the 1st true lump story many, many years ago, my great, great, great, great, uncle {jeremiah siegel} lived in a town in massachusetts called Salem. everything was fine until one day the town elders called him in for a formal inquiry with what eventually they would consider to be heresy. this is something how it went: "jeremiah, we have heard from our other brethren on the list, uh, i mean the town beer hall, that you have replaced that fine english horse that was pulling your plow with a local horse that came from somewhere west of here {eventually that town was to be called detroit}. is this true?" asked the town elders. "why yes it is" replied my uncle jeremiah siegel. "so what is it any business of yours?" "why it is against nature to do as you have done. how could you do such a thing"? asked the elders. "well" said my great uncle, " that fine english horse that i had had for several years started to become somewhat unreliable, especially when it was raining outside, or when it got very hot outside, or when it was very cold outside, and someone mentioned to me that i could replace it with a horse from somewhere west of here for alot less money and that the horse was a lot less finicky" so that is what i did. well, as the story goes, the elders were quite pissed off and said what uncle jeremiah siegel had done was blastphemous, evil, and not very cool. so all the elders got together and placed my uncle on trial. all this went back and forth for many weeks. finally a plea bargain was reached between my uncle and the Salem town council elders. here is what they agreed upon: my uncle would be able to keep his american horse with two conditions, which they hoped would discourage others in the town from doing the same thing: 1. he was to stand in the town square for 2 days with a scarlet -L- written onto his shirt 2. he was to be hit on the head with a giant mallet well, being a pragmatic man, he agreed. he wore the L, and agreed to be clobbered on the head., and stand in the town square for 2 days. what is generally not known about this incident is that, he was hit so hard upon his head that, a BIG lump appeared on forehead from the injury. and for 2 days as people in the town came to see him, all they could say to their children and each other was: " SEE, do what ol jeremiah did and you'll end up a lumper just like him" . the end. written with peotic license by: dan siegel ============================================================================== All the talk of what makes a Jag a lump seems to be summed up by a quote from the latest (May) issue of Thoroughbred & Classic Cars. In an interview with Stan Hanks who spent 25 years in the Jaguar experimental department, he recalled a phone call from an early E-type owner: Lofty England was the service director and this customer phoned complaining about the quality of the paintwork. Lofty told him: "We only sold you the engine; we just gave you the body to take it away in." Frank A Filangeri ================================================================================== The following are a sampling of REAL answers received on exams given by the California Department of Transportation's driving school (read Saturday Traffic School for moving violation offenders.) Q: Do you yield when a blind pedestrian is crossing the road? A: What for? He can't see my license plate. Q: Who has the right of way when four cars approach a four-way stop at the same time? A: The pick up truck with the gun rack and the bumper sticker saying, "Guns don't kill people. I do." Q: What are the important safety tips to remember when backing your car? A: Always wear a condom. Q: When driving through fog, what should you use? A: Your car. Q: How can you reduce the possibility of having an accident? A: Be too ____-faced to find your keys. Q: What problems would you face if you were arrested for drunk driving? A: I'd probably lose my buzz a lot faster. Q: What changes would occur in your lifestyle if you could no longer drive lawfully? A: I would be forced to drive unlawfully. Q: What are some points to remember when passing or being passed? A: Make eye contact and wave "hello" if he/she is cute. Q: What is the difference between a flashing red traffic light and a flashing yellow traffic light? A: The color. Q: How do you deal with heavy traffic? A: Heavy psychedelics. Q: What can you do to help ease a heavy traffic problem? A: Carry loaded weapons. -- \ \ ]]]) | ||+-------+ | |||| \\ | |||| \\ |________________________|_||________/\___________ | \ | Duncan McRae \ | ______ Ford Motor Company______ | | / \ / \ | (____/ /\ \__________________________/ /\ \___) | | | | | | | | \ \/ / \ \/ / _______________\__/________________________________\__/____________ Mail: MD 1074, Sci Res Labs e-mail: dmcrae@ford.com Dearborn, Mi 48121-2053 Tel: (313)845-4348 FAX: (313)390-4865 I did a search and found a whole list of emoticons at; http://www.utopiasw.demon.co.uk/emoticon.txt on their home page you can also link to a page of acronyms which you might find helpful, also. Emoticons are often ridiculed by less thinking people but are the only way (sometimes) that you can convey to folks that your kidding them, or sad for them :>( How different; Sorry your car broke :>) Sorry your car broke :>( See you Noel Annett 2+2 with emoticon always on ;o) Canberra Australia ---------------------------------------------------------------- The jag electronics system doesn't work on electricity, it works on some curse. I can tell rain is coming when my XJ-S doors won't lock. Windshield wipers activating the seat heaters means seven more weeks of warm weather. In fact, sometimes the car won't start unless you circle it three times waving a chicken bone, chanting "Lucas, Lucas..." ;-) - ----Steve '88 xj-s '89 xj40vdp e-mail at: s_draper@wcsr.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- Most of you imply it's the man giving up the car for the lady. Well let me tell you gentlemen that my husband decided I should be driving a 4 cylinder 4-door 97 Honda Accord. There goes my 87 XJS V12. Not quite the same driving experience. JT (Sorry Lady JT, but I failed to save your name & e-mail address) ---------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Joel S. Garblik" Subject: Attn: Do-it-yourselfers To: Mercedes You all might find this very true with Spring at hand and all the do-it-yourself questions that have been recently posted: HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate expensive car parts not far from the object we are trying to hit. MECHANIC'S KNIFE: Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on boxes containing convertible tops or tonneau covers. ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning steel Pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age, but it also works great for drilling rollbar mounting holes in the floor of a sports car just above the brake line that goes to the rear axle. HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes. VISE-GRIPS: Used to round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand. OXYACETYLENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for lighting those stale garage cigarettes you keep hidden in the back of the Whitworth socket drawer (What wife would think to look in _there_?) because you can never remember to buy lighter fluid for the Zippo lighter you got from the PX at Fort Campbell. ZIPPO LIGHTER: See oxyacetylene torch. WHITWORTH SOCKETS: Once used for working on older British cars and motorcycles, they are now used mainly for hiding six-month old Salems from the sort of person who would throw them away for no good reason. DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, splattering it against the Rolling Stones poster over the bench grinder. WIRE WHEEL: Cleans rust off old bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprint whorls and hard-earned guitar callouses in about the time it takes you to say, "Django Reinhardt". HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering a Mustang to the ground after you have installed a set of Ford Motorsports lowered road springs, trappng the jack handle firmly under the front air dam. EIGHT-FOOT LONG DOUGLAS FIR 2X4: Used for levering a car upward off a hydraulic jack. TWEEZERS: A tool for removing wood splinters. PHONE: Tool for calling your neighbor Chris to see if he has another hydraulic floor jack. SNAP-ON GASKET SCRAPER: Theoretically useful as a sandwich tool for spreading mayonnaise; used mainly for getting dog-doo off your boot. E-Z OUT BOLT AND STUD EXTRACTOR: A tool that snaps off in bolt holes and is ten times harder than any known drill bit. TIMING LIGHT: A stroboscopic instrument for illuminating grease buildup on crankshaft pulleys. TWO-TON HYDRAULIC ENGINE HOIST: A handy tool for testing the tensile strength of ground straps and hydraulic clutch lines you may have forgotten to disconnect. CRAFTSMAN 1/2 x 16-INCH SCREWDRIVER: A large motor mount prying tool that inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end without the handle. BATTERY ELECTROLYTE TESTER: A handy tool for transferring sulfuric acid from car battery to the inside of your toolbox after determining that your battery is dead as a doornail, just as you thought. AVIATION METAL SNIPS: See hacksaw. TROUBLE LIGHT: The mechanic's own tanning booth. Sometimes called a drop light, it is a good source of vitamin D, "the sunshine vitamin", which is not otherwise found under cars at night. Health benefits aside, its main purpose is to consume 40-watt light bulbs at about the same rate that 105-mm howitzer shells might be used during, say, the first few hours of the Battle of the Bulge. More often dark than light, its name is somewhat misleading. PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the lids of old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splash oil on your shirt; can also be used, as the name implies, to round off Phillips screw heads. AIR COMPRESSOR: A machine that takes energy produced in a coal-burning power plant 200 miles away and transforms it into compressed air that travels by hose to a Chicago Pneumatic impact wrench that grips rusty suspension bolts last tightened 40 years ago by someone in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, and rounds them off. Happy brute-wrenching. Have a nice weekend Joel __o_\___ ---------------- @@ =-O----O-' ---- E-mail: Joel S. Garblik, DDS pkr@SLAC.Stanford.EDU> Subject: Sir William and his Guiness To: e-type Reply-To: e-type@jag-lovers.org Sir William was known for his love of great beers, and in particular his fondness for Guiness. So after the inaugral presentation of the first E-Type at a North American automobile show the presidents of General Motors and Ford decided to take the honorable gentleman to a nearby pub that served a variety of beers. Still wanting to show some patriotic spirit, the president of GM says to the bartender, "I'd like the best beer in the world, give me 'The King Of Beers', a Budweiser." The bartender gives him one. The president of Ford likewise says, "I'd like the only beer made with Rocky Mountain spring water, give me a Coors." He gets it. When the bartender turns to Sir William for his order Sir William replies "Give me a Coke." The bartender is a little taken aback, but gives him what he ordered. The other two look a little suprised and ask, "Why aren't you drinking a Guiness?" and Sir William replies "Well, if you guys aren't drinking beer, neither will I."