Miscellaneous, Part II

Three Turtles

Three turtles, Joe, Steve, and Raymond, decide to go on a picnic. So Joe packs the picnic basket with cookies, bottled sodas, and sandwiches. The trouble is, the picnic site is 10 miles away, so the turtles take 10 whole days to get there. By the time they do arrive, everyone's exhausted. Joe takes the stuff out of the basket, one by one. He takes out the sodas and says, Alright, Steve, gimme the bottle opener.' 'I didn't bring the bottle opener,' Steve says. 'I thought you packed it.' Joe gets worried. He turns to Raymond. 'Raymond, do you have the bottle opener?' Naturally, Raymond doesn't have it, so the turtles are stuck ten miles away from home without soda. Joe & Steve beg Raymond to turn back home and retrieve it, but Raymond flatly refuses, knowing that they'll eat everything by the time he gets back. After about two hours, the turtles manage to convince Raymond to go, swearing on their great-grand turtles' graves that they won't touch the food. So, Raymond sets off down the road, slow and steadily. Twenty days pass, but no Raymond.Joe and Steve are hungry and puzzled, but a promise is a promise. Another day passes, and still no Raymond, but ap romise is a promise. After three more days pass without Raymond in sight, Steve starts getting restless. 'I NEED FOOD!' he says with a hint of dementia in his voice. 'NO!' Joe retorts. 'We promised.' Five more days pass. Joe realizes that Raymond probably skipped out to the diner down the road, so the two turtles weakly lift the lid, get a sandwich, and open their mouths to eat. But then, right at that instant, Raymond pops out from behind a rock, and says, 'I knew it!, I'm not fucking going !'

Very Interesting...

This is an e-mail we received - names have been changed...to protect the guilty.
A certain company (hereinafter called "ACC") now lets you personalize your shoes by submitting a word or phrase which they will stitch onto your shoes, under the swoosh. So Joe Bloggs filled out the form and sent them $50 to stitch "sweatshop" onto his shoes. Here's the responses he got...

1. Your Personal iD contains another party's trademark or other intellectual property
2. Your Personal iD contains the name of an athlete or team we do not have the legal right to use
3. Your Personal iD was left blank. Did you not want any personalization?
4. Your Personal iD contains profanity or inappropriate slang, and besides, your mother would slap us.

From: "Joe Bloggs"
To: "Personalize, ACC iD"
Subject: RE: Your ACC iD order o16468000
Greetings, My order was cancelled but my personal ACC iD does not violate any of the criteria outlined in your message. The Personal iD on my custom Speedy QX USA running shoes was the word "sweatshop." Sweatshop is not:

1. another's party's trademark,
2. the name of an athlete,
3. blank, or
4. profanity.

From: "Personalize, ACC iD"
To: "'Joe Bloggs'"
Subject: RE: Your ACC iD order o16468000
Dear ACC iD Customer, Your ACC iD order was cancelled because the iD you have chosen contains, as stated in the previous e-mail correspondence, "inappropriate slang". If you wish to reorder your ACC iD product with a new personalization please visit us again at ACC.com. Thank you, ACC iD.

From: "Joe Bloggs"
To: "Personalize, ACC iD"
Subject: RE: Your ACC iD order o16468000
Dear ACC iD, Thank you for your quick response to my inquiry about my custom Speedy QX USA running shoes. Although I commend you for your prompt customer service, I disagree with the claim that my personal iD was inappropriate slang. After consulting Webster's Dictionary, I discovered that "sweatshop" is in fact part of standard English, and not slang. The word means: "a shop or factory in which workers are employed for long hours at low wages and under unhealthy conditions" and its origin dates from 1892. So my personal iD does meet the criteria detailed in your first email. Your web site advertises that the ACC iD program is "about freedom to choose and freedom to express who you are." I share ACC's love of freedom and personal expression. The site also says that "If you want it done right...build it yourself." I was thrilled to be able to build my own shoes, and my personal iD was offered as a small token of appreciation for the sweatshop workers poised to help me realize my vision. I hope that you will value my freedom of expression and reconsider your decision to reject my order. Thank you, Joe Bloggs.

From: "Personalize, ACC iD"
To: "'Joe Bloggs'"
Subject: RE: Your ACC iD order o16468000
Dear ACC iD Customer, Regarding the rules for personalization it also states on the ACC iD web site that "ACC reserves the right to cancel any personal iD up to 24 hours after it has been submitted". In addition, it further explains: "While we honour most personal iDs, we cannot honour every one. Some may be (or contain) other's trademarks, or the names of certain professional sports teams, athletes or celebrities that ACC does not have the right to use. Others may contain material that we consider inappropriate or simply do not want to place on our products. Unfortunately, at times this obliges us to decline personal iDs that may otherwise seem unobjectionable. In any event, we will let you know if we decline your personal iD, and we will offer you the chance to submit another." With these rules in mind, we cannot accept your order as submitted. If you wish to reorder your ACC iD product with a new personalization please visit us again at www.ACC.com http://www.ACC.com/. Thank you, ACC iD.

From: "Joe Bloggs"
To: "Personalize, ACC iD"
Subject: RE: Your ACC iD order o16468000
Dear ACC iD, Thank you for the time and energy you have spent on my request. I have decided to order the shoes with a different iD, but I would like to make one small request. Could you please send me a color snapshot of the ten-year-old Vietnamese girl who makes my shoes? Thanks, Joe Bloggs. (No response)! As one forwarder writes: "... this will now go round the world much farther and faster than any of the adverts they paid "yer man" more - than the entire wage packet of all their sweatshop workers in the world to do...

I normally avoid making a plea to pass on these things, but this time I say: JUST DO IT!

Real Headlines

Marbles

The older I get, the more I enjoy Saturday mornings. Perhaps it's the quiet solitude that comes with being the first to rise, or maybe it's the unbounded joy of not having to be at work. Either way, the first few hours of a Saturday morning are most enjoyable. A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the kitchen with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and the morning paper in the other. What began as a typical Saturday morning turned into one of those lessons that life seems to hand you from time to time. Let me tell you about it.
I turned the volume up on my radio in order to listen to a Saturday morning talk show. I heard an older sounding chap with a golden voice. You know the kind; he sounded like he should be in the broadcasting business himself. He was talking about "a thousand marbles" to someone named "Tom." I was intrigued and sat down to listen to what he had to say.
Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you're busy with your job. I'm sure they pay you well but it's a shame you have to be away from home and your family so much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet. Too bad you missed your daughter's dance recital." He continued, "Let me tell you something Tom, something that has helped me keep a good perspective on my own priorities." And that's when he began to explain his theory of a "thousand marbles."
"You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about seventy-five years. I know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live about seventy-five years." "Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3900, which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime. Now stick with me Tom, I'm getting to the important part." "It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in any detail," he went on, "and by that time I had lived through over twenty-eight hundred Saturdays. I got to thinking that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy." "So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended up having to visit three toy stores to roundup 1000 marbles. I took them home and put them inside of a large, clear plastic container right here in my workshop next to the radio. Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away."
"I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focussed more on the really important things in life. There is nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight." "Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign-off with you and take my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure if I make it until next Saturday then God has blessed me with a little extra time to be with my loved ones. "It was nice to talk to you Tom, I hope you spend more time with your loved ones, and I hope to meet you again someday. Have a good morning!"
You could have heard a pin drop when he finished. Even the show's moderator didn't have anything to say for a few moments. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to do some work that morning, then go to the gym. Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss. "C'mon honey, I'm taking you and the kids to breakfast." "What brought this on?" she asked with a smile. "Oh, nothing special," I said. " It has just been a long time since we spent a Saturday together with the kids. Hey, can we stop at a toy store while we're out? I need to buy some marbles.
HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND AND MAY ALL SATURDAYS BE SPECIAL AND MAY YOU HAVE MANY HAPPY YEARS AFTER YOU LOSE ALL YOUR MARBLES.