HOW TO TELL THE SEX OF A BIRD

This Is AMAZING!!!   Until now I never fully understood how to tell the difference between male and female birds. I always thought it had to be determined surgically.  Until now.

See the picture of an ordinary seagull to the left.  Can you tell if it’s a male or a female?  I don’t think so.  However, when you see two seagulls together, one male and one female, it becomes a little easier to tell the difference.

Below is a link to a picture of two birds.  Study them closely…See if you can spot which of the two is female.   It can be done. Even by one with limited bird watching skills.

Click this link to the picture.

Thanks Gerry!

This past Saturday, in the wee hours of a freezing winter’s night, a Moncton landmark, Le Château à Pape Restaurant was destroyed by fire. The building was one of the oldest in the city.

Last Tuesday, my wife and I had dinner at Le Château à Pape with the city manager, Jacques Dube, and his wife, Nancy. We don’t regularly rub elbows with the city’s senior staff members, but my wife bought some tickets at work in support for charity and won the top prize. They were charming, down-to-earth people and the food was great. We had a genuinely nice time. In the days leading up to our night out, we got increasingly anxious about what the heck we would talk about. I mean, this was the city manager and his wife, both of whom we had never met, and we were about to sit in a fancy restaurant with them for 3+ hours. While I resisted the urge to start the conversation with “So… how about them roads?”, at one point I did make a comment which, in retrospect, seems a little eerie. Mr. Dube had removed a lamp from the centre of the table and placed in on the floor. It was tall and was blocking the view for each of us looking directly across at each other. As he went to lay it on the floor, he realized that it wasn’t an electrical appliance, it was a lit candle. I made a joke something like, “Ha! That was close! This building has been here for more than a hundred years and one dinner with the city manager and the place burns to the ground.” Hardy-har-har!

Little did we know that three evenings later…

The other day my eighteen year old son decided he would make some bacon and eggs for himself. He is not the most seasoned chef in the world so I kinda hovered around and tossed him a little guidance now and then.

Cook the bacon first, that way you’ll have the bacon fat to cook the eggs in. Besides that, the bacon will keep for the minute it takes the egg to cook. Don’t put the burner up so high. You’ll burn the bacon and the grease. Crack the egg on the side of the pan. No, don’t open the egg up so far from the pan; you’ll break the yolk and splash bacon grease all over. Blah blah nag nag.

When he was done, he sat down and declared, “Boy, I sure do make some tasty bacon!” I said, “Hold on! I do believe the pig deserves some the credit!”

He looked me straight in the face and said, “You’re right. Thank you!

Saucy frigger!

I would think not. Time to negotiate that into the collective agreement.

I was reading my news feed from CBC today and a couple of headlines jumped out at me.

• Man Sentenced For Abuse Of Puppies Left In Snow. I hope they let him wear his snow boots.
• Mother Urges School and Parents to Stop Bullying. Man! Shouldn’t they be setting a better example?
• Wrongfully Convicted Man’s Trial Delayed Two Weeks. Jeez. It’s bad enough to be railroaded, but to have to wait a fortnight knowing it’s gonna happen is just cruel!

In other news, Condom Truck Tips, Spills Load.

We are rolling out a new phone system where I work. Tonight is the big cut over night and one of the vendors made a mistake that caused a level of service to be missing for a few hours. The employee sent us a message apologizing for the mistake.

“I do apologize for any incontinence this may cause your organization.”

Did she mean the opposite of “continuity“, as incontinuity? Or was she just trying to say she hopes she didn’t scare the shit out of us!

Flashback… 25 years ago. I’m working in the kitchen at a McDonald’s restaurant in St. John’s, Newfoundland. It’s busy. REALLY busy. I’m scrambling around the kitchen, obeying the orders of the manager running the production bin. His name is Dick Tracy. (I’ve changed his last name because it’s not important to the story.) I’d always enjoyed when it was busy, so things were going good and I was in good spirits.

Dick: Hey Steve, I need 6 McChicken down. (Meaning putting chicken patties in the deep fryer.)
Me: Right on dude!

Then Dick stopped what he was doing. He marched right across the kitchen and started wagging his finger in my face.

Dick: Don’t you EVER call me “dude” again!
Me: Uh…. why?
Dick: Because where I come from it’s an insult!
Me: And “Dick” isn’t?

I worked at McDonald’s for five years after that. He never spoke another word to me again. Ever.

Incidentally, the definition of “dude”:

[dood, dyood]
–noun
1. a man excessively concerned with his clothes, grooming, and manners.
2. Slang. fellow; chap.
3. a person reared in a large city.
4. Western U.S. an urban Easterner who vacations on a ranch.

I don’t know. Maybe he was reared in his large city by some chap obsessed with his grooming while on vacation on a ranch out west.