Giving 101%

Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%? We have all been in situations where someone wants you to GIVE OVER 100%.

How about ACHIEVING 101%?

What equals 100% in life?

Here's a little mathematical formula that might help answer these questions:

If:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
are represented as:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26.

Then:

H-A-R-D-W-O- R- K
8+1+18+4+23+ 15+18+11 = 98%

And:
K-N-O-W-L-E- D-G-E
11+14+15+23+ 12+5+4+7+ 5 = 96%

But:
A-T-T-I-T-U- D-E
1+20+20+9+20+ 21+4+5 = 100%

THEN, look how far the love of God will take you:
L-O-V-E-O-F- G-O-D
12+15+22+5+15+ 6+7+15+4 = 101%

Therefore, one can conclude with mathematical certainty that:
While Hard Work and Knowledge will get you close, and Attitude will get you there, it's the Love of God that will put you over the top!

Pun of the weak #34

Many people had seen apples fall from trees, but only Isaac Newton appreciated the gravity of the situation.

Today is the birth anniversary of one of the most remarkable men to have ever lived.

Where am I???

I've been convinced.

And I'll catch you all from Sydney tomorrow.

Good on yer, mate

For those without enough corn in their lives.

Tim Tam Slams

For those without enough chocolate in their lives.
PS: Tim Tam Slams are seriously fantastic with milk. Trust me on this one.

Men at Work

Just in case there isn't enough cheese in your life.

Pun of the weak #35

What time does Serena Williams go to bed?

About tennis.

(In honour of her winning Wimbledon over the weekend.)

Pun of the weak #34

Bored with training watchdogs, a trainer tried to teach a dog to play classical music. It didn't work as its Bach was worse than its bite.

Pun of the weak #33

Is feeding someone oatmeal everyday considered gruel and unusual nourishment?

Michael Jackson

I was extremely surprised to learn just now of Michael Jackson's death on Thursday in Los Angeles, although I knew that he wasn't in the best of health for quite a while now.
I will admit that I've not been too impressed by him for many years now, but not for the problems in his personal life. No, my problem with Michael Jackson was this video (which, unfortunately, cannot be embedded):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-TZnNXXQrI
It was simply the greatest music video ever produced, and nothing he did after that ever came close to matching it. Every time I hear a creaking door, I expect to hear those familiar, spooky footsteps.
For "Thriller" alone, I'm grateful for the life of Michael Jackson.

'Scuse me, please while I...huh?!

Jimi Hendrix said he was going to "kiss the sky". Millions thought he was going to "kiss this guy", thus giving rise to probably the most famous mondegreen of all time.

What's a mondegreen? Well, it's a term coined in the 1950s by the writer Sylvia Wright (good name for a wrighter, er, writer), who, as a child, misheard the words the 17th century ballad "The Bonnie Earl O' Murray."

Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,
Oh, where hae ye been?
They hae slain the Earl Amurray,
And Lady Mondegreen.

And young Sylvia felt so sad for Lady Mondegreen.

Years later, she discovered that what they had, in fact, done was slay the Earl of Murray and laid him on the green, and so she came up with the term, "Mondegreen" to represent what she'd done to her now non-existent heroine.

Enough with the history lesson. You know what a mondegreen really is, don't you? It's all those songs that you thought you were singing correctly, blissfully unaware of why everyone around you was rolling around in laughter. Or those songs that made you go, "Huh?" as you tried to make sense of the lyrics. Like this one did to me:

Life would be ecstasy/You and me and Leslie/Groovin'...

I thought that was kinky, even for the swingin' sixties. It took me years to realise that the Rascals were actually singing:

Life would be ecstasy/You and me endlessly/Groovin'...

Judging from the entries at Kissthisguy.com (warning: many hours of mirth to be obtained there), I'm not alone with this song.

This one, though, I know is an original:

If I said I love you, do you mind?/Mick and I'll love you, Do you mind?

About twenty years later, after listening to it repeatedly on a really good stereo, I finally divined that what Tony Newley was singing was:

If I said I love you, Do you mind?/Make an idol of you, Do you mind?

I hope Mick didn't mind being left out.

My mondegreens aren't restricted to English. Listen to the first song on my playlist. When I was a kid, this was a hit Hindi movie song, and the words of the first lines are:

Aap jaise koi meri zindagi mein aayen/To baath ban jaayen

(Idiomatic translation: If someone like you came into my life, it would be wonderful news)

My young ears, however, heard them as:

Aap jaise koi meri zindagi mein aayen/To baap ban jaayen

(Idiomatic translation: If someone like you came into my life, you'll become a father) Did I mention I nine when I was belting out these lyrics? Precocious.

So, what are your favourite mondegreens?

News of the weird #2

When I am confronted by a headline that reads 'Stoned wallabies make crop circles', the headline and its corresponding story have my attention. And this story was well worth my attention. I particularly enjoyed the comments at the bottom.

Rools phor Riting Gooder Inglish

1. Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
4. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
5. Avoid clichés like the plague.
6. Also, always absolutely avoid and abjure annoying alliteration.
7. Be more or less specific.
8. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) inappropriate.
9. No sentence fragments.
10. One should never, ever generalise.
11. Contractions aren't necessary, and shouldn't be used.
12. Do not use no double negatives.
13. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
14. Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary.
15. Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.
16. Kill all exclamation marks!!!!!!
17. Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
18. Use the apostrophe in it's proper place, and omit it when its not needed.
19. Puns are for children, not groan adults.
20. Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.

Pun of the weak #32

Did you hear about the florist who had sons of contrasting intellectual capabilities? One was a budding genius, while the other was a blooming idiot.

The First of June

June 1st marked two unusual anniversaries for me.
First, it marked my being in India for one whole year. I haven't been in one country for at least 365 days in a row since I left the US in January 2004.
Second, it marked my being in Asia for three whole years. I haven't been in one continent for such an uninterrupted length of time since August 1993.
Life's really become dull of late.

Pun of the weak #31

Advice to the lovelorn: If at first you don't succeed, try a little ardour.

O Tempora, O Mores #6

Excellently funny article out of New Zealand about the dangers of letting kids near computers:
Toddler buys real digger online
A New Zealand couple nearly found themselves in a financial hole when their three-year-old daughter bought an earthdigger in an internet auction.

The child, Pipi Quinlan, was trying out her online skills while her parents were asleep in bed.

They only unearthed the truth when they received an email demand for NZ$20,000 (£8,000) from the seller.

Pipi's mother, Sarah, had left the computer logged on. The owner of the digger is not insisting on the sale.

Shock

Sarah Quinlan told the BBC that she had been looking for toys online, and using an automatic log-in to an auction site.

But a shock was in store when she got up the next day.

"When I found an email from a guy who said 'can you deposit the money?' I thought - hang on - this isn't quite what I expected," she said.

Pipi had only been allowed to use the computer for the first time the week before - but is obviously a fast learner.

"It's been a lot of fun," said Sarah, "She's earned a bit of notoriety."

But Sarah is determined the same thing will not happen again, and has urged the parents of other young children not to be caught out.

"I've taken all my automatic log-ins off anything she could purchase from," she said.

The Singh is king

Dr. Manmohan Singh was sworn-in yesterday for a second successive term as Prime Minister of India.

I was surprised that the ruling Congress party won again, as it bucks recent trends. This will be the first time since 1971 that a sitting Prime Minister has been re-elected. Usually Indians like to kick out the incumbents for a term and let the other guys loot and pillage for a while. We try to spread the wealth around amongst the crooks who are our politicians. (I thoroughly recommend this strategy to all other countries, too.)

Still, Dr. Manmohan Singh is a thoroughly decent man and not a career politician. He used to be chairman of the Reserve Bank of India, which meant he was highly influential in economic circles. Then he was appointed Finance Minister in 1991 and made a member of the Upper House. That term ended in 1996. Then the Congress Party spent a long time on the sidelines until winning quite unexpectedly in 2004 as part of a coalition. Dr. Singh was a very surprising compromise candidate to be Prime Minister, and now he's won a second term. By the time he's done, he'll be India's third-longest serving Prime Minister, which is remarkable for someone of his background.

He is immensely qualified to tackle the Indian economy, holding degrees in economics from both Cambridge and Oxford. Perhaps he cannot take all the credit, but it is immensely satisfying to note that during the mayhem in banking circles in many parts of the world, Indian banks did not experience the catastrophic failures that has plagued more celebrated names.

Five more years of this guy? Yes, I can deal with that.

Pun of the weak #30

Puns are for children, not for groan adults.

For the beauty of the earth...

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has announced a goal of planting 7 billion new trees on the earth by the end of the year. Now, human-led climate change may be real or may be a hoax, but there should be few doubters that the loss of trees is a loss for all of us.
Forests and jungles get a raw deal from almost every side these days. On the one hand, swathes of trees are being cleared to feed the building-frenzy in parts of the world or for beef production to supply the fast-food industry. On the other hand, excessive protection is being blamed for supplying the fuel for the destructive forest fires in Victoria, Australia seen earlier this year.
The happy medium, it would seem, is to use trees wisely and at the same time replace the ones that have been felled. The latter, however, is somewhere that we've been lacking during our existence. Hence the UNEP's challenge to people everywhere to plant more trees.
While many of us may be struggling to contribute financially to such a cause, there may be a way for us to help out without having to spend money. A friend of mine sent me a link to a free search site called gearch.com. The people behind gearch have pledged to plant one tree for every 10 days that a registered user uses their site. And as you can choose your existing search engine (gearch is just a shell; I've set mine to google), you don't lose out on search capability.
I have not been able to verify independently (so far) whether or not these guys are legitimate, but if there is even a slight chance that they are, I'm taking it.
If you want to register with gearch, let me have your e-mail address and I can send you an invitation. Each accepted invitation earns one tree.
So, any takers?