A Texan goes to hell...

The Rangers are in the playoffs for the first time since sometime in the last millennium so I thought this joke was worth retelling. It's been around awhile and I've heard it with other teams names but here's my take...

A Texan dies and goes to hell. One day Lucifer comes wandering by and sees him relaxing and having a barbecue. Surprised, Lucifer goes over and inquires, "You seem to be enjoying yourself. What's up?"

The Texan, a bit taken aback at talking to the Devil himself says, "Well, it's pretty nice here but I didn't expect to see you here?"

"What!?!" exclaims Lucifer. "Why wouldn't you expect to see me here? Where do you think you are anyway?"

"Well," says the Texan, "Isn't this Heaven? I didn't think the Devil could go to Heaven."

Incensed, Lucifer replies, "Heavens, NO! Are you kidding? This is Hell. How on earth do you think this is Heaven?"

Well," drawls the Texan again, "It feels like Dallas in June so I figured I must be in Heaven."

At this, Lucifer hollers over to Beelzebub, "Get a load of this. This Texan thinks he's in Heaven."

Now it's Beelzebub's turn to be surprised, "What? Heaven? How can that be?"

Lucifer explains, "He says it feels like Dallas in June. Can you believe that?"

Beelzebub turns back to his desk, scrolls through a list of names and suddenly realizes he's made a mistake. "I'm sorry Lucifer. It looks like this Texan got placed in the wrong section here in Hell. Since Texans live where it gets so hot, we have a special place for them." With that, he types on his console for a minute and poof, the Texan disappears.

A few days later, Lucifer happens by the "Texas section" and sees the same guy, sweating a bit this time but otherwise not so much the worse for wear. He inquires as to the Texan's well being.

"It's not so bad really," replies the Texan. "It feels like Dallas in July."

Now Lucifer is getting a little bit mad and he turns to Beelzebub, "I thought you said this was a special place for Texans. He says it just feels like Dallas in July."

"Oh, drat!" exclaims Beelzebub, "the thermostat must be broken and didn't tell me when to add more fuel. I'll get right on that." With that, Beelzebub shuffles through his desk until he finds another thermostat and replaces it. Next he adds more fuel so that the fires are really flaming.

Awhile later, Lucifer comes back to check on Beelzebub's work. He sees the Texan again, really sweating but otherwise seemingly ok. "Starting to feel the heat, are we" he inquires.

"Well, yeah, a little bit. It feels about like Dallas in August."

With that, now Lucifer is really, really mad. "Dallas in August? I'll fix you, you Texan!" He strolls over to the thermostat and cranks it down as far as it will go. Within seconds a cold wind starts blowing about 50 miles per hour, it's 40 degrees below zero, snow is piling up and soon there are 6 foot drifts everywhere.

As Lucifer turns to see how the Texan likes things now, he's stunned to see the Texan jumping up and down and hollering.

"The Rangers won the Series! The Rangers won the Series!"

Japanese Banking Crisis

As everyone knows, the financial crisis is world-wide. Here's what's happening in Japan apparently:

Origami Bank folded last night. Apparently Sumo Fund Managers went belly up and Bonsai Bank, after a period of stunted growth, now plans to cut back some of its branches.

Kamikaze Bank took a dive and 1,500 staff at Karate Bank got the chop. Analysts report that there is something fishy going on at Sushi Bank and staff there fear they may get a raw deal. Onsen Bank has taken a bath and even Miso Bank is in the soup. The share value of Samurai Bank has been slashed.

On the plus side, now is a good time to buy Karaoke Bank, its shares can be had for a song.

(Yes, I copied it from here. It's still funny though.)

Another side of Beijing

As most know, the olympics are in full progress right now so there are lots of reporters over there. Apparently one of them is Dave Barry, a humorist who I've enjoyed reading for a long time. Well, here is his take on taking a cab while trying to get around Beijing. Apparently, his description is pretty accurate from other things I've read.