Lists

Aircraft mechanics have a good sense of humor

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Apparently, after every flight, Qantas pilots fill out a form, called a ‘gripe sheet’, which tells mechanics about problems with the aircraft.  The mechanics correct the problems; document their repairs on the form, and then pilots review the gripe sheets before the next flight.

Never let it be said that ground crews lack a sense of humor. Here are some actual maintenance complaints submitted by Qantas’ Pilots and the solutions recorded by maintenance engineers.

Pilots: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.
Engineers: Almost replaced left inside main tire.

Pilots: Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough.
Engineers: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft.

Pilots: Something loose in cockpit.
Engineers: Something tightened in cockpit.

Pilots: Dead bugs on windshield.
Engineers: Live bugs on back-order.

Pilots: Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200 feet per minute descent.
Engineers: Cannot reproduce problem on ground.

Pilots: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.
Engineers: Evidence removed.

Pilots: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.
Engineers: That’s what they’re for.

Pilots: Suspected crack in windshield.
Engineers: Suspect you’re right.

Pilots: Number 3 engine missing.
Engineers: Engine found on right wing after brief search.

Pilots: Aircraft handles funny.
Engineers: Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right, and be serious.

Pilots: Target radar hums
Engineers: Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics.

Pilots: Mouse in cockpit.
Engineers: Cat installed.

Qantas Pilot: Noise coming from under instrument panel. Sounds like a midget pounding on something with a hammer.
Engineers: Took hammer away from midget

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Holiday eating tips

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Please print out and carry with you in case you forget what to do.

HOLIDAY EATING TIPS

1. Avoid carrot sticks. Anyone who puts carrots on a holiday buffet table knows nothing of the Christmas spirit . In fact, if you see carrots, leave immediately. Go next door where they’re serving rum balls.
2. Drink as much eggnog as you can. And quickly. It’s rare. You cannot find it any other time of year but now. So drink up! Who cares that it has 10,000 calories in every sip? It’s not as if you’re going to turn into an eggnog-alcoholic or something. It’s a treat. Enjoy it. Have one for me. Have two. It’s later than you think. It’s Christmas !
3. If something comes with gravy, use it. That’s the whole point of gravy. Gravy does not stand alone. Pour it on. Make a volcano out of your mashed potatoes. Fill it with gravy. Eat the volcano. Repeat.
4. As for mashed potatoes, always ask if they’re made with skim milk or whole milk. If it’s skim, pass. Why bother? It’s like buying a sports car with an automatic transmission.
5. Do not have a snack before going to a party in an effort to control your eating. The whole point of going to a Christmas party is to eat other people’s food for free. Lots of it. Hello?
6. Under no circumstances should you exercise between now and New Year’s. You can do that in January when you have nothing else to do This is the time for long naps, which you’ll need after circling the buffet table while carrying a 10-pound plate of food and that vat of eggnog.
7. If you come across something really good at a buffet table, like frosted Christmas cookies in the shape and size of Santa, position yourself near them and don’t budge. Have as many as you can before becoming the center of attention. They’re like a beautiful pair of shoes. If you leave them behind, you’re never going to see them again.
8. Same for pies – Apple , Pumpkin, Mincemeat . Have a slice of each. Or if you don’t like mincemeat, have two apples and one pumpkin. Always have three. When else do you get to have more than one dessert? Labor Day ?
9. Did someone mention fruitcake? Granted, it’s loaded with the mandatory celebratory calories, but avoid it at all cost. I mean, have some standards.
10. One final tip: If you don’t feel terrible when you leave the party or get up from the table, you haven’t been paying attention Re-read tips; start over, but hurry, January is just around the corner. Remember this motto to live by:
“Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming “WOO HOO what a ride!”

Thanks Tommy Salami

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Common misconceptions

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From Wikipedia’s  long List of Common Misconceptions here are a few:

  • George Washington did not have wooden teeth.
  • The German crowd witnessing John F. Kennedy‘s speech in Berlin in 1963 did not mistake Ich bin ein Berliner to mean “I am a jelly doughnut.”
  • Al Gore never said he invented the Internet, though he did state that “During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet”.
  • Entrapment law in the United States does not forbid police officers from going undercover, or from denying that they are police. It is a common misconception among persons engaged in low-level crime that if an undercover police officer is asked, “Are you a cop?” that they must reveal themselves to avoid entrapment.
  • When a meteor lands on Earth (after which it is termed a meteorite), it is not usually hot. In fact, many are found with frost on them.
  • Seasons are not caused by Earth being closer to the sun in summer than in winter. Rather, they are caused by Earth’s tilted axis.
  • Hair and fingernails do not continue to grow after a person dies. Rather, the skin dries and shrinks away from the bases of hairs and nails, giving the appearance of growth.
  • An earthworm does not become two worms when cut in half. An earthworm can survive being bisected, but only the front half of the worm (where the mouth is located) can survive, while the other half dries out or starves to death.
  • The common cold is not caused by being cold or wet. It is caused by a virus of the rhinovirus family. Being cold or wet may weaken your immune system, making it easier to succumb to the virus.
  • The United States Interstate Highway System was not designed with airplane landings in mind.

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50 things you didn’t know about Barack Obama

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Barack Obama was called the O-bomber by his fellow high school basketball players in Honolulu.

• He collects Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian comics

• He was known as “O’Bomber” at high school for his skill at basketball

• His name means “one who is blessed” in Swahili

• His favourite meal is wife Michelle’s shrimp linguini

• He won a Grammy in 2006 for the audio version of his memoir, Dreams From My Father

• He is left-handed – the sixth post-war president to be left-handed

• He has read every Harry Potter book

• He owns a set of red boxing gloves autographed by Muhammad Ali

• He worked in a Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop as a teenager and now can’t stand ice cream

• His favourite snacks are chocolate-peanut protein bars

• He ate dog meat, snake meat, and roasted grasshopper while living in Indonesia

• He can speak Spanish

• While on the campaign trail he refused to watch CNN and had sports channels on instead

• His favourite drink is black forest berry iced tea

• He promised Michelle he would quit smoking before running for president – he didn’t

• He kept a pet ape called Tata while in Indonesia

• He can bench press an impressive 200lbs

• He was known as Barry until university when he asked to be addressed by his full name

• His favourite book is Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

• He visited Wokingham, Berks, in 1996 for the stag party of his half-sister’s fiancé, but left when a stripper arrived

• His desk in his Senate office once belonged to Robert Kennedy

• He and Michelle made $4.2 million (£2.7 million) last year, with much coming from sales of his books

• His favourite films are Casablanca and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

• He carries a tiny Madonna and child statue and a bracelet belonging to a soldier in Iraq for good luck

• He applied to appear in a black pin-up calendar while at Harvard but was rejected by the all-female committee.

• His favourite music includes Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Bach and The Fugees

• He took Michelle to see the Spike Lee film Do The Right Thing on their first date

• He enjoys playing Scrabble and poker

• He doesn’t drink coffee and rarely drinks alcohol

• He would have liked to have been an architect if he were not a politician

• As a teenager he took drugs including marijuana and cocaine

• His daughters’ ambitions are to go to Yale before becoming an actress (Malia, 10) and to sing and dance (Sasha, 7)

• He hates the youth trend for trousers which sag beneath the backside

• He repaid his student loan only four years ago after signing his book deal

• His house in Chicago has four fire places

• Daughter Malia’s godmother is Jesse Jackson’s daughter Santita

• He says his worst habit is constantly checking his BlackBerry

• He uses an Apple Mac laptop

• He drives a Ford Escape Hybrid, having ditched his gas-guzzling Chrysler 300 SUV

• He wears $1,500 (£952) Hart Schaffner Marx suits

• He owns four identical pairs of black size 11 shoes

• He has his hair cut once a week by his Chicago barber, Zariff, who charges $21 (£13)

• His favourite fictional television programmes are Mash and The Wire

• He was given the code name “Renegade” by his Secret Service handlers

• He was nicknamed “Bear” by his late grandmother

• He plans to install a basketball court in the White House grounds

• His favourite artist is Pablo Picasso

• His speciality as a cook is chilli

• He has said many of his friends in Indonesia were “street urchins”

• He keeps on his desk a carving of a wooden hand holding an egg, a Kenyan symbol of the fragility of life

• His late father was a senior economist for the Kenyan government

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Calories don’t count when …

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* It is the middle of the night (it’s not today and it’s not tomorrow)

* We are happy or stressed (corollary: Holidays of any kind)

* We are outside (especially when we are camping)

* It was on the plate of someone else (especially if it the plate of one of your children)

* It is consumed with diet pop

* We have actually broken a sweat (exercised) in the last 24 hours

* Our mother or grandmother made the food

* Our mother or grandmother has recently stressed us out and we made the food

* We are in the car and in a hurry

* It is some form of a salad

* We have recently had problems with members of the opposite sex

* We haven’t had problems or any attention from members of the opposite sex in a long time

* It includes whole grains (or is brownish at least)

* It is in liquid form of any kind (anything that can get through a straw is calorie free)

* It doesn’t taste very good

* You are in front of a TV or computer

* You are standing up (in front of the refrigerator)

* You are depressed

* It’s a free sample at a store

* It’s small and cute like an hors d’oeuvres at a cocktail party

* It is really fancy and well made and not something you get every day

* When wearing sweats or other expandable clothing

* When it benefits girl scouts or any other non profit

* When someone else is paying

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Murphy’s Law for frequent flyers

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1. No flight ever leaves on time unless you are running late and need the delay to make the flight.

2. If you are running late for a flight, it will depart from the farthest gate within the terminal.

3. If you arrive very early for a flight, it inevitably will be delayed.

4. Flights never leave from Gate #1 at any terminal in the world.

5. If you must work on your flight, you will experience turbulence as soon as you touch pen to paper.

6. If you are assigned a middle seat, you can determine who has the seats on the aisle and the window while you are still in the boarding area. Just look for the two largest passengers.

7. Only passengers seated in window seats ever have to get up to go to the lavatory.

8. The crying baby on board your flight is always seated next to you.

9. The best-looking woman on your flight is never seated next to you.

10. The less carry-on luggage space available on an aircraft, the more carry-on luggage passengers will bring aboard.

Phuket Air

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New stock market terms

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CEO — Chief Embezzlement Officer

CFO — Corporate Fraud Officer

BULL MARKET — A random market movement causing an investor to mistake himself for a financial genius.

BEAR MARKET — A 6 to 18 month period when the kids get no allowance, the wife gets no jewelry, and the husband gets no sex.

VALUE INVESTING — The art of buying low and selling lower.

P/E RATIO — The percentage of investors wetting their pants as the market keeps crashing.

BROKER — What my broker has made me.

STANDARD & POOR — Your life in a nutshell.

STOCK ANALYST — Idiot who just downgraded your stock.

STOCK SPLIT — When your ex-wife and her lawyer split your assets equally between themselves.

FINANCIAL PLANNER — A guy whose phone has been disconnected.

MARKET CORRECTION — The day after you buy stocks.

CASH FLOW — The movement your money makes as it disappears down the toilet.

YAHOO — What you yell after selling it to some poor sucker for $240 per share.

WINDOWS — What you jump out of when you’re the sucker who bought Yahoo @ $240 per share.

INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR — Past year investor who’s now locked up in a nuthouse.

PROFIT — An archaic word no longer in use.

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A plethora of puns

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1. The roundest knight at King Arthur’s round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi.

2. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian.

3. She was only a whiskey maker, but he loved her still.

4. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class because it was a weapon of math disruption.

5. The butcher backed into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work.

6. No matter how much you push the envelope, it’ll still be stationery.

7. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.

8. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart.

9. Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.

10. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

11. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it.

12. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

13. Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to the other, ‘You stay here, I’ll go on a head.’

14. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.

15. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: ‘Keep off the Grass.’

16. A small boy swallowed some coins and was taken to a hospital. When his grandmother telephoned to ask how he was, a nurse said, ‘No change yet.’

17. A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.

18. The short fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.

19. The man who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.

20. A backward poet writes inverse.

21. In democracy it’s your vote that counts. In feudalism it’s your count that votes.

22. When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion.

23. Don’t join dangerous cults: Practice safe sects!

Thanks Max

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Literary rules

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Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.

And don’t start a sentence with a conjunction.

It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.

Avoid clichés like the plague. (They’re old hat)

Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.

Be more or less specific.

Remarks in brackets (however relevant) are (usually) (but not always) unnecessary.

Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.

No sentence fragments.

Contractions aren’t necessary and shouldn’t be used.

Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.

Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous.

One should NEVER generalize.

Comparisons are as bad as clichés.

Don’t use no double negatives.

Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.

One-word sentences? Eliminate.

Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.

The passive voice is to be ignored.

Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.

Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.

Kill all exclamation points!!!

Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.

Understatement is always the absolute best way to put forth earth shaking ideas.

Use the apostrophe in it’s proper place and omit it when its not needed.

Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”

If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a thousand times: Resist hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it correctly.

Puns are for children, not groan readers.

Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.

Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.

Who needs rhetorical questions?

Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.

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