Friday Funnies

TRAFFIC RULES - Houston, Texas Edition

1. You must learn to pronounce the name of the city. It is "Hue-stun," not "Ewe-ston," and definitely not "How-ston." The street named San Felipe is pronounced "San fe-LEE-pay," not "San Fi-LEEP" or "San Fay-LEE-pee."

2. Forget any traffic rules you learned anywhere else. Houston has its own version of traffic rules. They are called "Hold On And Pray." There is no such thing as a high-speed chase in Houston. We all drive like that.

3. All directions start with "Go down to Loop 610," which has no beginning and no end.

4. You have the East, Katy, Southwest, North, South, Northwest, and Eastex freeways, which are actually I-10 East, I-10 West, 59 North, 59 South, I-45 North, I-45 South, and 290, but not in that order. Your job is to figure out which one you really want to get on, without any signs to tell you. God help you if you are in the wrong lane, or you will go around Loop 610 again, which is an endless circle.

5. The Chamber of Commerce calls getting through traffic "a scenic drive." It is if you love seeing wrecks and people risking their lives changing tires, running through pot holes, slamming on your brakes to avoid a collision, having people cut you off, seeing a lot of people's middle fingers, and exhaust fumes.

6. The morning rush hour is from 5:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. The noon-hour rush is 11:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. The evening rush hour is 2:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., sometimes 9:00 p.m. (or 3 a.m. during floods, which we call "ponding"). The teenagers take the streets from 9:00 p.m. through 5:00 a.m., and Friday's rush hour starts on Thursday morning.

7. If you actually stop at a yellow light, you WILL be rear ended, or at least cussed out, and/or possibly shot. When you are the first off the starting line, count to 5 before moving when the light turns green, to avoid being "T-boned" by crossing traffic.

8. Construction on every freeway, loop, and tollway in the city is a permanent form of entertainment as well as a source of delays.

9. Kuykendahl Road can be pronounced ONLY by a native Houstonian. (It is pronounced "Kirk-n-doll.")

10. All unexplained smells are accompanied by the phrase "Oh, we must be near Pasadena."

11. If someone actually has his turn signal on, it is probably a factory defect and should be ignored.

12. All Suburbans have the right-of-way, unless you are driving an 18-wheeler or perhaps a Bradley tank.

13. The minimum acceptable speed limit on Loop 610 is 85 mph. Otherwise, you will be stopped by Houston's Finest for impeding the flow of traffic.

14. The wrought-iron bars on windows in East Houston are NOT ornamental.

15. Never look at the driver of a car with a bumper sticker that says, "Keep honking. I'm reloading." In fact, don't honk at anyone.

16. If you are in the left lane, and going only 70 mph in a 60 mph zone, the people who are passing you are not really waving at you.

17. If it is 100 degrees outside, then January 1st must be next weekend.

18. The Sam Houston Toll Road is Houston's daily version of a NASCAR race.

19. When in doubt, remember that all unmarked exits lead to the state of Louisiana.

20. Don't get on Main Street unless you really WANT to be on Main Street. Left turns and right turns are not allowed between the South Loop and Dallas (that's Dallas, Texas, not Dallas Street).

21. Don't get sick or injured. There are no parking spaces in the Texas Medical Center for anyone but doctors.

22. You don't have to wait for an exit to get off the freeways. Just follow the ruts in the grass to the frontage road like everyone else. This is how Houston residents notify the Texas Department of Transportation where exits should have been built in the first place.

Y'ALL ENJOY YOUR STAY IN HOUSTON, AND COME BACK REAL SOON NOW, Y'HEAR?

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Friday Funnies

20 WAYS TO MAINTAIN A HEALTHY LEVEL OF INSANITY

1. At lunch time, sit in your parked car with sunglasses on and point a hairdryer at passing cars. See if they slow down.

2. Page yourself over the intercom. Don't disguise your voice.

3. Every time someone asks you to do something, ask if they want fries with that.

4. Put your garbage can on your desk and label it "IN".

5. Put decaf in the coffee maker for 3 weeks. Once everyone has gotten over their caffeine addictions, switch to espresso.

6. In the memo field of all your checks, write "for smuggling diamonds".

7. Finish all your sentences with "in accordance with the prophecy".

8. Don't use any punctuation.

9. As often as possible, skip rather than walk.

10. Order a diet water whenever you go out to eat - with a serious face.

11. Specify that your drive-through order is "to go".

12. Sing along at the opera.

13. Put mosquito netting around your work area and play tropical sounds all day at work.

14. Go to a poetry recital and ask why the poems don't rhyme.

15. Five days in advance, tell your friends you can't attend their party because you're not in the mood.

16. Have your coworkers address you by your wrestling name, "Rock Bottom".

17. When the money comes out of the ATM, scream "I won! I won!"

18. When leaving the zoo, start running towards the parking lot yelling, "Run for your lives, they're loose!!"

19. Tell your children over dinner "due to the economy, we are going to have to let one of you go."

20. And the final way to keep a healthy level of insanity......send this to someone to make them smile and laugh. It's called therapy. You could say the devil made you do it

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Friday Funnies

Revising 60's hits

Some of the artists of the 60's are revising their hits with new lyrics to accommodate aging baby boomers. They include:

Bobby Darin ---Splish, Splash, I Was Havin' a Flash

Herman's Hermits ---Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Walker

Ringo Starr ---I Get By With a Little Help From Depends

The Bee Gees ---How Can You Mend a Broken Hip

Roberta Flack---The First Time Ever I Forgot Your Face

Johnny Nash ---I Can't See Clearly Now

Paul Simon---Fifty Ways to Lose Your Liver

The Commodores---Once, Twice, Three Times to the Bathroom

Marvin Gaye---Heard It Through the Grape Nuts

Procol Harem---A Whiter Shade of Hair

Leo Sayer---You Make Me Feel Like Napping

The Temptations---Papa's Got a Kidney Stone

Abba---Denture Queen

Tony Orlando---Knock 3 Times On The Ceiling If You Hear Me Fall

Helen Reddy---I Am Woman, Hear Me Snore

Leslie Gore---It's My Procedure, and I'll Cry If I Want To

And Last but NOT least:

Willie Nelson --- On the Commode Again

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Friday Funnies

You know you're living in 2009 when. . .

1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.

2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.

3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of three.

4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.

5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresse s.

6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.

7. Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen.

8. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.

10. You get up in the morning and go on line before getting your coffee.

11. You start tilting your head sideways to smile : )

12. You're reading this and nodding and laughing.

13. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message.

14. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.

15. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list.

AND NOW U R LAUGHING AT YOURSELF

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End of the Line for Barbour Cozy Mysteries

I received a sad bit of news this week. Due to financial pressures, Barbour has made the difficult decision to cancel its cozy mystery line. What does this mean for cozy mystery readers? Check out the following article posted by Rebecca Germany, Senior Editor at Barbour Publishing:

2008 was the season for the cozy mystery romance at Barbour. We spent 2 years planning for our new book club. We built a strong team of managing editor and authors who worked hard on both content and marketing of the books. Then we launched the club early 2008 based on strong initial membership drives.

All was going well until our early fall membership drive (traditionally a strong time for adding new members) hit at the same time as the news from Wall Street about the financial crisis. The membership drive had the worst response that we have ever experienced or even heard of in the industry. At that point, to save the club would have required major investment dollars. By the end of 2008, we knew that the national financial climate would not allow for a marketing gamble on something that was still new and unproven.

2008 was a pretty good year overall for Barbour, but with 2009 looking to be a hard one for retailers, we know we have to tighten our belt and keep our money where we are confident it can give us the most return. So, for that reason, we will be closing the Heartsong Presents Mystery Romance Club. We have a couple more shipments that will go out, then books we have contracted will be used in other ways. Most likely they will go into 3-in-1 collections like Cozy in Kansas and Alibis in Arkansas. These 2 books released in late fall 2008 and had very good sales showings over Christmas. We hope you cozy mystery lovers out there will look for these books and support your author friends by buying them.

To read the complete article, check out The Edit Cafe.

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Almost Home

My family and I went home for Christmas this year, to a wonderful surprise. Snow! Lots of it. Lots and lots and lots of it. More snow than my home state of Michigan has seen for years. So much snow...okay, so you get the idea.

Anyway, all that snow took me back to my childhood when snowdays were a common occurence, and forts made in the snow provided hours of entertainment. I remember burying my sister up to her neck in the stuff one year, and teasing her unmercifully when she begged me to let her out and I threatened to go inside without her.

Another time my sister and I tunneled into a drift so high we were able to stand up inside! Okay, so we were only four feet tall, but still.

What fun it was to see it snow like winters past, and what fun it was to drive home after two weeks to my home in warm and sunny Texas! :-)

But I got a precious gift from my baby sister this Christmas, a photo of the snow-covered road leading to my parent's house. She took the picture herself, and titled it "Almost Home."

Yes, I thought as I looked at it. I am.

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Sandra Robbins' Pedigreed Bloodlines ~ Reviewed

Pedigreed Bloodlines by Sandra Robbins

Published by Heartsong Presents Mysteries

ISBN 978-1-59789-602-3

Back Cover:

THIS MURDERER IS BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE. . .When Leigh Dennison's dear friend and champion show-dog breeder, Addie Jordan, is killed, Leigh goes on the hunt to sniff out the murderer. If only she could devote more time to her sleuthing. . .But Leigh, who has never been a dog lover, now finds herself as the owner of Addie's kennel, which houses a puppy with a bright future in the show ring. Leigh must overcome one obstacle after another as she sets out to succeed with the kennel and find the person who killed the woman she loved like a mother. At the top of her suspect list: a homeless Vietnam veteran, a young Cherokee high school dropout, the owner of a rival kennel. . .and the man with whom Leigh is falling in love.

As clues unfold to the killer's identity, she makes another surprising discovery--there's a reason dogs are known as man's best friend.

Review:

Leigh Dennison, the main character in Pedigreed Bloodlines, suffers from Attention Deficit Disorder, but author Sandra Robbins had no trouble keeping my interest from start to finish.

"I'll warn you again before it's too late. You'd better buckle your seat belt and put your chair back , tray in the upright and locked position. You may be in for a bumpy flight." - Leigh Dennison, Pedigreed Bloodlines.

I couldn't agree more. This isn't an edge of your seat, send shivers down your spine, thrill ride, but it's a whole lot of fun and filled with clues and red herrings, just as a cozy mystery should be.

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