More answers from good ol' Unky Mike, the man who fully understands the difference between "him and me" and "he and I"!
From Aleea Thompson:
Dear Mr. Carroll,
If I have four fingers, and I take away two, will they finally take my mommy away for
neglect?
Also, where do babies get their ideas from? I have always wondered...
Cheerio!
Aleea.
Mike Replies: Dear Aleea, how kind of you to write! I am pleased to be able to answer your baffling-to-other-people questions!
1. Yes, sadly, your mommy will be taken away for neglect. But look on the bright side: when the authorities bust in the door and drag your mommy out into the waiting padded truck, at least you will finally be able to put your feet up on the sofa without her shouting at you to take off your shoes.
2. Ah, babies and the mysterious source of their ideas! A question that has vexed the greatest scientific minds for centuries! Luckily, you wrote to the right man! Being a font of all knowledge and wisdom, I can now reveal that the shameful truth is that babies steal their ideas from grown-up people. They do this through a form of telepathy, by channeling the adults' brainwaves through the framework of their cots. This practice is known as "cribbing", which of course is from where we get the name "crib" for a baby's bed.
Mike's Reality TV Show Ideas:
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"Extreme Faking It"
Members of the public are given an intensive four-week training course to enable them to fake being an experienced member of another profession. Just like the original "Faking It", really, except the occupations are a little more exciting: commercial airline pilot, international arms smuggler, presidential candidate, etc.
"Where's My Laughter?"
A group of TV executives from different networks are given the task of tracking down the people
whose laughter appears on their sitcoms' laugh-tracks. The executives show their sitcoms to the
people, and score points if the people actually do laugh. At the end of the series, the two
executives with the most points are allowed to keep their jobs.
"My Ideal Home"
A one-off show in which a member of the general public is spirited away from home on a flimsy
excuse, and upon his return is astonished to discover that his house and garden are still exactly
as they were when he left them.
"Bigger Brother"
A bunch of arrogant, ignorant, talentless, fame-seeking egomaniacs are locked in a house. No
cameras.
Had a weird dream last night in which I was adding a new entry in my Weblog. Amazingly, the dream has just come true!
Coming very soon to a bookstore near you!
Discovered the long-lost continent of Atlantis this morning. It had fallen down behind the radiator.
Someone Please Explain This To Me, part 1204:
Majority, noun
Definition: The greater number or the greater part
Suppose a man owns ten cars (let's say he's a greedy millionaire). Of these cars, four are red, two are black, two are silver, and two are blue. Since he has more red cars than any other colour, the majority of his cars are red. However... Since there are more non-red cars than red cars, it is also true that the majority of his cars are not red.
How can both of these statements be true? Maddening, isn't it?
The results of yesterday's survey:
| For: |  |
| Against: | |
| Yellow: | |
| Oblivious: | |
| February: | |
So there you go! Let me tell you, I was as surprised by the results as anyone! Thanks to everybody who took part!
Next week's poll: Should the Isle of Man have a National Standardised Hovercraft Colour?
As you probably know by now, Mike is very, very wise and very, very old, so there's not much he doesn't know! For a modest fee, Mike will answer any question you want to put to him! Here's the first batch of letters...
Dear Mike,
If a man leaves his house and travels due east for forty minutes at an average speed of
ninety kilometres per hour, how far will he have travelled?
Yours, Nigel Carburettor
Mike replies: Let's see... We divide ninety KPH by sixty to get the distance he'll cover in a
single minute... That's one point five. So we multiply that by forty (the number of minutes he's
travelling) and we get... sixty! He'll have travelled sixty kilometres. But hold on... Why are you
asking me? Why don't you ask him? I mean, I wasn't even there! What's all this about? You're
not trying to get me to provide him with an alibi, are you? Is that it? Your friend committed a
crime and now you want to rope me in! Well, you just can keep me out of it, buster!
Dear Mike,
Perhaps you can settle an argument between me and my friend. He says that if you put all
your food into a blender before you eat it then you'll save wear and tear on your teeth. Is this
true?
Yours, Benjamin Radiator.
Mike replies: How would I know if it's true? I've never even met your friend!
Dear Mike,
I meant: is it true about putting your food in the blender?
Yours, Benjamin.
Mike replies: Ah, I see... Yeah, I suppose it might be true. Of course, just putting your food
into the blender isn't enough: you'd also need to turn the blender on.
Dear Mike,
Here's something that's been bothering me for a while... How come some people get their left
and right mixed up, but no one ever confuses up and down?
Yours, Fiona Fanbelt
Mike replies: People only get left and right confused because of the word "Right". You'll find
that the people who can't tell right from left are very often the same people who can't tell right
from wrong: criminals, in other words. It's a well-known fact that if the police want to test
whether someone is innocent they often bring that person to a long corridor and tell them to "go
down to the end of the corridor and turn right." If that person turns left instead, then they're
guilty of whatever it was.
For everyone who's been asking about Mike's 2005 World Tour, here's an updated list of the
schedule!
Library - Cancelled
Petrol Station - Cancelled
Dry Cleaners' - Cancelled
Supermarket - Cancelled
Garden Centre - To be confirmed
Bank - Cancelled
Today's Headlines: Surprise discovery of rare English words leaves authors feeling queffled and broxly.
Quote of the Day: "If the second blade 'shaves you closer', why don't they just move the first blade closer?" - Leonia Carroll
It's time for... Mike's One-Line Book Reviews!
Write Your Own Self-Help Book - A rip off - it's just 250 blank pages!
How to Love Absolutely Everything! - Didn't like this book very much.
The Book That's Hard to Insult - I couldn't put it down.
Dublin 2005 Telephone Directory - Lots of characters, but no plot.
How to Connect Steel Girders - Absolutely riveting!
Bought Leonia a bucket-polishing kit for Christmas! She's going to be so pleased!
Invented a new word today: Phobiphobiphobia - the fear of people who are afraid of people who have phobias. I'm sure it won't be long before this great new word comes into common usage!
No luck yet in my scientific investigation into the source of the bubbles that mysteriously appear when you boil water. What really bothers me about those bubbles is that there's an awful lot of them. Everyone knows that water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen, but surely the bubbles can't be either of those gases! I mean, hydrogen and oxygen are both highly flamable, so wouldn't that mean that every time you turned on the kettle you were taking the risk of burning down the house?
Decided to tidy up the office and then decided not to. Success!
Had great fun listening to the dog who lives in the house behind ours. He's always so happy that his owners go out to work and leave him behind that he celebrates by going "Owooooooooo" for hours on end. Sometimes, to add to the merriment, the dog who lives next door to him will join in with some high-quality endless barking.
Got nearly an hour's work done before the first phone call of the day: it was sales representative from a telephone company wanting to know if we'd considered switching to their service. I told him that we didn't have a phone, so he apologised and hung up.
Woke up this morning bright and early. Went back to sleep until it was dull and late.
Got dressed, turned on the PC and played an on-line version of Sudoku, one of the really difficult ones where they only give you one number to start with. Solved it in two minutes... Must be slowing down in my old age.
Post arrived: Hooray! Got the next part of my subscription to Build Your Own House Magazine! This issue comes with another free house-brick. Only 100,873 more parts to go!
Woke up, fed the cat, had a quick shower, ate breakfast, and then finally decided to get out of bed (must remember to scrape the dried cornflakes off the duvet before bedtime).
Work was interrupted about fifteen times today by the cat scratching at the office door. I told her, "Gul, you're annoying me!" but she pretended not to know what I meant, and merely replied with, "Me? How?"
I've decided that I should have a weblog: all the good writers keep weblogs! Well, all the writers who are trying to avoid getting any work done keep weblogs. I can't promise that I'll update it every day, but I can promise that I probably won't update it every day. How's that for service?