What is love worth?

Jack wakes up with a huge hangover after attending his company's Christmas Party. He didn't even remember how he got home from the party. As bad as he was feeling, he wondered if he did something wrong. Jack had to force himself to open his eyes, and the first thing he saw were a couple of aspirins next to a glass of water on the side table. And, next to them, a single red rose! Jack sits up and sees his clothing in front of him, all clean and pressed. He looks around the room and sees that it is in perfect order, spotlessly clean. So is the rest of the house.

He takes the aspirins, cringes when he sees a huge black eye staring back at him in the bathroom mirror. Then he notices a note hanging on the corner of the mirror written in red with little hearts on it and a kiss mark from his wife in lipstick: "Honey, breakfast is on the stove, I left early to get groceries to make you your favorite dinner tonight. I love you, darling!

"He stumbles to the kitchen and sure enough, there is hot breakfast, steaming hot coffee and the morning newspaper. His son is also at the table, eating. Jack asks,"Son ... what happened last night?"

"Well, you came home after 3am, drunk and out of your mind. You fell over the coffee table and broke it, and then you puked in the hallway, and got that black eye when you ran into the door. "Confused, he asked his son, "So, why is everything in such perfect order and so clean? I have a rose, and breakfast is on the table waiting for me?"

His son replies, "Oh that! Mom dragged you to the bedroom, and when she tried to take your pants off, you screamed,"Leave me alone, I'm married!!"

Broken coffee table $239.99
Hot breakfast $4.20
Two aspirins $0.38
Saying the right thing, at the right time ... priceless.

PJ: He came, we heard, he conquered

I sit today in the hills of Christchurch watching the clouds sweep in and the rain fall - arh true bliss. Mind you rather cold down here - ekk not nice - but no one dies of the cold right?

Anyway I sit in a friends lounge which is probably the warmest spot known to man - fantastic. I'm visiting for a long weekend and struggling to stay awake after only four hours sleep in the last two nights - reasons?

1/ Sore neck that doesn't like it if I lay down or sit up or stand around or anything for that matter. It likes it if I go for a walk or make muesli at 3am or for reason #2 ....

2/ Up at 4.30am to catch the red-eye to Christchurch - what was I thinking? I must be mad, particularly as I knew I would be out late (1am) with reason #3 ....

3/ Late night with PJ O'Rourke - thanks to the CIS team, wonderfully organised.

Mr O'Rourke didn't fail to amuse all, he really is the most entertaining and long serving satirist in the world. At some point during the evening he commented that he doesn't have the intelligence that the great economists have. But to reduce a concept down to its core, add current events and brilliant observations, mixed it all together with fine humour shows a massive comprehension and fine intellect. As all writers can attest, it's hard enough doing the first, adding humour without sounding like a bitter fool makes it nigh on impossible.

PJ has the skills to point out a person's stupidity/weakness/hypocrisy, create a brilliantly revealing and entertaining story as to why, and then make us all laugh, hoot and cheer - but here's where a special talent is exposed - the victim of the humour will be laughing along with the rest of us (the Topp Twins and Jon Stewart seem to possess this skill also), very cleaver.

PJ's skills are highly useful in an era where the majority of the population possess little to no concentration skills. If you can reduce a concept down to a few words or sentences, then make them memorable by injecting a huge dose of humour, then you're there.*

Later in the evening I had the great pleasure of talking to the honoured guest face-to-face, which was all a little overwhelming. I've never meet anyone that I really admired before, it's hard to think of what to say and you forget every question you always wanted to asked - really you want to just grin and say 'you're fantastic' - over and over again. But we did talk about 'The Troubles' that we have both experienced - the fact that he has flown half way around the world for a grueling media fest in both Australia and New Zealand is to be admired. I would have to take the rest of the year off.

Of course the Libertarianz were beside themselves that we had tables right in front of the stage and like a bunch of kids we had grins from ear-to-ear. At the first opportunity we pinned him down for a group photo.

* Lynn Truss taught me more about grammar in one evening with Eat, Shoots & Leaves, than I learnt after 13 years of education. Mind you 'chemo brain' stops me putting this into practice - that's my story and I'm sticking to it - I can get a doctors note if you don't believe me. Bill Bryson inspired some kind of interest in the English language - over and above pig ignorance - with Mother Tongue, as well as bringing science to the masses with A Short Story of Nearly Everything. All this via humour.

Fun Friday

I know, I know it's old, but I still think it's funny.

Ugly Bat Boy

Hey PC I've found a cat uglier than yours - ha ha!



But this is where the likeness ends because "He loves being petted, has a terrific disposition and is beautiful on the inside".

Juno you need to step up to terrific.

Best Blog of the Week

Not PC found Hugh Laurie giving us timely advice on "fixing everything".

Where the hell is Matt?

Well I can't figure out how to put a You Tube video onto this blog so you'll just have to link to it here. After a difficult night in the hospital (not me, another patient) it made me smile.

Matt seems to have been everywhere - even Auckland.

Hell, I'd sell my soul

Damn why didn't I think of this? Selling ones soul for $5,001 - I'd sell it for $5,000, which would be a excellent deal for Hell's Pizza, they'd get my soul well before they'd get Walter Scott's.

And haven't TradeMe turned into boring old farts - guys get a sense of humour.

Update: Well what do I know about all this heaven & hell palaver - apparently when you sell your soul the transaction takes place when you are alive. So I have no advantage over Walter at all, he would be much more useful in the promotion of Hell than me, him being a healthy 24 year old and all that.

Let's blog

Many of you are new to the brave new world of blogs and probably wonder what it's all about. Well fortunately for me I don't need to explain it as Bernard Hickey at Show Me The Money has done if for me with this weeks blog Click Here to Understand the Power of Blogs. At the same time he managed a big embarrasing plug for my blog - blush - I'm getting quite an audience now.

Bernard’s commentary is always on the money (well except that Capital Gains Tax comment of course, but we’ll work on that) as can be seen at this blog The Generation That New Zealand Inc Failed. This country is heading downhill so fast it’s not funny. Mr Hickey is probably known to you as the editor at interest.co.nz and is often seen commentating on business issues, especially with this credit crunch playing out.

Blogs are used for all sorts of reasons, from diaries of peoples’ lives, to politics, philosophy, business, humour and general commentary, to name a very few – many mix it all up. I just love it all.

One of my favourite bloggers is Cactus Kate who does an excellent mix of acerbic humour, political commentary, business and just plain un-PCness. To me she’s like a female version of Dr House. This weeks humour blog actually started last week with Simple Men Corner, it was updated on Tuesday with Cairns and concluded Friday with Cairnt. It has everything required to entertain – humour, suspense and drama. With characters like this in the world it will never be a boring place – love it.

In amongst the humour Cactus provides us with intelligent political commentary which can been seen with the following two blogs about Labour and National’s young candidates. More humour at ATM Rage – I'm too polite or sissy to deal with this situation like that, but working on it. Hell just read all her blogs and be done with it.

Another big favourite is Not PC who mixes politics, economics, and philosophy with beer, music and architecture. Not PC has been in a blogging frenzy this week – read about the recession, and the polar cap, but best you just read through them all and become enlightened about today’s current events.

Liberty Scott always has an intelligent commentary on events of the day – liked this blog. Every single blog will make you rethink your opinions – or think full stop – always a good thing for fighting that Alzheimer's.

Anyway, check out my blog list, I add new bloggers all the time.

Pea, Pee or P

A friend of mine emailed this to me:
".... I ask 4-year old* if she would like to go and see 'The Princess and the Pea' at the theatre, and she asks 'Does the princess pee on stage?'.

Then I ask husband* if he would like to take daughter to see 'The Princess and the P' at the theatre, and he asks 'What, is it about drugs?'

Don't you love the English language.

* Names obscured to protect the very young and the very stupid.

Relgious Humour

It's raining, raining, raining, ... so I'm spending the afternoon surfing my 'Favourites' on the web and landed up spending an hour reading religious humour:
4 Jesus and Mo,
4 Russell's Teapot, &
4 Lindsay Perigo (advice to Lindsay - don't watch Fox, it'll rot your brain.

Well it seemed more fun than finishing my blog on the Drug War.