Forumites changing light bulbs -- a humorous thread!

[smaug]

I get boiling mad!
Bloody idiots the lot of em
Nowhere is safe and you are dead right Pat its all about money and short term policy

[a non-amos]

Excuse me, but we're not all bloody idiots.

Over the last few decades my pet projects at work have included finding ways to tread more lightly on the planet we share.

As a general rule, these projects have shown better guardianship of the planet at large, better functionality of the products we design, and reduced cost of production.

These projects have also reduced (almost eliminated) our dependence on raw materials provided by rebel groups who use kidnapped children as slave labor in unregulated strip mining of rain forests.  When the kidnapped children are fed, it is bush meat.  Only google "bush meat" if you have a strong stomach.  They kill gorillas and chimpanzees for food.

I should probably not say much about meetings at work, but I do feel safe in stating that we have adopted internal policies that are "greener" and far better in terms of global human rights.  I also feel safe in stating that our products work better and cost less to manufacture.

This was on the tail of another project that did eliminate our emissions of some rather horrendous greenhouse gasses (100% reduction).  Quite frankly, it was costing us too much for the chemicals that were trashing the planet.  Other companies followed our lead, so the total impact was greater than expected.  That's a different story.

Smaug, I really do feel your outrage.  Have you done anything about this?

Pat, I understand that you find this utterly depressing.  Have you lost hope?

There are other things we all can do.  Seemingly small things can have impact.  This might not be appropriate for a thread dedicated to humor.  Should we start a new thread, maybe "save the planet" or something similar but not quite as cliché?  I have some ideas that might need your help.

- A

[ensiform]

Hey!  This got serious fast.

MAKE WITH THE HA HA, JOKE MONKEYS

[smaug]

Hi a non amos
what a great idea !

and lease forgive me if I have given offence
But are you a climate change denier or politician - to whom I was directing my comment

My thing is the use of palm oil which is ravaging Indonesian and Malaysian rainforest

[a non-amos]

I must agree with Ensiform.  I have always valued the humor in this thread.

We need to take this serious discussion elsewhere.  I am starting a thread "environment".

[smaug]

We need to take this serious discussion elsewhere.  I am starting a thread "environment".


Great idea
Maybe the posts leading to this decision could be moved across to start the ball rolling?
I am not technically adept enough to do so, let alone know if its possible!!
S

[Alan W]

I've put a note in the thread that a non-amos started, linking back to the start of the relevant posts here.

[smaug]

Thanks Alan!

[a non-amos]

And now we should get back to the original topic.

How many engineers does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Nobody knows.  We haven't found any who are willing to do anything productive.

(note to those who don't know me as well:  yes, I'm an engineer)

[a non-amos]

This one is from my daughter:

What do you get when you cross a really good joke with a rhetorical question?



 . . .

[a non-amos]

Fun with a car dealership (a true story):

A local car dealer is moving to a new location and building a new showroom.  They sent out emails to previous customers.  They want to engrave our names into bricks and build them into a "wall of fame" to remind employees that their business is built on their customers.  It is left unstated that if our names are inscribed on their wall we might have some sense of pride and we might go back there for our next automotive purchase.

They wanted permission to use our names, and they wanted to know how we would like our names to appear on the brick.  If you know much about me, you will immediately realize that I saw this as a golden opportunity to have some fun.

I requested that our names should appear as "Montresor and Fortunato."

These are the two characters in Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Cask of Amontillado."

For those of you who have not yet read this, I might need to mention that Poe tends to explore the darker side of human nature.  Death.  Insanity.  Death.  Revenge.  Did I mention death?  He was instrumental in inventing the genre of horror, and some would say he was the inventor.  This is also one of the most perfectly written short stories, ever.

Read "The Cask of Amontillado" on a dark and windy night, maybe in November.  If you have already read it, consider reading it again.  It only takes a few minutes (well worth the time).

Whether this is new to you or if you are rereading it, this will stay with you forever.

I will not spoil the plot for those who have not yet read this masterpiece, but I would ask how creepy it would be to find these names inscribed on a brick in a wall.

The guy at the car dealership replied.  He wanted to confirm the names to be inscribed (written in stone, as it were).  Those names seemed to have nothing to do with our real names.

I told him that these names had special meaning to us.  They are pen names. 

They are proceeding at full speed to make a brick engraved with "Montresor and Fortunato" for inclusion into their wall.

This joke might outlive me.

Note to Alan:  How often does a joke recommend further reading?  It's all for the general good.

- A

[mkenuk]

'Cask of Amontillado' gave me nightmares when I first encountered it, aged about 14-15. I still find it very creepy.

Poe was apparently terrified of being buried alive - illnesses such a catalepsy and narcolepsy were little understood in the late 19th century. I believe he left orders that there should be holes drilled in his coffin and 'breathing tubes' buried along with him.

He certainly went a long way to popularizing  the 'horror' genre, but did he invent it? Probably not. Some fairly nasty things happen in 'Titus Andronicus' for example, and John Webster's plays include at least one example of premature entombment.

MK

[Alan W]

Poe seems to have had a hand in the founding of more than one literary genre.

His story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841) is often identified as the first detective story. That, and two other stories featuring the amateur sleuth C Auguste Dupin, pre-date Sherlock Holmes by decades. In fact, the first of Poe's stories pre-dates the word detective!

And science fiction writer and critic Thomas M Disch, in his book The Dreams our Stuff is Made of, suggested, perhaps tongue-in-cheek, that Poe was the founder of science fiction too. His argument, as I recall it, was not based on Poe's subject matter, but on the spirit in which his stories were written and read - reveling in the fantastical, the grotesque, secret ciphers, global conspiracies, etc.

[a non-amos]

How delicious is it that those two names will be inscribed on a brick in their wall?  This type of joke might be better on April Fool's Day, but the opportunity presented itself.  This joke might very well outlive me.

Let's make with more funnies!

Pavlov walked into a bar.  The phone rang.  He said, "Oh, drat, I forgot to feed my dog!"

[Tom44]

A word question joke:

If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, then doesn't it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged, models deposed, tree surgeons debarked, and dry cleaners depressed?