Humor 1/26/98: Two Kinds of Love

Hey,

Actually, this week's humor email does not contain a joke or a funny
story. The first one, forwarded by Michelle Chan, is a cute story about
a romance. The second one, sent to me from the "Chicken Soup for the
Soul" free daily email service, is about a mother's love. I hope you
will enjoy them.

For those of you who have not tried snowboarding, I highly recommend
it. I did it this past Saturday and it was really fun. Your arm
muscles do get sore from pushing yourself off the snow. Also, if you
haven't seen "Titanic", go see it. I liked it so much that I saw it for
the second time today. I rarely watch movies for a second time.

For those of you in the Boston area, there are two things I want to
invite you to. The first is a Potluck sponsored by Oasis on Friday,
February 6th. at 7 pm. The second event is another one of our ballroom
dancing events, which will be held on Saturday, February 21st. We don't
know what style will be taught, but we think it will be the Rhumba.
Richard has indicated that this will be the last ballroom dancing event
we will host for a long time. I'll send out more details at a later
date.

-Josh.
_______________________________________________

"John Blanchard stood up from the bench, straightened his Army uniform,
and studied the crowd of people making their way through Grand Central
Station. He looked for the girl whose heart he knew, but whose face he
didn't, the girl with the rose. His interest in her had begun thirteen
months before in a Florida library. Taking a book off the shelf he
found himself intrigued, not with the words of the book, but with the
notes penciled in the margin. The soft handwriting reflected a
thoughtful soul and insightful mind. In the front of the book, he
discovered the previous owner's name, Miss Hollis Maynell. With time and
effort he located her address. She lived in New York City. He wrote
her a letter introducing himself and inviting her to correspond. The
next day he was shipped overseas for service in World War II. During
the next year and one month the two grew to know each other through the
mail. Each letter was a seed falling on a fertile heart. A romance was
budding. Blanchard requested a photograph, but she refused. She felt
that if he really cared, it wouldn't matter what she looked like. When
the day finally came for him to return from Europe, they scheduled their
first meeting - 7:00 PM at the Grand Central Station in New York.
"You'll recognize me," she wrote, "by the red rose I'll be wearing on my
lapel." So at 7:00 he was in the station looking for a girl whose heart
he loved, but whose face he'd never seen. I'll let Mr. Blanchard tell
you what happened:

"A young woman was coming toward me, her figure long and slim. Her
blonde hair lay back in curls from her delicate ears; her eyes were blue
as flowers. Her lips and chin had a gentle firmness, and in her pale
green suit she was like springtime come alive. I started toward her,
entirely forgetting to notice that she was not wearing a rose. As I
moved, a small, provocative smile curved her lips. "Going my way,
sailor?" she murmured. Almost uncontrollably I made one step closer to
her, and then I saw Hollis Maynell. She was standing almost directly
behind the girl. A woman well past 40, she had graying hair tucked
under a worn hat. She was more than plump, her thick-ankled feet thrust
into low-heeled shoes. The girl in the green suit was walking quickly
away. I felt as though I was split in two, so keen was my desire to
follow her, and yet so deep was my longing for the woman whose spirit
had truly companioned me and upheld my own. And there she stood. Her
pale, plump face was gentle and sensible, her gray eyes had a warm and
kindly twinkle. I did not hesitate. My fingers gripped the small worn
blue leather copy of the book that was to identify me to her. This
would not be love, but it would be something precious, something perhaps
even better than love, a friendship for which I had been and must ever
be grateful. I squared my shoulders and saluted and held out
the book to the woman, even though while I spoke I felt choked by the
bitterness of my disappointment. "I'm Lieutenant John Blanchard, and
you must be Miss Maynell. I am so glad you could meet me; may I take
you to
dinner?" The woman's face broadened into a tolerant smile. "I don't
know what this is about, son," she answered, "but the young lady in the
green suit who just went by, she begged me to wear this rose on my coat.
And she said if you were to ask me out to dinner, I should go and tell
you that she is waiting for you in the big restaurant across the
street. She said it was some kind of test!" It's not difficult to
understand and admire Miss Maynell's wisdom. The true nature of a heart
is seen in its response to the unattractive. "Tell me whom you love,"
Houssaye wrote, "And I will tell you who you are. "
_____________________________________

The Scar

A little boy invited his mother to attend his elementary school's first
teacher-parent conference. To the little boy's dismay, she said she
would go. This would be the first time that his classmates and teacher
met his mother and he was embarrassed by her appearance. Although she
was a beautiful woman, there was a severe scar that covered nearly the
entire right side of her face. The boy never wanted to talk about why or
how she got the scar. At the conference, the people were impressed by
the kindness and natural beauty of his mother despite the scar, but the
little boy was still embarrassed and hid himself from everyone. He did,
however, get within earshot of a conversation between his mother and his
teacher, and heard them speaking. "How did you get the scar on your
face?" the teacher asked.

The mother replied, "When my son was a baby, he was in a room that
caught on fire. Everyone was too afraid to go in because the fire was
out of control, so I went in. As I was running toward his crib, I saw a
beam coming down and I placed myself over him trying to shield him. I
was knocked unconscious but fortunately, a fireman came in and saved
both of us." She touched the burned side of her face. "This scar will
be permanent, but to this day, I have never regretted doing what I did."

At this point, the little boy came out running towards his mother with
tears in his eyes. He hugged her and felt an overwhelming sense of the
sacrifice that his mother had made for him. He held her hand tightly for
the rest of the day.

By Lih Yuh Kuo
from A 4th Course of Chicken Soup for the Soul
Copyright 1997 by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Hanoch
McCarty & Meladee McCarty

Humor 1/18/97: Sermon on Lying

Hey,

I hope all of you had a good weekend. I had a great time at the
ballroom dancing event this Saturday and it was cool to see many of you
there. Richard, my roommate, wants to host one more ballroom dancing
event, tentatively scheduled on Saturday, February 21st. I hope those
of you in the Boston area can make it. Also, let me know if you have
any suggestions of what style you would like for us all to learn. We've
already done the Foxtrot, Swing, and Waltz. I was thinking of the
Rhumba.

This week's humor email comes to us from Vivian Chiang. Sorry if you've
already seen it. What's really a coincidence is that at the small group
leaders meeting I went to on Saturday, I learned that 5 out of the 12
small groups at my church were studying the Book of Mark. I hope that
those folks wouldn't fall into the same trap as that mentioned in the
humor email. Have an awesome week! Enjoy!

-Josh.
_________________________________________________



Sermon on Lying

A minister told his congregation, "Next week I plan to preach
about the sin of lying. To help you understand my sermon, I want
you all to read Mark 17."

The following Sunday, as he prepared to deliver his sermon,
the minister asked for a show of hands. He wanted to know how many
had read Mark 17. Every hand went up. The minister smiled and
said, "Mark has only sixteen chapters. I will now proceed with my
sermon on the sin of lying."

Humor 1/11/98: Star Wars & Why the Chicken

Hey,

This week's humor email seeks to answer a fundamental question: "Why
the Chicken Crossed the Road?" The first part, from Elaine Wong,
contains the responses from your favorite Star Wars characters. (Who
are some of these people?) The second part, from Jennifer Pham, pokes
fun at Andersen Consulting, where I work. (Look at the last response).
Enjoy!

Before we get to the humor, here's something completely different. My
small group recently took the Myers-Briggs or Kiersey-Bates personality
test, and another friend just emailed me to take it. It's really
interesting to take the test and read about your personality traits. I
encourage all of you to take it. If you do, I would be very interested
in finding out your results. Please send me your 4-letter personality
type, and I'll send you mine, if you haven't guessed already.

The URL is: http://www.keirsey.com/cgi-bin/keirsey/newkts.cgi. It's
really fun!

Take care and have a great week!

-Josh.
_______________________________________________

Why the Chicken Crossed the Road...

In the Words of the Star Wars Characters

YODA:
Crossing the road makes not a chicken great.

VADER:
Because it could not resist the power of the Dark Side.

LUKE:
Crossing the road is one thing, this is.... totally different.

LEIA:
I don't know... but I have a bad feeling about this.

HAN:
Hurry up, colonel sanders, or you're gonna be a permanent resident!

THREEPIO:
I am fluent in over six million ways of crossing the road.

ARTOO:
beep beep be bop.

CHEWIE:
Gwrrroooooaaaarrrrrrlllllll!

BEN:
Cross the road, chicken. Let go, chicken. Chicken - trust me.

BOBA FETT:
What if the chicken doesn't survive? He's worth a lot to me!

WEDGE:
My scope shows the other side but it looks really far, are you sure you
can cross it?

JERJERROD:
The chicken is crossing the road? We shall double our efforts.

BIB:
Die chicken wanga?

BIGGS:
At that speed, will you be able to cross in time?

TARKIN:
The regional governors now have direct control over their chickens. Fear

will keep those chickens in line... fear of getting hit by a car!

UNCLE OWEN:
I told you to forget it. You're only concern is to cross that road.

AUNT BERU:
He can't stay here forever. Most of his friends have already crossed. It

means so much to him.

ADMIRAL ACKBAR:
All chickens - prepare to cross the road on my mark

LANDO:
Why you slimy, no good, double-crossing chicken!! You got a lot of gots
crossing that road, after what you pulled!

EMPEROR:
Young fool. Only now, after getting hit by a car do you understand.

JABBA:
Bo shuda chicken!

GREEDO:
Oota-Goota chicken?

GEORGE LUCAS:
Give me 20 years and I'll make you a movie of *how* the chicken *got* to

the road!
_______________________________________

Why did the chicken cross the road?
Plato:
For the greater good.
Karl Marx:
It was a historical inevitability.
Thomas de Torquemada:
Give me ten minutes with the chicken and I'll find out.
Jean-Paul Sartre:
In order to act in good faith and be true to itself, the chicken found
it necessary to cross the road.
Albert Einstein:
Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road crossed the chicken
depends
upon your frame of reference.
Aristotle:
To actualize its potential.
Buddha:
If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken-nature.
Darwin:
It was the logical next step after coming down from the trees.
Emily Dickinson:
Because it could not stop for death.
Ralph Waldo Emerson:
It didn't cross the road; it transcended it.
Ernest Hemingway:
To die. In the rain.
John Sununu:
The Air Force was only too happy to provide the transportation, so quite

understandably the chicken availed himself of the opportunity.
Joseph Stalin:
I don't care. Catch it. I need its eggs to make my omlette.
Machiavelli:
So that its subjects will view it with admiration, as a chicken which
has the daring and courage to boldly cross the road, but also with fear,

for whom among them has the strength to contend with such a paragon of
avian
virtue? In such a manner is the princely chicken's dominion maintained.

Andersen Consulting Consultant:
Deregulation of the chicken's side of the road was threatening its
dominant market position. The chicken was faced with significant
challenges to create and develop the competencies required for the newly
competitive market. AC, in a partnering relationship with the client,
helped the chicken by rethinking its physical distribution strategy and
implementation processes.

Using the Poultry Integration Model (PIM) AC helped the chicken use its
skills, methodologies, knowledge capital and experiences to align the
chicken's people, processes and technology in support of its overall
strategy within a Program Management framework. AC convened a diverse
cross-spectrum of road analysts and best chickens along with AC
consultants with deep skills in the transportation industry to engage in
a two-day itinerary of meetings in order to leverage their personal
knowledge capital, both tacit and explicit, and to enable them to
synergize with each other in order to achieve
the implicit goals of delivering and successfully architecting and
implementing an enterprise-wide value framework across the continuum of
poultry cross-median processes. The meeting was held in a park like
setting enabling and creating an impactful environment which was
strategically based, industry-focused, and built upon a consistent,
clear, and unified market
message and aligned with the chicken's mission, vision, and core
values. This was conducive towards the creation of a total business
integration solution. AC helped the chicken change to become more
successful.

Humor 1/5/98: Linguistics & Remember When

Hi everyone,

Welcome to my first weekly humor email of the new year. I hope your
Christmas and New Year's was fun and interesting. I had a good time in
New York and in Boston with friends. I watched 5 movies recently, and
recommend 4 of them: Titanic, Good Will Hunting, LA Confidential and
Wings of the Dove.

The first brief humor comes to us from Dave Shim. The second piece
comes from Steve Lee. I'm sending it out because I had lunch with some
friends last Sunday in New York, and we started to talk about what we
remembered from our childhoods. I hope you get a kick out of these.

Please let me know if you want me to take you off of this weekly email
distribution list. Also, if you're interested in getting all the "back
issues" of these weekly humor emails, just let me know. The first one
was on 12/8/96.

Finally, for those of you in the greater Boston area, or if you just
want a good reason to visit Boston, my roommate has organized another
ballroom dancing event. It's on Saturday, Janury 17th, and the lesson
will be on the waltz. You are all invited. Let me know if you're
interested and I'll send you more details.

Well, take care and have a great week! -Josh.
______________________________________________

A linguistics professor was lecturing to his class one day:

"In English," he said, "A double negative forms a positive. In
some languages, though, such as Russian, a double negative
is still a negative. However, there is no language wherein a
double positive can form a negative."

A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah, right."
_____________________________________________

Remember when...

This will bring back memories!
You're probably aged 25-30 if...

You wore anything Izod, especially those windbreakers that folded up
into a pouch you could wear around your waist.

You owned a Jordache anything, or you remember when Jordache jeans
were cool.

In your sophomore class picture, you're wearing an Izod shirt with
the collar "up."

Your "dressy" wardrobe centered on pastels and linen blazers ? guys
included.

You know, by heart, the words to a "Weird" Al Yankovic song.

You remember when Madonna was just hitting the scene.

The Brady Bunch movie brought back cool memories.

"The Reflex" was a cool song.

You remember "Battlestar Galactica."

Three words: "Atari," "Apple," and "Pong."

You remember the days that hooking your computer into your
television wasn't an expensive option that required gadgets - it was
the ONLY option.

You remember the original version of Windows: Macintosh.

You remember the days when "safe sex" meant "my parents are gone for
the weekend." (hey, I don't write them, I just fwd them)

You thought "Wierd Science" was a masterpiece.

You remember any or all of the following: Echo & the Bunnymen,
Cutting Crew, Scritti Politti, or Orchestral Maneouvers in the Dark.

Chevy Chase was really funny in those vacation movies.

You remember "Friday Night Videos" before the days of MTV.

A predominant color in your childhood photos is "plaid."

While in high school, you and all your friends discussed elaborate
plans to get together again at the end of the century and play
"1999" by Prince over and over again.

You remember when music that was labeled "alternative" really was.

You took family trips BEFORE the invention of the mini-van.

You rode in the back of the station wagon and you faced the cars
behind you in the "tail gunner" position.

You've recently horrified yourself by using any one of the following
phrases: - "When I was younger" - "When I was your age" - "You
know, back when..." - "Just can't (fill in the blank) like I used to"

Schoolhouse Rock played a HUGE part in how you actually learned the
English language.

You ever dressed to emulate a person you saw in either a Duran Duran,
Madonna, Rick Springfield, or Cyndi Lauper video.

You actually know who Rick Springfield is.

You remember with pain the sad day when the Green Machine hit the
streets and made your old Big Wheel obsolete.

The phrase "Where's the beef?" still doubles you over with laughter.

You remember when film critics raved that no movie could ever
possibly get better special effects than those in the movie TRON.

You jammed to the Miami Vice theme and thought Jan Hammer was cool.

You wanted to move to Hawaii because that's where Magnum lived.

For the girl crazy bunch: Your first sexual dream occurred to
thoughts of Jeannie, Marsha Brady, Samantha from Bewitched or, for
those
hardcore comic fans out there, Daphne from Scooby Doo, Josie or any
one of
her Pussycats And for the boy crazy bunch: You thought Sean Cassidy
was "dreamy", lusted after "Ted, your ship's photographer" on the Love
Boat and Chachi, or, to keep it fair to the comically interested,
thought Fred was just a hunk on Scooby Doo.

Your hair, at some point in time in the 80's, became something which can

only be described by the phrase "I was experimenting."

Guys: You remember when a guy piercing his ear was radical to the max,
but did it anyhow.

This timeline appropriately describes actual events inyour life:
Star Wars opens, you are still in single digit ages, and you think
the creatures are WAY cool. Empire Strikes Back opens, you are now in
early double digit ages, and you are convinced that the special
effects are much better, the characters are cool, and you want one of
every collectible out there. Return of the Jedi hits the theaters...you
are now a teenager, and you cannot get your eyes off Princess Leia's
breasts/Han Solo's butt. (again, I didn't write these)

You've ever shopped at a Banana Republic or Benetton, but not in the
last five years, okay?

You actually remember Benetton.

You're starting to believe (now that it wouldn't affect YOU) that
maybe having the kids go to school year-round wouldn't be such a bad
idea
after all.

You're doing absolutely nothing with anything pertaining to your
major degree.

You ever wanted to be gagged with a spoon

U2 is too "popular" and "mainstream" for you now.

You owned a Trapper Keeper.

You remember when there was only "G, PG and R", none of this PG-13.

You learned to swim about the same time Jaws came out and still
carry the emotional scars to this day.

Wonder twin powers, activate . .form of a an iceberg, shape of a
hammer.

You spent endless nights dreaming about being the Bionic Woman/Man or
Wonder Woman/the Incredible Hulk.

You remember "Hey, let's be careful out there."

You ever wanted to learn to play "Stairway to Heaven"on the guitar
and choreographed "Dancing Queen" by yourself in your room.

You know all the words to the double album set of Grease. "wella, wella,

wella"

"All-skate, change directions" means something to you.

You ever rang someone's doorbell and said "Landshark."

You bought a pair of Vans and wanted to order a pizza in history
class so you could be just like Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times as
Ridgemont High.