Christmas Contribution

Filched from Phil

A Cthulhu Ctharol

Happy Birthday, Me.

Tuesday Tune

Clean-cut, neat hair, ties, words you can understand.

This can’t be music!

Grandma’s Life #24

“For working girls and housewives who like a dress instead of a suit this is a dress which would never wear out. Probably it would be seen at its best at the beginning of autumn. The dress itself in brown and white with brown hat, shoes and gloves, would look very finished for outdoors, too, with a silk scarf at the neck or, if you have it, a small [faux] fur tippet. A smart young dress for not-so-young women.”

From The Daily Mail Ideal Home Book 1951-1952.

Burgled from Vintage Scans

More Sparrowhawks

I was lucky enough to grab a quick shot of three of four sparrow hawks which were cooling themselves in our little “pond”.

Old love.

A guy was in his back yard is trying to fly a kite. He threw the kite up in
the air, the wind caught it for a few seconds, then it came crashing back down
to earth.

He tried this a few more times with no success.

All the while, his wife was watching from the kitchen window, muttering to herself how men need to be told how to do everything.

She opened the window and yelled to her husband, ‘You need a piece of tail.’

The man turned with a confused look on his face and says, ‘Make up your mind. Last night you told me to go fly a kite.’

Witch Finding

Desert Bug

I brought my washing in the other day.

I thought it felt heavy.

Man Domesticates Woman

Once burdened with physically demanding chores, exhausting farm work, and other unpleasant duties, man’s quality of life dramatically improved after his successful domestication of the common woman.

Though for years women had roamed free throughout most of Asia, Europe, and Africa, experts estimate that by around 3,000 BCE men had begun putting them to work.

“A valuable commodity with seemingly endless uses, the woman has played a crucial role throughout human history,” noted historian Alan Helbling said. “Not only could she be trained to perform a variety of tasks, but once her spirit was broken and her energies reined in, she could be taught to come whenever she was called.”

“They’re really quite magnificent creatures,” Helbling added.

While initially wild, with their own stubborn ideas and desires, Helbling said that women slowly learned to submit to instruction, and over time, showed less and less resistance when being forced to mate. In addition, raising a woman to maturity was considered low maintenance, which meant that a man could expend little effort when attending to her care and feeding.

Eventually, women were brought inside the home to provide companionship, and some even became a part of the family.

Anthropologist Jeremy Murphy claims that, to prevent the wilder women from running away, men limited their freedom by training them to stay in enclosed spaces for long periods of time. According to Murphy, disobedience on the part of women was not taken lightly; physical punishments and restrictive harnesses were often employed to curb any independent behavior.

“With the creation of the corset, man was further able to control his growing stable of wives and daughters, and could parade them around without ever having to worry about keeping them in line,” Murphy said. “The corset, along with the many other yokes and straps that followed, provided a physical reminder of who was boss.”

For most of the 18th and 19th centuries, women continued their work in the field and at home, often showing little sign of their once liberated nature. However, by the mid-20th century, a number of strange occurrences were reported: Spooked by the growing civil rights movement and loud protests taking place across the country, hundreds of women suddenly broke free from their restraints and, for the first time in millennia, ran wild, joining four-year colleges and professional workplaces along the way.

The majority have yet to return.

“They’ll come back—you’ll see,” cried Kentucky resident Dale Berring, who saw his woman leave for greener pastures almost 10 years ago. “And when they do, there’ll be hell to pay.”

From the “Top 10 stories of the past 4.5 billion years” published by “The Onion”

God and Religion

Fast, Broken

For those of you who were worried about my lack of food yesterday, there is good news.

I successfully broke my fast.

Photo Hunt; Fast

I haven’t broken mine yet – - -

A Cleaning Cheat Sheet for Men…

* Broom (brum) – a long handled brush used for sweeping (also doubles as a mode of transportation for your mother)

* Vacuum (vak’ u em) – much like the leaf blower except it sucks in, instead of blowing out. Don’t let this alarm you. It isn’t broken and doesn’t need more torque, speed, RAM or whatever it is you did to the dishwasher.

* Dust pan (DUH) – Contrary to popular belief, this is where you sweep the dirt, not under the hallway area rug.

* Dust Cloth (dust kloth) – A cloth designated for removing tiny particles of dirt from every flat surface of the house. Hint: look for your old “lucky shirt”.

* Bucket (buk’ it)- Cylindric container used for holding soapy water when mopping the floor. Also known as your mid-evil knight helmet when you’re playing with our seven-year-old.

* Mop – (mop) a bundle of coarse yarn, rags or cloth fastened at the end of a stick. You’ll remember this as your dance partner at the New Year’s Eve party last year.

* Toilet Brush (toi’ lit brush) – Used for scrubbing the inside of the toilet bowl. I don’t care what this looks like, you may NOT use my shower luffa again!

* Oven Cleaner (uv’ en Klen’ er) – No, not the teenager. This is an actual product that you buy, spray in the oven and wipe out two hours later. You won’t need your welder’s mask for this task, but if it makes you feel more dangerous, go ahead.

* Sponge (spunj) – used to gently wash away food particles from dinnerware. It won’t be necessary to use your 300psi Power wash set. That was given to you in hopes of cleaning the EXTERIOR of the house (hint hint).

* Squeegee (skwe’ je) – Same principle as washing the car windshield, and yes, real men DO squeegee!

Final Note:
While Duct tape may be a wonderful plumbers aid, it’s really not the best solution for keeping the bathroom towels in place, and Jamie’s teacher is still asking why his homework was stuck to his forehead last week. For these reasons, I have hidden the duct tape and distributed your picture to the local hardware stores. Don’t make me call Duct Tape Anonymous again.

Take your time, everything will be fine. If you need me, I’ll be in the basement cleaning up the smoke damage from your “do it yourself” electrical rewiring incident last week.

Blasphemy or Humanity?

This Christmas Season, a billboard has been erected by a New Zealand church.

The Vicar of Auckland’s progressive Christian church St Matthew in the City, Glynn Cardy, says he wanted to lampoon the literal Christian conception story and get people discussing miracles and God. “We’re trying to lampoon the idea of a literal male God who somehow, it’s assumed, impregnated Mary,” he said. “Most Christians don’t believe that, but the message that the general society hears from the church is this message; they think that they’re meant to take it literally. We actually think God is about the power of love as shown in Jesus, which is something quite different than a literal man up in the sky.”

But a few hours after the billboard went up, an angry man with a pot (not a kettle or a pan or a tin or a can, but a pot) of brown paint covered over Mary and Joseph’s faces. (The damage has now been repaired)

I know – I am going to burn in Hell for this one. Certainly there shall be disapproval amongst the masses and I risk the vilification of the devout.

At least burning at the stake has gone out of fashion. Mostly.

Then again, Hell may be closer than I think!

Of course, if I’m lucky, I may not be in the hot stuff. (I really should go to Hell for over-use of the parenthesis keys)

Although, as Jan deBoer said, “”Considering all the evil that exists in the world, the fact that all of religion’s condemnation is focused on expressing disapproval of two people loving each other proves just how evil religion is.”