Help, I'm obsessed!

I don't know why, but the last few weeks I have become obsessed with photographs on the Internet.

Now I'm not talking about just any photo's since there are millions of good and really good ones to choose from. What I mean is that every once in a while a picture stands out and grabs me.;-]

Taste and appreciation vary but I can only say that these photo's held my interest and all have something unusual about them. See if you know what I mean!

As an example, this first picture is of the band ZZ Saddam!













This last one is in my opinion by far the best. You just have to study it awhile to really appreciate it!











Your "shutterbug" scribe;
Allan W Janssen

Saturday Morning Confusion!

You remember a few days ago I mentioned that Kurt Vonnegut Jr. had passed away at the age of 84.

I ran across this piece that will be of interest to anyone who has thought of writing as a pastime or career.

Vonnegut's rules for short stories.

Here's some lovely advice on writing short stories, from Kurt Vonnegut's collection, Bagombo Snuff Box:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things -- reveal character or advance the action.*

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Thanks to Cory Doctorow for submitting.

Your humble scribe;
Allan W Janssen

No explanation needed!

The label reads "SHITTO Hotly-spiced pepper sauce" and is an indication of what happens after you eat some.

They can be found in Sydney, Australia at the Fiji Markets on King Street, Newtown. Hurry!

Your "hot trots" scribe;
Allan W Janssen

EVEN..... more ways to bug a cat!

Here kitty, kitty!

Merry Christmas!

Better late than never, I always say.

I have heard that North Korea's e-mail is about as slow as our snail-mail and this seems to be the proof.

Got this Christmas card from Dear Leader Kim Jong-ill today and thought I would show you the picture on it. Nice eh!


(I know Kim Jong-ill is not Christian, but it was very thoughtfull of him to send it to me anyway!)

Your "ho ho ho" scribe;
Allan W Janssen

KURT

You either loved him or hated him, or had no idea who he was.
(All three of you!)
Personally I loved his work, especially the piece where he went to great lengths to explain the difference between beavers and beavers. (With accompanying drawings!)


Looking back on it now I'm sure this is where I got some of my sense of humour since whatever he did, no matter how silly or ridiculous, I found it hilarious!

No need to mention his work either, since as I said, if you loved him you know and if you're one of the few who hated him it doesn't really matter, does it!

I know I will miss him!

Your humble servant;
Allan W Janssen

Oh, what the Hell! Why Not?

Olympic Fever!

Since announcing that it would co-host the 2008 Olympics, preparations have proceeded at a progressively protracted pace.

Dear Leader Kim Jong-ill has personally supervised many of the
training routines for mass displays by up to 100,000 people. They are seen holding up colored boards to make various designs and slogans.

North Korea's 100,000-person pixel board. The display shown up above was obviously a tribute to target practice or crowd control.

Here's an unforeseen benefit of totalitarian states.
You can use your absolute authority to require people to form a giant human pixel-board:

The huge backdrops are made from human pixels, 1000's of performers holding sequences of coloured placards. Timed to coincide with China's Olympic Ceremonies, this was communist precision at its best.

Kim Jong-ill is obviously impressed with preliminary results as we can see from the look on his face.













China, meanwhile, has still not publicly commented on North Korea's plans to unilaterally co-host the games.

Your "Olympic reporter" scribe;
Allan W Janssen

Middle East Porn

You gotta hand it to those Arab Hotties!!!!

Baghdad Girls Gone Wild!


Misogynists to the left of us, misogynists to the right!
Why Arab/Muslim men treat women the way they do!
(This is not a joke and it will drive feminists stark raving nuts!)



Join us next time for; Pygmies gone wild!

Your "slut master" scribe;
Allan W Janssen

The West Blinked!

In the game of political brinkmanship you can score one for the Iranians. (Actually two.)

The hijacking of 15 British sailors by Iran was nothing more than a test to see what the reaction in Britain and the West in general would be. Unfortunately we failed miserably.

Instead of a quick and decisive response, the powers that be waffled and negotiated away a top Iranian official that had been in Iraq conducting insurgencies.

Not being able to follow the same "no bargaining, only response" position of Israel, the Western powers emboldened Iran and the end result is that they now feel more confident of getting away with their nuclear program.

As a result, Iran announced today that it is greatly increasing it's development of nuclear technology, confident in the fact the we are just a "Paper Tiger!"

Your "from the front" scribe;
Allan W Janssen

Allan W Janssen is the author of The Plain Truth About God-101 (what the church doesn't want you to know!) www.God-101.com

Why Keith gave up cocaine!

While we are on the subject of death......

Known for his hedonistic past, rock legend Keith Richards is no stranger to controversy. But yesterday the Rolling Stones guitarist was forced to issue a statement denying that he once snorted his father's ashes after giving an interview in which he made the bizarre admission as an apparent joke.

Richards, 63, hit the headlines after telling music magazine NME that he had snorted the ashes mixed with cocaine after his father had been cremated.

(Keith Richards a few months after his own death!)

"The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father," he had said. "He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow," the original wild man of rock added.

But the Rolling Stones have now issued a statement insisting that the comments were "totally untrue" with Richards stressing that his words were somewhat "lost" in translation.

"The complete story is lost in the usual slanting! The truth of the matter is that I planted a sturdy English Oak," said the star, in an equally confused attempt to explain what had become of the final remains of his father, Bert, who died in 2002 at the age of 84.

"I took the lid off the box of ashes and he is now growing oak trees and would love me for it," added Richards in a statement posted on the Rolling Stones' website.

Your "why I gave up drugs" scribe;
Allan W Janssen

My wife almost died last week!

I will explain the reason I am telling you this in a moment, but first let me explain briefly why she almost passed away!

(What a sanitized way to say DEAD!)

The missus herself has Lymphoma. For the last six years she has lived with the non-aggressive kind which really doesn't seriously affect you. (If you don't count no-energy, sleeping a lot, a host of minor maladies, etc.)

But, there was always the certainty that one day it would turn aggressive and then the shit would hit the fan.

It did that a few weeks ago and we didn't realize it, so nothing was done right away. Ellen just started to slowly feel worse and it finally got to the point where we thought that maybe a trip to the hospital was in order.

(Thank God for Canada's universal health care.)

The aggressive Lymphoma had screwed up her blood composition and then her calcium went to three times it's normal level, which caused her kidneys to shut down.

At the cancer centre they knew they had to start chemo-therapy right away but this took another two days while they got her kidneys working again.

To make a long story shorter, it's been a week now and the reaction to the chemo was good so it looks like she's out of the woods for a while.

Maybe she has many months to live and maybe many years,we can only wait and see.

THE POINT?

The point is this. I have heard it said, and I'm sure you have too, that we should treat life as precious and live for every day. (The North American Indians did this, they called it living in the "now!")

However, no matter how may times we are told this, we can know it on an intellectual level but never really accept it emotionally until something like this happens.

That old saying that nothing concentrates the mind like the fear of imminent death has a lot of truth to it!

My friends, please try and live each day as if it were your last, because you never know if it will be! The fact that we can never know the day of our own or anothers death is truly a blessing but should not be taken lightly.

When you are suddenly faced with the loss of a loved one, it makes you realize just how much they mean to you. It also means no longer tossing off a phrase like "I love you" as a platitude and nothing more.

I know that no matter how many more years Ellen lives, I will from now on treat every day with the respect it deserves and try not to leave anything unsaid.

I remember when my father died suddenly I had great regrets about the many things I hadn't told him and that's not going to happen with my wife.

I hope you do the same!

Your "older now but wiser" scribe;
Allan W Janssen

Need a ride, big boy?

For sale, low mileage, one owner sports car!

K.I.T.T., the tricked-out Trans Am that David Hasslehoff drove in Knight Rider, is for sale at Kassabian Motors in Dublin, California.

Asking price is $149,995.

Apparently, this is one of four "picture" or "hero" cars used in the show.

From the Sydney Morning herald.

Although it cannot achieve the 300 M.P.H. speeds that KITT reached, soar 50 feet in the air or throw smoke bombs, key features of the star car are intact.

Perhaps most important, the red scanner light on the nose glows and makes a humming noise.

The car has two working video screens on the dashboard, and the cockpit features buttons that light up in green, yellow and red: ski mode, rocket boost, micro jam, silent mode, oil slick and eject.

The only thing wrong is that it doesn't have todays polution controls and some minor technical details so it's not "street legal!"

But, you can drive it up and down your driveway all you want.

Or just sit in it!

Or even better, tow it to your favourite hangout, and then sit in it and pick up chicks.

(Don't try and tell me the Al'sters not thinking!)

Your "yea, but does it come in red" scribe;
Allan W Janssen

Sunday Morning Funnies!

NEW ENGLAND FRYER!
A farm implement and supplies salesman is driving down a country road in his pickup when he looks beside him at the ditch and sees a chicken running along with the truck.

He doesn't think too much about it until he realises that he's doing 35 MPH.

Sure enough, on closer examination, not only is the chicken keeping pace the truck but he's got three legs!

Not knowing what to make of this, he steps on the gas and is soon going 60 MPH. But when he looks down the chicken is still with him.

He honks the horn to get the chickens attention but scares it instead.

It then takes off at 80 and goes up the road in a small cloud of dust.

At the top of the next hill he sees the chicken turn into a farm and decides to find out what's going on.

An old farmer is standing there and he says to him. "Excuse me, but there was this chicken with three legs that was running like hell and I saw it go in here. What's going on?"

The old farmer says to him. "Yea, that's a new breed of chicken we got. It's called a New England three-legged fryer!

They're frying chickens!"

"Wow." Says the guy. "They're fast all right, but what do they taste like?"

"Damned if I know!" Says the farmer. "We've never been able to catch one yet!!"

And speaking of more legs than you need.............

Mystery over five-legged frogs

A frog Experts are investigating after frogs with five legs were found in a river.

Environmental agency Natural England said specialists did not know what had caused the deformity.

A spokeswoman said it was thought to be the first time such frogs had been found in the UK - although they had been seen in the US.

Officials said the frogs were found recently in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, by a member of the public.