The Chapman Zone Dave’s Blog

I know it’s lame to just post old joke e-mails onto your blog, but I am getting harassed at work to remove all that have been on there longer than a year, so I am forced to have a clear out. Rather than lose them to the cyber-ether, I thought I’d share them with you (again, in some cases): 

Gazetteer of the World (2nd edition) - Selected Research 1997. These are actual place names around the world:

Nobber (Donegal, Ireland)
Arsoli (Lazio, Italy)
Muff (Northern Ireland)
Bastard (Norway)
Twatt (Shetland, UK)
Twatt (Orkney, UK)
Dildo (Newfoundland, Canada)
Wankie (Zimbabwe)
Climax (Colorado, USA)
Lickey End (West Midlands, UK)
Shafter (California, USA)
Dongo (Congo - Democratic Republic)
Dong Rack (Thailand-Cambodia border)
Intercourse (Pennsylvania, USA)
Brown Willy (Cornwall, UK)
Lord Berkeley’s Knob (Sutherland, Scotland)
Shitlingthorpe (Yorkshire, UK)
Seymen (Turkey)
Turdo (Romania)
Fukum (Yemen)
Fukue (Honshu, Japan)
Fukui (Honshu, Japan)
Fuku (Shensi, China)
Wankie Colliery (Zimbabwe)
Wanks River (Nicaragua)
Wankendorf (Schleswig-Holstein, Germany)
Wankener (India)
Shag Island (Indian Ocean)
Sexmoan (Luzon, Philippines)
Hold With Hope (Greenland)
Beaver (Oklahoma, USA)
Beaver Head (Idaho, USA)
Wet Beaver Creek (Australia)
Pis Pis River (Nicaragua)
Tittybong (Australia)
Dikshit (India)
Middle Intercourse Island (Australia)
 Chinaman’s Knob (Australia)

 

(I know this is tongue in cheek, but can anyone enlighten me as to why this would not be a good approach for all jails - aside from the difference in climate) 

TO THOSE OF YOU NOT FAMILIAR WITH JOE ARPAIO, HE IS THE MARICOPA COUNTY SHERIFF ( ARIZONA ) AND HE KEEPS GETTING ELECTED OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

These are some of the reasons why:

Sheriff Joe Arpaio created the “tent city jail” to save Arizona from spending tens of million of dollars on another expensive prison complex.

He has jail meals down to 40 cents a serving and charges the inmates for them.

He banned smoking and porno magazines in the jails, and took away their weightlifting equipment and cut off all but “G” movies.  He says: “they’re in jail to pay a debt to society not to build muscles so they can assault innocent people when they leave.”

He started chain gangs to use the inmates to do free work on county and city projects and save taxpayer’s money.

Then he started chain gangs for women so he wouldn’t get sued for discrimination.

He took away cable TV until he found out there was a federal court order that required cable TV for jails.  So he hooked up the cable TV again but only allows the Disney channel and the weather channel.

When asked why the weather channel he replied: “so these morons will know how hot it’s gonna be while they are working on my chain gangs.”

He cut off coffee because it has zero nutritional value and is therefore a waste of taxpayer money.  When the inmates complained, he told them, “This isn’t the Ritz/Carlton.  If you don’t like it, don’t come back.”

He also bought the Newt Gingrich lecture series on US history that he pipes into the jails.  When asked by a reporter if he had any lecture series by a Democrat, he replied that a democratic lecture series that actually tells the truth for a change would be welcome and that it might even explain why 95% of the inmates were in his jails in the
first place.

With temperatures being even hotter than usual in Phoenix (116 degrees just set a new record for June 2nd), the Associated Press reports: About 2,000 inmates living in a barbed- wire-surrounded tent encampment at the Maricopa County Jail have been given permission to strip down to their government-issued pink boxer shorts. On Wednesday,
hundreds of men wearing pink boxer shorts were chatting in the tents , where temperatures reached 128 degrees.  “This is hell.  It feels like we live in a furnace,” said Ernesto Gonzales, an inmate for 2 years with 10 more to go.  “It’s inhumane.”

Joe Arpaio, who makes his prisoners wear pink, and eat bologna sandwiches, is not one bit sympathetic.  “Criminals should be punished for their crimes not live in luxury until it’s time for parole, only to go out and commit more crimes so they can come back in to live on taxpayers money and enjoy things many taxpayers can’t afford to have for themselves.”

Wednesday he told all the inmates who were complaining of the heat in the tents: “It’s between 120F to 130F degrees in Iraq and our soldiers are living in tents too, and they have to walk all day in the sun, wearing full battle gear and get shot at, and they have not committed any crimes, so shut your damned mouths!”

Way to go, Sheriff!  If all prisons were like yours there would be a lot less crime and we would not be in the current position of running out of prison spaces.

Sheriff Joe was just re-elected Sheriff in Maricopa County , Arizona

Over the Christmas break, I grabbed my electric drum kit back off Kyle, whom I had loaned it to to practise on at home, in such a way as to prevent the neighbours from calling the police. He’s a bit of a prodigy that kid, so we all try to do our bit to encourage and assist where we can.

Anyway, it seems he has not been using it all that much (I think he’s turning into a bit of a drum snob, truth be told), so I thought I might have another crack at learning to play a song all the way through, and take advantage of the empty Scout Hut at the same time. When I use the kit at home, even with headphones on, the kick pedal bangs through the floor quite badly, and it’s really irritating. Plus, it’s a pain in the *rse setting it up and taking it down every time I want to use it, and if I leave it up in my room it obscures the telly.

The song I picked was ‘Sad But True’ by Metallica. I can’t remember what exactly inspired me to pick this particular song. Maybe it was the slow pace of it, and the fact that the fills, although sounding mildly complex to my untrained ears, seemed at least vaguely possible to acheive. It also helped that I knew the song very well, having listened to it about a million times. So I took the CD, the song notation and the drumkit down to the hut on a quiet day, set it all up and started to play.

The next day I took a CD-R with the first two-three minutes of the song repeated over and over, and played along to that (the fills get more complex as the song progresses, and it was becoming a real pain in the *rse to get up every two minutes, walk over to the stereo, restart the track, then run back to the drumkit and miss the start of the song).

Now, what normally happens (with the guitar too) is that I’ll start learning a song all enthusiastically, until I hit a difficult bit, eventually get bored/frustrated with it, and then move onto something else, and end up not learning anything all the way through. It has blighted my playing ever since I started, and is the primary reason that after three years of owning a guitar (and 18 months with a drumkit), my quality of technique is nowhere near what it should be by this time. And it really hacks me off.

For some reason (maybe it was the new year, and my resolve was stronger than usual), I really managed to stick to this song, and push through all the difficulties I was having with the fills, playing each one over and over until I got it right.

So, I actually have a song that I can play all the way through on the drums - hurrah! Seriously though, it’s a milestone for me, and I am very pleased.

Of course, I tried playing it on Kyle’s acoustic kit the other night, and completely lost the plot. I wasn’t helped by the fact that his kit only has one rack tom, and I need two…..

I never wanted to be considered a ‘fair-weather biker’, but it seems like its turning out that way.

I think when it is icy, then it is perfectly acceptable to leave the bike at home. In fact, I think you would have to be a total moron to take it out in icy conditions when you have a choice. Thing is, we only had a short spell of icy weather late last year, and it’s been pretty mellow for most of the past two-three months (not including last weeks breezy conditions)….and I’ve used the bike three times.

Poor thing, sitting there under that crappy little cover that is supposed to be waterproof, but isn’t, feeling all unloved and unwanted.

I decided to take it out on Boxing Day, but since it had beeen two-three weeks since I last started it, it was having none of it. I spent ten minutes out there trying to turn it over, to no avail. Of course, being a bit of a cretin when it comes to all things mechanical, I gave it loads of tweaks on the throttle, thinking it would help, and succeeded in flooding the engine, and nearly flattening the battery.

After consulting Collin and Tiffy (Collin, as it turned out, had been just as naughty over that time towards his Harley), they told me that I needed to put the choke on full and leave the throttle alone to get the bike started.

Five minutes after that phone call, the fuel must have evaporated from the engine, because it started up first time, as if it had been used every day. Smartarses!

I took the bike for a quick lap of Wickham, Botley, Park Gate and thoroughly enjoyed it, and resolved to get back on it and start riding it to work…

….and then it started raining most days.

Goddammit! I am such a p*ssy!

Bugger it! I’ve let the blog slip again. I have been rather busy over the past few weeks though. I just had to scan through the past month’s worth of posts to see what I have and haven’t posted about.

Ummmm…….since my post rate for January is only 5, I am going to ‘pad out’ this month by using separate posts for each thing, since I would have posted about them separately anyway.

Call me a cheater - I don’t care!

I came across this piece the other day. It seems appropriate to post it today, since tonight is Twelfth Night, and all the decorations come down.

Keeping Christmas
Henry Van Dyke

There is a better thing than the observance of Christmas day, and that is, keeping Christmas.

Are you willing…

• to forget what you have done for other people, and to remember what other people have done for you;

• to ignore what the world owes you, and to think what you owe the world;

• to put your rights in the background, and your duties in the middle distance, and your chances to do a little more than your duty in the foreground;

• to see that men and women are just as real as you are, and try to look behind their faces to their hearts, hungry for joy;

• to own up to the fact that probably the only good reason for your existence is not what you are going to get out of life, but what you are going to give to life;

• to close your book of complaints against the management of the universe, and look around you for a place where you can sow a few seeds of happiness.

Are you willing to do these things even for a day? Then you can keep Christmas.

Are you willing…

• to stoop down and consider the needs and desires of little children;

• to remember the weakness and loneliness of people growing old;

• to stop asking how much your friends love you, and ask yourself whether you love them enough;

• to bear in mind the things that other people have to bear in their hearts;

• to try to understand what those who live in the same home with you really want, without waiting for them to tell you;

• to trim your lamp so that it will give more light and less smoke, and to carry it in front so that your shadow will fall behind you;

• to make a grave for your ugly thoughts, and a garden for your kindly feelings, with the gate open—

Are you willing to do these things, even for a day? Then you can keep Christmas.

Are you willing…

• to believe that love is the strongest thing in the world—

• stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death—

• and that the blessed life which began in Bethlehem nineteen hundred years ago is the image and brightness of the Eternal Love?

Then you can keep Christmas.
And if you can keep it for a day, why not always?

But you can never keep it alone.

Well, the car failed the MOT, but only on one thing - some rod on the steering assembly needed replacing, and the lovely people at Quay Motors fixed the part and had the car ready to pick up for 13:00. The total cost of the repair and the MOT (no retest, thank goodness) was £121.

Which is good, considering that I was half-expecting a much heftier bill.

The best thing was, when I was chatting to the boss, he said that the car had no rust, so there was no reason why it would not last a good few more years. I shall still make plans to get a new car, but the pressure’s off now.

Phew!

My car works again!!!

The hoses turned up today, so Dad and I fitted them, after hunting around for some half decent jubilee clips (do not buy them from Halfords - their’s suck badly) and some cable ties, we finally got the hoses attached and the water/coolant in the system.

After a little hiccup (one of the new hoses was leaking where it joined the engine, but we sorted that by turning the clip round a bit and re-tightening it) I took it for a spin, and on return checked under the bonnet - no leaks!!!

So, a few checks to make tomorrow, then off to the MOT on Friday afternoon.

I’ve got no reason to suspect that it will fail, but with a car that age, you never can tell what’s going wrong inside all the gubbins. Well, if you know as little as me about cars you never can tell…

Thing is, if it fails, and the repair bill will be too large, I may have to scrap the car and get a new one, which means going cap in hand to the bank, or selling my bike, my drums, and a few other things besides.

If it passes, or only requires a little repair, I will have to seriously start thinking about preparing myself financially to buy a new car, as it’s not going to go on forever…

Quite fancy a Zafira actually…..

I like to approach the new year with a sense of purpose - not making any resolutions per-se, but rather to start the year as I mean to go on. It helps that I am only just into week two of my holidays from work, so I am able to devote time to some of the many projects that are hanging around requiring my attention. My thinking is, that if I can start the year productively, I can build up some sort of momentum which will take me through winter and into spring, when the improving weather spurs me on even more.

I’ve done OK so far - I got the Scout HQ squared away again (it needs a good clean-up at least three times a year), I started on the drums again (I’m trying to learn ‘Sad But True’ by Metallica all the way through - I’m up to the guitar solo so far, with a few mistakes), I got a shed load more stuff on E-Bay selling at the moment…

….and my car broke on me.

Actually, it broke on the 30th Dec, so technically it is the last test of 2006, but the quick fix I tried to apply did not work, so I had to start again.

The radiator sprung a leak. It’s probably been leaking for a while, but as I came home from the Scout hut on Saturday, I pulled up outside Tiffy’s house and noticed steam coming out of the front grille. We had a look under the bonnet and he identified the leak at the top of the radiator, and he suggested a quick fix involving epoxy resin.

The reason I was entertaining a quick fix option is that my car is going in for an MOT on the 6th Jan, and as it’s quite old, there is every chance it could fail horribly this time round (especially as it sailed through last year - law of averages and all that), and I really didn’t want to shell out a load of money on a car that might be too expensive to be worth repairing come MOT day.

So I put on the Epoxy over the leak on Sunday, and left it overnight to harden. I didn’t need to leave it that long, but I had other things to do (like go to a New Year’s bash). Monday, I put the hose back on and filled up the water, then took it for a spin. When I got to the Scout HQ, I took a look under the bonnet and discovered that the leak I spotted and covered was not the only one, and water was dribbling out from an unidentifiable location.

There was nothing for it but to buy a new radiator.

Well, I couldn’t do anything about it on Monday, as it was New Year’s Day, and everywhere was closed. Rob came round that evening and mentioned a couple of places to phone next day.

I stayed up quite late on Monday night, working on the Cub Summer Camp DVD (the Cub Leaders are starting to harrass me for it now!), so I didn’t wake up till about 09:30 this morning. I was woken up by my Dad telling me that he’d been out and bought a new radiator, and I can get up and help him fix it if I like. I gotta start getting up earlier..

So dad and I took the old radiator out, and put the new one in this morning - it took us about an hour and a half (thanks Dad!), and now I am just waiting for Inchcape Vauxhall to get the hoses in stock tomorrow.

I just hope after all this fussing about, the car will get through it’s MOT easily enough on Saturday. I’ve had to tax it this month as well, and I’m running out of money fast!

I’m pissed………………………………..