Humor and Odds & Ends – Ervin Somogyi

Fun Stuff #3

SOME (OFF THE) WALL HUMOR

A journalist who works for a newspaper in Jerusalem lives near his office, and he walks to and from work every day. His walk takes him right past the famous Wailing Wall. [NOTE: This is the remaining wall of the original Temple of Solomon that was destroyed by the Romans two thousand years ago, but that has become a holy shrine for people to come to and pray. They pray, write prayers on notes and place them between the cracks in the stones, and so on. A lot of them cry.]

The journalist walks past this twice a day . . . and twice a day, without fail, for months on end, he sees this old fellow standing at the far end, in a prayerful attitude. Eventually, curiosity gets the better of him and he decides to approach this prayerful stranger.

He introduces himself, and says that he sees this fellow at prayer all the time . . . and he got curious . . . and wanted to know if he could ask what the fellow is praying for.

The old fellow explains that he’s had a good life, he’s comfortably off, and that he doesn’t need material possessions . . . so he prays for world peace.

“That’s amazing”, the journalist says. “What dedication and generosity of spirit. How is it for you, to do that, all this time?”

The old fellow replies, “it’s like talking to a fuckin’ wall!”.

Fun Stuff #2

THE BROKEN CLOCK PUZZLE

Michael is a handy guy who makes things. He makes ukuleles, tooling, jigs, furnishings, displays, takes photos, and so on. While he is active in many kinds of such projects, the people who use them generally agree that Michael’s stuff is much better than it looks or functions, despite how overpriced it all is.

Michael recently made a wall clock out of scraps, cutoffs, and leftovers of various materials. It worked fine . . . until a particularly volatile series of anti-government rants by Bob knocked it off the wall. The clock hit the floor, just missing Denyse and Carol-#1-the-taller, and broke into three pieces. They, being used to Bob’s rants, continued chatting.

Sarah A. jumped out of her seat in fright, fearing a ninja assassination attempt in progress. Sara S. emitted a shriek so high-pitched that only the dogs could hear it; every cup and glass in the room shattered. Carol-#2-the-shorter, in an unexpected manifestation of fight-or-flight syndrome, was reduced to the only-recently-discovered third reaction: helpless giggles and hiccups. Jamie clung to both her doggie and Liz with an alacrity heretofore unseen, leaving indentations in them that would last the rest of the day. Ervin was . . . well, it was hard to tell. He might have had a hangover or was experiencing flashbacks. You never know, with him.

Just as Michael and Trini were about to clean the mess up, Barbara walked in.

She took one look at the broken clock and — in a breathless utterance delivered with Laurence-Olivier-like composure and accompanying British accent said: “OH MY GOD, MICHAEL. LOOK! THE CLOCK BROKE INTO THREE PIECES IN SUCH A WAY THAT THE NUMBERS ON EACH CHUNK ADD UP TO THE SAME TOTAL!”

HOW DID THE CLOCK BREAK? WHAT NUMBERS FROM ONE TO TWELVE DID EACH PIECE CONTAIN?

Fun Stuff #1

Real Test: Count the “F’s” in the following text:

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC

STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS…(see below)

Managed it ?

Scroll down only after you have counted them, okay? Do you think there are three? How many? 3?

Wrong, there are 6 !!–no joke.

Read it again.

The reasoning behind it is that . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . The brain cannot process “of”.

Incredible or what ? Go back and look again!!

Anyone who counts all 6 “F’s” on the first go is a genius.

Three is normal, four is quite rare. Send this to your friends — it drives them crazy.

AN OPTICAL ILLUSION

Here’s a photo of a guitar that can present itself as an optical illusion.
Can you see it? Is the peak/point an innie, or an outie?