A Collection of Groaners

Which whiskey should you buy if you want to dance all night?
Wild Twerky!

What's the difference between a cat and a complex sentence?
A cat has claws at the end of its paws. A complex sentence has a pause at the end of its clause.

Why did Beethoven get rid of his chickens?
All they said was, “Bach, Bach, Bach"

What did music tell the pancakes?
B flat.

What did the pancakes say back?
Pour Some Sugar on Me

I find hanging around in coffee shops
A great way to espresso yourself
As long as you don't make a mocha-ry of yourself.
Its a little latte for that, It's bean a while though.
At least you have your health, I've been coffee-ing all damn week.
I hope you feel a lait better soon.
Thank you, I can't wait to get this frap put of my lungs.

When is the worst possible time to have a heart attack?
When you are playing Charades.

What do you call an alien in a swamp?
A MARSHian

What did one nose say when the other nose said "I love you"?
"Back achoo!"

A woman files for divorce from her husband, citing that he makes too many Star Wars puns.
When asked if this is true the husband says, "Divorce is strong with this one."

A man walks into a bar with a newt on his shoulder.
The bartender says “What an interesting pet, whats his name?”
"Tiny” the man replies.
"What an odd name, why do you call him Tiny?”
"Because…He’s my newt.”

What do you call an Italian romance novel model who's let himself go?
Flabio.

How did the desk lamp store manager feel when thieves stole all his lightbulbs?
He was delighted.

A vampire stopped coming to my nightly poker games.
All I said was that he made too many mistakes...

Why do the French like eating snails?
Because they can't stand fast food!

A child asked his father, "How were people born?"
So his father said, "Adam and Eve made babies, then their babies became adults and made babies, and so on."
The child then went to his mother, asked her the same question and she told him, "We were monkeys then we evolved to become like we are now."
The child ran back to his father and said, "You lied to me!"
His father replied, "No, your mom was talking about her side of the family."

A big thanks to all the sidewalks out there..
They've been keeping me off the streets for as long as I can remember!

A Man is Pulled Over For Speeding

A man is pulled over for speeding.


The policeman approaches the drivers door.

"Is there a problem, Officer?"

The policeman says, "Sir, you were speeding. Can I see your license please?"
The driver responds, "I'd give it to you but I don't have one."

"You don't have one?"
The man responds, "I lost it four times for drink driving."

The policeman is shocked. "I see. Can I see your vehicle registration papers please?"
"I'm sorry, I can't do that."

The policeman says, "Why not?"
"I stole this car."

The officer says, "Stole it?"
The man says, "Yes, and I killed the owner."

At this point the officer is getting irate. "You what?"
"She's in the trunk if you want to see."

The Officer looks at the man and slowly backs away to his car and calls for back up. Within minutes, five police cars show up, surrounding the car. A senior officer slowly approaches the car, clasping his half-drawn gun.

The senior officer says, "Sir, could you step out of your vehicle please!"
The man steps out of his vehicle. "Is there a problem, sir?"

"One of my officers told me that you have stolen this car and murdered the owner."
"Murdered the owner?"

The officer responds, "Yes, could you please open the trunk of your car please?"
The man opens the trunk, revealing nothing but an empty trunk.

The officer says, "Is this your car sir?"
The man says, "Yes" and hands over the registration papers.

The officer, understandably, is quite stunned. "One of my officers claims that you do not have a driving licence."
The man digs in his pocket revealing a wallet and hands it to the officer. The officer opens the wallet and examines the licence. He looks quite puzzled. "Thank you, sir. One of my officers told me you didn't have a licence, stole this car, and murdered the owner."

The man replies, "I bet you the lying bastard told you I was speeding, too!"

Pebble Steel Charging Issues - Creating a Charging Ground Platform for the Pebble Watch

Recently I was bequeathed a Pebble Steel watch.  My godmother's husband, Larry, had passed and his wife Kathie wanted to make sure that it would go to someone who would actually use it.

Thank you Kathie, and thank you for keeping Larry's spirit alive.

The watch is a beautiful thing, after all who can pass up an E-Paper display on a watch.  For an electronic watch, it simply blows away any other display technology for sheer flexibility.  Low light, it has a backlight that gives a blue glow once you press a button.  In high light, the numbers show up in a beautiful silver on deep navy blue.  Other Pebble watches have different color schemes, but the E-Paper display is amazing.

The watch did not come with the charging cable, initially.  Since I was given it at Larry's Celebration of Life ceremony, I wasn't going to ask for it immediately.  I did get it a couple weeks later, but until then I would "find something" to make sure it still worked.

I did find a Reddit link to something someone wrote. Apparently the connectors on the watch, in my case on the side of the watch, were Negative and Positive connections with the case being an extra Negative - the Ground.  For other Pebble Watches, the connectors are on the back of the watch.

This is where I issue the Internet Standard Warning:

Contact Pebble for Service under Warranty if your watch is still warranted.  Much better than hacking around with whatever I say here!

Any information given here within is presented at your own risk.
If you use it and break anything, it is at your own responsibility, and I take no responsibility or give no warranty. 
All Information presented here within "works for me".  
If you connect something backwards or short out a connection, you could damage any of your electronics.
Make doubly sure you have tested all connections with a multi meter and make sure that you have polarity correct.

First - clean all connectors.
Second - get your Pebble up to the latest firmware.


According to this link on Reddit, you will be able to fashion (jury rig) a connector to charge your watch.

I was able to.  I connected a piece of wire to the positive connector on the watch, a second to the negative, and fed 5VDC into it.  The watch vibrated almost immediately, displayed the Pebble start up display, then began charging for as long as I was able to hold all the connectors together.

For the Pebble Steel, the Positive connector is the connector closest to you, assuming you hold the watch as if it is to be read correctly.

Problem One:

Charging Problem NOT Originally solved.  You see, there's a problem with these watches.  If you charge one up full using the cable on the connectors at the side of the watch, then reconnect it, it will discharge back into the power supply draining the watch.

They need a Diode in line to help fix that.  Ten Cent Part.

Problem Two:

The connectors must be clean.  As in no dirt on the connectors at all.  Clean with Alcohol and a bit of cotton.  This may allow you to charge the watch but not necessarily.  I tried it and it did not help.

Problem Three:

The cable finally arrived.  There was about 70% charge on the watch.  I plugged the cable into the back of my laptop, and walked away.  The watch drained completely of any power.

The Solution presented itself in a Youtube Video that is embedded below.  There is a person in Holland with a Pebble Steel watch.  He had the same problem as I did.  In the video he mentions that his watch would charge sometimes but not others.  When he asked for service from Pebble Support, he was sent back a new watch which worked perfectly under warranty. 

Great!  Excellent service, Pebble!

Near the end of the video, he tied all the information together without knowing it for me.  He plugged the new watch onto the cable, and connected the old watch to a second cable.  The old "damaged" watch did not begin to charge until he touched the back of the old watch to the new one thereby creating the ground.


 
Therefore my solution was this.  I created a Charging Ground Platform for my Pebble Steel.

Step 1: Obtain parts:

• Four Thumbtacks
• Suitable base for the platform - mine was a lid to a treats canister.
• Length of wire to connect to Ground - specific length is not material, mine is about 18 inches or a half meter
• Good electrical ground to the negative side of the charging cable

Step 2: Assembly

• For your watch, positioning of the thumbtacks will vary. 
• I laid a piece of paper on the back of the watch to make a template, then marked it off on the plastic lid.
• Marks on the lid will match that of the screws on the watch. 
• This placement will lower the probability that the watch will get scratched up.
• Drive one thumbtack through the lid for each corner of the watch.
• Connect each thumbtack with wire allowing the wire to extend out past the last connector freely.

Step 3:  Final Connections:

• Plug the Pebble charging cable into your charger and to your watch.
• In my case, I am using a laptop and that greatly simplified my connections.  
• The case of the laptop is a ground, and functions as a ground for USB and for the entire computer.
• An external charging "wall wart" plug will require you to take further steps.
• Connect the ground wire from the Charging Ground Platform to a metal ground on the laptop.
• Place the Pebble Watch onto the assembled platform making sure that one or more of the thumbtack will touch the bare metal case of the watch, preferably on the screws in the back of the watch. 
• You may or may not get confirmation from the watch that it is now charging - I have seen it immediately go into charge mode, and I have seen it not and both work.

The way I see it, in my uneducated opinion, this is a design flaw.  I do not know where the fault lies.  It is acting like a firmware issue.  However my Pebble Steel is now at the newest firmware.  No software at the charger is required to make the watch charge.  The watch is only looking for 5 Volts DC at USB standard current of 1 Amp, apparently.

The Pebble Steel is now a product that has been discontinued.  The memory in it is lower than the newer watches, and the operating system firmware can not be updated past the last of version 3.  Newer watches have version 4 available.

Like I said, it works for me.  Good luck!

The New Doctor

I don't know, but this sounds like a truly wise grandmother to me!


A 85 year old lady has to go to a new doctor, and he is reviewing her file and the list of medications she is on, and finds in the long list that she is on the contraceptive pill.

"Why are you on the pill at your age?" he asks
"Well it helps me to sleep at night" she replies

The doctor is shocked that his predecessor would be so negligent as to prescribe oral contraception to an old lady and have her think it was a sleeping pill.

"Madam, please dont take this the wrong way , but can you tell me how a contraceptive pill can help you sleep?"

She says "Well every morning I wake up after a good nights sleep, grab the little pill, and I grind it up and put it in my granddaughter's orange juice"

The Problem With Weather Forecasting

Here I sit on the first weekend after Hurricane Matthew trashed Haiti and parts of Eastern Cuba, ground its way through The Bahamas, and generally ... left South Florida unscathed.

Lucky for me...

So I have a story, maybe a fable, about Weather Forecasting.  Just remember not to take it too literally - after all it is a FORECAST and not a CERTAINTY.

We will see if Matthew actually loops back for a second visit!

---

The Problem with Weather Forecasting

It was autumn, and a Native American Tribe asked their New Chief if the winter was going to be cold or mild.

Since he was a tribal chief in a modern society, he couldn't tell what the weather was going to be.

Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, he replied to his Tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold and that the members of the village should collect wood to be prepared.

But also being a practical leader, after several days he got an idea. He went to the phone booth, called the National Weather Service and asked 'Is the coming winter going to be cold?'

'It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold indeed,' the weather man responded.

So the Chief went back to his people and told them to collect even more wood. A week later, he called the National Weather Service again. 'Is it going to be a very cold winter?'

'Yes,' the man at National Weather Service again replied, 'It's definitely going to be a very cold winter.'

The Chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect every scrap of wood they could find.

Two weeks later, he called the National Weather Service again.

'Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?' 'Absolutely,' The man replied. 'It's going to be one of the coldest winters ever.'

'How can you be so sure?' the Chief asked. The weatherman replied, 'The Native Americans are collecting wood like crazy.'

It's The Calm Before The Hurricane Prep Day

When I got up today, it was 4:15AM.  All was silent.  I closed my eyes thinking I can probably get more sleep.

I got into that Lets Open The Eyes And Check The Clock Every Ten Minutes thing.

Didn't work, got out of bed before my normal Stupid O'Clock at 4:40.

Then I pulled my earplugs out of my ears and started getting ready for the dog walk.

It still was silent.  The house was quieter than normal.

Getting out the front door before 5AM there was no wind. Nothing.  Still as a Tomb. 

Rack, the McNab SuperDog (TM) pulled me out onto the front lawn.

Still.  I looked up.  Very few clouds.  Stars.

After the weeks, and more than one, that we have been having, not seeing clouds in the skies felt odd. 

Oh sure, I could find my friend the hunter.  Orion still had his belt to the South and East of the house.  A bright star was shining at me from the lower left of Orion. 

But No Clouds.

Very strange.  I was looking for that "Bow Shock" line of clouds from Hurricane Matthew that was at that point just leaving the far eastern point of Cuba, but nothing.

This is that last day.  One last brilliantly clear day that you get before a Hurricane.  The storms seem to pull all the air toward it, the barometric pressure begins to drop, and you have time. 

I already got Propane and Gasoline.  With one I can cook, even bake bread.  With the other I can drive out of South Florida if I have to or simply run the generators to keep the fridge going.

Mentally, I have noted that since the highs have already dropped below 90, it will be annoying, but we can make do with windows open.  After all, living in a three story "Farm House" in Philadelphia for years with no Air Conditioning, we made do, and sometimes it hit triple digits. 

Think 40C or 104.  Once.  In Philly Humidity.  *SHUDDER*!

So I am hoping the winds won't knock out the power.  We still haven't tested generators to run the house, only individual appliances.

There is more than the expected water. Three cases of bottled water plus four gallons of water in one Quart Mason Jars.  I emptied my canning supplies and filled them with filtered water.

We're expected to get "Hurricane Force Winds".  Something more than 73MPH.  110KPH give or take a K.

After all, I am only 2.2 miles West of the ocean.  3 Km.   I could walk it as long as I had comfortable shoes and time.

Many others are not prepared as well, and my heart goes out to them.  My immediate neighbor's house has no storm shutters and "regular" float glass windows.   I expect to hear that he will have broken windows.  More than one.

With luck his roof won't end up in my swimming pool.

Besides, the fringes of a Hurricane bring with it "Embedded Tornadoes". 

The weather radio has been an endless loop of hurricane preparation hints.  Most of them have been done here.

I hope that if you are reading this and will be effected, anywhere from the Florida Keys to South Carolina, you have made your preparation and will be finishing soon.

As for me I have a very few things to do: 

Finish the laundry since no power means no clean clothes.
Get Aunt Betty's table and chairs off the front porch and tied down since plastic table and chairs make wonderful flying objects.
Move the last few prized plants under cover like Larry's Bonsai.
Finally publish this and put together for the blog next week, a "warrant canary" to say Yep, I'm still offline.  

Good luck South Florida.  Matthew is an unwelcome guest.  At least this storm will stir up the ocean enough to make the next hurricane much less vigorous.  Cold water will be brought to the surface and this should be the end of the season, or close to it.


But I keep thinking that no matter what, it won't matter.  What will happen will happen.

Since my 446 day Duolingo streak will probably end tomorrow or the day after,

Qué será, será. What Will Be, Will Be.

20 Weird Things To Do In Life

1) Look at see through glass and when someone is on the other side shout "OH MY GOD, I'M HIDEOUS!"

2) Bring a big chair into the elevator facing away from the door and when someone walks in, dramatically turn and say 'we've been expecting you.'

3) Walk up to someone, hand them a potato, look them in the eyes and deadpan 'with great power, comes great responsibility.' Walk away.

4) Call someone to tell them you can't talk right now.

5) Point at someone and shout "You're one of them!" Run and pretend to trip. Crawl away slowly.

6) Buy a donut and complain that there's a hole in it.

7) Put Mayonnaise in a bowl, freeze it, and tell your friend it's ice cream.

8) Put up a "Lost Dog" poster with a picture of a cat on it.

9) In a public toilet, pass a note under the door next to you saying, "They're onto us. We need to go."

10) Walk up to a random person and say, "Wow! You've changed, I still have your picture from five years ago." And hold up a picture of potato.

11) Call McDonalds asking for directions to Burger King.

12) Order a pizza 5 minutes before New Years, and when it comes, yell, "I ORDERED THIS THING A YEAR AGO!

13) Bring a desk on an elevator. When people try to get on ask if they have an appointment.

14) Go to an electronic store with a banana and say that you want to upgrade to an apple.

15) Call Pizza Hut and ask for the phone number to Domino's.

16) Hide a walk talkie in a bush and scare people that walk by.

17) Get on a crowded elevator with a bag in your hands, sigh and say "darn my snake got loose again".

18) When someone asks you if you know what time it is, say yes and walk away.

19) Dress up as a duck and throw bread at people and say,"HOW DO YOU LIKE IT?!! HUH?!!!!

20) Go to a pet shop, point at an employee, and shout "I WANT THAT ONE MOMMY!!!"

A Priest and a Bus Driver are Standing In Purgatory

There is an angel guarding two doors: one for Hell, the other for Heaven. Both of them approach the celestial being and it says, looking at a really long list:

"Alright, Mr... Stanford, the bus driver? You are going to Heaven, congratulations!"

The bus driver happily opens the corresponding door and steps through. The priest smiles and heads towards the same door as well, but the angel stops him in his path:

"Not you, Father Johnson. You are going to Hell, I am sorry."

Outraged, the priest yells "What?! Why?? I have devoted my entire life to spreading the Lord's word! This is unfair! How come a bus driver step through, but not a holy priest?!"

With a serious look on his face, the angel replies "Well, you have indeed devoted your life to spreading the word, but it means nothing if your entire congregation is asleep and doesn't really care for you are preaching.

Meanwhile, whenever Mr. Stanford was driving his bus, everyone inside would pray to God, even non-believers."

Coffee Grounds - Mosquito Repellent or Just Gardener's Gold

There's a lot of things flying by on the internet these days.

Facebook is adding to it.

But some of it is true, some of it is false, and some of it has a bit of both in it.

I may have stumbled onto something here.

When I moved to South Florida, I ended up with a lot of really fascinating people around me.

My godmother was fresh from being one of the people directly responsible for having pig production being protected so that they do not end up in crates on factory farms.   She's a gardener and her husband was into making some amazing Bonsai trees.  I'm fortunate to have her and two of those trees in my yard today.

I have other friends here who amaze me just as much as my own godmother.

Some are teaching appreciation for the environment by their own hands.  Others have a strong hand in creating ecological parks.  More are directly involved in horticultural pursuits.

I find life greatly improved as a result.

I do my own part to give back.  I've got a pot farm.  Well not THAT kind of pot.  A farm of pots with gardening plants in the back yard.  One after another is growing and taking root to later go into the garden. 

The yard is so chock full of plants that I have a lot of trouble finding room for them.

Meanwhile I am trying to figure out how to grow more.  Our hedge is dying back so I am pre-growing Podocarpus for the next hedge.  May as well, I have the time!

I go out in the morning with coffee mug in hand and look for things to improve the yard.

But that coffee.  I was told never to throw the grounds in the garbage.  It's "Rich Organic Material - Gardener's Gold".  May as well just toss it in the gardens, right?

We had gotten a few pots for the front porch, Lemongrass.  It was bought to keep down pests, mosquitoes primarily.  I would splash water on it when I go to wash the dog's feet off before going into the house, and didn't think too much more about the lemongrass.

At one point I was having a discussion of how there seemed to be fewer mosquitoes out front as a result.  The problem was that out back where there was another plant, I had a much worse problem with mosquitoes.  It wasn't working.

But out front was tolerable.  I just would spray a fog of poison out the back door before going onto the Lanai

to cut back the mosquitoes.

There was something different about out front and one of those annoying Internet Memes gave me the answer.

That gardener's gold - Coffee Grounds seemed to be having its own effect.

You see, to the one side of the lemongrass, I would throw the morning's coffee grounds onto the top of the soil.  It was right under the bathroom window and the soil was visibly just a sheen of soil over some stones put there over the years.  It was getting thicker.

The picture in the meme said to toss the grounds near where you have a problem spot with mosquitoes, drain your pots.  This was because "Mosquitoes Hate The Smell of Coffee Grounds".

We may be onto something.

My backyard was a fog of little tiger mosquitoes that I would literally run away from to get out to work in the yard.

My front yard and porch I could work on the windows, even rest my coffee mug on Aunt Betty's table and not get bit badly.

It's all relative.

So I got a lightbulb go off in my head.

Why not try coffee grounds in the plant pots out back.  I have more than 30 of them.  Orchids, Podocarpus,

Hibiscus, and Banana Trees. 

So I did.  Started on the Lanai, worked my way out.  When I got to the end, repeat as needed.  I even put a stripe of the stuff over by the pool equipment which is a corridor about the same width as my own armspan.  I can touch fence and wall and it collected a cloud of the nasty little blood suckers.

I won't say that the mosquitoes are all gone.  I would need a dome over the property and then pump it full of pesticides.  That would be no fun because I would never be able to use the thing.

But...

I have to say that since I started doing this, there is a definite difference.

Much fewer mosquitoes.
Much less of a panic.
I can use the lanai out back and my front porch.

Yes there are mosquitoes, but they are the exception and not the rule
My Lanai does not smell like a combination of Brazilian Cerrado and Pumpkin Spice at all.

And I can actually use it!

This is kind of a "Chicken Soup" thing - It couldn't hurt.  May not work for you, but couldn't work

But...

I will keep doing it since it IS working for me.

While those folks up North won't need to think about this since it is getting colder and they're going into winter, down here we wont' see 60F/15C for another two months.  By then I will have a nice coating of brown over all my plants and much fewer mosquitoes.

I guess once in a while, those memes have something to them.  At least in my eyes.

Your mileage may vary.

A Wife Sends Her Husband To Get Snails At The Market

His wife warns him "I don't want you to stop at the bar on your way home! I want you to go to the market, buy the snails and then come straight home just after. You always find an excuse to get drunk, not this time if you know what's good for you!"

The guy agrees, takes his basket and goes to the market.

On his way home, he passes in front of the bar. What the hell, he thinks, if I just take one drink the wife will never know.

A dozen drinks later he realizes the night has fallen. He thinks, the wife is going to be so angry!

He takes his basket and start running toward his home.

Because of the dark, and probably also because of the alcohol, he misses a step just in front of his door and all the snails fly out of his basket.

Damn!  Damn!  Damn!  He thinks...

He goes flat on the floor so he can pick back up all the snails sprayed in front of him. The door opens and his wife is looking down on him. She doesn't look pleased.

"Come on you guys, he says, we're almost there! Just one more yard."