The Consultant
A shepherd was herding his flocks in a remote pasture when suddenly a brand new SUV advanced out of a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and a YSL tie leaned out of the window and asked our shepherd: "If I can tell you exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?"
The shepherd looks at the man, then at his peacefully grazing flock and calmly answers "sure!" The man parks the car, whips out his notebook, connects it to a cell-phone, surfs to a NASA page on the Internet where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system, scans the area, opens up a database and some 60 Excel spreadsheets with complex formulas. Finally he prints out a 150 page report on his hi-tech miniaturized printer, turns round to our shepherd and says: "you have here exactly 1586 sheep!"
"This is correct. As agreed, you can take one of the sheep," says the shepherd. He watches the young man make a selection and bundle it in his SUV.
Then he says: "If I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me my animal back?"
"Okay, why not" answers the young man.
"You are a consultant," says the shepherd.
"That is correct," says the man, "How did you guess that?"
"Easy" answers the shepherd. "You turn up here even though nobody called you. You want to be paid for the answer to a question I already knew the solution to. And you don't know anything about my business because you took my dog."
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Galaxies
The New York Times, among other papers, has published a new Hubble
photograph of distant galaxies colliding.
Of course, astronomers have had pictures of colliding galaxies for
quite some time now, but with the vastly improved resolution provided
by the Hubble Space Telescope, you can actually see the lawyers
rushing to the scene...
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Weird News
Honey wall tips man off to 60,000 bees
CONCORD, N.C. (UPI) -- A North Carolina man says he found out he was sharing his home with about 60,000 bees after he noticed honey oozing out a wall.
Mark Jones said he learned about the bees after tasting a mysterious liquid coming out of a wall in his
He was surprised to find out the liquid was honey produced by thousands of bees living behind the wall, WYFF-TV in
"I came over here and dipped my finger in it and tasted it. Sure enough, it was honey coming out of the wall," Jones said.
Beekeepers removed most of the insects with a vacuum Sunday after Jones and his wife decided it wasn't right to kill them, the newspaper said.
Keepers said the leftover bees will leave soon because they no longer have a hive there.
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Hawaii
Melanie Okazaki of McDonald's in
"We want to make sure that our customers get their orders right and they get them in the most convenient way possible,"
She said employees at the call center in
"It takes a little getting used to on the order-taker's side, but I think with practice, they become more and more comfortable working with our local clientele,"
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Political memorabilia sales spike
Mort Berkowitz, who owns Bold Concepts in
"I have over 150 different (Sen. Barack) Obama buttons. I've sold 110,000 Obama buttons, 30,000 Hillary Clinton buttons and 10,000 John McCain buttons," Berkowitz told the newspaper.
He said his most popular button feature
Berkowitz said most of his merchandise is purchased by political organizations and many of his items will be seen at the nearing national conventions.
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Computer Professor Husband
Husband: Hi dear. I'm logged in
Wife: Have you brought the groceries?
Husband: Bad command or file name
wife: But I told you in the morning ?
Husband: Erroneous syntax. Abort, retry, cancel?
Wife: What about my new TV ?
Husband: Variable not found
Wife: At least, give me your credit card. I need to do some shopping
Husband: Sharing violation. Access denied
Wife: It was a great mistake that I married an idiot like you
Husband: Data type mismatch
Wife: You are useless
Husband: By default
Wife: What about your salary ?
Husband: File in use. Try after some time
Wife: Who was in the car this morning ?
Husband: System is unstable. Press ALT + CTRL +
Wife: Are you going to have some snacks ?
Husband: File system full
Wife: What is the relation between you and your receptionist ?
Husband: only user with WRITE permission
Wife: What is my value in this family ?
Husband: Unknown virus
Wife: Do you love me or your computer or you're being just funny ?
Husband: Too many parameters!
Wife: I will go to my dad's house.
Husband: This program has performed an illegal operation and will be terminated
Wife: I'll leave you forever
Husband: Close all programs and logout and then login as another user
Wife: It's worthless talking to you
Husband: Shutdown the computer
Wife: I'm going
Husband: It's now safe to turn off your computer
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Passionate
Two police officers saw an old woman staggering down the street, stopping her they can tell she has had far too much to drink and instead of taking her to jail they decide to just drive her home. They loaded her into the police cruiser one of the officers gets in the back with the drunk woman.
As they drove through the streets they kept asking the old woman where she lived, all the old lady would say as she stroked the officers arm is, "You're Passionate."
They drove awhile longer and asked again, but again the same response as she stroked his arm, "You're Passionate."
The officers were getting a little upset so they stopped the car and said to the woman, "Look we have driven around this city for two hours and you still haven't told us where you live!"
She replied, "I keep trying to tell you, you're passin it!"
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Asthma, Attack!
Matthew sets up Andrew to go on a blind date with a friend of his. But Andrew is a little worried about going out with someone he has never seen before.
"What do I do if she's ugly?" says Andrew, "I'll be stuck with her all night."
"Don't worry." Matthew says. "Just go up to her door and meet her first. If you like what you see, then everything goes as planned. If you don't, just shout Aaauuuggghhh! and fake an asthma attack."
So that night, Andrew knocks at the girl's door, and when she comes out he is awe-struck at how beautiful and sexy she is. Andrew's about to speak when the girl suddenly shouts, "Aaauuuggghhh!"
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Honest Phlebotomist
During a visit to a military medical clinic, I was sent to the lab to have blood drawn.
The technician there was friendly and mentioned that his mood improved every day because he was due to leave the service in two months.
As he applied the tourniquet on my arm, he told me that taking the blood wouldn't hurt much. Then, noticing my Air Force T-shirt he asked me what my husband did.
When I replied that he was a recruiter, the technician smiled slyly and said, "This might hurt a little more than I thought."
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"50 Years from Now"
Three elderly gents were talking about what their grandchildren would be saying about them fifty years from now.
"I would like my grandchildren to say, 'He was successful in business,'" declared the first man.
"Fifty years from now," said the second, "I want them to say, 'He was a loyal family man.'" Turning to the third gent, he asked, "So what do you want them to say about you in fifty years?"
"Me?" the third one replied. "I want them to say, 'He certainly looks good for his age.'"
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Illustration - "Raising My Sights"
Featured Illustration items are well suited for introducing or illuminating a point in a sermon, speech, or devotional. Funny, moving, or perhaps even graphic, the point of them is the point you make with them.
"Raising My Sights"
My six-year-old granddaughter, Caitlynd, and I stopped at a Tim Horton's donut shop for a blueberry muffin. As we were going out the door, a young teenage boy was coming in.
This young man had no hair on the sides of his head and tuft of blue spiked hair on top of it. One of his nostrils was pierced, and attached to the hoop that ran through the hole, was a chain that draped across his face and attached to a ring he was wearing in his ear. He held a skateboard under one arm and a basketball under the other.
Caitlynd, who was walking ahead of me, stopped in her tracks when she saw the teen. I thought he'd scared the dickens out of her and she'd frozen on the spot.
I was wrong.
My GrandAngel backed up against the door and opened it as wide as it would go. Now I was face to face with the young man. I stepped aside and let him pass. His gracious response was a kind, "Thank you very much".
On our way to the car, I commended Caitlynd for her manners in holding open the door for the young man. She didn't seem to be troubled by his appearance but I wanted to make sure. If a grandmotherly talk about freedom of self expression and allowing people their differences was in order, I wanted to be ready.
As it turned out, the person who needed the talk was me.
The only thing Caitlynd noticed about the teen, was the fact that his arms were full. "He woulda' had a hard time to open the door."
I saw the partially shaved head, the tuft of spiked hair, the piercings and the chain. She saw a person carrying something under each arm and heading toward a door.
In the future, I hope to get down on her level and raise my sights.