The Twelve Days Of Christmas

Empath

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Oregon
From: Lydia Zeltow December 14
My dearest darling John:
Where on earth did you find a real partridge in a pear tree?
Thank you a hundred times!
All my love forever,
Lydia
==============================================================
From: Lydia Zeltow December 15
Dearest John:
I received your sweet gift. Imagine: two turtle doves! They're
adorable. Thanks again!
Love always,
Lydia
==============================================================
From: Lydia Zeltow December 16
Dear John:
Aren't you the extravagant one. I don't deserve such
generosity, three French hens!
Love,
Lydia
==============================================================
From: Lydia Zeltow December 17
Dear John:
Today I got the four calling birds. Now really, they're
beautiful, but isn't that a bit too romantic?
Affectionately,
Lydia
==============================================================
From: Lydia Zeltow December 18
Dearest John:
What a surprise. Today the UPS delivered five golden rings,
one for every finger. Just in time, as those birds squawking
were starting to get on my nerves, and I was beginning to
wonder about you!
Love,
Lydia
==============================================================
From: Lydia Zeltow December 19
Dear John:
When I opened the door today there were six geese laying on
my front steps. So you're back to the birds again? These
geese are huge. Where will I ever keep them? The neighbors
are complaining. Please stop.
Cordially,
Lydia
==============================================================
From: Lydia Zeltow December 20
John:
What's with you and freaking birds?? Seven swans a swimming.
What kind of joke is this? There's bird poop everywhere. I
can't sleep at night and I'm a nervous wreck. It's not funny.
So stop!
Lydia
==============================================================
From: Lydia Zeltow December 21
O.K. Buster:
What the hell am I going to do with 8 maids a milking? It's
not enough with all those birds - they had to bring their
cows! There's manure everywhere and I can't move in my own
house. Just lay off, smartass.
Lydia
==============================================================
From: Lydia Zeltow December 22
Hey Bonehead:
What are you...some kind of sadist? Now there's nine pipers
playing - and I mean playing! They haven't stopped chasing
those maids since they got here. The cows are upset and
they're stepping all over those screeching birds. What am
I going to do? The neighbors want me evicted. What were you
thinking?!
==============================================================
From: Lydia Zeltow December 23
You rotten jerk:
Now there's ten ladies dancing. I don't know why I say "ladies."
They've been fooling around with those pipers all night long.
Now the cows can't sleep and they've got diarrhea. The
Commissioner of Buildings has subpoenaed me to give cause
why the building shouldn't be condemned. I'm calling the
police on you.
==============================================================
Lydia Zeltow December 24
Listen you "#$%&*^#"
Great - now there's eleven lords a leaping on those maid and
ladies. All twenty-three of the birds have been trampled to
death in the orgy. The pipers have even started getting the
cows into the action. I hope you're satisfied, you rotten
vicious swine!!!
Your sworn enemy
===================================================================
Harrison Burnsley, Esq. December 25
Dear Sir:
This is to acknowledge your latest gift of twelve fiddlers
fiddling which you have seen fit to inflict on our client,
Ms. Lydia Zeltow. The destruction of her property and peace
of mind was, of course, total. All correspondence should
come to our attention. Should you attempt to locate or
contact Ms. Zeltow at the sanitarium where she now resides,
the attendants have been instructed to have you arrested on
sight.

.....................
I'd like to attribute proper credit for this, but it has become widespread enough that it's difficult to know it's original origin. If I find out, I'll make an edit
 

The_LED_Museum

*Retired*
Joined
Aug 12, 2000
Messages
19,414
Location
Federal Way WA. USA
The last time I saw something like this was on a BBS in the late 1980s. This version is a bit "cleaner" (there were cuss words where poop and manure now show; and a few dirty words peppered elsewhere), but the rest of it looks the same.

Thank you for posting this Empath! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 

PhotonWrangler

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Messages
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In a handbasket
IS THERE A SANTA CLAUS?

Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc.

This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man- made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.

The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.

353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.

In conclusion - If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.
 

whiskypapa3

Enlightened
Joined
Nov 6, 2002
Messages
475
Location
Western Maryland
PhotonWrangler

Well and good for simple three diminsional space and a unidirectional arrow of time. Considering only three more random dimensons, an additional orthoganal arrow of time and factor in a couple of parallel universes and the problem collapses to 23.7 hours leaving time for a quick pint or two down at McGinnty's on the corner to wash down all that cookie dust.

Further refinements of the calculations are left as an exercize to fill the leasure time of the reader.
 

PhotonWrangler

Flashaholic
Joined
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Messages
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Location
In a handbasket
[ QUOTE ]
whiskypapa3 said:
Considering only three more random dimensons, an additional orthoganal arrow of time and factor in a couple of parallel universes and the problem collapses to 23.7 hours leaving time for a quick pint or two down at McGinnty's on the corner to wash down all that cookie dust.


[/ QUOTE ]
(Chuckle) uh, right. Forgot about that. Happens to me a lot. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 

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