Brain Fertilizer

There was a Russian gymnast competing named Semenova.

Let's take another look at that, shall we?

Semen + ova.

Why didn't they just call her Zygote?

What is?

Drive-by punning, of course.

Chinese Farmers hold "Meetings on Stools"

So if your ISP is having problems communicating, does it have a LISP?*

Long-time readers of Brainfertilizer know that life has been particularly difficult for me over the last year. Right now, the next several weeks loom as a possibly-even-more-difficult stretch.

Like many others, I've wondered, "Why me?!?" Like many others, at I've wondered how this period of emotional suffering is compatible with the idea of a compassionate and loving God.

But I think I understand now. I've finally come to grips with my situation, and found my peace.

You see, it all started when when I won a contest in which the prize was a lifetime supply of Wrigley's Spearmint. Because, as we all know:

Not all of them are puns. Like this one:

What has four legs, is big, green, fuzzy, and if it fell out of a tree would kill you? A pool table.

Nevertheless, there are some pretty bad puns in this list of bad jokes. Enjoy! ...if you can!

The image of General George Washington crossing the Delaware is a common one to Americans. He certainly looks dashing in the prow of the boat in that famous painting, doesn't he?

We are told that it was the surprise crossing of troops that allowed Washington to capture a sizable and unsuspecting British force without firing a shot. Like many embellishments of history, that one is not quite true.

Here's what really happened. A Brain Fertilizer Exclusive History Lesson, if you will:

Washington had his troops marshalled and ready to cross the Delaware. At the last minute, a group of concerned citizens rushed up. "You can't go looking like that!" They exlaimed. "You look like a ragtag band of ragamuffins in all that wrinkled clothing!"

"But what can we do?" President Washington asked, perplexed. "We have depleted all our funds for uniforms. We have no choice but to attack with the condition of clothing we have right now."

But the civilians would not hear of it. "We'll do it for you gratis," they insisted.

The British were well-trained and battle-hardened. They would have been able to repel our troops easily...they saw them coming a mile away. But when they saw how crisp our uniforms were, and how shabby their own were...well, they were overcome with shame at their lack of discipline in grooming, and surrendered without firing a shot...

So a monarch of a small Eastern European nation was out golfing one day. He was having a pretty bad day, shooting bogies or double bogies on every hole. But he hit a nice drive on the 18th hole, hit a nice chip shot from the rough, and the ball was only a few inches from the cup. If he successfully sank the putt, he would actually make par on a hole!

So he tapped it in. No problem.

Immediately a police cruiser roared out from behind a bush, tearing up the greens to skid to a halt next to His Royal Highness. Two troopers jumped out and slammed him to the ground, slapping cuffs on him and hauling him to his feet again.

"I don't get it," said His Majesty. "What did I do?"

In response, the policeman pointed to a sign just off the rough:

Hurricane France's;
Man, these frogs really don't like
Florida, do they?

A new phrase is born:
Not, "Will he carry the vote?"
but, "...Kerry the vote?".

Yeah, I'm going to be doing this all day.

The "AWOL Memo"
A font of contrversy;
Sadly, the wrong font.

During World War Two, Great Britain sent a team of commandos behind enemy lines to foil Hitler's plot to cross the channel and invade the island nation. The team consisted of Miller and Chapman from London, MacTaggart from Glasgow, O'Donnel from Dublin, and Preston, a demolitions expert from Canada.

The had no problems parachuting in, but as they were moving toward their objective, they encountered a small patrol. They ambushed the Germans and killed them all with knives and silenced weapons, but a stray bullet grazed MacTaggart's leg.

"That's it," Chapman said. "We might as well send MacTaggart home now."

"Why?" asked Preston. "We need every man to foil Hitler's plan!"

"Unfortunately," Chapman continued, "as we all know..."

Over at this Arguing With Signposts post about devolving in the NZBear Ecosystem, I left the following comment:

It's an ecosystem, man. Zero-sum game. Even if you get more links/hits, if someone else is accumulating them quicker, you move down. For someone to go up, someone else has gotta go down. It's sad, but it's the way this blog-eat-blog world works.

I declare this website will remain free of puns on Berger's name by me.

A guy called and said his computer wasn't running anymore. The on-line tech supprt went through all the steps with him, but the efforts didn't result in a resolution of his problem, leaving no choice but to bring the computer in to a repair shop.
At the repair shop, the technician opened up the case to find a sticky, sugary mess packed into the hard drive. He immediately called the owner.
"Did you put some sort of foreign substance into your hard drive, sir?"
"Yes," came the reply. "I was trying to increase the storage."
"What on earth are you talking about?" asked the tech.
"Well, you've heard that old saying, right?" the owner said.

The two men, John and Jim, chartered a small cargo vessel to transport their goods from the United States to Norway. They had several crates of all the important items needed for survival in an arctic environment: snowshoes, skis, gloves, boots, you name it, they had it.

Unfortunately, they hit an iceberg not far from an unhibatide coastal area of Greenland and began to sink. They had just enough time to grab survival gear for themselves for about 3 months, but the their cargo was lost. They made it ashore and set up camp. They were slightly worried, but expected that someone might come by within a week or two.

But the weeks went by, and no one came within sight, on either land or sea. Jim became depressed, and started sleeping more. John never gave up, however, and ceaselessly searched for some way to improve their situation. Finally, with less than a week of rations left, two out of the ordinary events happned before Jim awoke from his depression-extended slumber.

Ther first was that a single crate washed ashore: a box of hankerchiefs specially designed with slits in them so you could wrap them around your eyes and still see without getting dazzled by reflections of the sun off of ice and snow. And by a strange coincidence, as John was fishing the crate out of the water, nomad Inuits appeared. Not knowing who they were, John quickly hid the crate out of site behind a snowdrift, then quickly woke up Jim.

The chieftain was willing to take them to civilization, but was also crafty and sly; he saw no reason to help them for free when he might be able to make a buck. So he feigned reluctance and told the stranded businessmen that it would cost his small tribe much to go out of their way to take the castaways to a settlement. He asked if they had anything they could offer for the trouble...?

Jim began to sadly shake his head, thinking they had nothing, but John, being afraid they might miss their chance, broke in and said,

(slightly altered from its original form by hazy memory)

Back in the days of developing the first atomic bomb, the team of scientists noted that Albert Einstein was a workaholic, never taking any time off to rest or relax. He was starting to crack from the stress, and the other scientists were worried.

One of them came up with what he thought was a good plan. He invited Albert to go catch fish with him. Albert seemed to enjoy it, and he was visibly more relaxed the next day in the lab. Everyone was happy.

Except that the scientist kept asking Albert to go back to the lake. Again and again and again. Mr. Einstein was too polite to say no, but people could tell he was irritated. All except for the poor scientist.

One day Albert was visibly irritated when the scientist walked up to ask him on another trip. Everyone was afraid Einstein might just explode, but he only mildly said,

Why Lucifer was kicked out of heaven:

So God was creating all the animals for the world, with some help and feedback from all the angels. He made giraffes, hippopotamuses (hippopotamusi?), sparrows, etc. Then he got to South American jungle cats. He was doing fine until he created a small spotted cat with double the normal legs.

One of the angels spoke up, "God! What are you doing? What in Your Name is that?!?"

God said, "It's an ocelot."

The angel shook his head. "God..."

It's a little-known made-up fact that when Pakistan was having a dispute with India back in 1995, they actually turned for help to Cambodia's leader, Pol Pot. A previous ambassador to the small Southeast Asian nation from Pakistan had made good friends with the leader before retiring to Quetta, a smaller city in Pakistan's Southwest.

However, it was difficult to make any progress, because the Pakistani leader handling the negotiations, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, would call Cambodia and not get through to Pol. Then Pol would always call back to his friend, the former ambassador.

Finally, Bhutto gave up. "Never mind," she told her assistant, "It's not worth it."

"What do you mean?" asked the assistant.

"It's impossible to have a discussion with him," Bhutto said, "Every time it's the same old thing..."

A young mother was speaking to her friend about the new things she had bought for her child. As the recitation grew more and more extensive, the friend became more and more disturbed.

Finally, the friend could contain herself no longer. "What are you doing to your child? You have bought him so many clothes and toys and gee-gaws that he won't know what to do! You even bought him an expensive Swiss watch, and he's a toddler, for Goodness' Sake! You're spoiling him!"

But the mother laughed, unperturbed. "Relax," she said, "It's okay, because..."

The police had been after Doyle Bertram Walker for marijuana trafficking for some time, but to no avail. He was too clever, and too slippery.

One day a farmer called late Friday afternoon to say he'd found some hemp-looking plants growing near one of his fields. The young detective who took the call immediately ordered a stake-out to keep an eye on the marijuana, hoping Doyle would eventually show up and they could nab him. But they saw absolutely nothing over the whole weekend.

The senior detective was furious when he arrived Monday morning. He called the young detective into his office and yelled at him for hours about wasted man-hours.

"You should have known better!" he finally shouted.

"How, sir? How could I have known?" asked the perplexed young detective.

"Because," replied his superior,*

CNN/Reuters: News reports have filtered out early this morning that US forces have swooped on an Iraqi Primary School and detained 6th Grade teacher Mohammed Al-Hazar. Sources indicate that, when arrested, Al- Hazar was in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square and a calculator. US President George W Bush immediately stated that this was clear and overwhelming evidence that Iraq did indeed possess weapons of maths instruction.

I'm not sure what category to file this under...

See, I took a few days off from work to relax and recover from some work-related stress. We spent some time out shopping. I remembered that April 15th was "Buy [something] Day", but I couldn't remember what it was. I remember it was a three-letter word, and lots of bloggers write/post about it...

...so I got a cat.

It's being neutered today, we pick up tomorrow. Cat-blogging will initiate soon after, as I catalog his cute traits.