Tobacco Terminology Truthiness

The following are all species and varieties of the tobacco plant. Only the common names and warnings have been changed to protect the infamous.

Scientific Name	Common Name	Warning
Nicotiana acuminate	dullard’s tobacco	Provides greater acumen (not)
Nicotiana alata	overboard tobacco	Makes you smoke a lot
Nicotiana attenuate	not-so-hot tobacco	Reduces your effectiveness
Nicotiana clevelandii	Cleveland tobacco	Makes you think you live in Cleveland
Nicotiana excelsior	bad-move tobacco	Makes you call your ex on their cell phone
Nicotiana forgetiana	whatchamacallit tobacco	Makes you, um, something . . . what was the question?
Nicotiana glauca	blind tobacco	Gives you glaucoma
Nicotiana glutinosa	way-too-much tobacco	Makes you a glutton
Nicotiana langsdorffii	Langsdorff's tobacco	Makes you want to be named Langsdorff
Nicotiana longiflora	fainting tobacco	Makes you lie down on a long floor
Nicotiana obtusifolia	thick-headed tobacco	Makes you obtuse
Nicotiana obtusifolia var. obtusifolia	super-thick-headed tobacco	Makes you really, really obtuse
Nicotiana obtusifolia var. palmeri	thick-headed palming tobacco	Makes you so obtuse you think you are a sleight-of-hand artist
Nicotiana paniculata	ack! tobacco	Makes you panic
Nicotiana plumbaginifolia	Tex-Mex tobacco	Insert your own joke here, this is for real
Nicotiana quadrivalvis	cardio tobacco	Makes you eligible for quadruple bypass surgery
Nicotiana quadrivalvis var. bigelovii	cardiologist-retirement-fund tobacco	Makes you eligible for quadruple bypass surgery with all the extras
Nicotiana quadrivalvis var. quadrivalvis	relapsed cardio tobacco	Makes you eligible for a second quadruple bypass surgery
Nicotiana quadrivalvis var. wallacei	Wallace’s cardio tobacco	Makes you delirious thinking you are Wallace from Wallace from Gromit
Nicotiana repanda	China zoo tobacco	Makes you want to revisit pandas
Nicotiana rustica	rustic tobacco	Makes you think you live in the country
Nicotiana suaveolens	shampoo tobacco	Makes you need Suave for oily hair
Nicotiana sylvestris	Sylvester’s tobacco	Makes you want to eat talking canaries
Nicotiana tabacum	kitten's tobacco	Makes you call for tabby cats
Nicotiana tomentosa	minty-breath tobacco	Makes you go find the nearest source of Mentos
Nicotiana trigonophylla var. trigonophylla	desert tobacco	Makes you like to do trigonometry again and again
Nicotiana velutina	translucent tobacco	Makes you want to make lots of tiny fancy invitations with vellum inserts
Nicotiana sanderae	carpenter’s tobacco	Makes you want to use a sander

Unchained Letter

Don't read the following E-mail message. No really, don't do it! Nothing to see here, nothing at all...

---

CASE 1: Ginny Richmond wanted desperately for her boyfriend of eight years, Adam Newhall, to finally propose. Then, one amazing night, he did! She gladly accepted and went home on cloud nine. When she got to her computer later that evening, she noticed that an E-mail from someone who she didn’t know had made it through her spam filter. On a lark, she decided to read it instead of deleting it. That was a BIG MISTAKE! It was this very letter, and she realized with HORROR that somehow she was reading about her life in this chain letter. Just then, she received a call from the time traveler who wrote this letter. He told her that she was going to die! DISTRAUGHT, she started to cry. Then he said that SHE DIED in her sleep when she was ninety-seven years old. In a shimmering haze, he then disappeared back into the future. She realized with DEEP SADNESS that THE FUTURE WAS DOOMED to be full of time-traveling jerks who thought it was funny to ruin people’s good moods.

CASE 2: Tyra Kilmer received this very letter and, following its instructions, she deleted it immediately without reading it. However, she failed to purge it from her junk mail box, and it sat on her computer for years. Two days later, Tyra went to the store to buy some milk. She dropped the milk and it was ALL OVER. She spent the next ten minutes cleaning up the minor DISASTER. In those ten minutes, SHE MISSED A VITAL PHONE CALL. She had to call them back a few minutes later. Eventually, when her computer got really old, she finally destroyed this letter when she PURGED ALL HER FILES before sending it off to a recycling center where HER COMPUTER WAS DESTROYED.

CASE 3: Lenny Eastman never read this letter and IMMEDIATELY purged it from his computer. He even TOLD ALL OF HIS FRIENDS to do the same thing. Two hours later he was walking down the street and found FREE MONEY. He went into the local drugstore used it all up to buy what turned out to be a single WINNING LOTTERY TICKET. He used all of his winnings to buy himself a NEW CAR magazine, a NEW HOUSE key, and enough Bazooka bubble gum that he was SET FOR LIFE. Six hours later, he MET THE WOMAN OF HIS DREAMS, Irene Neilson, and they began to date seriously. THEY ARE NOW MARRIED to other people, but they had a really good time together, perusing through his new magazine, using his new key, and chewing his Bazooka gum. They both have kids and read stories that end with THEY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER.

You must delete this letter with 1 hour of reading it, or better yet, you didn’t read this at all and deleted it immediately and even removed it from your trash files. You must also tell 10 different people to not read this. If you do this, you will have incredibly WONDERFUL, AMAZINGLY STUPENDOUS LUCK in imagining a life FULL OF LOVE and TONS OF MONEY. Fulfilling your imagination will, of course, require that you didn’t spend your time reading this letter when you should have been going out and getting a fabulous job and wooing the love of your life. Otherwise, if you read this, you’ll have wasted precious minutes of your life and might miss a train or fail to think of something brilliant that makes the world a better place. For anyone who thinks that THIS IS NOT A JOKE, then you weren’t paying much attention! If you’ve made it this far, you’ve read the cases, seen the warnings, and know the consequences. I’m sorry, but you’ve blown it. You’ve read this all the way through, and there isn’t even a really cool punchline at the end to make it all worthwhile. Although, I’m very, very sorry, it isn’t as if I didn’t warn you!

Conversations with a Magic 8 Ball

     Should I eat the cookie?  Ask again later

     Should I really ask again later?  Maybe

     Are you being vague for a reason?  My sources say no

     Are your sources reliable?  Ask again later
 
     Has it been long enough that I can ask about the cookie again?  Yes
 
     Should I eat the cookie? Definitely
 
Are you just saying what I want to hear? Outlook not so good 

Does that mean you really don't think I should eat that cookie?  Outlook not so good
 

---

 
Do you ever get tired of answering questions?  Yes 
 
Do you want me to leave you alone right now?  Ask again later 
 
I'm sorry. I'll go now. Is that OK?  No way! 
 
You want me to stay but not talk to you?  Ask again later 

If you want me to stay, you need to answer *now*. Do you want me to stay but not talk to you?  Absolutely!
 
Do you realize how ridiculous that is?  No way!

Well it is. Would it be OK if I read a book while I'm waiting for you to want to talk?  Absolutely!
 
OK, great. Oh, but first, is this going to take all day?  Yes
 
All day, huh? Hmm. Good grief. Ah, well, on to my reading.  No way!
 
What do you mean no way? Didn't you just say I could read?  Outlook not so good
 
Why not? Something has changed in the last two minutes?  Absolutely!
 
What? Did you get called away on a national emergency or something?  Absolutely!
 
Oh. Well good luck, then. See you tomorrow, OK?  Ask again later
 

---

 
It's been a while, are you happy to see me again?  Outlook not so good.
 
What? Aww, you can't be miffed about how we ended our last conversation, can you?  Outlook not so good. 
 
OK. I apologize then. Does that help?  My sources say no.
 
 I don't care about your sources. I want to know if *you* find it helpful. Does it?  My sources say no.
 
You're not going to answer me directly, are you?  My sources say no.
 
Fine. I'm going to go now. Does that suit you?  My sources say no.
 
Well, when you are ready to start talking directly and not through your sources, then I'll come back. See ya.  Absolutely!
 
Don't count on it buster, don't you realize you've been extremely rude?  My sources say no.
 
Yeah, I'm sure they do. Good *bye*!! Happy now?  My sources say no.

It's All Academic

EFFECT OF DETERMINISTIC AND RELATAVISTIC SEMANTIC CLAUSES DEVELOPED FOR THE PURPOSES OF OBFUSCATION AND THE CREATION OF SELF-REPLICATING STRANDS OF COMMUNICATIVELY DEFICIENT STRUCTURES ON THE NORMATIVELY DERIVED ASSUMPTIONS OF PROGENITORS OF RESEARCH PARADIGMS

R. Yoo Kidding, J. Okun and I. Khan-Fyusid

            After deliberating the meaning of the title of this paper, the authors were too tired to write anything further, especially because the authors consider the title to be able to stand on its own merits.

Little Story: Waking Up is Hard to Do

The day began one minute before it was supposed to. Kevin Little woke up for no apparent reason other than to annoy himself, it seems. His eyes, still looking inward to determine the meaning of the quickly fading memory of some bizarre dream, at first did not register what the blaring red digits on the clock were telling him. It took some effort to get his brain to process the information, in fact, as the dream had been somehow pleasant, and there really wasn't anything his brain could think it would rather be doing than mulling over the images it had so quaintly created during the night. But Kevin's conscious self forced the issue, and his brain did as commanded: 6:59 a.m. One minute before the little clock bellowed forth the noise from a local radio station, intending to waken him. Kevin looked at the clock for several seconds, unmoving, contemplating the significance of this moment. Deciding that his little clock, which only bellowed a few short moments every day, should not be deprived of its singular joy of awakening him, Kevin, with an altruistic fervor, shut his eyes and wandered back into the cozy warmth of sleepiness. Briefly.

"WHAT DO YOU THINK OF..." Smack! Silence.

"REALLY!  CAN YOU IMAGINE?..." Smack! Silence.

"FOR ONLY $24.99!..." Smack! Eyes pop open: 7:30 a.m.

Perhaps I should get moving, thought Kevin. His happy cozy self felt that was a terrible idea and suggested that he could afford to sleep for just a while more. The alarm will go back on in 10 minutes, after all. What is 10 minutes? Kevin's conscious and ever-more-responsible self countered with visions of being terribly late and of his employer giving him a sour face. Kevin went back to sleep.

"I REALLY LOVE THESE NEW..." Smack! Silence.

Now I really need to get moving, thought Kevin, somewhat aware that it was really getting late now. His cozy self still insisted getting up was still, on the face of it, just a really rotten idea. Kevin's conscious self, however, was now able to conjure up a more fierce picture of the future, if he didn't get up now. His boss, red with anger and frustration loomed in his mind, with the words "You're fired!" clearly about to form on his pursed lips. Kevin decided to get up.

Twenty minutes until he had to get to work. Fortunately, he lived only 10 minutes away from his work, and that gave him a whole 10 minutes to get ready for the day. Kevin, still quite groggy entered the bathroom and rushed through everything one generally attempts to accomplish while half asleep at the beginning of the day.  When he was done, he realized he had two minutes left before he needed to sprint to his car, perhaps 45 seconds away, if he put some effort into it. Kevin quickly threw on some clothes and, looking quite rumpled (but a respectable kind of rumpled), he ran full steam to his car... (to be continued)

Buzzing Rictameter

Houseflies

Flitting around

Hover here, hover there

Never staying in place for long

Always wary of the sudden movement

Of the hands of fate brandishing

A plastic sheet of doom

To smite lazy

Houseflies

The Failed Analogy of Sausages

There is a famous quote by German statesman Otto von Bismarck that “laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.” This really is quite insulting to sausages. No, laws are not a delightful, filling breakfast food to accompany your bacon and eggs. Rather, they are something else entirely, resulting from a gastrointestinal-like process. First, there is the ingestion of facts, figures, budgets, bitter pills, finger pointing, and perhaps even the occasional sausage or two. Then there is the caustic, acidic rhetoric that tears everything apart. Following this is a long, gut-wrenching process where everything is squeezed, mashed together, and obliterated until nothing recognizable is left. Finally, when all of the innate goodness has been sucked out completely, you get the end product. If you are lucky, you have found yourself with a lovely new law, still smelling of compromise and probably just a whiff of insanity. If you aren't so lucky, and everything went too fast or there was too much hot air involved, then all you are left with are disturbing, loud noises and the rather putrid stench that goes with it—and the realization that you probably will have to go through everything all over again .

Hidden Anachronisms

This is a photograph taken in Redlands, California, in 1908, as Teddy Roosevelt arrived at the local train station. However, hiding within this photograph are some anachronisms. One of them is that the building in the background is currently the offices of Statistical Research, Inc. In 1908, it was a warehouse for the Graham-Cope Company. There are seven other anachronisms in the photograph. Happy hunting!

Falling Mango(s)

Observations on the DANGER sign:

• Although it is not a good idea to stand there, the sign does seem to suggest the possibility that it might be OK to sit, lay down, or play Parcheesi in that spot.

• The sign says to not stand "here," which could mean directly by the sign or some unknown radius around the sign. "Here" is just a tad vague, a rather undesirable quality for a "DANGER" sign.

• It appears that originally the sign may have read "falling mango," but then someone came along and pointed out there was more than one, as the "S" seems to have been tacked on after the fact.

• In case you weren't aware of the general import of the danger you are facing, they made sure to underline it for you for added emphasis. This may have been suggested by the same person who wanted the additional "S" added to "mango," as the underlining extends underneath the added "S."

• They seem to be testing to see if you are paying attention to the sign by coyly placing the small mango tree placard right under the sign. If you want to find out more about the mango tree, you must face the danger of the falling mango(s) or hope you came prepared with a long lens of some sort. Or perhaps, after all, you really just can't *stand* there, so you can get simply kneel in front of the placard.

Fractured Adages

• Birds of a feather flock together, for they are bound by that pesky feather. Corollary: Birds of a feather aren't aerodynamic anymore, so they shuffle together more than truly "flock."
• Opposites attract. They also cancel each other out. Ooops.
• Don't judge a book by its cover, instead look at the Amazon reviews.
• The clothes make the man. This is awfully coy, as it never quite says what the clothes made the man do. I suspect something the woman wouldn't like, and thus the man seeks to blame the clothes.
• The early bird gets the worm, but the even earlier worm gets away. Corollary: The on-time cat gets an awesome breakfast.
• Better late than never, except when it is better never than late. Corollary: Context is everything.
• Nothing ventured, nothing gained, unless you play the lottery, in which case something ventured, nothing gained.
• Better safe than sorry, and better say sorry to be safe.
• Curiosity killed the cat. It killed the person curious about the cat, too.
• What you don't know can't hurt you, except for just about everything you don't know.
• Seek and ye shall find. Unless it is a lost sock in the dryer, a child's shoe, or your youth.
• Beware of Greeks bearing gifts. Unless you are Greek, in which case, have a happy birthday, and beware everyone else bearing gifts.
• Never look a gift horse in the mouth. Never look a horse in the mouth, period. Eeeew. Bad breath.
• There's no such thing as a free lunch, unless you are a child on certain days at Denny's.
• The best things in life are free, except for lunches, apparently.
• Two wrongs don't make a right, but several more might just do the trick, especially if you failed to make that right turn.
• Practice makes perfect, unless you are a talentless hack, like most of us.
• You are never too old to learn . . . that you aren't as young as you used to be. Damn whippersnappers.
• You can't teach an old dog new tricks. Wait, I thought you are never too old to learn! Damn whippetsnappers.
• A rolling stone gathers no moss, unless it rolls through something really sticky first.
• Stop and smell the roses, unless you are on the way to the hospital with a critically ill patient. Then it can wait. Really.
• He who hesitates is lost. He who doesn't hesistate long enough to get directions is also lost.
• Strike while the iron is hot, although this really is a poor way to treat someone nice enough to dewrinkle your shirts, though.
• Look before you leap. Actually, look before you do leap, run, walk, or flail about. Just a good idea in most circumstances.
• Many hands make light work, mainly because with so many hands, you really can't do the heavy lifting, as they extra hands just get in the way.
• Two heads are better than one, although three would be better, as then you can break a tie. Corollary: Two heads are not better than one on the same body. Emphatically so.
• Too many cooks spoil the broth.  A single cook can spoil a broth, too. The trick is finding one who knows what they are doing and ask them to make lunch. But don't expect it to be free or one of the best things in life.
• Measure twice, cut once: the motto of that cook who spoiled the broth.
• You can't have your cake and eat it too, except pretty much all the time, when you are served cake and you eat it. Fortunately, there are very few stories of cake theivery in the annals of history.
• A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. The two birds in the bush can be killed by a stone in that one hand, though, so that would even be better, especially if you found that good cook to prepare some chicken soup.
• Pride cometh before a fall, especially if you were foolish enough to have ticked off that bevy of lions and tigers, oh my!
• Don't count your chickens before they're hatched, and for heaven's sake, don't count your eggs after they've hatched.