Notes From Neal

“Summer time, and the livin’ is easy…”

So goes the song from the musical Porgy and Bess.  The weather is warm, the swimming pool is comfortable, the evenings on the deck are pleasant.

Yes, summer in Ohio. Life is good!

I need a break.  Time and space to clear my mind, refresh my soul, and lose the stress in my body.

I’ll close with one of my favorite quotes, first found on a t-shirt while on vacation about twenty years ago in Nags Head, North Carolina.  The restaurant was towards the south and named Sam and Omies.  It’s still there and they have a web site now.  I haven’t been there in many a moon, so I’ll make no recommendations.

But I digress.  Here’s the quote found on that long since worn-out t-shirt:

“Everyone ought to believe in something, I believe I will go fishing.”

Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river.
– Nikita Khrushchev

Take everything you like seriously, except yourselves.
– Rudyard Kipling

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.
– Will Rogers

It’s so much easier to suggest solutions when you don’t know too much about the problem.
– Malcom Forbes

Making duplicate copies and computer printouts of things no one wanted even one of in the first place is giving America a new sense of purpose.
– Andy Rooney

One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.
– Kurt Vonnegut

The graphic shown below displays one of the greatest existential and philosophical paradoxes known to man. Don’t you think so?

Or do you really know what it’s all about?

“The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.”
– Albert Einstein

“It is well that war is so terrible - otherwise we would grow too fond of it.”
– General Robert E. Lee

“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
– George Orwell

“Women need a reason to have sex. Men just need a place.”
– Billy Crystal

A young guy walks into a Dallas bank and steps up to a teller to cash a check. At this juncture, everything is normal. Only the check is Texas-style big, as in the amount of $360 billion dollars ($360,000,000,000). Not made out to the current holder of the check, of course.

This enterprising young man then claims the check is from his girlfriend’s mother as an offer to help him start a record company.

Soon after, police are involved and there allegations and charges of forgery, weapons, and not surprisingly possession of the evil, foul, scourge of America, marijuana.

If you wish, you may read all about it in the Dallas Morning News.

$360 billion to start a record company? Those are some expensive records, I’d say.

Proof once again, that there are some really stupid people in the world.

Let’s move from President Bush being the worst President ever to another world perspective. Take a look at the linked map, entitled The World According to Americans.

What connection might be made between this map and our current “sitting President”, the man they call “W”?

In honor of the opening of the baseball season, I offer a series of baseball related quotes.

Baseball is 90% mental, the other half is physical.
– Yogi Berra (1925 - )

Baseball is a skilled game. It’s America’s game — it, and high taxes.
– Will Rogers (1879 - 1935)

Opera in English is, in the main, just about as sensible as baseball in Italian.
– H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)

Baseball has the great advantage over cricket of being sooner ended.
– George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

If the fans don’t wanna come out to the ballpark, no one can stop ‘em.
– Yogi Berra (1925 - )

Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight Protestants, today it’s open to anybody who owns hideous clothing.
– Dave Barry (1947 - )

While we’re on the topic of bumper stickers, here’s an excellent one I found hanging on the wall in the office of a colleague of mine.

It’s that time again; wherein I go rummaging through my email spam folder. Below you’ll find nugget upon nugget of wisdom and knowledge from all those emails that nobody is supposed to read.

That nice girl Delmar writes…

Hello! I am bored this afternoon. I am nice girl that would like to chat with you. Email me at xxx@uuu.com only, because I am using my friend’s email to write this. Mind me sending some of my pictures to you?

Just what I need. Pictures of some guy who can’t even use his own email. Thanks, Delmar. I won’t get into your gender bending issues.

Davis Waters writes to tell me that he/she/it “has all kinds of meds.” And I need to know that because?

Falker Andre wishes to inform me of the latest in clothing technology:

A new revolution in medicine has been discovered! Click here
Feel the growth in your pants!

Come to think of it, I do need my pants to grow. In the waist. Or else I need to play more tennis. Maybe Davis Waters (see above) has some meds to help my tennis game.

I wasn’t going to mention an email I received from Lakeisha Sparks because it’s so dirty. Her subject line is, “provide stronger erections, improve sexual endurance, and increase ejaculation volume.” Here’s the kicker. In the body of her post, she writes:

“We would like to thank John from FL, USA and Dan from Australia for sending us before and after photos and also letting us show them on our website.”

Doesn’t that get you the least bit tempted to visit good old Lakeisha’s web site? I mean, who can resist “before and after photos?” Especially of John and our Australian friend, Dan. Before and after what?

Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention all those posts from people all over the world, some of whom I’ve never met, who have the most wonderful suggestions on ways to please the ladies. Halsey Shorty, for instance, must certainly be a world renowned psychic. Halsey seems to have a keen sense of my innermost thoughts and secret dreams of a “larger love stick,” mentioned in the subject line of his recent email.

Wasn’t it President Theodore Roosevelt who said “speak softly and carry a big stick.” Do you think a love stick such as the larger one that Halsey proposed above, was what he was talking about? What was so confusing is that the email itself didn’t purse my interest any further. I lost interest when the post went on about some casino somewhere.

Note: This post will probably get lots of hits because I tagged it with the tag “sexuality”. Although I didn’t use the word “penis”, there is a reference to “love stick” and “ejaculation”. That should grab me a few readers.

“If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking.”
– Lyndon B. Johnson

“If the fans don’t wanna come out to the ballpark, no one can stop ‘em.”
– Yogi Berra

“It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.”
– Oscar Wilde

“I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.”
– Harry S. Truman

“Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.”
– W.C. Fields