When Harry Met Sally revisited! (video)

The greatest scene from "When Harry Met Sally", with a new twist. Turn up your speakers and enjoy!

Friday Funnies: Laughing at Death

Um, I'm OK!

Clem's pickup had been hit by a semi in an accident, and Clem was suing the trucking company for damages. In court, the trucking company's lawyer was questioning Clem. "Didn't you say, sir, at the scene of the accident, 'I'm fine?'" asked the lawyer.

Clem responded, "Well, I'll tell you what happened. I had just loaded my favorite mule, Bessie, into the -"

"I didn't ask for any details", the lawyer interrupted. "Just answer the question. Did you not say, at the scene of the accident, 'I'm fine'?"

Clem said, "Well, I had just got Bessie into the trailer and I was driving down the road -."

The lawyer interrupted again and said, "Your Honor, I am trying to establish the fact that, at the scene of the accident, this man told the investigating Highway Patrolman that he was just fine. Now several weeks after the accident he is trying to sue my client. I believe he is a fraud. Please tell him to simply answer the question."

By this time, the judge had become interested in Clem's answer and said to the lawyer, "I'd like to hear what he has to say about his favorite mule, Bessie."

Clem thanked the Judge and proceeded. "Well, as I was saying, I had just loaded Bessie, my favorite mule, into the trailer and was driving her down the highway when this huge semi-truck and trailer ran a stop sign and smacked my truck right in the side. I was thrown into one ditch and Bessie vas thrown into the other ditch. I was hurting real bad and didn't want to move.

However, I could hear Bessie moaning and groaning. I knew she was in terrible shape too, just by her groans! Shortly after the accident the Highway Patrolman, he came on to the scene.

He could hear Bessie moaning and groaning so he went over to her. After he looked at her and saw her fatal condition he took out his gun and shot her right between the eyes

Then the Patrolman, he come across the road, gun still smoking, looked at me and asked, 'How are you feeling?"

"Now: What the heck would YOU say!?"

Cookies to Die For

A very old man lay dying in his bed. He suddenly smelled the aroma of his favorite chocolate chip cookie wafting up the stairs. 

He gathered his remaining strength and lifted himself from the bed. Leaning against the wall, he slowly made his way out of the bedroom, and with even greater effort forced himself down the stairs, gripping the railing with both hands. With labored breath, he leaned against the door frame, gazing into the kitchen. 

Were it not for death's agony, he would have thought himself already in heaven. There, spread out on newspapers on the kitchen table was literally hundreds of his favorite chocolate chip cookies. Was it heaven? Or was it one final act of heroic love from his devoted wife, seeing to it that he left this world a happy man? 

Mustering one great final effort, he threw himself toward the table. The aged and withered hand, shaking, made its way to a cookie at the edge of the table. 

He was suddenly smacked on his hand with a spatula by his wife. "Stay out of those," she said. "They're for the funeral."


Concealed Weapons

A state trooper stops an elderly woman for speeding. He asked her for her driver's license and registration. When she removed it from her wallet he noticed she had a Concealed Weapon Permit.


"Ma'am, are you in possession of a weapon at this time?" The officer asked.

She gestured toward the glove box and stated she had a ".45 semi-auto" in it.

As part of protocol the officer asked, "Are there any other firearms in the car?"

She opened her center console to reveal a 9 mm Glock.

Surprised, he hesitantly asked, "Are there any more weapons in your vehicle?".

She also admitted that she carries a .38 Special in her handbag.

All of her weapons and permits checked out, so the officer wrote the ticket for speeding, and was about to send her on her way.

"Ma'am," he asked, "what is it that you're so afraid of?"

She looked the trooper straight in the eye and said, "Not a F@CKIN' thing!"

Mitt Romney Pays $6 Million in Taxes. Was it enough?

Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney released his tax documents today. I won't go deep into specifics but generally he had about $20 million in income, and paid about $6 million in taxes over the past two years. If you do the math, it's roughly 15%.

You may be screaming, "but that's my tax rate! How unfair!"

Here's why you're wrong. Mitt Romney paid exactly the right amount of taxes.

If you made $10 million a year, and your tax rate was roughly 33%, wouldn't you try to save money? Of course you would. You would hire an accountant, and you would look for tax breaks, credits and discounts that would reduce the amount of money you have to pay.

Mr. Romney did this successfully, primarily by using a tax credit for large charitable donations. Mr. Romney donated about $1.6 million per year to his church and other charities. He gave away more money than he paid in taxes. Few readers of this blog made charitable donations at a higher rate than their personal tax burden.

What this tells us about Mr. Romney is that he chose to contribute his wealth to specific charities rather than to use the money to pay taxes. I don't know about you, but I would prefer to direct my money to organizations and people I deem worthy, than to contribute to a massive federal budget.

Next, Mr. Romney earns most of his money, as do most of the wealthy, on dividends and investment income. If you don't play baseball for millions, or have the next Harry Potter under contract, you probably make your millions by investing.

Investment income is taxed at a lower rate than personal income. Most wealthy people pay 20% on capital gains. Additionally, some of those investments will lose money, and these losses can be counted against income.

Mr. Romney made his living as a venture capitalist. He has investments in many companies. Obviously, his retirement funds from being governor of Massachusetts doesn't play this well. That money is taxed at a higher rate.

So, most of his income was taxed at 20% instead of 33%. His charitable donations reduced his taxable income enough so his total tax burden was slightly under 14%.

If you hate that a guy who makes $20 million from investments only pays $3 million in taxes, I understand. However, you elected the people who made those policies.

Investment income appears to many as unearned money and undertaxed, but that's not true. The truth is that investors take a risk with the money they've already earned. This money has already been taxed once, sometimes when they earned it, or possibly when a relative or ancestor earned it.  At some point the original investment had to have been earned and taxed.

These investments provide jobs. Without them large companies would be nonexistent, and small companies would struggle to survive. Much of the quality of life we enjoy in the United States is because of investors who take their earnings and re-invests them into companies.

Some countries don't have a strong establishment for public investing. Because of that the rich are very rich, and the poor are very poor. Look at some of the Middle Eastern nations where a single family controls tens of billions in wealth, while much of the population can barely get by. The poverty level in US is more than 10 times the annual salary of workers in many other countries. If you don't like investors, I recommend looking at the economies of Libya, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and many other countries.

It's necessary that capital gains taxes be lower than personal income tax. This encourages wealthy people to invest, rather than starting new businesses, or simply hoarding the cash. When the wealthy create new businesses, the chance of losing that investment is much more significant.The losses from the unsuccessful ones act as tax havens. If we raise capital gains taxes to 33%, investors will focus more on high-risk investments that are self managed, and you would see an increase in bankruptcies without realizing additional tax revenues.

People will be screaming about the rich controlling the economy, but truth be told, I'd rather have a savvy business person who makes solid business decisions influencing our economy.

This isn't a endorsement of Mr. Romney. You need to vote based on who you think will best lead America into the future. People who rant about his tax payments are uninformed and shortsighted, so don't jump on the bandwagon.

I urge you to research the all the candidates thoroughly, then cast your vote. If you choose not to do the homework, please don't vote. Allow us who are well informed choose on your behalf.

Sources: CNBC, Townhall.com

NFL Conference Champion Predictions

I usually don't write much about sports. I'm an avid fan of the NFL and Formula One, and I love watching baseball and going to minor-league hockey games. But brighter minds than mine write about sports.

Some going to announce my picks for the Conference Championships. I won't go into extreme detail, I'm just going to document them here so when I'm bragging I can prove I picked the winners. If I'm wrong I may delete this post. :-) Just kidding.

The early game tomorrow is the Baltimore Ravens and the New England Patriots. I've liked Baltimore all season and figured they or Pittsburgh would represent the AFC. The Patriots are always a talented team, but didn't expect them to go deep.

Then, I watched the Patriots annihilate the Denver Broncos. They have the whole package, good defense and amazing offense. I'm taking the Patriots over the Ravens. Baltimore has a solid defense, but they aren't going to be able to keep Brady from scoring 21 or 28 points, and their offense isn't strong enough to put up those numbers against the Patriots.

Baltimore does have a chance, however, because Tom Brady is dealing with an injured shoulder. I think he'll be ready to go, but if he's not 100%, or if Ray Lewis gets up close and personal to many times, the Ravens will make a game of it.

The later game, and frankly the one I care about, is the New York Giants and the San Francisco 49ers. It feels like a throwback to the late 80s and early 90s when the NFC dominated. The 49ers were always strong, and the winner of the powerhouse NFC East would usually battle for the conference title. At that time winning the NFC was a bigger than the Super Bowl, because they were almost assured of dominating the best AFC team.

I'm a Dallas Cowboys fan, so it pains me a little bit to say it, but the Giants are impressive. Eli Manning has become much more than a little brother. He is one of the top quarterbacks in the league right now. If I had to choose between him, Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady, I could definitely make an argument for Eli.

The Giants snuck in the back door to the playoffs. This isn't because they don't have talent, it's because they were beaten up in the running game. They have three talented backs, but for the first two-thirds of the season they never have had more than one of them healthy at a time. They have a few injuries now, but their offense is healthy and strong. The running game is solid, which is going to make the passing game almost impossible to beat. I think Eli is going to pick apart the secondary of the 49ers like my grandma cleaning the meat off the bones after Thanksgiving dinner.

Again, the 49ers have a good defense, but I don't think they have the whole package. Their record is good, but like the Giants, I don't think it's a true reflection of their talent. Alex Smith is coming into his own, but I think he needs another year before that team is going to be ready for the Super Bowl.

So, my Super Bowl matchup is New England Patriots versus the New York Giants.

Credits: The term Super Bowl is a registered trademark of the NFL. I say this because the only people more bad ass then the players is the team of licensing lawyers the NFL employs. Those guys are seriously scary! Images were sampled from NFL.com and are property of the NFL and the respective teams. Please don't sue me.

Friday Funnies: Blessings in Disguise

Bless This Food

Little Johnny and his family were having Sunday dinner at his Grandmother's house. Everyone was seated around the table as the food was being served.

When Little Johnny received his plate, he started eating right away.

"Johnny! Please wait until we say our prayer." said his mother.

"I don't need to," the boy replied.

"Of course, you do "his mother insisted." We always say a prayer before eating at our house."

"That's at our house." Johnny explained. "But this is Grandma's house and she knows how to cook."

The Magician and the Parrot

A magician worked on a cruise ship. The audience was different each week so the magician did the same tricks over and over again. 

There was only one problem: The captain's parrot saw the shows each week and began to understand how the Magician did every trick. 

Once he understood, he started shouting in the middle of the show, "Look, it's not the same hat!" or, "Look, he's hiding the flowers under the table!" Or "Hey, why are all the cards the ace of spades?" 

The magician was furious but couldn't do anything. It was, after all, the Captain's' parrot. Then they encountered a severely stormy night on the Pacific. Unfortunately, the ship sank, drowning almost all who were on board. 

The magician luckily found himself on a piece of wood floating in the middle of the sea. As fate would have it he shared the piece of wood with the parrot. They stared at each other with hatred, but did not utter a word. 

This went on for a day... And then 2 days, and then 3 days. Finally on the 4th day, the parrot could not hold back any longer and said. 

"OK, I give up. Where's the #@*&%# ship?" 

Psychiatrists vs. Bartenders 

Ever since I was a child, I've always had a fear of someone under my bed at night. So I went to a shrink and told him, 'I've got problems. Every time I go to bed I think there's somebody underit. I'm scared. I think I'm going crazy.' .

'Just put yourself in my hands for one year,' said the shrink. 'Come talk to me three times a week and we should be able to get rid of those fears.' 

'How much do you charge?'.

'Eighty dollars per visit,' replied the doctor. .

'I'll sleep on it,' I said. .

Six months later the doctor met me on the street. 'Why didn't you come to see me about those fears you were having?' he asked. .

"Well, Eighty bucks a visit three times a week for a year is an awful lot of money! A bartender cured me for $10. I was so happy to have saved all that money that I went and bought me a new pickup!' .

'Is that so?' With a bit of an attitude he said, 'and how, may I ask, did a bartender cure you?' .

'He told me to cut the legs off the bed! - Ain't nobody under there now!!!' 

Golfers Are Such Warm People 

A husband and wife are on the 9th green when suddenly she collapses from a heart attack! "Help me dear," she groans to her husband. .

The husband calls 911 on his cell phone, talks for a few minutes, and picks up his putter and lines up his putt. His wife raises her head off the green and stares at him. "I'm dying here and you're putting?" .

"Don't worry dear," says the husband calmly, "they found a doctor on the second hole and he's coming to help you." .

"Well, how long will it take for him to get here?" she asks feebly. .

"No time at all," says her husband. "Everybody's already agreed to let him play through." 

MegaUpload Raid Proves SOPA Won't Work

Why the MegaUpload Raid Proves SOPA Won't Work

FBI Raid MegaUpload

If you are following news about online piracy yesterday, I don't blame you. I've spent more than my share of time than this topic deserves, however I did catch the story about the FBI raid on a company called MegaUpload, with servers rented in Virginia.

MegaUpload, which reportedly generated $175 million last year, acts as a storage and transfer facility for extremely large files. It allows people to store large files and share them with others. They have policies in place that if a copyright holder discovers a file that they own, it can be reported.

According to the Feds, the abuse reporting system wasn't adequate to protect copyright holders. Additionally, they stated that the executives knew and willingly allowed pirated material to be stored. They cited a two-year investigation including internal e-mails.

The raids arrested seven individuals in Virginia and New Zealand, including the CEO. The raids in New Zealand were carried out by New Zealand police.

The company operated more than 1100 servers which were confiscated in Virginia, the Netherlands, and New Zealand. Additionally, the website itself was taken off-line, based on a server in Hong Kong.

Suspicions suggest that the MPAA (the film industry association) and the RIAA (music industry association) pressured the raid to bring recently defeated piracy acts SOPA and PIPA back into the spotlight, although the investigation clearly preceded the introduction of this legislation. The timing of the raid is suspicious, however.

Here's why the MegaUpload raid proves that SOPA won't work.

Under SOPA, the copyright holders themselves could have tried to shut down the system by turning off at the IP level, the servers. However, there were a total of 1100+ servers, each with unique IP addresses. There is no way from the website to determine the IP addresses of those servers. In fact, prior to the raid, I doubt the FBI even knew the IP addresses. They physically seized the servers, something beyond the capability of SOPA.

It also proves that, with international cooperation, the existing laws are capable of making moves on suspected pirates and the resources they use.

The Mega Upload online piracy raid saga is far from over.

First, within minutes of the raid a known rogue organization of hackers, known as Anonymous, claimed responsibility for four denial of service attacks which pummel Web servers with tens of thousands of simultaneous pings, creating a massive slowdown or even shut down of those Web servers. The recording industry websites and the Department of Justice were among the four. While this activity is illegal, and probably committed by an organized network, Anonymous is not an organized crime venture akin to the 1920s mafia during Chicago prohibition. Anonymous is a social network of hackers that are loosely affiliated, perhaps more than 1000 individuals, using attacks from tens of thousands of virus-infected PCs. Shutting down a website under SOPA, even if successful, will not prevent retaliatory attacks. Reportedly the Department of Justice website slowed dramatically, but didn't go down. The other websites crashed under the pressure.

Second, prosecuting MegaUpload executives is going to be tricky, and precedent-setting. The seven individuals are of multiple citizenships and were based in two countries. The raids took place in four different jurisdictions. Even if all four countries agree, or all are willing to extradite, proving the executives are responsible is going to be challenging based on other examples. Using a service such as MegaUpload to commit piracy is roughly the equivalent of using a gun to commit a murder. This website is the tool, not to direct offender. Convicting them may be similar to convicting a handgun manufacturer for crime committed with their weapons. Handgun manufacturers know that their weapons are used to commit crimes. Additionally, handgun manufacturers have even made modifications to their weapons, making them more appealing to criminals then to law enforcement. However, no handgun manufacturer has ever been convicted or found civilly liable for crimes committed with their product. Recognizing that someone is using your service illegally doesn't necessarily equate to committing crime.

Third, the Department of Justice seized data that was stored legally on those servers. The mega upload service can also be used to transfer files of legitimate purpose. Each of those 1100 servers probably had many files stored that were perfectly legal, and are the proprietary information and property of the service users. Now the federal government has seized large quantities of data that they are entitled to be possessing, and that their agents violate privacy issues by even examining. In a real-world equivalent, this would be the same as seizing all of the safety deposit boxes of a bank, because a known criminal is using some of the boxes for storage of stolen property. Worse, even if the safety deposit boxes are only temporarily seized, the contents would have to be examined to determine which ones had illegal content.

There are lots of sites that offer storage services including cloud servers owned by Apple, Microsoft, Google and many of the largest legitimate companies in America. All of them are being used to store some illegally possessed data, without a doubt. Is the federal government allowed to seize data on third-party servers simply because the company owning the servers is aware that their product could be used in criminal activity? This raid will certainly create some precedent-setting legal implications.

I do applaud the Feds on the attempt. Pirating data on a massive scale, or a tiny scale, is a crime and there needs to be a process and consequence for prosecution. The question is, how much impact will this particular raid have on future efforts to stop piracy?

Movie-Theater Etiquette

The Groupon Guide to: Movie-Theater Etiquette

Movie Rule #42 - Always dress in 1960's clothes
 when attending a 3-D film.

To maintain the suspension of disbelief necessary to enjoy a film, movie theaters maintain a complex code of conduct for their guests.

Here's a look at what you can and cannot do during a movie:

• Talking is frowned upon.
• Frowning is frowned upon, as your physical displeasure may spread to other patrons.
• Texting is tolerated, as long as your phone's virtual keyboard noises are disabled.
• Making the keyboard noises with your mouth is not necessary.
• Enjoying popcorn is encouraged.
• Dipping Reese's Pieces into your soda is discouraged, on grounds of radical deliciousness.
• Deducing the film's twist ending before the director intended is considered rude.
• Aiming a laser pointer at the screen is considered hilarious.
• Being too good at preshow trivia will arouse the suspicion of the theater's security force.
• Not being good enough at preshow trivia will do the same.
• Allowing the emotions aroused by the film to later be replicated by real-world experiences is impossible.

Source: GroupOn.com