My wife went to school at Dordt, and her dad taught there for a lot of years. No surprise it would come down so quickly; those CRC Dutchmen are such sticklers for neatness.

Leave it to the college kids to make the connection between Calvin & Hobbes and John Calvin; reminds me of the mashup done a while ago. Guess you've got to be a philosophy nerd to really get that though. ;o)

Under that veneer of maniacal sadism, they are just plain folks.

Or is it the other way round... A veneer of plain folk covering a core of maniacal sadism?

I remember reading something written by one of the guys who testified at the Nuremberg Trials; when he first saw one of the Nazi defendants he was struck by the realization that if circumstances were changed, he could be capable of the same wickedness.

What do you call a fly that's had its wings pulled off?

A walk.

My kids pull that one most any time a fly gets in the house (I tend to do the same. See a fly, tell the joke.)

Yes, living inside the walls is for safety (no need to be sarcastic and insulting Pol x), but why build the buildings so high? Wouldn't it have been much easier and less costly to extend the wall outward?

That's interesting. Usually there are economic factors that cause people to build upward rather than outward; when land is expensive, that makes the extra effort of building up worthwhile. I can't imagine that was the case here, with desert all around. Safety maybe? The wall isn't shown in this photo, but it is known as a walled city...

Seems to be a theme (2 posts anyway!) on Neatorama today... Did someone see something they would rather have not? ;)

I was doing pretty well until Sid added to the list; I fall short on a few of his.

Also, a guy (or girl) can get by just fine not knowing some of the things listed, as long as they know someone who does. Like one of my college profs liked to say, knowing all the answers is less helpful than knowing where to find them, and being able to figure things out on your own.

If you've got tap water with high chlorine levels (ie; you can smell it) a decent water filtration system can work wonders. Water tastes like water again.

My wife & I spent $150 on a reverse-osmosis system back in the early '90's, have kept it up with fresh filters, and our water tastes far better than anything you we've tasted from $1.50 bottles. I think the total cost for water from our system, including filter changes, is under 10 cents a gallon.

Well worth the time and effort, even for apartment dwellers.

Or maybe someone backstage pulled a fast one on him to make him look like a doofus.

From an M.C. Escher recipe book? Cool!

I suppose you could use that to cut ex-members from family group photos as well.

That is so very cool! There was something like this at the Bose store in the Mall of America when I was last there; a clear box with styrofoam pellets in it and a speaker at one end. Turn the dial to vary the sound frequency and the balls would react to the changes in pitch. Great science fun.

Had to laugh about your cats running from the room though. I'm not at home now, but if I played this in the room where our canary is, he'd be singing his fool head off.

My canary wouldn't even sing along with that. And he's not very picky.

Panda: Hold me one last time like we used to…

Like we used to? Don't think I've heard that particular line in any war movie. Or is there a sequel to Brokeback Mountain coming that I've not heard about? Brokeback Hill perhaps? ;o)

"Hello. My name is Innigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."