testing. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them from the street! Mum didn't have to go to work to help dad make ends meet! Footy had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!! Our teachers used to belt us with big sticks and leather straps and bullies always ruled the playground at school. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law! Our parents got married before they had children and didn't invent stupid names for their kids like 'Kylie' and 'Blade'. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL! And if YOU are one of them, CONGRATULATIONS! You shouldn't be here... -- Peter SJF Bance http://www.minstrel.org.uk/ XMPP: GreyMinstrel at jabber.org | AIM: GreyMinstrel MSN: Minstrel at minstrel.org.uk | ICQ: 254652398