Somewhere along the way of learning to be an adult and be free of my anxiety's influence I stopped telling jokes - in part because the main reason I did it before was so others would like me, and I no longer find that necessary
He attended a dinner party in Washington DC in 1912, at which Admiral Peary was being unbearably loud and boastful about having been the first man to reach the North Pole. So 'Abdu'l-Bahá offered a jokey toast to him which, if Peary had been properly humble, would not have been a joke at his expense: Since the world had been concerned with what was at the pole for so long, by discovering there was nothing there, Peary had relieved the public mind and rendered a great service.
I tell jokes, but only certain kinds. I like being silly. I don't like teasing, the kind where you potentially "fool" someone, even stuff that's clearly good-natured. I have problems telling when someone is joking like that, and it doesn't feel very good, so I don't want to do it to other people.
Yeah. 'Abdu'l-Bahá had it down to an art form, and much more often He'd indulge in puns and wordplay.
When someone tried to get Him to take sides on an issue about land taxes, He replied, "Tell them to come to the Kingdom of God. They will find plenty of land, and there are no taxes on it."
And when American Bahá'ís urged Him to His clothes to something more Western before His ship landed in New York, he turned to a Persian friend and asked, "Christopher Columbus thought he was arriving in India. I wonder if he put on Indian clothing for the occasion?"
He actually made a lot of jokes about Columbus: Once He asked a Bahá'í to go to India. The man tried not to show how much he didn't want to go there, but 'Abdu'l-Bahá saw through it and a few days later He told the man to go to America.
"But Master (one of His titles was The Master), I thought I was going to India."
"So did Columbus."
Even on His deathbed, He was cracking wise about the human condition. He died of a sudden illness, and shortly before He passed away, He drank some rose water. One of His daughters wanted him to eat some food too, and He said, "You want me to eat and I am going?"
It's harder to find good stories to tell about His puns because so many of them were in Persian or Arabic, but there's a story about an American woman named Grace Robarts who volunteered to help in any way she could, imagining that she'd be arranging appointments and greeting guests and serving tea--but someone stuck her in the kitchen cleaning pots. When 'Abdu'l-Bahá came to invite her to join the party, He made a joke about "Grace" sounding like "Grease."
Pretty much, yes. It's the irony of such an ordinary, almost automatic expression of concern --"You're not feeling well, so here, eat something"-- showing up at a time when its only purpose was ritualistic.
He hadn't been well enough to eat for days, and passed away only hours later; He was looking forward to entering the next life, and everyone around Him knew it, but still the human impulse to nourish and heal and comfort was there.
> One must often bring serious discussions through jokes, and then they will give happiness and rejoicing. Some people have frowns and are always serious. This is because of the narrowness of their thoughts. All should be openhearted and smiling.
I remember a stand-up comedian put it differently - if you're going to tell someone something they don't want to hear, make them laugh, or they'll kill you.
Once at a formal dinner party His hostess kept nudging Him to talk about weighty spiritual matters, and He just kept telling jokes and funny stories. The closest He came to a formal religious or spiritual topic was in relating that while He and His Father were in prison with other Bahá'ís, at the end of every day the whole group would have a contest to tell the most ludicrous story of what happened to them that day. It was sometimes difficult to find one, but they'd always end the day laughing.
> Happiness, He said, is never dependent upon material surroundings, otherwise how sad those years would have been. As it was they were always in the utmost state of joy and happiness.
One of His best friends was a Japanese-American who climbed up a lamp-pole to get a better look at 'Abdu'l-Bahá during His visit to Chicago. Among other things, they had beard-growing contests which Fujita would always lose, and Fujita would hide His cat in retaliation.
(Unrelated: my employer's had an LGBT ally program for a bit more than a year, and a diversity & inclusion group for a bit less than that, and I'm in both. The LGBT working group has just expanded to Australia and I've accepted a personal invitation to it. Hooray!)
When a teenager visiting the Holy Land accidentally got soup all over a very distinguished Persian man's beard, 'Abdu'l-Bahá kept him from being embarrassed (and probably kept the Persian from being angry) by saying it was a blessing, and they then debated whether it was a blessing for the teenager or the Persian.
@doppelgreener There's a story whose origin I can't track down, so it may be apocryphal but it sounds like something 'Abdu'l-Bahá would have told even if it's not true:
During the early days of the Faith, many believers were placed in a very horrible prison. They were basically chained to the floor of a sewer. We know that they sang and chanted prayers together, and this story says they also told jokes.
Unfortunately, they didn't know many jokes, so hearing the same ones over and over got tedious.
So they just assigned numbers to each joke. Someone would shout out "fourteen!" and everyone would remember joke #14 and laugh.
Then a new man was brought to the prison. He was very confused when his companions would shout "twenty-seven!" or "nine!" and then everyone would laugh, but he didn't want to be left out.
So he shouted "One hundred and seven!" Everyone went silent.
Then one prisoner laughed, and soon they were all laughing loud and long--more than for any other number.
The new prisoner gives up pretending he knows what's going on and asks: "What's so funny?"
Unrelated, there's a joke here I'll share. Word to the wise, Australia's states each have an iconic beer, and there's friendly rivalry between each state about which one's the good one.
So, the joke:
The CEOs of Victoria Bitter, Toohey's, James Boag, and XXXX (fourex) all head to the pub for a get-together. At the counter, the bartender asks them what they want. The CEO of VB asks for a VB. The CEO of Toohey's asks for a Toohey's. The CEO of James Boag orders a James Boag. Then the bartender turns to the CEO of XXXX, who orders a diet coke. They all turn to him in alarm, and ask why he's ordering that. "Well," he replies. "If none of you are having a beer, I won't either."
we get a few New Zealanders and Australians at the Park Site I volunteer at, and the looks on any of their faces when anyone guesses wrong which they are are priceless
Yeah, no one's made Yuugi's, sadly. It was pretty easy to find that kind of thing in Sims 1 and Sims 2, but specific character stuff is less common for 3. The closest I can probably get is this.
The three different color thing is actually easy to do because Sims 3 has four hair color channels. It's just a matter of someone who knows how to mesh deciding to spend their time on a specific character's weird hair. xD
The Sim community usually calls things that don't change the way the game works, like adding options for hair and clothes, "custom content." I will need a ton of that for these characters. xD
Mrr. Anime sims are always a challenge. Sims are cartoony, but they're not anime-esque, so you have to figure out how to translate the character design. With someone like a Sailor Moon character, I can go pick my favorite musical or live action series actress to work from, but with YGO... xD
Hm. This might be the best I can do. It's very difficult to get sharper jaws and chins in Sims 3. I fight with this every time I make a sim actually. xD
Other considerations for Kaiba are Loner, Grumpy, Workaholic, Disciplined (it's martial arts-related), Schmoozer (mainly because it helps with the CEO career goal), Snob...
@trogdor Traditional china background, martial arts, nice environments, well drawn characters that don't seem to fall into too much fanservice, soundtracks with actual lyrics.. Yep, I hoped Moonlight would come west.
@Pixie Am I wrong or either the original manga or the anime "Dark Magician Girl" spirit in the last story segment had darker skin to fit the actual identity she were based on?
@Pixie Yep, she is supposed to be the one who "became" the DMG. I think that the manga had the DMG "spirit" that she used have dark skin in the last chapters to reflect that
will try to check, it is something I once read on TV Tropes
(I was thinking that the last MLP episode had a reference to the old 87 Little Woman anime... but it seems I was wrong. There are some similarities, but nothing really specific)
(Still, I can't help but think that I must be missing something.)
@Pixie One of the latest winter bash events had a sockpupet doll like hat. Could you image how confused the users would have been if the hat was Minty face?
