TRUE GRATITUDE

Posted by Unknown On Thursday, March 5, 2009 6 comments

The following story was sent to me by a blog reader named Mei Wan. Thanks for sharing!

Have a nice day everyone wherever you may be...

Take care and happy reading!

Cheers!

_________________________________________________________________

Once upon a time, there were once three brothers, very close in age, who grew up constantly competing with each other for virtually everything -- in sports, at school, with the girls. You
name it!

In time, they grew up, finished school, and left home. Before long, all three had become very successful in business (on the competitive plane) and were quite wealthy. Even so, their
"sibling rivalry" continued.

One night as their mother's 80th birthday approached, the three got together for dinner and began discussing what each of them had planned to mark this special occasion. Each brother naturally intended to outdo the others with his gift plans.



"Well," the first son said, "neither one of you can top this. I've bought her the most expensive, luxurious Mercedes available and hired her a full-time driver."


The second son snorted: "Ha! That's nothing! I've built her a huge mansion, with magnificent landscaped grounds and a gorgeous swimming pool."

The third son, leaned back in his chair and just smiled at his brothers, savoring the moment of victory he knew was at hand. Then he said, "I've got you both beat.

"You know how much Mom has always enjoyed reading the Bible but has trouble with it now that her eyesight's getting weaker. Well, I've found the most beautiful, exotic parrot -- an extremely rare species, but that's not the most important part. You see, THIS parrot can recite the entire Bible.


"Twenty monks in a remote part of the world spent ten solid years teaching this bird, and I had to pledge $100,000 a year for the next 20 years to the monastery, but it was worth it. Mom just has to name a chapter and verse, and the parrot will recite it, word for word."

The other brothers sat staring, their mouths hanging open in astonishment. Then both glumly admitted that the Bible-quoting parrot was the hands-down winner, and the evening drew to a close with the third son feeling extremely proud to have outstripped his brothers.

Mom's birthday came and went, and a week or so after it each of the three men found a note from her in his mailbox.

"Milton," she wrote the first son, "Thank you for the house. But it is so huge. I live in only one room, but I still have to clean the whole thing."

"Marvin," she wrote to the second son, "Thank you for the car, but I am too old to get out much. I stay home all the time cleaning this huge house, so I never use the Mercedes. And the
driver is just plain rude!"

"Dearest Melvin," she wrote to her third son, "Thank you so much. You are my only son to have the good sense to know what your old mother really likes.

"That chicken was delicious."


What is your interpretation of the story? Currently, there is a debate between my son and I as both of us have different reactions to the story.

Please leave a comment and share your thoughts. Thanks!


THE OBSTACLE IN OUR PATH

Posted by Unknown On 0 comments

In ancient times, a King had a boulder placed on a roadway. Then he hid himself and watched to see if anyone would remove the huge rock.

Some of the king's wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it.

Many loudly blamed the King for not keeping the roads clear, but none did anything about getting the stone out of the way.

Then a peasant came along carrying a load of vegetables. Upon approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road.

After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded. After the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been.

The purse contained many gold coins and a note from the King indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the roadway.

The peasant learned what many of us never understand! Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve our condition.

What is the obstacle in your path today? What can you do to improve the situation?

What are the obstacles in the path of MALAYSIA? What can WE do to improve the situation?




HOW MANY HAVE YOU READ?

Posted by Unknown On 5 comments

Dear reader,

Apparently the BBC reckons most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.

Instructions:

1) Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read.

2) Star (*) those you plan on reading.

3) Hash (#) those you haven't finished reading.

4) Tally your total at the bottom.

I have marked mine in the brackets provided.

5) Leave a comment if you wish re your totals or if you wish, you can begin a topic for discussion on any of the books.

Have fun and have a nice day!!!

cheers
______________________________________________________________
1 (X) Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 (X) The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 (X) Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 (X) Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 (X) To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 (X) The Bible
7 (X) Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 ( X) Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 ( ) His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 (X) Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

Pitstop Count: (X) -9, (*) - 0, (#) -

11 (X) Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 ( X) Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 (X ) Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 (X) Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 (X) Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 (X) The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 (*) Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 (x) Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 (x) The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 (x ) Middlemarch - George Eliot

Pitstop Count: (X) - 9, (*) - 1, (#) - 0

21 (x) Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 (x) The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 (*) Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 (x) War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 (x) The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 ( *) Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 ( x) Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 (x ) Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 (X) Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carrol
30 ( x) The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

Pitstop Count: (X) - 8, (*) - 2 (#) - 0

31 (x) Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 (X) David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 (X) Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 (X) Emma - Jane Austen
35 (X) Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 (X) The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 (X) The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 (*) Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 (X) Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 ( ) Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

Pitstop Count: (X) - 8, (*) - 1, (#) - 0

41 (x) Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 (X) The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 (x) One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 (x) A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 (x ) The Woman in White - Wilkie Collin
46 (X) Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 (x) Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy - READ THIS 5 TIMES
48 ( #) The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 (#) Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 (#) Atonement - Ian McEweN

Pitstop Count: (X) - 7, (*) -0, (#) - 3

51 (X) Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 ( *) Dune - Frank Herbert
53 (* ) Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 (X) Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 (X) A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 ( ) The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 (X) A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 ( *) Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 (X) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 (X) Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Pitstop Count: (X) - 6, (*) - 3, (#) -

61 (X) Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 (X) Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 ( ) The Secret History - Donna Tart
64 (X) The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 (X) Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 ( ) On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 (X ) Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 (X) Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 (#) Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 (X) Moby's Dick - Herman Melville

Pitstop Count: (X) - 7, (*) - 0, (#) - 1

71 (X) Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 (X) Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 (X) The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 ( ) Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 (#) Ulysses - James Joyce
76 (*) The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 ( ) Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 ( ) Germinal - Emile Zola
79 (X) Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 (X) Possession - AS Byatt

Pitstop Count: (X) - 5, (*) - 1, (#) -1

81 (X) A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 ( ) Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 (X) The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 (X) The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 (X) Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 (X) A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 (X) Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 (X) The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 (X) Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 (X) The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

Pitstop Count: (X) - 9, (*) - 0, (#) - 0

91 ( X) Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 (X) The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint EXupery
93 ( ) The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 ( X) Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 ( ) A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 (* ) A Town Like Alice - Neil Shute
97 (X) The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 (X) Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 (X) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 (X) Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Pitstop Count: (X) - 7 (*) – 1, (#) - 0

Total: (X) - 75, (*) - 26, (#) – 4


PROVERBS FOR THE INFORMATION AGE

Posted by Unknown On 2 comments

1. Home is where you hang your @.

2. The e-mail of the species is more deadly than the mail.

3. A journey of a thousand sites begins with a single click.

4. You can’t teach a new mouse old clicks.

5. Great groups from little icons grow.

6. Speak softly and carry a cellular phone.

7. C:\ is the root of all directories.

8. Oh, what a tangled website we have when first we practice.

9. Pentium wise, pen and paper foolish.

10. The modem is the message.

11. Too many clicks spoil the browse.

12. The geek shall inherit the earth.

13. There’s no place like homepage

14. Don’t byte off more than you can view.

15. Fax is stranger than fiction.

16. What boots up must come down.

17. Windows will never cease.

18. Virtual reality is its own reward.

19. Modulation in all things.

20. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him to use the Nintendo and he won’t bother you for weeks.


CLASSIC HOTEL JOKE

Posted by Unknown On 2 comments

This is a telephonic exchange between a hotel guest and room service at a hotel in Asia which was recorded and published in the "Far East Economic Review":

PLEASE TRY TO READ THIS DIALOGUE ALOUD TO APPRECIATE THE HUMOR :-).


Room Service: "Morny. Ruin sorbees."

Guest: "Sorry, I thought I dialed room-service."

RS: "Rye. Ruin sorbees. Morny! Jewish to odor sunteen??"

G: "Uh, yes, I'd like some bacon and eggs."

RS: "Ow July den?"

G: "What??"

RS: "Ow July den - fry, boy, pooch?"

G: "Oh, the eggs! How do I like them? Sorry, scrambled, please."

RS: "Ow July dee baychem - crease?"

G: "Crisp will be fine"

RS: "Hokay. An San toes?"

G: "What?"

RS: "San toes. July San toes?"

G: "I don't think so"

RS: "No? Judo one toes??"

G: "I feel really bad about this, but I don't know what 'judo one toes' means."

RS: "Toes! Toes! Why jew Don Juan toes? Ow bow singlish mopping we bother?"

G: "English muffin!! I've got it! You were saying 'Toast.' Fine. Yes, an English muffin will be fine."

RS: "We bother?"

G: "No, just put the bother on the side."

RS: "Wad?"

G: "I mean butter - just put it on the side."

RS: "Copy?"

G: "Sorry?"

RS: "Copy...tea...mill?"

G: "Yes. Coffee please, and that's all."

RS: "One Minnie. Ass ruin torino fee, strangle ache, crease baychem, tossy singlish mopping we bother honey sigh, and copy....rye??"

G: "Whatever you say."

RS: "Tendjewberrymud"

G: "You're welcome"



25 PHRASES OF WISDOM

Posted by Unknown On 3 comments


1. If you're too open minded, your brains will fall out.

2. Age is a high price for maturity.

3. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to a garage
makes you a mechanic.

4. Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

5. If you must choose between two evils, pick the one you have never tried before.

6. My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance.

7. Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious.

8. It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.

9. For every action, there is an equal and opposite government programme.

10. If you look like your passport picture, you probably need the trip.

11. Bills travel through the post at twice the speed of cheques.

12. A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.

13. Eat well, stay fit, die anyway.

14. Men are from Earth. Women are from Earth. Deal with it.

15. No husband has ever been shot while doing the dishes.

16. A balanced diet is a biscuit in each hand.

17. Opportunities always look bigger going than coming.

18. Middle age is when broadness of mind and narrowness of the waist change places.

19. Junk is something you've kept for years and throw away three weeks before you need it.

20. There is always one more imbecile than you counted on.

21. Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognise a mistake when you make it
again.

22. By the time you can make ends meet, they move the ends.

23. Thou shalt not weigh more than thy refrigerator.

24. Someone who thinks logically provides a nice contrast to the real world.

25. Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves for they shall never cease to be amused.




Related Posts with Thumbnails
.