In celebration of a birthday, someone in the office brought in donuts. And donuts always attract those who shouldn’t be eating such things.

One woman in particular grabbed a donut and announced that she really shouldn’t be eating it. But, since she knew that her will power would give out eventually, she said that she may as well take one now and get it over with.

Well, at least she is honest with herself.

In Iran, the police are cracking down on stores displaying curvy female mannequins. The officials feel that the mannequins promote western culture and should be banned. The store owners and their customer disagree with the authorities so friction exists.

If the mannequins are wearing burkas, how can anyone even tell if it is a woman?

I got laid off today but I am back to work now. When the State of Michigan does not have a budget, by law, it can not operate. And such was the case today.

At 12:01 AM today, the state had not agreed on a budget. And since the fiscal year ended Sept 30, the state had no way to pay for anything. So, all of us got laid off. Of course, by 2:30 AM, the governor signed a bill extending the existing budget for 30 days. So, we are all back to work, or at least most of us.

When you go to bed knowing that you are going to be laid off, you tend to sleep in. So, it will be awhile before every one gets the word. And since today is Thursday, I suspect we won’t see some people until Monday. So, this week is pretty much shot.

Of course, in 30 days if they still can’t agree on a budget, we will go through the same thing again. Life at the State, don’t you just love it!

The other day as I was returning from a meeting at work, I stopped to use the restroom. Since I was carrying a bottle of water and needed to set it down, I put it on the shelf by the hand driers.

Since I have done this hundreds of times in the past, I didn’t have second thoughts about it. People regular put their water bottles and coffee cups on that shelf.

As I was standing at the urinal, a maintenance work with a plunger walked up to the urinal next to me. He said “Oh, thats why its plugged. There is a paper towel in the drain. Well, I am not reaching in there with my bare hand.”

The next thing that I know, he grabs my water bottle and tries to remove the paper towel with it. After a few unsuccessful tries, he throws the water bottle in the trash and leaves.

I was speechless. And I certainly didn’t want my water bottle back. Beside, it was time for a new one any way.

I am warning my co-workers about this event. Who knows, if one of the toilets gets plugged, he may just grab their coffee cup.

I was in Meijer’s (regional grocery chain) the other day, having been tasked with purchasing a large jar of great northern beans. When I picked up the jar, I noticed that the label said “premium” beans.

Now, any time I see an adjective like “premium”, I think of it as special, a cut above the rest. So, seeing “premium” beans made me wonder what makes them premium? Are they bigger than regular beans? Maybe the difference is like whole cashews verses regular cashews?

Since I didn’t have any immediate answers to my questions, I decided that I needed to find a jar of regular beans for comparison. So, I scanned the shelves in search of regular beans. But, there were no jars of regular beans to be found, only the premium.

Maybe the regular beans are put into cans and not jars. If that is the case, then I would also have to buy a can of beans in order to compare the two. But, I knew that if I came home with both, I would have to answer to my wife, so I scrapped that idea.

Maybe Meijer’s only carries the premium beans. Well, what ever the case, I purchased the “premium” beans and completed my task.

Don’t even get me started on Saltines.

A woman in China went to the doctor because she had a pain in her a**. Upon examination, the doctor determined that pain was caused by a 6 inch knife lodged in one of her cheeks. After some reflection, the woman decided that the knife was the result of a robbery attempt 4 months earlier.

I suspect that she must have been a rather large woman.

A man in Arizona has successfully avoided 37 speeding tickets. How? By wearing a monkey mask.

It seems that in Arizona, they use automatic camera systems to take pictures of speeding motorist. But, while they have taken pictures of this guy speeding, he is always wearing a monkey mask so they can’t identify him.

I am sure that he will get caught eventually, but, in the mean time, he seems to be beating the system.

Poor Col. Khadafi. All he wants is a place to pitch his tent while he is in the US. His first choice was Central Park but the citizens of the city would not hear of it.  Then, he tried NJ but he efforts were resisted.

Finally, he tried to pitch his tent in White Plains, NY. But, the wealthy citizens of that area didn’t think that a tent would fit in well with their gated estates. So, once again, the Col. doesn’t have a place to pitch he’s tent.

Maybe he should try a KOA.

In an effort to accommodate the needs of the citizen of the State of Michigan, many of our call centers are multilingual. However, I ran across one the other day that needs some work.

The initial greeting from one of the call in lines give you a choice of 3 languages. And each of the choices announces itself in the correct language of choice. Unfortunately, the person that you are connected to only speaks English. So, even though you selected Arabic as the language of choice, the person answering the call doesn’t speak Arabic.

Well, it was a nice try anyway.

The state has installed a new barrier cable located in the median along a 10 mile strip of I-96 and it is doing its job. It hasn’t been in service over 30 days and has already blocked two cars from crossing over the median and into on coming traffic.

The real test will be with a semi.