source
There lived a huge and fierce lion in a forest. Once, weary after a long day of hunting, the lion returned to his cave and soon fell asleep.
Not long after, a little mouse chanced upon the lion’s cave. Thinking that there might be food inside the cave, and not realizing that it was a lion’s lair, the mouse decided to explore the cave.
As it was dim inside the cave, the mouse could not see clearly. Suddenly, the mouse hit against something very big, and it felt warm to the touch.
"This must be my day!" the mouse thought. "This could be a big meal!"
The mouse walked around the thing that he had hit to find out what it was. As he looked, and his eyes became more adjusted to the dimness, the mouse had the greatest shock in his life. There, right in front of him, lay a sleeping lion!
The little mouse was terrified. Without wasting a second, he made his escape. But in his haste to run away, the mouse tripped over the lion’s nose! This woke the lion up. He was very angry.
The little mouse trembled in great fright. He immediately picked himself up and tried to dash away. But the lion’s paw clapped down upon him and held him tightly to the ground.
Just as the lion was about to kill him, the mouse quickly spoke, "Please, Mr Lion, do not kill me! I’m so tiny and won’t make a good meal for you. Spare me now and some day I will repay your great kindness!"
When the lion heard that, he was amused. "How could a tiny creature like this repay me?" he thought.
But the lion was full after his hunting that day. So he released his paw and let the mouse go.
Many days later, while the lion was hunting for food, he ran into a hunter’s trap and was caught in a big net. The lion struggled to free himself but the net was too big. Unable to free himself at last, the lion filled the forest with his angry roars.
When the little mouse heard the roaring, he realized that it was the lion that had spared his life. The mouse knew immediately that the lion was in some kind of trouble. He ran as fast as he could to where the lion was.
When the mouse saw that the lion was caught in a net, he quickly gnawed at the net until it parted. The lion was freed. And he was glad that he had spared the little mouse’s life.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Thursday, October 29, 2009
If Wes had a Facebook page ...
I'd SO request his friendship. But I think he might be a little too cool for that.
Sorry about the last one, Wes.
My bike snobbery leaked a little on that one. Bad judgment. I know you and that you are too fine a person to hold it against me, a sinner. But for my peace of mind, could you please confirm your forgiveness in the form of a couple of reassuring comments? I mean, come on, it's the least you can do, loser. Oh crap, there I go again. Now I really do need 2 comments to confirm that we're cool. At your earliest convenience, of course.
Go Hawkeyes!
Wow, those Iowa football players sure are a handsome bunch! I bet Iowa has a good coach, who's nice and things. Probably not as nice as Wesley, though.
If I paint my bike yellow
Will you comment on my blog, Wesley? Twice if it's not too much trouble. No reason. Just wondering. Thanks.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
I drank what?
So this morning, I got up early and went for a nice brisk morning jog/walk/limp/crawl. Sort of. I didn't go outside. I gave our 5 year old Treadmill its 3rd workout. It was a good time.
Important: If you read this blog, you already know that every once or twice a season, I decide to start working out. This is one of those posts. I will shortly complain about being out of shape, but that is actually not the reason for this post. So if you're patient, the stuff at the end will be new stuff, straight from today's news! To help, I'll put a big 'LINE 3000' in the spot where I'm done whining about my fitness level and start talking about the boy genius in England I saw on the news while jog/limping. So if you just want to skip ahead, goto LINE 3000.
LINE 2000
Since I'm out of shape, I decided to listen to some old Matchbox 20. This turned out to be an excellent strategy. As I've mentioned before, I like getting into shape better than being in shape. When you're getting into shape, it is important that you don't overdo it. One way to make sure that you don't push yourself too hard is to listen to something like "Matchbox 20". I suppose "Maroon 5" Would work just as well, but I don't have any and I dislike "Matchbox 20" less.
The choice of workout music can make or break the session. Once, Shim suggested something like Social D as good workout music, but I'm pretty sure it would kill me if I tried to keep up right now. Matchbox 20 is calm enough, with just enough rebellion for the occasional "run-ups" that the mechanics of a treadmill can provide with the prolonged push of a finger.
So with the ipod set on "somber", the television set on CC and mute, I began my morning jog ...
LINE 3000
While reading the news on the television today, I noticed I had a bit of an "I want to push you around" sort of an attitude. I can't explain it. I was feeling pretty calm, but slightly rebellious. There was a story about a 2 year old in England that has the same I.Q. as Einstein (presumably Albert, before he died). He (the Brit) is the youngest child ever admitted to Mensa.
Now I realize that there must be more to the story than what they talked about, but I was unimpressed with the evidence of the little boy's genius. They specifically mentioned 2 things.
1) He can name all 9 planets.
Ok, first of all, Einstein -- if you're going to go around belonging to Mensa and everything - you might want to stop at Neptune. Remember wonderboy, Pluto is not a planet. In fact, The last time Pluto was a planet, you weren't even born yet. And so what if he can name them? Does he know where they are? What they're made of? No. So the 2 year old remembered 9 names. Spectacular. I have a son (Jack) who was singing the alphabet at 2 years old. And you know what? He was stopping at 'Z'. He wasn't adding some arbitrary letters to the end like this little dumbass from England does with our solar system. So obviously Jack is smarter than this boy. But do I say "Oh Jack's a genius!" No, of course not. I just say the kid in England is a moron. Simple.
2) He speaks in complex sentences.
Not being a genius, I didn't know what they meant by this so I had to research the story. I will say that my son Abe (who's 4) has been speaking in complex sentences for as long as I can remember him talking. To this day, he engineers some of the most confusing sentences I've ever heard. I usually have no idea what he's trying to say. Because he's a genius. But back to Limey the brain. I looked for news about him and found out one of these complex sentences.
He said "I say, Mum, when I eat sausage, it's like a party in my mouth."
Really. That's what got him into Mensa. The only thing I can think is that if you say it with a British accent, it does sound a little smarter. I mean, maybe it's because Abe speaks American that when he says "Dad, cam I have dat fing wif de wady in purple frozen underwear?" that I'm not immediately on the phone with WOWT.
Important: If you read this blog, you already know that every once or twice a season, I decide to start working out. This is one of those posts. I will shortly complain about being out of shape, but that is actually not the reason for this post. So if you're patient, the stuff at the end will be new stuff, straight from today's news! To help, I'll put a big 'LINE 3000' in the spot where I'm done whining about my fitness level and start talking about the boy genius in England I saw on the news while jog/limping. So if you just want to skip ahead, goto LINE 3000.
LINE 2000
Since I'm out of shape, I decided to listen to some old Matchbox 20. This turned out to be an excellent strategy. As I've mentioned before, I like getting into shape better than being in shape. When you're getting into shape, it is important that you don't overdo it. One way to make sure that you don't push yourself too hard is to listen to something like "Matchbox 20". I suppose "Maroon 5" Would work just as well, but I don't have any and I dislike "Matchbox 20" less.
The choice of workout music can make or break the session. Once, Shim suggested something like Social D as good workout music, but I'm pretty sure it would kill me if I tried to keep up right now. Matchbox 20 is calm enough, with just enough rebellion for the occasional "run-ups" that the mechanics of a treadmill can provide with the prolonged push of a finger.
So with the ipod set on "somber", the television set on CC and mute, I began my morning jog ...
LINE 3000
While reading the news on the television today, I noticed I had a bit of an "I want to push you around" sort of an attitude. I can't explain it. I was feeling pretty calm, but slightly rebellious. There was a story about a 2 year old in England that has the same I.Q. as Einstein (presumably Albert, before he died). He (the Brit) is the youngest child ever admitted to Mensa.
Now I realize that there must be more to the story than what they talked about, but I was unimpressed with the evidence of the little boy's genius. They specifically mentioned 2 things.
1) He can name all 9 planets.
Ok, first of all, Einstein -- if you're going to go around belonging to Mensa and everything - you might want to stop at Neptune. Remember wonderboy, Pluto is not a planet. In fact, The last time Pluto was a planet, you weren't even born yet. And so what if he can name them? Does he know where they are? What they're made of? No. So the 2 year old remembered 9 names. Spectacular. I have a son (Jack) who was singing the alphabet at 2 years old. And you know what? He was stopping at 'Z'. He wasn't adding some arbitrary letters to the end like this little dumbass from England does with our solar system. So obviously Jack is smarter than this boy. But do I say "Oh Jack's a genius!" No, of course not. I just say the kid in England is a moron. Simple.
2) He speaks in complex sentences.
Not being a genius, I didn't know what they meant by this so I had to research the story. I will say that my son Abe (who's 4) has been speaking in complex sentences for as long as I can remember him talking. To this day, he engineers some of the most confusing sentences I've ever heard. I usually have no idea what he's trying to say. Because he's a genius. But back to Limey the brain. I looked for news about him and found out one of these complex sentences.
He said "I say, Mum, when I eat sausage, it's like a party in my mouth."
Really. That's what got him into Mensa. The only thing I can think is that if you say it with a British accent, it does sound a little smarter. I mean, maybe it's because Abe speaks American that when he says "Dad, cam I have dat fing wif de wady in purple frozen underwear?" that I'm not immediately on the phone with WOWT.
Thursday, October 08, 2009
A new post, but first - Brady and Mom are right.
From: msnbc
Poll finds most annoying word — ‘whatever’
Easily beats out strong contenders such as ‘you know’ and ‘anyway’
So, you know, it is what it is, but Americans are totally annoyed by the use of "whatever" in conversations.
The popular slacker term of indifference was found "most annoying in conversation" by 47 percent of Americans surveyed in a Marist College poll released Wednesday.
"Whatever" easily beat out "you know," which especially grated a quarter of respondents. The other annoying contenders were "anyway" (at 7 percent), "it is what it is" (11 percent) and "at the end of the day" (2 percent).
"Whatever" — pronounced "WHAT'-ehv-errr" when exasperated — is an expression with staying power. Immortalized in song by Nirvana ("oh well, whatever, nevermind") in 1991, popularized by the Valley girls in "Clueless" later that decade, it is still commonly used, often by younger people.
It can be an all-purpose argument-ender or a signal of apathy. And it can really be annoying. The poll found "whatever" to be consistently disliked by Americans regardless of their race, gender, age, income or where they live.
'A special class'
"It doesn't surprise me because 'whatever' is in a special class, probably," said Michael Adams, author of "Slang: The People's Poetry" and an associate professor of English at Indiana University. "It's a word that — and it depends how a speaker uses it — can suggest dismissiveness."
Adams, who was not involved in the poll and is not annoyed by "whatever," points out that its use is not always negative. It also can be used in place of other, neutral phrases that have fallen out of favor, like "six of one, half dozen of the other," he said.
But the negative connotation might explain why "whatever" was judged more annoying than the ever-popular "you know," which was recently given a public workout by Caroline Kennedy during her flirtation with the New York U.S. Senate seat vacated by Hillary Rodham Clinton. "You know," Adams notes, is a way for speakers to seek assent from others.
Pollsters at the Poughkeepsie, N.Y., college surveyed 938 U.S. adults by telephone Aug. 3-Aug 6. The margin of error is 3.2 percentage points. The five choices included were chosen by people at the poll discussing what popular words and phrases might be considered especially annoying, said spokeswoman Mary Azzoli.
Poll finds most annoying word — ‘whatever’
Easily beats out strong contenders such as ‘you know’ and ‘anyway’
So, you know, it is what it is, but Americans are totally annoyed by the use of "whatever" in conversations.
The popular slacker term of indifference was found "most annoying in conversation" by 47 percent of Americans surveyed in a Marist College poll released Wednesday.
"Whatever" easily beat out "you know," which especially grated a quarter of respondents. The other annoying contenders were "anyway" (at 7 percent), "it is what it is" (11 percent) and "at the end of the day" (2 percent).
"Whatever" — pronounced "WHAT'-ehv-errr" when exasperated — is an expression with staying power. Immortalized in song by Nirvana ("oh well, whatever, nevermind") in 1991, popularized by the Valley girls in "Clueless" later that decade, it is still commonly used, often by younger people.
It can be an all-purpose argument-ender or a signal of apathy. And it can really be annoying. The poll found "whatever" to be consistently disliked by Americans regardless of their race, gender, age, income or where they live.
'A special class'
"It doesn't surprise me because 'whatever' is in a special class, probably," said Michael Adams, author of "Slang: The People's Poetry" and an associate professor of English at Indiana University. "It's a word that — and it depends how a speaker uses it — can suggest dismissiveness."
Adams, who was not involved in the poll and is not annoyed by "whatever," points out that its use is not always negative. It also can be used in place of other, neutral phrases that have fallen out of favor, like "six of one, half dozen of the other," he said.
But the negative connotation might explain why "whatever" was judged more annoying than the ever-popular "you know," which was recently given a public workout by Caroline Kennedy during her flirtation with the New York U.S. Senate seat vacated by Hillary Rodham Clinton. "You know," Adams notes, is a way for speakers to seek assent from others.
Pollsters at the Poughkeepsie, N.Y., college surveyed 938 U.S. adults by telephone Aug. 3-Aug 6. The margin of error is 3.2 percentage points. The five choices included were chosen by people at the poll discussing what popular words and phrases might be considered especially annoying, said spokeswoman Mary Azzoli.
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