From cate3@netcom.com Tue Sep 12 15:34:12 1995 From: cate3@netcom.com Subject: Life E.R To: jwry.dli@netcom.com Reply-to: cate3@netcom.com Date: 16 Aug 94 11:11:55 PDT (Tuesday) Subject: Life E.R To join, send mail to: joeha@microsoft.com (Joseph Harper) ------------------------------------------------------------ Selections from WhiteBoard News Every day, an average of four people call the Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tennessee, and ask to speak to Elvis Presley. ------------------------------ Passengers in first class on an airliner get 50 cubic feet of fresh air per minute. Those in economy class get 7 cubic feet. ------------------------------ A good Samaritan in Texas shot a drunken-driving suspect who had beaten up a policeman and was running away. The suspect sued him, demanding $1.7 million for his wounds. Instead, a jury ruled the suspect had to pay $1.7 million in punitive damages and $1,000 for the policeman's injuries. ------------------------------ Vandals in Red Deer, Alberta, have uprooted the marigolds in City Hall Park five times, reworking the floral "Welcome to Red Deer" greeting to spell "Welcome to hell." ------------------------------ Australia car manufacturer General Motors-Holden has designed a mechanical kangaroo to study the impact of kangaroos on cars in collisions. It's serious business. About 20,000 kangaroos are hit by motorists each year. ------------------------------ The Guinness Book of Records has certified a one-mile traditional Chinese dragon dance performed in Macau in April as the world's longest. ------------------------------ A man convicted of stealing guns owned by an actor who played the Lone Ranger was sentenced to clean the Houston Police Department's horse stables. ------------------------------ A Dutchman who had invested more than $1,000 in a police-trained guard dog woke up two days later to discover burglars had stolen it from his home. ------------------------------ A York, Pennsylvania, woman planned a party for her father's 100th birthday. Then things hit a snag: She found the birthday boy was really turning 101. ------------------------------ Graffiti from the 1800s discovered by workers renovating the Washington Monument has quite a different tone from that usually found today on the sides of buildings an subway cars. "Whoever is the human instrument under God in the conversion of one soul, erects a monument more lofty and enduing (sic) than this," reads the inscription, which can now be viewed by visitors. ------------------------------ Hollywood, California: "People magazine has named Vice-president Al Gore as one of the 50 most beautiful people alive. I don't argue with that fact. I mean, come on, Al Gore is a handsome, attractive man. It's the alive part that I have a problem with." Tonight Show host Jay Leno. ------------------------------ Seoul, South Korea: South Korea is open to easing imports of foreign cars, the head of the U.S. auto makers' trade group said after meeting with Korean government officials. When trade talks with the U.S. resume this week in Washington, Korea may propose lowering barriers to imports of American-made cars, including tariff cuts. Imports' tiny share of the Korean market "is even less than the estimated 4% in Japan, which has a closed market," said the spokesman. The biggest obstacle for U.S. car makers, though, is Korean sentiment against buying foreign products, long reinforced by government policy. For instance, until recently, ownership of an imported car automatically triggered a tax audit. ------------------------------ This item comes from Randy Ivey who feels this should be entered into the WhiteBoard News Least Competent Person Contest: Fort Worth, Texas, Police arrested Philip G. Rojo, 24, in April after they had stopped his car at a roadblock because he was not wearing a seat belt. The police said they began backing away from the car when they spied three silver pipe like packages on the floor, telling Rojo they feared the packages were pipe bombs. Reportedly, Rojo tried to reassure the police and blurted out, "Man, that ain't no pipe bomb, that's cocaine." ------------------------------ Detroit, Michigan: Chrysler is spending $9 million on a more efficient way to shake new cars to pieces. At its test grounds west of Detroit, the number 3 U.S. car maker is building a 1.3-mile oval where vehicles under development will be driven by computer over replicated Belgian "pave" -- a cobblestone surface reputed to be the roughest in the world. The ride is so rugged, with stones jutting up several inches in places, that Chrysler wants to spare its test drivers. Chrysler figures that after two weeks and 2,000 miles of bumping around at about 25 miles per hour, a new vehicle will have absorbed about as much punishment as it would in 100,000 miles of normal usage. Using live drivers over a less-vigorous course, testing now takes seven weeks and 6,000 miles. The idea is to see where a new chassis or body design develops structural failures and correct them early. While the cars will be programmed to shut down if they lose contact with computer controllers, Chrysler is taking no chances: A ditch and steel beam will surround the track. ------------------------------ Tokyo, Japan: Love dogs but have no room in your apartment? Your lease prohibits pet? No time to walk Fido twice a day? For those confronted with such conditions but longing for regular canine company, a pet shop in Japan has devised a solution: rent-a-pooch. For $20, customers can hire Ody, an English gold retriever, to be their best friend -- for an hour. For those preferring their dogs smaller (and cheaper), there is Denden, a very popular silky-haired Maltese, and Chibi, a Shih Tzu. There are more than a dozen other breeds for hire as well. Medium-sized dogs fetch $15 an hour while small ones command about $10. If that sounds expensive, consider the price of buying the pets: Denden sells for $1,000 and Ody for twice that much. The Bee Club also has cats for hire, but no one has yet rented one. Sawabe blames that on the kitties' poor attitudes. "I think it takes at least three or four days for a cat to become friendly with people," she says. The Bee Club's owner also concedes that the scheme does something more than just produce rental revenues: "The idea is also good for us because we do not have enough time to take our dogs for a walk." ------------------------------ The belief that there is a hobby for everyone is the theme of Sandra Gurvis' new book, "The Cockroach Hall of Fame and 101 other Off-The-Wall Museums." The book reads like a travel directory, listing museums by state and summarizing their contents. Among the offerings: The Cockroach Hall of Fame in Plano, Texas; the Lunch Box Museum in Columbus, Georgia; and the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices in Minneapolis, Minnesota. ------------------------------ A British electrical engineer was acquitted of assault and administering a noxious substance -- electricity. The charges were filed after a London hotel security guard got a small jolt from touching the defendant's car, which had been electrified as a defense against thieves. ------------------------------ Diplomats often speak in code. A "frank exchange" likely means an argument. Now, it turns out, the "diplomatic channels" used last week by U.S. officials to hash out the nuclear dispute with North Korea are little more than a couple of fax machines. Since Washington and Pyongyang don't maintain diplomatic relations, the two governments exchange messages through their United Nations missions in New York. "Their mission calls our mission and says, 'Go stand by your fax machine'," says a U.S. official. What about national security? "Oh, they call back to make sure we got it," says the official. ------------------------------ "Hey. I'll trade you my John Deere 7600 for your Ken Griffey Jr." Er, what? It's true: a company called Ertl has launched a new Harvest Heritage Trading Card featuring (rev those engines please): TRACTORS. Ertl thinks everyone from "inner-city kids at Madison Square Garden experiencing the sheer power of the big machines at high-octane tractor pulls to young Nebraskans who've been around these giants all their lives" are going to be thrilled by the "ultimate honor" --tractor trading cards. Each series features glossy four-color cards that pay homage to 150 of the machines that built America, along with detailed tractor information. Farm out, man! ------------------------------ This item from Tim Ingram: San Francisco, California: Dodgers rookie shortstop Rafael Bournigal received a tough lesson in major league hardball recently from San Francisco's third baseman, Matt Williams. Bournigal reached third, then relinquished his contact with the bag when Williams asked him to move so he could clean it. Williams tagged Bournigal out. "Now I know there are no nice guys in this league," Bournigal said. ------------------------------ Warsaw, Poland: Reverse aid? Poland's Radio RMF is launching a "Partnership for Peace of Mind" to raise money for President Clinton's new legal-defense fund -- so legal worries won't distract him from helping Poland. ------------------------------ Low Earth Orbit: Columbia astronaut Richard Hieb has grown at least an inch while in orbit and now exceeds NASA's height limit for shuttle astronauts. He started the two-week scientific mission Friday at 6 foot 3 inches. Monday, he topped 6 foot 4 inches. Astronauts tend to gain an inch or two in space because of an elongated spine caused by the absence of gravity. Normal height resumes back on Earth. ------------------------------ ]From the column "Cheap Tricks" by Andy Dappen: "Many people advocate not owning a credit card at all - -reliable studies show that, as a group, people who pay cash spend 30 percent less in stores than those who charge their purchases and don't actually see all that money spilling through their hands. ------------------------------ Aberdeen, Washington: In an article on bizarre businesses that some entrepreneurs have set up, Home Office Computing magazine found people who build giant sand castles, sell fortune cookies with biblical verses inside and, for a price of about $3,000, write biographies of average people. ------------------------------ Portland, Oregon: For the past six years, Anorvia Hardy has cooked as many as 100 pies and cobblers each week in her Southeast Portland home. Figuring it was time to move her family-run business up another notch, Hardy recently signed a retail lease for Mother Dear's Tasty Pastries in the Walnut Park retail center which adjoins the new police precinct station. Michael McElwee, who is negotiating leases for the retail complex on behalf of the Portland Development Corporation, said the soft-spoken Hardy confronted him with an unusual negotiating tactic. "She'd bring a pie and set it aside while we talked about terms," McElwee said. No tasting the still-warm pastry until the talks were finished. The contracts were signed quickly. ------------------------------ Los Angeles, California: In celebration of Wednesday's 25th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moonwalk, that bodacious babe of a doll hits the skies in her latest incarnation: Astronaut Barbie. Dressed in a NASA-sanctioned white spacesuit, her out- of-this-world getup also includes a bag to carry her moon rocks as well as a flag to let future moon visitors know she was up there. ------------------------------ New York, New York: Astrologers who specialize in predicting the stock market can't agree whether the pounding that Jupiter is receiving from the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet will be good or bad for investors. "Jupiter is the planet that is symbolically associated with finance, and there is a disruption," says James Valliere, author of "Valliere's Natural Cycles Almanac" and publisher of the new-age magazine "Mind Body Spirit." Combined with bearish planetary alignments, it's not a good sign, he says. But Henry Weingarten, a New York astrologer, speculates that a good shock to Jupiter is just what the stock market needs. "Since we're in the doldrums, we see (the comet) as a factor to kick the market up," Weingarten says. ------------------------------ Washington, District of Columbia: Referring to a Virginia Tax Review article, "Tax Myopia, Or Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Tax Lawyers," Treasury Deputy Assistant Secretary Cynthia Gibson Beerbower quips: "I am more worried about tax lawyers growing up to be babies." ------------------------------ London, England: A giant shrimp measuring up to two metres (6 ft 6 in) long was the top predator and largest animal on earth 525 million years ago, a scientific journal said on Friday. ------------------------------ Bellevue, Washington: A bank robber may have asked the teller he robbed Tuesday to cash a check for him the day before, police say. The FBI has a warrant out for a suspect in the heist. The man was picked out of a photo montage by a teller who said the same man had cashed a check Monday. After the holdup, the teller told bank officials she recognized the man. The check, with a name on it, was found. "It was very stupid," said a Bellevue police spokesman. ------------------------------ Hollywood, California: "To commemorate the 25th anniversary of the moon walk, astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins visited the White House. Apparently Armstrong went in first, then Aldrin -- Collins just circled in the car." "Late Night" talk show host, Conan O'Brien. ------------------------------ Montrose, Colorado: The Internal Revenue Service threatened to seize a sprinkler company for a penny underpayment of quarterly employee withholding taxes, provoking an angry congressman's intervention. Tom Jaskunas, Rainmaker's Incorporated accountant, said he informed the IRS the shortfall resulted from rounding that is supposed to be allowed. But he got a nasty written reply: "We must now consider taking your wages, property and other assets." Representative Scott McInnis wrote the IRS, questioning the agency's judgment. The congressman taped a penny to his letter, saying "Now back off Rainmaker." McInnis added that the IRS should provide an explanation "when reality sets in." The IRS wrote back saying it was dropping the matter. ------------------------------ Tokyo, Japan: Not only can dog owners open a bank account in Fido's name or book a room at a hound hotel, they can also find their dog a true love. The Japan Airlines newsletter says that for about $500, a firm called Inu no Kimura will put the dog's photo in a single's catalog, introduce it to prospective mates and even arrange a wedding -- complete with white dresses and a dog-food cake. ------------------------------ "I watch 'Cops' regularly, just to see if any of my relatives or band members are on it." Travis Tritt, country singer, in a TV Guide interview. ------------------------------------------------------------ 1995 Copyright by Henry Cate III All Rights Reserved The above collection can be forwarded for non commercial use as long as the signature file below is included The individual entries of the Life Collection are owned by the individual contributors who should be contacted if you wish to forward their entry. -- Henry Cate III [cate3@netcom.com] To learn how to get a MS Windows 3.1 Application with 15,000 jokes from the Life Humor collection, send E-Mail to life@netcom.com with "Info" in the Subject. Or check out http://www.offshore.com.ai/lifehumor
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