July 26, 2006

Mortgage Industry Threatened By Red Paper-Clips!

A 26-year-old Montreal man appears to have succeeded in his quest to barter a single, red paper-clip all the way up to a house.

It took almost a year and 14 trades, but Kyle MacDonald has been offered a two-storey farmhouse in Kipling, Sask., for a paid role in a movie.

MacDonald began his quest last summer when he decided he wanted to live in a house. He didn’t have a job, so instead of posting a resumé, he looked at a red paper-clip on his desk and decided to trade it on an internet website.

He got a response almost immediately — from a pair of young women in Vancouver who offered to trade him a pen that looks like a fish.

MacDonald then bartered the fish pen for a handmade doorknob from a potter in Seattle.

In Massachusetts, MacDonald traded the doorknob for a camp stove. He traded the stove to a U.S. marine sergeant in California for a 100-watt generator.

In Queens, N.Y., he exchanged the generator for the "instant party kit" — an empty keg and an illuminated Budweiser beer sign.

MacDonald then traded the keg and sign for a Bombardier snowmobile, courtesy of a Montreal radio host.

He bartered all the way up to an afternoon with rock star Alice Cooper, a KISS snow globe and finally a paid role in a Corbin Bernsen movie called Donna on Demand.

"Now, I’m sure the first question on your mind is, "Why would Corbin Bernsen trade a role in a film for a snow globe? A KISS snow globe," MacDonald said on his website "one red paper-clip."

"Well, Corbin happens to be arguably one of the biggest snow globe collectors on the planet."

Now, the town of Kipling, Sask., located about two hours east of Regina with a population of 1,100, has offered MacDonald a farmhouse in exchange for the role in the movie.

MacDonald and his girlfriend will fly to the town next Wednesday.

"We are going to show them the house, give them the keys to the house and give them the key to the town and just have some fun," said Pat Jackson, mayor of Kipling.

The town is going to hold a competition for the movie role.

MacDonald said: "There’s people all over the world that are saying that they have paper-clips clipped to the top of their computer, or on their desk or on their shirt, and it proves that anything is possible and I think to a certain degree it’s true."

MacDonald, who has attracted international media in his quest, said the journey has turned out to be more exciting than the goal.

"This is not the end. This may be the end of this segment of the story, but this story will go on. "

CBC

Filed under Mortgage Brokers, Housing Market, Mortgage News, Humor by Godfather

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April 28, 2006

The Freezing Hell

The following is said to have been an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid-term exam. The answer by one student was so “profound” that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well.

Here is the “Bonus Question” on the exam:

Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle’s Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let’s look at the different Religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially.

Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle’s Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa (a girlfriend of mine during my Freshman year) that, “it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you”, and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number 2 must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is Exothermic and has already frozen over.

The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct…leaving only Heaven thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting “Oh my God.”

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED THE ONLY “A.”

Filed under Humor by Godfather