A drunk gets on the bus late one night, staggers up the aisle, and sits next to an elderly woman.

She looks the man up and down and says, I've got news for you. You're going straight to hell!"

Dilbert Type Thoughts from Work

1. "As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to access the building using individual security cards. Pictures will be taken next Wednesday and employees will receive their cards in two weeks."

2. "What I need is an exact list of specific unknown problems we might encounter."

3. "E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or data. It should be used only for company business."

4. "This project is so important, we can't let things that are more important interfere with it."

5. "Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the schedule.

6. "No one will believe you solved this problem in one day! They've been working on it for months. Now, go act busy for a few weeks and I'll let you know when it's time to tell them."

7. Quote from the Boss: "Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say."

8. My sister passed away and her funeral was scheduled for Monday. When I told my Boss, he said she died on purpose so that I would have to miss work on the busiest day of the year. He then asked if we could change her burial to Friday. He said, "That would be better for me."

9. "We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not going to discuss it with the employees."

Misunderstood

A man walks up to an attractive woman at a bar.

"Do you want to dance?" asks the man.

"I don't care much for this song and wouldn't be caught dead dancing with you anyway," snips the woman.

Not again

Two guys were hiking up a mountain when they came upon some people bungee jumping.

One said to the other, "How about it?

Rejected Car Names

5> Alpha Roflmao

4> Infiniti Andbeyond!

3> Audi Duty

2> Porsche PP Xtension

and the Number 1 Rejected Car Name...

Part 1 of 2

Did New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen?

PHILADELPHIA Even though Hurricane Katrina has moved well north of the city, the waters may still keep rising in New Orleans late on Tuesday. That's because Lake Pontchartrain continues to pour through a two-block-long break in the main levee, near the city's 17th Street Canal. With much of the Crescent City some 10 feet below sea level, the rising tide may not stop until it's level with the massive lake.

New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.

Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.

Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late Tuesday night at The Times-Picayune web site, reported: "No one can say they didn't see it coming....Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness.

On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us.

Also that June, with the 2004 hurricane season starting, the Corps' project manager Al Naomi went before a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority, and essentially begged for $2 million for urgent work that Washington was now unable to pay for. From the June 18, 2004 Times-Picayune:

"The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don't get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can't stay ahead of the settlement," he said. "The problem that we have isn't that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can't raise them."

Part 2 of 2

Did New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen?

The panel authorized that money, and on July 1, 2004, it had to pony up another $250,000 when it learned that stretches of the levee in Metairie had sunk by four feet. The agency had to pay for the work with higher property taxes. The levee board noted in October 2004 that the feds were also now not paying for a hoped-for $15 million project to better shore up the banks of Lake Pontchartrain.

The 2004 hurricane season was the worst in decades. In spite of that, the federal government came back this spring with the steepest reduction in hurricane and flood-control funding for New Orleans in history. Because of the proposed cuts, the Corps office there imposed a hiring freeze. Officials said that money targeted for the SELA project -- $10.4 million, down from $36.5 million -- was not enough to start any new jobs.

There was, at the same time, a growing recognition that more research was needed to see what New Orleans must do to protect itself from a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. But once again, the money was not there. As the Times-Picayune reported last Sept. 22:

That second study would take about four years to complete and would cost about $4 million, said Army Corps of Engineers project manager Al Naomi. About $300,000 in federal money was proposed for the 2005 fiscal-year budget, and the state had agreed to match that amount. But the cost of the Iraq war forced the Bush administration to order the New Orleans district office not to begin any new studies, and the 2005 budget no longer includes the needed money, he said.

The Senate was seeking to restore some of the SELA funding cuts for 2006. But now it's too late.

One project that a contractor had been racing to finish this summer: a bridge and levee job right at the 17th Street Canal, site of the main breach on Monday.

The Newhouse News Service article published Tuesday night observed, "The Louisiana congressional delegation urged Congress earlier this year to dedicate a stream of federal money to Louisiana's coast, only to be opposed by the White House....In its budget, the Bush administration proposed a significant reduction in funding for southeast Louisiana's chief hurricane protection project. Bush proposed $10.4 million, a sixth of what local officials say they need."

Ohio High School Has 64 Pregnant Students

CANTON, Ohio - Thirteen percent of the female students at Timken Senior High School in Ohio are pregnant.

High school senior Monica Selby thought she would be busy this year planning for college, not preparing for the birth of her first child. "I've been crying every day and every night. I keep on blaming myself for this," said the 18-year-old Selby, who is six months pregnant.

She cries about starting classes this week at Timken Senior High School with a bulging belly, about the emotions of planning an adoption, about becoming part of a statistic that has snagged the nation's attention: 64 of Timken's 490 female students — 13 percent — are pregnant.

The statistic at the school in the heart of this old steel city contrasts with a decade of declining teen pregnancy rates nationwide. But teen pregnancy experts say the problem is not exclusive to Timken High.

Experts, parents and students themselves struggle to explain why such pockets of high teen pregancy rates appear. Are teens getting appropriate sex education? Do they have access to birth control and are they using it consistently? Has the stigma of unwed motherhood lost its edge?

"This might be a school that is forthright with its problems while others are not," said Jay Green, chairman of the Education Reform department at the University of Arkansas. "But this is a widespread issue."

Green wrote a study last year for the conservative New York-based Manhattan Institute for Policy Research that found 20 percent of urban teenagers have been pregnant, compared with 14 percent of suburban teens.

Urban teens as a whole don't use birth control as consistently or often, according to his research, and often have less to lose financially and socially than those in the suburbs.

But Green couldn't say whether those factors applied to Timken. The school of about 1,000 students draws teens from across the neighborhood and economic lines in the state's ninth largest city.

Eric Wilson, 18, who works at a hot dog shop a few blocks from the school while making plans to get his GED and caring for his 2-year-old son, said the spotlight on Timken is magnifying an old problem.

"My mom had a kid when she was in school and now I have a kid," he said. "It goes back to how you were raised. Down here, it's not looked too down upon because a lot of parents had kids when they were kids."

Last school year, both high schools in the city's district reported 55 pregnancies. Ninety-nine pregnancies are expected in the district this year, most of them at Timken, where expecting students get six weeks of maternity leave.

"This has gotten to horrible proportions. I wish I knew the answer to why it's happening," principal Kim Redmond told the city's daily newspaper The Repository. Redmond did not return several messages left by The Associated Press.

Joanne Hinton, whose 16-year-old daughter, Raechel Hinton, is eight months pregnant, said she believes the school's abstinence-based sex education program isn't enough.

"It's time to take the blinders off and realize that these kids are having sex," she said. "Obviously, abstinence is not working. If we have to, just give them condoms."

Hinton stresses that she doesn't condone teenage sex and that her daughter doesn't fit the mold some may think pregnant teens come from: The Hinton household has two loving parents with a strong relationship who asked the straight-A Raechel "45 times a week if she was having sex, doing drugs, drinking. We were constantly checking on her."

Raechel, who plans to return to the 10th grade at Timken after delivering and completing an adoption, said many students are sexually active and need more information about birth control.

I hope everyone has a great weekend

Les Paul corrals famous friends for new album

LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - Talk about celebrating a birthday in style.

Les Paul, the inventor of multitrack recording and the solid-body electric guitar that bears his name, turned 90 this year amid an array of events.

On June 7, two days before his birthday, Capitol Records released a special edition of "Les Paul With Mary Ford: The Best of the Capitol Masters," featuring Paul's 1940s and 1950s radio hits recorded with his late former wife.

On June 19, an all-star tribute concert took place at New York's Carnegie Hall. Barnes & Noble is carrying a lavish, slipcased new book, "Les Paul: In His Own Words," from publisher and fan Russ Cochran. And Gibson Guitar will issue 12 new custom Les Paul models throughout the next year.

But the highlight of the year for Paul's admirers is his first album since 1978, "Les Paul & Friends: American Made World Played" (Capitol/EMI). The newly released star-studded project features new versions of classic rock and blues tracks performed by big-name vocalists and musicians, and features guitar riffs and trills crafted by Paul himself.

The mastermind behind "Les Paul & Friends," producer Bob Cutarella, says that he has been wanting to do a Paul tribute project for about 10 years.

"I thought it would be cool to have all these guys do their thing and show Les what they'd learned from him," Cutarella says.

Cutarella called music publishers to ask them to send over their catalogs and pored over countless selections. He also made phone call after phone call to prospective artists.

"I could have put together four Les Paul albums instead of one," Cutarella says. "Who do you choose, whose schedule is available, and will their label allow it? We got Jeff Beck first, and then everything came together."

Cutarella teamed with producer Fran Cathcart for the recording process, which took place primarily at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles.

Peter Frampton says he jumped at the chance to participate. "To be on a track with Les is a great thing to be able to say. They ran about five tracks past me, and I picked 'So Into You' (originally performed by Atlanta Rhythm Section). Everyone loves that track."

Kenny Wayne Shepherd teamed with Edgar Winter for "Rock & Roll Hoochie Koo" (by Rick Derringer). "We just started jamming," Shepherd says. "I was really honored to be part of a project with a living legend."

Paul's contributions were recorded later at his home in Mahwah, N.J. Though arthritis prevents him from playing "blaring, blazing solos," Cutarella says, Paul made important contributions.

"Les is a perfectionist," Cathcart observes. "He wanted to make sure his parts were fully mature, and he wanted his ideas clearly on the album."

Keith Richards, who participated on the Yardbirds track "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" with Buddy Guy and Derringer, says, "We must all own up that without Les Paul, generations of flash little punks like us would be in jail or cleaning toilets. This man, by his genius, made the road that we still travel today."

Neal Schon, who is featured on the original song "I Wanna Know You" with vocalist Beth Hart, echoes the sentiment. "So many good guitar players nip stuff from him," he says. "I totally admire the man and love him as a human being."

It seems these days that everyone has a cell phone clipped to his or her belt.

New Books

- Walking to School, the First Day Back by Misty Bus

- The Day the Car Pool Forgot Me by I. Rhoda Bike

- Can't See the Chalkboard by Sidney Backrow

Bob Denver, TV's Gilligan, Dies at Age 70

The Worst Hybrid Ad Campaigns

17> Apple Computer/Ortega Refried Beans: Stink Different

16> Peter Paul Candy/Camel Cigarettes: Sometimes You Feel Like a Butt, Sometimes You Don't

15> Dell Computers/Vlasic: Dude, You're Gettin' a Dill!

14> Sprint/"Queer Eye for the Straight Guy": Can You Queer Me NOW?

13> Capital One/Preparation H: What's Up YOUR Ass?

12> Sure Deodorant/Enron: Raise Your Hand If You're Screwed!

11> Pillsbury/Ex-Lax: Ploppin' Fresh

10> Panasonic/TopFive: Just Slightly a Waste of Our Time

9> Budweiser/Philadelphia Cream Cheese: The King of Schmears

8> St. Pauli Girl/Ipecac Syrup: You Never Forget Your First Hurl

7> Nike/Depend Undergarments: Just Doo It

6> Wisk/Kay Jewelers: Bling Around the Collar

5> McDonald's/Trojan Condoms: I'm Glovin' It!

4> Virginia Slims/Mapquest: You're Going the Wrong Way, Baby

3> Bounty/Jagermeister: The Quicker Puker-Upper

2> Visa/Victoria's Secret: It's Every Whore You Want to Be

and the Number 1 Worst Hybrid Ad Campaign...

Def Leppard Concert Problem - What's On My Leg?

Wish You Were There?

This Old Debt of Mine

Lego May Move Production From Denmark

COPENHAGEN, Denmark - Struggling Danish toy maker Lego Group, famous for its colorful plastic building blocks, said Wednesday it is considering moving all or parts of its production to Eastern Europe or China.

The privately held group reported a pretax loss of 156 million kroner ($26 million) last week and announced it would move a production factory in Switzerland to the Czech Republic.

In an interview with the financial newspaper Boersen, Lego chief executive Joergen Vig Knudstorp said the Swiss move was a test, and could be followed by a complete or partial move of the company's main production facilities in Billund, Denmark.

"In the long term, I think that everything will be moved," Vig Knudstorp was quoted as saying.

Lego spokeswoman Charlotte Simonsen told The Associated Press no decision had been made, but confirmed that outsourcing production to eastern Europe or China was being considered. She said the restructuring plans would be completed by 2010, and any moves would take place before that.

There are about 3,000 people working at the production facility at the Lego headquarters in Billund.

Simonsen said the company's restructuring program could affect all of its production facilities, including one in Enfield, Conn.

Earlier this year Lego sold its four Legoland amusement parks to U.S.-based private equity group the Blackstone Group for 375 million euros ($457 million). The theme parks are located in Carlsbad, Calif.; Billund; Windsor, Britain; and Gunzberg, Germany.

Apple Launches New ITunes Phone and IPod

SAN FRANCISCO - Apple Computer Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs introduced a long-anticipated music-playing cell phone on Wednesday and surprised the faithful with a new pencil-thin iPod.

The phone, called the ROKR and made by Motorola Inc., will come loaded with iTunes software, store up to 100 songs and include a color display screen and a built-in camera.

The ROKR, Apple's first foray into the mobile telephony market, will include built-in dual-stereo speakers as well as stereo headphones that also serve as a mobile headset.

Users will not be able to load the phone with music files over cellular networks, however. They must transfer songs from their computers. That contrasts with popular over-the-air music purchases available in such countries as Japan.

The new iPod, called the Nano, replaces the iPod Mini. In contrast with the Mini, which is hard drive-based, the Nano relies on flash memory, making it lighter and more energy-efficient.

One-third the size of the Mini, the Nano weighs about 1.5 ounces and looks and feels much like a cigarette lighter. Apple says it can store up to 1,000 songs or 25,000 photos.

"Nano is the biggest revolution since the original iPod," Jobs crowed at an event for journalists and invited guests. "It's impossibly small. ... It's thinner than a No. 2 pencil."

Besides music, the Nano features games, photo storage and a calendar. It also has a "screen lock" feature that allows no one except the user to access content.

A 4-gigabyte Nano will retail for $249, and a 2-gigabyte model will sell for $199. The devices will be in stores as soon as Thursday and are likely to be widely available by the weekend, Apple said.

The Nano is a sign that Apple intends with its market-dominating iPod players to rely more on flash memory, which is becoming cheaper, said Susan Kevorkian, a research analyst with IDC.

"Apple is positioning themselves to take advantage of those price drops," Kevorkian said. "Flash is more stable than hard drives, which are in many MP3 players, including the 60-gigabyte iPod."

The ROKR phone will be offered by Cingular Wireless in the United States.

On the phone, music will automatically shut off when a call is received and users can listen to music while text-messaging.

Like the Nano, the iPhone will include flash memory that will preserve battery power, according to Nitin Gupta, an analyst with Yankee Group. Apple said the iPhone will offer up to 9 hours of talk time, and standby time of up to 9 days.

"Using the audio player will not diminish its capabilities," Gupta said. "It's not a realistic concern when using flash-based phones."

The phones, which sell for $250 with a two-year commitment at all Cingular stores nationwide, go on sale Thursday.

In addition to the new phone and iPod, Apple also announced that Acura, Audi, Honda and Volkswagen will offer iPod connectivity with their car stereos for 2006 model lines.

Madonna made an appearance at the event via a video phone call to announce that she would make her music available for download for the first time.

All of the singers' songs will be offered through the iTunes library.

Potter Novels Available as iTunes Downloads

NEW YORK - Break out your iPods: Harry Potter is going digital. J.K. Rowling, once publishing's greatest holdout against the computer age, has made all six Potter novels available for audio downloads.

In a message posted Wednesday on her Web site, Rowling said she was concerned about online piracy, included bootleg editions for which the original text was altered.

"Many Harry Potter fans have been keen for digital access for a while, but the deciding factor for me in authorizing this new version is that it will help combat the growing incidents of piracy in this area," Rowling wrote.

"There have been a number of incidents where fans have stumbled upon unauthorized files believing them to be genuine and, quite apart from the fact that they are illegal, the Harry Potter content of these can bear very little resemblance to anything I've ever written!"

The digital audiobooks are being released by the Random House Audio Trade Group, her current audio publisher. They can be purchased through Apple's iTunes store, for prices ranging from $32.95 for a single book to $249 for the whole series, which, according to Random House, includes a "full color digital booklet" and "previously unreleased readings" by Rowling.

Neil Blair, a lawyer with Rowling's literary agency, said Wednesday that there are no current plans for Potter e-books.

Rowling's fantasy series, most recently "Harry Potter and Half-Blood Prince," has sold more than 200 copies worldwide in print editions and more than 5 million as audiobooks, narrated by Grammy winner Jim Dale. But up to now the author had only permitted paper and traditional audio releases, making her work a favorite for online pirates, although illegal sales are believed to be relatively tiny.

Helped by the iPod boom, digital audiobooks are already one of publishing's hottest sectors, with sales nearly quadrupling between 2001 and 2003, to more than $18 million, according to the Audio Publishers Association.

"It's very exciting that an audiobook both critically acclaimed and commercially successful is finally available to the very broad audience of people who enjoy downloading," says association president Mary Beth Roche.

Also Wednesday, Rowling said on her Web site that she was concerned by a wave of Potter merchandise with fake autographs for sale on eBay.

"As far as I could tell on the day I dropped in, only one of the signatures on offer appeared genuine," she wrote.

"There seem to be a lot of people out there trying to con Harry Potter fans. The same is true in respect to the huge number of unauthorized Harry Potter e-books and audio digital files that users of eBay have offered for sale to Harry Potter fans," wrote Rowling, who accused eBay of refusing to take responsibility for what it allows to be sold.

eBay spokesman Hani Durzi said Wednesday that Rowling is part of a copyright protection program offered by the online auction giant that allows members to report problems. Durzi estimates that eBay has 55 million listings at any given time and says that "it's the responsibility of the copyright owner to report any listings that violate their rights."

Depeche Mode returns to U.S. after 4-year break

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Veteran electro/pop act Depeche Mode will begin its first North American tour in more than four years on November 2 in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.

The five-week arena jaunt will run through a December 9 show in Fairfax, Va., and includes a rare club show November 26 in Las Vegas. The Raveonettes and the Bravery will alternate as opening acts.

The tour comes in support of Depeche Mode's new album, "Playing the Angel," due October 18 via Sire/Reprise. The first single, "Precious," is due to reach U.S. radio outlets shortly.

Guitarist Buckethead teams with System frontman

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Enigmatic guitarist Buckethead, who never appears in public without a KFC bucket on his head and a mask on his face, has signed to the label run by System Of A Down frontman Serj Tankian.

Buckethead's album "Enter the Chicken" will be released October 25 under the Serjical Strike banner. The 11-track set features guest spots by Tankian on the songs "Waiting Here" and "We Are One."

Buckethead has been releasing eclectic solo albums since 1992. Until his March 2004 departure, he was also doubling as the guitarist in Guns N' Roses and had played on the group's long-festering album, "Chinese Democracy."

cuthbert1776

- kinda

been busy lately

car, work, family, ect

don't get me started on the car -