Leaderboard

A truck driver would amuse himself by running over lawyers. Whenever he saw a lawyer walking down the side of the road he would swerve to hit him, enjoy the load, satisfying "THUMP", and then swerve back onto the road. (at this point some of you are probably wondering how the trucker could distinguish the lawyers from the humans. Obviously he saw the trail of slime they left!) One day, as the truck driver was driving along he saw a priest hitchhiking. He thought he would do a good turn and pulled the truck over. He asked the priest, "Where are you going, Father?" "I'm going to the church 5 miles down the road," replied the priest. "No problem, Father! I'll give you a lift. Climb in the truck." The happy priest climbed into the passenger seat and the truck driver continued down the road. Suddenly the truck driver saw a lawyer walking down the road and instinctively he swerved to hit him. But then he remembered there was a priest in the truck with him, so at the last minute he swerved back away, narrowly missing the lawyer. However even though he was certain he missed the lawyer, he still heard a loud "THUD". Not understanding where the noise came from he glanced in his mirrors and when he didn't see anything, he turned to the priest and said, "I'm sorry Father. I almost hit that lawyer." "That's okay", replied the priest. "I got him with the door!"

AND THE ANGEL CRIED The foreman wiped his cheek, saw blood, wet and bright on the back of his work glove. His head was ringing -- his ears were not ringing, no, his entire head rang like a cathedral bell -- he closed his eyes, opened them. If this is hell, I earned it, he thought, and then he began to fight his way through the rubble. It was always hot in the foundry. Now it was hot and the dust hung heavy in the air: he had no idea what blew -- one moment all was as it should be, then he got knocked off his feet -- chunks and fragments of something sailed over him as he landed on the floor -- it took him a long moment to gather wind and strength enough to roll over, to work his way to all fours, then to his feet. The gas, he thought. Got to shut off the gas. His eyes weren't working like they should -- they felt gritty, almost numb. He saw his water jug, still under the table where he'd set it. He unscrewed the spout, tilted his face up, dumped it over his face, into his eyes: he blinked he snorted, he sloshed some around in his mouth, spit, drank, screwed the cap back on the spout. Where was I? What the hell happened? Explosion ... gas ... gotta shut off the gas ... The foreman ignored the steady trickle of blood that ran down his face, down the chest of his singed overalls. Angela Keller, pristine in her nursing whites, was covering complications of pregnancy -- even those ordinary, expected results of a mother who just shed her placenta and was now shivering so hard the siderails of her bed had to be padded, padded as thickly as if she had a seizure disorder: "The placenta is one of the body's most powerful endocrine glands. The sudden loss of its --" The classroom door opened and the hospital's director shoved in. "Whatever you're doing, stop. Everyone get ready to move. Disaster protocol, foundry explosion." Angela's eyes turned pale: she turned to the shocked faces looking at the door, looking at her. "Nurses," she said briskly, "leave your books and your purses, they will be secure here. Bring your field kits, you should have them packed and ready as we discussed at the beginning of the term." One of her students raised a tentative hand: Angela saw how pale she'd become, and Angela knew she had to be their rock, their anchor, their example. "Miss Betsy." "Miss Angela ..." Betsy was the shortest, the slightest built student in the class: she was also the best at patient care, and Angela noticed early in their acquaintance that Betsy had the firsthand knowledge in moving, turning and handling a comatose patient -- not an easy thing at all. "Miss Angela, we're not nurses yet." Angela looked very directly at Betsy, then at the others. Angela lifted her chin and spoke, and she later imagined it was her Gammaw's voice that came out of her throat. "NOW HEAR THIS," she declared, "EFFECTIVE NOW YOU ARE NURSES. YOU WILL BE DOING THE WORK, YOU WILL HAVE THE RESPONSIBILITY. YOU HAVE THE TRAINING AND YOU'VE BEEN DOING PRETTY DAMNED WELL. SADDLE UP!" Angela watched with approval as her dozen students went to the cubbies along one wall, withdrew canvas shoulder bags, slung them over one shoulder and across their bodies. "Nurses," Angela said as she slung her own warbag across her, "with me!" The foreman found a length of heavy tubing -- he had no idea what it used to be, only that it was flattened on one end, torn as if ripped apart by an insane giant -- it was long enough to jam into the wheel valve: with the additional leverage, he got the valve to turn, a little, then more: he withdrew the cheater bar, reinserted it, pulled again: another two tries and the valve was turned far enough he could discard the cheater and grab the wheel with gloved hands and muscle it shut. He hadn't realized how much noise the fire was making until he'd shut the valve, until the fire shrank, shivered, died. He turned, looked deeper into the rubble, flinched as part of a wall fell over. Someone grabbed his shoulder: he turned, saw a familiar face, a man he worked with every day, a man that used to have a beard, a man with singed stubble and what looked like a bad sunburn. The man's mouth moved. The foreman looked at him oddly and the man's mouth moved again. It looked like he was shouting, and finally he made out what his co-worker was trying to say: "Who else is alive?" The foreman looked around, looked back, shook his head. The two waded deeper into the rubble, started digging, started throwing bricks and chunks of hot steel aside. Multiple Irises opened like elliptical mouths outside the foundry, within the fenced, gated property. Men and machines poured out: yellow loaders with black lettering, yellow cranes with black booms, bright-red fire trucks: a flyer was released from its flatbed trailer, launched straight up, began sending high-res images back to the command truck: a yellow bulldozer with CATERPICKLE stenciled along the hood bellowed out of an Iris, exhaust snarling aggressively into the dusty air: it turned, guided by the images from the flyer, stopped. Rigid suction lines were coupled, attached: the tractor started up again, lowered its blade, cut through the chain link fence and made a straight shot for the nearest water: men jogged alongside it, a portable pump was towed into position: the tractor got the line as close to the water as it could, released, turned, backed: chain was run around the line, its end was capped with a strainer basket, two men waded out into the water, grateful for rocky fill underfoot as the crawler advanced the line into the slow moving water. The big empty yard was organized chaos: men, machines, a combination of canvas walls and plastic panel roofs forming up, plastic decking laid down. The field hospital was being assembled, additional transport stood ready to take patients through the appropriate Iris to waiting facilities offworld. A bus pulled up outside the gates, flagged through by the constabulary, a bus that braked to a stop and allowed a baker's dozen nurses to flow out, and through the open gates, toward the field hospital. He found a boot. He dug some more, threw aside chunks of brick, slabs of bricks still mortared together: a leg, then the other leg, a body. The foreman knelt, bent closer, squinted. "Charlie!" His voice was faint, far away, though he felt himself shouting. "Charlie!" He looked up. Men were running toward him -- men in unfamiliar suits, but men with the grim look he'd seen before. He raised a summoning arm. Angela was everywhere at once: she was a steadying hand on a young shoulder, she was a moment's encouragement as young hands wrapped a blood pressure cuff around a filthied or bloodied arm, as another listened to a chest, nodded. Betsy was busy with shears, stripping a man quickly, efficiently: stainless steel chattered through dust-filthied work pants, she put both hands on the shears and muscled through the worn belt, then up the side seam of the shirt. Angela moved on to the next table just as a stretcher was set on it: her fingers told her what her eyes already knew: practiced fingers found the Adam's apple, dropped into the carotid groove, pressed, held: she closed her eyes, counted to ten: she whipped the stethoscope from around her neck, listened to the unmoving chest, then shook her head: a black tag was tied on, the stretcher carried to another tent. Angela turned, looked back at Betsy. She saw her most tentative, her least certain student, already had oxygen on her patient: Betsy stripped open a foil pack of vaseline gauze, saw her set the gauze, still on half the opened package, aside: she pressed the vaseline side of the foil packaging against the bubbling hole in the man's chest, watched as she taped it on three sides -- both sides, and the top, leaving the bottom unsecured -- then seized the patient at belt and shoulder and rolled him up on his injured side. Angela came around the other side of the table, pressed the bell of her stethoscope against the man's chest -- high, then low -- looked at Betsy, smiled just a little, nodded. A teacher's greatest delight is to see that light that comes in a student's face when they grasp a lesson that had been just beyond their grasp. When Betsy saw Angela's look of approval, Angela saw that same realization in her student's face. Angela made a mental note to have Betsy present before her class, on the use of a one way flutter valve, when the patient has sustained a penetrating chest wound. The disaster response team moved with the practiced efficiency of men who knew their work, and did it well. Technology unknown on this world was used to locate survivors; offworld devices hoisted or vaporized rubble in order to remove the injured, and after the survivors, the bodies. Through it all, a dozen plus one in winged caps, their hands busy, their faces serious: they were young, they were determined, they were handmaidens of life, handmaidens of death: not all that were retrieved, could be saved. Physicians there were, yes; surgeons, both male and female, technicians and technologists, but of all these, it was the nurses the injured men remembered. One man, half his face burned, one eye destroyed, a man beyond pain, looked at the smallest of these women in white winged caps: with the last of his strength, he asked, "Are you an angel?" and his hand closed around her wrist, gently, and then relaxed, and she felt the soul leave his body as his last breath sighed out, and was gone. Betsy was not the only one there who shed tears that day, but hers was the picture that made the newspapers on ten worlds: as she bent over a man, as her face crumpled and her tears dropped on his burned face, the shutter tripped, the picture appeared above the caption: "And The Angel Cried."

THE EIGHT DAY CLOCK Sarah Lynne McKenna snapped her fan shut, slapping her gloved palm loudly and glaring at an unshaven man in a rumpled suit, a broad-shouldered sort out of place in the dining room of a fine hotel. Sarah rose, stood, her closed fan in both hands before her: she held it loosely, almost casually, she lifted her chin. "State your business, sirrah," she said icily. The shoulder-striker glared at her turned a little as if to line up a backhand slap: the sound of a revolving-pistol rolling into full cock froze him. "I'll see you later," he snarled and started to turn. The woman's hands came apart, the fan fell to the floor: his eyes, attracted naturally to movement, followed the fan as it fell: he looked up and saw the woman had a long, slender, almost needle-like blade in hand. "You will see me now, sirrah," she said, her voice low, cold: he forgot, for just a moment, the cocked pistol he heard to his right. He was an enforcer for a crime boss; his world was simple, uncomplicated, basic: when faced with violence, one responded with greater violence, or one withdrew, to do violence another day. He'd been sent to find a woman, and that woman wasn't here -- the woman he wanted had a scar down her face, another across her throat, the woman he wanted wore a face-veil to hide those terrible scars. This woman, though, this woman defied him in public, and he would not stand for that defiance. He was a hand taller than she, well broader across the shoulders, hard-muscled. She would stand no chance, once his hands were on her. He surged forward, expecting her to freeze, as women always did. She did not freeze. He bent eagerly, going for a grab: something hit his hip and then he felt something, a momentarily prick that grew into an utterly blinding, agonizing, paralyzing PAIN -- The floor came up to meet his face -- Someone detonated a sunball of paralyzing, screaming, incinerating AGONY in his tenderloins -- A chair crashed down on the back of his head, his face made intimate contact with the burnished floor: the chair was well-built, and did not break. One could not say as much for his nose, his jaw and one cheekbone, for when a pale-eyed woman in a fine gown seized the dining room chair in her gloved hands, swung it hard and brought it down on the back of her attacker's head, she did not do so in either a gentle manner, nor in a half-hearted manner: no, she swung the chair like she meant it and she hit him with full intent to drive his face through to the cellars below. Sarah Lynne McKenna pulled the slender, needle-like blade from the man's kidneys, lifted his coat tail and wiped the blade on the inside of the material: she splashed a little wine on the coattail, wiped the blade again, slid it into the handle of the dropped fan. A well-dressed woman snapped her fan open, fluttered it delicately, took a well-dressed man's elbow, walked with a queenly gait toward the front door. No one dared impede their progress. Sarah sighed, leaned her head back against the padded headrest: the private car shivered as they started moving, as slack banged out of the couplers, as a pale eyed man in a tailored black suit regarded her with admiration. "Little Sis," Jacob said softly, "I have never seen better!" "You should see me on a good day," Sarah murmured without opening her eyes. "Thank you for kicking him like you did." "It was that or shoot him," Jacob grinned, "and you know how I hate loud noises!" "I ought to have Mama spank you." "What was he all fired up about, anyhow?" "He was looking for that feathered doxy that stole some papers from a crooked councilman." "Will we be receiving a warrant, or maybe they'll send detectives looking for you?" "No," Sarah sighed. "I pay the staff well to see nothing. Besides, the other diners will attest that a woman was set upon by an unwashed brute, she defended herself against a known footpad and street thug." She opened her eyes, gave Jacob a sleepy look. "I saved them the trouble of catching him. He's wanted in two states and a Territory." "You could have claimed any reward on him." Sarah smiled. "That's partly why he was after me. I did collect the reward money, when I stole those papers showing just how crooked the councilman was." "Was?" "The newspapers each received a third of the bundle I stole, along with a whispered suggestion that they can get the content from the other papers to fill out the complete story. By now the headlines will have him run out of office, if only to preserve the Mayor's image." "You don't play fair, do you?" "I never have, Jacob." Sarah opened her eyes, gave her brother a gentle look. "Not after everything that was done to me, no, I don't play fair. I am just a small and weak woman, helpless in the face of outrageous fortune, a defenseless player on the brutal chessboard of a cold and uncaring life." "So you stole from this crooked councilman as well." "He was the one who hired a wanted man. All I did was collect the bounty on the dacoit's head." Jacob Keller's expression was thoughtful: he eventually got up, came over, slipped his arm under his sister's ankles, raised her legs onto the long, padded sofa, worked a pillow under her head. Jacob Keller, pale eyed and unsmiling, moved carefully, silently, as he eased a cupboard open, as he teased a folded blanket from the cupboard, as he draped it carefully over his sister's still form. Jacob's eyes tightened a little at the corners as Sarah cuddled into the velvet upholstery, just a little, as one dainty, gloved hand gripped the edge of the blanket, pulled it in under her chin. It was not uncommon for the Sheriff to have visitors. Most of the time, he knew they were arriving -- most of the time, but not always. Linn removed his Stetson as he came through the door, hung it on its peg, swept the immaculate kitchen with pale and appreciative eyes, looked to his right, hesitated. He did not know the young woman lying on the couch in his study. He did know the young woman sitting in his office chair, reading. Angela looked up, smiled, put a finger to her lips: Linn pulled off his boots, set them in the tray, went over to a cupboard. Angela watched as her father removed a thick quilt, unfolded it: he moved, silent on sock feet, over to the sofa, carefully draped the quilt over the diminutive sleeper's form: he saw her wiggle a little, saw one hand grip the edge of the quilt, draw it under her chin as she cuddled deeper into the couch without waking. Linn turned, catfooted over to his daughter at her beckoning gesture, bent, hands on his knees, his ear close to Angela's lips. "Her name is Betsy," he heard as his daughter's breath tickled the fine hairs on his ears. "She has been through two days of absolute hell and she's wound up like an eight day clock." Linn turned his face toward her, closed one eye, nodded gravely, moved his own lips to his daughter's ear. "There is cold meatloaf and salad," he whispered back, "and I'll heat up the oven for some fries. Less messy than deep frying." He drew back, read the silent Thank you from his daughter's lips, looked at the two nursing caps on the edge of his desk, looked over at the young woman, asleep on his couch. The young Bear Killer lay contentedly beside Angela, looked adoringly up at her, gave a truly huge, tongue-curling yawn, then laid his head down on curly-furred, sinner's-heart-black paws, and went back to sleep. Sarah McKenna woke as the air brakes thumped and hissed beneath them. Jacob was still sitting in the same chair, in the same place: something told her he'd been awake, alert, watchful, for the entire journey home -- though very likely he'd prowled like a pregnant cat while he did, and only seated himself so he'd be where she could see him when she first opened her eyes. Jacob rose: Sarah sat up, gave herself a few moments before rising. Jacob folded the puffy, warm quilt, replaced it in the private car's cupboard, turned. "If you're hungry," he said quietly, "Annette fixes enough to feed a young regiment, you're welcome to supper at my place." Sarah walked slowly over to her brother, hugged him, laid the side of her face against his collar bone: he hugged her to him, felt her warmth, felt her long, deep, sigh. "I'd like that, Jacob," she murmured. "After the last few days I'm wound up like an eight day clock." Jacob rubbed his sister's back but made no other reply.

A man walks into a dentist’s office as it about to close. The dentist says to him “I'm just leaving, can I help you?” The man replies “doc you've gotta help me, please!” The dentist says “what's the trouble?” The man says “I think I'm a moth!” “A moth?” says the shocked dentist, “you don't need me, you need a psychiatrist!” “I see a psychiatrist” the man says. “Well, why'd you come in here then?” asks the dentist. The man replies “Your light was on."

Aussie Garage Sale

Moon camouflage and space camouflage?

OK DOG. If I ever figure out how to load this thing, you're in trouble!!

$3.22 is NOT an increase of 149% over $2.17 - it's 67%. To double check. A 100% increase would be double or $4.34. Let's do math together.

RADIOLOGY Sheriff Linn Keller was flat on his back on a padded table, a long foam wedge under his knees taking the discomfort from his lower back: the radioographer rubbed the inside of his forearm with something wet and almost cold, tilted her head like a vulture considering a particularly appetizing carcass. "You look stressed," Linn said gently. "One of those days?" "Honey, it was one of those days before twelve o'clock," she sighed: somewhere between "one of those days" and her sigh, the IV went into Linn's vein, easily, smoothly: he felt the cold as she flushed with saline, he smiled a little as she carefully secured the IV site. "Now remember," she cautioned, "when the contrast hits you, you'll feel flushed." "Like I wet myself," Linn grinned, and the tech laid gentle fingertips on his shoulder, bent closer, said confidentially "I wasn't going to say that," and giggled all the way back to her control booth. The scan was quick and uneventful: when the Sheriff left the hospital, he had a green cling wrap holding the folded gauze on the IV site -- he thought to himself the tech used green because she thought he was Irish, then he thought she thought he was Irish because he was full of blarney, then he remembered what he'd been very recently told he was full of, and considered that maybe that was the case after all. He went over the results with his daughter, the nurse: she looked at the results of the most recent scan, she took another look at his bloodwork, she pulled out a dainty little set of wire rimmed spectacles, placed them well down on her nose and glared at him overtop the wire rims, wiggling her nose like a bunny rabbit. "I suppose you're going to give me hell now," he said, and Dana could hear the smile in her Daddy's voice. "The scan shows everything is stable and has been for the past five years. That means you stay healthy and don't get yourself killed or I'll never speak to you again!" "Is that kind of like your Mama telling me I'm not to die before her?" "Dad-deee," Angela said, a warning note in her voice, "you have to give me away in marriage, remember?" Linn nodded. "I remember." "Now. Your blood work. You, my dear Sheriff, are a remarkably healthy man who needs to eat more blueberries and walnuts." "I just happen to like both." "Good. That makes it easier. And you have to eat more broccoli." "Don't push it." "Okay, we'll find something else. Alfalfa maybe." "Alfalfa's a legume. I'll eat peanuts. Peanut butter and jelly sammitches. Peanut butter chocolate sauce over ice cream with crushed walnuts." Angela raised spread fingers to the ceilling, shook her head. "O Lord," she begged, "is this man always so obstinate?" "Only when I'm refusing to take myself seriously!" Linn grinned. "Daddy, your heart has a slight enlargement and there's a slight enlargement to your ascending aorta. These have remained stable for the past five years. You have a cyst on your liver that remains unchanged. So far, nothing to run screaming from the room waving your arms over your head." "Yeah, that's what I said after the scan. The tech didn't run screaming from the control room so I knew there was nothing spectacularly bad on her screen." "Did you ask if she saw anything?" "I asked if she saw a spare set of keys." Angela looked at her Daddy over her spectacles -- again -- and gave a dramatic, exaggerated sigh. "I did not ask what she saw. I know they scan but they can't diagnose." Angela nodded. "People think the X-ray tech can tell them something right away." "No. I've listened to too many techs complain about that very thing. I'm not about to task them with anything of the kind." Linn looked at his daughter. "More blueberries and walnuts?" Angela nodded. "And peanuts." "Peanuts won't hurt." "Peanut butter and blueberry jelly sandwiches." "Daddy," Angela warned, shaking her Mommy-finger at him, "you are incorrigible!' "I also have an appetite for a banana split and I'm buyin'!" Angela rose as her father did: "Okay," she said, pretending to reluctance, "but only in the interest of dietary anti-oxidants, isoflavones and necessary nutrients found in fresh fruits, chocolate and tree nuts!" "Nothing but the best," Linn said solemnly, offering his daughter his elbow.

This is why I love math. You can easily manipulate the numbers to your advantage.

I haven’t tried riding a bike backwards. At this stage of my life I wouldn’t even consider trying. One would have to be strangely talented to do that, I’m sure. Thanks for the explanation.

The tread will go through him if a cap comes off.

Just like any other vehicle with onboard computers.

The Aussie Lamington

The Big Merino in Goulburn NSW

The Big Dingo Glenreagh NSW

Running bull, 'Millungera', North Queensland Circa 1977

The wild magoo was Danny Chandler. He rode on the edge, fast and loose so he would wreck hard like Mr Magoo. I’d like to see him race James Stewart in his prime. http://hof.motorcyclemuseum.org/halloffame/detail.aspx?RacerID=61 ‘82 or ‘83. In a 500cc race he had to go backwards on a hill to get going. The hill had three step ups and he wasn’t the only rider to ride backwards direction down the hill. He was the only one penalized for it. He said it cost him the class championship that year. So in protest he rode the 250cc across the finish line the right direction but sitting backwards.

2.17 x 1.49 = 3.23