CYBER MONDAY 2011

The following is a public service announcement of The Free Choice E-zine.

Within the last few days we have already experienced Black Friday and Small Business Saturday, a new movement that is only on its second year of trying to become established, whereupon consumers are encouraged to shop only small businesses that day.
And now comes Cyber Monday, with its main focus upon e-commerce and online shopping.
So if your Internet connection is a little slow at times today, there might be an external explanation.

The Free Choice E-zine hopes that everyone takes the necessary precautions when online.
01. Only visit established/trusted websites.
02. When giving out personal information like credit card numbers, make sure the web address either starts with HTTPS, the Internet designation that you ARE on a secured portion of the web, or that there is an icon of a lock somewhere in the address bar.
DO NOT TAKE THE WEBSITE'S WORD ALONE THAT THE SITE IS SECURE!

Otherwise, happy shopping everyone!

The above was a public service message of The Free Choice E-zine.

SUNDAY FUNNIES: OF MICE AND MEN

Hello Everybody. Your esteemed Editor-In-Chief Lee Houston, Junior here.
Both Autumn the Puppy and Waxy Dragon have the Thanksgiving holiday weekend off, so I will attempt to entertain you for a bit.
Ready?

Sometimes I wonder if life would be more interesting if it had background music like it does in the movies and on television.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it uses a lot more memory in my PC.

For those who have it at breakfast, have you ever wondered about ham and eggs? It's only a day's work for the chicken, but the pig is making a lifetime commitment to you. Are you worthy of that?

Being "over" the hill is MUCH better than being under it, but wrinkled is NOT one of the things I wanted to be when I grew up.

The other day I had to go shopping because there were mice in the cellar. Now granted, having them in the cellar beats having them in the house proper. If mice ever do move in to your house, they'll never pay rent or their share of the utilities.
I can't blame the poor things for wanting to escape the winter cold, but I'm sure there are other places they can go to escape winter.
Maybe someplace warm, like heck?
Anyway, I was at the store trying to decide what variety of mouse trap to buy and surprised to see all the different options.
There's the basic, traditional spring trap that will kill the mouse instantly, provided they're not fast enough to avoid that big (to them) piece of metal coming at them when they try to take the bait and set off the trap in the process. But then again, every time you catch a mouse, you have to empty and reset the trap afterwards.
I mean, geez, I don't even want them in the cellar. Who said I wanted any contact with them at all?
So I'm standing there now in the middle of the aisle contemplating the variety of glue traps the store had. I figured no muss, no fuss, right? The mouse gets stuck on it, and you just toss trap and all.
But just as I reach for them, this woman who was standing nearby suddenly said, "Don't buy those. They're totally inhumane!"
"How?" I asked.
"The mice get stuck on those traps and slowly starve to death," she replied.
"Look lady, I don't care what happens to them afterwards, I just want them out of my cellar," I said in return.
Does it really matter HOW the mouse dies? After all, it's not like I had any plans to attend the funeral(s). I just wanted them gone.
So as the lady left, I started looking at the poison options. Boric acid was the safest for all concerned, except the mice. But if I didn't want them in the house to begin with, the last thing I wanted was for them to have a chance to crawl in between the walls and floor boards to die.
Imagine two to three weeks from now smelling some strange odors, being worried about the possibility of carbon monoxide in your residence, and it turns out to be dead mice.
Revenge of the Rodents! YUCK!
Then I thought about getting a cat, but then I would have to worry about buying cat food, keeping up with its litter box, and the vet bills to keep it healthy because after all, the darn thing would (hopefully) be eating mice on a regular basis.
So in the end, I did the only sensible thing I could.
I moved and left no forwarding address so the mice can't follow me.

Well, that's it for this installment folks. Have a great week and please be back here next weekend for more Sunday Funnies!-lh,jr.

THE WEEK IN REVIEW: NOVEMBER 20-26, 2011

Amongst the events that have happened around the world this past week include:

*While no sales figures have been tallied or revealed yet, there unfortunately once again have been reports of scattered violence at various retail outlets around the United States in the wee hours of Black Friday.
*Egyptian citizens hoping for a new democracy, have forced the interim government to resign.
*Civil unrest continues in Syria.
*A bi-partisan committee of the United States Congress failed to reach an agreement on budget cut recommendations, forcing previously agreed upon cuts from the last budget discussion to automatically be enacted.
*The Berkeley California (USA) Campus Police Officers who pepper sprayed demonstrators supporting the Occupy Wall Street movement AFTER they had been arrested have been put on "administrative leave" pending further investigation of the incident.
*Scientists have announced the discovery of an orchid that blooms AT NIGHT! "Bulbophyllum Noctumum" grows off the coast of Papua New Guinea.
*NASA has launched a new automated rover vehicle to explore the surface of Mars. But expected arrival of the delivery rocket to the red planet is not until August 2012.

IN SPORTS:
*If a tentative agreement becomes official, professional basketball players could take the court once more by Christmas Day 2011.
*Race car driver Tony Stewart won the 2011 NASCAR Sprint Cup.

For more news at any time, either scroll down to our IN OTHER NEWS feature at the bottom of your screen or visit any other reputable news source.

THE PUZZLE CORNER: NOVEMBER 26, 2011

For those interested, unlike other places, we will begin our annual Christmas celebration in The Puzzle Corner next weekend, when it is actually December.
Meanwhile, some seasonal enigmas for the Thanksgiving weekend.

TRIVIA TIME
According to the song, where would you be if you followed these directions:

Walk right in, it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track

THE LETTER SHUFFLE
Our annual holiday tradition, how many words can you make out of the letters in THANKSGIVING?
And the individual words THANKS and GIVING do count towards your total.

We'll reveal all next weekend. But meanwhile, let's peek inside THE ANSWERS BOX, for the results of November 19's Puzzle Corner.

BEFORE AND AFTER
Tarzan at the playground might be King of the Jungle Gym.

THE FIFTY-FIFTY CHANCE
Despite how realistic they have been drawn, "Aunt Jemima", "Betty Crocker", and "Uncle Ben" are all fictitious.

BLACK FRIDAY 2011

Dear Free Choice E-zine Reader:

This item is being posted before 10pm Eastern Standard Time.
Some stores will be open at Midnight for Black Friday sales, provided they ever closed to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday to begin with.
The Black Friday sales promotion to kick off the shopping portion of the holiday season is so named because retail outlets will be open long before the sun rises for the day in hopes to make sales and turn profits.
Whether or not this is actually successful, after you figure in such costs as employee salaries, security, advertising expenses, etc; remains to be seen.
All I can say is that there are many things that could be done overnight, and if shopping is your thing, have fun.
Personally, I shall be in bed asleep.

Sincerely,
Lee Houston, Junior
Editor-In-Chief of The Free Choice E-zine

HAPPY THANKSGIVING 2011

Today is Thanksgiving.
While the basic idea originated within the United States, there is much the World has to be thankful for.
A few countries have fought for and won democracy this year and will soon be enjoying the right to vote if they have not already held their first free elections.
But this is mainly a time for family and friends, regardless of what the retail industry may advertise and what the various media plan to present today.
As Human beings, we do not take as much time as we should to celebrate life itself and all the good things within it.
Feel free to do so now.
You'll be glad you did.

SUNDAY FUNNIES: SCHOOL DAZE

Autumn, Puppy, School of Thought

Hello Everyone. Autumn the Puppy here.
It has come to my attention that with the holidays approaching, children and students will have a lot of time off between now and the end of the calendar year. They will have Thanksgiving and the day after this week, and at least the week between Christmas and New Year's Day, if not a little extra on each side of the individual holidays that week.
With that in mind, let's see how smart you are with some jokes that require you to actually do a little thinking to get the punch line.
Class is now in session.
Ready?

When does the cart actually come before the horse?
In the dictionary.

What starts with a P, ends with an E, and has a million letters in it?
Post Office.

What weighs more: a ton of feathers or a ton of bricks?
Neither. They both weigh a ton, although you need a lot less bricks than feathers to equal one ton.

Can you spell ROTTEN with only two letters?
Sure. DK (decay)

How many books can you put in an empty backpack?
Only one. After that it isn't empty any more.

What kind of cheese is made backwards?
Edam (made backwards)

How many months have 28 days?
All of them!

What gets bigger as you take more away from it?
A hole.

What goes up but never comes down?
Your age.

The turtle took two chocolates to Texas to help teach Thomas to tie his boots. How many T's in that?
There are only two T's in ThaT.


What has a head, a tail, but no legs?
Any coin.


What is the center of gravity?
The Letter V.


What stays in a corner but can travel around the world?
The original answer to this was "A Stamp", but nowadays "A Computer on the Internet" is acceptable too.


Well, that's all the space I have for now. Have a good week everybody. Enjoy the holiday safely, and please be back here next weekend for more Sunday Funnies.-AtP.