where's the damned bad joke thread?

[iverglas]

It's Friday. Allow me to honour lunabush by quoting him:

... well, this doesn't quite work. Once lunabush graces us with a joke:

1. Show your appreciation for <his>joke
2. Post one of your own
3. Explain the connection, however tenuous, to Justice and or Public Safety

Of course, you can practise on mine.

A federal election has been called in Canada, for June 28 or something like that. The civil service email is flying.

Five surgeons are discussing who make the best patients to operate on.

The first surgeon says, "I like to see accountants on my operating table because when you open them up, everything inside is numbered."

The second responds, "Yeah, but you should try electricians! Everything inside them is color coded."

The third surgeon says, "No, I really think librarians are the best; everything inside them is in alphabetical order."

The fourth surgeon chimes in, "You know, I like construction workers. Those guys always understand when you have a few parts left over at the end, and when the job takes longer than you said it would."

But the fifth surgeon shut them all up when he observed: "You're all wrong. Politicians are the easiest to operate on. There's no guts, no heart, no brains and no spine, and the head and the ass are interchangeable.

And the connection to J/PS? Well it's obvious; we all knew already how much more dangerous doctors are than guns.


The email of course came with the following caveat; govern yerselves accordingly:

The information contained in and transferred with this communication is intended only for the recipient(s) designated above, it is protected by law, and may contain information which is privileged and confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any review, dissemination, distribution, copying or use of this communication is unauthorized and strictly prohibited.

[MrBenchley]

1. Davy Crockett walks twenty miles to the Trading Post

"Hey, Davy" says Sam the guy who runs the Trading Post. "Tell me, are you still making fires at night by rubbing two sticks together?"

"You betcha, Sam. Ain't no 'tother way. Why?"

"Got something to show you. Something to make fire. It's called a 'match'."

"'Match'? Never heard of it."

"Watch this. If you want a fire you just do this," Sam says, taking a match and striking it on his pants.

"Huh. Well, that's something, but that ain't for me, Sam."

"Well, why not, Davy?"

"I can't be walking twenty miles to borrow your pants every time I need to start a fire."

[mosin]

2. dissemination

The information contained in and transferred with this communication is intended only for the recipient(s) designated above, it is protected by law, and may contain information which is privileged and confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any review, dissemination, distribution, copying or use of this communication is unauthorized and strictly prohibited.

So the first thing you did upon receiving this warning was disseminate the communication? :)

[iverglas]

3. I am wise in the ways of the civil service

I actually didn't know that the Public Service hereabouts had started using these caveats -- that's the first one I've ever seen, and I get dozens of civil servant emails a week. (It was of course bilingual, but I spared you the French.) I get the caveat -- a great big long one -- every time a buddy emails me from her computer in the belly of the Australian government.

That email came from somebody who works for Parliament. I'll bet that a substantial segment of the population that is friends with people who work for Parliament have received one like it. ;)

But hark, anyhow. It says:

If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any review, dissemination, distribution, copying or use of this communication is unauthorized and strictly prohibited.

I *was* the intended recipient. I can do what I want with it. *You* can't.

[mosin]

4. OK

Very true. However, since the joke is in the public domain -- it's a very old joke -- I believe I am also free to do with it as I wish. ;)

Those disclaimers have become quite standard on e-mails and faxes from just about every financial and legal institution with which I do business.

It was of course bilingual, but I spared you the French.

My French is a bit rusty, but I can usually get by. My Spanish is a bit better. As you recall, I can also handle both 14th century and 18th century English with a little effort. :)

[iverglas]

5. in fact ...

I looked again, and the caveat wasn't bilingual at all - it was just there twice in English. I suspect that it was included in the email that my buddy had received, which she just copied & sent on. It's interesting that the Cdn public service actually doesn't use one, particularly since I do get stuff by email that is in fact subject to non-disclosure rules.

French is my best other language. My favourite multilingual tale was when an African student approached me in 1977 or so in Havana (you could tell who was foreign; they tucked their shirts in) and asked me something in Russian. I replied in Russian that I didn't understand him, and didn't speak Russian, and as I recall we ended up not being able to communicate since my Spanish at the time was pretty non-existent. He was a Portuguese-speaking Angolan, I imagine.

Then there was the woman who approached me as I sat on the tube in London with my mum, exhausted and glazed-eyed after a day of tramping around Brighton, and thrust a piece of paper at me. She gestured that she couldn't speak or hear. I looked at the paper, which went on about how her father was dead and her sister was young and she had no money and I should give her some, recognized the style of handwriting and syntax, and said to her, in Farsi, "You're Iranian?" Now, why I would ask a non-hearing, non-speaking person that ... and for some reason, I asked it again when she didn't answer. Another woman appeared at her side and began screeching at me in Farsi. Now, my Farsi wasn't that good, but I figured that somewhere in there she was telling me that my father was a dog. All eyes of course focussed on me, being screeched at by the companion of a non-speaking, non-hearing woman begging for money. The two got off at the next stop. I turned to my mother, who hadn't a clue what was going on, and said: when I spoke to her, did she react? Oh yes, my mother said; she looked very surprised. Surprised indeed; she'd managed to hit probably the only gringa on the tube that day who spoke Farsi, and she hadn't been quite prepared enough for that particular turn of events.

Yes, on Friday afternoon I will willingly bore anyone with my tales, but now I have to run off the library in search of a supreme court decision that is the one case that is inexplicably not on the SCC website, and is on the mirror website only in French and I happen to need it in English. That's just about worse luck than pulling your scam on the wrong gringa ... but wait! I call the civil servant who gets to help me with this stuff, and it turns out that she has access to an electronic version of it, and voilà, there it is in my inbox. Life is fine. I might just go have a drink now.

Do you people drink bloody caesars? I don't, because I just don't like the idea of clam juice (and I don't even want to know what that is), so I stick to the bloody mary side of it, but I've gathered that bloody caesars are somewhat like the Tragically Hip, and have never gained widespread popularity in the US.





1 oz Vodka
Salt
Celery Salt
Pepper
1 dash Worcestershire Sauce
1 dash Tabasco Sauce
Clamato Juice

Rim tall glass with celery salt, fill with ice and ingredients. Garnish with a celery stick, straw, and lime.
Serve in: Collins Glass

Oh, okay, collins glass.



Take the empty one out of there and pour it in.

Hey, it beats