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Brains
In the hospital the relatives gathered in the waiting room where their family member lay gravely ill. Finally, the doctor came in looking tiredand somber. “I’m afraid I’m the bearer of bad news” he said as he surveyed the worried faces. “The only hope left for your loved one at this time is a brain trans-plant. It’s an experimental procedure, semi-risky, and youwill have to pay for the brain yourselves.”
The family members sat silent as they absorbed the news. After a great length of time, someone asked: “Well, how much does a brain cost?” The doctor quickly responded, “$5,000 for a male brain, and $200 for afemale brain.”
The moment turned awkward. Men in the room tried not to smile, avoidingeye contact with the women, but some actually smirked. A man, unable tocontrol his curiosity, blurted out the question everyone wanted to ask: “Why isthe male brain so much more?” The doctor smiled at the childish innocence and soto the entire group said, “It’s just standard pricing procedure. We have to mark down the price of the female brains, because they’ve actually been used.”
Chis Tronolone
Senior Moments
An elderly couple was watching television, and they only spoke to one another during the commercials.
During one of those commercials, the husband asked his wife, “Whatever happened to our sexual relations?”
After a long thoughtful silence, and during the next commercial, the wife replied, “You know, I don’t really know. I don’t even think we got aChristmas card from them this year.”
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When the husband finally died his wife put the usual death notice in the paper, but added that he died of gonorrhea. No sooner were the papers delivered when a good friend of the family phoned and complained bitterly, “You know very well that he died of diarrhea, not gonorrhea.”
Replied the widow, “I nursed him night and day so of course I know he died of diarrhea, but I thought it would be better for posterity to rememberhim as a great lover rather than the big shit he always was.”
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An elderly couple was on a cruise and it was really stormy. They were standing on the back of the boat watching the moon, when a wave came upand washed the old woman overboard. They searched for days and couldn’t find her, so the captain sent the old man back to shore with the promise thathe would notify him as soon as they found something.
Three weeks went by and finally the old man got a fax from the boat. It read: “Sir, sorry to inform you, we found your wife dead at the bottom ofthe ocean. We hauled her up to the deck and attached to her butt was an oyster and it was a pearl worth $50,000… please advise.”
The old man faxed back: “Send me the pearl and re-bait the trap”
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A funeral service is being held for a woman who has just passed away. Attheend of the service, the pal bearers are carrying the casket out when theyaccidentally bump into a wall, jarring the casket. They hear a faint moan! They open the casket and find that the woman is actually alive!
She lives for ten more years, and then dies. Once again, a ceremony is held, and at the end of it, the pallbearers are again carrying out the casket.Asthey carry the casket towards the door, the husband cries out: “Watch that wall!”
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When I went to lunch today, I noticed an old lady sitting on a park bench sobbing her eyes out. I stopped and asked her what was wrong. She said, “I have a 22 year old husband at home. He makes love to me every morning and then gets up and makes me pancakes, sausage, fresh fruit and freshlyground coffee.”
I said, “Well, then why are you crying?”
She said, “He makes me homemade soup for lunch and my favorite browniesand then makes love to me for half the afternoon”.
I said, “Well, why are you crying?”
She said, “For dinner he makes me a gourmet meal with wine and my favoritedessert and then makes love to me until 2:00 a.m.
I said, “Well, why in the world would you be crying?”
She said, “I can’t remember where I live!”
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Two elderly ladies had been friends for many decades. Over the years they had shared all kinds of activities and adventures. Lately, theiractivities had been limited to meeting a few times a week to play cards.
One day they were playing cards when one looked at the other and said,”Now don’t get mad at me…I know we’ve been friends for a long time…but I just can’t think of your name! I’ve thought and thought, but I can’t rememberit.
Please tell me what your name is.”
Her friend glared at her. For at least three minutes she just stared andglared at her. Finally she said, “How soon do you need to know?”
American Side Road Cycles—
Another new member of the Bikernet family. Be watching for their banners and give them a visit.
Welcome aboard guys!
THE FINAL WORD– As it turns out, we only loaded 3,000 tons of cargo in Hamburg, then 13,000 tons in Antwerp and should load another 2,000 tons in Genoa for a total of 18,000. That’s within about 3,000 tons of the maximum cargo before this rusting Rickmers rolls over and sinks. We have a 15,000 horse power diesel engine (run on crude oil) with a supercharger that can push this bastard along at 17 knots as it was doing in the extra briny waters of the Mediterranean Sea.
Yesterday I was on the bridge as the captain excitedly pointed out a ship that was blasting through the waves at 24 knots(about 29 mph). He informed me that ships that can steam along at 24 to 30 knots may have from 50,000 to 150,000 hp depending on the size of the ship. He told me that they are building ships that will hold 8,000 containers. Think about that.
OK, so we’ll load up with more shit like train locomotives, cement pumper trucks, containers and I-beams in Genoa and head through the Suez Canal for Singapore, Jakarta, China (including Hong Kong and Shanghai) and Vietnam. That’s where the cargo will depart. I asked the captain today if that was the extent of it. A part of me wanted him to tell me that it was. I would have preferred that he told me he would pour the coals to MS Leon, skip across the Pacific and drop me off in San Pedro so I could see my babes at Bikernet. Ah, but not so fast. We will be picking up cargo in China and may have to make as many as three stops in Japan before crossing the Pacific and home. Fuck, where’s the Jack Daniels?
Regarding the cargo, I snatched a manifest to check it out. In the process I went over a couple of things regarding cargo with the captain. Seems everything from carousels to vibrators are loaded onto the ship under the guise of being machinery. “I was told machinery,” the captain said. “It had a brightly colored tent on it and animals on posts around the edge.”
He told me of a time when he delivered cargo to a small group of Cape Verde Islands, off Dakar, which is on the coast of Africa. The capital of this small chain of islands is called Praya or Beach or Bitch (I wasn’t sure). Seems there is a variety of people on the islands from blacks to Chinese. The Chinese controlled the islands for awhile but everyone was starving under communist rule so they kicked the Chinese off the islands. Then since they had no agriculture and the only food source was fish, the U.N. stepped in and sent the supplies. Get this. When the ship arrived with the stores, a man came down to the rickety dock and doled out the food to the people of the islands as they unloaded the cargo. Kids would run up and steal food with their own bags. It was a shopping market on the dock.
He also unloaded a piece of construction equipment that didn’t have a steering wheel but levers to steer it like some fork lifts. No one on the island knew how to drive it. He was the first mate at the time and had to get off the ship and give the owners lessons. They crashed it anyway. Here’s the final tale. He went to another island in the chain with a piece of very heavy equipment. At the time his ship did not have a crane capable of unloading it, but the island had one. As they tried to unload the equipment (like a dump truck) they discovered that the crane could not lift the dumper high enough to clear the deck. Desperation set in and the people on the island began to cry. He told them to wait, and had the ballast on the ship shifted so that the ship leaned enough to remove the equipment. He was a fuckin’ hero on that spot of soil.
So about a week ago we pulled out of Antwerp, Belgium, just after dark because the sea-going traffic was fierce. Some 20 ships were leaving at the same time. We steamed up the man made canal in Antwerp, which runs parallel to additional docks on the Schelde River. There are two sets of locks connecting the Kanaaldok to the river. We were loaded so we were forced to take the Kanaal north for 6 miles to the deeper locks. Our draft, the distance between the water level and the bottom of the hull was 9.4 meters, or about 32 feet. After the locks equalized the water levels we entered the Schelde River for the 80-mile run to the coast and the North Sea, then turned left into the English Channel
A couple days out we ran in circles to stay in calm seas as lashing in the holds were corrected. We were in the center of the Bay of Biscay, off the coast of France. As soon as we headed south we entered what is called the Summer zone and the temperature immediately rose to more comfortable levels. The weather is completely strange. In one day at 20 mph we can fully change our climate.
A day later we entered the Straights of Gibraltar, which is eight miles wide. At 1700 we passed Gibraltar in a 20 knot winds and a drizzle. The coast of Morocco is just 3 miles to our starboard. To the left, Gibraltar is just a silhouette in the fog. The Med is as calm and smooth as a lake, it’s even glassy this morning as we enter the Ligurian Sea heading into Genoa this evening.
I was going to meet some Hamsters in Italy, but they’re in Rome and too far from the coast to make the run. That’s cool. I’ve got a mission to accomplish in Genoa, and of course it involves women. I’ll report in the Sunday Post in the Cantina, then again in the Bikernet News next week on Thursday.
I’m up to Chapter 16 of both Chance Hogan books that I’m desperately working on while Layla works at getting me an agent in the states. More on that later. Remember, every day this year you have 1440 minutes to use. Unlike money, you only get to use them once, then they’re gone–forever. Take care of each one.
Ride Forever–Bandit.
