Cats, Dogs, Chickens, & Criminals - Oh My!! ... :) Shangy!! >Here are the details on our Yahoo ShangyFunList: To Subscribe send a blank email to ShangyFunList-subscribe@yahoogroups.com Group home page: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ShangyFunList or Web Site: http://www.ShangralaFamilyFun.com/ShangyFunList.html Group email address: ShangyFunList@yahoogroups.com or email me here: bcrsystems@earthlink.net =========================== * IF YOU HAVE Cool free to use Animated Graphics for the Animated Gallery, please send them my way! I figure if I put them up, then they won't get lost with sites going down so often as they do. ** PLEASE SEND ANY COOL FORWARDS MY WAY TOO - I Love them, I need them! I use them as extras to the group or turn them into pages for the web site for all to enjoy for years to come! =========================== >-->Thank You All For The Forwards! Many of you have been sending me sweet forwards for the group and for my work with Shangrala - I truly Thank You! Please do not worry if you don't have me acknowledge them right away - I most deffinately appreciate them and will let you know how they are are being used - generally about the same time the rest of the group knows ;) -<>- >-->From Emergency email: FDA expands tomato warning nationwide. Click for details... http://www.emergencyemail.org/newsemergency/anmviewer.asp?a=302&z=1 THE EMERGENCY EMAIL & WIRELESS NETWORK http://www.emergencyemail.org -<>- >-->I finally Remembered! For our inspirations last time, I was trying to remember the teaching that had the beautiful account of 'he maketh my feet like hinds feet' to go along with SermondFodders teaching on our footing with the Lord. I found several teachings that were good but not the one that it reminded me of until right after I sent it out - of course. :0 Here is the one I would of referred you to for that. I am especially fond of this one and hope it blesses you too! THE SYNCHRONIZED LIFE http://www.shangralafamilyfun.com/BibleStudy/synchronized.html -<>- >-->In The 'Shangy' News :) Well, I thought I was building my immune system after that bout with the flu bug when again I get floored with a respiratory cold/flu bug! I wasn't able to have enough time to rebound I guess. So Today's email is part today, part yester-year jokes! Some taken from my archives from 2004. I did get around to updating my animated gifs before I got floored. New Flag animations are here: http://www.shangralafamilyfun.com/agifs_f-j.html I also added the many new dads and fathers day animations. You can find them here: Dad Animations http://www.shangralafamilyfun.com/agifs_a-e.html Father's Day http://www.shangralafamilyfun.com/agifs_f-j.html -<>- *~* Also be sure to Visit these for Animal cuties :) Bambi And Thumper http://www.shangralafamilyfun.com/bambi.html Aww Animals #1 http://www.shangralafamilyfun.com/animals.html Aww Animals #2 http://www.shangralafamilyfun.com/animals2.html Giant Panda Bears http://www.shangralafamilyfun.com/pandabear.html Whale Rescue http://www.shangralafamilyfun.com/whalerescue.html Look Under 'PICTURE PAGES' For Many More: http://www.shangralafamilyfun.com/index.html ========================================================== >-->All In A Day's Work One afternoon a man came home from work to find total mayhem in his house. ____ .' `". His three children were outside, still in / | \ their pajamas, playing in the mud, with | \__.-, (_, empty food boxes and wrappers strewn all \ /` 9 `\ / around the front yard. The door of his ,_ )| 9 . |` wife's car was open, as was the front \'. '.\ ,_/ / door to the house. _\ \.--.'.___.' `'. .-' _` a \.--, .' | Proceeding into the entry, he found `""` \ a K ; ,-'\ _.;_ an even bigger mess. A lamp had been '.__,. (__.'`-._ ) knocked over, and the throw rug was wadded (_/\ '-. /_ against one wall. In the front room the TV ;-._)-._/ _) was loudly blaring a cartoon channel, and the / `` \ family room was strewn with toys and various '-._______.-' items of clothing. In the kitchen, dishes filled |_ |_ | the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the | | | counter, dog food was spilled on the floor, a |__|__/ broken glass lay under the table, and small .-"'-'|--| piles of sand was spread by the back door. '.___,_|""| jgs \__/ He quickly headed up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes, looking for his wife. He was worried she may be ill, or that something serious had happened. He found her lounging in the bedroom, still curled in the bed in her pajamas, reading a novel. She looked up at him, smiled, and asked how his day went. He looked at her bewildered and asked, "What happened here today?" She again smiled and answered, "You know every day when you come home from work and ask me what in the world I did today?" She answered, "Well, today I didn't do it." ================================================================== +-------------------- BIZARRE PHYSICAL --------------------+ ACTS Lee Graber of Tallmadge, Ohio, USA, endured the weight of the heaviest bed of nails on his body. He was sandwiched between two beds of nails, with a weight of 752.5 kg (1,659 lb) placed on top for a total of 10 seconds on June 24, 2000. The weight was loaded on top of him using a crane. England's John Evans achieved the world record for heaviest car balanced on head after he balanced a 159.6 kg (352 lb) Mini on his head for 33 seconds at The London Studios, England, on May 24, 1999. Cyclist Wolfgang Kulovman from Germany set a world record after riding 2.6 miles (4.1 kilometers) in 3 and a quarter hours under the sea on a lead bicycle. Russian athlete Omar Khanapiyev, 38, set a new world record for pulling weight with his teeth. He towed a Kuban oil tanker for 36.3 feet in a shipyard. The vessel's weight was 1,100 tons. ============================================================= >-->From Our Friend Bob :) When are we going to wake up?? A Modern Parable. A Japanese company ( Toyota ) and an American company (General Motors) decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race. On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile. The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action. Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 7 people steering and 2 people rowing. Feeling a deeper study was in order; American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion. They advised, of course, that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing. Not sure of how to utilize that information, but wanting to prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team's management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 2 area steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager. They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 2 people rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the 'Rowing Team Quality First Program,' with meetings, dinners and free pens for the rowers. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses. The pension program was trimmed to "equal the competition" and some of the resultant savings were channeled into morale boosting programs and teamwork posters. The next year the Japanese won by two miles. Humiliated, the American management laid-off one rower, halted development of a new canoe, sold all the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses. The next year, try as he might, the lone designated rower was unable to even finish the race (having no paddles,) so he was laid off for unacceptable performance, all canoe equipment was sold and the next year's racing team was out-sourced to India. Sadly, the End. Here's something else to think about: G.M. has spent the last thirty years moving all its factories out of the US , claiming they can't make money paying American wages. TOYOTA has spent the last thirty years building more than a dozen plants inside the US . The last quarter's results: TOYOTA makes 4 billion in profits while G.M. racked up 9 billion in losses. G.M. folks are still scratching their heads, and collecting bonuses. IF THIS WEREN'T SO TRUE IT MIGHT BE FUNNY ---- ...yeah! Thanks Bob: ================================================================= >-->From CleanLaffs: I had a date on Saturday so I took her to a new place that just opened out in the burbs. It got a good review in the paper so I thought we'd give them a try. It was nice inside, if a bit cramped. The building used to be a bank so, basically, we were sitting in a lobby. But it was nicely decorated, they had installed hardwood floors and they had linen table clothes and everything, so I didn't mind the close quarters so much. I was perusing the menu, the critic in the paper had said that the house specialty, a filet with crab-stuffed giant shrimp was worth the money, when the waitress came to our table. "I've been starving myself all day for this meal," I told her. "I'll have the filet and crab-stuffed shrimp." "I'm sorry," she answered, "We're out of that." "Out of the filet, huh? Disappointing. Ummm...I'll just have the New York strip then." "We're out of that, too." "No steaks. Okay...I'll have the butterfly pork chop." She started to wince at me. "What? No pork chops, either? Let's make this easy on both of us...what DO you have?" She took the menu out of my hand and looked at it, "We have hamburgers, grilled chicken sandwiches, but we're out of the focaccia bread so you'll have to have it on a bun, ummm...we have the buffalo wings, cheese sticks and pizza." So, we drove 40 minutes for burgers and beer. They were, however, very good burgers. And I also noticed that they had plenty of paper in stock on which to write the bill. Laugh it up, Joe --- Bernie was unfortunate enough to be hit by a truck and ended up in the hospital. His best friend Morris came to visit him. Bernie struggles to tell Morris, "My wife Sadie visits me three times a day. She's so good to me. Every day, she reads to me at the bedside." "What does she read?" asks Morris. "My life insurance policy." --- Follow the instructions below for the genuine thrill that comes with discovering your blues name: From the first list, take the name using the initial of your first name. From the second list, do the same with your middle name. From the third, your surname. First List: A=Fat; B=Muddy ; C=Crippled; D=Old; E=Texas; F=Hollerin'; G=Ugly; H=Brown; I=Happy; J=Boney; K=Curly; L=Pretty; M=Jailhouse; N=Peg Leg; O=Red; P=Sleepy; Q=Bald; R=Skinny; S=Blind; T=Big; U=Yella; V=Toothless; W=Screamin'; X=FatBoy; Y=Washboard; Z=Steel-Eye Second List: A=Bones; B=Money; C=Harp; D=Legs; E=Eyes; F=Lemon; G=Killer; H=Hips; I=Lips; J=Fingers; K=Boy; L=Liver; M=Gumbo; N=Foot; O=Mama; P=Back; Q=Duke; R=Dog; S=Bad Boy; T=Baby; U=Chicken; V=Pickles; W=Sugar; X=Cracker; Y=Tooth; Z=Smoke Third List: A=Jackson; B=McGee; C=Hopkins; D=Dupree; E=Green; F=Brown; G=Jones; H=Rivers; I=Malone; J=Washington; K=Smith; L=Parker; M=Lee; N=Thompkins; O=King; P=Bradley; Q=Hawkins; R=Jefferson; S=Davis; T=Franklin; U=White; V=Jenkins; W=Bailey; X=Johnson; Y=Blue; Z=Allison [Turns out I'm Boney-Boy Davis.] ...I'm Texas Gumbo McGee - at your service :) --- The homeowner was delighted with the way the painter had done all the work on his house. "You did a great job." he said and handed the man a check. "Also, in order to thank you, here's an extra $80 to take the missus out to dinner and a movie." Later that night, the doorbell rang and it was the painter. Thinking the man had forgotten something he asked, "What's the matter, did you forget something?" "Nope." replied the painter. "I'm just here to take your missus out to dinner and a movie like you asked." --- An old farmer decided to visit a pond in the back of his property that he had not visited in a long time. As he neared the pond, he heard voices shouting and laughing. As he came closer, he discovered a bunch of young women were skinny dipping in his pond. He politely made the women aware of his presence, and soon they all moved to the deep end of the pond. One of the women shouted to him, "We're not coming out until you leave!" The farmer replied, "Oh, don't worry about me. I didn't come down here to see you skinny dipping. I'm just here to feed the alligator." The moral being: Age and cunning will triumph over youth and enthusiasm EVERY time! --- [I know I've run this one before...but I just love this one.] "I'd like the number for Jennifer Smith in Richmond, Virginia," the young man said to the 411 operator. "There are multiple listings for Jennifer Smith in Richmond, Virginia," the operator said. "Do you have a street name?" The young man hesitated a moment, "Well, uh, most people call me Bubba." ================================================================= >-->From ScreamOfTheCrop: Q. Why is the governmental process sometimes referred to as "red tape?" A. The term "red tape" was made famous in the 1900's by Thomas Carlyle, who charged the English government with "red tapism". He referred to the government's practice of binding official papers in red ribbon. As material going through the government tended to slow down due to the tying and untying of stacks of bound documents, the process became known as "going through the red tape." -<>- >A CAT'S GUIDE TO HUMANS 1. Introduction: Why Do We Need Humans? So, you've decided to get yourself a human being! In doing so, you've joined the millions of other cats who have acquired these strange and often frustrating creatures. What's so great about humans, anyway? Our greatest philosophers have struggled with this question for centuries, but the answer is actually rather simple: THEY HAVE OPPOSABLE THUMBS. Which makes them the perfect tools for such tasks as opening doors, getting the lids off of cat food cans, changing television stations and other activities that we, despite our other obvious advantages, find difficult to do ourselves. True, chimps, orangutans and lemurs also have opposable thumbs, but they are nowhere near as easy to train. 2. How And When to Get Your Human's Attention? Humans often erroneously assume that there are other, more important activities than taking care of your immediate needs, such as housekeeping, going to their jobs, spending time with their families or even sleeping. Though this is dreadfully inconvenient, you can make this work to your advantage by pestering your human at the moment it is the busiest. It is usually so flustered that it will do whatever you want it to do. Here are some tried and true methods of getting your human to do what you want: Sitting on paper: An oldie but a goodie. If a human has paper in front of it, chances are good it's something they assume is more important than you. They will often offer you a snack to lure you away. Establish your supremacy over this wood pulp product at every opportunity. This practice also works well with computer keyboards, remote controls, car keys and small children. Waking your human at odd hours: A cat's golden time is between 3:30 and 4:30 in the morning. If you paw at your human's sleeping face during this time, you have a better than even chance that it will get up and, in an incoherent haze, do exactly what you want. You may actually have to scratch deep sleepers to get their attention. Remember to vary the scratch site to keep the human from getting suspicious. 3. Rewarding Your Human: Should Your Gift Still Be Alive? The cat world is divided over the etiquette of presenting humans with the thoughtful gift of a recently disemboweled animal. Some believe that humans prefer these gifts already dead, while others maintain that humans enjoy a slowly expiring cricket or rodent just as much as we do, given their jumpy and playful movements in picking the creatures up after they've been presented. After much consideration of the human psyche, we recommend that cold-blooded animals (large insects, frogs, lizards, garden snakes and the occasional earthworm) should be presented dead, while warm-blooded animals (birds, rodents, your neighbor's Pomeranian) are better still living. When you see the expression on your human's face, you'll know it's worth it. 4. How Long Should You Keep Your Human? You are only obligated to your human for one of your lives. The other eight are up to you. We recommend mixing and matching, though in the end, most humans (at least the ones that are worth living with) are pretty much the same. But what do you expect? They're humans, after all. Opposable thumbs will only take you so far. ========================================================================== >--->From JokeCentral: >Paradise Lite In heaven, you'll be thinner, happier, and smarter or so Americans think. --By Adam Kirsch Posted Thursday, Feb. 5, 2004, at 12:05 PM PT Heaven has always been a touchy subject for religion. In fact, as Peter Stanford shows in his new study Heaven: A Guide to the Undiscovered Country, the greatest prophets have had little to say about it. Of course, the Old Testament contains references to a world to come, and the foundation of the New Testament is Jesus' promise of resurrection and "the kingdom of heaven." But Moses and Jesus and, for that matter, Muhammad didn't spend much time actually drawing a map of the afterlife. In First Corinthians, St. Paul laid down the orthodox line when he simply refused to speculate about what heaven had in store: "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love him." It is true that, logically, we simply cannot know what heaven will be like. If, as Christianity believes, it is the place where our souls are united with God, then it's no more possible to describe heaven than it is to describe God himself. That's why Dante, at the conclusion of Paradiso, declares that he is unable to write down what he saw: "From that moment my vision was greater than our speech." For austere or mystically inclined believers, this absolute otherness of heaven is what makes it absolutely desirable. "To be in paradise," John Calvin reminded his followers, "is not to speak to each other and be heard by each other, but only to enjoy God." But heaven is not just an embarrassment to human reason; sometimes it is just plain embarrassing, a wish-fulfillment fantasy that has more to do with appetite than faith. Stanford's book, though light on analysis, is full of examples of the strange and frothy heavens invented by ordinary believers over the centuries. In the Middle Ages, the legendary land of Cockaigne was one such folk heaven: an endless feast, complete with pigs that trotted, already roasted, to the dinner table. By the 18th century, celestial luxury had become more refined, but it was no less extravagant; the popular tract Friendship in Death imagined "bright cascades and crystal rivulets rolling over orient pearls and sands of gold." By holding such populist visions at arm's length, the churches have tacitly admitted that heaven puts religious faith itself in a dubious light. Belief, it can easily seem, is just the quarter you put into the divine slot machine in order to win the jackpot of the afterlife. And certainly the greed for heaven is still alive and well. That much is clear from A Travel Guide to Heaven, a new Christian inspirational book. The author, Anthony DeStefano, takes his travel-guide conceit literally, declaring that paradise is "Disney World, Hawaii, Paris, Rome and New York all rolled up into one" the "ultimate playground, created purely for our enjoyment." The disingenuousness of DeStefano's fantasy has to be read to be believed: He looks forward to a heaven where you are your earthly self, but thinner, younger, and prettier, and where you will do nothing but race from one game, hobby, or exotic sight to the next, "having fun" for eternity. No detail is too small for DeStefano's cruise-director God to take care of: "You shouldn't be shocked," he writes, if on Judgment Day "you feel a paw anxiously poking at your leg" yes, Rover will be there, too. Ironically, while A Travel Guide to Heaven is clearly the work of a true believer and is shelved in the religion section of the bookstore it has nowhere near the moral concern of two recent best-selling, secular accounts of heaven. Mitch Albom's The Five People You Meet in Heaven the follow-up to Tuesdays With Morrie and The Lovely Bones, the hugely successful debut novel by Alice Sebold, have a genuine thirst for heaven. These heavens are not easy consumerist paradises. Instead, both Albom and Sebold give us something new in the history of the afterlife: a therapeutic heaven. For both writers, heaven has nothing to do with pleasure; it is the place where you listen to your inner child, repair your self-esteem, and finally reach closure. In The Lovely Bones, we see heaven literally through the eyes of a child: 14-year-old Susie Salmon, who has been raped and murdered by a serial-killer neighbor. The lurid violence and emotional manipulations of the tale are standard popular-fiction fare. What makes the book unusual is that Susie's murder, and its ramifications for her family, are all narrated by the dead girl herself as she watches from heaven. Sebold does make some attempts at describing what goes on up there, imagining a paradise tailor-made to Susie's childish fantasies. ("Our heaven had an ice cream shop.") But there is something forlorn and even frightening about Sebold's descriptions of heaven since what really interests her 'and Susie' is Earth. Far from being content in the afterlife, Susie has her nose pressed against "the Inbetween," trying to witness and, if possible, affect events on Earth. Like a course of psychoanalysis, this eager observation must go on until Susie has made peace with her "issues." Once she can approve of "the lovely bones that had grown around my absence" "the connections ... made at great cost, that happened after I was gone" she is released to some other higher plane of the afterlife. In almost exactly the same way, Albom's heaven involves not leaving oneself behind but studying oneself more intensely than was ever possible on Earth. Eddie, the 83-year-old protagonist, dies saving a girl from a roller-coaster accident. Arriving in heaven, he learns that he must confront the five people he has most intimately affected and been affected by. He reviews his whole life, with the goal again as in therapy of putting his demons to rest. Eddie feared and resented his father, but he learns to see him as just a flawed human being who meant well. He neglected his wife but gets to spend more quality time with her and earn her forgiveness. What these visions of heaven have in common is their refusal of transcendence. They are unable to believe in anything more important than the individual human being or more significant than his or her earthly suffering. What makes them distinctly 21st-century heavens is the nature of that suffering. DeStefano's heaven is really just an updated Cockaigne, full of the latest refinements in luxury. Albom and Sebold, on the other hand, could only be the products of our affluent, post-religious society not pious enough to be concerned with God and not hungry enough to fantasize about food. Instead, the afflictions they want heaven to cure are the very ones our wealth seems to aggravate: loneliness, alienation, emotional deprivation. Instead of being "God's spies," as Shakespeare wrote in King Lear, we will spy for ourselves, on ourselves; heaven means a chance to get our inner lives right at last. (The same principle is at work in the Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day, which in its relentless focus on self-improvement, rather than self-sacrifice, updates It's a Wonderful Life for the 1990s.) Instead of angelic choirs, it now seems, we will be greeted in heaven by the sound of a billion voices, all talking about themselves. Adam Kirsch is the author of The Thousand Wells: Poems and the book critic of the New York Sun. ----- ...My oh my - such rantings by so many elite and famous people! You would think they would of went to 'the source' instead of just guessing! You'll Find many of these questioned answered from God's Word here: http://truthortradition.com/ -<>- >Think You Know Everything? Interesting FACTS for you: Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar There are more chickens than people in the world Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey The longest one-syllable word in the English language is" Screeched" All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" are stuck on 4:20 No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the English launguage that ends in the letter "mt" All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Almonds are a member of the peach family Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable There are only four words in the English language which end in"dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous Los Angeles' full name is"El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula" An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur In most advertisements, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10 Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer 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" A dragonfly has a life span of 24 hours A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds A dime has 118 ridges around the edge It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister The average person falls asleep in seven minutes There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball "Stewardesses" is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand -<>- >Ten Signs of a Frustrated Mother 1. Your children know how to read HTML code but can't operate a vacuum cleaner. 2. Your children tell you that you said "yes" and you don't even remember the question. 3. You go to the grocery store and find yourself having a good time. 4. Your husband asks how your day went and you rate it on a scale of 1-10 repeats of "stop that!" or "no!" 5. You can't remember the last time you didn't have to share your drink. 6. You mistakenly tell the kids it's "sanity" time when you meant to say "bed" time. 7. The laundry seems to have taken on an evil nature and you begin to feel that it's out to get you. 8. You dread hearing the phone ring because it's a sure sign there's about to be trouble amongst the children. 9. It's finally your turn on the computer and "Touched by an Angel" is just coming on. 10. You go to sleep with "I'm bored" or "I'm hungry" still ringing in your ears. -<>- "Car Theft" Carlson was charged with stealing a Mercedes Benz, and after a long trial, the jury aquitted him. Later that day Carlson came back to the judge who had presided at the hearing. "Your honor," he said, "I wanna get out a warrant for that dirty lawyer of mine." "Why?" asked the judge. "He won your aquittal. What do you want to have him arrested for?" "Well, your honor," replied Carlson, "I didn't have the money to pay his fee, so he went and took the car I stole." -<>- The US Postal Service created a stamp with a picture of Senator Hillary Clinton to honor her achievements as First Lady of our nation. In daily use it was shown that the stamp was not sticking to envelopes. This enraged Senator Clinton, who demanded a full investigation. After months of testing, a special presidential commission made the following findings: l. The stamp was in perfect order. 2. There was nothing wrong with the applied adhesive. 3. People were spitting on the wrong side. -<>- Cell Phone Etiquette Friends and I were chatting over dinner in a restaurant. A man at the next table got a call on his cell-phone. He immediately told the caller to hold on, then he stepped outside to talk. When he returned, I offered him a compliment by saying, "That was very thoughtful." "I had no choice," he nodded in reply. "You were making too much noise for me to hear the caller." -<>- Barbara, a blonde, was taking her first skydiving lesson. The instructor told her to jump out of the plane and pull her rip cord, explaining that he himself would jump out right behind her so that they would go down together. Barbara understood and was ready. Just before it was time for Barbara to jump out of the plane, the instructor reminded her that he would be right behind her. She jumped, and, after being in the air for a few seconds, pulled the rip cord. The instructor followed her out of the plane. He pulled his rip cord but the parachute didn't open. As he struggled to pull the emergency rip cord, he shot downward and darted past Barbara. Seeing this, Barbara quickly undid the straps to her own parachute, and yelled after him, "So you wanna race, huh?!" -<>- An eighteen-year-old girl tells her Mom that she has missed her period for two months. Very worried, the mother goes to the drugstore and buys a pregnancy kit. The test result shows that the girl is pregnant. Shouting, cursing, crying, the mother says, "Who was the pig that did this to you? I want to know!" The girl picks up the phone and makes a call. Half an hour later a Ferrari stops in front of their house; a mature and distinguished man with gray hair and impeccably dressed in a very expensive suit steps out of it and enters the house. He sits in the living room with the father, the mother and the girl, and tells them: "Good morning, your daughter has informed me of the problem. However, I can't marry her because of my personal family situation, but I'll take charge. If a girl is born I will bequeath her 2 retail stores, a townhouse, a beach villa and a $1,000,000 bank account. If a boy is born, my legacy will be a couple of factories and a $2,000,000 bank account. If it is twins, a factory and $1,000,000 each. However, if there is a miscarriage, what do you suggest I do"? At this point, the father, who had remained silent, places a hand firmly on the man's shoulder and tells him, "Then you try again." -<>- WARNING: LOCK YOUR DOORS! Be sure you lock your doors and windows at home! A North Carolina man was found dead in his home over the weekend. Detectives at the scene found the man face down in his bathtub. The tub had been filled with milk, sugar, and cornflakes. A banana was sticking out of his butt. Police suspect a cereal killer. -<>- Twenty Things Our Mothers Taught Us! Thank your mother for the wisdom she's imparted to you over the years -- and share this special Real Solutions! About Life 1. "'You aren't getting anything done just sitting there.' This is what I am now telling my teens! It applies to everything. You want something? You've got to get up and go get it -- a job, success, a glass of soda, whatever -- take charge and just do it!" 2. "'Appreciate all the blessings that you receive in life, and don't bemoan the things you can't have. Focus instead on things you have influence in.' Despite all the challenges and sorrows that have come my way I don't despair. I celebrate all that life has to offer and continue to grow and learn." 3. "My mother always told me that the one thing I should do was get an education. She said: 'Almost anyone can take just about everything away from you -- but your education, once you have it, no one can take it away from you.'" About Men 4. "'If a guy really wants to talk to you, he'll call.' This advice stopped me from spending a lifetime waiting for the guy to call back." 5. "'You can't change someone who doesn't want to change.' When I started dating, I kept that in mind with every new boyfriend. If he wasn't the guy I wanted, I got out of the relationship instead of trying to change him. Because of this, my husband is all the things I wanted in a man. My mom's advice helped me find the man of my dreams!" 6. "'Never count on a man being around forever.' This is kind of one-sided, but I learned from my mom that I should always be able to take care of myself. Although I love having a man, I can do just fine without him. I am my own person and independent." 7. "'If you settle for less that's all you're going to get.' I will always remember my mother's words, and will not settle for a man who does not deserve my love." 8. "'Don't marry the man you can live with - marry the man you can't live without.' " About Marriage 9. "'Don't sweat the small stuff in your marriage. Respect one another and express your respect daily. Pick your battles by level of importance to you.' All of this advice stopped me from setting up a pattern that sounds -- and feels -- suspiciously like nagging. 10. "'When you marry, you marry the whole family.' The two times I married I did not heed her advice, and I am so regretful. I truly believe that having a healthy extended family makes a huge difference in a person's life! I talk to my children about this often and hope they learn from my mistake. 11. "'Never shine your boyfriend or husband's shoes.' As a teen, I thought it was one of those meaningless old sayings, but in 27 years of marriage, I have discovered that her real message did get through to me. It is about being a real person in your own right, being a partner but not a servant. It has enabled me to keep a sense of myself and a certain amount of dignity in difficult times and I am sure it has helped make my marriage successful." About the Kitchen 12. "'Always organize yourself before any big occasion.' Make a written menu, shopping lists and a time schedule for getting things done and tick off each thing as you do it. Plan serving dishes and utensils, refrigerator space and how you will manage the oven and stove. That way all the food is prepared on time, nothing is ruined from keeping it warm too long, and you won't feel rushed." 13. "'If you ever want to know what's going on in your daughter's life, make stuffed grape leaves.' They take a long time to roll and it gives you all the time you could ever need to chatter about anything! This is also why we weren't allowed to learn how to roll them until we were 11 or 12. That's the age when we stopped talking as much to our mother. My daughter and I just rolled grape leaves together a few weeks ago; we had a great talk!" About Looking Our Best 14. "'Wash your face every morning and every night.' I have never deviated from that bit of advice, ever! She also was always after us not to frown -- and, boy, I'm glad she did because I see so many women with frown lines between their eyes and on their foreheads!" 15. "'Makeup should enhance what you already have; learning to play up your best features is always more appealing than trying to plaster on a look that's just not you.' Less really is more! Also, my mom always said that your hair should frame your face, not shield it! (Remember the late 60's and early 70's!)." 16. "'Stay out of the sun.' I am 56 but look 42-ish -- not a wrinkle present on my face!" About Being a Mother 17. "'I am the best advocate for my children.' She taught me to not to be afraid to speak up for what they need." 18. "'If you let baby cry for a couple of minutes while you take care of your first child, the baby won't remember waiting.' My mother told me this the day I brought my newborn daughter home and introduced her to my older daughter. If I always responded to the baby first, she explained, the oldest would resent it." 19. "'Make hay while the sun shines.' What she meant by that was, 'get things done while the baby sleeps or is otherwise content.' Words of wisdom such as these can be very helpful when you are a new parent and everything is turning your world upside down. To this day, during my daughter's naptime, I have my seven-year-old son take 'quiet time,' too, so I can 'make hay while the sun shines.'" 20. "'Always provide unconditional love for your children, no matter what the situation. Even if they seem to have turned against you and say mean things, remember that a mother's love is eternal, and one day they will come back to you with the same love you have given them throughout their lives, and that love will be given to their children as well.'" -<>- AN Et-Ahem - Being Candid about - Crazy Criminals Detroit, Oregon - A hunter thought he had found a severed human head in an abandoned mining shed and called the police. Deputy Larry Taylor realized it was just the head of a mannequin when he noticed a price sticker on the forehead. Redondo Beach, California - After a short chase, officer Joseph Fonteno charged the driver of a white Mazda with DUI. The car had been driving down Pacific Coast Highway with the upper half of a traffic light pole laying across its hood. When Fonteno asked the drunk driver about the pole, he responded: "It came with the car when I bought it." Australia - The Australian Police Journal reported that an elderly woman had already used about half of the powder in a custard packet when she discovered an object that appeared to be a large dead cockroach. However, when she brought it to the Health Department, food analysts determined it to be a dried-up human finger. The following investigation revealed that a factory worker had lost two fingers in a machine with rotating blades. One finger had been found. The other had made its way into the custard packet the woman had bought. Pochatello, Idaho - In February, 1997 a 46-year-old female elementary school principal was charged with misdemeanor trespass, based on photographs taken by former police dispatcher Richard Clothier. Clothier had taken the pictures in order to find out who had been running onto his property since September, defecating in his front yard on Sundays. In a pre-trial conference the woman admitted in front of several witnesses that she had indeed defecated 21 times on Clothier's lawn, as well as about 5 times on the lawns of his neighbors. Edmonton, Alberta - The driver of an armored truck appeared to be signaling for help as he repeatedly swung his door open. Six police cruisers chased and stopped the truck, which had been swerving left and right. As it turned out, the driver had simply tried to fan fresh air into the cabin after the other guard had passed gas. Sacramento, California - An elderly gentleman walked into a police station and reported that he thought he had robbed a Wells Fargo Bank a few days earlier. The police officers didn't take his confession too seriously because he was very old, suffered from obvious physical ailments, carried a white hospital bag, and admitted that he wanted to go back into Kaiser Hospital's psychiatric ward. He also couldn't remember the exact day, time, location of the bank, or the nearest cross street. However, after an intensive interrogation, FBI agents found out that the senior citizen had indeed robbed the bank and was responsible for three other bank robberies. Antioch, California - A 22-year-old man was arrested after allegedly ordering a stranger to fix his truck at gunpoint. San Francisco, California - Dan White, a city supervisor, killed Mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk, another supervisor. White's lawyers said that eating a Twinkie had made his blood sugar level rise so high, it caused his psychotic episode. this resulted in the charges against White being dropped from murder one to involuntary manslaughter. Mount Shasta, California - Joy Glassman, the 60-year-old mother of a firefighter, was charged with five counts of arson. She allegedly set the fires to help her son's career. Boynton, Florida - For their attempt to raise money to attend the police academy, Michael Harrison and Kevin Carter were arrested and charged with armed robbery and murder. Woburn, Massachusetts - In Agust 1996, police investigated complaints about the Anchor Baptist Church. The church allegedly lured kids from a nearby housing project by promising them pizza and then baptized them without their parents' permission. Sanger, Texas - Four teenagers, including the police chief's son, broke into a funeral home. They had planned to steal embalming fluid, dip cigarettes in it and smoke them. But when they couldn't find any fluid, they decided to cut off the finger of a corpse and took turns trying to smoke it. Pennsylvania - A bank robber was sentenced to 24 years in prison. Instead of wearing masks, he and his accomplice had thought that rubbing citric acid on their faces would somehow blur their images on the security cameras. Pikeville, Kentucky - After a fight with his girlfriend's 16-year-old son over rent money, Jesse James Taylor drove himself to the emergency room of the Methodist Hospital with part of a butcher knife in his back and a meat cleaver stuck in his head. After successful surgery, he was released the very next day. Ogden, Utah - A man wearing a clown costume, make-up, a purple wig, and bedroom slippers assaulted a mechanic living in a trailer. The Ogden Standard-Examiner reported that the clown had knocked on the mechanic's door and had demanded to see "Kathy." When the mechanic had explained that he didn't know anyone named Kathy, the clown had accused him of having an affair with her, grabbed the lamp, hit him over the head and ran away. Wandsworth, England - In 1993, Karl Watkin was sentenced to 18 months in prison for pretending to have sex with a sidewalk. In April, 1996, he was convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to 6 years in prison for simulating sexual intercourse with garbage bags. In September, he commited suicide in his cell. Appleton, Wisconsin - Darrell Voeks was arrested for stealing $100,000 worth of farm pigs to pay for breast implants for his favorite stripper at a local club. He was sentenced to ten years in prison. Key West, Florida - A restaurant worker killed another as the result of a heated argument over how to put silverware into a dishwasher. Ypsilanti, Michigan - The Ann Arbor News reported that a man failed to rob a Burger King because the clerk told him he couldn't open the cash register without a food order. So the man ordered onion rings, but the clerk informed him that they weren't available for breakfast. The frustrated robber left. St. Peters, Missouri - A gunman robbed a 711 store, but returned the money minutes later because his car wouldn't start. Amazingly, the store clerks came out to the parking lot and gave the robber's car a jump start. Police Officer David Kuppler commented: "We have a very friendly town out here." Niagara Falls, Ontario - The operators of Casino Niagara told a local newspaper that customers urinating around slot machines had become a serious problem. Customers who believed a slot machine would soon pay off were afraid to leave the machines and either wore adult diapers, urinatedinto the platic coin cups or simply on the floor next to the machines. Grande Ronde, Oregon - Sixty-seven-year-old Arthur Mooney died of a heart attack in the Spirit Mountain Casino. While his body lay right there on the floor for an hour, the other customers continued to play the slot machines. Vanuatu, South Pacific - The entire 300-men-strong police force of the island nation was arrested after kidnapping a visiting politician from Australia and attempting to use the hostage as leverage in a dispute with the government concerning overtime pay. Stockholm, Sweden - Customs officers arrested a woman who had tried to smuggle 75 live snakes in her bra. The officers became suspicious when they noticed how the woman kept scratching her chest. Tegucigalpa, Honduras - To combat the spread of HIV, prison officials at the Central Penitentiary decided to encourage male inmates to marry each other, thus vowing to be faithful to just one sexual partner. The same-sex marriages are valid only in the prison. Eight couple have already tied the knot. Scarborough, England - On June 22, 1996, a totally wrecked Ford was found at the bottom of a 100-foot cliff. Police found no sign of the driver but discovered a pile of human feces on the driver's seat. Cameroon - Lynch mobs from several towns hanged three men who had been accused of evil witchcraft. The men supposedly had the ability to make other men's genitalia shrink or even disappear. Similar penis panics have been reported in China, where it is called "shook yang" and in Malaysia, where natives call the superstition "koro". =================================================================== >-->FUN Places to Net Visit From TheMouthPiece: THE LOVE CALCULATOR "We all know that a name can tell a lot about a person. Names are not randomly chosen: they all have a meaning. Doctor Love knew this so he made another great invention just for the lonely you!" http://www.lovecalculator.com/ -<>- >From The MouthPiece: MAGIC EYE The optical craze of the '90s now has its own website, featuring a vast collection of Magic Eye pictures. Master the art of viewing the hidden 3D image by practicing on a multitude of pictures. http://www.magiceye.com/index.htm ICEBOX Icebox is a groundbreaking new Internet company that has assembled an unparalleled lineup of writers, producers and animators to create original animated entertainment programming on the Web. Very simply, Icebox.com is the foremost destination for animation on the Internet. href="http://www.icebox.com/" -<>- >From LynnLynn Links: Dede w/Angel On Highway 109 http://dedeswalkwithgod.com/Angel_On_HWY_109.html Carolyn w/My Sweet Anna http://carolynspreciousmemories.com/Misc/MySweetAnna.html John w/ ~Oh My Pa Pa~ Eddie Fisher 1954 http://heavens-gates.com/50s/ohmypapa.html Southbreeze w/ Give Him The Day http://www.reflectionsofsouthbreeze.com/Pages/givehimtheday.htm Gas Price Humor! http://www.shangralafamilyfun.com/gasoline.html FOODS THAT HEAL http://www.tqnyc.org/NYC063364/beneficial.htm Educational Teacher/Parent/Child Sites http://www.ehhs.cmich.edu/~tbushey/educ.html Toilets In Space http://www.hightechscience.org/zero_gravity_toilet.htm Stranger Game http://www.buffalosjokes.com/080323.htm Close 2 http://www.buffalosjokes.com/21725.htm Coca Cola Party http://www.buffalosjokes.com/21726.htm Cookie Blues http://www.buffalosjokes.com/21727.htm Dentyne http://www.buffalosjokes.com/21728.htm To Subscribe, send a blank message to: LynnLynns-links-subscribe@Yahoogroups.com =============================================================== >-->Quotes & Thunkers: "The talk is Hillary's going to try to unite the party. However, Bill Clinton said, 'The party's usually over when she shows up'." - Jay Leno "Political experts are saying that Barack Obama is hesitant to name Hillary Clinton his vice president because he is unsure of the role Bill Clinton would want to play. Bill says he's comfortable playing many roles including boss interviewing secretary, pizza guy surprising housewife... he doesn't care." - Conan O'Brien "If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee." - Abraham Lincoln "My grandfather always said, "Don't watch your money; watch your health." So one day while I was watching my health, someone stole my money. It was my grandfather." -- Jackie Mason "According to a recent Bureau of Justice survey, night is the most dangerous time for law enforcement officers. Second most dangerous time: day." -- Jimmy Fallon "I'm so ugly...I worked in a pet shop and people kept asking how big I'd get." -- Rodney Dangerfield "Good news about those raging wild fires heading towards Los Angeles. It's stuck in traffic." -- Craig Kilborn "Do you know the worst place to be in a major earthquake? In a hospital operating room getting a vasectomy. Do you know the best place to be? A Hooters restaurant." -- Jay Leno "My boyfriend won't see anything he terms a 'chick flick'. That's any film where a woman talks." -- Maura Kennedy "President Bush is taking a two day bus trip through Michigan. Which should be a pretty good turnout considering no one in Michigan has any jobs." -- David Letterman "My wife thinks I'm too nosy. At least, that's what she keeps scribbling in her diary." -- Drake Sather "From Washington the Commerce Department announced the economy is growing at a rate of 4.5%. The best segments of the economy are tech stocks, pharmaceuticals, and housing developments around Billy Joel's neighborhood." -- Conan O'Brien "Life was so much easier when your clothes didn't match and boys had cooties!" -- Unknown "It's a strange world of language in which skating on thin ice can get you into hot water." -- Franklin P. Jones "And in the end it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years." -- Abraham Lincoln ---> Visit my CyberHome - ALWAYS OPEN HOOUSE :)Shangy! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ http://www.ShangralaFamilyFun.com/index.html Shangrala ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -->Bigham's Computer Rescue - PC Sales && Service You can trust us to provide you with quality computer sales and repair. We've been servicing the Van Wert area since 1981 and can help you with all your computer needs. Please phone us at 419-238-5806 ************************************************************************ -->This is for all you who love food andd DARE to make it at home Yep. You guessed it - Recipes. These are Tried and True, Yummy to the Tummy, good old fashioned home cooking recipes that are EASY to do :) Visit Shangy's Easy-Does-It Home Recipes: http://www.ShangralaFamilyFun.com/easy.html Home Recipes >Got A good Recipe? SHARE IT HERE: Share A Recipe ************************************************************************ >TO SUBSCRIBE: This Weeks regular Shangy emails OR Send a BLANK email to ShangyFunList-subscribe@yahoogroups.com ************************************************************************