For Lokki:

There was a man upon the stair,
A little man who was not there.
He wasn’t there again today.
Gee I wish he’d go away.

Bah. Figures McGoo would get beat me to it. My version was from a Fredrick Brown short story.

I have always loved that poem:

Last night I saw upon the stair,
A little man who wasn’t there.
He wasn’t there again today;
Oh, how I wish he’d go away.
(~William Hughes Mearns)

So if a chicken and a half can lay an egg and a half in a day and a half – how many eggs can a chicken lay in a day? Show your work for extra credit.

And finally:

I shot an arrow into the air.
It fell to earth – I knew not where.
Until next day, with rage profound,
The man it fell on came around.
And in less time than it takes to tell,
He *showed* me where that missile fell!
So now I do not greatly care,
To shoot more arrows into the air.

See what happens when you raise these philosophical type of questions?

Oh, I warned you! But no one ever seems to listen….

Sigh

Oh, and somehow, given your mood, I thought you’d like the part where the Dad smacks the little girl in the head, weasel….

If you don’t want to try to cross the river, you can just sit around smacking the kids all day. It’s a multi-dimensional game.

McGoo – there are some experiments in philosophical matters that are better left undone. Your question reminds me of the headache (OK, it was probaby really from a hangover) that I got in my Philosophy Class – about the question of seeing the little man at the top of the stairs who wasn’t there.

If he wasn’t there, how could you see him? If you could see him, how could he not have been there? It made my brain hurt, I tell you. So, please don’t start all that up again.

I had much less trouble running over the nuns to avoid hitting the grade school, when the hypothetical brakes failed on our theoretical bus at the top of the hill that terrible day.

I don’t do very well with THIS kind of puzzle either.

http://www.smallcampus.net/upload/html/maths_games/2001-05-03/riverIQGame.swf

Note – For those who have no desire to study Japanese in order to solve the puzzle

A father and his two sons, a mother and her two daughters, a thief and a policeman are on one side of a river. There is a boat by the river bank, but it can only take two people at a time. Only the father, the mother and the policeman know how to operate the boat. The father can not be with any of the girls without their mother around. The mother can not be with any of the boys without their father around. The thief can not be with anyone else without the policeman around. How can you get everyone across to the other side of the river?

Start the game by clicking on the big round blue button. Click on a person to get him or her on or off the boat. Click on the levers to get the boat to move.

.

Shameless!

Plum? I wonder what the origin of that expression is? Wiki…

Plumb:

clean: completely; used as intensifiers; “clean forgot the appointment”; “I’m plumb (or plum) tuckered out”

Harumph. No etiology?