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Just for Fun! |
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There is a lot of pretty heavy stuff elsewhere on this website (obviously none by me!) But those who know me best know that I have a wild, crazy, side that many people have never seen. (How lucky they are!!) So in an effort to give a "change of pace" to the website, this section is, as the title says, Just for Fun! A lot of the things that I'll be adding to this section are not original with me. Whenever I see the name of the author, I'll be sure to give credit where credit is due. AND if you have a humorous or corny joke or story that you think would fit well here, send it on! I'll add it to the collection, and will list your name as the contributor. Enjoy!! dp
A very cool way to unlock your car when you've locked your keys in it!
Should you lock your keys in your car and the spare keys are home or are with another family member, here's something neat to remember! (This only applies to cars that can be unlocked by a remote button on your key ring.) If some one has access to the spare remote at your home or elsewhere, call them on your cell phone (or borrow one from someone if the cell phone is locked in the car too!) Hold your (or anyone's) cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the other person at your home press the unlock button, holding it near the phone.Your car will unlock! I was skeptical, but I tried it and it works. And since telling some friends about it, they, too have tried it and were amazed at how well it worked. Distance is no object. You could be hundreds of miles away, but if you can reach someone who has the other "remote" for your car and get a cell phone, you can unlock the door! Try it -- but be prepared to be impressed!
Dedicated to pastors and others in church ministry positions
"It May Be Time to Leave Your Church When..." 1. They just installed gun racks in the Fellowship Hall.
2. Tonight is your annual leadership banquet and your verse for the day is "Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies."
3. You just found out your minister of music's nickname at his former church was "Little Napoleon."
4. Your find out your nickname at your present church is "Deadwood."
5. You meet the church lady and instead of saying "You're special," she says, "You're history!"
6. Your new church insurance plan only has one approved doctor -- his name is Kevorkian.
7. You find a $100 gift certificate for U-Haul in your "inbox."
8. You receive a new church credit card and the expiration date is noon.
9. The church Theology Committee asks you to describe in detail the nature of life after death and then asks you to test your hypothesis.
10. The Finance Committee asks you to tell in 100 words or less what you would have done to prevent the Great Depression.
11. The Finanace Committee has decided to switch from an annual budget to a monthy budget so they'll have more to discuss at the church's weekly business meetings.
12. The Personnel Committee suggests that date-night with you wife should include hospital visitation.
13. The church organist has been asked to play while you preach.
14. All of the historical sites in your town were built after your church building.
15. The director of your young couple's department actually knew Lottie Moon. For the non-Baptist readers, Lottie Moon was a missionary to China in the 1800s.)
- Adapted from a list by Charles Lowry
If you take a look at the drawing on the link below, let me tell you ... it is not animated. Your eyes are making it move. To test this, stare at one spot for a couple of seconds and everything will stop moving. Or look at the black center of each circle and it will stop moving. But move your eyes to the next black center and the previous will move after you take your eyes away from it! I really think this is neat, and hope you will, too! If you have a scientific explanation for why this happens that is simple enough for me to understand, please send it! Thanks to Jonathan for providing a direct "Back Porch Studio" link for this.
Here's the link to "The Moving Matrix." Enjoy!
If you enjoyed the "Moving Matrix," you may also enjoy these optical illusions from MIT:
Here's the link to more optical illusions
Isn't computer software amazing! I can write a letter or an article for a paper, or a book, for that matter, and Microsoft Word will tell me how many words are in the document, the age-level for which I have written, and suggest options to correct faulty grammar. However, these programs are not infallible. Although some typing errors can be caught when I run a "spell-check," the computer hasn't gotten "smart enough" quite yet to realize when a word might be spelled correctly but still might be used incorrectly. For example, I could type the sentence, "I am going two town," and the spell-check wouldn't catch it. So I hope you'll like the poem below, which I dedicate, very much tongue-in-cheek, to all the "spell-check" programs out there!
SPELL CZECH
Eye halve a spelling chequer. It came with my pea sea,
It plainly marques four my revue miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word and weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write. It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid, it nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite. Its rarely ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it, I am shore your please two no.
Its letter perfect in it's weigh. My chequer tolled me sew.
- Source unknown
Along those same lines, I was first introduced to "Some Hints for More Effective Writing" (below) at a Writer's Conference at LifeWay many years ago -- and thought you might enjoy them!
SOME HINTS FOR MORE EFFECTIVE WRITING
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 cliches like the plague. (They're old hat)
6. Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.
7. Be more or less specific.
8. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.
9. Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
10. No sentence fragments.
11. Contractions often aren't necessary and shouldn't be used.
12. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
13. Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
14. One should NEVER generalize.
15. Comparisons are as bad as clichés.
16. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
17. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
18. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
19. The passive voice is to be ignored.
20. Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.
21. Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.
22. Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
23. Understatement is always, by far, the absolutely best way to put forth earth-shaking ideas.
24. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
25. If you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times:
Resist hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it correctly.
26. Puns are for children, not groan readers.
27. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
28. Even IF a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
29. Who needs rhetorical questions?
30. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
31. And the last one...Proofread carefully to see if you any words out!
-Author unknown
"If no one cared if Jimmy cracked corn, then why did they write a song about it?"
When you need a laugh, go to the link below. Make sure your sound is on. Wait for the entire screen to load with all four horses and the fence in front of them. Then click on each horse. Re-click on any horse to turn it off or back on again. Try clicking on the horses from left to right then right to left --then just one or two at a time...
It's fun and a good stress reliever. Have fun!
Here's the link to "Doo-Wap Horses:"
The fact that I play the accordion was not widely known until a few years ago when Lillenas published a piano collection that I had arranged entitled "Keyboard Meditations." In the front of the book, they included a photo (which I'm sure caused the sales to skyrocket!!) and also had a short bio which concluded with "...and he is also an accordionist!" Now that the word is out, let it be known that I only play the accordion a few times a year -- AARP meetings, Christmas caroling, church picnics, and to embarrass my friends, and I enjoy poking fun at the instrument as much as anyone. However, I think it is really interesting that the accordion is making a comeback! I get several high-tech catalogs filled with page after page of the newest and most exciting keyboards, guitars, and recording gear -- but noticed a couple of years ago that many of these companies were beginning to sell accordions. In fact, the last issue of the Musicians Friend catalog featured a full page that was devoted to accordions! I've also heard that some of the Christian "bands" that are the most "cutting edge" now include an accordion in their mix! The way I figure it, just about the time I no longer will have enough strength to pull and push the bellows, the accordion actually might considered to be a really "cool" instrument! So when I share accordion jokes and stories, I trust that other accordion players and accordion-lovers (and there are some out there!) will not be offended since the humor is coming from one of their own!
This guy plays a New Years Eve gig and afterward the club owner says "Great job, can you play again next year?"
The accordionist replies, "Sure, can I leave my instrument here until then?"
Q: What does a long court hearing and a bad accordionist have in common?
A: There is always a huge sigh of relief when the case is closed!
Q: What do you call an accordion player who carries a pager?
A: An optimist!
Q: What's the difference between a dead accordion player and a dead squirrel on the road?
A: There are skid marks by the squirrel!!
Q: What's the definition of a "gentleman?"
A: A man who knows how to play the accordion -- but doesn't!
Things You Would Love to Say to Some People at Work
Do I look like a people person?
Sarcasm is just one more service we offer.
If I throw a stick, will you leave?
Does your train of thought have a caboose?
Whatever kind of look you were going for, you missed.
Well, this day was a total waste of makeup.
I'm trying to imagine you with a personality.
A cubicle is just a padded cell without a door.
Stress is when you wake up screaming and you realize you haven't fallen asleep yet.
Can I trade this job for what's behind door number one?
Too many freaks. Not enough circuses.
Nice perfume. Must you marinate in it?
Chaos, panic, & disorder - my work here is done.
How do I set a laser printer to stun?
I thought I wanted a career. Turns out I just wanted paychecks.
- Contributed by Tim Davis
Many of us remember the days when inches, feet, yards, miles, pints, quarts, and gallons were the standard units of measurement. We also remember the days before digital watches. Time was measured a lot less precisely. My grandmother would say “It’s going on 9:00 – and that could mean anywhere from 8:10 to 8:50. When someone would ask if we knew what time it was, many of us would say, “It’s about 9:15. Now most of us say the exact time (9:17) even if we don’t have on a digital watch! I’ve recently been reading about micromachines that are the width of two human hairs! And I've learned the word “nanotechnology,” which is based on a “nanometer” which is a thousand times smaller than a micrcometer, one-billionth of a meter. To understand how small that is, the period at the end of most sentences in a normal book are about 700,000 nanometers! It blows my mind to try to grasp concepts like that. However, those who know me best would probably say the mind was already blown!
And now, having said all of that, I am proud to present...
Useless Things That You May Need To Know Someday!
(with occasional thoughts from yours truly!)
Butterflies taste with their feet.
A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.
In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all the world's nuclear weapons combined.
On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year. (What are they doing? Trying to write on the back of their tongues!?? - dp)
More people fear spiders more than they do death.
Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.(I think I would fear jumping elephants a lot more than spiders! - dp)
Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
It's possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs. (I don't think I would want to live in the house where they tried this, unless the cow was "potty-trained." - dp)
Women blink nearly twice as much as men.(It's called "flirting!! - dp)
The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.(I think it's time to get rid of those World Book Encyclopedias! - dp)
A snail can sleep for three years.
No words in the English language rhyme with month, orange, silver or purple.
Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.
Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never
stop growing. (Isn't that encouraging?? Maybe I don't want to live to be 116!! - dp)
The electric chair was invented by a dentist. (Based on a few experiences I've had, I don't find this that hard to believe!! - dp)
All polar bears are left handed.(Remember the next time you set the dinner table to put the glasses for the polar bears on the left! - dp)
In ancient Egypt, priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes. (How did they do this? This must have been their full-time job, because just about the time they'd get the final hair removed, it would have been time to start all over again. What a life!! You know, I really don't think God cares! - dp)
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.
"Go." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
If Barbie were life-size, her measurements would be 39-23-33. She would stand seven feet, two inches tall. (That would be one fine woman! - dp)
A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out. (Just for fun, the next time you see one, ask him to try!! - dp)
The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
On the average, Americans eat 18 acres of pizza every day.(Are you doing your part?? - dp)
A dime has 118 ridges around the edge. (Who has time to count ridges on a dime? Is someone paid to do this?? - dp)
A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.(Okay! After these people counted ridges on a dime, they started counting muscles in a cat's ear! I'll never think my life is boring again! - dp)
A dragonfly has a life span of 24 hours. (Not hardly worth being born is it?? - dp)
A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds. (Much like some people I know! - dp)
A group of geese on the ground is a gaggle; a group of
geese in the air is a skein.
A "jiffy" is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.(It makes me proud that I use such a mathematical-accurate word in conversation! - dp)
A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.(Check it out the next time you're swimming with the sharks and let me know if this is true! - dp)
Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on
the back of the $5 bill.
Almonds are a member of the peach family. (What?? Who says?? Somebody messed up bad when they decided this! - dp)
Babies are born without kneecaps. They don't appear until the child
reaches 2 to 6 years of age.
Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds. Dogs only have about 10. (The same person that counted ridges on a dime and animal muscles decided to count something else and chose to stick with the cats. If cats make that many sounds, do you think I should begin a Cat Choir -- or maybe write a Broadway play about cats? Nah, it would never catch on. -dp)
"Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt".
February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a
full moon.
In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak. (That's odd! Maybe they should consider renaming him the "Non-speaker." - dp)
If the population of China walked past you in single file, the line
would never end because of the rate of reproduction. (I stood outside for several hours one day waiting for the population of China to start walking past me. It never happened! - dp)
If you are an average American, in your whole life, you will spend
an average of 6 months waiting at a red light.
In most advertisements, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10.
It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.(To see if this is true, look in the mirror the next time you sneeze! - dp)
Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors. (He needed to cut Mona Lisa's hair! – dp)
Los Angeles' full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de
los Angeles de Porciuncula" (I think I like the old name better. Think they'd consider changing it for me?? -dp)
Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
On a Canadian two dollar bill, the flag flying over the Parliament
Building is an American flag. The $2 bill is now a coin.
Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.(Remember that the next time you're tempted to "pig-out" on peanuts! - dp)
Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
"Stewardesses" is the longest word typed with only the left hand,
"lollipop" the longest you can type with your right.
The average person falls asleep in seven minutes. (I'm definitely not "average" here! - dp)
The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.
The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named
after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's
"It's a Wonderful Life."
The cruise liner, QE2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.(They might want to put the MPG in very small print on the paper taped to the window when they try to sell it at the local used cruise liner shop! - dp)
The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world.
The longest one-syllable word in the English language is
"screeched." (As in "I screeched when I saw the large-eyed giant squid!" - dp)
The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket. (Wonder what it was doing to the rest of his body?? - dp)
The only 15-letter word that can be spelled without repeating a
letter is "uncopyrightable".
The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog"
uses every letter of the alphabet.
The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid.
The words 'racecar' and 'kayak' and 'level' are palindromes. They are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left.
There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball. (Here we go again. That "counter" guy gets around! - dp)
There are more chickens than people in the world. (I guess they must be making it safely across the road! - dp)
There are only four words in the English language which end in
"dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels
in order: "abstemious" and "facetious."
There is a word in the English language with only one vowel, which
occurs five times: "indivisibility."
Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey. (One reason to lock your car doors when you visit New Jersey. You may come back to find it filled with eggplant! - dp)
Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance. (Wonder if the people this lady were with noticed that she was suddenly slim when she came back from the restroom -- or if they thought she was taking an awfully long time in there? – dp)
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