This story will warm your heart, at least if you have Internet & email. You probably never heard of Robert Soloway, even though he’s written you several thousand times. He made a fortune doing so actually. He drove Porches, wore $3,000 suits, lived in a penthouse luxury suite, and had more girlfriends than most football teams. Not any more, though. See, Robert was the most prolific spammer on the Internet. And the authorities knew it. He laughed at $10 million dollar fines, sneered at orders to cease and desist, the entire time he was still filling your inbox with dozens of garbage emails a day. But Robert forgot one clear and concise rule we all must abide by. To wit; you can make your money in the cruddiest way allowable, but you better pay your taxes. He defied a 2004 federal anti-spam law, and two spam-related judgments against him in 2005, in which he had been ordered to pay Microsoft $7 million and an Oklahoma man $10 million. He’s not laughing now. On August 5th he was sentenced to 4 years in jail for tax evasion & email fraud. He had best hope his cellmate is computer illiterate. Because if his cell buddy has had to deal with hundreds of spam emails a week and finds out who he is, Robert may well get permanently deleted. That’s just too darn bad, just when Robert’s luck is improving. I heard a South American Dictator wants to send him $30 million dollars.

Here’s a “you’ve GOT to be kidding” for your consideration. The “Association of the Sovereign Order of the Temple of Christ’s Knights Templar”, whose members claim to be descended from the legendary crusaders, have filed a lawsuit against Pope Benedict XVI demanding he repay 100 billion euros ($154 billion US). They claim that when the order was dissolved by his predecessor Pope Clement V in 1307 AD, when more than 9,000 properties were seized by the church. This is less historical, than hysterical. Firstly, many of the properties were seized by the Royal Kings of England & France. Second, who says these bozos are the Templar? Them? If I was the Judge I’d ask for proof; “the Knights Templar went on Crusades, you guys go to Afghanistan on Crusade for 2 years then come back, then we’ll see”. I’ll bet you never hear from them again. We don’t export much to Europe, but it seems we exported our long standing tradition of suing anybody over anything hoping you get a buck!

A nursery school pupil told his teacher he'd found a cat, but it was dead. "How do you know that the cat was dead?" she asked her pupil. "Because I pissed in its ear and it didn't move," answered the child innocently. "You did WHAT?" said the shocked teacher. "You know," explained the boy, "I leaned over and went 'Psssst', but it didn't move"

What do you think of this joke? "How do you entertain a bored pharaoh? You sail a boatload of young women dressed only in fishing nets down the Nile and urge the pharaoh to go catch a fish." It seems pretty lame today, doesn’t it? But its date is proven 1,600 BCE, 3,600 years old. It was carved by workman on rock face hidden by construction all those years ago. We tend to think of the ancients laboring their lives away endlessly so progress could occur so we could get born and laugh at life. It’s heartening to think chuckles have been around a long, long time. No matter what difficulties you find yourself in, someone long gone, sometime long ago took it with a grain of salt and laughed it off. Best thing you can do is follow their example. I’ll bet the very first joke was “Ogg try kill mammoth, mammoth step on Ogg, now we have Ogg-Nog! Ha ha ha”

Robert Frost once said; By working hard and faithfully 8 hours a day, you may someday become boss, and get to work 12 hours a day.”

We discussed in the humor section how people that walked this earth thousands of years ago enjoyed a good laugh, even ruefully at their own expense. But if that’s true of humor, it’s also got to be true of their sorrows, fears, and worries. What advice could they give us, looking down over thousands of years, if they but could today? I can make a good guess; “Don’t sweat the small stuff, no matter how long you live you’ll end up wishing it was longer. When you feel like dancing, dance! If you’re the only one dancing, you’ve enough room to show your best moves.“ “Care less about what others think and more about how big your soul is smiling. Take your best walks when it’s pouring; jump both feet in the deepest puddles, laughing. You will return soaked but feeling years younger. If your neighbors think you’re nuts, smile even as you pity them. Because now you don’t have to share your puddles“ “If your last dollar, last breath, and last joke all go out at the same moment; if you can time it that well, then you, my friend, are the champion” That’s just one man’s guess what those who went before might tell you, but it’s a probably a good guess. Those guys busted carving those stone blocks for years in Egypt, and still had time for fishnet jokes.

The monthly chatter box is written by Donald Conyngham

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