Home  >> Stories  >> The Tale Spinner #2016-27

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IN THIS ISSUE

• Gerrit de Leeuw forwards news about a new national flower
• Betty Audet claims these laws are set in stone
• Tom Williamson sends interesting facts about Lake Superior
• A senior asks if older people need the latest technology
• Shirley Conlon and Tony Lewis forward plays on words
• Here is a story about misinterpreting signs
• A site is suggested by Gerrit de Leeuw

Gerrit de Leeuw sends this story:

"CANADA 150" TULIP

Presented in Ottawa on May 09, 2016, a new tulip, bred to resemble the Canadian flag to commemorate the upcoming 2017 celebrations, will be Canada´s official birthday tulip.

The tulip represents gratitude and the long-standing friendship between Canada and the Netherlands.

"Blooming in the colours of Canada´s flag, these tulips will bring both pride and joy to gardens and communities from coast to coast to coast," said His Excellency Cees Kole, Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in a news release.

More than 200,000 of the Canada 150 tulips will bloom across the National Capital Region this spring. Next year, 300,000 will be showcased in the NCC´s flower beds, with thousands more expected to be planted in community gardens across Canada.

Betty Audet reminds us of these

IMMUTABLE LAWS

Law of Mechanical Repair - After your hands become coated with grease, your nose will begin to itch and you´ll have to pee.

Law of Gravity - Any tool, nut, bolt, screw, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible place in the universe.

Law of Probability - The probability of being watched is directly proportional to the stupidity of your act.

Law of Random Numbers - If you dial a wrong number, you never get a busy signal; someone always answers.

Variation Law - If you change lines (or traffic lanes), the one you were in will always move faster than the one you are in now.

Law of the Bath - When the body is fully immersed in water, the telephone will ring.

Law of Close Encounters - The probability of meeting someone you know increases dramatically when you are with someone you don´t want to be seen with.

Law of the Result - When you try to prove to someone that a machine won´t work, it will!

Law of Biomechanics - The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.

Law of the Theaters and Sports Arenas - At any event, the people whose seats are furthest from the aisle always arrive last. They are the ones who will leave their seats several times to go for food, beer, or the toilet, and who leave early before the end of the performance or the game is over. The folks in the aisle seats come early, never move once, have long gangly legs or big bellies, and stay to the bitter end of the performance. The aisle people also are very surly folk.

The Coffee Law - As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee, your boss will ask you to do something which will last until the coffee is cold.

Murphy´s Law of Lockers - If there are only two people in a locker room, they will have adjacent lockers.

Law of Physical Surfaces - The chances of an open-faced jelly sandwich landing face down on a floor are directly correlated to the newness and cost of the carpet or rug.

Law of Logical Argument - Anything is possible if you don´t know what you are talking about.

Law of Physical Appearance - If the clothes fit, they´re ugly.

Law of Public Speaking - A closed mouth gathers no feet!

Law of Commercial Marketing Strategy - As soon as you find a product that you really like, they will stop making it or the store will stop selling it!

Doctors´ Law - If you don´t feel well, make an appointment to go to the doctor, and by the time you get there, you´ll feel better. But don´t make an appointment and you´ll stay sick.

If you don´t forward this to your friends, your belly button will unscrew. Really, it´s true. I read it on the Internet!

Tom Williamson forwards these facts for trivia buffs:

WHY IT´S CALLED LAKE SUPERIOR

Lake Superior contains ten percent of all the fresh water on the planet Earth. It covers 82,000 square kilometers or 31,700 square miles. By surface area, it is the largest lake in the world. If you stretched the shoreline of Lake Superior out to a straight line, it would be long enough to reach from Duluth to the Bahamas.

The average depth is 147 meters or 483 feet. The deepest point in the lake is 405 meters or 1,333 feet. It contains as much water as all the other Great Lakes combined, plus three extra Lake Eries! There is enough water in Lake Superior to cover all of North and South America with water one foot deep.

The average underwater visibility of Lake Superior is about eight metres or 27 feet, making it the cleanest and clearest of the Great Lakes. The maximum wave ever recorded on the lake was 9.45 meters or 31 feet high.

There are 78 different species of fish that call the big lake home.

There is a small outflow from the lake at St. Mary´s River (Sault Ste Marie) into Lake Huron, but it takes almost two centuries for the water to be completely replaced. Over 300 streams and rivers empty into Lake Superior, with the largest source being the Nipigon River.

In the summer, the sun sets more than 35 minutes later on the western shore of Lake Superior than at its southeastern edge.

It very rarely freezes over completely, and then usually just for a few hours. Complete freezing occurred in 1962, 1979, 2003, and 2009.

There have been about 350 shipwrecks recorded in Lake Superior.

Lake Superior was formed during the last glacial retreat, making it one of the earth´s youngest major features at only about 10,000 years old. Some of the world´s oldest rocks, formed about 2.7 billion years ago, can be found on the Ontario shore of Lake Superior.

A senior asks

SHOULD I REALLY JOIN FACEBOOK?

When I bought my Blackberry, I thought about the 30-year business I ran with 1800 employees, all without a cell phone that plays music, takes videos, pictures, and communicates with Facebook and Twitter. I signed up under duress for Twitter and Facebook, so my seven kids, their spouses, my 13 grandkids and two great-grand kids could communicate with me in the modern way. I figured I could handle something as simple as Twitter with only 140 characters of space.

My phone was beeping every three minutes with the details of everything except the bowel movements of the entire next generation. I am not ready to live like this. I keep my cell phone in the garage in my golf bag.

The kids bought me a GPS for my last birthday because they say I get lost every now and then going over to the grocery store or library. I keep that in a box under my tool bench with the Blue Tooth [it´s red] phone I am supposed to use when I drive. I wore it once and was standing in line at Barnes and Noble talking to my wife, and everyone in the nearest 50 yards was glaring at me. I had to take my hearing aid out to use it, and I got a little loud.

I mean the GPS looked pretty smart on my dashboard, but the lady inside that gadget was the most annoying, rudest person I had run into in a long time. Every 10 minutes, she would sarcastically say, "Re-calc-u-lating." You would think that she could be nicer. It was like she could barely tolerate me. She would let go with a deep sigh, and then tell me to make a U-turn at the next light. Then if I made a right turn instead ... well, it was not a good relationship.

When I get really lost now, I call my wife and tell her the name of the cross streets, and while she is starting to develop the same tone as Gypsy, the GPS lady, at least she loves me.

To be perfectly frank, I am still trying to learn how to use the cordless phones in our house. We have had them for four years, but I still haven´t figured out how I lose three phones all at once and have to run around digging under chair cushions, checking bathrooms, and the dirty laundry baskets when the phone rings.

The world is just getting too complex for me.

They even mess me up every time I go to the grocery store. You would think they could settle on something themselves, but this sudden "Paper or plastic?" every time I check out just knocks me for a loop. I bought some of those cloth reusable bags to avoid looking confused, but I never remember to take them with me.

Now I toss it back to them. When they ask me, "Paper or plastic?" I just say, "Doesn´t matter to me. I am bi-sacksual." Then it´s their turn to stare at me with a blank look.

I was recently asked if I tweet. I answered, "No, but I do fart a lot."

P.S. I know some of you are not over 60. I sent it to you to allow you to forward it to those who are. I figured your sense of humour could handle it.

We senior citizens don´t need any more gadgets. The TV remote and the garage door remote are about all we can handle.

ED. NOTE: On the other hand, most of the readers of this newsletter are seniors, and they are adept at using computers and laptops and tablets, so many seniors are not content with remotes.

Shirley Conlon and Tony Lewis ask

LEXOPHILIA - WHO ON EARTH DREAMS THESE UPS?

A lexophile, of course!

o How does Moses make tea? Hebrews it.

o Venison for dinner again? Oh deer!

o A cartoonist was found dead in his home. Details are sketchy.

o I used to be a banker, but then I lost interest.

o Haunted French pancakes give me the cr?pes.

o England has no kidney bank, but it does have a Liverpool.

o I tried to catch some fog, but I mist.

o They told me I had type-A blood, but it was a typo.

o I changed my iPod´s name to Titanic. It´s syncing now.

o Jokes about German sausage are the wurst.

o I know a guy who´s addicted to brake fluid, but he says he can stop any time.

o I stayed up all night to see where the sun went, and then it dawned on me.

o This girl said she recognized me from the vegetarian club, but I´d never met herbivore.

o When chemists die, they barium.

o I´m reading a book about anti-gravity. I just can´t put it down.

o I did a theatrical performance about puns. It was a play on words.

o Why were the Indians here first? They had reservations.

o I didn´t like my beard at first. Then it grew on me.

o Did you hear about the cross-eyed teacher who lost her job because she couldn´t control her pupils?

o When you get a bladder infection, urine trouble.

o Broken pencils are pointless.

o What do you call a dinosaur with an extensive vocabulary? A thesaurus.

o I dropped out of communism class because of lousy Marx.

o All the toilets in New York ´s police stations have been stolen. The police have nothing to go on.

o I got a job at a bakery because I kneaded dough.

o Velcro - what a rip off!

o Don´t worry about old age; it doesn´t last.

Here is a story about misinterpreting signs

THE POPE AND THE JEWS OF ROME

About a century or two ago, the Pope decided that all the Jews had to leave Rome. Naturally there was a big uproar from the Jewish community. So the Pope made a deal. He would have a religious debate with a member of the Jewish community. If the Jew won, the Jews could stay. If the Pope won, the Jews would leave.

The Jews realized they had no choice. So they picked a middle-aged man named Moishe to represent them. Moishe asked for one addition to the debate. To make it more interesting, neither side would be allowed to talk. The Pope agreed.

The day of the great debate came. Moishe and the Pope sat opposite each other for a full minute before the Pope raised his hand and showed three fingers. Moishe looked back at him and raised one finger. The Pope waved his fingers in a circle around his head. Moishe pointed to the ground where he sat. The Pope pulled out a wafer and a glass of wine. Moishe pulled out an apple.

The Pope stood up and said, "I give up. This man is too good. The Jews can stay."

An hour later, the cardinals were all around the Pope asking him what happened. The Pope said: "First I held up three fingers to represent the Trinity. He responded by holding up one finger to remind me that there was still one God common to both our religions. Then I waved my finger around me to show him that God was all around us. He responded by pointing to the ground and showing that God was also right here with us. I pulled out the wine and the wafer to show that God absolves us from our sins. He pulled out an apple to remind me of original sin. He had an answer for everything. What could I do?"

Meanwhile, the Jewish community had crowded around Moishe. "What happened?" they asked.

"Well," said Moishe, "first he said to me that the Jews had three days to get out of here. I told him that not one of us was leaving. Then he told me that this whole city would be cleared of Jews. I let him know that we were staying right here."

"And then?" asked a woman.

"I don´t know," said Moishe. "He took out his lunch and I took out mine."

SUGGESTED WEBSITES

Gerrit de Leeuw sends this link to a video about North Korea, which was smuggled out of the country. Without subtitles, many of the speeches are impossible to understand, but the photos and the English commentary are interesting:

The Harper government negotiated the TPP in secret, and the Trudeau Liberals haven´t decided whether they´ll support it. They´re under pressure to ratify it, and need to hear from you. Click here to ask them to reject the treaty:

The world´s largest vertical farm near New York City uses 95% less water and no pesticides:

"Finding Dory" is breaking box office records while entertaining whole families - but it is also teaching children valuable lessons about how to treat people with disabilities:

Howard Buffett, son of Warren Buffett, is using his dad´s billions to help feed the world:

In this TED talk, Dr. Brian Little dissects the surprising differences between introverts and extroverts:

Fossil fuels have powered human growth and ingenuity for centuries. Now that we´re reaching the end of cheap and abundant oil, we´re in for an exciting ride. While there´s a real risk that we´ll fall off a cliff, there´s still time to control our transition to a post-carbon future:

To check out the features of the "freedictionary," which changes daily, go to