Books that have affected me

What books have been an influence in your life?

After you have looked through this  I challenge you to put up a list of your own .. with or without the commentary .  :)

Sometime last Fall   Lakota Phillips  put up a challenge to write down the books that had had an influence on our lives.  I was on vacation at the time and  never got a chance to respond. I wrote out the list and forgot about it .. I just found the list so am posting it now

1. The Land that Time Forgot, The People that Time Forgot and Out of Times Abyss  - A trilogy under one cover by Edgar Rice Burroughs .. It got me motivated to read voraciously.
2. The Wailing Astroid – by Leister .. an early science fiction novel .. that later came true .. in some ways. 
3. Lorna Doone by Blackmore – Classical Romance .. cant remember the story very much but it made me realize classical novels were interesting too.
4. Man, his Origin and Destiny by  Joseph Fielding Smith .. first time I ever argued with a book. It was very good for me.
5. A Marvellous Work and a Wonder by Grant. – an aha book.
6. Jesus the Christ by Talmage .. – wow did he have a vocabulary .. and I learned a lot about scholarship.
7. The Three Musketeers --- Historical Fun
8. The Count of Monte Cristo .. ooo mysteries too
9. The Bible .. specifically the Old testament .. started reading it to put myself  to sleep .. got to the begats .. hmmmm dirty book .. read through Kings and Chronicles and suddenly found I knew more than most (no body reads the bible) .. and I learned to love it. .. and ponder .. and even think for myself .
10. The Book of Mormon .. required reading for good Mormon boys .. .. .. this encouraged me to think and ponder for myself ..  I never shied away from the big questions .. but I didn’t give up quickly either. .. shaped my philosophical beliefs regarding good and bad and helping the weak.
11. Down the Long Hills – Louis Lamour – relaxation reading .. recently re-read it .. not nearly as good now as it seemed then. .. but it opened a genre of western novels to me.  It made me proud to be a small town cowboy.
12. 1984 .. Orwell .. hmmm now this one made me think about communism .. and study more about Orwell. .. Not sure what I learned but it seems to stick in my mind.  ..  Big brother is alive and well today ..
13. Passions of the Mind  by Irving Stone .. emphasized the Intellectual  courage that Freud had. He started seeing hidden truths that people did not want to know about. It takes a lot of courage to keep looking when society says Don’t. .. He knew there was something there so he kept probing.  He opened the doors to the mind.
14. Les Miserables   -  probably the best novel I have ever read .. this was story telling at its very best.  Except for the chapter on the Battle of Waterloo.
15.  Grahame Greens Novel ..”Suffering and unhappiness are omnipresent in the world Greene depicts; and Catholicism is presented against a background of unvarying human evil, sin, and doubt. V. S. Pritchett praised Greene as the first English novelist since Henry James to present, and grapple with, the reality of evil.[26] Greene concentrated on portraying the characters' internal lives – their mental, emotional, and spiritual depths.”  .(from Wikipedia)  I cant remember the name of the novel I read .. It was about a lowly worker MI6.. (CIA Britain)  and how the office was affected by an ongoing hunt for a traitor. ..  it is very low key .. near the end of the book you suddenly discover that the main character who is describing the hurtful things that the spy is doing and causing .. is in fact the spy. .. Suddenly your mind has to do a total shift .. it is quite thrilling to watch your self do this.  I have read one other book that did this.
16. Crime and Punishment .. by Dostoyevsky  .. I read this one in the dark .. in the middle of winter above the arctic circle in Norway .. time was becoming irrelevant .. and the darkness of this Novel invaded me. .. awesome feeling. .. scary even. .. but  Dostoyevsky has a way of writing that still fascinates me.
17. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy .. John Le Carre .. and the sequel   Smileys People ..Frumpy old George Smiley became so much more the hero than James Bond ever could be.
18. Integral Trees .. Larry Niven .. Best “What if” book I have read.   But I did like Vernor Vinges book “the Witling” too ..
19. 1917 / The birth of the Nazi Party / Confessions of an Economic Hitman .. 3 books . read in rapid succession .. Russian Revolution, Germanys revolution prior to Hitler .. and modern day America. .. wow for similarities .. and scary.
20. Shock Doctrine .. Naomi Kline .. torture .. economics .. how the Corporatists are taking over.
21. David D’Angelo .. dating book...  more importantly .. an intro to Evolutionary Psychology.... I forgot the parts about picking up chicks .. but the Evolutionary Pscyhology still wanders through my mind. 
22. Napoleons Buttons.   The history and  interrelations of Chemical compounds.  Gunpowder  Nitroglycerin  Alfred Nobel   Heart medicine ... all related.   Viagra. ..  mandrake, witches brooms, mind medicines also all related.
23. Quiet Flows the Don .and its sequel  The Don Flows Home to The sea. .. Michael Sholokov .. became my favorite for a time .. Until Solshynitsyn said Sholokov didn’t write it . .. Story is about a Don Cossack boy who grows up during the Russian Revolution. His loves, his naiveté and his final successes  against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution .. far better than Dr. Zivago.
24. Bjornsterne Bjornsen’s   En Glad Gutt .. (A happy boy) .. the first book I ever read in a foreign language .. great training in culture.
25. 1491 – North America before the advent of the white man. .. New archeological advances show that the “Indians” were vastly different than we thought they were.  Columbus brought disease on his first trip that wiped out 85% of the North and South American population within 15 years.   Can you imagine the social upheaval .   There is no wonder we don’t have records of these civilizations.   When the explorers finally started looking round in the 1600s, these civilizations had  been wiped out for 100 years, the people that remained  had had 5 generations of confusion.  The records were considered heathen. Archaeology was non-existent.   

Hope you enjoyed the commentary .. I challenge you to put up a list of your own .. with or without the commentary .

hard to find a joke today without a dirty word

It is hard to find a joke today without a dirty word or two in it, but

here is one:

Two tall trees, a birch and a beech, are growing in the woods. A small

tree begins to grow between them, and the beech says to the birch,

'Is that a son of a beech or a son of a birch?'

The birch says he cannot tell, but just then a woodpecker lands on the

sapling.

The birch says, 'Woodpecker, you are a tree expert. Can you tell if that

is a son of a beech or a son of a birch?'

The woodpecker takes a taste of the small tree and replies, 'It is

neither a son of a beech nor a son of a birch. It is, however, the best

little piece of ash I have ever poked my pecker into.'

Squirrelly .. squirrely is a state of mind that approaches when you have had too much coffee. It is characterized by this tingling feeling in the thighs and in the hands and a tendency to nervous reactions and uncertain anger. It is usually accompanied by 'sewer mouth', white tongue and impaired judgement as to' how fast is too fast'. It can also be caused by too much Pepsi .. (although those who drink Coke tend to be immune due to slower mental reaction times.)

Attacks of squirrely may occur in the wee hours after bouts of caffeine drinking and are sometimes found at the scene of snoring homicides.

So what is an overdose of Mountain Dew? ahhh they are similar .. but the overdose of mtn dew is accompanyed by anextraordinary tallness. This manifests itself best in that the shoelaces seem to get farther and farther away.

The cockpit becomes the box office.

While the C-5 was turning over its engines, a female crewman gave the G.I.s on board the usual information regarding seat belts, emergency exits, etc.

Finally, she said, 'Now sit back and enjoy your trip while your captain, Judith Campbell and crew take you safely to Afghanistan '

An old Master Sergeant sitting in the eighth row thought to himself, 'Did I hear her right? Is the captain a woman? '

When the attendant came by he said 'Did I understand you right? Is the captain a woman?'

'Yes,'! said the attendant, 'In fact, this entire crew is female.'

'My God,' he said, 'I wish I had two double scotch and sodas. I don't know what to think with only women up there in the cockpit.'

'That's another thing, Sergeant,' said the crew member, 'We No Longer call it "The Cockpit". It's "The Box Office".'

Will life be worth living in 2000 AD? from Weekend Magazine July 22, 1961

posted by Richard Wolfe on Monday, July 18, 2011 at 9:00am ·

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July 22, 1961, Weekend Magazine

 A checklist .. I think we may be behind schedule on a few things. Probably because all the engineers are on fb or youtube.   RTW

Will life be worth living in 2000 AD?  from Weekend Magazine July 22, 1961

What sort of life will you be living 39 years from now? Scientists have looked into the future and they can tell you.

1. It looks as if everything will be so easy that people will probably die from sheer boredom. Nope
2. You will be whisked around in monorail vehicles at 200 miles an hour and you will think nothing of taking a fortnight's holiday in outer space. Nope
3. Your house will probably have air walls, and a floating roof, adjustable to the angle of the sun.Nope
4. Doors will open automatically, and clothing will be put away by remote control. The heating and cooling systems will be built into the furniture and rugs. in our cars yes but houses nope
5. You'll have a home control room - an electronics centre, where messages will be recorded when you're away from home.  YESThis will play back when you return, and also give you up-to-the minute world news, and transcribe your latest mail.
6. You'll have wall-to-wall global TV, an indoor swimming pool, TV-telephones and room-to-room TV. Press a button and you can change the décor of a room.   TV yes more or less .. rest NO
7. The status symbol of the year 2000 will be the home computer help, which will help mother tend the children, cook the meals and issue reminders of appointments.   yes and no .. tend children yes appts yes .. cook .. NO!!
8. Cooking will be in solar ovens with microwave controls. Garbage will be refrigerated, and pressed into fertiliser pellets.  Yes on the microwaves no on the frozen garbage
9. Food won't be very different from 1961, but there will be a few new dishes - instant bread, sugar made from sawdust, foodless foods (minus nutritional properties), juice powders and synthetic tea and cocoa. Energy will come in tablet form.  Yes and No .. elements of truth .. food is very different but energy comes in burger/pizza/fast diet form
10. At work, Dad will operate on a 24 hour week.  Not in a pure Capitalist Society . but there are Rumors that Europe is better than North AmericaThe office will be air-conditioned with stimulating scents and extra oxygen - to give a physical and psychological lift.
11. Mail and newspapers will be reproduced instantly anywhere in the world by facsimile. Yes well we passed that stage but the idea is correct
12. There will be machines doing the work of clerks, shorthand writers and translators. Machines will "talk" to each other. yes
13. It will be the age of press-button transportation. Rocket belts will increase a man's stride to 30 feet, and bus-type helicopters will travel along crowded air skyways. Nawww we got a mulitplicity of Insurance companies instead.  That mixed with proliferation of  regulation in safety laws etc. means no advances in movement for at least another 100 years.There will be moving plastic-covered pavements, individual hoppicopters, and 200 m.p.h. monorail trains operating in all large cities.  
14. The family car will be soundless, vibrationless and self-propelled thermostatically. The engine will be smaller than a typewriter. CWe are maybe 30% of the way there .ars will travel overland on an 18 inch air cushion.  
15. Railways will have one central dispatcher, who will control a whole nation's traffic. Jet trains will be guided by electronic brains. Railways??  No railways are becoming obsolete
16. In commercial transportation, there will be travel at 1000 m.p.h. at a penny a mile. Hypersonic passenger planes, using solid fuels, will reach any part of the world in an hour.  about 50% there .. no solid fuel and we are down to about 6 hours if we want to be. 
17. By the year 2020, five per cent of the world's population will have emigrated into space. Many will have visited the moon and beyond.  Naw they killed the space program when Russia died .. no competition. and with the advent of the computer and the death of  dramatic tv (only reality shows survive - its 100 channels of 24 hour Jerry Springer) our kids are not reading sci fi and are not interested in science.  
18. Our children will learn from TV, recorders and teaching machines. They will get pills to make them learn faster.  They are taking the pills but the pills arent working to improve their intelligence!!We shall be healthier, too. There will be no common colds, cancer, tooth decay or mental illness.
19. Medically induced growth of amputated limbs will be possible. Rejuvenation will be in the middle stages of research, and people will live, healthily, to 85 or 100. Stem cell research goes on 
20. There's a lot more besides to make H.G. Wells and George Orwell sound like they're getting left behind.  Maybe .. they do look a bit antique .. naive maybe.. but we still havent caught up to their basic ideas. 
21. And this isn't science fiction. It's science fact - futuristic ideas, conceived by imaginative young men, whose crazy-sounding schemes have got the nod from the scientists.  the computer geeks went to Nasdaq and became venture capitalists. 

It's the way they think the world will live in the next century - if there's any world left!  Yep we are still here .. and collectively a bit safer than they were .. 

©1999 Pixelmatic

After Ewe by Peter Blyth

posted by Richard Wolfe on Monday, July 25, 2011 at 10:19pm ·

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The sun was hot already - it was only 8 o'clock

The cocky took off in his Ute, to go and check his stock.

He drove around the paddocks checking wethers, ewes and lambs,

The float valves in the water troughs, the windmills on the dams

He stopped and turned a windmill on to fill a water tank

And saw a ewe down in the dam, a few yards from the bank.

"Typical bloody sheep," he thought, "they've got no common sense,

"They won't go through a gateway but they'll jump a bloody fence."

The ewe was stuck down in the mud, he knew without a doubt

She'd stay there 'til she carked it if he didn't get her out.

But when he reached the water's edge, the startled ewe broke free

And in her haste to get away, began a swimming spree.

He reckoned once her fleece was wet, the weight would drag her down

If he didn't rescue her, the stupid sod would drown.

Her style was unimpressive, her survival chances slim

He saw no other option, he would have to take a swim.

He peeled his shirt and singlet off, his trousers, boots and socks

And as he couldn't stand wet clothes, he also shed his jocks.

He jumped into the water and away that cocky swam

He caught up with her, somewhere near the middle of the dam

The ewe was quite evasive, she kept giving him the slip

He tried to grab her sodden fleece but couldn't get a grip.

At last he got her to the bank and stopped to catch his breath

She showed him little gratitude for saving her from death.

She took off like a Bondi tram around the other side

He swore next time he caught that ewe he'd hang her bloody hide.

Then round and round the dam they ran, although he felt quite puffed

He still thought he could run her down, she must be nearly stuffed.

The local stock rep came along, to pay a call that day.

He knew this bloke was on his own, his wife had gone away,

He didn't really think he'd get fresh scones for morning tea

But neither was he ready for what he was soon to see.

He rubbed his eyes in disbelief at what came into view

For running down the catchment came this frantic-looking ewe.

And on her heels in hot pursuit and wearing not a stitch

The farmer yelling wildly "Come back here, you lousy bitch!"

The stock rep didn't hang around, he took off in his car

The cocky's reputation has been damaged near and far

So bear in mind the Work Safe rule when next you check your flocks

Spot the hazard, assess the risk, and always wear your jocks!

Author::: Former Salmon Gums farmer Peter Blyth is known for being able to spin a good yarn. But it was a real event that inspired this original bush poem! Peter Blyth came to Australia in 1957 - leaving behind the privations of post-war England, and a violent father. His migration was sponsored by the Big Brother Movement, who sent him to a farm school in Liverpool, New South Wales, so that he could 'aclimatise' to Australian conditions. But he eventually found his way to the WA Goldfields, working underground to finance the dream he'd long held - to one day run his own farm.  

The Specimen Overflow

by Richard Wolfe on Friday, December 9, 2011 at 12:39pm ·

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You are peeking at a conversation on fb between a friend and myself . 

My Friend  

Whatcha been up to!!

Me

Went in for a checkup today

Nurse led me to check up room

Handed me a little plastic cup and said "Can you give us a sample"

My Friend

Ahhhh (boredom)

Me (too stupid to shut up) 

She said she would be back in a few minutes .. and left

I had to go pretty bad so providing a sample was no problem

I looked around .. single examination room .. no bathroom.

But there were some paper towels if I needed them.

So I took off the plastic wrapper, undid my zipper, and whipped it out.  

Filled the cup to the brim

But there's more ..lots more!!!

My Friend

Oh I should not have asked!!

Me (continuing)

And it wanted out ..

While the valve was in the open position

So I squeezed it off

And tried to mentally close the valve ...

stem the flow ..

force the remainder upstream ..

what ever . ..

Ooo the sweet pain .. you know the kind that lifts one foot after the other .. uncontrollably

My friend

ok you can stop now!!!!!!!!!!!

Me (continuing – hey I was on a role now)

but it wouldnt stop .. so Im standing there with my Cock in my hand…  pinched off..

leaking

fire hose pressure still building

prancing

and leaking more with each prance

My friend

oh crap! .. you are kidding right??!!!!!!!!!!!  ( I note the interest building so a gleam starts in my mind)

Me ( rolling right along)

hand slipping on the loose skin

paper towels were not going to cut it

(waiting)

they had a sink in the room!

(waiting)

but the counter was too high ..

My Friend

Remind me never ask again.

Me ( continuing mercilessly)

I looked around… No stool .. the chair was in the far corner ..

and would take two hands to lift . (make sure you build anticpation .. lol)

The examination table was only 3 feet from the sink ..

Thinking .. 

But how to climb on it ?..

maybe on the chair which was at the other end? ..

and then up on the table.   (idiot keep your lines short .. build for the punch lines)

Two big steps but I could do it ..  (punch line .. ohhh crap .. !! .. I need a punch line)

Whoops hand slipped going up on the chair ..

diagram of the ear was now stained yellow in spots ..

streaks actually …

Pinched it off again ..

wet hand ..

slipping again ..

crap...shorted out the thermostat ..

they might want to paint the wall again ..

Im on the table  ..

walking across the stiff padded surface ..

slipping a bit ..

leaking on the paper cover ..

prancing ..

still .. exquisite agony .. pulsing pressure pounding pee

Standing on the end of the examination table

aim 

fire!!!!!! .

well feelingwise ..

water really 

try to hit the sink from 3 feet away

My Friend

HaHaHaHaHa

Me

Don’t laugh .. its true!!

Long arch .. a 3 pointer! ..

kinda missed a bit

yellow streaks on the diabetes chart

(pause)

My Friend

You’re kidding right?

Me (cant stop now .. im rolling)

nurse walked in

I didn’t mean to squirt on her

she grabbed my Penis..hard.. pinched it off  ..and dragged me down ..

I love decisive women.

It really hurt when she slipped and fell on her butt in the puddle.

Now her bottom was wet.

But I think it was mainly from the urine on the floor

I handed her the full cup

And smiled

She did not seem to be amused

My Friend

Bet she wasn’t amused?

Me 

gmta  (great minds think alike)

She marched me out the door and down the hall to the bathroom

Penis in hand 

her hand

as we went by the waiting room.. everyone was staring ..

they had heard the commotion

I just looked out at all the people

and smiled .. innocently

and shrugged ..

and loudly mumbled something

She wanted a Semen Donation and couldn’t wait ???..

she had a wet spot on her uniform

bit yellow

she was mad

My friend 

Oh you .. you crack me up.

Me

I was pretty sore myself

My Friend

 You need to write that down.

Me

lol .. yes been thinking about it

a bit of editing and it could almost be plausible