§§1.1.
THE GREETING.
Please accept without obligation, either implicit or implied, our best
wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive,
gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, as practiced within
the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or
secular practices of your choice, and with respect for the religious/secular
persuasion and/or traditions of others and/or of their choice not to practice
religious or secular traditions at all. We also wish you and any or all
of your heirs, relations, representatives, signatories, agents, or assigns a
fiscally successful, albeit responsible, personally fulfilling and medically
uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year
2007 A.D., but not without due respect being shown for the calendars of choice
of others in various cultures whose contributions to society have helped make
America great, if that is in fact what America has been made. This is
not to imply that America is necessarily greater or lesser than any other country,
nor can it be indisputably considered the only America in the Western Hemisphere.
§§1.2.
TERMS
& AGREEMENT.
These wishes are extended freely and without compensation, which is neither
required nor expected, and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical
ability, religious faith, or sexual preference of the wishee. By accepting
these greetings you are accepting these terms. These greetings may be
subject to clarification or withdrawal. They are freely transferable with
no alteration to the original greeting. They imply no promise by the wisher
actually to implement any of these wishes for himself or herself or others,
and this greeting in its entirety is void where prohibited by law and revocable
at the sole discretion of the greeter.
§§1.3.
WARRANTY.
These full and entire wishes are warranted to perform as expected within
the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year, or until the
issuance of some subsequent holiday's wishes, whichever comes first, and notice
of any elsewhere-stated applicable warranty is hereby limited to replacement
of the sum or any part of these wishes only, and/or the issuance of new wishes
at the sole discretion of the wisher.
Ho
Ho Ho
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
(and to hell with the lawyers)
r
e
g
u
l
a
rare - wisdom - and - fluff
f
e
e v e r y t h i n g - e l s e
______
a
d feetures:
t
b p on scrolli
u
a e
n
r
c e o
e
k k n
ps page numbers are no longer necessary
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(because everything is all on one page)
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"Feetures"
in this issue include:
a) "Here comes Georgie Snowflake"
b) Mom's Letter to Santa
c) 21st Century Scrooge
d) Theory vs. Truth
e) Test for Smart People
f) Yankee Folly of the Decade
g) Deke
h) Must-Click LInks
i) Video/JavaJive
j) TWO Cartoons!!
k) Holiday Feasting
l) Today's Recommended Website
m) Dept. of Bumper
Sticklers
n) Santa's Magic for Mom
o) How to Get Your Computer Fix
[To hear this tune, double-click on the Play button!]
Georgie Snowflake
by C. C.
Writers
(With apologies
to Sid Tepper and Roy Brodsky)
[1st
verse]
Here comes Georgie
Snowflake,
Beating that same old horse,
Yap, yap, yappin’ at your weary brain,
To say he’ll “stay the course.”
[2nd
verse]
Here comes Georgie
Snowflake,
Soon he’ll be sayin’ half-daft,
“Hop on over, kids, to Baghdad-land;
I will recall the draft.”
[chorus]
If we wanna force
Mideast peace,
It’d be much simpler, one–two–three,
To make more snow in Iraq than...
[downbeat] Democracy!
[last
verse]
There dreams Georgie
Snowflake,
Just like pie in the sky,
Rainin’ all hell down upon the earth—
None of us knows why.
[repeat:
two more years]
"I
have been wearied by the misrepresentation of my sport by the national and local
media.
. . . It reminds me of a scene in the movie, Educating Rita, where
the old mother half-cries during a rather mechanized group sing-a-long at a
local pub, 'Doesn't anyone know another song?'"
And
now...
[after receiving this heart-wrenching written request off the
Internet] Here Comes Santa Claus*:
Dear Santa,
I've been a good mom all year. I've
fed, cleaned, and cuddled my children on demand; visited the doctor's office
more than my doctor; and sold sixty-two cases of candy bars to raise money for
planting a shade tree on the school playground. I was hoping you could
spread my list out over several Christmases, since I had to write this letter
with my son's red crayon, on the back of a receipt in the laundry room between
cycles, and who knows when I'll find any more free time in the next 18 years.
Here are my Christmas wishes:
I'd like a pair of legs that don't ache
(in any color, except purple, which I already have) and arms that don't hurt
or flap in the breeze but are strong enough to pull my screaming child out of
the candy aisle in the grocery store.
I'd also like a waist, since I lost mine
somewhere in the seventh month of my last pregnancy.
If you're hauling big ticket items this
year, I'd like fingerprint-resistant window panes and a radio that only plays
adult music, a television that doesn't broadcast any programs containing talking
animals, and a refrigerator with a secret compartment behind the crisper where
I can hide to talk on the phone.
On the practical side, I could use a talking
doll that says "Yes, Mommy" to boost my parental confidence, along
with two kids who don't fight and three pairs of jeans that will zip all the
way up without the use of power tools.
I could also use a recording of Tibetan
monks chanting "Don't eat in the living room" and "Take your
hands off your brother," because my voice seems to be just out of my children's
hearing range and can only be heard by the dog.
If it's too late to find any of these
products, I'd settle for enough time to brush my teeth and comb my hair in the
same morning , or the luxury of eating food warmer than room temperature without
it being served in a Styrofoam container.
If you don't mind, I could also use a
few Christmas miracles to brighten the holiday season. Would it be too
much trouble to declare ketchup a vegetable?
That would clear my conscience immensely.
It would also be miraculous if you could coerce my children into helping
around the house without demanding payment, as if they were crime bosses of
some large infighting family of Sicilian descent.
Well, Santa, the buzzer on the dryer has
gone off and my son just saw my feet under the laundry room door. I think
he wants his crayon back.
Have a safe trip and remember to leave
your wet boots by the door, and come in and dry off so you don't catch cold.
Help yourself to cookies on the table,
but don't eat too many or leave crumbs on the carpet.
Yours always,
MOM
P.S. One more thing... you could
cancel all these requests if you can keep my children young enough to never
stop believing in Santa Claus.
*Santa
has asked that this gets passed along to all the moms on your Christmas list.
@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~
"Merry Christmas,
Marry Christmas, Mare E. Chrys-Masse. All this talk about 'merry.'
It's the only time in twelve months when you can get away with coughing out
a word that was old-fashioned even when Shakespeare used it. Do we ever
say 'Merry Birthday'? 'Merry Easter'? Merry Fourth of July'?
No! So God rest ye merry antiquated linguists, gentlemen, and Magi in
general. Nobody says that crap anymore, except at Christmas."
--Middle Income Richard,
21st
Century Scrooge
@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~
THIS THEORY JUST IN:
"Americans
have not had the same successes because of the fact that most grow up in the
lap of luxury. They don't tolerate the type of pain that distance running demands.
You can pass your Physical Education classes in school by walking a mile maybe
twice a year. It seems that the few Americans who do make it on the international
level have a tremendous drive and tolerance for discomfort. I think the main
reason Africans succeed in distance running is many have to and we don't."
--Kip Lagat, Kenyan distance runner,
during
the Sydney Olympics,
explaining
why his country produces
so
many great runners
@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~
Ripped Off the SPAM of Today's Internet, here's:
A TEST FOR SMART PEOPLE
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
[Editor's note: Mid Inc Rick received the following via
e-mail]
> Test for Smart People . . . I have determined that you may qualify,
> don't let me down.
>
>
> The following short quiz consists of 4 questions and will tell you
> whether you are qualified to be a professional. Scroll down for each
> answer. The questions are NOT that difficult. But don't scroll down
> UNTIL you have answered the question!
>
>
>
>
> 1. How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?
>
>
> The correct answer is: Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe, and
> close the door. This question tests whether you tend to do simple
> things in an overly complicated way.
[Editor's note: Mid Inc Rick's responses, in boldface,
are reproduced under each supposedly correct answer as he originally
replied, more or less, to the original forwarder of the SPAM]
This it totally
bogus. How many refrigerators have you seen that are 18-feet high, 7- or 8-feet
wide, perhaps a dozen or so feet deep, and have a hinged door extending from
floor-to-ceiling that anyone weighing less than 900 pounds would actually be
able to open and close? Never mind also having the zoological training necessary
to get some stupid giraffe to do what you say!
> 2. How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?
>
>
> Did you say, Open the refrigerator, put in the elephant, and close the
> refrigerator?
>
>
> Wrong Answer.
>
>
> Correct Answer: Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in
> the elephant and close the door. This tests your ability to think
> through the repercussions of your previous actions!
Another completely
bullsh*t rationale. NOW, suddenly, we're talking about refrigeration equipment
being 18-feet high, at least 7- or 8-feet wide, and now more than 16-feet deep.
This must be a double-decker refrigerated boxcar we're talkin' about--not some
damn fridge in the kitchen. Unless, what, you're a member of some race of goliaths,
and you think you're now tutoring us philistines?
> 3. The Lion King is hosting an animal conference. All the animals
> attend... except one. Which animal does not attend?
>
>
> Correct Answer: The Elephant. The elephant is in the refrigerator.
> You just put him in there. This tests your memory.
What a crock! BOTH
the elephant AND the giraffe are DEAD!!! Even if you're a philistine,
you still ain't breathing for very long inside a closed, sealed refrigerator!
This test must've been written by some ABD Ph.D. candidate from Bipsqueak State,
currently ranked 423rd in his class, seeking part-time consulting work on the
side to pay for his cocaine habit.
> Okay, even if you did not answer the first three questions correctly,
> you still have one more chance to show your true abilities
>
>
> 4. There is a river you must cross but crocodiles live in it, and you
> do not have a boat. How do you manage it?
>
>
> Correct Answer: You jump into the river and swim across. Have you not
> been listening? All the crocodiles are attending the Animal Meeting,
> so the crocodiles are not in the river now. This tests whether you
> learn quickly from your mistakes.
Completely illogical!!!
All along you've expected us to believe there is exactly ONE giraffe and ONE
elephant in this wacky jungle--meanwhile there are DOZENS of crocodiles??? This
is nuts! What you do is, you bribe the brakeman on the railroad to switch the
boxcar to the siding nearest the river, off-load the stinking giraffe and elephant
carcasses, wait till the ONE crocodile jumps onshore to have his feast, and,
while he's busy munching the carcasses, you give another bribe to the brakeman,
have him hoist you on his shoulders, and then simply carry you across the water.
Nobody hurt, everybody happy, and you don't even hardly get wet. WHAT
"Animal Meeting"? There's fewer than half-a-dozen creatures left in
the jungle! And, for sure, NONE of them can read or write or listen or
speak (or else they'd have read the safety warning on the fridge in the first
place and not gone in) so... why have a meeting for ignorant mutes? Unless,
of course, you're the Philosophy Department Chairanimal at Bipsqueak State.
> According to Anderson (that's the guy! ranked 423rd!!)
Consulting Worldwide, (this is his part-time job!)
> around 90% of the professionals they tested got all questions wrong,
> (because they live in the real world, not Dreamland like public
education is today!) but
> (yadda-yadda... the rest of this ain't worth your reading...)
Monday,
November 27th, marked the day that we had been in Iraq longer than we were in
all of World War II.
That's
right. We were able to defeat all of Nazi Germany, Mussolini, and the
entire Japanese empire in LESS time than it's taken the world's only superpower
to secure the road from the airport to downtown Baghdad.
And we
haven't even done THAT. After 1,347 days, in the same time it took us
to sweep across North Africa, storm the beaches of Italy, conquer the South
Pacific, and liberate all of Western Europe, we cannot, after over three-and-a-half
years, even take over a single highway and protect ourselves from a homemade
device of two tin cans placed in a pothole. No wonder the cab fare from
the airport into Baghdad is now running around $35,000 for the 25-minute ride.
And that doesn't even include a friggin' helmet.
Is this
utter failure the fault of our troops? Hardly. That's because no
amount of troops or choppers or democracy shot out of the barrel of a gun is
ever going to "win" the war in Iraq. It is a lost war, lost
because it never had a right to be won, lost because it was started by men who
have never been to war...
The
full text of this letter can be found on Michael Moore's website (see above)
and was also published in the CommonDreams.org newsletter two day before
on Nov. 27th. Click the following link:
###########################################
[We can't resist. If you know about this, then you'll know.
What it is, we confess, is an "inside joke" possibly relevant
to a certain "running man" who is known in some circles as Deke. :-]
###########################################
Everytime's Repeated Media Message:
---------------------------------------------------------------
* * * * *
It's no secret that one
of America's most inventive
founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, got his first real "break"
in the media by not pandering to the tastes of those old
stodgy publishers of his time, but by coming up with
something completely different all on his own. He published
a simple one-page annual periodical called "Poor Richard's
Almanack" and sold it along the streets and rivers of the
colonies for a penny apiece. And it thrived as a business
for the next twenty-five years. So now, some two-hundred
seventy-odd years later, you get "Middle Income Richard's
Third Millennium Almanack" soon to be selling along the
buy-ways and Java-streams of the Internet for a buck a copy,
especially now that it's been miraculously, and successfully,
installed on a website. And for that Mid Inc Rick owes a
huge debt of gratitude to D.C. Lundell and Gillian Robinson,
owners and founders of ZombieRunner.com.
* * * * *
So far, for the past umpteen
issues, this e-rag's been free.
But before the next umpteen are published, however, this
particular freedom of yours might somehow be taken away, and
you'll be asked to cough up as many as twelve U.S. dollars, via
credit card or otherwise, to that nutty parent company called
C. C. Writers, at P.O. Box 963, Matteson, IL 60443 USA.
* * * * *
In the meantime, however,
please don't take all this
technological wizardry for granted. You have our permission
and supplications to continue sending in your cards, letters,
ads, "subtracts," encouragements, detractions, and good ol'
coin o' the realm in the form of U$A one-dollar bills to the
above-mentioned post office box; and you're also invited to
thoroughly search through everything offered by MIR's hosts,
the Zombies, on their truly awesome website. And finally,
of course, Uncle Ben Franklin's weird and most strangely
distant cousin M.I. Richard thanks you very much.
* * * * *
Oh, and keep thinking "green"
to help save our environment
by promoting paperless publishing!!!
And, hey, It's OK. Go ahead and forward this link to a
friend!
"I
made the school team, and when I won in a match against another school it was
the greatest moment of my life--even greater than the European titles.
In those school races, I always ran my legs off. There were girls watching
and I wanted to impress them. I was foaming and vomiting, but I won."
[start] * * * * * * E-letters
to the Editor * * * * * * *
Yo, peebles, come on!
[Editor's note:
Guess we didn't get anyone angry enough with the Halloween issue to want to
write back and bitch. Oh well, maybe after this issue--with all the copyright
infringements and whatnot--we'll hear from all those angry lawyers we earlier
"sent to hell," eh?]
[end] * * * * * * E-letters to the Editor * * * * * * *
Well, here's the best way we've
seen how to fix it:
"Begin
at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then stop."
--Lewis Carroll, from Alice in Wonderland
Photo/audio
credits for this issue (top to bottom): 1) Suzy Snowflake tune per
free download (http://www.prose-n-poetry.com/christmas_song/87); 2) running
truck cab (unknown Internet source); 3) Pimp Claus modeled after tshirthell.com;
4) Straw sucking cat (unknown Internet source); 5) Restaurant lobby "welcome"
sign (Rich Limacher photo); 6) Unidentified model at muscletease.com; 7) Computer
CPU tower as beer tap (unknown Internet source).
"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources." --Albert
Einstein
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #
[Middle
Income Richard's will return
at some as yet unimaginable, non-specific, and
similarly improbable opportunity in the future]
