The Best E-mail "Junk" of '09 (with Appropriate Asterisks; Don't Worry)

Like you, when my e-mail clogs up - usually about once every three or four months - I purge things. Sometimes interesting things are discovered in the old inbox...

(February) THE BEST DESCRIPTION OF THIS DECADE WRITTEN 70 YEARS AGO

I sit in one of the dives / On Fifty-second Street / Uncertain and afraid / As the clever hopes expire / Of a low dishonest decade: / Waves of anger and fear / Circulate over the bright /
And darkened lands of the earth, / Obsessing our private lives; / The unmentionable odour of death / Offends the September night. - W.H. Auden, "September 1, 1939"

(March) THE LIVING CAMERA, STEPHEN WILTSHIRE

Although this little film was made in 2006, it didn't hit my e-mail box until this year. "This has to be seen to be believed" is a gross understatement here - Wiltshire, an autistic savant, draws an astonishingly detailed and accurate aerial view of Rome, literally "on the fly" - in a three-day burst, on five yards of paper, after a single, 45-minute fly-over of The Eternal City. Access this film by all means; one internet location is: http://www.boreme.com/boreme/funny-2006/rome-drawing-p1.php.

(May) THIS IS NOT AN ENDORSEMENT

...but if you're not even a serious oldies fan, you might want to check out the year-by-year hits at http://upchucky.com, and decide on the best year of all between the 40's and 1979. My personal favorite among their assemblages is 1960, which includes Jerry Butler, Roy Orbison, two great songs by The Drifters, and The Shirelles' "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?" Oldie "snobs" can entertain themselves by b*tching and complaining about which songs are missing from which years.

DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL, AND DON'T COUNT THE MONEY WASTED

This e-mail cited the Dayton Daily News of May 28^th, and reported that, despite spending some $25 million to train him, the Air Force had decided to drum Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach out of the military because he is gay. This correspondent indicated that Fehrenbach had been "born of military-officer parents...and ha[d] earned 30 awards and decorations, with tours flying F-15Es in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, and was one of the elite fighters called on to patrol the air space over Washington, D.C., on Sept. 11, 2001."

(August) SLIGHTLY OUT OF PLACE

A man wearing greasy jeans, an open flannel shirt, a wife-beater, and work boots approaches the headwaiter in an elegant restaurant.

He says loudly, "Hey buddy, where's your crapper?" He then scratches a three-day growth of beard with a hand tattooed with "B*tch WAS mine" and dances from foot to foot urgently.

The headwaiter calmly replies, "Go down the hall and turn left. When you see the sign on a door to your right, then, which reads, 'Gentlemen,' pay absolutely no attention to it and go right inside."

(September, from my sister) THIS MEETING IS, LIKE, TO PROMOTE A STRONGER ECONOMY...I GET IT

"In anticipation of the G-20, downtown Pittsburgh has become Gitmo of the North. [E.] sent me a picture that MSNBC.com posted this morning of his building downtown (Two PNC Plaza) with a line of about 20 uniformed, helmeted, heavily armed policemen going into the garage to set up a command center. [E.] and [M.] are both working from home this week, as are many people who are employed in downtown Pittsburgh.

"Between the protesters, plus all the roadblocks for the incoming dignitaries, it is virtually impossible to get to a job. Many places of business have closed for either part of the week or all of it. Some places have boarded up their windows in anticipation of the violence expected from the protesters.

"Meanwhile, the dignitaries that have arrived are complaining because Pittsburgh looks like a ghost town! You gotta love it...can't you just see the mayor or whoever welcomes these 20 dignitaries saying something like, 'Welcome to Pittsburgh, our clean, EMPTY city!'"

(October) PADDY'S BROKEN LEG

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING JOKE CONTAINS WHAT IS CALLED "ADULT" CONTENT, WHICH IS TO SAY, A REFERENCE TO SEX AND A RUDE WORD.

Paddy has broken his leg, and his buddy Mick comes over to see him.

Mick says, "How ya doin?"

Paddy say, "Okay, but do me a favour, mate run upstairs and get me slippers; me feet are freezin."

Mick goes upstairs and sees Paddy's gorgeous 19-year-old, twin daughters lying on the bed.

He says, "Your dad's sent me up here to have sex with both of you.

They say, "Get away with ya...prove it."

Mick shouts downstairs, "Paddy, both of em?"

Paddy shouts back, "Of course both of em; what's the point of f*ckin one?"

(December) SURELY NOT A REAL ANSWER TO AN EXTRA CREDIT QUESTION IN A CHEMISTRY EXAM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON (AS CLAIMED)

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING, ARGUABLY, CONTAINS "AMERICAN ADULT CONTENT" (READ, A REFERENCE TO SEX AND MARGINAL BLASPHEMY, BUT NO RUDE WORDS).

Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

ANSWER: First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today.

Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities: 1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose. 2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it? If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my freshman year that "it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you," and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is, therefore, extinct...leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting, "Oh my God!"