The Dino-Aspie Ex-Café (for Those 40+... or feeling creaky)

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sigh. the easiest of the three tests. and the lab botched it.
we have to go back again.

My uncle used to sing this to me as a child, I loved it - still do!


The sons of the prophet
Were hardy and bold,
And quite unaccustomed to fear,
But the bravest by far,
In the ranks of the Shah,
Was Abdulla Bulbul Ameer.
This son of the desert,
In battle aroused,
Could spit twenty men on his spear.
A terrible creature,
Both sober and soused
|: Was Abdulla Bulbul Ameer.

2. If you wanted a man
To encourage the van,
Or to harass the foe from the rear,
Or to storm a redoubt,
You had only to shout
For Abdulla Bulbul Ameer.

There are heroes aplenty
And men known to fame
In the troops that were led by the Czar;
But the bravest of these
Was a man by the name
|: Of Ivan Skavinsky Skivar.

3. He could imitate Irving,
Play euchre and pool
And perform on the Spanish Guitar.
In fact, quite the cream
Of the Muscovite team
Was Ivan Skavinsky Skivar.

The ladies all loved him,
His rivals were few;
He could drink them all under the bar.
As gallant or tank,
There was no one to rank
|: With Ivan Skavinsky Skivar.

4. One day this bold Russian
Had shouldered his gun
And donned his most truculent sneer
Downtown he did go,
Where he trod on the toe
Of Abdulla Bulbul Ameer

"Young man" quoth Bulbul,
"Has life grown so dull,
That you're anxious to end your career?
Vile infidel! Know,
You have trod on the toe
|: Of Abdulla Bulbul Ameer."

5. "So take your last look
At the sunshine and brook
And send your regrets to the Czar;
By this I imply
You are going to die,
Mr. Ivan Skavinsky Skivar."

Quoth Ivan, "My friend,
Your remarks, in the end,
Will avail you but little, I fear,
For you ne'er will survive
To repeat them alive,
|: Mr. Abdulla Bulbul Ameer!"

6. Then this bold mameluke
Drew his trusty chibouque
With a cry of "Allah Akbar!"
And with murderous intent,
He ferociously went
For Ivan Skavinsky Skivar.

Then they parried and thrust
And they side-stepped and cussed
Till their blood would have filled a great pot.
The philologist blokes,
Who seldom crack jokes,
|: Say hash was first made on that spot.

7. They fought all that night,
'neath the pale yellow moon;
The din, it was heard from afar;
And great multitudes came,
So great was the fame
Of Abdul and Ivan Skivar.

As Abdul's long knife
Was extracting the life -
In fact, he was shouting "Huzzah!"
He felt himself struck
By that wily Kalmuck,
|: Count Ivan Skavinsky Skivar.

8. The sultan drove by
In his red-breasted fly,
Expecting the victor to cheer;
But he only drew nigh
To hear the last sigh
Of Abdulla Bulbul Ameer.

Czar Petrovich, too,
In his spectacles blue
Rode up in his new crested car.
He arrived just in time
To exchange a last line
|: With Ivan Skavinsky Skivar.

9. A loud-sounding splash
From the Danube was heard
Resounding o'er meadows afar;
It came from the sack
Fitting close to the back
Of Ivan Skavinsky Skivar.

There's a tomb rises up
Where the blue Danube flows;
Engraved there in characters clear;
"Ah stranger, when passing,
Please pray for the soul
|: Of Abdulla Bulbul Ameer."

10. A Muscovite maiden
Her lone vigil keeps,
Neath the light of the pale polar star;
And the name that she murmurs
As oft as she weeps
Is Ivan Skavinsky Skivar.

The sons of the prophet
Were hardy and bold,
And quite unaccustomed to fear,
But the bravest by far,
In the ranks of the Shah,
|: Was Abdulla Bulbul Ameer.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article ... 15,00.html

well, it would explain a lot of the faculty i work with, you know.

S
• Sacher's Observation Some people grow with responsibility -- others merely swell.
• sarchasm, n The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
• Satellite Safety Tip #14 If you see a bright streak in the sky coming at you, duck.
• Sattinger's Law It works better if you plug it in.
• Savage's Law of Expediency You want it bad, you'll get it bad.
• scenario, n An imagined sequence of events that provides the context in which a business decision is made. Scenarios always come in sets of three: best case, worst case, and just in case.
• Schapiro's Explanation The grass is always greener on the other side -- but that's because they use more manure.
• Schmidt's Observation All things being equal, a fat person uses more soap than a thin person.
• Second Law of Final Exams In your toughest final -- for the first time all year -- the most distractingly attractive student in the class will sit next to you.
• Secretary's Revenge Filing almost everything under "the".
• Seleznick's Theory of Holistic Medicine Ice cream cures all ills. Temporarily.
• Self Test for Paranoia You know you have it when you can't think of anything that's your own fault.
• senility, n The state of mind of elderly persons with whom one happens to disagree.
• serendipity, n The process by which human knowledge is advanced.
• Serocki's Stricture Marriage is always a bachelor's last option.
• Shannon's Observation Nothing is so frustrating as a bad situation that is beginning to improve.
• share, n To give in, endure humiliation.
• Shaw's Principle Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it.
• Shedenhelm's Law All trails have more uphill sections than they have downhill sections.
• Shick's Law There is no problem a good miracle can't solve.
• Silverman's Law If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
• Simon's Law Everything put together falls apart sooner or later.
• Skinner's Constant (or Flannagan's Finagling Factor) That quantity which, when multiplied by, divided by, added to, or subtracted from the answer you got, gives you the answer you should have gotten.
• Slous' Contention If you do a job too well, you'll get stuck with it.
• snappy repartee What you'd say if you had another chance.
• Sodd's Second Law Sooner or later, the worst possible set of circumstances is bound to occur.
• software, n Formal evening attire for female computer analysts.
• Speer's 1st Law of Proofreading The visibility of an error is inversely proportional to the number of times you have looked at it.
• Spence's Admonition Never stow away on a kamikaze plane.
• spouse, n Someone who'll stand by you through all the trouble you wouldn't have had if you'd stayed single.
• standards, n The principles we use to reject other people's code.
• statistics, n A system for expressing your political prejudices in convincing scientific guise.
• Steckel's Rule to Success Good enough is never good enough.
• Steele's Law There exist tasks which cannot be done by more than ten men or fewer than one hundred.
• Steele's Plagiarism of Somebody's Philosophy Everybody should believe in something -- I believe I'll have another drink.
• Steinbach's Guideline for Systems Programming Never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle.
• Stenderup's Law The sooner you fall behind, the more time you will have to catch up.
• Stone's Law One man's "simple" is another man's "huh?"
• strategy, n A comprehensive plan of inaction.
• strategy, n[/b] A long-range plan whose merit cannot be evaluated until sometime after those creating it have left the organization.
• Stult's Report Our problems are mostly behind us. What we have to do now is fight the solutions.
• stupid, n Losing $25 on the game and $25 on the instant replay.
• Sturgeon's Law 90% of everything is crud.
• sugar daddy, n A man who can afford to raise cain.
• sunset, n Pronounced atmospheric scattering of shorter wavelengths, resulting in selective transmission below 650 nanometers with progressively reducing solar elevation.
• sushi, n When that-which-may-still-be-alive is put on top of rice and strapped on with electrical tape.
• Sushido, n The way of the tuna.
• sweater, n A garment worn by a child when its mother feels chilly.
• Swipple's Rule of Order He who shouts the loudest has the floor.
• system-independent, adj Works equally poorly on all systems.

Lau,
About Shedenhelm's Law: I actually found that trail off Ecola Beach, just north of Cannon Beach on the Oregon Coast. Except for the fall off the cliff part, it was all uphill. The end where we were getting back to the parking lot might have been level, but I could not notice as by then we were paying too much attention to the thunder and lightning and torrential rain whooshing about us.

Lau: you might want to add this to your list:

Sophist wrote:
"Every time Halle Berry makes a horrible entrance another child turns autistic!"

Slous' Contention If you do a job too well, you'll get stuck with it.

corollary - If you do a job too well, you'll be stuck doing anything even remotely similar to it. In addition to the duties delineated on your job card. With no extra compensation.

The hundred acre wood prepares for swine flu

Lurkin' and laughin'!

Merle, did you create that scene, or did you just happen to find it? It's brilliant.