funny pictures,videos,stories and jokes

funny pictures

funny videos

funny stories

 A MAN AND DOG

A man and his dog were walking along a road. The man was enjoying the scenery, when it suddenly occurred to him that he was dead. He remembered dying, and that his faithful dog had been dead for many years. He wondered where the road was leading them. After a while, they came to a high, white stone wall along one side of the road. It looked like fine marble. As he reached the wall, he saw a magnificent gate in the arch, and the street that led to the gate made from pure gold. He and the dog walked toward the gate, and as he got closer, he saw a man at a desk to one side.
When he was close enough, he called out, "Excuse me, where are we?"
"This is heaven, sir," the man answered.
"Wow! Would you happen to have some water? We have traveled far," the man said.
"Of course, sir. Come right in, and I'll have some ice water brought right up."
The man gestured, and the gate began to open.
"Can my friend," gesturing toward his dog, "come in, too?" the traveler asked.
"I'm sorry, sir, but we don't accept pets."
The man thought a moment, remembering all the years this dog remained loyal to him and then turned back toward the road and continued the way he had been going. After another long walk he came to a plain dirt road, which led through a farm gate that looked as if it had never been closed. There was no fence. As he approached the gate, he saw a man inside, leaning against a tree and reading a book.
"Excuse me!" he called to the reader. "Do you have any water? We have traveled far."
"Yes, sure, there's a faucet over there." The man pointed to a place that couldn't be seen from outside the gate. "Come on in and help yourself."
"How about my friend here?" the traveler gestured to his dog.
"There should be a bowl by the faucet; he is welcome to share."
They went through the gate, and sure enough, there was an old-fashioned faucet with a bowl beside it. The traveler filled the bowl and took a long drink himself, then he gave some to the dog. When they were full, he and the dog walked back toward the man who was standing by the tree waiting for them.
"What do you call this place?" the traveler asked.
"This is heaven," was the answer.
"Well, that's confusing," the traveler said. "The man down the road said that was heaven, too."
"Oh, you mean the place with the gold street and pearly gates? Nope. That's hell."
"Doesn't it make you mad for them to use your name like that?"
"No. We're just happy that they screen out the folks who'd leave their best friends behind in exchange for material things."

THE KNOWLEDGE

This piece has not been edited by the ShortbreadStories team.
I am leaving London sans Royal Baby memorabilia. "Sans" is French for "without". I am unsure why I have just used it now but I have used it before and I will likely use it again.
The House of Windsor have not yet approved any Royal baby memorabilia so I could not get any Royal Baby George tea towels or stubby holders or mugs to bring back to Singapore with me.
I am disappointed.
I am also a tad disgruntled to be leaving London as it is one of the Great cities of the World. I quite like a lot of Englishness and London is full of it. It is only some of the English who annoy me and who I don't like.
Great Cities have a buzz. New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Sydney Rome, and Paris and there are others as well. Buzz cities. London is one. It is Summer in London and there has been a Royal Baby born so there was an even bigger buzz than normal.
My departure from London is imminent. My bag is packed and I have checked out of my hotel and I am sitting in the British Airways Business Class Lounge at Terminal Five in Heathrow Airport. There are a lot of people here and they are all on the move. We are all of us leaving London.
I feel some sadness at leaving. That is an adequate enough descriptor of the emotion. It is not as deep a feeling of sadness that I experience when I leave Sydney or Melbourne or Kathmandu - but it is a sadness nevertheless.
It is melancholy.
I appreciate the architectural and historical glory of London and I love the palaces and the castles and the ancient buildings. I like the beautiful gardens and the well preserved facades and statues and arches and museums. They are everywhere and I will miss them.
I love Harrods and Marks and Spencers and Sainsbury's and Waitroses. I love the pubs with names like the Lamb and Flag and the Barrow and Bush and the Pig and Whistle. They are classic and are very English.
In a nice sort of a way.
I like the Monarchy and all of it's pomp and ceremony and I love the drivers of the London Black Cabs.
I like the word 'pomp.' I enjoy both writing it and saying it. As a general rule I like words that begin and end with the letter 'p'. Pomp. Pimp. Pump. Poop.
Pomp means splendid and magnificent and London is full of it.
I have caught many a Black Cab during my brief week in London. The Black Cabs of London are no longer just black though. The Black Cabs I caught were grey and white and only two were black. Canary Wharf is a fairly isolated place to stay and I had social meetings with friends one night in Shepherds Bush Green and another in Covent Garden. I caught Black Cabs to and fro.
The drivers of all Black Cabs in London are still required to do the Knowledge. This is the test for getting a London Taxi license. Passing the Knowledge is required no matter what color the Black Cab you drive is. It is mandatory and you get a badge and a license to drive when you have completed it.
The Knowledge is regarded as being the most difficult taxi licensing test in the world. The taxi license test that is required in Sydney is far simpler. All that is needed to drive a taxi in Sydney is proof that you can not speak English, you do not know your way around the city, you are a very dangerous driver and you will scream into your mobile telephone the whole time that you will be driving. It is that easy.
The process of "Taking the Knowledge" was initiated in London in the year 1865 and it has changed little since. The very best can complete it in two years but for others it may take up to a decade. The Knowledge requires that all drivers be able to navigate their way around all of Greater London without consulting a map or using a GPS. It is the ability to recall the location of every street, lane, road, avenue, motorway, expressway, circle and boulevard in London. The Black Cab Drivers of London must be able to know their way around London intimately.
This is the Knowledge.
The sixth century Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu wrote that:
"To attain knowledge add things every day. To attain wisdom remove things every day"
I just thought that I would throw that one in there. It was written long before motor vehicle or Black Cabs were invented.
One of the Black Cab drivers I used in London told me that acquiring the Knowledge was the hardest thing that he had ever done. His name was Stan. I guessed that Stan and I were about the same age. I told Stan that I was not surprised that it was very hard.
Stan - the driver of my Black Cab driver was not black and nor was his taxi, The taxi was grey and he was white. Stan was a Londoner. When I asked him about doing the Knowledge he told me:
'It wuz 'arder than dooin' me schoolin'
"What exactly is involved in doing the Knowledge then Stan?" I put to him.
"Appearances guvnor" he replied gravely.
"Twelve bleedin' Appearances"
Stan was speaking cockney English. 'Guvnor' is a term used by some of the cockney English in a way we might use the word "Sir". It must go back to days when there were a lot more actual Governors around.
I like it.
"Bleedin'" you can substitute for "Bloody" or "Fucking" if you want. It is a bit of harmless swearing. The London cockney English who speak this way tend to drop off their "h's" at the beginnings of words and "g's" off the end and "t's'' sometimes also disappear.
I had some very good banter with Stan and I learned quite a bit. Stan told me that "Appearances" were the twelve tests someone doing the Knowledge had to take to prove that they knew their way around London. He told me that they are very tough.
When I asked Stan what - as an Englishman - he thought about the birth of the Royal baby he told me,
"I's bewaful en et?"
Writing cockney English phonetically is sending my auto spell-check on my laptop computer into a frenzy. It does not like it.
"I's bewaful en et?" is normal English for "It is beautiful isn't it?
I agreed with Stan that it was and I told him that I thought that it would probably be a pretty tough life though growing up in the Royal Family.
"Poor lil bligh'er. Is ol man is a right good geezer an all. bu I wouldn't swap me life for is few love or money"
OK my spell check does not like this at all and manually re-correcting is annoying.
Bugger I will have to do it again to explain what Stan said.
"Poor lil bligh'er. Is ol man is a right good geezer an' all. bu I wouldn't swap me life for is few love or money"
....... is cockney English for:
"Poor little fellow. His Father is a nice man but I would not swap my life as a Black Taxi driver for the life of a just-born baby who is now third in line to the English throne"
A "geezer" is a word some English use as a substitute for 'man' or 'bloke'.
A geyser is also a natural phenomenon that sometimes occurs in seismic areas of the world. It occurs when a lava flow deep under the earth heats up below-surface water which is then periodically released through a fissure on the earth's surface in a high pressure gush. These are geysers. Their gushes are called "blows'. There is a very famous geyser in Yellowstone Park in the US. The Americans named it 'Old Faithful'. It gushes regularly. I have visited the Yellowstone National Park and I have seen 'Old Faithful".
I have seen it blow.
The English word 'geezer' emerged amongst the cockneys in London in the early part of the nineteenth century. It was thought to have been originally used to describe 'odd or unusual' people - however in modern times it is just used to describe anyone male and it is mostly used by the cockney English.
Strange characters lurked the streets of London in the 1820's. They wore unusual costumes and the fashion of the day was peculiar. Think Sherlock Holmes. Some people were thought to be in disguises and they came to be known as "Guisors". These people who were dressed in disguises were perhaps the odd people seen by the London cocknies and they adulterated the word to "Geezers"?
This is one theory on the origins of the word and it is the one that I like the best.
I like the sound and use of both words "Guvnor" and "Geezer". When I return to work back amongst the English in my office on Monday I shall use both words and I shall use them liberally. I am sure that it will not be appreciated.
The English with whom I work are not a very grateful or gracious lot.
I told Stan that I also thought that the life of the Royal Baby George would not be an easy one. I told Stan that I thought that he was going to be watched by the world media for his entire life and he was going to be scrutinized. I also told Stan that I hoped that the Royal Baby George ended up being like his uncle Prince Harry.
Stan told me that he hoped so too. He told me that he liked Prince Harry as well.
My driver to the airport this evening had not done the Knowledge. He told me that he had tried and failed on numerous occasions. This drivers name was Jack.
Jack was not driving a Black Cab. He was driving a normal type of car. Jack worked for a company named Addison Lee. The English for whom I work use Addison Lee to drive us in London. They have an Account. Addison Lee a very big Company. They have many cars all over London and they are a major competitor of English Black cabs. Jack my Addison Lee driver tonight was a geezer.
“Yorright” he said to me when he picked me up at the Marriott hotel.
“Yorright” I replied to him.
“Eefrow or Gatwick son?”
“Heathrow please” I replied. “Terminal Five”
“Awright me old mucker”
“Good one”
“’Edding ‘ome to Oz are we?
“Nah back to Singapore”
“Nice place to’ ide out until youze fellas learn ‘ow ta play cricket again' me lad. Maybe learn' ‘ow ta play rugby as well”
England have been giving Australia a hiding in the Cricket Ashes Test Series that is currently going on in the UK. We have been destroyed by the English in the first two games. The British Lions rugby team also recently beat Australia. I have copped a lot of shit from the English for whom I work in London this week.
Australia being bested by the English in any field of sport is as rare as it is difficult to swallow. I have however remained stoic. I have maintained my dignity.
“I am not talking about sport today Jack”
“I am also a Kiwi” I added.
“You ain’t?” the driver asked.
“No I am not really” I confessed.
Pretending to be a Kiwi is not a very bright idea. They have done very little in the world sports arena and less than the English in fact. The accents with which New Zealanders speak are also grating.
They are an abomination.
Jack and I mostly chatted about the cost of living in London and Singapore and politics and wars on our drive to Heathrow airport. We talked about the weather and the monarchs as well. When I asked Jack whether there was a man named "Addison Lee' he told me there was not. Jack told me that the Company was started by a geezer called John Griffin in the 1970's with a single car. He told me that the first job John Griffin got was a pick up on Addison street and the passenger's name was Lee and that was the origin of the name.
When I asked Jack whether he knew if Lee was the surname or the first name of the first passenger John Griffin picked up - he told me that he didn't know.
We agreed that the name could be male or female or a first or a last name. Jack laughed when I suggested that the person could have been Chinese or English. He told me that he was going to look it up when he got off his shift and I am going to look it up myself.
Not knowing will otherwise gnaw away at me.
It will drive me mad.
The drive to the Airport from Canary Wharf took less than an hour and the conversation Jack and I had was pleasant and comfortable and we had a laugh or two.
My flight is now being called so it is time for me to board the plane and leave.
Until next time London.
Adieu.
Thanks for having me.
It's been nice.

 THE CURE

Gru was of the sort to never forget birthdays or what we liked to eat or whose underwear was whose. But she slipped off the treadmill one day. Now Gru’s all fucked up in the head, says Stewart.
I’m going to save her regardless what the doctor says. I’d be a better doctor than these shitbirds and I can’t even stay up late!
I have this plan and I have no doubt it will work. I’ve written it down and labeled it The Cure in my journal.
Gru, bless her, dribbles about the house now. And her cooking has gone to crap. Fried is black, grilled is black, and baked is black or sometimes pink. Black black black. Yuck!
Gru stands in front of the oven, finger hovering in the air, biting her tongue, ready to poke the oven in the eye again tonight.
“Mother! You’re trying to cook a thing for ten hours? Dammit! Move, let me do it.” My older brother Stewart is yelling again. He huffs and steams while Gru goes back to the refrigerator. She stops and drinks some of her juice first. She smells like juice all the time now. Then she studies the refrigerator’s insides like an eager doctor and comes from its belly with the mustard.
She turns and squirts the mustard over the pan of frozen pigs-in-a-blanket, smoothing it over with a steak knife.
“Mother! What are you doing?” Stewart yells.
“You must butter the rolls before they cook. Stop it you!” She yells back at him, shielding her pan of baby rolls like the lioness. I smile shaking my head at Stewart.
“Are we picking up again brother?” I ask. I don’t like Gru’s food anymore.
But Gru is still in there and I will coax her out. The Cure is the cheese and it will be irresistible to the old her. Father is away with the traveling circus. Gru saw her ring one night and tried to gnaw it off. That’s when I knew she was still in there regardless what Doctor Fuckface told them in the meetings. Stewart told me this was her name. I don’t like Doctor. Fuckface one bit.
Right at first, after Gru spilt her marbles on that treadmill, Stewart and I had our weird Aunt June come down. At night sometimes Mother called her Aunt June too. She smoked and smoked and smoked.
I tell her, I say, “Hey Aunt June! You know it would be better to shove that cigarette up your ass, yes?” She rumbled like a bullfrog about this and that and I never stood directly in front of her, or her stench would knock the shit out of me. Like literally smell her breath and I’d have to take a shit. Sometimes I would go in my pants on accident. This would get Stewart mad. It was bad and strange. But she was blood and Stewart said we didn’t have much blood left, so I complained as little as possible and avoided smelling her.
Luckily all the old fogies from church brought casseroles to the front door for those first few months and Aunt June got a boy toy or something and ran off. With the boy toy having fun somewhere. “We don’t need her. Right brother?” I’d said.
“That’s right Penn,” Stewart had said, “me and you can run this show now.”
Now on nights like tonight Stewart runs the show. Because we take Mother in public on her good days when she doesn’t smell or act as crazy. She gets around and everyone at church sees her and thinks she’s good. She’s grand. No more casseroles for those three. Them three are doing just fine.
“Dude this sucks,” says Stewart. He’s sad like he gets sometimes. I look up from my plate of green chile enchiladas.
“What sucks brother?” My mouth is full. I have to remember to chew slowly when I’m this hungry or else I’ll choke and that makes Gru mad, to hear me choke.
“Everything. The rice, these shitty ass turd beans. Dude look at my taco shell,” he says waving the flimsy corn in the air with his fork, “oh Senor, do I have a treat for you. The finest taco in all the land. Ole!” He puppets these words with the shell, spilling the meat and cheese and lettuce back onto the aluminum pan. I laugh and laugh and laugh. A talking taco mouth. Stewart always gets me.
“You always were special Penn,” Gru says from her place on the couch, spilling some beans held in front of her mouth. She’s holding her glass in the other hand, the big one that always finds its way to her at night though I never know how it gets there. She is watching Austin Powers. “One of you boys let that darn cat inside. I haven’t seen him all day.”
I smile and walk to open the door but there’s never anything there. No Mr. Bigglesworth, nothing but dried leaves and webs from spiders. Mother doesn’t hear the door close shut; she’s back to her beans and her movie and her drinking her drink.
That night after Stewart fought Mother to bed (no Stewart I have to wait up for the Pope to come on you fool), Stewart starts his routine. I don’t bother him when he does this because he gets quiet. Then he gets loud. But I’m usually asleep. On Thursdays we dress Gru nice and take Gru to the Lenny’s Liquor. Stewart didn’t have a driver’s license yet but he had a beard, so he’d drive if Gru couldn’t. Most Thursdays, since the accident, she couldn’t drive us.
But this Cure I’ve been working on, it’s going to come through and be the ticket. It’s the cheese even though I’m not sure what the trap is. And the old Gru is going to come crawling out of the hole in the wall of her head to eat.
Gru always, every time, came out of the store with the two boxes and put them in the trunk. She would gripe on and on the whole way home about the state of the store or the old guy behind the counter. She was usually shaking on those trips and I don’t know why. She would never let either of us touch the boxes when we got home. Where Stewart found them is a mystery because I’ve looked and they’re in a good place.
That night, after Gru was in her room, Stewart had the open bottle sitting next to his chair with the legs kicked out. To me he looked like the captain of a ship flying through space on autopilot. Tired of all those boring stars. He loved his drink nearly as much as Gru but would never let me have any.
Other nights, sometimes I would get out of bed to go get water without Stewart knowing and I’d see Gru’s light still on. She would be asleep and snoring with plates of food around her bed. It always smelled bad and heavy in her room at night.
But sometimes she would be standing up, swaying back and forth, and it was confusing. She never fell but I was scared she was going to again. The look on her face at those times was long and blank like maybe she really wasn’t in there anymore. Like she was a robot and just spazzing out and shaking. The old Gru never looked like this.
I’d shut her door back quietly and, with my water, I’d get back in bed and add more to the plans for The Cure. I had exercises and tests and diets and everything in my journal. I hadn’t shown Stewart yet because it wasn’t ready, but I knew he was going to like it.
I was too young to remember much before the accident but Stewart told me. Mother was a good mother and didn’t act weird and we were happy. Father was still home before he got recruited. I’d dream about him doing flips as a clown and landing in pools of grape juice that were on fire. He looked like Stewart in my dreams even though in his pictures he looked more like me, everybody said.
Gross Aunt June would cuss and cuss and cuss whenever I’d talk about him when she was there with us. “You’re just jealous because they’d only let you be the fat lady with a beard. They’d call you the Extraordinary Fat Frog lady and kids would be scared of you.” This made Stewart pat me on the shoulder. I’d say it often, before she left with her boy toy, to get Stewart to do that.
On Thursday the next week, I would ride with them to their session with Doctor Fuckface. I always had to be outside in the waiting room while Gru and Stewart were in there. I would hear them talking but it didn’t make much sense. I wouldn’t really listen. Just play with the kiddy blocks.
“Gru, Stewart, I’ve been pleased with Penn's progress the past year,” the doctor would say, “he’s come a long way since your husband left, and I guess I just got used to seeing him take small steps forward each month. But setbacks were bound to happen.”
“What setbacks?” Stewart would ask her. Gru would be shaking next to him on the couch. It was early in the day and these office visits made her nerves go wild, she’d told us in the car before.
“Well, Penn’s art journal has taken a move in the past few months. He’s no longer occupied with the circus drawings he used to love. He’s moved to repeating pictures of rats and traps. This repetitive motif he has titled 'The Cure'. He has written down lists of odd and end foods and exercises and such,” Stewart would grunt, "it's hard to make sense of, to find meaning in it. But it is dark and bothersome. In my opinion, Penn may be feeling trapped in his routine at home. Something new at home has him unsettled and it is coming through in his artwork. Does anything like this jump out at either of you?”
Stewart would say: “Yea. Things have changed of late. She’s shut down and off in crazy land most of the time past lunch. She’s here with us now but most times at home she’s gone. Tanked.”
Gru would start to sob. “Oh so it’s my fault is it? Show me the book on how to do this and I’ll read it front to back! I’m doing the best I can to handle all of this shit.” She’d sob harder and it would get quiet.
“Sure you are Mother.”
They’d open the door after it was over and walk into the waiting room. Gru would have wet cheeks and Stewart wouldn’t touch her. The doctor, she’d still be sitting there, writing fast as she could on her yellow pad. She'd look worried but all the doctors looked that way.
“What did Doctor Fuckface say brother? Is she getting better?” I’d ask hoping. Stewart would shake his head at me.
“Don’t say that in here Penn. Wait until we’re outside.”
“Ok…Are we going to get more juice before we go back home?”
“Yes,” both Gru and Stewart would say together as I followed them through the office door to leave.
I’d have to work harder on The Cure so I can set the bait soon. It’s going to work wonders for Gru, for all of us. I know it I know it I know it.

jokes

• Transferring labor pain.... A married couple went to the hospital to have their baby delivered. Upon their arrival, the doctor said he had invented a new machine that would transfer a portion of the mother's labor pain to the father. He asked if they were willing to try it out. They were both very much in favor of it. The doctor set the pain transfer to 10% for starters, explaining that even 10% was probably more pain than the father had ever experienced before. But as the labor progressed, the husband felt fine and asked the doctor to go ahead and kick it up a notch. The doctor then adjusted the machine to 20% pain transfer. The husband was still feeling fine. The doctor checked the husband's blood pressure and was amazed at how well he was doing. At this point they decided to try for 50%. The husband continued to feel quite well. Since the pain transfer was obviously helping out the wife considerably, the husband encouraged the doctor to transfer ALL the pain to him. The wife delivered a healthy baby with virtually no pain. She and her husband were ecstatic. When they got home, the mailman was dead on the porch. 

• A bet made at the local bar... A man walks into a bar, and as he makes his way to the counter, he stops and talks to everyone in the bar. As he finishes with each group of people, they all get up and leave and go stand outside the window, looking in.Finally, the bar is empty except for this guy and the bartender.The man walks up to the counter, and says to the bartender, 'I bet you $1,000 that I can spray beer from my mouth into a shot glass from thirty feet away, and not get any outside the glass.'The bartender thinks that this guy is a nutcase, but he wants his $1,000, so he agrees. The bartender gets out a shot glass, paces off thirty feet, and the contest begins.The man sprays beer all over the bar. He doesn't even touch the shot glass.When he finishes, the bartender looks at him and says, 'Well, I guess you owe me $1,000, huh?'The man answers, 'Yeah, but I bet all of those people outside the window $500 a piece that I could come in here and spray beer all over the bar.'

• The spin cycle... A young boy, about eight years old, was at the corner 'Mom & Pop' grocery store picking out a pretty good size box of laundry detergent.The grocer walked over and, trying to be friendly, asked the boy if he had a lot of laundry to do.'Oh, no laundry,' the boy said. 'I'm going to wash my dog.''But you shouldn't use this to wash your dog. It's very powerful and if you wash your dog in this, he'll get sick. In fact, it might even kill him.'But the boy was not to be stopped and carried the detergent to the counter and paid for it, even as the grocer still tried to talk him out of washing his dog.About a week later the boy was back in the store to buy some candy. The grocer asked the boy how his dog was doing.'Oh, he died,' the boy said.The grocer, trying not to be an I-told-you-so, said he was sorry the dog died but added, 'I tried to tell you not to use that detergent on your dog.''Well,' the boy replied, 'I don't think it was the detergent that killed him.''Oh? What was it then?''I think it was the spin cycle.'