I have to tell you that I have never seen a better use for duct tape in my life. Makes you want to require everyone carry a role for emergencies.

Duct tape... making our world a prettier place to live.
Welcome to 'OZ' - The 'Other' Side of the Rainbow!! Posting is at 10AM, Noon and 2PM CST daily. Up to 12 days of posts on the main page. The archives have more. You can forward posts by clicking on the envelope at the bottom of the post. Enjoy your stay! *** If you need to contact me, or have a copyright issue, please use the "Contact The Wizard" form on the left side of 'OZ'. Original source and author is cited and credited in each post where possible. ***
I have to tell you that I have never seen a better use for duct tape in my life. Makes you want to require everyone carry a role for emergencies.

I am a Christian (By Maya Angelou )
When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not shouting "I'm clean livin."
I'm whispering "I was lost,"
Now I'm found and forgiven.
When I say.."I am a Christian"
I don't speak of this with pride.
I'm confessing that I stumble
and need CHRIST to be my guide.
When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not trying to be strong.
I'm professing that I'm weak
and need HIS strength to carry on.
When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not bragging of success.
I'm admitting I have failed
and need God to clean my mess.
When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not claiming to be perfect,
My flaws are far too visible
but, God believes I am worth it.
When I say... "I am a Christian"
I still feel the sting of pain,
I have my share of heartaches
So I call upon His name.
When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not holier than thou,
I'm just a simple sinner
who received God's good grace, somehow.
My wife dated a clown before she started going out with me.
I had some pretty big shoes to fill.









My name is Eddy Charlie and I am a survivor of the Kuper Island Residential School.
I was taken away from my home at the age of 5 years old and placed in a residential school like all the other 150,000 children were. I was hurt really bad as a child growing up in these schools. The amount of sexual and physical abuse that happened to me was frightening. It got so bad, so frequent, that I tried committing suicide while I was in the school. I couldn’t handle it anymore. It was getting too much.They were picking kids off the floor and taking them up to a room where they were abused. When I came home I started fighting with my family. I didn’t feel like I had a home. I didn’t feel like I was a part of my family. I started trying to find ways to deal with the anger and pain I felt. I started drinking when I was very very young, and it became my form of self-medication and a coping mechanism that I used for over 30 years of my life.
I quit drinking about 25 years ago, and for the first time I had an opportunity to look at that past that I walked, and I tried to start understanding why I changed and how the affect of residential schools changed my family members and the people in my community. I look around today and I see that we have the lowest percentage of graduates of any community and of any cultural background. When you have a 2% success rate of graduates in an indigenous community, that’s not good at all. 30 years ago, our employment rate was non-existent.
Nowhere in our history books is there a written history of what happened to 150,000 children in these schools. These survivors of residential schools are being shamed into silence. If we stop talking about what happened, it will die with the last residential school survivor, and it will be as if residential schools did not happen. I don’t want this history to die. I want it to be told over and over and over again until it is impossible that we forget.
I don’t want to share my story and for people to feel sympathy, I want them to understand. Too often we tell our stories and people come up and provide answers to how we can begin healing. When people begin to understand it gives us an opportunity to receive ownership of the path that each one of us walks. I know that true reconciliation will probably never happen in my lifetime, or my children’s lifetime, but today we are opening that possibility of reconciliation by sharing our stories of the residential school legacies and the history.
www.thenatureofus.org/read/eddys-story

There was a little boy visiting his grandparents on
their farm. He was given a slingshot to play with, out in the woods. He
practiced in the woods, but he could never hit the target. Getting a
little discouraged, he headed back for dinner. As he was walking back
he saw Grandma's pet duck. Just out of impulse, he let the slingshot
fly, hit the duck square in the head, and killed it. He was shocked and
grieved.
In a panic, he hid the dead duck in the wood pile, only to see his
sister watching! Sally had seen it all, but she said nothing. After
lunch the next day Grandma said, "Sally, let's wash the dishes." But
Sally said, "Grandma, Johnny told me he wanted to help in the kitchen.
Then she whispered to him, "Remember the duck? So Johnny did the dishes.
Later that day, Grandpa asked if the children wanted to go fishing and
Grandma said, "I'm sorry but I need Sally to help make supper." Sally
just smiled and said," Well that's all right because Johnny told me he
wanted to help." She whispered again, "Remember the duck?" So Sally went
fishing and Johnny stayed to help.
After several days of Johnny doing both his chores and Sally's he
finally couldn't stand it any longer. He came to Grandma and confessed
that he had killed the duck. Grandma knelt down, gave him a hug, and
said, "Sweetheart, I know.
You see, I was standing at the window and I saw the whole thing, but
because I love you, I forgave you. I was just wondering how long you
would let Sally make a slave of you."
Thought for the day and every day thereafter?
Whatever is in your past, whatever you have done... and the devil keeps
throwing it up in your face (lying, cheating, debt, fear, bad habits,
hatred, anger, bitterness, etc.). Whatever it is ... You need to know
that God was standing at the window and He saw the whole thing ... He
has seen your whole life. He wants you to know that He loves you and
that you are forgiven. He's just wondering how long you will let the
devil make a slave of you. The great thing about God is that when you
ask for forgiveness, He not only forgives you, but He forgets..... It is
by God's grace and mercy that we are saved.
Go ahead and make the difference in someone's life today.
Share this post with a friend and always remember: God is at the window.
*To share this post, click on the button of choice after the post.
Note: Gmail icon is to email from your Gmail account.
Thought for the day...
If sometimes you get the sudden urge
to run around naked.
Drink some Windex.
It will keep you from streaking!
Puns:
1. Two antennas met on a roof, fell in love and got married. The ceremony wasn't much, but the reception was excellent.
2. A jumper cable walks into a bar. The bartender says, "I'll serve you, but don't start anything."
3. Two peanuts walk into a bar, and one was a-salted.
4. A dyslexic man walks into a bra.
5. A man walks into a bar with a slab of asphalt under his arm and says: "A beer please, and one for the road."
6. Two cannibals are eating a clown. One says to the other: "Does this taste funny to you?"
7. "Doc, I can't stop singing 'The Green, Green Grass of Home.'"
"That sounds like Tom Jones Syndrome."
"Is it common?"
"Well, It's Not Unusual."
8. Two cows are standing next to each other in a field. Daisy says to
Dolly, "I was artificially inseminated this morning." "I don't believe
you," says Dolly. "It's true, no bull!" exclaims Daisy.
9. An invisible man marries an invisible woman. The kids were nothing to look at either.
10. DejaMoo: The feeling that you've heard this bull before.
11. I went to buy some camouflage trousers the other day but I couldn't find any.
12. A man woke up in a hospital after a serious accident. He shouted, "Doctor, doctor, I can't feel my legs!"
The doctor replied, "I know you can't - I've cut off your arms!"
13. I went to a seafood disco last week...and pulled a mussel.
14. What do you call a fish with no eyes? A fsh.
15. Two fish swim into a concrete wall. The one turns to the other and says "Dam!".
16. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in
the craft. Unsurprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can't
have your kayak and heat it too.
17. A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing
in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about
an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse.
"But why," they asked, as they moved off. "Because", he said, "I can't
stand chess-nuts boasting in an open foyer."
18. A woman has twins and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes
to a family in Egypt and is named "Ahmal." The other goes to a family in
Spain; they name him "Juan." Years later, Juan sends a picture of
himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her
husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. Her husband
responds, "They're twins! If you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal."
19. Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which
produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very
little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered
from bad breath. This made him ..(Oh, man, this is so bad, it's
good)..... A super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.
20. And finally, there was the person who sent twenty different puns to
his friends, with the hope that at least ten of the puns would make them
laugh. No pun in ten did.
Married Names
If Yoko Ono married Sonny Bono, she'd be Yoko Ono Bono.
If Dolly Parton married Salvador Dali, she'd be Dolly Dali.
If Bo Derek married Don Ho, she'd be Bo Ho.
If Ella Fitzgerald married Darth Vader, she'd be Ella Vader.
If Oprah Winfrey married Depak Chopra, she'd be Oprah Chopra.
If Cat Stevens married Snoop Doggy Dogg, he'd be Cat Doggy Dogg.
If Olivia Newton-John married Wayne Newton, then divorced him to marry Elton John, she'd be Olivia Newton-John Newton John.
If Sondra Locke married Elliott Ness, then divorced him to marry Herman Munster, she'd become Sondra Locke Ness Munster.
If Bea Arthur married Sting, she'd be Bea Sting.
If Tuesday Weld married Hal March III, she'd be Tuesday March 3.
If Liv Ullman married Judge Lance Ito, then divorced him and married Jerry Mathers, she'd be Liv Ito Beaver.
If Snoop Doggy Dogg married Winnie the Pooh, he'd be Snoop Doggy Dogg Pooh.
How about a baseball marriage? If Boog Powell married Felipe Alou, he'd be Boog Alou.
If G. Gordon Liddy married Boutros-Boutros Ghali, then divorced him to marry Kenny G., he'd be G. Ghali G.
Nog (Related to Quark on "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine") has no other
name, so he uses it twice when getting a marriage license. If he married
Howard Hughes, and then Pamela Dare, he'd be Nog Nog Hughes Dare.
If Jack Handy (SNL writer) married Andy Capp, then married Jack Paar,
then moved on to Stephen King, he'd be Jack Handy Capp Paar King.
If Woody Allen married Natalie Wood, divorced her and married Gregory
Peck, divorced him and married Ben Hur, he'd be Woody Wood Peck Hur.
If Ivana Trump married, in succession, Orson Bean (actor), King Oscar
(of Norway), Louis B. Mayer (of MGM), and Norbert Wiener
(mathematician), she would then be Ivana Bean Oscar Mayer Wiener.
Dear Wizard of 'OZ',
I have heard of this term WYSIWYG. I am curious what does it stand for?
Signed,
George.
Dear Curious George,
For web content creators who are new to HTML or who are somewhat
familiar with its purpose but don't have a use reference handy without
leaving their task (hint: this is most of the web, millions and
millions), WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get), pronounced
"Whizz-E-Wig", editing is a boon. Microsoft Word is an example of
a WYSIWYG HTML editor. You type text and insert pictures using Microsoft Word. In the background the editor is quietly creating
HTML text, (a LOT of text), that web browsers such as Microsoft Edge, Firefox, Chrome and Opera decode and present your page almost exactly as you designed it.
For those creators who are familiar with simple uses of HTML styling
like bold, italics and hyperlinks but who would like more stylistic
control over their content (hint: this is a significant number, and
perhaps a majority, of users in the "participatory web") then mixed-mode
WYSIWYG and additional style controls like making bulleted lists or
changing the horizontal alignment or adding keyboard shortcuts can
reduce the number of mistakes, reduce the amount of information needed
to be retrieved during an editing task that is outside the scope of that
task, and generally reduce the time and effort it takes to generate
content.
For content creators who require more advanced styling controls and
content information including positioning, page counts, floating
elements, templates, varied encodings, and block-level margins and
padding there are many tools available that they prefer using to a
browser. I know for sure because I've asked and asked and asked and, to
date, advanced content creators find the convenience and ubiquity of
browser-use less useful than using a feature-rich client. Additionally,
many advanced content creators (hint: if you're reading this, I'm very
likely talking about you :) know enough HTML and CSS that hand-coding
style attributes and class selectors enables you to create content
faster than when using WYSIWYG components for the same tasks.
It is really WYSIMWYG.... What you see is mostly what you get.
I believe that is helpfully pronounced "Whizz-ah-ma-wig".
Hope this helps.
Yrs,
The Wizard
Last night a friend rushed me out of the house to catch the opening act at a local bar's music night. After a few drinks I realized my phone wasn't in my pocket. I checked the table we were sitting at, the bar, the bathrooms, and after no luck I used my friend's phone to call mine.
After two rings someone answered, gave out a low raspy giggle, and hung up. They didn't answer again. I eventually gave it up as a lost cause and headed home.
I found my phone laying on my night stand, right where I left it.
After working a hard day I came home to see my girlfriend cradling our child. I didn't know which was more frightening, seeing my dead girlfriend and stillborn child, or knowing that someone broke into my apartment to place them there.
I don't know why I looked up, but when I did I saw him there. He stood against my window. His forehead rested against the glass, and his eyes were still and light and he smiled a lipstick-red, cartoonish grin. And he just stood there in the window. My wife was upstairs sleeping, my son was in his crib and I couldn't move I froze and watched him looking past me through the glass.
Oh, please no. His smile never moved but he put a hand up and slid it down the glass, watching me. With matted hair and yellow skin and face through the window.
I couldn't do anything. I just stayed there, frozen, feet still in the bushes I was pruning, looking into my home. He stood against my window.
Don't be scared of the monsters, just look for them. Look to your left, to your right, under your bed, behind your dresser, in your closet but never look up, she hates being seen.
There was no pearly gate.
The only reason I knew I was in a cave was because I had just passed the entrance. The rock wall rose behind me with no ceiling in sight.
I knew this was it, this was what religion talked about, what man feared .. I had just entered the gate to hell.
I felt the presence of the cave as if it was a living, breathing creature. The stench of rotten flesh overwhelmed me.
Then there was the voice, it came from inside and all around.
"Welcome"
"Who are you?", I asked, trying to keep my composure.
"You know", the thing answered.
I did know.
"You are the devil", I stuttered, quickly losing my composure. "Why me? I've lived as good as I could".
The silence took over the space as my words died out. It seemed like an hour went by before the response came.
"What did you expect?"
The voice was penetrating but patient.
"I don't know .. I never believed any of this", I uttered "Is that why I am here?"
Silence.
I continued: "They say the greatest trick you ever pulled was convincing the world you don't exist"
"No, the greatest trick I ever pulled was convincing the world that there is an alternative"
"There is no God?" I shivered.
The cave trembled with the words: "I am God"
You hear your mom calling you into the kitchen. As you are heading down the stairs you hear a whisper from the closet saying "Don't go down there honey, I heard it too."
Frank Bonner has died peacefully after having 'complications' with Lewy body dementia, which is similar to Alzheimer's disease.
Frank Bonner, who played Herb Tarlek on the sitcom “WKRP in Cincinnati,” has died. He was 79.
Bonner passed away “peacefully” Wednesday.