Re: Some (attempt at?) humour for the hollidays

[maury <maury@webtexas.com>]

Dear Dimiter and Stewart,



You folks have absolutely made my week!!! -- in addition to just about toppling

me onto the floor. And my black lab is once again completely puzzled as he

watches sympathetically while totally mystified why I am making such odd noises

and seem unable to breathe ... but then he is not too concerned as he

recognizes, 'oh well, there  he is, at it again ....



Thanks to both of you and I hope a few others enjoy our senses (arguably) of

humor.



My son will visit next week so Jake as well as some of my neighbors again have

reason to be a tad apprehensive. And I will find The Christmas Story movie.



Hope all have had a really nice Christmas.



Maury&Dog



============================

Stewart Farber wrote:



> Dimiter:

>

> Your stories reminded me of one of the stories told on National Public Radio

> back in the mid 1970s by Jean Shepard, a master story teller who wrote a

> book: "In god we trust, all others pay cash". Shepard has been

> likened to a modern day Mark Twain, and many of his vignettes were put

> together in a 1983 movie: "A Christmas Story" which is a mega-cult hit shown

> every year on Fox and many other stations. If you ever get the chance try and

> find this movie [video rental, or purchase the 2003 20th anniversary 2 CD

> edition at amazon.com. It brings adults back to their childhoods and is

> hilarious.

>

> Anyway, the story that came to mind when I read your post was one Shepard

> told in 1975 or so on NPR about he and his little mischievous buddies making

> a "carbide cannon" out of a 55 gallon barrel and some CaCarbide he and his

> little buddies had found. It took over an hour to tell, but in the end they

> blew up [leveled if you can believe Shepard] a cinder block garage [having

> used far too much CaCarbide] where they exploded the carbide

> cannon. The story is so hilarious it would have you falling on the floor.

>

> Best holiday wishes [to you an all]

> Stewart Farber

>

> PS: If you've never seen the  "A Christmas Story" movie, narrated by Jean

> Shepard and based on his stories DO IT!  It's the best present you can give

> your inner child, and any children you may have.

> ======

> On Thu, 25 Dec 2003 19:10:14 +0200, Dimiter Popoff <tgi@cit.bg> wrote:

>

> > Hi all,

> >

> > Here is some humour - along with my best wishes to all of you for  the

> hollidays and during the next year.

> > Many people on the list do have a technical background and these stories >

> are well... sort of pre-technical.

> >

> > They got triggered by a message which Maury posted a while ago  mentioning

> his work on some types of missiles. This brought to  mind my missile

> experience (covered by the second story),  which reminded me my earlier

> cannon experience, covered by  the first story.

> >

> > Dimiter

> >

> >

> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------

> >

> > The Kitchen Cannonade

> >

> > When I was 10-12 years old, I used to make "cannons" out of  empty brass

> roller-ball pen cartriges with several matches  peeled for a charge. A

> heating flame was the trigger,  it gave me enough time to hide far enough.

> One day a neighbour boy gave me  7-8 5mm bullets which I opened,  took the

> powder and must have used it for some more cannon shooting.

> > Weeks later, I discovered that the empty shells I still posessed  had some

> ignition explosive on their bottoms. I must have had enough sense to not try

> to scratch it out of there for my cannons,  but I was not the one to leave

> this resource idle, either. They were  shiny brass cylinders, perhaps 12 mm

> (1/2") long and 5 mm (1/5" )

> > diameter,  hollow and fortunately quite light.

> > I put them on the kitchen stove and turned the respective plate on.  I put

> them opening up, so the reactive force would just press the  shell to the

> plate.

> > My grandmother was washing dishes in the opposite corner of the kitchen,

> and was naive enough not to turn and look at what I was doing.

> > I slipped out of the kitchen into the next room where through a  tiny

> window I could watch. Now I only had to wait for the plate to get  hot.

> Clearly several bangs could do no harm; my gunning experience  told me the

> shells would stay in place.

> > What my gunning experience did not tell me was that when the first  shell

> got off and stood in place indeed, the bang would be just strong  enough  to

> tip all the rest to one side and leave them on the plate...

> > That's when the true cannonade began. The kitchen was pretty tiny > and the

> sound deafening. The shells (fortunately light enough and  more or less

> harmless) flew around and produced an astonishing  number of ricochets. I

> watched the scene with a hanging jaw; my

> > grandmother had  knelt in the corner and had covered her head with both

> hands ...

> >

> >

> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------

> >

> > Ballistic Missile

> >

> > In my early 20-es I had discovered the paper rocket-models, those which

> use  a pressed powder engine which burns for 1-2 seconds and after a delay

> > of 3-4 seconds blows a parachute-eject charge. They fly 300-400 m high  and

> are usually taken away by the wind after they open the parachute.  One day I

> was coming back from a series of launches with a rocket still

> > intact, but without a parachute. I visited a friend of mine who was

> learning for some coming exams and was strongly supervised by his mother.  I

> said it would be a good idea to launch the rocket out of his window at

> > perhaps 45 degree; he objected, thinking of his mother in the next room.  I

> explained that I would place the accelleration rod outside the window  so  no

> harm could be done. Also, I said this would be a ballistic missile  which we

> would aim at what was then the Bulgarian equivalent of the KGB  (perhaps two

> blocks away), a patriotic thing to do.  He tried to object again but I

> ignored him and got to work. He said  his mother would be furious with me for

> distracting him from his books. I  had already adjusted the launch angle and

> put a fire-conducting wire in  the rocket engine. Seconds later, I lit the

> wire.

> > The rocket disappeared with a loud hissing which, being echoed by  the

> surrounding buildings, sounded like an alien attack.  Worse, nearly all the

> smoke my departing missile had produced got  injected into the room which now

> smelled like a battlefield... It took me

> a while until I could see through the clouds my friends

> mother who was at the door staring at me.

> >

> > --------------------------------------------------------------------

> > Dimiter Popoff

> > Transgalactic Instruments, Gourko Str. 25 b, 1000 Sofia, Bulgaria

> > http://transgalactic.freeyellow.com

> > Phone: ++359/2/9923340



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