BUT MOST IMPORTANT!
24. The handles on our beer cases are big enough to fit your hands with mitts on. OOOoohhhhh Canada!!

Oh yeah... and our elections only take one day.

That idiot was reading over my shoulder while I wrote the report sent to you earlier today.
Kindly read only the odd numbered lines (1, 3, 5, ...) for my true assessment of him.

A sign posted in Germany's Black Forest: It is strictly forbidden on our black forest camping site that people of different sex, for instance, men and women, live together in one tent unless they are married with each other for that purpose.

In a Zurich hotel: Because of the impropriety of entertaining guests of the opposite sex in the bedroom, it is suggested that the lobby be used for this purpose.

In an advertisement by a Hong Kong dentist: Teeth extracted by the latest Methodist.

A translated sentence from a Russian chess book: A lot of water has been passed under the bridge since this variation has been played.

In a Rome laudry: Ladies, leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time.

In a Czechoslovakian tourist agency: Take one of our horse-driven city tours-we guarantee no miscarriages.

Advertisement for donkey rides in Thailand: Would you like to ride on your own ass?

On the tap in a Finnish washroom: To stop the drip, turn cock to right.

In the window of a Swedish furrier: Fur coats made for ladies from their own skin.

On the box of a clockwork toy made in Hong Kong: Guaranted to work throughout its useful life.

Detour sign in Kyushi, Japan: Stop: Drive Sideways.

In a Swiss mountain inn: Special today-no ice cream.

In a Bangkok temple: It is forbidden to enter a woman even foreigner if dressed as a man.

In a Tokyo bar: Special cocktails for the ladies with nuts.

In a Copenhagen airline ticket office: We take your bags and send them in all directions.

On the door of a Moscow hotel room: If this is your first visit to USSR, you are welcome to it.

In a Norwegian cocktail lounge: Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar.

At a Budapest zoo: Please do not feed animals.If you have any suitable food, give it to the guard on duty.

In the office of a Roman doctor: Specialist in women and other diseases.

In a Tokyo hotel: Is forbidden to steal hotel towel please. If you are not person to do such thing is please not to read this notice.

In another Japanese hotel room: Please to bathe inside the tub.

In a Bucharest hotel lobby: The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable.

In a Leipzig elevator: Do not enter backwards, and only when lit up.

In a Belgrade hotel elevator: To move the cabin, push button for wishing floor. If the cabin should enter more persons, each one should press a number of wishing floor. Driving is then going alphabetically by national order.

In a Paris hotel elevator: Please leave your values at the front desk.

In a hotel in Athens: Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours of 9 and 11 A.M. daily.

In a Yugoslavian hotel: The flattening of underwear with pleasure is the job of the chambermaid.

In a Japanese hotel: You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid.

In the lobby of a Moscow hotel across from a Russian Orthodox monastery: You are welcome to visit the cemetery where famous Russian and Soviet composers, artists, and writers are buried daily except Thursday.

Similarly, from the Soviet Weekly: There will be a Moscow Exhibition of Arts by 15,000 Soviet Republic painters and sculptors. These were executed over the past two years.

In an Austrian hotel catering to skiers: Not to perambulate the corridors in the hours of repose in the boots of ascension.

On the menu of a Swiss restaurant: Our wines leave you nothing to hope for.

In the menu of a Polish hotel: Salad a firm's own make; limpid red beet soup with cheesy dumplings in the form of a finger; roasted duck let loose; beef rashers beaten up the country people's fashion.

In a Hong Kong supermarket: For your convenience, we recommend courteous, efficient self-service.

Outside a Hong Kong tailor shop: Ladies may have a fit upstairs.

In a Rhodes tailor shop: Order your summers suit. Because is big rush we will execute customers in strict rotation.

In an East African newspaper: A new swimming pool is rapidly taking shape since the contractors have thrown in the bulk of their workers.

In a Bangkok dry cleaner's: Drop your trousers here for best results.

Outside a Paris dress shop: Dresses for street walking.

In an Acapulco hotel: The manager has personally passed all the water served here.

In a Tokyo shop: Our nylons cost more than common, but you'll find they are best in the long run.

From a Japanese information booklet about using a hotel air conditioner: Cooles and Heates: If you want just condition of warm in your room, please control yourself.

From a brochure of a car rental firm in Tokyo: When passenger of foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage then tootle him with vigor. 

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make sivil servants jump for joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of the "k", which should klear up some konfusion and allow one key less on keyboards.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f", making words like "fotograf" 20% shorter.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent "e" is disgrasful.

By the fourth yer, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and everivun vil find it ezi to understand ech ozer. ZE DREM VIL FINALI COM TRU !

Herr Schmidt

Buxton, N.C. A man died on a beach when an 8-foot-deep hole he had dug into the sand caved in as he sat inside it. Beachgoers said Daniel Jones, 21, dug the hole for fun, or protection from the wind, and had been sitting in a beach chair at the bottom Thursday afternoon when it collapsed, burying him beneath 5 feet of sand. People on the beach on the Outer Banks used their hands and shovels, trying to claw their way to Jones, a resident of Woodbridge, V.A., but could not reach him. It took rescue workers using heavy equipment almost an hour to free him while about 200 people looked on. Jones was pronounced dead at a hospital. "You just wouldn't believe the outpouring of concern, people digging with their hands, using pails from kids," Dare County Sheriff Bert Austin said.

In February, Santiago Alvarado, 24, was killed in Lompoc, Calif., he fell face-first through the ceiling of a bicycle shop he was burglarizing. Death was caused when the large flashlight he had placed in his mouth (to keep his hands free) crammed against the base of his skull as he hit the floor.

According to police in Dahlonega, G.A., ROTC cadet Nick Berrena, 20, was stabbed to death in January by fellow cadet Jeffrey Hoffman, 23, who was trying to prove that a knife could not penetrate the flak vest Berrena was wearing.

Sylvester Briddell, Jr., 26, was killed in February in Selbyville, Del., as he won a bet with friends who said he would not put a revolver loaded with four bullets into his mouth and pull the trigger.

In February, according to police in Windsor, Ont., Daniel Kolta, 27, and Randy Taylor, 33, died in a head-on collision, thus earning a tie in the game of chicken they were playing with their snowmobiles.

In October, a 49-year-old San Francisco stockbroker, who "totally zoned when he ran," according to his wife, accidentally jogged off a 200-foot-high cliff on his daily run.

In September in Detroit, a 41-year-old man got stuck and drowned in two feet of water after squeezing headfirst through an 18-inch-wide sewer grate to retrieve his car keys.

In September, a 7-year- old boy fell off a 100-foot-high bluff near Ozark, Ark., after he lost his grip swinging on a cross that marked the spot where another person had fallen to his death in 1990.

Overzealous zookeeper Friedrich Riesfeldt fed his constipated elephant Stefan 22 doses of animal laxative and more than a bushel of berries, figs and prunes before the plugged-up pachyderm finally let fly-and suffocated the keeper under 200 pounds of poop. Investigators say ill-fated Friedrich, 46, was attempting to give the ailing elephant an olive-oil enema when the relieved beast unloaded on him like a dump truck full of mud. "The sheer force of the elephant's unexpected defecation knocked Mr. Riesfeldt to the ground, where he struck his head on a rock and lay unconscious as the elephant continued to evacuate his bowels on top of him," said flabbergasted Paderborn police detective Erik Dern. "With no one there to help him, he lay under all that dung for at least an hour before a watchman came along, and during that time he suffocated.
"It seems to be just one of those freak accidents that happen sometimes --- a billion-to-one shot, at least."

In Guthrie, Okla., in October, Jason Heck tried to kill a millipede with a shot from his .22-caliber rifle, but the bullet ricocheted off a rock near the hole and hit pal Antonio Martinez in the head, fracturing his skull.

In Elyria, Ohio, in October, Martyn Eskins, attempting to clean out cobwebs in his basement, declined to use a broom in favor of a propane torch and caused a fire that burned the first and second floors of his house.

Paul Stiller, 47, was hospitalized in Andover Township, N. J., in September, and his wife Bonnie was also injured, by a quarter-stick of dynamite that blew up in their car. While driving around at 2 am, the bored couple lit the dynamite and tried to toss it out the window to see what would happen, but they apparently failed to notice that the window was unopened. 

In the late 1890s, 4 rich young Englishmen visiting the excavations at Luxor were invited to buy an exquisitely fashioned mummy case containing the remains of Princess of Amen-Ra. They drew lots. The man who won paid several thousand pounds and had the coffin taken to his hotel. A few hours later, he was seen walking out towards the desert. He never returned. The next day, one of the remaining 3 men was shot by an Egyptian servant accidentally. His arm was so severely wounded it had to be amputated. The 3rd man in the foursome found on his return home that the bank holding his entire savings had failed. The 4th guy suffered a severe illness, lost his job and was reduced to selling matches in the street.

Nevertheless, the coffin reached England (causing other misfortunes along the way), where it was bought by a London businessman. After 3 of his family members had been injured in a road accident and his house damaged by fire, the businessman donated it to the British Museum. As the coffin was being unloaded from a truck in the museum courtyard, the truck suddenly went into reverse and trapped a passer-by. Then as the casket was being lifted  up thestairs by 2 workmen, 1 fell and broke his leg. The other, apparently in perfect health, died unaccountably two days later.

Once the Princess was installed in the Egyptian Room, the trouble really started. Museum's night watchmen
frequently heard frantic hammering and sobbing from the coffin. Other exhibits in the room were also often hurled about at night. One watchman died on duty, causing the other watchmen to quit. Cleaners refused to go near the Princess too. When a visitor derisively flicked a dust cloth at the face painted on the coffin, his child died of measles soon afterwards. Finally, the authorities had the mummy carried down to the basement, figuring it could not do any harm down there. Within a week, one of the helpers was seriously ill, and the supervisor of the move was found dead at his desk.

By now, the papers had heard of it. A journalist photographer took a picture of the mummy case and when he developed it, the painting on the coffin was of a horrifying, human face. The photographer was said to have gone home then, locked his bedroom door and shot himself. Soon afterwards, the museum sold the mummy to a private collector. After continual misfortune (and deaths), the owner banished it to the attic. A well known authority on the occult, Madame Helena Blavatsky, visited the premises. Upon entry, she was seized with a shivering fit and searched the house for the source of "an evil influence of incredible intensity". She finally came to the attic and found the mummy case. "Can you exorcise this evil spirit?" asked the owner. "There is no such thing as exorcism. Evil remains evil forever. Nothing can be done about it. I implore you to get rid of this evil as soon as possible." But no British museum would take the mummy. The fact that almost 20 people had met with misfortune, disaster or death from handling the casket in barely 10 yrs, was now well known. Eventually, a hard-headed American archaeologist (who dismissed the happenings as quirks of circumstance), paid a handsome price for the mummy and arranged for its removal to New York.

In April 1912, the new owner escorted his treasure aboard a sparkling, new White Star liner about to make it maiden voyage to New York. On the night of April 14, amid scenes of unprecedented horror, the Princess of Amen-Ra accompanied 1,500 passengers to their deaths at the bottom of the Atlantic.

The name of the ship was. . .

Confidence

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Trivia Section Edition 5

You know you're living in the 00's when: -

1. You try to enter your password on the microwave.
2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.
3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of three.
4. You e-mail your buddy who works at the desk next to you.
5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends is that they do not have e-mail addresses.
6. When you go home after a long day at work you still answer the phone in a business manner.
7. When you make phone calls from home, you accidentally insert a "9" to get an outside line.
8. You've sat at the same desk for four years and worked for three different companies.
9. Your company's welcome sign is attached with Velcro.
10. Your resume is on a diskette in your pocket.
11. You learn about your redundancy on the 11 o'clock news.
12. Your biggest loss from a system crash was when you lost all of your best jokes.
13. Your supervisor doesn't have the ability to do your job.
14. Contractors outnumber permanent staff and are more likely to get long-service awards.
15. Board members salaries are higher than all the Third World countries annual budgets combined.
16. Interviewees, despite not having relevant knowledge or experience, terminate the interview when told of the starting salary.
17. Free food left over from meetings is your staple diet.
18. Your supervisor gets a brand-new state-of-the-art laptop with all the latest features, while you have time to go for lunch while yours boots up.
19. Being sick is defined as you can't walk or you're in hospital.
20. There's no money in the budget for the five permanent staff your department desperately needs, but they can afford four full-time management consultants advising your boss's boss on strategy.
21. Your relatives and family describe your job as "works with computers".

AND THE CLINCHERS ARE..
22. You read this entire list, and kept nodding and smiling.
23. As you read this list, you think about forwarding it to your "friends".
24. It crosses your mind that your jokes group may have seen this list already, but you don't have time to check so you forward it anyway.
25. You got this email from a friend that never talks to you anymore, except to send you jokes from the net.
26. This email has 20 different disclaimer notes at the bottom, telling you that the information is confidential, but you forward anyway.

SO, YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE TOUGH ENOUGH TO TRY TO LEARN ENGLISH?
This little treatise on the lovely language we share is only for the brave.
Peruse at our leisure, English lovers.

Reasons why the English language is so hard to learn:
1)  The bandage was wound around the wound.
2)  The farm was used to produce produce.
3)  The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4)  We must polish the Polish furniture.
5)  He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6)  The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7)  Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8)  A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.?????
9)  When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.

English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France.

Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?

If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices?

Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend.

If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?

If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.
In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?
Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which an alarm goes off by going on. English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.
PS.  Why doesn't "Buick" rhyme with "quick?

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GENDER

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From the Washington Post Style Invitation, in which it was postulated that English should have male and female nouns, and readers were asked to assign a gender to a noun of their choice and explain their reason.

The best submissions:

SWISS ARMY KNIFE - male - because even though it appears useful for a wide variety of work, it spends most of its time just opening bottles.

KIDNEYS - female - because they always go to the bathroom in pairs.

TIRE - male - because it goes bald and often is over inflated.

HOT AIR BALLOON -  male - because to get it to go anywhere you   have to light a fire under it ... and, of course, there's the hot air part.

SPONGES - female - because they are soft and squeezable and retain water.

WEB PAGE - female - because it is always getting hit on.

SHOE - male - because it is usually unpolished, with its tongue hanging out.

COPIER - female - because once turned off, it takes a while to warm up. Because it is an effective reproductive device when the right buttons are pushed. Because it can wreak havoc when the wrong buttons are pushed.

ZIPLOC BAGS - male - because they hold everything in, but you can always see right through them.

SUBWAY-male - because it uses the same old lines to pick people up.

HOURGLASS - female - because over time, the weight shifts to the bottom.

HAMMER - male - because it hasn't evolved much over the last 5,000 years, but it's handy to have around.

REMOTE CONTROL - female - Ha! You thought it would say male.  But consider it gives man pleasure, he'd be lost without it, and while he doesn't always know the right buttons to push, he keeps trying.

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WWII Lancaster bomber picked up on Google Earth flying over England

Photo Op