I am by nature a writer, and libraries are one of my favorite places in the world. In fact, I've worked in a library for the last four summers, and loved every bit of it :)
Soon, in this place, I would like to share with you my stories. I would also like to tell about those poems and stories by other people who have touched my life. I would like to include exserts, if I can.
Of course, that will all come in time, when I have time to that sort of thing. I would also love to post your own short stories here -- please tell me if you have one! This page is going to be a lot of fun :)
Return to the Isle
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Featured now are some odds and end of nifty letters I've recieved through e-mail, authors unknown :)
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Trouble at Sea
This is the transcript of the actual radio conversation of a U.S. Naval ship with Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland.
Canadian: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the south to avoid a collision.
(I say nothing... ;)
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TABOO
HIS guardian angel whispered to Fabian, behind his shoulder:
by Enrique Anderson Imbert, 1966
Finally a joke that explains what it's like to be Canadian...
Once upon a time in the Kingdom of Heaven, God went missing for six days.
Eventually, Michael the archangel found him, resting on the seventh day. He
inquired of God, "Where have you been?"
God sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction and proudly pointed downwards
through the clouds, "Look Michael, look what I've made."
Archangel Michael looked puzzled and said, "What is it?"
"It's a planet," replied God, "and I've put LIFE on it. I'm going to
call it Earth and it's going to be a great place of balance."
"Balance?" inquired Michael, still confused. God explained, pointing
to different parts of Earth, "For example, Northern Europe will be a place of great opportunity and
wealth while Southern Europe is going to be poor; the Middle East over there
will be a hot spot. Over there I've placed a continent of white people and
over there is a continent of black people," God continued, pointing to
different countries. "This one will be extremely hot and arid while this one
will be very cold and covered in ice."
The Archangel, impressed by Gods work, then pointed to a large land
mass in the top corner and asked, "What's that one?"
"Ah," said God. "That's Canada, the most glorious place on Earth. There's
beautiful mountains, lakes, rivers, streams and an exquisite
coast-line. The people from Canada are going to be modest, intelligent and
humorous and they're going to be found traveling the world. They'll be
extremely sociable, hard-working and high-achieving, and they will be known
throughout the world as diplomats and carriers of peace. I'm also going to
give them super-human, undefeatable ice hockey players who will be admired
and feared by all who come across them."
Michael gasped in wonder and admiration but then proclaimed. "What
about balance, God? You said there will be BALANCE!"
God replied wisely. "Wait until you see the loud-mouth bastards I'm
putting next to them."
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Is Hell Endothermic or Exothermic? A proof.
A retiring Phys Chem professor was setting his last exam, for a graduate course in statistical thermodynamics. Being a bit bored with it all, and with a well kept and wry sense of humor, he set a single question on the sheet: Is Hell endothermic or exothermic? Support your answer with a proof.
He had little idea what to expect, or how to grade the results, but decided to reward any student who was able to come up with a reasonable and consistent reply to his query. One A was awarded.
Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law or some variant. The top student however wrote the following:
First, we postulate that if souls exist, then they must have some mass. If they do, then a mole of souls can also have a mass. So, at what rate are souls moving into hell and at what rate are souls leaving?
I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.
As for souls entering hell, lets look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and all souls go to hell.
With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in hell to increase exponentially.
Now, we look at the rate of change in volume in hell. Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in hell to stay the same, the ratio of the mass of souls and volume needs to stay constant. There are two possible conditions.
Condition 1: If hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter hell, then the temperature and pressure in hell will increase
exponentially until all hell breaks loose.
Condition 2: If hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in hell, than the temperature and pressure will drop until hell freezes over.
We can solve this with the 1990 postulation of Theresa LeClair, the girl who lived across the hall from me in first year residence. Since I have still not been successful in obtaining sexual relations with her, condition two above has not been met, and thus it can be concluded that condition one is true, and hell is exothermic.
Q.E.D. (Quite Easily Done)
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The following notes are actual messages posted on the U of G's Library Message Board :)
First:
Dear "Mr. Boot"...
Next:
The buzzer is set off 15 minutes before closing
Next:
I can't see that to be a problem.
Next:
None as of yet.
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WHO INVENTED AGRICULTURE?
The first meeting ever was held back in the Mezzanine Era. In those days, Man's job was to slay his prey and bring it home for Woman, who had to figure out how to cook it. The problem was, Man was slow and basically naked, whereas the prey had warm fur and could run like an antelope. (In fact it was an antelope, only nobody knew this).
At last someone said, "Maybe if we just sat down and did some brainstorming, we could come up with a better way to hunt our prey!" It went extremely well, plus it was much warmer sitting in a circle, so they agreed to meet again the next day, and the next.
But the women pointed out that, prey-wise, the men had not produced anything, and the human race was pretty much starving. The men agreed that was serious and said they would put it right near the top of their "agenda". At this point, the women, who were primitive but not stupid, started eating plants, and thus modern agriculture was born. It never would have happened without meetings.
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HOW TO WRITE GOOD
Microsoft Dinner 98
INSTRUCTIONS FOR MICROSOFT'S NEW TV DINNER PRODUCT:
You must first remove the plastic cover. By doing so you agree to accept and honor Microsoft rights to all TV dinners. You may not give anyone else a bite of your dinner (which would constitute an infringement of Microsoft's rights). You may, however, let others
smell and look at your dinner and are encouraged to tell them how good it is.
If you have a PC microwave oven, insert the dinner into the oven. Set the oven using these keystrokes:
mstv.dinn.//08.5min@50%heat
Then enter:
ms//start.cook_dindin/yummy\|/yum~yum:-)gohot#cookme.
If you have a Macintosh microwave oven, insert the dinner and press start. The oven will set itself and cook the dinner.
If you have a Unix microwave oven, insert the dinner, enter the ingredients of the dinner found on the package label, the weight of the dinner, and the desired level of cooking and press start. The oven will calculate the time and heat and cook the dinner exactly to your specification.
Be forewarned that Microsoft dinners may crash, in which case your oven must be restarted. This is a simple procedure. Remove the dinner from the oven and enter:
ms.nodamn.good/tryagain\again/again.crap
This process may have to be repeated. Try unplugging the microwave and then doing a cold reboot. If this doesn't work, contact your oven vendor. The oven itself is obviously on the blink.
Many users have reported that the dinner tray is far too big, larger than the dinner itself, having many useless compartments, most of which are empty. These are for future menu items. If the tray is too large to fit in your oven, you will need to upgrade your equipment.
Dinners are only available from registered outlets, and only the chicken variety is currently produced. If you want another variety, call Microsoft Help and they will explain that you really don't want another variety. Microsoft Chicken is all you really need.
Microsoft has disclosed plans to discontinue all smaller versions of their chicken dinners. Future releases will only be in the larger family size. Excess chicken may be stored for future use, but must be saved only in Microsoft approved packaging.
Microsoft promises a dessert with every dinner after '98. However, that version has yet to be released. Users have permission to get thrilled in advance.
Microsoft dinners may be incompatible with other dinners in the freezer, causing your freezer to self-defrost. This is a feature, not a bug. Your freezer probably should have been defrosted anyway.
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EVERYTHING I EVER NEEDED TO KNOW, I LEARNED AT THE MOVIES:
1. Large, loft-style apartments in New York City are well within the price range of most people-whether or not they are employed.
2. At least one of a pair of identical twins is born evil.
3. Should you decide to defuse a bomb, don't worry which wire to cut. You will always choose the right one.
4. Most laptop computers are powerful enough to override the communications system of any invading alien society.
5. It does not matter if you are heavily outnumbered in a fight involving martial arts; your enemies will wait patiently to attack you one by one by dancing around in a threatening manner until you have knocked out their predecessors.
6. When you turn out the light to go to bed, everything in your bedroom will still be clearly visible, just slightly bluish.
7. If you are blonde and pretty, it is possible to become a world expert on nuclear fission at the age of 22.
8. Honest and hard working policemen are traditionally gunned down three days before their retirement.
9. Rather than wasting bullets, megalomaniacs prefer to kill their archenemies using complicated machinery involving fuses, pulley systems, deadly gasses, lasers, and man-eating sharks, which will allow their captives at least 20 minutes to escape.
10. During all police investigations, it will be necessary to visit a strip club at least once.
11. All beds have special L-shaped cover sheets that reach up to the armpit level on a woman but only to waist level on the man lying beside her.
12. All grocery shopping bags contain at least one stick of French bread.
13. It's easy for anyone to land a plane providing there is someone in the control tower to talk you down.
14. Once applied, lipstick will never rub off-even while scuba diving.
15. You're very likely to survive any battle in any war unless you make the mistake of showing someone a picture of your sweetheart back home.
16. The Eiffel Tower can be seen from any window in Paris.
17. A man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious beating but will wince when a woman tries to clean his wounds.
18. If a large pane of glass is visible, someone will be thrown through it before long.
19. If staying in a haunted house, women will investigate any strange noises in their most revealing underwear.
20. Word processors never display a cursor on screen but will always say: Enter Password Now.
21. Even when driving down a perfectly straight road, it is necessary to turn the steering wheel vigorously from left to right every few moments.
22. All bombs are fitted with electronic timing devices with large red readouts so you know exactly when they're going to go off.
23. A detective can only solve a case once he has been suspended from duty.
24. If you decide to start dancing in the street, everyone you meet will know all the steps.
25. Police departments give their officers personality tests to make sure they are deliberately assigned a partner who is their total opposite.
26. When they are alone, all foreign military officers prefer to speak to each other in English.
27. Bad guys won't be able to kill one man even with a whole arsenal of weapons, but a cop will kill six men with six shots from their revolver.
28. People can kill people from 100s of yards with a pistol.
29. When people are shot in war they fall over and die instantly without screaming.
30. Everyone's phone number starts with a 555.
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A man was crossing a road one day when a frog called out to him and said "if you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess". He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket.
The frog spoke up again and said: " If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess I will be your loving companion for an entire week!!." The man took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned
it in to his pocket.
The frog then cried out: "If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I'll stay with you for a year and do ANYTHING you want". Again the man took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket.
Finally the frog asked: "What is the matter ? I've told you I'm a beautiful princess, I'll stay with you for a year and do anything you want. Why won't you kiss me ?"
The man said: "Look, I'm an engineer. I don't have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog is cool."
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There was a perfect man who met a perfect woman. After a perfect courtship, they had a perfect wedding. Their life together was, of course, perfect. One snowy, stormy Christmas Eve, this perfect couple was driving their perfect car (a Grand Caravan) along a winding road, when they noticed someone at the side of the roadside in distress.
Being the perfect couple, they stopped to help. There stood Santa Claus with a huge bundle of toys. Not wanting to disappoint any children on the eve of Christmas, the perfect couple loaded Santa and his toys into their vehicle. Soon they were driving along delivering the toys.
Unfortunately, the driving conditions deteriorated and the perfect couple and Santa Claus had an accident. Only one of them survived the accident.
Who was the survivor?
The perfect woman. She's the only one that really existed in the first place. Everyone knows there is no Santa Claus and there is no such thing as a perfect man...
(Women, end here. Men, keep scrolling.)
So, if there is no perfect man and no Santa Claus, the perfect woman must have been driving. This explains why there was a car accident.
(by the way if your a woman, and your reading this...this brings up another point....women never listen either.......)
And men are very easily amused (^_~) --N:)
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Prose for a Tree - an ode to a friend...
visit my train of consciousness -- things I write on whim at odd hours of the morning!
Americans: Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the north to avoid a collision.
Canadians: Negative. You will have to divert your course 15 degrees to the south to avoid a collision.
Americans: This is the captain of a U.S. Navy ship. I say again, divert your course.
Canadians: No. I say again, you divert your course.
Americans: This is the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln, the second largest ship in the United States Atlantic fleet. We are accompanied by three destroyers, three cruisers and numerous support vessels. I demand that you change your course 15 degrees north, I say again, that's one five degrees north, or counter-measures will be undertaken to ensure the safety of this ship.
Canadians: This is a lighthouse. Your call.
"Careful, Fabian! It is decreed that you will die the minute you pronounce the word doyen."
"Doyen?" asks Fabian, intrigued.
And he dies.
(hey, you knew that one was coming... ;) --N~
An Anagram, as you all know, is a word or phrase made
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by transposing or rearranging the letters of
another word or phrase. No letters can be used
twice or left out.
The following ones are exceptionally clever (someone
out there either has *way* too much time on their
hands or is deadly at Scrabble):
Word/Phrase Anagram
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Dormitory Dirty Room
Evangelist Evil's Agent
Desperation A Rope Ends It
The Morse Code Here Come Dots
Slot Machines Cash Lost in 'em
Animosity Is No Amity
Snooze Alarms Alas! No More Z's
Alec Guinness Genuine Class
Semolina Is No Meal
The Public Art Galleries Large Picture Halls, I Bet
A Decimal Point I'm a Dot in Place
The Earthquakes That Queer Shake
Eleven plus two Twelve plus one
Contradiction Accord not in it
This one is *truly* amazing:
"To be or not to be: that is the question, whether its
nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows
of outrageous fortune."
ANAGRAM:
"In one of the Bard's best-thought-of tragedies, our
insistent hero, Hamlet, queries on two fronts
about how life turns rotten."
And for a contemporary one:
"That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for
mankind." (Neil Armstrong, on the moon)
ANAGRAM:
"A thin man ran; makes a large stride, left planet,
pins flag on moon! On to Mars!"
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A stapler?
where?
GET ONE.
now.
signed -- JACK BOOT
-----------------------
He got the usual "The Library does not provide
stationery supplies for financial reasons" response,
but it began with:
------------------------------
Can you turn the volume on that
buzzer down? It's really loud.
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time, and is meant to wake any sleeping students.
- Building Manager
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Could you set the buzzer to go
every hour so I don't sleep all day?
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Maybe if you tell me exactly where you're sleeping,
we can arrange a wake-up coffee.
- Building Manager
-------------------------------
-------------------------------
How many people have died of heart
attacks from the buzzer?
-------------------------------
- Building Mgr
-------------------------------
_------_
/ \ DO RE MI DRINK, by Homer J. Simpson.
| |
| | *ahem* La la la la.... *ahem* LAAAAAAA!!
| __ __)
| / \/ \ DO...... the stuff... that buys me beer
/\/\ (o )o ) RAY..... the guy that sells me beer...
/c \__/ --. ME...... the guy... who drinks the beer,
( ) FAR..... a long way to get beer...
\_ _-------' SO...... I'll have another beer...
| / \ LA...... I'll have another beer...
| | '\_______) TEA..... no thanks, I'm drinking beer...
| \_____) That will bring us back to...
|_____ | (Looks into an empty glass)
|_____/\/\
/ \ D'OH!
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by Sally Bulford
(reprinted without permission from somewhere)
1. Avoid alliteration. Always.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)
4. Employ the vernacular.
5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
8. Contractions aren't necessary.
9. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
10. One should never generalize.
11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said,
"I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
12. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
13. Don't be redundant; don't use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
14. Be more or less specific.
15. Understatement is always best.
16. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
17. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
18. The passive voice is to be avoided.
19. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
20. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
21. Who needs rhetorical questions?
22. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
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(Scroll down for the answer.)
