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Posted: 8/27/2004 9:31:12 AM EDT
He spent the first day packing his belongings into boxes, crates and suitcases,and remembering things that he hadn't thought about in years, as he found gifts and mementos that reminded him of their life. He remembered the good times he and his wife had together before he caught her cheating on him. On the second day, he had the movers come and collect his things. On the third day, he sat down for the last time at their beautiful dining room table by candlelight, put on some soft background music, and feasted on a pound of shrimp, a jar of caviar, and a frozen glass filled with his favorite beer. When he had finished, he went into each and every room and deposited a few half-eaten shrimp shells dipped in caviar, into the hollow of the curtain rods. He then cleaned up the kitchen and left.
When the wife returned with her new boyfriend, all was bliss for the first few days. Then slowly, the house began to smell. They tried everything, cleaning, mopping, and airing the place out. Vents were checked for dead rodents, and carpets were steam cleaned. Air fresheners were hung everywhere. Exterminators were brought in to set off gas canisters, during which they had to move out for a few days, and in the end they even paid to replace the expensive wool carpeting. Nothing worked. People stopped coming over to visit. Repairmen refused to work in the house. The maid quit. Finally, they could not take the stench any longer and decided to move. A month later, even though they had cut their price in half, they could not find a buyer for their stinky house. Word got out, and eventually, even the local realtors refused to return their calls. Finally, they had to borrow a huge sum of money from the bank to purchase a new place. The ex-husband called the woman, and asked how things were going. She told him the saga of the rotting house. He listened politely, and said that he missed his old home terribly, and would be willing to reduce his divorce settlement in exchange for getting the house back. Knowing her ex-husband had no idea how bad the smell was, she agreed on price that was about 1/10th of what the house had been worth, but only if he were to sign the papers that very day. He agreed, and within the hour her lawyers delivered the paperwork. A week later the woman and her boyfriend stood smiling as they watched the moving company pack everything to take to their new home, including the curtain rods. I LOVE A HAPPY ENDING, DON'T YOU???? |
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www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1093558209949&call_pageid=968867505381&col=969048872038 Go ahead, make my day: Revenge feels, oh, so good JUDY GERSTEL It's a scenario only too familiar to those of us who drive the mean streets and main thoroughfares of this city — except that, in this case, it's the start of an editorial by Stanford University psychology professor Brian Knutson published today in Science, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "You've been waiting in line in traffic for what seems like hours, when a red sports car whips past on the shoulder. Eventually, the sports car creeps back into view — the driver has run out of shoulder and signals to be let in. "Instead of giving way, you stare ahead and accelerate, inching dangerously close to the bumper in front of you. After squeezing back the intruder, you can't help but notice a smile creep onto your face." His editorial, titled "Sweet Revenge?" is illustrated with a picture of Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry, saying "Go ahead, make my day." The caption reads, "Dirty Harry succinctly informs a norm violator that he anticipates deriving satisfaction from inflicting altruistic punishment." In other words, revenge can feel good. But, of course, we already knew that. Everyone from evolutionary theorists to scorned lovers recognizes that getting even with someone who has hurt you is healing. Somehow, it doesn't just make you feel less bad; it actually provides a delicious jolt of pure pleasure. Eye-for-an-eye behaviour, Knutson explains, generally makes sense, in that it may prevent future damage to oneself or one's kin. But what about when we punish people who violate the interests of other people, of strangers — a form of revenge psychologists call "altruistic punishment"? Even more curious is that we enjoy exacting punishment not only when we derive no direct benefit from it but even when it costs us. An extreme example of this behaviour is road rage, says Knutson, speaking by phone from Palo Alto, Calif. "Some people are totally willing to endanger their lives just to get revenge on someone who cut them off on the road," he says. The driver of the red sports car he writes about, muscling in from the shoulder, is perceived as "violating social order and deserves to be stranded by the side of the road. "It's this sense that you feel like, if they did get in front, they're taking advantage of you and of the people behind." Knutson's commentary accompanies a Swiss study of people's penchant for punishing violators of widely approved norms even though they themselves reap no direct benefits. The study combined an economic experiment with a brain scan — an example of the emerging field of "neuro-economics." In the experiment, volunteers participated in a game of exchanging money back and forth. If one player made a selfish choice instead of a mutually beneficial one, the other could penalize him. The majority of the players chose to impose the penalty even when it cost some of their own money. Using positron emission tomography (PET), the researchers determined that deciding to impose this penalty activated a "reward" region of the brain, the dorsal striatum, involved in anticipating enjoyment or satisfaction, whether from cocaine or seeing a pretty face. The study concludes, "When people punish others who are deceitful, the reward centre of the brain is engaged even if the action yields no apparent benefit." The researchers also found that the fantasy of revenge is immensely satisfying: "The activation in the dorsal striatum reflects the anticipated satisfaction from punishing defectors" — or, it appears, from seeing them suffer. As Knutson notes in his commentary, the Swiss researchers "appear to have captured this complex emotional dynamic of schadenfreude with a PET camera." Also, Knutson explains, "There is a complex emotional dynamic when somebody wrongs us or people we love." And the response isn't always logical. Although the Swiss study involved only male volunteers who exacted punishment and got a measurable glow from doing so, it's well-known that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. While researching this story, I heard about a woman who was dumped by the man with whom she was cohabiting. She managed to get back into the apartment they'd shared and proceeded to smear feces in places he'd never think of looking, so the stink would linger ("You think you can get rid of me that easily? Hah!") — for example, in the hollow of the curtain rod. Says Knutson, "It would be hard to imagine that she was doing a hard, cold, rational calculation (about the benefits) when she was deciding to defecate in the curtain rod. I suspect that even when it doesn't make sense, revenge feels good, and people anticipate this feeling." He says more research is needed about how we balance "passionate" and "rational" forces when we make choices about behaviour. |
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Joke Tread,Joke Thread.
Lawn Mower A preacher was making his rounds to his parishioners on a bicycle, when he came upon a little boy trying to sell a lawn mower. "How much do you want for the mower?" asked the preacher. "I just want enough money to go out and buy me a bicycle," said the little boy. After a moment of consideration, the preacher asked, Will you take my bike in trade for it?" The little boy asked if he could try it out first, and, after riding the bike around a little while, said, "Mister, you've got yourself a deal." The preacher took the mower and began to crank it. He pulled on the rope a few times with no response from the mower. The preacher called the little boy over and said, "I can't get this mower to start." The little boy said, "That's because you have to cuss at it to get it started." The preacher said, I'm a minister, and I can't cuss. It's been so long since I've been saved that I don't even remember how to cuss." The little boy looked at him happily and said, "You just keep pulling on that rope. It'll come back to ya. |
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I heard about that last night on NPR! The Psychology of Revenge...phenomenal! |
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A friend of mine sent it to me in an email. |
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There are several versions of this urban legend that circulate on the internet www.snopes.com/love/revenge/shrimp.htm |
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That is what I was thinking. I'm always wary of these kinds of e-mail stories, like the Taser story that somebody posted yesterday. They are probably fake 9 times out of 10. |
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The emails that your wife has been sending you inspired this thread! Thought you might like to know. |
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...and decomposing. |
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She split on your anniversary!?!? |
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I'd use crab instead of shrimp.
Rotting crab smells 2X worse than rotting shrimp. |
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Have you ever smelled rotting caviar? I haven't, but I bet it stinks!
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True or false, I don't care. It really made me laugh out loud, which I don't do very often.
I sent it to most of my mailing list. CJ |
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Fake or not, its a great read.
Also try putting a raw chicken leg in a milk container with an airtight seal. Pressure will rise and the top will pop off... and its friggin rancid. - BUCC_Guy |
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No, about 2 weks later, but the flowers were still looking really good. The neighbors at least got some enjoyment out of them.hinking.gif |
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Several years ago there was a Sci-Fi short story about an Alien Race whose life style was centered on Revenge with a capital R.
In the story, The Bad Guy tricks the Aliens into sending the Good Guys into a Prison Labor Camp. He wants Revenge on the Good Guys so into prison they went. We’re talking about entire families into a desert like environment with back breaking working conditions. The story from there centered on the Good Guys tricking the Aliens – who are really neutral one way or another regarding the Good Guys – into releasing the Good Guys, and paying massive reparations for the discomfort they inflicted without warrant. The story ends with one of the Aliens looking on with amusement as the Good Guys get Revenge on the Bad Guy, and insulting him as well. If anybody can find the novel “The Book of the Baraboo”, by Barry Goodyear, you are in for a nice little treat. It is one of the story’s there. And the Taser story is true. It was written by the phoole himself. |
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I give you credit, you know how to play the right tune to the audience.
Welcome and enjoy your new AR. Tj |
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Sci Fi related, but not really revenge related.
Anyone remember the episode of Outer Limits where aliens land and give great gifts to mankind? A cure for all diseases, an end to war, ways to feed everybody, space travel, etc? The main alien is played by none other than the actor who played Lurch in The Addams Family. When the aliens are asked why they're helping us out, they reply, "To serve mankind." Lurch-alien leaves a book behind (apparently accidentally) that he was reading, and the protagonist of the story grabs the book and eventually gets it translated. His girlfriend is boarding the alien's ship to visit the alien planet as he runs up to her and tells her the horrible secret: The book is a cookbook...HUMAN cooking! "To serve mankind"....on a bed of rice! What a great story! CJ |
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It was actually on the Twilight Zone..... "Don't get on the ship. The book, To Serve Man, IT'S A COOKBOOK!" |
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The Simpsons did a spoof of that. It was fairly amusing. Lisa Simpson and the head alien went back and forth blowing off dust off the cover of the cookbook uncovering words, which at first was How to Cook Humans. |
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Sorry for the further hijack of the thread, but I just remembered a Twilight Zone I saw once. A group of aliens landed outside of a small town, and (through EMP devices I guess) disabled all electronic devices. Eventually a small child in the town suggested that it migh be aliens hiding among the townfolk, and the town ends up destroying itself trying to discover who the alien is. Kinda ironic.
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shrimp in a safety deposit box works wonders.
Trust me on this one.............. |
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Twilight Zone "To Serve Man..." Cannamites or somethng like that. Probably the best TZ ever. Edit: Ooops 95thFoot already got it. |
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How to Cook FOR Humans. How to Cook FORTY Humans. How to cook FOR Forty Humans. Simpson's Halloween episodes are the best. The did another Halloween spoof where the teacher was reading a book called "The Joy of Cooking Millhouse." |
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Looks like it's out: www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00023BKMC/qid=1093747357/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-4016955-3037557?v=glance&s=dvd |
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