Sunday, July 27, 2003 - “Please, Mr. Ranger, Sir?” The questions tourists ask! In Yellowstone Park, “Does Old Faithful erupt at night?” and “We had no trouble finding the park entrances, but where are the exits?” In the Grand Canyon, “Where are the faces of the Presidents located?” and “Is the mule train air conditioned?” In the Everglades, “What time does the two o’clock bus leave?” and “Where are all the rides?” In Carlsbad Caverns, “How much of the cave is underground?” and “Does it ever rain in here?” In Mesa Verde Park, “Where are the undiscovered ruins?” and “Why did the Indians build the ruins so close to the road?”
Monday, July 28, 2003 - In Geometry, what has four corners yet no volume? In Chemistry, name the elements NM, CO, UT, AZ? Rita Mae Brown relates “The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they’re okay, then it’s you.” David Letterman reports “USA Today has come out with a new survey. Apparently, three out of every four people make up 75% of the population.” Will Rogers reminds “Being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does.”

Tuesday, July 29, 2003 - I’m no longer certain if I’m going to hell in a hand basket or not. My buddy, Dandelion Wine, reports the idiom means “going to hell feeling peaceful or unconcerned.” Ask.com admits “Clues to the origin of this idiom meaning ‘deteriorating rapidly or utterly,’ are, unfortunately, scarce as hen’s teeth.” They surmise “hand baskets are light and easily conveyed,” concluding the term means “going to hell easily and rapidly.” The Merriam-Webster Editorial Department relates a similar idiom, “going to heaven in a hand basket,’’ appeared in 1949 and means “holding an ecclesiastical office that requires little or no work.”

Wednesday, July 30, 2003 - Some inquire “By what artistic criteria do you judge your home page photos?.” Others write “You are a sick individual in dire need of hospitalization.” Potato. Pa-tot-toe. First thing, in a sleepy stupor, I snap a round of digital photos and fingerpaint them in Photoshop until the caffeine in the Diet Pepsi kicks in. Then I move onto more important things. Like a nap. Segue. Why is it that, on Star Trek: The Next Generation, everyone from the Captain to the Doctor is capable of calculating an inverse tachyon beam to probe a space-time anomaly, that is, all except Counselor Troi? To quote Captain Kirk “This is a mystery, and I don’t like mysteries. They give me a bellyache, and I’ve got a beauty right now.”

Thursday, July 31, 2003 - True story! The lion corners a monkey and roars “Who is mightiest of all jungle animals?” The trembling monkey stutters “You are, mighty lion!” Then the lion confronts a wildebeest and roars “Who is the mightiest of all jungle animals?” The terrified wildebeest stammers, “Oh great lion, you are the mightiest animal in the jungle!” Then the lion swaggers up to an elephant and roars “Who is mightiest of all jungle animals?” The elephant grabs the lion with his trunk and slams him back and forth between two palm trees, finally hurling him into a rock pit. The lion wobbles to his feet and hollers after the elephant “Geez, just because you don’t know the answer, you don’t have to take it so personally.”
Friday, August 1, 2003 - Why don’t ghosts make good magicians? Because you can see right through their tricks. Mother rabbit to baby bunny: “A Magician pulled you out of a hat, okay? Now stop asking questions!” The Magician called a man from the audience. “Sir, I’d like you to take this 20 pound sledge hammer and hit me in the head as hard as you can.” The man refused. The magician said “Sir, I am a professional. This is the World’s Greatest Illusion. Now hit me as hard as you can!” The man shrugged, swung the hammer, struck him in the head, and the Magician fell into a coma. He was rushed to the hospital and remained in the coma for seven months. When he came out of the coma, the Magician shouted “Ta DA!!!”

Saturday, August 2, 2003 - Has Niagara Falls ever run dry? The first and only time both the American falls and the Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side fell silent was on the night of March 29, 1848, when an ice jam formed on Lake Erie near Buffalo blocking the water that flows along the Niagara River and over the falls, says Dave Phillips of Environment Canada. Yes, the same Dave Phillips, one of the nation’s top cryptographers, who developed the code in conjunction with David Blaine for his book Mysterious Stranger “which will lead one lucky reader to a buried treasure chest, filled with at least $100,000 in rare gold coins.”