Minimalist poet, minimalist lifestyle

When blue collar workers go out together on a weekend they talk about football.

When middle management are together, they talk about tennis.

When Top management get together they discuss golf.

Conclusion: The higher up you are in management, the smaller your balls

A little town had a high birth rate that had attracted the attention of the sociologists at the state university. They wrote a grant proposal; got a huge chunk of money; hired a few additional sociologists, an anthropologist, and a family planning and birth control specialist; moved to town; rented offices; set up their computers; got squared away; and began designing their questionnaires and such. While the staff was busy getting ready for their big research effort, the project director decided to go to the local drugstore for a cup of coffee. He sat down at the counter, ordered his coffee, and while he was drinking it, he told the druggist what his purpose was in town, then asked him if he had any idea why the birth rate was so high.

"Sure," said the chemist.

"Every morning the six o'clock train comes through here and blows for the crossing. It wakes everybody up, and, well, it's too late to go back to sleep, and it's too early to get up."

A while ago, the Washington Post asked readers to recount historic events in two-line couplets or some other short and funny way.

44 B.C.:
"Beware the ides of March," 'twas warned, or so goes ancient ballad;
But Caesar heard it not, and so they turned him into salad.

1502-1504:
Stylish Michelangelo carved David in the nude.
While Leo's Mona Lisa watched in smiling gratitude.

1588:
The Spanish fleet wasn't.

1836:
Though Jim Bowie showed cojones,
Santa Ana had more ponies.

2004:
Secret detentions, wiretaps aplenty:
Orwell was off by only twenty.

I went to a Bonfire Night party last night and someone lit a rocket that failed to launch. A few seconds later it exploded; I was standing about twenty feet away and certainly felt the shockwave - it forced me to take a couple of steps backwards. It was a good night though; plenty of food; hot stew, jacket potatoes, baked apples and parkin...and the weather was so mild it could have been August.