Dear SUNFUN Fans,
There are times when I wonder just what the heck I'm going
to write to start this column every week. Sometimes I struggle
with it for days and don't come up with an intro 'til the last
moment. Actually, that's most of the time; this thing isn't what
I do to earn a living. After all, there's no money in SUNFUN,
and no one is going to pay me big bucks to do a drive by joking.
So I need to work elsewhere to keep me in pizza, Diet Dr. Pepper
and Internet access. There are times when the intro is a real
struggle and I never quite beat it into submission before time to
send for the week it comes along.
Not this week. I got an Email that helped immensely. It
was from someone who apparently wished to remain anonymous (but
who was stupid enough to leave his server name and message number
count in the header of the Email!). This person objected - in
the most strenuously obscene terms - to the flippant, obtuse and
disrespectful tone I showed toward the fine upstanding citizens
of the Ku Klux Klan in the "Signs Of The Times" piece from last
week which featured them being drummed out of the Missouri
highway cleanup program. The Internut writer especially objected
to my characterizing his own ring of hoods as "perverse ...
racist morons","pinhoods" and "white trash."
And to think - I was afraid for a while there that he didn't
get it, considering that his parents were probably related, and
all.
In all fairness, I do have to thank him for making my point
all over again, though I'm sure the idea never even dimly
occurred to him. The kind of stupidity that allows a person to
actively ignore all warnings that what they are about to do is
foolish, unwise and exceptionally dim-witted seems to be a common
thread in these stories of grand mal stupidity. The funniest
such tales seem to come from folks who are not just ignorant, but
who consciously avoid enlightenment and flee whenever
enlightenment is about to dawn, like cockroaches heading for a
dark corner when the lights go on. For example, it never quite
occurred to this weeks' bean-brained correspondent that his
message would result in the collection of moral midgets he
purports to represent being insulted all over again.
There you go, angry white guy. Now go write "Love Thy
Neighbor" on the cell wall 300 times before you go back to making
license plates.
Folks we're much happier to hear from include our friends
and contributors, whose intelligent conversation and joyous
appreciation of life are an inspiration. Friends we especially
want to thank this week include: Rosana & Stanley Leung, The
Petersons, Jerry Taff, Brian Siegl, Carol Becwar, Caterina Sukup,
Laura Hong Li, Jan Michalski, Susan Will, R.J. Tully, Major &
Judy McCallum, Kerry Miller, Bruce Gonzo, Yasmin Leischer, Jim
Clayton, Tim McChain and Charles Beckman. Always remember that
there are basically two ways to get your name into the nitwit
stories here at SUNFUN. With one notable exception, the folks
above this point have done it the intelligent way by contributing
stories, friendship and ideas. Here come the rest...
Have A Bright Week,
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"One of the greatest joys known to man is to take a
flight into ignorance in search of knowledge."
- Robert Lynd
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OH... THAT BUILDING!
-------------------
A 50-year-old would-be burglar in Tokyo cased an apartment
building for some time before deciding to break in. But he would
have been wise to pay just a little more attention to detail.
On gaining entry, he was immediately challenged by an off-
duty police officer, then pursued and quickly captured by a
number of building residents as he tried to escape.
The arrested man was found to be carrying lock-picking
equipment and a notebook with the names and addresses of
contacts, two of whom were also later arrested on suspicion of
possession of stolen goods, the paper said.
The quick response and presence of officers in the building
was no great surprise, as the apartment complex is rented by the
Tokyo metropolitan police as an accommodation for officers and
their families. (Reuters)
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A POST-MODERN PHOTO...
-------------------
A new stamp in honor of the Norwegian Soccer Federation's
100th anniversary forced the postal service there to launch an
international manhunt.
The 1.3 million stamps have a picture of a soccer referee in
action. But it's the wrong referee and the Norwegian postal
service has no idea whose likeness it is. Now the postal service
is trying to track down the unidentified celebrity with efforts
that included a nearly full-page wanted poster in Verdens Gang,
Norway's largest newspaper.
"It's really unfortunate," Elisabeth Gjoelme, information
director for the postal service. "We bought the rights to the
picture in good faith."
The stamps were supposed to show Lars Johan Hammer, a
27-year-old refugee who looks nothing like the man in the
picture.
"I was really looking forward to it and had alerted all my
relations to the big event," Hammer was quoted as telling the
Oslo newspaper Verdens Gang. But he said as a soccer referee he
knows as well as anyone that "it is only human to make mistakes."
[ But he did say that one more mistake and he
was going to red card the post service... ]
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NOT EXACTLY THE RIDDLER...
-----------------------
It took four years for imprisoned convict Robert Heike to
devise the code for "Operation Chisel."
Heike tried to send a friend a coded letter from the jail in
St. Lucie, Florida where he was being held on charges including
high-speed fleeing in a car, possession of a firearm by a
convicted felon and resisting an officer.
The one-page note had a series of squiggles and symbols that
Heike had devised to avoid detection by authorities, who
routinely screen outgoing mail from inmates. In the July 6
letter, Heike told a friend to help him escape in case his court
date didn't go well. Under the name "Operation Chisel," he
instructed the man to put street clothes, a blanket and a wire
cutter in a bag and to throw it over a jail fence at midnight on
a specified night.
All of the above information is courtesy of the police, who
had a secret weapon of their own, detention deputies Debra
Wesley, Thomas Carlile, Francisco Delrosario and Rochelle
Parrish, who were on duty the night Heike sent his instructions.
Wesley, a puzzle fanatic, made short work of Heike's code.
"Debra Wesley ever since she was a child has been puzzle
freak," Sheriff Ken Mascara explained. "She led the brigade in
deciphering it."
In the morning they confronted Heike, who was shocked to see
his letter complete with an English translation.
"He admitted that he'd spent four years on this code,"
Mascara said. "He couldn't believe they deciphered it an hour
and a half."
The four deputies received commendations from the Sheriff's
Department, but all Heike earned was a transfer to a highly
restricted section of the jail, and then later to the Florida
Department of Corrections maximum security facility.
Authorities say the plan was doomed from the start, because
it would have been virtually impossible to throw the getaway
material over two tall razor-wire fences, and to avoid detection
by security cameras. And the grounds are checked each morning
for unauthorized escape materials before prisoners can go
outside. (Reuters)
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"I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short
one: 'O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' And God
granted it."
- Voltaire
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THE WRITE STUFF...
---------------
Brittany Bell, a 16-year-old from Rochester, NY, is probably
wishing she'd spent a little more time on her penmanship when she
was in school.
Bell passed a holdup note to a teller at an HSBC bank just
before closing time April 2nd. A note so badly written that the
teller couldn't understand what it meant. She consulted with
several other tellers and bank officials before realizing that it
was a holdup note.
By the time the cursive-challenged robber got her bag of
money, employees were locking up for the day and she ended up
trapping herself in the bank's foyer, stuck between two locked
doors when bank employees were reluctant to push the button to
release her.
At least, until the police showed up. She's been charged
with robbery and grand larceny.
A few decades back, Woody Allen made a movie called "Take
the Money And Run." The film featured a hilarious scene where
the hero's plan to rob a bank is foiled by his bad handwriting.
A scene that seemed pretty silly at the time. (Reuters)
[ I save a gub. Put the mommy in the bug and
don't mark any Boise! ]
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NAME GAMES...
----------
Poor but happy British workers are being given inflated job
titles rather than bigger salaries as cash-strapped companies try
to keep employees happy, according to a survey published recently
in London.
Examples of the phenomenon dubbed "up-titling" include a
receptionist rebranded as "Head of Verbal Telecommunications" and
a window cleaner given the impressive designation of "Optical
Illuminator Enhancer."
"The research demonstrates how motivational it can be to
gain a prestigious job title. Companies have been using the
fancy titles as an incentive to retain staff rather than pay them
more at a time of economic uncertainty.
Businesses seeking "Stock Replenishment Executives" were
actually looking for shelf stackers and successful candidates for
a post as "Technical Sanitation Assistant" would find themselves
cleaning washrooms.
"Up-titling" seems to have won converts. Of the 1,700
workers surveyed, around half thought a better job title would
make them happier even if there was no change in what they
actually did. (Reuters)
[ Just call me a "Serial E-Humor Enhancement
Coordinator." ]
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LET'S WRITE WRONGS...
------------------
Not everything that's available on the Internet is fair
game, or even accurate, as we've often pointed out. Donald
Russell, associate dean at Ottawa's Carleton University, said he
would be dealing with 31 Canadian engineering students who were
caught submitting essays they had plagiarized from the Web.
"Some of the [offenses] involve the entire document
submitted, so they've taken parts of different Web sites,
assembled them into an essay and submitted it as their own work,"
Russell said.
In one case, a student changed just four words in an essay
taken from a Web site, he added, saying that those involved could
be suspended or even expelled.
The course the students cheated their way through? A course
on ethics. (Reuters)
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PSYCHING OUT MISS CLEO...
----------------------
For a while, those ads were everywhere on late-night TV.
Miss Cleo, with her tarot cards, colorful caftan and
incredibly bogus Rastafarian accent broadcast a seemingly endless
stream of commercials urging viewers to call to "find the answers
for free" with the slogan "Keepin' it Real."
Reality did seem to be something of a challenge to the card
tossing lady, who seemed to put the sham in shaman. Several
states have sued the company providing Miss Cleo's phone psychic
services on charges of consumer fraud, violation of home calling
rules and impersonating a Jamaican.
A Missouri suit charged that Access Resource Services Inc.,
based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, falsely advertised that
services like tarot readings and psychic readings were free, and
that no fees would be charged for the first three minutes of a
call. Except that the rent-a-psychics who actually took the
calls were instructed to take up all of the "free" time and more
getting the caller's basic information - including billing
details. No calls were, in fact, free the suit alleged, and Miss
Cleo almost never took calls herself. The "free" calls cost up
to $5 a minute and Cleo & Company may have extracted as much as
$360 million from the teledupes who placed calls.
Billing herself as a Jamaican shaman, Miss Cleo was revealed
in a federal suit filed in Florida to be a third-rate actress
whose real name is Youree Dell Harris born in Los Angeles -
apparently to American parents.
The telepests paid $75,000 to settle the Missouri suit, with
other state suits and federal complaints still outstanding, which
might still go as high as $10,000 per incident plus refunds to
customers who were duped.
"They should've seen it coming, whether they were psychic or
not," state Missouri State Attorney General Jay Nixon joked in a
TV interview. "The fact that they didn't see it coming shows
they aren't psychic."
Able to see the future in the cards or not, the company
apparently pulled the plug on the TV ads as soon as the courtroom
losses began to mount up, and Miss Cleo has gone to the home of
old TV scams along with Dionne Warwick's "Psychic Friends." But
before she disappeared into the great void, Miss Cleo herself
took time out to contact us here at Sunday Funnies with the
following Email:
----------
From The Desk Of Miss Cleo
Dear Mary Stoner,
We must speak with you. I don't usually take the time
out to write a personal note, Mary, but your name was
provided by someone you had recently spoken to. We believe
your vibrations to be so strong that I've endorsed a free
Tarot reading with one of our elite psychics! It's urgent,
however, that you call immediately; I can only reserve this
number for a limited time. Call toll-free 1-800-xxx-xxxx,
now!
Mary, we sensed that your connection is likely to be
unusually strong, especially in the very near future. It is
vital that you call us right away to optimize the results of
your reading. There's not much time! Call toll-free
1-800-xxx-xxxx as soon as you receive this letter!
With love and prayers,
Miss Cleo
Must be 18+. For entertainment purposes only.
Pretty cool, eh? Cleo's so connected to the other side of
something that she's missed the fact that Mary is a bogus female
name. The very male me used that made-up Email address for
various SUNFUN research contacts that I didn't want knowing
exactly who I was or what I was up to. Pretty hard for such a
fake person to have "unusually strong" vibrations, isn't it? And
though I may be in touch with my female side, not many folks
would mistake me for a woman - unless they just got the name cold
off of a spam list, that is...
[ Important career tip, Ms. Youree: in the
future, don't try for parts that involve
speaking with an accent. Real Jamaicans
don't sound quite so much like a combination
of Nelson Mandela and dancer, Charro. And
never call me Mary. ]
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"A wise man may look ridiculous in the company of
fools."
- Thomas Fuller
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BOXING DAY...
----------
A German business tycoon probably wishes he'd never heard of
a couple of Kenyan con men and their magic money box.
The tale began last June when hotel owner Fouroughi Denawi
agreed to a gold export deal with five men claiming to be dealers
in gems from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Denawi was to cover export costs, sell the gold in Europe,
take his share and hand the rest to the dealers. He realized
just before leaving Nairobi that the three steel boxes he was
about to export contained nothing more than sand.
For which he had paid just over $63,000.
The head of the Central Bank of Kenya's fraud unit told the
Nation the unit was looking for five people - three Kenyans and
two foreigners - believed to be behind the scam. (Reuters)
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THE ADVANTAGE OF SLIGHT STUPIDITY
---------------------------------
Dashing Chinese movie star Chow Yun-fat, hero of the kung-fu
epic "Crouching Tiger," says the key to staying young is
stupidity.
"You see I am very stupid. I don't understand or talk well.
I take it easy every day. I am like an idiot. Be like this
every day, and then you'll look young," Chow, who looks far
younger than his 45 years, bantered in Mandarin at a February
news conference.
Well loved in Asia for his good humor, affability and total
absence of any airs, Chow was speaking at a news conference to
launch a set of stamps and first-day covers issued by the South
American nation of Guyana and featuring him.
The set includes six colorful stamps depicting Chow in his
various movie roles. But in a spirited session full of
wisecracks, the actor admitted he could not identify all six
films.
"Every one was so specially drawn, so much so that even I
can't remember which movie it is," he said. (Reuters)
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© 2002 by Bill Becwar. All Rights Reserved.
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