Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Birder Guards His Territory

ALton, IL -- Local Birder Bill Constable is leading a group of women and a couple of pairs of retirees to see local birds. Ducks and shore shore birds were out there today.


Of the troupe of birders, Muriel Hemingway is almost certain that Bill is after one of the women. "Have you noticed how he discourages unattached males from joining on our birding outings?" Discussion at the ladies rest room at the Alton Lock and Dam museum focused on the fact that all four of the women had ailing husbands. "I bet he goes after the one of us that us becomes a widow first. We have been doing this five years, and he will easily go another ten. Bill is only 62, my husband is nearly 70." Kathy Crosby noted that Bill had not actually made any amorous or even friendly moves to any of them. "All he talks is birds. When sex comes up, it is only of the nesting activities of the birds." 

Monday, October 12, 2015

Steamed Mayors Send Angry Letter to Atlas Maker

Brussels, Belgium -- In a meeting of mayors from across the globe, there to discuss communications issues, Mayor Fritz Bohmsen from Essen, Germany and Mayor Carl Johsnon from Adelaide, Australia, came to sit together at lunch. They had introduced themselves at breakfast and got to some small talk. The communications seminar had put them to sleep anyway. Fritz started chatting about maps and Essen. The iPhone map has no sides, so you can clearly see Essen centered on the phone map. However, a school atlas in English puts the city in the seam of the map.

The Adelaide mayor was speechless. The same problem with the same atlas publisher had been bothering him for years. They immediately sought out all the mayors of "cities stuck in seams" and circulated a petition. They demand the atlas maker to form a focus group to work with map makers and editors to dig out these lost cities from the seams.


Carl, on the left, pointed out that the National Geographic atlas below, though still lacking in information and a bit plain in the white color, was doing a better job. He was OK with Kangaroo Island being split in two, as the connection of the island to Adelaide was quite easy to see.

Sunday, October 4, 2015

Area Man receives another AARP petition

Little Rock, AR -- Area man Jim Beam, 65, received yet another AARP letter that claimed to be a "petition". Jim has been a member since he was 63, the year he started social security.

The letter is sitting in Jim's pile of bills. Carol used to pay all the bills. She died the first year he was retired. "Carol prioritized all the bills. College donations went into the OPTIONAL pile but stuff like this went into the round file." Still, it is the only piece of mail Jim got this week that looked even slightly interesting. That and a fishing gear catalog, but that was already filed into recycling paper. Jim does not fish in October anymore. He might go along and see what the guys from the old work place are hunting but does not own a gun.