Think You Are Having A Bad Day?

It's Monday. So you think you are having a bad day ...

Fire authorities in California found a corpse in a burned-out section of forest while assessing the damage done by a forest fire. The deceased male was dressed in a full wet suit, complete with scuba tanks on his back, flippers, and face mask.

A postmortem test revealed that the man died not from burns, but from massive internal injuries. Dental records provided a positive identification. Investigators then set about to determine how a fully clothed diver ended up in the middle of a forest fire.

It was revealed that on the day of the fire, the man went diving off the coast, some 20 miles from the forest. The fire fighters, seeking to control the fire as quickly as possible, had called in a fleet of helicopters with very large dip buckets. Water was dipped from the ocean and emptied at the site of the forest fire. You guessed it. One minute our diver was making like Flipper in the Pacific, the next, he was doing the breast stroke in a fire dip bucket 300 feet in the air. 

Some days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed. Still think you're having a bad day? 
A man was working on his motorcycle on the patio, his wife nearby in the kitchen. While racing the engine, the motorcycle accidentally slipped into gear. The man, still holding onto the handlebars, was dragged along as it burst through the glass patio doors.

His wife, hearing the crash, ran in the room to find her husband cut and bleeding, the motorcycle, and the shattered patio door. She called for an ambulance and, because the house sat on a fairly large hill, went down the several flights of stairs to meet the paramedics and escort them to her husband. While the attendants were loading her husband, the wife managed to right the motorcycle and push it outside. She also quickly blotted up the spilled gasoline with some paper towels and tossed them into the toilet.

After being treated and released, the man returned home, looked at the shattered patio door and the damage done to his motorcycle. He went into the bathroom and consoled himself with a cigarette while attending to his business. About to stand, he flipped the butt between his legs.

The wife, who was in the kitchen, heard a loud explosion and her husband screaming. Finding him lying on the bathroom floor with his trousers blown away and burns on his buttocks, legs and groin, she once again phoned for an ambulance.

The same paramedic crew was dispatched. As the paramedics carried the man down the stairs to the ambulance they asked the wife how he had come to burn himself. She told them. They started laughing so hard, one slipped, the stretcher dumping the husband out. He fell down the remaining stairs, breaking his arm. 

Still having a bad day? Just remember, it could be worse ...
The average cost of rehabilitating a seal after the Exxon Valdes oil spill in Alaska was $80,000. At a special ceremony, two of the most expensively saved animals were being released back into the wild amid cheers and applause from onlookers. A minute later, in full view, a killer whale ate them both. 

Still think you are having a bad day?
A woman came home to find her husband in the kitchen shaking frantically, almost in a dancing frenzy, with some kind of wire running from his waist towards the electric kettle. Intending to jolt him away from the deadly current, she whacked him with a handy plank of wood, breaking his arm in two places. Up to that moment, he had been happily listening to his Walkman. 

You can't STILL be thinking you're having a bad day?
Two animal rights protesters were protesting at the cruelty of sending pigs to a slaughterhouse in Bonn , Germany . Suddenly, all two thousand pigs broke loose and escaped through a broken fence, stampeding madly. The two hopeless protesters were trampled to death. 

What? STILL having a bad day??
Iraqi terrorist Khay Rahnajet didn't pay enough postage on a letter bomb. It came back with 'return to sender' stamped on it. Forgetting it was the bomb, he opened it and was blown to bits.

There now, feeling better?

Tags:badday

How Much Does Size Matter?

Has anybody noticed, like I have, that the very beautiful to look at, smooth and identical in size, shape and very pleasing bright red tomatoes actually taste quite bland and almost flavourless? Yet those unevenly shaped, half green and grown in somebody's back garden variety are full of flavour and absolutely delicious? Same with the strawberries and lemons. But these are difficult to find, while everything is mass produced in modern times, and enough people are willing to sacrifice taste for appearances.

Things might be changing back to the more natural form now, the proposal of which had been approved by the state members of Europe. The objective is to lower food prices, rationalizing and simplifying the community norms. But, the horticultural sector in Spain have opposed to this stipulation, which in the past regulated the shape and size of fruit and the vegetables, allowing horticulturists to produce products in standardized size, shape and colour, to make them look more attractive. As well as the incentive to compete with other growers.

According to the horticulture organization, the new rule would "make this country the dustbin of the world" referring to the products nobody wants. This would also oblige the local growers to compete with imported products, cheaper and now without limitations of quality like before.

They also reckon that the new law would contribute equally a disadvantage for the consumers as it facilitates the proliferation of privately set up norms that doesn't guarantee standard quality, just the acceptance on the part of distributors. They also suggest that the sub quality products that would be throw away before, would now continue being distributed and sold, then it's the customer that have to do the throwing and bear the loss.

Both arguments seem sensible and make fair sense. I for one though, go only for quality, whatever size and shape. Same principle for everything else in my life.

Tags:horticulture,fruit,vegetable

Mind What The Critics Say

Too often we accept values of commodities blindfolded, metaphorically speaking. Knowing nothing of the product personally, nor even bothered to, but simply take for truth whatever critics, presumed experts, advertising, TV commercial sing out to be the top quality of this and that. What if, there were no such influence at all from the above mentioned experts to recommend what we should eat, drink, wear.... what car we should buy, which bank in which to invest our savings, what book to read, what movie to see or the TV program to watch .... which computer is the most up to the minute, where to go for our holidays? Suppose We must find out the value of everything ourselves, make our own judgement on their merits or lack of it, to decide for ourselves what we need or want, not be told we must, or not, do or have. Many of us might even feel quite lost, having been guided in every aspect most part of our lives by simply turning on the television or look around us at the millions of advertisements blatantly posted everywhere the eyes can reach. After being conditioned for so long relying on advice of other sources and guidelines, we tend to make the most common mistake of judging something's value by the price tag. If something is expensive, it must be better than this other one for the same purpose of use, but costing less. If a bottle of Chateau Lafite carries a price tag of 700€, that must be the King of all wines. No. Not always so you know. Robin Goldstein, a famous Texan culinary critic, founder and editor of various gastronomic guides, decided this past May to stage a 'Blind Judging' by 500 professional wine critics-tasters to test 540 different wines. The surprising result was notably against all rules of price = quality proportion. Nevertheless, the consumers judge positively based mainly on the cost. And recommendation by experts. What the critics have selected, that's what they will buy, whether the value is just or not. Many have little or no knowledge of wine in areas of aroma, body and taste. A few even let themselves be influenced by the packaging of the bottle. Goldstein had been awarded by the prestigious Oenology or Enology (never knew which word is more correct, anyway it means the science of wine making) magazine, the 'Wine Spectator', for recommending the wine card of a restaurant in Milan. The most hilarious (and the most embarrassing for the publication was having to later publicly apologize) was that this restaurant didn't exist, and the wines in question had been judged to be the worst of the last 20 years. The incident makes you wonder, doesn't it, why we are sometimes so very gullible, or stupid? Tags:critics,experts,winetasting

June 02 The First Photo Of Whale Birth

WhaleBirth

The crew dedicated to observation and study of marine mammals, by extreme luck, caught on film the exact moment of the birth of a cetacean-whale, in it's natural habitat, in the water south of Tenerife. This was likely the world's first ever image captured of a cetacean in liberty giving birth. The magic moment was on the 30th August 2008.