Life in the not really fast lane.

I'm kind of hoping someone might know the answer to this one, as well.

Circumstances have come together in such a way that, for the time being, you are currently the only vehicle travelling along your side of a three-lane highway. You are driving in the middle lane. There is a car approaching the highway on a side road. The other car stops, then enters the highway.

Why, then, does the driver of the other vehicle feel that the only lane he can drive in is the one that you're already in? And why does he then slow down to 20 kilometres per hour below the speed limit, forcing you to change lanes to go past him?

Any suggestions would be gratefully accepted.

In space no one can hear you ...

Here's one for the astronauts amongst us.

If you're in your space capsule, floating about in zero gravity and you fart, will you be propelled forward?
I mean, this could be quite problematic, couldn't it? A good curry the night before, and you could be bouncing around inside the capsule doing a rather splendid impression of a balloon that has just been let go.

Just wondering.

Something fishy here.

S brought this to my attention: I was too busy melting to notice, but I do agree with her.

The caption under this photo was, "Fisherman hooks monster shark in rubber dinghy." The error was compounded by the headline in the attendant article: "Man catches bronze whaler in dinghy"

This, of course, begs the question: what was the shark doing in a rubber dinghy?

I suppose it's possible it can't swim, and needs a boat to get around? Was the dinghy actually owned by the shark, or had it stolen it? Perhaps it has seen the movie, "Jaws", and is afraid to go in the water? Maybe the shark had embraced technology and the dinghy was equipped with a fish finder, and the poor creature was only looking for lunch? Being a bronze whaler, could it have been trying to maintain the image of the bronzed Aussie? Or could it have been a cast member of "Westside Story" just looking to spend a little time on the water?

Even if we never find an answer to this conundrum, one thing is absolutely certain. At the end of this saga, something is going to end up battered. It'll just be a toss up which will be more so: the fish or the grammar.

On the tip of your tongue.

We're all familiar with Peter Piper and his peck of pickled peppers, the wood chucking woodchuck and the pheasant plucker. Tongue twisters which are relatively easy to master and give us a sense of achievement when we do. But, here are some tongue twisters to really give your tongue a hernia, coutesy of the maestro of the tongue himself, Mr. Danny Kaye.

Okay, take a deep breath. Ready? Begin!

Moses supposes his toeses are roses, but Moses supposes erroneously. For Moses he knowses his toeses ain't roses that Moses supposes his toeses to be.

How did you go? That was a simple one just to warm you up. Ready for the next one?

Now, Kissle will whistle at busty Miss. Russell who'll rustle and bustle till Kissle will roar, so Russell asked Axle for Kissle's dismissal and this'll teach Kissle to whistle no more.

Okay, your tongue should be pretty limber by now. Let's continue.

Tito and Tato were tattooed in total, but Toto was only tattooed on his toes, so Tato told Tito where Toto was tattooed but Tito said Toto's tattoo wouldn't show.

That's the easy part over. You might want to call in a physiotherapist for the next lot.

Theda thought Thora was thumping her thimble but Thomas thought Thora was thumping her drum, so if Theda thought Thora's not thumping her thimble, I think that she surely is thumping her thumb.

Coming up is the assault course, so I'll let you catch your breath before we continue.

Okay, times up! Ready, set, go!

Now, Charley is chary when choosing his cheeses and cheese is a challenge when Charley arrives. When Charley is charming and chooses a cheddar then chews it and chips it and chops in some chives.

Heda is hoping to hop to Tahiti to hack a hibiscus to hang on her hat. Now, Heda has hundreds of hats on her hatrack, so how can a hop to Tahiti help that?

Warning! The next section should only be attempted by professionals or serving members of the SAS.

Snobby Miss. Nora is sniffing her snuffer, the snuffer’s no sniffing it makes Nora sneeze. When Snyda lets Nort know his Nora is sneezing, she snappily snorts Nora’s sneezing a breeze.

Sheila is selling her shop at the seashore for shops at the seashore are so sure to lose, and she’s not so sure of what she should be selling. Should Sheila sell seashells or should she sell shoes?

Did you survive? Or does your tongue feel like it's pulled it's muscle? Not to worry. Keep practising these until you get them down pat, and you'll be able to amaze your friends with your dexterity.

In the beginning ...

... there was an amorphous blob of melted lard wishing everyone a happy New Year.

Felice Navidad.

Dance like no one is watching.

Something to make you smile.

Just a minute.

You know when somebody comes up to you seeking your assistance with something, and they ask if you've got a minute and you say, "Yeah, sure", what happens to that minute?

Is it lost forever? Are our lives shortened by all those minutes we've given away? Should we be asking for minutes from other people so we can recoup our losses, and thereby balance the books? And who do we ask for our minutes back? The person who originally took yours, or will anybody do? Can we claim interest on minutes that haven't been repaid in a timely fashion, say for every minute owed we get one minute and six seconds back?

Was just wondering.

What kind of sauce would you like on that?

This is a tale about a barbecued leg. Not a leg of lamb or beef as one might expect, but a leg of Wood; John Wood, to be precise.

In 2004, John Wood of South Carolina, U.S.A., was in a plane crash. His injuries were such that doctors were forced to amputate his leg. Being somewhat (up until that time, at least) attached to his leg, Mr. Wood asked that he keep the limb and get it embalmed and preserved, so that when he finally shuffles off this mortal coil he could be cremated as a complete set (Some assembly required). Apparently, he was able to find an obliging mortician, and get the procedure done.

Next comes the problem of where to keep the leg. I have no idea what was going on in Mr. Wood's head, but he finally decided to put the appendage inside a barbecue, which he subsequently moved into a self-storage unit. It hasn't really been explained how he came to that decision, so I'm going to go out on a limb here and offer the following possible scenario.

Mr. Wood comes home clutching his leg to his chest. Mrs. Wood takes one look and states categorically that she will not be living under the same roof as that. It was fine when it was attached to Mr. Wood, but now it would be just too freaky. To appease his wife, Mr. Wood takes the leg out to the garage thinking that at least out of sight, out of mind. Looking around for a safe place, he spies the barbecue, makes the mental "barbecue/leg" connection, and voila! Problem solved. Except that Mrs. Wood sees what he has done, and puts her foot down, saying that she doesn't want his leg anywhere near the house, and that he can also get rid of the barbecue as she sure as hell wasn't ever going to eat anything cooked on that. So to keep the peace - and the piece - and his legs together, more or less, Mr. Wood hits upon the notion of a self-storage unit.

This appears to be a satisfactory arrangement until Mr. Wood allows the lease payments on his storage unit to lapse. The owner of the facility, in order to recoup his losses, seizes all of Mr. Wood's possessions, including the barbecue housing the Wood leg, and proceeds to have what amounts to a garage sale. Along comes Shannon Whisnant who purchases the barbecue and takes it home. I can imagine his surprise when he discovered it came with an extra leg.

At first, Mr. Whisnant didn't want any part of the leg, nor any other body part, for that matter, so he hot-footed it over to the phone and called in the long arm of the law to take it away. But, being a small town, news about the unusual find quickly got around and people started legging it over to Mr. Whisnant's place to check out the leg. Seeing what he considered a golden opprtunity, and not one to look a gift leg in the shin, Mr. Whisnant decided to display the leg for Halloween - at a price. $3.00 per adult, $1.00 per child.

Naturally, word soon reached the ears of Mr. Wood, who understandably wanted his appendage back as he didn't feel complete without it. Mr. Whisnant refused to toe the line, and the leg suddenly became a bone of contention. Mr. Wood was hopping mad, and for three years they kicked the question of ownership through the courts. Eventually it was decided that, LEGally speaking, Mr. Whisnant didn't really have a leg to stand on, and the limb should be returned to its original owner.

And no, I'm not pulling your leg. This story is true.

Things That Make You Go Hmmmm ...

This happened quite some time ago, but it has given me pause every now and then.

The highway at the end of our street is usually heavy with traffic and at certain times can be almost impossible to enter, let alone cross over to go in the other direction. To facilitate the people who live in the streets running off the highway, there is a side road which allows access; what they call a service road. With the help of the mud map on the left, I'll try and explain what happened on this day.

My normal practice, when approaching the highway from our street, is to pull up at the stop sign, make sure no one is coming down the service road, then proceed across the service road, stop where the blue "X" is and wait until there is a sufficient break in the traffic to allow me onto the highway. All done in a reasonably fluid motion.

On this particular day, for some reason I stopped at the stop sign and stayed there, even though nothing was coming down the service road. I must have sat there for at least half a minute before realising where I was. I thought to myself "What am I sitting here for?" and prepared to move off when a car driving along the highway suddenly locked its brakes and skidded into the spot where I would normally have been sitting waiting. It quickly became obvious that the woman driving the other car had realised she was going to miss the turn off and had slammed on her brakes in an attempt to still make it. All I could think of was that where she had stopped her slide was where I would have been if, for some reason, I hadn't been sitting at the stop sign daydreaming.

It makes you wonder, doesn't it?