Men V Women

NEWS BULLETIN - Men and women are NOT alike. Sure, you thought you already knew that. But now we have proof! After countless hours of surveys and studies on the following topics, these facts have emerged: 

Sex:
Women prefer 30 - 45 minutes of foreplay. Men prefer 30 - 45 seconds of foreplay. Men consider driving back to her place as part of the foreplay.
Maturity:
Women mature much faster than men. Most 17-year-old females can function as adults. Most 17-year-old males are still trading baseball cards and giving each other wedgies after gym class. This is why high school romances rarely work.
Hats:
Women look good in hats; men look like dinks. 
Groceries:
A woman makes a list of things she needs and then goes to the store and buys these things. A man waits till the only items left in his fridge are half a lemon and something turning green. Then he goes grocery shopping. He buys everything that looks good. Of course, this will not stop him from going to the 10-items-or-less lane.
Going out:
When a man says he is ready to go out, it means he is ready to go out. When a woman says she is ready to go out, it means she WILL be ready to go out, as soon as she finds her other earring, finishes putting on her makeup... 
Cats:
Women love cats. Men say they love cats, but when women aren't looking, men kick cats.
Mirrors:
Men are vain; they will check themselves out in the mirror. Women are ridiculous; they will check out their reflections in any shiny surface--mirrors, spoons, store windows, toasters….
Garages:
Women use garages to park their cars and to store their lawnmowers. Men use garages for many things. They hang license plates in garages, and they watch TV in garages, and they build useless lopsided benches in garages. 
Jewelry:
Women look nice when they wear jewelry. A man can get away with wearing one ring, and that's it. Any more than that, and he will look like a lounge singer named Vic.
Menopause:
When a woman reaches menopause, she goes through a variety of complicated emotional, psychological, and biological changes. The nature and degree of the changes varies with the individual. Menopause in a man provokes a uniform reaction--he buys aviator glasses, a snazzy French cap and leather driving gloves, and goes shopping for a Porsche.
The Telephone:
Men see the telephone as a communications tool. They use the telephone to send short messages to other people. A woman can visit her girlfriend for two weeks, and upon returning home, she will call the same friend and they will talk for three hours. 
Offspring:
Ah, children. A woman knows all about her children. She knows about dentist appointments and soccer games and romances and best friends and favorite foods and secret fears and hopes and dreams. A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house.
Dressing up:
A woman will dress up to go shopping, water the plants, empty the garbage answer the phone, read a book, get the mail. A man will dress up for: weddings, funerals. 
Cameras:
Men take photography very seriously. They'll shell out $4,000 for state-of-the-art equipment, and build darkrooms, and take photography classes. Women purchase Kodak Instamatic's. Of course, women always end up taking better pictures. 
Plants:
A woman asks a man to water her plants while she is on vacation. The man waters the plants. The woman comes home five days later, to an apartment full of dead plants. No one knows why this happens. 
 Laundry:
Women do laundry every couple of days. A man will wear every article of clothing he owns, including his surgical pants that were hip about eight years ago, before he will do the laundry. When he is finally out of clothes, he will wear a dirty sweatshirt inside out, rent a U-Haul and take his mountain of clothes to the laundromat. Men always expect to meet beautiful women at the laundromat. This is a myth.

You know...it's not easy being a man, the whole world thinks we're bloody useless and makes jokes about us...truly, they're only right some of the time...






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Tough Times

I was chatting with my niece 400km away in the city, she'd just brought home her new puppy and was sitting tickling his belly on the couch as we chatted. Someone had stolen her last dog and she had waited many weeks to finally pick up this new bundle of joy, as always I could sense the excitement in her soft voice.

Chat over I went on with my day smiling inside at knowing her happiness.

Just an hour later I answered the phone to hear a womans plaintive crying on the other end, I could hardly understand what she was saying and I wasn’t even sure who it was but the name came through, "Jasmin, Jasmin is dead. . ."

As I hung up the phone my head was spinning, I felt like I'd just awoke from a bad dream and was completely unsure I'd heard right. It couldn’t be, cant be? It must be a wrong number, a prank call, another Jasmin? It simply cannot be!

I rang her father, (my older brother) it rang out so I rang and rang again and again until I got through. The moment I heard his voice I knew it was true, at just 24 she was gone, leaving a 4yr old daughter without a mother and best friend.

I didn't ask what happened, his pain was bad enough already and I just couldn’t ask him to tell me about it.

I started making the calls to let the family know, each and every one had the same reaction as me…

Later that night her mother rang to tell me the story, how she'd had a seizure in the bath and slipped below the water, how her 4yr old had found her and gone next door for help, how that help arrived too late...

If the devil was making a list there would be a few names I could give him, but this smart, kind and much loved young woman would never be among them.

Wise beyond her years, comforting and understanding like few people I know.

Jasmin was just the same age as my youngest daughter and some genetic trick made them as close to twins to look at as you could imagine.

D3 will be missing her cousin Jazzy as much as any other person on earth.

This coming week will be hard on our family, we will all come together for yet another funeral but this one will be more terrible than previous ones.

When an old person dies you talk of how they had a good innings, how they did so much and went so far; how they were so sick that the end came as a blessed relief… but what do you say about someone so young, so full of spirit and life….

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A Guide To Proper Etiquette In The Men's Restroom

Ever since man crawled out of the primordial ooze, he has built himself
structures to contain the processes of bodily waste removal. These have been
known as "restrooms," "bathrooms," "outhouses," "commodes," "men's rooms," and
several other names. (For Australia add: Thunderbox, Crapper, Bog, Reading Room) 
As with any exclusive organization, wholly half the human race aren't allowed through the door, and a number of exceedingly complicated customs have arisen to maintain a sense of order and dignity.

General rules:

1. Don't talk to somebody you don't know. You may chat quietly with an
acquaintance, but must absolutely not call attention to yourself.

2. A quick glance in the mirror is permissible, but absolutely don't spend a
significant time arranging hair, clothing, etc. Zit popping is only
permissible after checking to see nobody else is around.

3. No profanity of any kind. This is reserved for locker rooms, only.

4. If you must wait, form a single-file line, ragged, and be sure to keep
looking around. Read graffiti.

Urinal rules:

11. Given a string of unoccupied urinals, you must choose one on the outside.
When one outside urinal is occupied, use the other side, then middle. Avoid
standing directly next to somebody at all costs.

For example, given seven urinals, here are acceptable configurations:
X...... (X = occupied, . = empty)
X.....X
X..X..X
X.X.X.X
XXX.X.X <-- These are only acceptable when significant
XXX.XXX <-- "privacy" dividers are available. If the
XXXXXXX <-- urinals aren't divided, use a toilet.

12. Always look at the wall. Looking down means you're obsessed or don't know
what you're doing. Looking at other people is threatening.

13. Flushing is optional. Over time, the water will become a rich orange. At
this point, flushing is mandatory.

14. Don't start unzipping until you're protected by the privacy of the urinal.
Don't step back until you've closed your pants again.

Pissing Tips for "Real Men" (Addendum To The Above Rules)

a. Head for the largest open expanse of urinal available. If you stand too close to someone, they will think that you are gay. If you stand too far away from someone, they will think that you think that they are gay.

b. Three shakes only. Two is unhygienic, four is a wank.

c. If you fart, say "Whooaa, what a ripper!"

d. Don't look. Real men never compare sizes.

e. Never use the drying machines or the towels. Walking out with wet hands into the bar looks like the condensation off at least six pitchers.




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When Women Drink...

...and thats why we love them...

Air guns and superglue...

At work we had to staple some wadding under a truck, (long story cut short…) the piss weak hand powered staple gun was broken.

The boss asked if anyone had one at home we could use for this small job, when no one else put up their hand I reluctantly raised mine.  A quick drive to my place and I returned with my new, air driven power stapler capable of firing a 40mm staple or nail. (40mm=1 1/2inch)

It takes many sizes of nail or staple but it had the largest in it left over from it's first test firing a few months ago.

After plugging it into the air supply one of our young workers held the gun upward and pulled the trigger to test it…nothing! He tried again…nothing. He yelled to me that it didn't work (I was preparing the wood form board across the workshop)

I yelled back that it had a safety bar on the tip and had to be pushed down on the work piece before it would fire.

He pushed the safety bar down with a finger and promptly fired a staple right through his finger. (much screaming ensued)

The heel (loop end) of the staple was actually embedded in the fingerprint side of his finger with both sides of the staple 3/4inch (20mm) hanging out THROUGH his fingernail.

The blokes wanted to try pulling it out with pliers rather than tell the boss but I insisted the staple…and fool connected to it had to go to hospital.

Yeah, the boss was not happy!

We have this thing here in Australia called WorkSafe. Within fifteen minutes their representative was at the factory asking questions, taking photos and generally making an ass of himself.

In the end the WorkSafe guy wanted to take the gun for testing (which can take up to a year) I refused to allow it seeing as there was no fault in the gun and it was unmodified and fully Australian standards compliant. (and didn't belong to the workshop)

He tried for a full hour to make it fail then gave up and tested it by pushing the safety bar down with a bit of wood before firing it. The scrap of wood exploded with such force he damn near shat himself, he took a few more photos and left!

At the hospital they applied anesthetic, tapped the staple back through until they could get at the heel. Yes… they HIT it back through, then cut the staple flush with the nail on the other side and pulled it through the finger with pliers. (add my hysterical laughing here)

The dumbass is back at work now, his finger is black to the middle knuckle and apparently very tender. (more laughing)

For those of us who didn't know…the correct medical way to seal the holes through the nail and prevent infection was to put a drop of Superglue on each hole. (so damn funny)

..and this goes to show that the Australian educational system is turning out stupid people.. I mean, really. Who could be that stupid? Though I suspect that he has now learned to treat power tools with respect.

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The Twilight Zone

When I dream I like the way the mind flits from the ridiculous to the mundane and back again as freely as if everything is yesterdays news. How the totally weird seems quite plausible in the land of dreams.

Lately though my mind has taken to writing original comedy during it's midnight wanderings and for not the first time I've woken wondering how on earth the mind can write comedy at all while you're asleep. There mingled between the strange and crazy thoughts, snippets of the funny sit comfortably.

In a long series of connected but quite different thoughts I find myself washed up on a busy beach, with no explanation of how I got there I pick myself up and join with other tourists being shown through the small cramped seaside village homes of elderly ladies. One thought she had trained mosquito lava to swim the image of her long lost husband in the water of a baby bath but it turned out to be a cunning ploy by the mosquitoes to farm and harvest her blood. Casually one of my fellow tourists picked up a can of insect spray and with a swipe killed the lot… Her shrieks ring in my ears as we are shown into another cottage.

Another flit of the mind and I'm under a bridge in what might have been old Brooklyn, listening to Ashton Kutcher as he tells me about some woman that had screwed him over and then wrecked her life with drugs. I tell him that ordinary people really didn't care what someone born with a silver spoon and threw it all away did with their lives, that ordinary people had important lives full of life, love and tragedy and were much to busy getting on with their lives to really care much. We contemplate this as we watch a homeless woman cleaning out the inside of a wrecked car in which she will now live…

Another flit and the setting sun reflecting off the panels of that car as it corkscrewed through the trees catches my eye. I know the car and the man inside are being torn apart and it hits me again with a solid thump to the chest…

The birds singing outside my window break through the fog of sleep to welcome the new day and it's time to get up, for me at least…life goes on.

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DUCK

Back when my last dog was getting old I bought a heap of those big square lounge chair cushions from a second hand dealer and set about gluing them all over the inside of the expansive kennel. Eventually the roof, all the walls and floor were lined 100mm (4"0) thick with foam making it a very comfortable even in the hot weather we experience here in Australia.  Toward the end of his life (winter) I added a queen sized feather down quilt to keep him warm, eventually though, inevitably, he lost his battle for life. (heart failure)

I hadn't given it much thought until the new puppy chose to move from the temporary cardboard kennel I'd put on the back verandah to the big kennel in the yard. (He tore the big cardboard box into tiny pieces)

I'd noticed a few stray bits of foam here and there and knew he was ripping lumps out of the insulation but I have to admit I was shocked when I came home one afternoon to find the garage strewn with feathers…lots of feathers.

When I opened the doors I found thousands of feathers blowing around the yard and in piles by the kennel door. Max took it upon himself to thoroughly kill the quilt, spreading the feathers everywhere. He greeted me with a wagging tail and stray feathers stuck to his mouth… (sigh!)

I cant imagine what the neighbors thought as for the next few weeks feathers blew around my front yard whenever the garage doors were opened.

Feathers are basically slow release nitrogen so they're actually good for the garden but I'd rather he'd left them in the (expensive) quilt.

In the month since then he's finished rearranging the kennel and let me assure you that foam insulation take no part in his plans. I've had to rake and sweep all the foam up again and again as he takes it upon himself to make the pieces ever smaller.

I'm sure he will regret this when winter comes, though I will of course have to relent and buy more warm things for him.

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