Overheard at Table 3: The Difference Between Men and Women

. . . one of the differences between men and women you can tell by how they size up each other in public areas, like in walking or jogging around the park of the lake.

... how's that?

...well, men always scan women in what I call a "sex assessment" - that is, measuring the potential of how much they would want to have sex with 'em.

... and the women?

... they're always scanning men in what I call a "threat assessment"

... measuring the threat level?

... yeah.

... is that why they always run screaming from you?

...ha. ha. ha.

Overread at Booth 1: Lome Togo

- hey, look at the email I just got.   I can't believe people still be doing this kind of bullcrap! ...

Good afternoon,

My name is Barrister Alfred Morris, I am prime consultant and financial organization

here in Lome Togo Republic , apologies for informal contact, but

given the urgency of the situation was no other way , I contacted

You for something that will be of great interest / benefit to you in respect of

I sent this letter to you a month ago, but I 'm not sure if you got it, I have not heard from

You , and this is the reason I say it again.

I'm doing this for you to offer in connection with

death, which was my client before his death, leaving some huge amount of money from

7500000 dollars in the bank

Please if you are the actual owner of this email address , please come back to me

as soon as possible for additional disclosure .

Sincerely,

Barrister  Alfred Morris

- dude, does anybody really fall for that anymore?

- I guess so.  Otherwise they wouldn't keep doin it.

- that is just freaked.

Overheard at Table 5: Poem of the Day

MR
2014-0417

Poem of the Day:

Once

Once,

we floundered, and then our love

was this dead thing, that we dissected

with a pair of pruning hooks on the

floor of the shed out back behind the house.

we did it quietly,

so the neighbors could not hear us over the garden wall,

burying the pieces in various spots in the yard:

under the flower bed,

in the potted plant,

and one tiny shard that I crushed into the soft earth

moistened by the slow constant drip from the

outside faucet that I never could get around to fixing.

then, the next day, we walked out the front

door and you went to the bus station and

I took the car into the city

and no one was ever the wiser.

for Song of the Day

Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks

"Orange Crate Art" 

Overheard at Table 3: Parenting and the Apostle Paul

A dad:  You know that part in Romans where Paul is writing about how he always does what he doesn't want to do and doesn't do what he wants to do?    Well, that's just like being a parent of a teenager.   I swear, every single day I go home and I tell myself  "Today I will NOT yell at the kids.   Today I am going to love them and hold them and tell them that they are good kids"  and what happens the instant I walk through the door?   I mean that INSTANT!  

Suddenly I'm yelling at them "why didn't you clean your room?  why in the name of God are you flunking English?  Stop hitting your brother!  Stop talking back to your mom!   whaddaya mean you broke off your sideview mirror backing out of the garage?!"

Fonzie Poster

Every now and then, you just need a picture of the Fonz . . . . Heyyyyy!

Overheard at Booth 4: The Teeth of the SEC

• In class we were talking about whether or not the SEC still has "teeth,"  and in my opinion it once had teeth, but sort of pulled them out itself . . . look, in 2004, who was it that changed their own leverage rules for the five big Wall Street banks?   The SEC.   These guys had a 12-to-1 leverage limit.   2004 - the sky is now the limit.  Do whatever you want.   Go for it.   And they did.   Four years later, BOOM!
  
  I'd say that if the SEC had just kept its "teeth" it would have been a helluva lot harder for those bad boys to play with the US economy like they were some wild-eyed frat boys on a drunken binge in Atlantic City.      But that's just my opinion.

Overread at Table 4: Poem of the Day

3-4-2014

We search for the light of the open day.

We search for words that wrap themselves around us like feral leaves,

We search for the abatement of this constant yearning

for that which we sorely lack: love … luster ... lucre.

 

We search for the answers to questions whose forms elude us.

We search for a definition of the undefined shapes of these

broken-winged birds that we call emotion.

 

We search for the pinprick stars of the soulless night.

We search for the breath of that one other, soft caress on our neck.

We search for the light of the open day.

 

For Song of the Day

Signal Hill

"Los Federales"