I was trying to remember something about Leopold the Sponge, I think he was ~10th century Scandanavian? or so, and can't seem to find anything. Any Ideas?

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.cam), July 20, 2000

Answers

I had an ancestor named Leopold who was a parasite. He leached off of everyone in Spitzbergen. Ja, a codfish here, a lutefisk there. In those days, the Norse tribes were wild and untamed Vikings given to pillaging wimpy places like Scotland and Frisia. There was no Socialist nanny state. Each person had to contribute to the general welfare and to bring back their share of booty. (no, that means "plunder").

Leopold was such a scumbag that Loki finally had to set him adrift in the North Sea on a bark of twigs. Sometimes on a foggy night, they say you can still hear him crying "Uffda Loki, uffda!"

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), July 20, 2000.

Geez, I would have thought the lutefisk would have been punishment enough.

-- Tarzan the Ape Man (tarzan@swingingthroughthejunglewithouta.net), July 20, 2000.

There are quite a few jokes about Scandahooligans which involve two crowdpleasers, Lars and Sven. And they are not all complementary. To the Lars who posts here, sorry buddy, but tell the truth and shame the devil.

1. Lars sees his pal Sven out on the lake fishing. When Sven comes back to the dock, Lars says "If I can guess how many fish you caught, will you give me one?" Bold Sven says "If you can guess how many fish I caught, I'll give you both of them." Whereupon Lars guesses three.

2. Lars got married, and at the reception afterwards he got roaring drunk and totally disgraced himself. And he knew he was disgracing himself (pissing in the fireplace, for example) and just didn't care. Finally he staggered upstairs, opened a bedroom door, and saw his bride in bed with his best man Sven. They were "doing it."

Lars thought this was so funny that he staggered down the hall and laughed so hard that he fell on the floor and couldn't get up. When guests came up and asked what was so funny, Lars said "You think I'm drunk, get a load of Sven. He's so drunk he thinks he's me!"

-- Fuck em (IfTheyCant@takea.joke), July 20, 2000.

Lars was not feeling well one day so he went home early from his job at the local factory. You can imagine his outrage when he discovered his best friend Sven and the wife doing the horizontal bop, in his OWN bed. He started screaming obscenities at them both as he tore through the dresser drawers. Sven and the wife were horrified and could only watch with the sheets pulled up to their necks.

Finally, Lars found what he was looking for; an old service revolver that was wrapped in a shirt in the bottom of one of the drawers. As Sven and the wife looked on in mortal fear, Lars unwrapped the piece, chambered a round, and put the barrel up against his temple.

Incredibly, his wife blurted out Lars, what on earth are you doing with that gun

Lars looked at them both with the eyes of a madman and said shut-up bitch, yer next!

-- Ra (tion@l.1), July 20, 2000.

While peacefully awaiting enlightenment on the all-important Leopold issue, I've remembered something else of tangential interest to me :-).

BTW, I'm plagarizing this from someone, but can't remember if it's from a published author's work, or from one of the G-Grandparents journals. Anywho:

There was an argument in Minnesota at the local gathering spot among the Norweigan immigrants, some who were saying how great America was, and some who were longing for home. One man said, "This is a terrible country, flat, flat, flat forever, without end. It's horrible compared to the beautiful fiords and scenery of Home". To which the other replied, "Yes, Norway was beautiful, but you can't eat the scenery".

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.cam), July 20, 2000.

Yo, youse guyss betta quit pickin on ma goombah Larss from Jerssey or we rips youse a new asshole.

-- (DonVito@di.Testosterone), July 21, 2000.

Frank--

Where did you hear of this Leopold the Sponge guy? I ran searches on Dogpile, Google, Northern Light and Raging Search but got no hits. Do you have a good local library? Call the Reference Desk. They seem to like tracking down odd trivia. Also, the Library of Congress will help the taxpayers as well as the tax spenders.

Hey Vito! How are things in Lyndhurst? Go easy on these old boys. I laughed my ass off at Lars and Sven.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), July 21, 2000.

Was he related to Nathan the squeegee?

-- (nemesis@awol.com), July 22, 2000.

Lars,

Was remembering from an old class, actually. But I had to smack myself when I read your post. My *sister* is a librarian! There's someone to sick on a project like this.

THX,

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.cam), July 23, 2000.