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Golden News
Volume 15, Number 46 - Monday 13 May 2002
The official bulletin of the Rotary Club of Kowloon Golden Mile is published
every Monday and is distributed to all club members, District officials and many other "friends of KGM". Winner "Best English Club Bulletin" in District 3450, 2001/2002
Return of The Pallari:
It was certainly a pleasure to see and welcome back our old mate Stacey "Don't call me Tracey" Pallaras and legal eagle hubby Steve "Where's my wig" Pallaras, who was our guest speaker last week. They don't seem to have changed much since they
emigrated from Hong Kong in 1994. Well, OK, maybe Stacey was a bit taller.
The Pallari now reside in Perth, Western Australia where, according to Steve, "rush hour" is when there are more than three cars on the road and where the most exciting thing to happen each week is lunch. Your Phantom visited Perth in 1998 but, when I arrived (4:00 p.m.), it was already closed.
Anyway, Steve gave a very interesting talk on his new venture "Litigation Services International", which
offers a service to prepare witnesses for the rigors of trial. You can read more about the company soon at www.pallaras.com (a domain name secured for them by the Web Monster, for the price of a nice lunch at Pacific Place).
Steve also told us a few good lawyer jokes. Correction. A few good jokes about lawyers. The rest of the meeting was fairly typical except Sergeant Susie "Madam Lash" Misini gave an unusually short report, so she didn't need a vote of thanks.
By the way, if anyone knows the identity of the groovy gentleman pictured left (Chad?), who was last seen rocking
at our annual ball, please ask him to contact the Grand Hyatt "lost & found" department. Apparently his forgot to reclaim his spurs from the cloakroom, and
Madam Lash has her eyes on them. Yeee-haaaaa.
This Week's Meeting:
Our speaker this week is Peter Gallo. Although we don't know the topic of his talk, Mr. Gallo last spoke to us in February 2001 on the subject of Private Investigations. How do I know? I used the search function on KGM's award-winning website, of course!
Milestones:
1) Mother's Day greetings for 12 May to all the mothers at KGM (apparently this includes at least one male member). 2) Birthday greetings for 16 May to PP Louis "Trailwalker" Thomas, who shares his birthday with the discovery of the universe (and pop singer Janet Jackson). Member Updates: 
1) The Phantom (pictured left, sans mask and cape), would like to remind KGM members that he never answers calls
on his cellular phone unless the Caller ID is displayed.
The reason is that persistent people trying to give him unsolicited stock tips, or sell him life insurance, or arrange dates for him with farmyard animals invariably block their Caller ID. Hence if you display your Caller ID, you will get straight through 99% of the time. If you hide your Caller ID, you will be banished to voicemail. Simple, really. The other thing is that (Susie & Ebe are you reading this?), voicemail messages are usually limited by service providers to a maximum of 30 seconds each. So, if you try telling your life story, or revealing your secret recipe for lamingtons or if you try to recite the Koran for more than 30 seconds, most cellular voicemail systems will cut you off. Ouch!
2) Former KGM member Hans "Sergeant Schultz" Peter advises those who remember him fondly that
his email address this month is peter_@hkbn.net -
note there is an underline "_" (not a space) between the "r" and the "@".
Geek Tip: Never use (or accept) an underline "_" in an email address as it will be concealed by the hyperlink underline which runs under the whole email address, and people will understandably mistake it for a space. Receipts:
Our grumpy Treasurer PP Vince "Give me a damn invoice, not an email" Pinto (who looks remarkably like The Phantom pictured
above), would like to remind members that receipts are only issued on request but, in any case, are always subject to
the following conditions:
1) Rotary Club of Kowloon Golden Mile Community Service Fund Limited ("the company")
This is a limited company which is listed as an Approved Charitable Institution under Section 88 of the Inland Revenue Ordinance. The company may only give receipts for bona fide charitable contributions, and such receipts can be lawfully used by donors for tax deductions.
In laymen's terms, a "charitable contribution" is something for which you get nothing tangible in return (e.g. becoming a Paul Harris Fellow, supporting a Matching Grant etc.).
2) Rotary Club of Kowloon Golden Mile ("the Club")
Can issue receipts for member's record purposes, however such receipts cannot be used to claim tax deductions.
Note: Payments made for club fellowships (including the Annual Ball), or payment of semi-annual dues, are not tax deductible.
Fellowship News:
KGM Fellowship Director David "Party Dude" Harilela reminds members that our next regular fellowship will be the traditional Indian Night, once again generously hosted by our Indian members. Cowboys are nonetheless welcome!
The event will be held at 7:30 p.m. (Indian Time), on Saturday 25 May
2002 at the "Viceroy of India" restaurant, Sun Hung Kai Centre, Wanchai North. Bring your dancing shoes.
And a candy bar, for nourishment, in the highly unlikely event that an Indian function starts late. Yeah, right!
Members who plan to attend this fellowship are asked to contact David's efficient Secretary "Amazing" Grace
by email.
District 3450 News:
1) DISTRICT BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT (Last call):
This will be held from 9:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Monday 20 May 2002 at the Hunghom Complex Indoor Games Hall. Members
interested in forming a team should contact President Ebe by email.
Judging by our past performances, somebody should forewarn St.John Ambulance.
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2) ROTARY CLUB OF KHUREE (Reminder):
A Charter Night has been scheduled for 28 May 2002 in Ulaanbaatar,
Mongolia.
Any member interested in joining DG Johnson Chu and the District delegation is invited to contact CP Herbert Lau from the RC Tolo Harbour by email as soon as possible.
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3) ROTARY TELEVISION DOCUMENTARY (Reminder): The TVB Jade documentary entitled "Walk Along With Rotary", which was originally scheduled for 19 May, has now been rescheduled for broadcast from 9:00 p.m. to 9:45 p.m. on Sunday 9 June 2002. The KGM Board, in a moment of weakness (Grumpy was absent), committed $10,000 of member's funds towards the production of this documentary, and we presume all other clubs in District 3450 did likewise. Let's hope it's a decent documentary otherwise we'll never hear the end of it from Grumpy.
++++++++++
4) DISTRICT TABLE TENNIS TOURNAMENT (Reminder):
This will be held from 9:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Saturday &
Sunday 8-9 June 2002 at the Cornwall Street Indoor Recreation Centre, Kowloon Tong. Members interested in forming a team should contact President Ebe by email.
++++++++++
5) 2002/2003 DISTRICT INSTALLATION (Reminder):
This will be held from 6:00 p.m., Thursday 4 July 2002 at the HKCEC, Wanchai
North.
This is when the "old guard" (DG Johnson Chu & Co.), hands over the District reigns to the
"young Turks" (DGE Gloria Chan & Co.), who intend to "Sow The Seeds Of
Love" during 2002/2003. We certainly hope DGE Gloria and her colleagues practice "Safe
Sowing". Ahem.
This event is also when our District, inspired by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon and his mass Korean weddings,
perform a mass induction of all incoming Club Presidents. Sadly though, there are never enough women but,
surprisingly, this doesn't seem to bother our incoming Fearless Leader PE Nanu Lachman. Hmmm.
Anyway, tickets are priced at $550 per head, however tables of 12 persons paid on or before 31 May, will
only need to pay a total of $6,000 thereby enjoying a 10% discount. What a deal!
Members interested in attending this event should contact PE Nanu Lachman by telephone
on 9025 6699 or by email, however I fully
expect PE Nanu will be actively trying to recruit volunteers to witness his Rotary "bar mitzvah". Mazal-tov !
Rotary International News:
1) The RI Annual Convention will be held from 23 to 26 June 2002 in Barcelona, Spain, and you can
register on-line here. For more information about the convention, visit their web site!
STOP PRESS: Rotary International has announced that comedian Jerry Lewis and former Soviet leader and Nobel Laureate Mikhail Gorbachev will be attending the RI Convention, and both gentleman will be presented with the RI Award of Honour.
2) The RI Presidential Conference of Peace & Development will be held from Friday to Sunday, 9-11 August 2002 at the Renaissance Kuala Lumpur Hotel, Malaysia.
Web Side Story:
The Web Monster is muttering again because it seems nobody has
submitted any Fellowship photographs to him since September 2001, and he's not a happy camper. So what's new, huh?
Anyway, if you have any fellowship photographs which you have not yet submitted, please give them to the Web Monster on a floppy disk, Zip drive or CD-ROM. Do not send them to him by email.
The Web Monster will be out of town for the next 7 days and he necessarily blocks all email messages larger than 500K, because he doesn't have
broadband while roaming.
Dear Geek:
We received an email warning about a nasty virus and we were urged to delete a file called Jdbgmgr.exe. Being trusting (but somewhat dopey) chaps, we followed the instructions, but now our computer network is playing up. What should we
do? Yours Ben Doon and Phil McAvity.
Dear Ben & Phil, The Jdbgmgr.exe is a standard Windows system file and you are therefore complete bozos.
Never, never, never blindly follow "panic warnings" received by email (particularly those which have been forwarded to half the world's population), without firstly doing some research. There are many hoaxes zipping around the Internet and the best place to check the validity of such "warnings" is to visit the Symantec hoax website. If doing so falls under your "too hard" file, then at least contact me before you start deleting files, and I will set you straight. In the meantime, if you have already deleted Jdbgmgr.exe click here for instructions on how to restore it.
By the way, if you receive an email containing the KLEZ virus from a friend, it doesn't mean their
computer is infected. The KLEZ virus "hijacks" one email address from an infected computer and it uses that as the name
of the sender before duplicating itself. Nasty stuff.
So, if you receive an infected email from fred@flintsone.com don't give Fred a hard time, because it could well be that Barney Rubble has the infected computer, but the KLEZ virus has used Fred's email address as the sender. Yours, The Geek.
Who Am I?
What is the more common name of wacky American actor/comedian Jerry Silberman?
The answer appears at the bottom of this issue.
Cunning Linguist:
Are you curious about the origins of the term "Scapegoat" ?
This term, for one who is punished for the misdeeds of others, is actually the result of a mistranslation.
The term was originally coined in 1530 by William Tyndale who misread the Hebrew word 'azazel, the proper name of
Canaanite demon, as 'ez ozel, literally "the goat that departs". In Leviticus
16:8, the scriptures describe how two goats should be prepared for an offering. Lots should be drawn and one should be sacrificed to the Lord as a sin offering, and the other given
to Azazel and set free in the wilderness, bearing the sins of the people.
To be fair to Tyndale, he was not the only one to make this error but it was Tyndale who coined the term scapegoat, (or scapegoote as he spelled it). The King James Bible retains Tyndale's "scapegoat", but most modern translations have corrected the error and refer to Azazel.
However it was not until 1824 that the word acquired its current, wider sense. All prior usages have been in terms of the Leviticus passage. The verb form
appeared in 1943.
Did you ever wonder why...
The Roman numeral for "4" is "IV", but watches and clocks usually represent "4" as "IIII" ?
Golden Smile:
Little Johnny and his family emigrate from America to Australia, and little Johnny enters school in Grade 2.
After the first day at school, little Johnny comes home proud as punch, and he tells his mother: "Mom, today in school the teacher asked us to
count, and I got all the way up to 100 but the other kids only got as far as 20".
And his mother said: "Well Johnny, that's because you're American".
After the second day at school, little Johnny comes home with a huge smile on his face, and he tells his mother: "Mom, today we had to recite the
alphabet and I was the only kid who could go from A to Zee".
And his mother said: "Well Johnny, that's because you're American".
After the third day of school, little Johnny comes home with a confused look on his face, and his mother asks: "Johnny, what's the problem?".
Little Johnny says: "Mom, today after gym class, all of us kids were taking a shower and I noticed that my willy is much bigger than the
other kids. Is that because I'm American?"
And his mother said: "No Johnny, that's because you're 19".
Quotable Quotes:
"A man on a date wonders if he'll get lucky. The woman already knows."
-- Monica Piper --
The Phantom |
| "Who Am I?" answer: Gene Wilder. |
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