I went to Taco Hell today for lunch and as I was waiting for my order, two little old ladies came in and proceeded to tickle my funny bone.
They were generally just asking little old lady type questions about this combo and that combo and the guy behind the counter was handling them pretty well. He explained that the combo came with a choice of hard or soft taco.
One of the ladies asked, “What’s the difference between the hard taco and a soft taco.”
I had to make a very fast exit, LMAO!
[QUOTE=elbows]
The singularly stupidest thing I repeatedly hear people say is, when they overhear you discussing books usually, they volunteer, " I don’t read." I have to bite my tongue to keep from quoting Mark Twain to them; " A man who does not read is scarcely and better off than a man who can’t read." I don’t, but I always think it.
[/QUOTE]
I’ve heard people say that, as well as “I don’t have time to read.” You might as well say you don’t have time to breathe. 
Now, granted, my son, a senior in high school, has been unable to read for pleasure since school started, due to demands on his time from his classes and SAT prep. I’m trying to urge him to find a few minutes to start on the next Dark Tower book.
“Evolution is a lie.” - My grandma, 10/23/06
Unbeknownst to her, I have made a pact with myself that I will not have these vain arguments with her anymore. She’s old and I love her. But dammit, does she have to spew idiocy in front of the kids?
I’d like to say up front, before I tell this story, that I love my wife very much. That being said, she was decidedly not brought up in the country.
Last summer, we were on a vacation for a bit, which at one point included taking the little nephews to a petting zoo. At the zoo, we were introduced to a truly huge pig, which the employee told us was a “lard hog,” a variety of pig especially raised for its lard rather than for its pork. If you didn’t know previously that there were different types of pigs raised for these different purposes, that’s pretty interesting.
So after the zoo, my wife, her mother, her stepdad, and myself are sitting in a restaurant, and we talk about the pig. My wife (did I mention that I love her a lot?) asks, “So, how do they get the lard out of the pig?”
I answered, “…well, the pigs don’t usually give it up willingly.” She was shocked. “They KILL them?” Apparently, she thought that lard was made by milking the pigs, then churning out the lard, the way butter is churned out of cow milk. We were pretty merciless with the “lard milker” jokes for the rest of the trip.
Yep, that’s my wife. The same woman who, when I told her that we routinely killed and ate the chickens that we kept on my parents’ old place, said, “You killed your PETS?!” Um, no, they weren’t pets, honey…
[QUOTE=you with the face]
Depends on how you look at it. Since complexity and simplicity are extremes, it’s possible for something to be smack dab in the middle, being neither particulary complex nor simple. So isn’t it possible for a period of complexity to be followed by something that exists in this middle zone? I would think so.
The question would be absurd if complexity is only defined by its polar opposite. “A period of complexity has to be followed by a period of RELATIVE simplicity” would be a stupid statement. But I think when it comes to music, complexity and simplicity can be used as absolute terms.
[/QUOTE]
Right, I thought it was referring to a backlash sending music in the opposite direction from the previous trend, and thought that was a fair statement. Like bright and flouncy fashion seasons are followed by gray straitlaced ones. Of course that’s a plot to get you to buy more clothes, but I digress.
My pregnant sister: Oh, I hope, I hope, I hope it’s a girl!
Me: Even if it turns out to be a boy, that would still be cool. Boys kind of have a special bond with their mothers.
Her: (disgusted) If it’s a boy I’m not going to bond with him! That would make him gay!
I think it’s because of that statement that god caused her to miscarry a few weeks later.
[QUOTE=elbows]
The singularly stupidest thing I repeatedly hear people say is, when they overhear you discussing books usually, they volunteer, " I don’t read." I have to bite my tongue to keep from quoting Mark Twain to them; " A man who does not read is scarcely and better off than a man who can’t read." I don’t, but I always think it.
[/QUOTE]
My step-brother is a historian who has written a couple of books. He was set up on a blind date with one of my sister’s friends. The first words out the date’s mouth when he met her was, “I heard you’re a writer. I hope you don’t mind that I don’t read.”
[QUOTE=samm]
My pregnant sister: Oh, I hope, I hope, I hope it’s a girl!
Me: Even if it turns out to be a boy, that would still be cool. Boys kind of have a special bond with their mothers.
Her: (disgusted) If it’s a boy I’m not going to bond with him! That would make him gay!
I think it’s because of that statement that god caused her to miscarry a few weeks later.
[/QUOTE]
This post :eek: s me on a couple of levels.
My last sentence there was said facetiously, but it really was for the best for all parties involved. Especially the unborn.
[QUOTE=Raguleader]
Ehhhhh it depends on how strictly you define “Airplane”. If you arbitrarily limit it to powered fixed-wing heavier than air vehicles, then yeah, airplanes usually* need engines to fly…
*I have heard stories about small private planes, tethered to the ground,
[/QUOTE]
Your forgetting about sailplanes. Unless you don’t consider 500+ Km over 8+ hours, with multiple climbs to 18,000 MSL meaningful time or distance.
I once had a guy tell me that it was the middle :rolleyes: temporal artery that is skeletonized and transposed to the pia through a craniotomy in the dura and arachnoid in a pial synangiosis procedure. Nitwit. One things for certain—a brain surgeon he’s not.
Another time this fellow tells me that he didn’t think it was theoretically possible for a supersonic-combustion ramjet-propelled craft to achieve orbital speed with an efficiency three times that of liquid or solid fuel rockets! :smack: Jeesh-- you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out he’s a few watts shy of a bright bulb.
[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright]
The Bernoulli principle is really, really basic applied physics and anyone with a twelve-year-old’s education should at least understand it, if not know what it’s called.
[/QUOTE]
Do you mean be ABLE to understand it, or actually understand it? I guarantee that if you stop 100 random people on the street, maybe 2, just maybe, will be able to explain that.
Sometimes it’s easy to forget that you hang around with the upper crust of the educated populace. Try hanging around this little town sometime. I have 11th grade students who can’t label the sides of a graph with an example on the board. I hope they’re happy paving roads or something.
I can’t remember if I’ve told this story before, but during band class in high school a fellow bassonist (blonde I’m sorry to say) turned to me and asked
“What country is Europe in?”
Me: :eek: :eek:
Fellow Bassoonist: "No seriously, just tell me what city it’s next to and I can figure it out.
Me: :smack:
And my little brother and sister are twins and we get the “identical?” response all the time. I think it’s a word-association thing.
[QUOTE=Kevbo]
Your forgetting about sailplanes. Unless you don’t consider 500+ Km over 8+ hours, with multiple climbs to 18,000 MSL meaningful time or distance.
[/QUOTE]
See above, re: “If you arbitrarily limit it to powered fixed-wing heavier than air vehicles…” in reference to Septima’s comment about how an airplane wouldn’t fly if you took the engines off.
Actually, I’ve heard stories of planes flying after having a wing taken off. You’d be amazed what you can get some of those machines to do.
[QUOTE=Pochacco]
The lift generated by the wing of an airplane is NOT caused by the Bernoulli Principle.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Cecil]
Bernoulli’s principle tells us that the higher the velocity of an airstream, the lower its static pressure. Because the static pressure below the wing is higher than that above, the wing generates lift.
[/QUOTE]
Not a stupid statement so much as a stupid thought process. Which, unfortunetly, took place in my own head:
I was reading about Stephen Hawking, and it mentioned that he’s British. “That’s odd,” I thought, “He doesn’t have an accent.”
:smack:
[QUOTE=Miller]
Not a stupid statement so much as a stupid thought process. Which, unfortunetly, took place in my own head:
I was reading about Stephen Hawking, and it mentioned that he’s British. “That’s odd,” I thought, “He doesn’t have an accent.”
:smack:
[/QUOTE]
Well, you might think he did, but that’s because you’re Amer…
:smack: :smack: :smack:
[QUOTE=pimaspinner]
I went to Taco Hell today for lunch and as I was waiting for my order, two little old ladies came in and proceeded to tickle my funny bone.
They were generally just asking little old lady type questions about this combo and that combo and the guy behind the counter was handling them pretty well. He explained that the combo came with a choice of hard or soft taco.
One of the ladies asked, “What’s the difference between the hard taco and a soft taco.”
I had to make a very fast exit, LMAO!
[/QUOTE]
The hard taco has seen a particularly interesting burrito?
[QUOTE=Miller]
Not a stupid statement so much as a stupid thought process. Which, unfortunetly, took place in my own head:
I was reading about Stephen Hawking, and it mentioned that he’s British. “That’s odd,” I thought, “He doesn’t have an accent.”
:smack:
[/QUOTE]
Oh my god! I said the exact same thing last night when I was talking to my girlfriend about him. Apparently you and I are both stupid in the same way.
I think the stupidest thing I ever heard was from my grandfather. For context, he said this while we were watching a meteor shower.
Him: I don’t believe in UFOs because of the Bible.
Me: (pause) But…UFOs aren’t …mentioned in the Bible?
Him: That’s why I don’t believe in them.
Me: (head explodes). Then…do you also not believe in cars?
Him: (silent fuming)
Over the summer, another intern asked me to help her change a light bulb. “Is it high up, or something?” I asked. “No,” she replied, “I don’t know how to change a light bulb.” So that is how I came to teach a twenty-three year old law student (and Columbia graduate) how to change a light bulb. It was a rough day for her, though; I also taught her “righty-tighty, lefty-loosy” at the same time.
M. Meursault: How many Lawyers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Only two. I have NO idea how the hell they got in there though.