Puzzling Questions
1. If you throw a cat out a car window does it become kitty litter?
2. If corn oil comes from corn, where does baby oil come from?
3. When a cow laughs does milk come up its nose?
4. How did a fool and his money GET together?
5. How do they get a deer to cross at that yellow road sign?
6. If it's tourist season, why can't we shoot them?
7. What's another word for thesaurus?
8. Why do they sterilize the needles for lethal injection?
9. Why is abbreviation such a long word?
10. Why do kamikaze pilots wear helmets?
11. How do you know when its time to tune your bagpipes?
12. Is it true that cannibals don't eat clowns because they taste funny?
13. When you choke a smurf, what color does it turn?
14. Do blind eskimos have seeing eye sled dogs?
15. Why is there an expiration date on my sour cream container?
16. What do they use to ship styrofoam?
17. Why do they call it a TV set when you only get one?
18. Do radioactive cats have 18 half-lives?
19. If you shoot a mime, should you use a silencer?
20. What was the best thing before sliced bread?
NEWS BULLETIN: Saying it will improve the education of children who
have grown up immersed in computer lingo, the school board in San
Jose, Calif., has officially designated computer English, or
"Geekonics", as a second language.
The historic vote on Geekonics -- a combination of the word "geek"
and the word "phonics" -- came just weeks after the Oakland school
board recognized black English, or Ebonics, as a distinct language.
"This entirely reconfigures our parameters," Milton "Floppy"
Macintosh, chairman of Geekonics Unlimited, said after the school
board became the first in the nation to recognize Geekonics.
"No longer are we preformatted for failure," Macintosh said during a
celebration that saw many Geekonics backers come dangerously close
to smiling. "Today, we are rebooting, implementing a program to
process the data we need to interface with all units of humanity."
Controversial and widely misunderstood, the Geekonics movement was
spawned in California's Silicon Valley, where many children have
grown up in households headed by computer technicians, programmers,
engineers and scientists who have lost ability to speak plain
English and have inadvertently passed on their high-tech vernacular
to their children.
HELPING THE TRANSITION
While schools will not teach the language, increased teacher
awareness of Geekonics, proponents say, will help children make the
transition to standard English. Those students, in turn, could
possibly help their parents learn to speak in a manner that would
lead listeners to believe that they have actual blood coursing
through their veins.
"Bit by bit, byte by byte, with the proper system development, with
nonpreemptive multitasking, I see no reason why we can't download
the data we need to modulate our oral output," Macintosh said.
The designation of Ebonics and Geekonics as languages reflects a
growing awareness of our nation's lingual diversity, experts say.
Other groups pushing for their own languages and/or vernaculars to
be declared official viewed the Geekonics vote as a step in the
right direction.
"This is just, like, OK, you know, the most totally kewl thing,
like, ever," said Jennifer Notat-Albright, chairwoman of the
Committee for the Advancement of Valleyonics, headquartered in
Southern California. "I mean, like, you know?" she added.
THEY'RE HAPPY IN DIXIE
"Yeee-hah," said Buford "Kudzu" Davis, president of the Dixionics
Coalition. "Y'all gotta know I'm as happy as a tick on a sleeping
bloodhound about this."
Spokesmen for several subchapters of Dixionics -- including
Alabonics, Tennesonics and Louisionics -- also said they approved of
the decision.
Bill Flack, public information officer for the Blue Ribbon Task
Force on Bureaucratonics said that his organization would not
comment on the San Jose vote until it convened a summit meeting,
studied the impact, assessed the feasibility, finalized a report and
drafted a comprehensive action plan, which, once it clears the
appropriate subcommittees and is voted on, will be made public to
those who submit the proper information-request forms.
Proponents of Ebonics heartily endorsed the designation of Geekonics
as an official language.
"I ain't got no problem wif it," said Earl E. Byrd, president of the
Ebonics Institute. "You ever try talkin' wif wunna dem computer
dudes? Don't matter if it be a white computer dude or a black
computer dude; it's like you be talkin' to a robot -- RAM, DOS,
undelete, MegaHertZ. Ain't nobody understands. But dey keep talkin'
anyway. 'Sup wif dat?"
Those involved in the lingual diversity movement believe that only
by enacting many different English languages, in addition to all the
foreign ones practiced here, can we all end up happily speaking the
same boring one, becoming a nation that is both unified in its
diversity, and diversified in its unity.
Others say that makes no sense at all. In any language.
But wait, there's more!:
Irish-American Speak -- Leprechaunics
Native-American Speak -- Kimosabics
Italo-American Speak -- Spumonics (or Rigatonics)
Chinese-American Speak -- Won-tonics
Japanese-American Speak -- Mama-san-ics
Polish-American Speak -- Kielbasanics
Jewish-American Speak -- Zionics
Russian-American Speak -- Rasputonics
Spanish-American Speak -- Flan-ics
Scottish-American Speak -- Tartan-ics
Eskimo-American Speak -- Harpoonics
German-American Speak -- Autobaunics (or Teutonics)
French-American Speak -- Cornichonics (or Escargonics)
Oakland-School-Board Speak -- Moronics
--------
From an actual newspaper contest where entrants age 4 to 15 were asked
to imitate "Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey."
----------
My young brother asked me what happens after we die. I told him we get
buried under a bunch of dirt and worms eat our bodies. I guess I should
have told him the truth--that most of us go to Hell and burn
eternally--but I didn't want to upset him. Age 10
When I go to heaven, I want to see my grandpa again. But he better have
lost the nose hair and the old-man smell. Age 5
I once heard the voice of God. It said "Vrrrrmmmmm." Unless it was
just a lawn mower. Age 11
I don't know about you, but I enjoy watching paint dry. I imagine that
the wet paint is a big freshwater lake that is the only source of water
for some tiny cities by the lake. As the lake gets drier, the
population gets more desperate, and sometimes there are water riots.
Once there was a big fire and everyone died. Age 13
I like to go down to the dog pound and pretend that I've found my dog.
Then I tell them to kill it anyway because I already gave away all of
his stuff. Dog people sure don't have a sense of humor. Age 14
I believe you should live each day as if it is your last, which is why I
don't have any clean laundry because, come on, who wants to wash clothes
on the last day of their life? Age 15
Whenever I start getting sad about where I am in my life, I think about
the last words of my favorite uncle: "A truck!" Age 15
It sure would be nice if we got a day off for the president's birthday,
like they do for the queen. Of course, then we would have a lot of
people voting for a candidate born on July 3 or December 26, just for
the long weekends. Age 8
As you make your way through this hectic world of ours, set aside a few
minutes each day. At the end of the year, you'll have a couple of days
saved up. Age 7
Democracy is a beautiful thing, except for that part about letting just
any old yokel vote. Age 10
Home is where the house is. Age 6
Often, when I am reading a good book, I stop and thank my teacher. That
is, I used to, until she got an unlisted number. Age 15
It would be terrible if the Red Cross Bloodmobile got into an accident.
No, wait. That would be good because if anyone needed it, the blood
would be right there. Age 5
Give me the strength to change the things I can, the grace to accept the
things I cannot, and a great big bag of money. Age 13
The people who think Tiny Tim is strange are the same ones who think it
odd that I drive without pants. Age 15
I bet living in a nudist colony takes all the fun out of Halloween. Age13
For centuries, people thought the moon was made of green cheese. Then
the astronauts found that the moon is really a big hard rock. That's
what happens to cheese when you leave it out. Age 6
Think of the biggest number you can. Now add five. Then, imagine if
you had that many Twinkies. Wow, that's five more than the biggest
number you could come up with! Age 6
The only stupid question is the one that is never asked, except maybe
"Don't you think it is about time you audited my return?" or "Isn't is
morally wrong to give me a warning when, in fact, I was speeding?"
Age 15
Once, I wept for I had no shoes. Then I came upon a man who had no
feet. So I took his shoes. I mean, it's not like he really needed
them, right? Age 15
I often wonder how come John Tesh isn't as popular a singer as some
people think he should be. Then, I remember it's because he sucks.
Age15
I gaze at the brilliant full moon. The same one, I think to myself, at
which Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato gazed. Suddenly, I imagine they
appear beside me. I tell Socrates about the national debate over one's
right to die and wonder at the constancy of the human condition. I tell
Plato that I live in the country that has come the closest to Utopia,
and I show him a copy of the Constitution. I tell Aristotle that we
have found many more than four basic elements and I show him a
periodictable. I get a box of kitchen matches and strike one. They gasp
with wonder. We spend the rest of the night lighting farts. Age 15
If we could just get everyone to close their eyes and visualize world
peace for an hour, imagine how serene and quiet it would be until the
looting started. Age 15
paul
------------
>
> A 7-year-old and his 4-year-old brother are upstairs in their bedroom.
> The 7-year-old is explaining that it is high time that the two of them
> begin swearing. When his little brother responds enthusiastically, the
> 7-year-old says, "When we go downstaris for breakfast this morning,
> I'll say 'hell' and you say 'ass'." The 4-year-old happily agrees.
>
> As the two boys are seating themselves at the breakfast table, their
> mother walks in and asks her older son what he would like to eat for
> breakfast. The 7-year-old replies, "Aw hell, Mom, I'll just have some
> Cheerios."
>
> WHACK! The surprised mother reacts quickly. The boy runs upstairs,
> bawling and rubbing his behind. With a sterner note in her voice, the
> mother then asks her younger son, "And what would YOU like for breakfast?"
>
> "I don't know," the 4-year-old blubbers, "but you can bet your ass it's
> not gonna be Cheerios!"
-----------------------------
The Original Version.
The ant busts his tail in the withering heat all summer long, building
his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks
he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter
the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter so he
dies out in the cold.
The New Liberal Version.
It starts out the same but when winter comes the shivering grasshopper
calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be
allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving. CBS,
NBC, and ABC show up and show pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to
film of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.
America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can it be, in a country of
such wealth that this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so? Then a
representative of the NAAGB (The National Association of Green Bugs) shows
up on Night Line and charges the ant with "Green Bias" and makes the case
that the grasshopper is the victim of 30 million years of greenism.
Kermit the frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries
when he sings "It's Not Easy Being Green."
Bill and Hillary Clinton make a special guest appearance on the CBS
evening news and tell a concerned Dan Rather that they will do everything
they can for the grasshopper who has been denied the prosperity he deserves
by those who benefited unfairly during the summer, or as Bill refers to it,
the "Temperatures Of The 80's".
Finally the EEOC drafts the "Economic Equity and Anti-Greenism Act"
RECTRO-ACTIVE to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing
to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and having nothing left to pay
his Retro-Active taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.
The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the
ant's food while the government house he's in....which just happens to be
the ant's old house.... crumbles around him since he doesn't know how to
maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow. And on the TV, which
the grasshopper bought by selling most of the ant's food, Bill Clinton is
standing before a wildly applauding group of Democrats announcing that a
new era of "Fairness" has dawned in America.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Subject: Fwd(18): Prayer
A guy from Tyson Foods arranges to visit the Pope. After receiving the
papal blessing he whispers, "Your Eminence, we have a deal for you. If
you change The Lord's Prayer from `give us this day our daily bread....'
to `give us this day our daily chicken....' we will donate $500 million
dollars to the Church."
The Pope responds saying, "That is impossible. The Prayer is the Word of
the Lord and it must not be changed." "Well," says the Tyson man, "we are
prepared to donate $1 billion to the Church if you change the Lord's
Prayer to `give us this day our daily chicken..." Again the Pope replies "That
is impossible. The Prayer is the Word of the Lord and it must not be
changed."
Finally, the Tyson guy says, "This is our last offer. We will donate $5
billion to the church if you change the Lord's Prayer to `give us this day
our daily chicken....'"
The next day the Pope meets with the College of Cardinals to say that he
has good news and bad news..."The good news is that the Church has come into
$5 billion."
"The bad news is that we are losing The Wonderbread Account."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Lastly, to pick on engineers, again:
In some foreign country a priest, a lawyer and an engineer are about to
be guillotined.
The priest puts his head on the block, they pull the rope and nothing
happens....he declares that he has been saved by divine intervention...so he
is set free.
The lawyer is put on the block, and again, the rope doesn't release the
blade. He claims that he cannot be executed twice for the same crime and is
also let go.
They grab the engineer and shove his head into the device, he promptly
looks up at the release mechanism and says, "Wait a minute, I see what
your problem is..."
-----------------------------
--------------------------------
The Top Ten new features of the
re-released classic: Star Wars
--------------------------------
10. He might not look as fearsome as before, but that
Primatene Mist of Darth Vader's seems to have helped
his breathing immensely.
9. Added scene in which Tonya Harding whacks Princess
Lea on the knee with a light saber.
8. Luke accused of killing ex-wife and advised by Obi
Wan to "Use the Fifth, Luke."
7. The commercial tie-in appearance of Jabba's big brother,
Pizza the Hut.
6. Newly-colorized Darth Vader is mauve.
5. C3PO has a conspicuous "Intel Inside" sticker on his shiny
brass a**.
4. Han, Luke, Obi-Wan and C3PO now sporting b*tchin' goatees.
3. Anti-fur activists from planet PETA spray Chewbacca with
red paint.
2. The X-Wing pilot who blows up the Death Star? Richard Jewell.
1. Dismembered victim of Obi-Wan Kenobi's light saber in bar
scene none other than John Wayne Bobbitt.
--------------------------
Subject: UPGRADE WARNING!!!
Last year a friend of mine upgraded GirlFriend 2.0 to Wife 1.0 and
found that it's a memory hog leaving very little system resources
for other applications. He is only now noticing that Wife 1.0 also
is spawning Child-Processes which are further consuming valuable
resources.
No mention of this particular phenomenon was included
in the product brochure or the documentation, though
other users have informed him that this is to be
expected due to the nature of the application. Not
only that, Wife 1.0 installs itself such that it is
always launched at system initialization where it can
monitor all other system activity. He's finding that
some applications such as PokerNight 10.3, BeerBash
2.5, and PubNight 7.0 are no longer able to run,
crashing the system when selected (even though they
always worked fine before). At installation, Wife 1.0
automatically installs undesired Plug-Ins such as
MotherInLaw 55.8 and BrotherInLaw Beta release. As a
consequence system performance seems to diminish with
each passing day.
Some features he'd like to see in the upcoming wife 2.0:
- A "Don't remind me again" button
- Minimize button
- An install shield feature that allows Wife 2.0 to be installed
with the option to uninstall at anytime without the loss of
cache and other system resources.
- An option to run the network driver in promiscuous mode which
would allow the systems hardware probe feature to have greater
use.
I myself decided to avoid all of the headaches associated with Wife
1.0 by sticking with Girlfriend 2.0. Even here, however, I found
many problems. Apparently you cannot install Girlfriend 2.0 on top
of Girlfriend 1.0. You must uninstall Girlfriend 1.0 first. Other
users say this is a long standing bug which I should have been
aware of.
Apparently the versions of Girlfriend have conflicts over shared
use of the I/O port. You think they would have fixed such a stupid
bug by now. To make matters worse, The uninstall program for
Girlfriend 1.0 doesn't work very well leaving undesirable traces of the
application in the system.
Another annoying problem -- all versions of Girlfriend continually
popup annoying messages about the advantages of upgrading to Wife 1.0
***** BUG WARNING *****
Wife 1.0 has an undocumented bug. If you
try to install Mistress 1.1 before
uninstalling Wife 1.0, Wife 1.0 will
delete MSMoney files before executing a
self - uninstallation. Then Mistress 1.1
will refuse to install,claiming
insufficient system resources.
***** BUG WORK-AROUNDS *****
To avoid the above bug, try installing Mistress 1.1 on a different
system and never run any file transfer applications such as
Laplink 6.0. Also, beware of similar shareware applications that
have been known to carry viruses that may affect Wife 1.0.
Another solution would be to run Mistress 1.0 via a UseNet
provider under an anonymous name. Here again, beware of the viruses
which can accidently be downloaded from the UseNet.
-------------------------
If Operating Systems Were Airlines
DOS AIR:
Passengers walk out onto the runway, grab hold of the plane, push it until
it gets into the air, hop on, then jump off when it hits the ground. They
grab the plane again, push it back into the air, hop on, jump off...
Mac AIRWAYS:
The ticket agents, flight attendants, and pilots all look the same, talk the
same, and act the same. When you ask them questions about the flight they
reply that you don't want to know, and would you please return to your seat,
mind your own business and watch the movie.
WINDOWS AIRLINES:
The terminal is neat and clean, the attendants courteous, the pilots
capable. The fleet of Lear jets the carrier operates is immense. Your jet
takes off without a hitch, pushes above the clouds, and at 20,000 feet
explodes without warning.
OS/2 SKYWAYS:
The terminal is almost empty -- only a few prospective passengers mill
about. The announcer says that a flight has just departed, although no
planes appear to be on the runway. Airline personnel apologize profusely to
customers in hushed voices, pointing from time to time to the sleek,
powerful jets outside. They tell each passenger how great the flight will
be on these new jets, and how much safer it will be than Windows Airlines,
but that they will have to wait a little longer for the technicians to
finish the flight systems. Maybe until mid 1995, maybe longer.
FLY NT AIR:
Passengers carry their seats out onto the tarmac and place them in the
outline of a plane. They sit down, flap their arms, and make swooshing
sounds as if they were flying.
UNIX EXPRESS:
Passengers bring a piece of the plane and a box of tools with them to the
airport. They gather on the tarmac, arguing about what kind of plane they
want to build, The passengers split into groups and build several different
aircraft, but give them all the same name. Only some passengers reach their
destinations, but all of them believe they have arrived.
--------------------------------
Subject: Arkansas residency form and Cowboy Philosophy
ARKANSAS STATE RESIDENCY FORM
Name: ________________ (_) Billy-Bob
(last) (_) Billy-Joe
(_) Billy-Ray
(_) Billy-Sue
(_) Billy-Mae
(_) Billy-Jack
(Check appropriate box)
Age: ____
Sex: ____ M _____ F _____ N/A
Shoe Size: ____ Left ____ Right
Occupation:
(_)Farmer
(_)Mechanic
(_)Hair Dresser
(_)Un-employed
Spouse's Name: __________________________
Relationship with spouse:
(_) Sister
(_) Brother
(_) Aunt
(_) Uncle
(_) Cousin
(_) Mother
(_) Father
(_) Son
(_) Daughter
(_) Pet
Number of children living in household: ___
Number that are yours: ___
Mother's Name: _______________________
Father's Name: _______________________ (If not sure, leave blank)
Education: 1 2 3 4 (Circle highest grade completed)
Do you (_)own or (_)rent your mobile home? (Check appropriate box)
___ Total number of vehicles you own
___ Number of vehicles that still crank
___ Number of vehicles in front yard
___ Number of vehicles in back yard
___ Number of vehicles on cement blocks
Firearms you own and where you keep them:
____ truck
____ bedroom
____ bathroom
____ kitchen
____ shed
Model and year of your pickup: _____________ 194_
Newspapers/magazines you subscribe to:
(_)The National Enquirer
(_)The Globe
(_)TV Guide
(_)Soap Opera Digest
___ Number of times you've seen a UFO
___ Number of times you've seen Elvis
___ Number of times you've seen Elvis in a UFO
How often do you bathe:
(_)Weekly
(_)Monthly
(_)Not Applicable
Color of teeth:
(_)Yellow
(_)Brownish-Yellow
(_)Brown
(_)Black
(_)N/A
Brand of chewing tobacco you prefer:
(_)Red-Man
How far is your home from a paved road?
(_)1 mile
(_)2 miles
(_)don't know
> CHOICE INSIGHTS INTO COWBOY PHILOSOPHY
>
> Generally speaking fancy titles and nightshirts are a waste of time.
>
> Never drop your gun to hug a grizzly.
>
> If you're ridin ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to
> make sure it's still there.
>
> A body can pretend to care, but they can't pretend to be there.
>
> A lot of good luck is undeserved but then so is a lot of bad luck.
>
> Don't squat with yer spurs on.
>
> There's a lot more to ridin a horse than just sittin in the saddle and
> lettin yer feet hang down.
>
> You can never step in the same river twice.
>
> No matter who says what, don't believe it if it don't make sense.
>
> Don't never interfere with something that ain't bothering you none.
>
> Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.
>
> After weeks of beans and taters even a change to taters and beans is good.
>
> Never take to sawin on the branch that's supportin you, unless your bein
> hung from it.
>
> Never kick a fresh turd on a hot day.
>
> The easiest way to eat crow is while it's still warm.
>
> If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is to stop diggin.
>
> If it don't seem like its worth the effort it probably ain't.
>
> It don't take a genius to spot a goat in a flock of sheep.
>
> The biggest liar you'll ever have to deal with probably watches you shave
> his face in the mirror every morning.
>
> Good judgement comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad
> judgement.
>
> Always drink upstream of the herd.
-----------------------
Subject: You have two cows...
I really enjoyed the Arkansas form.
There was one obvious missing point.
Under employment, there wasn't a "Wal-Mart" option.
I forwarded the quiz to a prof in our department that is a rabid Rush
Limbaugh fan. He sent back the following:
It seems that there is a social question in Arkansas. If a couple gets a
divorce, are they still cousins?
Here are a few more I got from one of our state extension specialists,
which you might like.
Food for thought. The november 1989 issue of reader's digest included an
observation by William J. McIlrath:
There were about 8000 cars in the U.S., only 10 miles of concrete
pavement, no spray cans to destroy the ozone layer. Everyone ate natural
foods. The air was relatively unpolluted, and the ground was free of
aluminum cans. There were no sugar substitutes and no artificial
coloring. We had no atomic waste or PCBs, and our average life expectancy
was 47 years. The year was 1900. Today we are doing everything wrong and
life expectancy is up to 75 years, and, if we are not careful, it could
hit 90.
YOU HAVE TWO COWS. . . .
Under SOCIALISM, you give one to your neighbor.
Under COMMUNISM, the government takes both of them and gives you the milk.
Under FASCISM, the government takes both of them and sells you milk.
Under NAZISM, the government takes both of them and shoots you.
Under CAPITALISM, you sell one of the cows and buy a bull.
BUREAUCRATS in any of the systems take both cows, shoot one of them, milk
the other, and pour the milk down the drain!
-------------------------------
Subject: You might be a redneck if...
Have you heard the latest REDNECK JOKES? I'll assume you haven't.
You know you're a redneck when you misspell something with christmas
lights!!
You know you're a redneck when you buy your wife earings that double
as fishing lures!!!
My favorite: you know you're a redneck when you stare at a can of
orange juice just because it said concentrate!!!
------------------------
> PURDUE UNIVERSITY ENTRANCE EXAM- FOOTBALL PLAYER VERSION
> Time Limit: 3 WKS
>
>
> 1. What language is spoken in France?
>
> 2. Give a dissertation on the ancient Babylonian Empire with
> particular reference to architecture, literature, law and social
> conditions -OR- give the first name of Pierre Trudeau.
>
> 3. Would you ask William Shakespeare to
> (a) build a bridge
> (b) sail the ocean
> (c) lead an army or
> (d) WRITE A PLAY
>
> 4. What religion is the Pope?
> (a) Jewish
> (b) Catholic
> (c) Hindu
> (d) Polish
> (e) Agnostic (check only one)
>
> 5. Metric conversion. How many feet is 0.0 meters?
>
> 6. What time is it when the big hand is on the 12 and the little
> hand is on the 5?
>
> 7. How many commandments was Moses given? (approximately)
>
> 8. What are people in America's far north called?
> (a) Westerners
> (b) Southerners
> (c) Northerners
>
> 9. Spell -- Bush, Carter and Clinton
>
> 10. Six kings of England have been called George, the last one being
> George the Sixth. Name the previous five.
>
> 11. Where does rain come from?
> (a) Macy's
> (b) a 7-11
> (c) Canada
> (d) the sky
>
> 12. Can you explain Einstein's Theory of Relativity?
> (a) yes
> (b) no
>
> 13. What are coat hangers used for?
>
> 14. The Star Spangled Banner is the National Anthem for what country?
>
> 15. Explain Le Chateliers Principle of Dynamic Equilibrium
> -OR- spell your name in BLOCK LETTERS.
>
> 16. Where is the basement in a three story building located?
>
> 17. Which part of America produces the most oranges?
> (a) New York
> (b) Florida
> (c) Canada
> (d) Wisconsin
>
> 18. Advanced math. If you have three apples how many apples do you
> have?
>
> 19. What does NBC (National Broadcasting Corp.) stand for?
>
> 20. The Purdue University tradition for efficiency began when
> (approximately)?
> (a) B.C.
> (b) A.D.
> (c) still waiting
>
> *You must answer three or more questions correctly to qualify
>
>
>
--------------------------------
Men Who Use Computers Are The New Sex Symbols Of The `90s
Scott Adams Windows Magazine, May 1995
I get about 100 e-mail messages a day from readers of my comic strip
"Dilbert." Most are from disgruntled office workers, psychopaths,
stalkers, comic-strip fans -- that sort of person. But a growing
number are from women who write to say they think Dilbert is sexy.
Some say they've already married a Dilbert and couldn't be happier.
If you're not familiar with Dilbert, he's an electrical engineer who spends
most of his time with his computer. He's a nice guy but not exactly
Kevin Costner. Okay, Dilbert is polite, honest, employed and
educated. And he stays home. These are good traits, but they don't
exactly explain the incredible sex appeal. So what's the attraction?
I think it's a Darwinian thing. We're attracted to the people who
have the best ability to survive and thrive. In the old days it was
important to be able to run down an antelope and kill it with a
single blow to the forehead. But that skill is becoming less
important every year. Now all that matters is if you can install
your own Ethernet card without having to call tech support and
confess your inadequacies to a stranger whose best career option is
to work in tech support. It's obvious that the world has three
distinct classes of people, each with its own evolutionary destiny:
Knowledgeable computer users who will evolve into godlike
non-corporeal beings who rule the universe (except for those who
work in tech support). Computer owners who try to pass as
knowledgeable but secretly use hand calculators to add totals to
their Excel spreadsheets. This group will gravitate toward jobs as
high school principals and operators of pet crematoriums. Eventually
they will become extinct. Non-computer users will grow tails, sit in
zoos and fling dung at tourists. Obviously, if you're a woman and
you're trying to decide which evolutionary track you want your
offspring to take, you don't want to put them on the luge ride to the
dung-flinging Olympics. You want a real man. You want a
knowledgeable computer user with evolution potential. And women
prefer men who listen. Computer users are excellent listeners
because they can look at you for long periods of time without saying
anything. Granted, early in a relationship it's better if the guy
actually talks. But men use up all the stories they'll ever have after
six months. If a woman marries a guy who's in, let's say, retail
sales, she'll get repeat stories starting in the seventh month and
lasting forever. Marry an engineer and she gets a great listener for
the next 70 years. Plus, with the ozone layer evaporating, it's a
good strategy to mate with somebody who has an indoor hobby.
Outdoorsy men are applying suntan lotion with SPF 10,000 and yet by
the age of 30 they still look like dried chili peppers in pants.
Compare that with the healthy glow of a man who spends 12 hours a day
in front of a video screen. It's also well established that computer
users are better lovers. I know because I heard an actual anecdote
from someone who knew a woman who married a computer user and they
reportedly had sex many times. I realize this isn't statistically
valid, but you have to admit it's the most persuasive thing I've
written so far. If you still doubt the sexiness of male PC users,
consider their hair. They tend to have either: (1) male pattern
baldness -- a sign of elevated testosterone -- or (2) unkempt jungle
hair -- the kind you see only on people who just finished a frenzied
bout of lovemaking. If this were a trial I think we could reach a
verdict on the strong circumstantial evidence alone. I realize there
are a lot of skeptics out there. They'll delight in pointing out the
number of computer users who wear wrist braces and suggest it isn't the
repetitive use of the keyboard that causes the problem. That's okay.
Someday those skeptics will be flinging dung at tourists. Then who'll
be laughing? (Answer to rhetorical question: everybody but the tourists.)
Henry Kissinger said power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. And Bill Clinton
said that knowledge is power. Therefore, logically, according to the
U.S. government, knowledge of computers is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
You could argue with me -- I'm just a cartoonist -- but it's hard to
argue with the government. Remember, they run the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms, so they must know a thing or two about
satisfying women. You might think this was enough to convince anyone
that men who use computers are sexy. But look at it from my point
of view: I'm getting paid by the word for this article. I'm not
done yet. In less enlightened times, the best way to impress women
was to own a hot car. But women wised up and realized it was better
to buy their own hot cars so they wouldn't have to ride around with
jerks. Technology has replaced hot cars as the new symbol of robust
manhood. Men know that unless they get a digital line to the
Internet no woman is going to look at them twice. It's getting
worse. Soon anyone who's not on the World Wide Web will qualify for
a government subsidy for the home-pageless. And nobody likes a man
who takes money from the government, except maybe Marilyn Monroe,
which is why the CIA killed her. And if you think that's stupid,
I've got 100 words to go. Finally, there's the issue of mood lighting.
Nothing looks sexier than a man in boxer shorts illuminated only by a
15-inch SVGA monitor. If we agree that this is every woman's dream
scenario, then I think we can also agree that it's best if the guy
knows how to use the computer. Otherwise, he'll just look like a loser
sitting in front of a PC in his underwear. In summary, it's not that I
think non-PC users are less attractive. It's just that I'm sure they
won't read this article.
--------------------------------------
>
>HEY YOUSE GUYS..... ---------- PLEASE IMMEDIATELY SCAN YOUR
>COMPUTER FOR THE FOLLOWING VIRUSES:
>
> BOBBITT VIRUS: Removes a vital part of your hard disk then
>re-attaches it. (But that part will never work again.)
>
> OPRAH WINFREY VIRUS: Your 200MB hard drive suddenly shrinks
>to 80MB, and then slowly expands back to 200MB.
>
> AT&T VIRUS: Every three minutes it tells you what great service
>you're getting.
>
> MCI VIRUS: Every three minutes it reminds you that you're paying
>too much for the AT&T virus.
>
> PAUL REVERE VIRUS: This revolutionary virus does not horse
>around. It warns you of impending hard disk attack: Once, if by LAN;
>twice, if by C:
>
> POLITICALLY CORRECT VIRUS: Never identifies itself as a "virus,"
>but instead refers to itself as an "electronic micro-organism."
>
> RIGHT-TO-LIFE VIRUS: Won't allow you to delete a file, regardless
>of how young it is. If you attempt to erase a file, it requires you
to
>first see a counselor about possible alternatives.
>
> ROSS PEROT VIRUS: Activates every component in your system,
>just before the whole doggone thing quits.
>
> MARIO CUOMO VIRUS: It would be a great virus, but it refuses to
>run.
>
> TED TURNER VIRUS: Colorizes your monochrome monitor.
>
> ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGAR VIRUS: Terminates and stays
>resident. It'll be back.
>
> DAN QUAYLE VIRUS (#2): Their is sumthing rong with yor komputer,
>ewe jsut cant figyour outt watt!
>
> GOVERNMENT ECONOMIST VIRUS: Nothing works, but all your
>diagnostic software says everything is fine.
>
> NEW WORLD ORDER VIRUS: Probably harmless, but it makes a lot
>of people really mad just thinking about it.
>
> FEDERAL BUREAUCRAT VIRUS: Divides your hard disk into
>hundreds of little units, each of which does practically nothing, but
>all of which claim to be the most important part of your computer.
>
> GALLUP VIRUS: Sixty percent of the PC's infected will lose 30
>percent of their data 14 percent of the time (plus or minus a 3.5
>percent margin of error).
>
> TEXAS VIRUS: Makes sure that it's bigger than any other file.
>
> ADAM AND EVE VIRUS: Takes a couple bytes out of your Apple.
>
> CONGRESSIONAL VIRUS: The computer locks up, and the screen
>splits in half with the same message appearing on each side of the
>screen. The message says that the blame for the gridlock is caused
>by the other side.
>
> AIRLINE LUGGAGE VIRUS: You're in Dallas, but your data is in
>Singapore.
>
> FREUDIAN VIRUS: Your computer becomes obsessed with
>marrying its own motherboard.
>
> PBS VIRUS: Your programs stop every few minutes to ask for
>money.
>
> ELVIS VIRUS: Your computer gets fat, slow, and lazy, then self
>destructs; only to resurface at shopping malls and service stations
>across rural America.
>
> OLLIE NORTH VIRUS: Causes your printer to become a paper
>shredder.
>
> NIKE VIRUS: Just does it.
>
> SCHOOL BULLY VIRUS: Steals the Nike virus at gunpoint.
>
> SEARS VIRUS: Your data won't appear unless you buy new cables,
>power supply, and a set of shocks.
>
> EXTENDED WARRANTEE VIRUS: Tells you a system will never
>break down if you buy it, and then asks if you want repair coverage.
>
> JIMMY HOFFA VIRUS: Your programs can never be found again.
>
> KEVORKIAN VIRUS: Helps your computer shut down as an act of
>mercy.
>
> STAR TREK VIRUS: Invades your system in places where no virus
>has gone before.
>
> HEALTH CARE VIRUS: Tests your system for a day, finds nothing
>wrong, and sends you several bills totaling $4,500.
>
> GEORGE BUSH VIRUS: It starts by boldly stating, "Read my
>docs...no new files!" on the screen. It proceeds to fill up all the free
>space on your hard drive with new files, then blames it on the
>Congressional virus.
>
> CLEVELAND INDIANS VIRUS: Makes your 486/50 machine perform
>like a 286AT.
>
> CHICAGO CUBS VIRUS: Your PC makes frequent mistakes and
>comes in last in the reviews, but you still love it.
>
>
>
> GOOD "MEDICAL" COVERAGE TO YOU!
>
>************************************** Anyone care to describe
>the following viruses?
>
>TALK SHOW HOST VIRUS:
>
>RUSH LIMBAUGH VIRUS:
>
>BASEBALL PLAYERS VIRUS:
>
>BASEBALL OWNERS VIRUS:
>
>BASEBALL FANS VIRUS:
>
>BASEBALL UMPIRES VIRUS:
>
>NEWS MEDIA VIRUS:
>
>(I've got to try my hand at the Rush Limbaugh virus: Arrogantly
>proclaims itself to be the only world saving virus detector while filling
>up your disk with messages that read: the only really virulent viruses
>are liberal, feminist, tax the rich, and Clinton-esque. Take special care,
>the verbosity and intensity of this virus will actually fill your CD-ROM.)
>
--------------------------------
>Subject: Getting rid of Blind Dates
>
>Occasionally in life, it's handy to be able to get out of awkward
>social situations. In such events, it behooves you to know
>these...
>
> MORE THAN FIFTY WAYS TO GET RID OF BLIND DATES
> (and other social catastrophes)
>
>1. At dinner, guard your plate with fork and steak knife, so as
> to give the impression that you'll stab anyone, including the
> waiter, who reaches for it.
>
>2. Collect the salt shakers from all of the tables in the
> restaurant, and balance them in a tower on your table.
>
>3. Wipe your nose on your date's sleeve. Twice.
>
>4. Make funny faces at other patrons, then sneer at their
> reactions.
>
>5. Repeat every third third word you say say.
>
>6. Give your claim to fame as being voted "Most Festerous" for
> your high school yearbook.
>
>7. Read a newspaper or book during the meal. Ignore your date.
>
>8. Stare at your date's neck, and grind your teeth audibly.
>
>9. Twitch spastically. If asked about it, pretend you don't know
> what they are talking about.
>
>10. Stand up every five minutes, circle your table with your arms
> outstretched, and make airplane sounds.
>
>11. Order a bucket of lard.
>
>12. Ask for crayons to color the placemat. This works very well
> in fancier venues that use linen tablecloths.
>
>13. Howl and whistle at womens' legs, especially if you are
> female.
>
>14. Recite your dating history. Improvise. Include pets.
>
>15. Pull out a harmonica and play blues songs when your date
> begins talking about themselves.
>
>16. Sacrifice french fries to the great deity, Pomme.
>
>17. When ordering, inquire whether the restaurant has any live
> food.
>
>18. Without asking, eat off your date's plate. Eat more from
> their plate than they do.
>
>19. Drool.
>
>20. Chew with your mouth open, talk with your mouth full and
> spray crumbs.
>
>21. Eat everything on your plate within 30 seconds of it being placed
> in front of you.
>
>22. Excuse yourself to use the restroom. Go back to the head
> waiter/hostess and ask for another table in a different
> part of the restaurant. Order another meal. When your date
> finally finds you, ask him/her "What in the hell took you so
> long in the restroom?!?"
>
>23. Recite graphic limericks to the people at the table next to
> you.
>
>24. Ask the people at the neighboring table for food from their
> plates.
>
>25. Beg your date to tattoo your name on their derriere. Keep
> bringing the subject up.
>
>26. Ask your date how much money they have with them.
>
>27. Order for your date. Order something nasty.
>
>28. Communicate in mime the entire evening.
>
>29. Upon entering the restaurant, ask for a seat away from the
> windows, where you have a you have a good view of all exits,
> and where you can keep your back to the wall. Act nervous.
>
>30. Lick your plate. Offer to lick theirs.
>
>31. Hum. Loudly. In monotone.
>
>32. Fill your pockets with sugar packets, as well as salt and
> pepper shakers, silverware, floral arrangements... i.e
> anything on the table that isn't bolted down.
>
>33. Hold a debate. Take both sides.
>
>34. Undress your date verbally. Use a bullhorn.
>
>35. Auction your date off for silverware.
>
>36. Slide under the table. Take your plate with you.
>
>37. Order a baked potato for a side dish. When the waiter brings
> your food, hide the potato, wait a few minutes, and ask the
> waiter for the potato you "never got". When the waiter
> returns with another potato for you, have the first one back
> up on the plate. Repeat later in the meal.
>
>38. Order beef tongue. Make lewd comparisons or comments.
>
>39. Get your date drunk. Talk about their philosophy. Get it on
> tape, and use good judgement in editing to twist their words
> around.
>
>40. Discuss boils and lesions, as if from personal experience.
>
>41. Speak in pig latin throughout the meal (Or ubber-dubber
> language, or just nonsense).
>
>42. Take a break, and go into the restroom. When you return to
> the table, throw a spare pair of underwear on the back of one
> of the chairs. Insist that they just need airing out.
>
>43. If they are paying, order the most expensive thing on the
> menu. Take one bite.
>
>44. Bring 20 or so candles you, and during the meal get up
> and arrange them around the table in a circle. Chant.
>
>45. Save the bones from your meal, and explain that you're taking
> them home to your invalid, senile old mother, because it's a
> lot cheaper than actually feeding her.
>
>46. Order your food by colors and textures. Sculpt.
>
>47. Take a thermos along, and hide it under the table. Order
> coffee, and fill the thermos one cup at a time, taking advantage
> of the free refills.
>
>48. Insist that the waiter cuts your food into little pieces. In
> a simliar vein, insist that he take a bite of everything on
> the plate, to make sure no one poisoned it.
>
>49. Accuse your date of espionage.
>
>50. Make odd allusions to dangerous religious cults.
>
>51. Don't use any verbs during the entire meal.
>
>52. Pass the hat in the restaurant. Use the proceeds (if any) to
> pay the bill.
>
>53. Break wind loudly. Add color commentary. Bow.
>
>54. Feed imaginary friends, or toy dolls you've brought along.
>
>55. Bring a bucket along. Explain that you frequently get ill.
>
>And, finally....
>
>56. Tell them you moderate rec.humor.funny on the nets.
>--
-----------------------------------
Subject: Win Errors (joke)
> Recently the following undocumented error-codes were
> found. MicroSoft forgot to explain them in the manuals,
> so they will be spread via the internet:
>
> WinErr: 001 Windows loaded - System in danger
> WinErr: 002 No Error - Yet
> WinErr: 003 Dynamic linking error - Your mistake is now
> in every file
> WinErr: 004 Erronious error - Nothing is wrong
> WinErr: 005 Multitasking attempted - System confused
> WinErr: 006 Malicious error - Desqview found on drive
> WinErr: 007 System price error - Inadeqaute money spent
> on hardware
> WinErr: 008 Broken window - Watch out for glass fragments
> WinErr: 009 Horrible bug encountered - God knows what has
> happened
> WinErr: 00A Promotional literature overflow - Mailbox full
> WinErr: 00B Inadeqaute disk space - Free at least 50MB
> WinErr: 00C Memory hog error - More RAM needed. More!
> More! More!
> WinErr: 00D Window closed - Do not look outside
> WinErr: 00E Window open - Do not look inside
> WinErr: 00F Unexplained error - Please tell us how this
> happened
> WinErr: 010 Reserved for future mistakes by our developers
> WinErr: 011 Window open - Do not look outside
> WinErr: 012 Window closed - Do not look inside
> WinErr: 013 Unexpected error - Huh ?
> WinErr: 014 Keyboard locked - Try anything you can think of.
> WinErr: 018 Unrecoverable error - System has been destroyed.
> Buy a new one. Old windows licence is not valid
> anymore.
> WinErr: 019 User error - Not our fault. Is Not! Is Not!
> WinErr: 01A Operating system overwritten - Please reinstall
> all your software. We are terribly sorry.
> WinErr: 01B Illegal error - You are not allowed to get this error.
> Next time you will get a penalty for that.
> WinErr: 01C Uncertainty error - Uncertainty may be
> inadeqaute.
> WinErr: 01D System crash - We are unable to figure out
> our own code.
> WinErr: 01E Timing error - Please wait. And wait. And
> wait. And wait.
> WinErr: 01F Reserved for future mistakes of our developers.
> WinErr: 020 Error recording error codes - Remaining errors
> will be lost.
> WinErr: 042 Virus error - A virus has been activated in a
> dos-box. The virus, however, requires Windows.
> All tasks will automaticly be closed and the
> virus will be activated again.
> WinErr: 079 Mouse not found - A mouse driver has not been
> installed. Please click the left mouse button
> to continue.
> WinErr: 103 Error buffer overflow - Too many errors encountered.
> Next error will not be displayed or recorded.
> WinErr: 678 This will end your Windows session. Do you want
> to play another game?
> WinErr: 683 Time out error - Operator fell asleep while waiting
> for the system to complete boot procedure.
> WinErr: 815 Insufficient Memory - Only 50.312.583 Bytes
> available
---------------------------------
Subject: Quotes "foreseeing" the future
> Following are some interesting quotes "foreseeing" technological advances
> summarized by Dwight Stone:
"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
--Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
--Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943
"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best
people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out
the year." --The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957
"But what ... is it good for?" --Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems
Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." --Ken Olson,
president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977
"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a
means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us."
--Western Union internal memo, 1876.
"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a
message sent to nobody in particular?" --David Sarnoff's associates in
response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.
"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a
'C,' the idea must be feasible." --A Yale University management professor in
response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service.
(Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)
"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?"
--H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.
"I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary
Cooper." --Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone
With The Wind."
"A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America
likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make."
--Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies.
"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."
--Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.
"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."
--Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.
"If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature
was full of examples that said you can't do this." --Spencer Silver on the work
that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M "Post-It" Notepads.
"So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built
with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give
it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.'
And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we
don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.'"
--Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and H-P
interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer.
"Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and
the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems
to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools."
--1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's revolutionary rocket
work.
"You want to have consistent and uniform muscle development across all of your
muscles? It can't be done. It's just a fact of life. You just have to accept
inconsistent muscle development as an unalterable condition of weight training."
--Response to Arthur Jones, who solved the "unsolvable" problem by
inventing Nautilus.
"Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're
crazy." --Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill
for oil in 1859.
"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."
--Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.
"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." --Marechal Ferdinand
Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
--Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.
"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction".
--Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872
"The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion
of the wise and humane surgeon". --Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon,
appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873.
"640K ought to be enough for anybody."
-- Bill Gates, 1981
----------------------------
Bill Gates in Heaven
--------------------
(Anonymous author)
Bill Gates died and, much to everyone's surprise, went to Heaven. When
he got there, he had to wait in the reception area.
Heaven's reception area was the size of Massachusetts. There were
literally millions of people milling about, living in tents with nothing to
do all day. Food and water were being distributed from the backs of trucks,
while staffers with clipboards slowly worked their way through the crowd.
Bill lived in a tent for three weeks until, finally, one of the staffers
approached him.
"Hello," said the staffer. "My name is Gabriel and I'll be
your induction coordinator." Now give me your name, last name first."
"Gates, Bill." Gabriel started searching though the sheaf of papers on his
clipboard, looking for Bill's Record of Earthly Works. "What's going on
here?" asked Bill. "Why are all these people here? Where's Saint Peter?
Where are the Pearly Gates?"
"When this Saint Peter business started, it was an easy gig. Only a hundred
or so people died every day, and Peter could handle it all by himself, no
problem. But now there are over five billion people on earth. With that
large a population, ten thousand people die every hour. Over a quarter-million
people a day. So Peter had to franchise the operation. He just sits in the
corporate headquarters and sets policy. Franchisees like me handle the actual
inductions."
Gabriel looked though his paperwork some more, and then continued. "Your
paperwork seems to be in order. And with a background like yours, you'll
be getting a plum job assignment. Heaven is a big operation. You have to
pull your weight around here!" Gabriel took out a triplicate form, had
Bill sign at the bottom, and then tore out the middle copy and handed it
to Bill. "Take this down to induction center #23 and meet up with your
occupational orientator. His name is Abraham."
Bill walked down a muddy trail for ten miles until he came to induction
center #23. He met with Abraham after a mere six-hour wait.
"Heaven is centuries behind in building its data processing infrastructure,"
explained Abraham. "As you've seen, we're still doing everything on
paper. It takes us a week just to process new entries." Your job will be to
supervise Heaven's new data processing center. We're building the
largest computing facility in creation. Half a million computers connected
by a multi-segment fiber optic network, all running into a back-end server
network with a thousand CPUs on a gigabit channel. Fully fault tolerant.
Fully distributed processing. The works."
Bill could barely contain his excitement. "Wow! What a great job! This is
really Heaven!"
"We're just finishing construction, and we'll be starting operations soon.
Would you like to go see the center now?"
"You bet!"
Abraham and Bill caught the shuttle bus and went to Heaven's new data
processing center. It was a truly huge facility, a hundred times bigger
than the Astrodome. Workmen were crawling all over the place, getting
the miles of fiber optic cables properly installed. But the center was
dominated by the computers. Half a million computers, arranged neatly
row-by-row, half a million ....
.... Macintoshes ....
.... all running Claris software! Not a PC in sight! Not a single byte of
Microsoft code!
The thought of spending the rest of eternity using products that he had
spent his whole life working to destroy was too much for Bill. "What
about PCs???" he exclaimed. "What about Windows??? What about Excel???
What about Word???"
"You're forgetting something," said Abraham.
"What's that?" asked Bill plaintively.
"This is Heaven," explained Abraham. "We need a computer system that's
heavenly to use. If you want to build a data processing center based on
PCs running Windows, then ....
.... GO TO HELL!
-------------------------------
Subject: bumper snickers (fwd)
FYE: Put These on your Bumper
Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.
We are born naked, wet and hungry. Then things get worse.
Suicidal twin kills sister by mistake!
Make it idiot proof and someone will make a better idiot.
I'm not a complete idiot, some parts are missing!
He who laughs last thinks slowest!
Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.
Give me ambiguity or give me something else.
A flashlight is a case for holding dead batteries.
Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.
There's too much blood in my caffeine system.
Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off now.
I won't rise to the occasion, but I'll slide over to it.
What is a "free" gift? Aren't all gifts free?
Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy.
Consciousness: that annoying time between naps.
I used to have a handle on life, then it broke.
Don't take life too seriously, you won't get out alive.
I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it.
Better to understand a little than to misunderstand a lot.
Where there's a will, I want to be in it.
We have enough youth, how about a fountain of SMART?
Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
"Criminal Lawyer" is a redundancy.
-----------------------
Yo Guys! Here are the latest Pentium jokes. Enjoy!
>
> While we're on the subject of Pentium bugs!
>
> In case you haven't heard, the Pentium chip has a bug in it
> that gives incorrect answers to some fairly simple division problems.
>
>
> ----- Begin Included Message -----
>
> [forwards removed]
>
> Q&A: THE PENTIUM FDIV BUG
>
> Q: How many Pentium designers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
> A: 1.99904274017, but that's close enough for non-technical people.
>
> Q: What do you get when you cross a Pentium PC with a research grant?
> A: A mad scientist.
>
> Q: What's another name for the "Intel Inside" sticker they put on
> Pentiums?
> A: The warning label.
>
> Q: What do you call a series of FDIV instructions on a Pentium?
> A: Successive approximations.
>
> Q: Complete the following word analogy: Add is to Subtract as Multiply
> is to:
> 1) Divide
> 2) ROUND
> 3) RANDOM
> 4) On a Pentium, all of the above
> A: Number 4.
>
> Q: What algorithm did Intel use in the Pentium's floating point divider?
> A: "Life is like a box of chocolates." (Source: F. Gump of Intel)
>
> Q: Why didn't Intel call the Pentium the 586?
> A: Because they added 486 and 100 on the first Pentium and got
> 585.999983605.
>
> Q: According to Intel, the Pentium conforms to the IEEE standards 754
> and 854 for floating point arithmetic. If you fly in aircraft
> designed using a Pentium, what is the correct pronunciation of "IEEE"?
> A: Aaaaaaaiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeee!
>
>
> TOP TEN NEW INTEL SLOGANS FOR THE PENTIUM
> - --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 9.9999973251 It's a FLAW, Dammit, not a Bug
> 8.9999163362 It's Close Enough, We Say So
> 7.9999414610 Nearly 300 Correct Opcodes
> 6.9999831538 You Don't Need to Know What's Inside
> 5.9999835137 Redefining the PC -- and Mathematics As Well
> 4.9999999021 We Fixed It, Really
> 3.9998245917 Division Considered Harmful
> 2.9991523619 Why Do You Think They Call It *Floating* Point?
> 1.9999103517 We're Looking for a Few Good Flaws
> 0.9999999998 The Errata Inside
>
---------------------------------------------------
KABINDA, ZAIRE----In a move IBM offices are hailing as a major step in the
company's ongoing worldwide telecommunications revolution, M'wana Ndeti, a
member of Zaire's Bantu tribe, used an IBM global uplink network modem
yesterday to crush a nut.
Ndeti, who spent 20 minutes trying to open the nut by hand, easily cracked
it open by smashing it repeatedly with the powerful modem,
"I could not crush the nut by myself," said the 47-year-old Ndeti, who added
the savory nut to a thick, peanut-based soup minutes later. "With IBM's
help, I was able to break it." Ndeti discovered the nut-breaking, 28.8 V.34
modem yesterday, when IBM was shooting a commercial in his southwestern
Zaire village. During a break in shooting, which shows African villagers
eagerly teleconferencing via computer with Japanese schoolchildren, Ndeti
snuck onto the set and took the modem, which he believed would serve well as
a "smashing" utensil.
IBM officials were not surprised the longtime computer giant was able to
provide Ndeti with practical solutions to his everyday problems. "Our
telecommunications systems offer people all over the world global networking
solutions that fit their specific needs," said Herbert Ross, IBM's director
of marketing. "Whether you're a nun cloistered in an Italian abbey or an
Aborigine in Australia's Great Sandy Desert, IBM has the ideas to get you
where you want to go today."
According to Ndeti, of the modem's many powerful features, most impressive
was its hard plastic casing, which early sustained several minutes of
vigorous pounding against a large stone. "I put nut on rock, and I hit with
modem," Ndeti said. "The modem did not break. It is a good modem."
Ndeti was so impressed with the modem that he purchased a new,
state-of-the-art IBM workstation, completed with a PowerPC 601
microprocessor, a quad-speed internal CD-ROM drive and three 16-bit ethernet
networking connectors. The tribesman has already made good use of the
computer system, fashioning a gazelle trap out of its wires, a boat anchor
out of the monitor and a crude but effective weapon from its mouse.
"This is a good computer," said Ndeti, carving up a just-captured gazelle
with the computer's flat, sharp internal processing device. "I am using
every part of it. I will cook this gazelle on the keyboard." Hours later,
Ndeti capped off his delicious gazelle dinner by smoking the computer's
200-page owner's manual.
IBM spokespeople praised Ndeti's choice of computers. "We are pleased that
the Bantu people are turning to IBM for their business needs," said company
CEO William Allaire. "From Kansas City to Kinshasa, IBM is bringing the
work closer together. Our cutting-edge technology is truly creating a
global village."
Robert L. Bettinger, University of California, Davis, CA.
------------------------------------
12 Actual Announcements Taken From Church Bulletins
1. Don't let worry kill you -- let the church help.
2. Thursday night -- Potluck supper. Prayer and medication to follow.
3. Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our church and community.
4. For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a
nursery downstairs.
5. The rosebud on the altar this morning is to announce the birth of
David Alan Belzer, the sin of Rev. and Mrs. Julius Belzer.
6. This afternoon there will be a meeting in the South and North ends of
the church. Children will be baptized at both ends.
7. Tuesday at 4:00 pm there will be an ice cream
social. All ladies giving milk will please come early.
8. Wednesday, the ladies Liturgy Society will meet. Mrs. Jones will sing
"Put Me In My Little Bed" accompanied by the pastor.
9. Thursday at 5:00pm there will be a meeting of the Little Mothers Club.
All wishing to become little mothers, please see the minister in his
study.
10. This being Easter Sunday, we will ask Mrs. Lewis to come forward and
lay an egg on the altar.
11. The service will close with "Little Drops of Water". One of the
ladies will start quietly and the rest of the congregation will join in.
12. Next Sunday a special collection will be taken to defray the cost of
the new carpet. All those wishing to do something on the new carpet will
come forward and do so.
------------------------------
WHAT IF PEOPLE BOUGHT CARS LIKE THEY BUY COMPUTERS?
General Motors doesn't have a "help line" for people who don't know how to
drive, because people don't buy cars like they buy computers -- but imagine
if they did . . .
HELPLINE: "General Motors HelpLine, how can I help you?" CUSTOMER: "I got
in my car and closed the door, and nothing happened!" HELPLINE: "Did you
put the key in the ignition slot and turn it?" CUSTOMER: "What's an
ignition?" HELPLINE: "It's a starter motor that draws current from your
battery and turns over the engine." CUSTOMER: "Ignition? Motor? Battery?
Engine? How come I have to know all of these technical terms just to use
my car?"
HELPLINE: "General Motors HelpLine, how can I help you?" CUSTOMER: "My car
ran fine for a week, and now it won't go anywhere!" HELPLINE: "Is the gas
tank empty?" CUSTOMER: "Huh? How do I know!?" HELPLINE: "There's a little
gauge on the front panel, with a needle, and markings from 'E' to 'F.'
Where is the needle pointing?" CUSTOMER: "It's pointing to 'E.' What does
that mean?" HELPLINE: "It means that you have to visit a gasoline vendor,
and purchase some more gasoline. You can install it yourself, or pay the
vendor to install it for you." CUSTOMER: "What!?" I paid $12,000. for
this car! Now you tell me that I have to keep buying more components? I
want a car that comes with everything built in!"
HELPLINE: "General Motors HelpLine, how can I help you?" CUSTOMER: "Your
cars suck!" HELPLINE: "What's wrong?" CUSTOMER: "It crashed, that's what
went wrong!" HELPLINE: "What were you doing?" CUSTOMER: "I wanted to run
faster, so I pushed the accelerator pedal all the way to the floor. It
worked for a while, and then it crashed -- and now it won't start!"
HELPLINE: "It's your responsibility if you misuse the product. What do you
expect us to do about it?" CUSTOMER: "I want you to send me one of the
latest version that doesn't crash anymore!"
HELPLINE: "General Motors HelpLine, how can I help you?" CUSTOMER: "Hi! I
just bought my first car, and I chose your car because it has automatic
transmission, cruise control, power steering, power brakes, and power door
locks." HELPLINE: "Thanks for buying our car. How can I help you?"
CUSTOMER: "How do I work it?" HELPLINE: "Do you know how to drive?"
CUSTOMER: "Do I know how to what?" HELPLINE: "Do you know how to drive?"
CUSTOMER: "I'm not a technical person! I just want to go places in my car!"
--------
Subject: Engineers and accountants (fwd)
Three engineers and three accountants are traveling by train to a
conference. At the station, the three accountants each buy tickets
and watch as the three engineers buy only a single ticket.
"How are three people going to travel on only one ticket?" asks an
accountant.
"Watch and you'll see," answers an engineer.
They all board the train. The accountants take their respective
seats but all three engineers cram into a restroom and close the door
behind them. Shortly after the train has departed, the conductor
comes around collecting tickets. He knocks on the restroom door and says,
"Ticket, please." The door opens just a crack and a single arm emerges with
a ticket in hand. The conductor takes it and moves on.
The accountants saw this and agreed it was quite a clever idea. So
after the conference, the accountants decide to copy the engineers
on the return trip and save some money (being clever with money, and
all that). When they get to the station, they buy a single ticket for
the return trip. To their astonishment, the engineers don't buy a ticket
at all.
"How are you going to travel without a ticket?" says one perplexed
accountant.
"Watch and you'll see," answers an engineer.
When they board the train the three accountants cram into a restroom
and the three engineers cram into another one nearby. The train departs.
Shortly afterward, one of the engineers leaves his restroom and
walks over to the restroom where the accountants are hiding. He knocks on
the door and says, Ticket, please."
------------------------------
>> Diary of an AOL User.
>>
>>July 18 - I just tried to connect to America Online. I've heard it is
>>the best online service I can get. They even included a free disk! I'd
>>better hold onto it incase they don't ever send me anther one! I
>>can't connect. I don't know what is wrong.
>>
>>July 19 - Some guy at the tech support center says my computer needs a
>>modem. I don't see why. He's just trying to cheat me. How dumb does he
>>think I am?
>>
>>July 22 - I bought the modem. I couldn't figure out where it goes. It
>>wouldn't fit in the monitor or the printer. I'm confused.
>>
>>July 23 - I finally got the modem in and hooked up. that nine year old
>>next door did it for me. But it still don't work. I cant get online.
>>
>>July 25 - That nine year old kid next door hooked me up to America
>>Online for me. He's so smart. I told the kid he was a prodigy. But he
>>says that's just another service. What a modest kid. He's so smart and
>>he does these services for people. Anyway he's smarter then the jerks
>>who sold me the modem. They didn't even tell me about communications
>>software. Bet they didn't know. And why do they put two telephone jack
>>holes in the back of a modem when you only need one? And why do they
>>have one labeled phone when you are not suppose to hook it to the phone
>>jack on the wall? I thought the dial tone sounded funny! Boy, are modem
>>makers dumb! But the kid figured it out by the sound.
>>
>>July 26 - What's the internet? I thought I was on America Online. Not
>>this internet thing. I'm confused.
>>
>>July 27 - The nine year old kid next door showed me how to use this
>>America Online stuff. I told him he must be a genius. He says that he is
>>compared to me. Maybe he's not so modest after all.
>>
>>July 28 - I tried to use chat today. I tried to talk into my computer
>>but nothing happened. maybe I need to buy a microphone.
>>
>>July 29 - I found this thing called usenet. I got out of it because I'm
>>connected to America Online not usenet.
>>
>>July 30 - These people in this usenet thing keep using capital letters.
>>How do they do that? I never figured out how to type capital letters.
>>Maybe they have a different type of keyboard.
>>
>>JULY 31 - I CALLED THE COMPUTER MAKER I BOUGHT IT FROM TO COMPLAIN
>>ABOUT NOT HAVING A CAPITOL LETTER KEY. THE TECH SUPPORT GUY SAID IT WAS
>>THIS CAPS LOCK KEY. WHY DIDN'T THEY SPELL IT OUT? I TOLD HIM I GOT A
>>CHEAP KEYBOARD AND WANTED A BETTER ONE. AND ONE OF MY SHIFT KEYS ISNT
>>THE SAME SIZE AS THE OTHER. HE SAID THATS A STANDARD. I TOLD HIM I
>>DIDN'T WANT A STANDARD KEYBOARD BUT ANOTHER BRAND. I MUST HAVE HAD AN
>>IMPORTANT COMPLAINT BECAUSE I HEARD HIM TELL THE OTHER SUPPORT GUYS
>>TO LISTEN IN ON OUR CONVERSATION.
>>
>>AUGUST 1 - I FOUND THIS THING CALLED THE USENET ORACLE. IT SAYS THAT IT
>>CAN ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS I ASK IT. I SENT IT 44 SEPARATE QUESTIONS ABOUT
>>THE INTERNET. I HOPE IT RESPONDS SOON.
>>
>>AUGUST 2 - I FOUND A GROUP CALLED REC.HUMOR. I DECIDED TO POST THIS JOKE
>>ABOUT THE CHICKEN THAT CROSSED THE ROAD. TO GET TO THE OTHER SIDE! HA!
>>HA! I WASNT SURE I POSTED IT RIGHT SO I POSTED IT 56 MORE TIMES.
>>
>>AUGUST 3 - I KEEP HEARING ABOUT THE WORLD WIDE WEB. I DON'T NOW SPIDERS
>>GREW THAT LARGE.
>>
>>AUGUST 4 - THE ORACLE RESPONDED TO MY QUESTIONS TODAY. GEEZ IT WAS RUDE.
>>I WAS SO ANGRY THAT I POSTED AN ANGRY MESSAGE ABOUT IT TO
>>REC.HUMOR.ORACLE. I WASNT SURE IF I POSTED RIGHT SO I POSTED IT 22 MORE
>>TIMES.
>>
>>AUGUST 5 - SOMEONE TOLD ME TO READ THE FAQ. GEEZ THEY DIDN'T HAVE TO USE
>>PROFANITY.
>>
>>AUGUST 6 - SOMEONE ELSE TOLD ME TO STOP SHOUTING IN ALL MY MESSAGES.
>>WHAT A STUPID JERK. IM NOT SHOUTING! IM NOT EVEN TALKING! JUST TYPING!
>>HOW CAN THEY LET THESE RUDE JERKS GO ON THE INTERNET?
>>
>>August 7 - Why have a Caps Lock key if you're not suppose to use it? Its
>>probably an extra feature that costs more money.
>>
>>August 8 - I just read this post called make money fast. I'm so exited.
>>I'm going to make lots of money. I followed his instructions and posted
>>it to every newsgroup I could find.
>>
>>August 9 - I just made my signature file. Its only 6 pages long. I will
>>have to work on it some more.
>>
>>August 10 - I just looked at a group called alt.aol.sucks. I read a few
>>posts and I really believe that aol should be wiped off the face of the
>>earth. I wonder what an aol is.
>>
>>August 11 - I was asking where to find some information about something.
>> Some guy told me to check out ftp.netcom.com. I've looked and looked
>>but I can't find that group.
>>
>>August 12 - I sent a post to every usenet group on the Internet asking
>>where the ftp.netcom.com is. hopefully someone will help. I cant ask the
>>kid next door. His parents said that when he comes back from my house
>>he's laughing so hard he can't eat or sleep or do his homework. So they
>>wont let him come over anymore. I do have a great sense of humor. I
>>don't know why the rec.humor group didn't like my chicken joke. Maybe
>>they only like dirty stuff. Some people sent me posts about my 56 posts
>>of the joke and they used bad words.
>>
>>August 13 - I sent another post to every usenet group on the Internet
>>asking where the ftp.netcom.com is. I had forgot yesterday to include my
>>new signature file which is only 8 pages long. I know everyone will want
>>to read my favorite poem so I included it. I'm also going to add that
>>short story I like.
>>
>>August 14 - Some guy suspended my account because of what I was doing. I
>>told him I don't have an account at his bank. He's so dumb.
>>
>>
-----------------------
> How things would be different if Microsoft was headquartered in South
> Georgia:
>
> 1. Their #1 product would be Microsoft Winders
> 2. Instead of an hourglass icon you'd get an empty beer bottle
> 3. Occasionally you'd bring up a window that was covered with a hefty
> bag
> 4. Dialog boxes would give you the choice of "Ahh-ight" or "Naw"
> 5. Instead of "Ta-Da!", the opening sound would be Dueling Banjos
> 6. The "Recycle Bin" in Winders '95 would be an outhouse
> 7. Whenever you pulled up the Sound Player you'd hear a digitized
> drunk redneck yelling "Freebird!"
> 8. Instead of "Start Me Up", the Winders '95 theme song would be
> Achy-Breaky Heart
> 9. PowerPoint would be named "ParPawnt"
> 10. Microsoft's programming tools would be "Vishul Basic" and Vishul
> C++"
> 11. Winders 95 logo would incorporate the Confederate Flag
> 12. Microsoft Word would be just that: one word
> 13. Instead of latte carts we'd have grits carts
> 14. New Shutdown WAV: "Y'all come back now, Yah hear?!"
> 15. Instead of VP, Microsoft big shots would be called "Cuz"
> 16. Hardware could be repaired using parts from an old Trans Am
> 17. Microsoft Office replaced with Micr'sawft Henhouse
> 18. Four words: Daisy Duke Screen Saver
> 19. Well, the first thing you know, old Bill's a billionaire
> 20. Spreadsheet software would include examples to inventory dead
> cars in your front yard
> 21. Flight Simulator replaced by Tractor pull Simulator
> 22. Microsoft CEO: Bubba Gates
------------------
"Van Gogh's Relatives"
The grandfather who moved to Yugoslavia ... - U. Gogh
The brother who accidentally bleached all his clothes white ...
- Hue Gogh
The real obnoxious brother ...
- Please Gogh
The brother who ate prunes ...
- Gotta Gogh
The uncle who worked at a convenience store ... - Stop N. Gogh
His dizzy aunt ...
- Verti Gogh
His domineering aunt...
- Vira Gogh
The cousin who moved to Illinois ... - Chicah Gogh
His magician uncle ...
- Wherediddy Gogh
The cousin who lived in Mexico ...
- Amee Gogh
He also had a Filipino relative ... - Grin Gogh
The nephew that drove a stage coach ... - Wells Far Gogh
The uncle who was constipated ...
- Cant Gogh
The aunt who loved ballroom dancing ... - Tan Gogh
His ornithologist uncle ...
- Flamin Gogh
His nephew, the Freudian psychoanalyist ... - E. Gogh
His cousin who loved tropical fruits ... - Mang Gogh
And he had an aunt who taught the power of positive thinking ...
- Whey Too Gogh
His bouncy young nephew ...
- Poe Gogh
His Disco-loving sister ...
- Go Gogh
His Italian uncle ...
- Day Gogh
And his niece, who's been traveling the U.S. in a van ...
- Winnie Bay Gogh
----------------------------
Twas the night before implementation and all through the house,
not a program was working, not even a browse.
The programmers hung by their tubes in despair,
with hopes that a miracle soon would be there.
The users were nestled all snug in their beds,
while visions of inquiries danced in their heads.
When out in the machine room there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my desk to see what was the matter.
And what to wondering eyes should appear,
but a super programmer (with a six-pack of beer).
His resume glowed with experience so rare,
he turned out great code with a bit-pusher's flair.
More rapid than eagles, his programs they came,
and he cursed and muttered and called them by name.
On Update! On Add! On Inquiry! On Delete!
On Batch Jobs! On Closings! On Functions Complete!
His eyes were glased over, fingers nimble and lean,
from weekends and nights in front of a screen.
A wink of his eye and a twitch of his head,
soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
turning specs into code; then turned with a jerk.
And laying his finger upon the "ENTER" key,
the system came up and worked perfectly.
The updates updated; the deletes, they deleted,
the inquiries inquired, the closings completed.
He tested each whistle, and tested each bell,
with nary a bomb, and all had gone well.
The system was finished, the tests were concluded,
the users' last changes were even included.
And the user exclaimed with snarl and a taunt,
"It's just what I asked for, but not what I want!"
- Anonymous
-------------------------
DILBERT'S LAWS OF WORK
1. If you can't get your work done in the first 24 hours, work
nights.
2. A pat on the back is only a few inches from a kick in the butt.
3. Don't be irreplaceable, if you can't be replaced, you can't be
promoted.
4. It doesn't matter what you do, it only matters what you say
you've done and what you say you're going to do.
5. After any salary raise, you will have less money at the end of
the month than you did before.
6. The more crap you put up with, the more crap you are going to
get.
7. You can go anywhere you want if you look serious and carry a
clipboard.
8. Eat one live toad the first thing in the morning and nothing
worse will happen to you the rest of the day.
9. When the bosses talk about improving productivity, they are
never talking about themselves.
10. If at first you don't succeed, try again. Then quit. No use
being a fool about it.
11. There will always be beer cans rolling on the floor of your car
when the boss asks for a ride home from the office.
12. Keep your boss's boss off your boss's back.
13. Everything can be filed under "miscellaneous."
14. To err is human, to forgive is not our policy.
15. Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work
he/she is supposed to be doing.
16. Important letters that contain no errors will develop errors in
the mail.
17. If you are good, you will be assigned all the work. If you are
really good, you will get out of it.
18. You are always doing something marginal when the boss drops by
your desk.
19. People who go to conferences are the ones who shouldn't.
20. If it wasn't for the last minute, nothing would get done.
21. At work, the authority of a person is inversely proportional to
the number of pens that person is carrying.
22. When you don't know what to do, walk fast and look worried.
23. Following the rules will not get the job done.
24. Getting the job done is no excuse for not following the rules.
25. When confronted by a difficult problem you can solve it more
easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone
Ranger handle this?"
26. No matter how much you do, you never do enough.
27. The last person that quit or was fired will be held responsible
for everything that goes wrong.
--------------------------
Physics Story
A true story. A thermodynamics professor had written a take home exam
for his graduate students. It had one question:
"Is hell exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with a proof."
Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law or
some variant. One student, however wrote the following:
First, we postulate that if souls exist, then they must have some mass.
If they do, then a mole of souls can also have a mass. So, at what rate
are souls moving into hell and at what rate are souls leaving? I think that
we can safely assume that once a soul gets to hell, it will not leave.
Therefore, no souls are leaving.
As for souls entering hell, lets look at the different religions that exist
in
the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a
member of their religion, you will go to hell. Since, there are more
than one of these religions and people do not belong to more than one
religion, we can project that all people and all souls go to hell.
With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of
souls in hell to increase exponentially.
Now, we look at the rate of change in volume in hell. Boyle's Law states
that in order for the temperature and pressure in hell to stay the same, the
ratio of the mass of souls and volume needs to stay constant.
So, if hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls
enter hell, then the temperature and pressure in hell will increase
until all hell breaks loose.
Of course, if hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls
in hell, than the temperature and pressure will drop until hell freezes
over.
It was not revealed what grade the student got.
-----------------------------
A national Geographic photographer noticed two cannibals following an
elephant through the jungle.
Each time the elephant would drop a stool, the cannibals would quickly
consume as much of it as they could.
The photographer asked them why they were doing that, explaining that he
thought they ate people.
They replied that they do eat people. They further explained that three
days before they had eaten a lawyer and were still trying to get the taste
out of their mouths.
------------------
Three guys in a bar; a Texan, a Californian, and a Seattlite. They
drink. They get crazy. The Texan grabs a bottle of Tequila, unscrews
the top, takes a good swig, and throws the bottle into the air. He
then pulls out a .45 caliber pistol and shoots the bottle, spraying
Tequila all over everything. The other patrons at the bar shout "hey
why'd you waste that?!" The Texan says, "Hell, it's just Tequila,
where I come from, we got lotsa Tequila."
The Californian, not to be outdone, whips out a corkscrew and opens
a bottle of wine, pours a bit into a glass, swirls the glass, and
sips it, then throws the bottle in the air, and shoots it with a
little silver pistol. The patrons again express their displeasure
and astonishment at such a waste of a bottle of wine. The
Californian says, "Napa Valley, we got lots of great wine down
there."
The Seattlite borrows the corkscrew, pops the top off a bottle of
Red Hook and downs the whole bottle. he throws the empty bottle into
the air, shoots the Californian and simultaneously catches the
falling bottle. Now the people are screaming, "Why'd you do
that???!!!!" The Seattlite replies, "We got lots of Californians,
but I got to recycle this bottle."
------------------------------
>
> I work part-time as a teacher of family doctors. The program
> provides training on psychiatric disorders and emphasizes the
> importance of emotional support. The new doctors are given plenty of
> time in clinic to visit with their patients and learn about their
> challenges.
> One of our interns who has never lived in Utah and knows nothing
> about Mormons is still struggling to understand the cultural
> climate here. Last week he was interviewing a new patient and
> stumbled on what he thought was a raging psychosis.
>
> Doctor: "Well, Mrs. Olsen, we've talked about your high blood pressure
> and your medications. Are you experiencing any particular stress in your
> life?"
> Patient: "Oh, yes! It's the Sunbeams. They're driving me crazy."
> Doctor (very surprised): "The sun beams?"
> Patient: "Yes. I've never had trouble with them before, but this group
> won't sit still. They bounce all over the room, and run out the door
> and down the hall."
> Doctor (reaching for a pen): "Have you told anyone about this?"
> Patient: "Of course. I told the president."
> Doctor: "Really! What did the president tell you?"
> Patient: "She said Sunbeams are like that. I'm just going to have
> to learn to deal with them."
> Doctor (concerned that he may be missing something): "I know people
> who are sensitive to sun beams. Do they cause you a rash or
> anything?"
> Patient (confused): "A rash? No."
> Doctor: "What's the biggest problem they're creating?"
> Patient: "It's the noise. They just won't quit talking."
> Doctor (astonished): "The sun beams are talking to you?"
> Patient: "Well, yes. But mostly they talk to each other."
> Doctor (scribbling furiously in the chart): "I see. Can anyone else hear
> them talking?"
> Patient (after a moment of stunned silence): "You're not LDS, are you?"
>
-------------------------------------
>>>
>>THE STRANDED ENGINEER
>> =======================
>> There was this male engineer, on a cruise ship in the Caribbean for the
>> first time. It was wonderful, the experience of his life. He was being
>> waited on hand an foot. But, it did not last. A Hurricane came up
>> unexpectedly. The ship went down almost instantly. The man found
>>himself, he knew not how, swept up on the shore of an island. There was
nothing
>>else anywhere to be seen. No person, no supplies, nothing. The man looked
>> around. There were some bananas and coconuts, but that was it. He was
>> desperate, and forlorn, but decided to make the best of it. So for the
>>next four months he ate bananas, drank coconut juice and mostly looked to
>>the sea mightily for a ship to come to his rescue. One day, as he was lying
>>on the beach stroking his beard and looking for a ship, he spotted
>>movement out of the corner of his eye. Could it be true, was it a ship? No,
>>from around the corner of the island came this rowboat. In it was the most
>> gorgeous woman he had ever seen, or at least seen in 4 months. She was
>> tall, tanned, and her blond hair flowing in the sea breeze gave her an
>> almost ethereal quality. She spotted him also as he was waving and
>>yelling and screaming to get her attention. She rowed her boat towards him.
>>
>> In disbelief, he asked, "Where did you come from? How did you get
>>here"?
>> She said, "I rowed from the other side of the island. I landed on this
>> island when my cruise ship sank"
>>
>> "Amazing", he said, "I didn't know anyone else had survived. How many
>>of you are there? Where, did you get the rowboat? You must have been
>>really lucky to have a rowboat wash-up with you?"
>> "It is only me", she said, "and the rowboat didn't wash up, nothing
>>else did."
>> "Well then", said the man, "how did you get the rowboat?"
>> "I made the rowboat out of raw material that I found on the island,
>>replied the woman. The oars were whittled from Gum tree branches, I wove the
>>bottom from Palm branches, and the sides and stern came from a Eucalyptus
>>tree".
>> "But, but, asked the man, what about tools and hardware, how did you do
>> that?"
>> "Oh, no problem, replied the woman, on the south side of the island
>>there is a very unusual strata of alluvial rock exposed. I found that If I
>> fired it to a certain temperature in my kiln, it melted into forgeable
>> ductile iron. I used that for tools, and used the tools to make the
>> hardware. But, enough of that, she said. Where do you live?"
>>
>> At last the man was forced to confess that he had been sleeping on the
>>beach.
>> "Well, let's row over to my place, she said."
>>
>> So they both got into the rowboat and left for her side of island.
>>The
>> woman easily rowed them around to a wharf that led to the approach to
>>her
>> place. She tied up the rowboat with a beautifully woven hemp rope. They
>> walked up a stone walk and around a Palm tree, there stood an exquisite
>> bungalow painted in blue and white.
>>
>> "It's not much, she said, but I call it home. Sit down please, would
>>you like to have a drink?"
>> "No, said the man, one more coconut juice and I will puke."
>> "It won't be coconut juice, the woman replied, I have a still, how
>>about a Pina Colada?"
>>
>> Trying to hide his continued amazement, the man accepted, and they sat
>>down on her couch to talk. After a while, and they had exchanged their
>> stories, the woman asked,
>>
>> "Tell me, have you always had a beard?"
>> "No", the man replied, "I was clean shaven all of my life, and even on
>>the cruise ship".
>> "Well if you would like to shave, there is a man's razor upstairs in
>>the cabinet in the bathroom."
>>
>> So, the man, no longer questioning anything, went upstairs to the bath
>> room. There in the cabinet was a razor made from a bone handle, two
>>shells honed to a hollow ground edge were fastened on to its end inside of a
>> swivel mechanism. The man shaved, showered and went back down stairs.
>>
>> "You look great, said the woman, I think I will go up and slip into
>> something more comfortable."
>>
>> So she did. And, the man continued to sip his Pina Colada. After a
>>short time, the woman returned wearing fig leafs strategically positioned
and
>> smelling faintly of gardenia.
>>
>> "Tell me, she asked, we have both been out here for a very long time
>>with no companionship. You know what I mean. Have you been lonely, is there
>> anything that you really miss? Something that all men and woman need.
>> Something that it would be really nice to have right now."
>>
>> "Yes there is, the man replied, as he moved closer to the woman while
>> fixing a winsome gaze upon her, "Tell me ... Do you happen to have an
>> Internet connection?"
>>
------------------------------
ACTUAL BUMPER STICKERS:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I love cats ... they taste like chicken
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Out of my mind. Back in five minutes.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Cover me. I'm changing lanes.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in public
schools
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Happiness is a belt-fed weapon
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Laugh alone and the world thinks you're an idiot.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sometimes I wake up grumpy; Other times I let her sleep
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather ... ... Not
screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car ...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Tow-ers will be violated
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Montana -- At least our cows are sane!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The gene pool could use a little chlorine.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I didn't fight my way to the top of the food chain to be a
vegetarian.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't blame me, I'm from Uranus.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Your kid may be an honor student but you're still an IDIOT!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
It's as BAD as you think ... they ARE out to get you.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
When you do a good deed, get a receipt, in case heaven is like
the IRS.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Smile, it's the second best thing you can do with your lips.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Friends don't let Friends drive Naked.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Wink, I'll do the rest!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I took an IQ test and the results were negative.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
When there's a will, I want to be in it!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Okay, who stopped the payment on my reality check?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
If we aren't supposed to eat animals, why are they made of meat?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Time is the best teacher; Unfortunately it kills all its
students!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
It's lonely at the top, but you eat better.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Reality? That's where the pizza delivery guy comes from!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Forget about World Peace.....Visualize Using Your Turn Signal !
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Warning: Dates in Calendar are closer than they appear.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Give me ambiguity or give me something else.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
We are born naked, wet and hungry. Then things get worse.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Make it idiot proof and someone will make a better idiot.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
He/She who laughs last thinks slowest
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Very funny, Scotty. Now beam down my clothes.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be
happy.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Consciousness: that annoying time between naps.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
i souport publik edekasion
----------------------------------------------------------------------
We are Microsoft. Resistance Is Futile. You Will Be Assimilated.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Be nice to your kids. They'll choose your nursing home.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3 kinds of people: those who can count & those who can't.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Why is "abbreviation" such a long word?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ever stop to think, and forget to start again?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie!'... till you can
find a rock.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2 + 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I like you, but I wouldn't want to see you working with subatomic
particles.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I killed a 6-pack just to watch it die.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------
WINDOWS PROBLEM:
I'm wondering if anybody can help me with a problem I'm having
on my computer at work. I recently upgraded to Windows 95 from
Windows 3.1416, and I've noticed that when I'm running WordWanker
Version 2.0.90.4 (which I upgraded from 1.8.4.7) in conjunction with
FaxBuddy! Version 4.2.4.3.7857, everything works fine for about the
first 25 minutes, but then if I try to type a subordinating
conjunction followed by any form of the verb forment, the keyboard
locks up permanently and the hard drive makes a whimpering sound and
all current data is erased, including data in computers several
cubicles away. I have tried everything, including reformatting my
hard drive and exorcism. Please Help!
REPLY:
I had exactly the same problem, after a lot of trial and error
I found out that if you click on the Windows Control Panel, then on
Command Center, then on Reset Variables, then on Establish New
Parameters, then on Define Standards, Then on Modify Criteria then on
Effectuate Paradigms, then on the little icon that says Do Not Ever
Click On This Little Icon, then go down to the box that says Enter New
Value, and type in 2038, you will still have the same problem. This
is why I started using heroin.
--------------------------
Things Parents Have Learned from Their Children
There is no such thing as child-proofing your house
If you spray hair spray on dust bunnies and run over them with roller
blades, they can ignite
A 4 years-old's voice is louder than 200 adults in a crowded
restaurant
If you hook a dog leash over a ceiling fan the motor is not strong
enough to rotate a 42 pound boy wearing pound puppy underwear and a
superman cape
It is strong enough however to spread paint on all four walls of a
20 by 20 foot room
Baseballs make marks on ceilings
You should not throw baseballs up when the ceiling fan is on
When using the ceiling fan as a bat you have to throw the ball up a
few times before you get a hit
A ceiling fan can hit a baseball a long way.
The glass in windows (even double pane) doesn't stop a baseball hit by a
ceiling fan
When you hear the toilet flush and the words "Uh-oh;" it's already too
late
Brake fluid mixed with Clorox makes smoke, and lots of it
A six year old can start a fire with a flint rock even though a 36
year old man says they can only do it in the movies
A magnifying glass can start a fire even on an overcast day
If you use a waterbed as home plate while wearing baseball shoes it
does not leak - it explodes
A king size waterbed holds enough water to fill a 2000 sq foot house 4
inches deep
Legos will pass through the digestive tract of a four year old
Duplos will not
Play Dough and Microwave should never be used in the same sentence
Super glue is forever
McGyver can teach us many things we don't want to know
Ditto Tarzan
No matter how much Jello you put in a swimming pool you still can't walk
on water
Pool filters do not like Jello
VCR's do not eject PB&J sandwiches even though TV commercials show they
do
Garbage bags do not make good parachutes
Marbles in gas tanks make lots of noise when driving
You probably do not want to know what that odor is
Always look in the oven before you turn it on
Plastic toys do not like ovens
The fire department in San Diego has at least a 5 minute response time
The spin cycle on the washing machine does not make earth worms dizzy
It will however make cats dizzy
Cats throw up twice their body weight when dizzy
Quiet does not necessarily mean don't worry
A good sense of humor will get you through most problems in life
(unfortunately, mostly in retrospect)
--------------------------------------
> The Top 15 Signs Your Webmaster
> is in a Cult
>
> 15.Every link seems to take you to www.amway.com.
>
> 14.Repetition of same banner ads: Stoli, Mott's...Stoli, Mott's...
>
> 13.He brings twenty-three wives to the office Holiday Party.
>
> 12.Instead of counting up visitors, your site counts down days
> to the apocalypse.
>
> 11.Suddenly your travel agency's site is featuring inter-planetary
> excursions for comet watching and one-way tickets to Guyana.
>
> 10.His home page says, "Best viewed from the Mothership."
>
> 9.Your website's "Hall of Fame" inductees required to do stint
> handing out flowers at airport.
>
> 8.Your website is honored as the David Koresh Fan Club's "Site of
> the Day."
>
> 7.She has 38 roommates, yet is oddly stress-free.
>
> 6.Insists that Sabbath actually begins when "X-files" ends.
>
> 5.Frequently mutters about the "Prophet Steve Jobs" returning to
> rescue the true believers.
>
> 4.Not only does he understand Unix, he *IS* one.
>
> 3.Big "N" on your browser replaced by spinning head of Charles Manson.
>
> 2.He only answers to the name, "Doe-bert."
>
> and the Number 1 Sign Your Webmaster is in a Cult...
>
> 1.Ugly clothes; insufficient diet; lack of sleep; goofy haircut;
> lives in a mansion; has many followe... Hey, wait a minute! That's
> Bill Gates!!
----------
> A radiologist and a physicist are sitting next to each other
> on a long flight from LA to NY. The radiologist leans over
> to the physicist and asks if he would like to play a fun game.
> The physicist just wants to take a nap, so he politely declines
> and rolls over to the window to catch a few winks.
>
> The radiologist persists and explains that the game is real
> easy and a lotta fun. He explains "I ask you a question, and if
> you don't know the answer, you pay me $5. Then you ask
> me a question, and if I don't know the answer, I'll pay you
> $5.". Again, the physicist politely declines and tries to get to
> sleep. The radiologist, now somewhat agitated, says, "OK,
> if you don't know the answer you pay me $5, and if I don't
> know the answer, I'll pay you $50!" This catches the
> physicist's attention, and he sees no end to this torment unless
> he plays, so he agrees to the game. The radiologist asks the
> first question. "What's the distance from the earth to the
> moon?" The physicist doesn't say a word, but reaches into his
> wallet, pulls out a five dollar bill and hands it to the
> radiologist. Now, it's the physicist's turn. He asks the
> radiologist "What goes up a hill with three legs, and comes
> down on four?"
>
> The radiologist looks up at him with a puzzled look. He
> takes out his laptop computer and searches all of his
> references. He taps into the Airphone with his modem and
> searches the net and the Library of Congress. Frustrated, he
> sends e-mail to his co-workers -- all to no avail. After about
> an hour, he wakes the physicist and hands him $50. The
> physicist politely takes the $50 and turns away to try to get
> back to sleep. The radiologist, more than a little miffed,
> shakes the physicist and asks "Well, so what's the answer?"
>
> Without a word, the physicist reaches into his wallet, hands
> the radiologist $5, and turns away to get back to sleep.
-----------------------------
Recently reported in the Massachusetts Bar Association Lawyers
Journal, the following are questions actually asked of witnesses by
attorneys during trials and, in certain cases, the responses given by
insightful witnesses.
1. "Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his
sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?"
2. "The youngest son, the twenty-year old, how old is he?"
3. "Were you present when your picture was taken?"
4. "Were you alone or by yourself?"
5. "Was it you or your younger brother who was killed in the
war?"
6. "Did he kill you?"
7. "How far apart were the vehicles at the time of the
collision?"
8. "You were there until the time you left, is that true?"
9. "How many times have you committed suicide?"
10. Q: "So the date of conception (of the baby) was August
8th?"
A: "Yes."
Q: "And what were you doing at that time?"
11. Q: "She had three children, right?"
A: "Yes."
Q: "How many were boys?"
A: "None."
Q: "Were there any girls?"
12. Q: "You say the stairs went down to the basement?"
A: "Yes."
Q: "And these stairs, did they go up also?"
13. Q: "Mr. Slatery, you went on a rather elaborate honeymoon,
didn't you?"
A: "I went to Europe, Sir."
Q: "And you took your new wife?"
14. Q: "How was your first marriage terminated?"
A: "By death."
Q: "And by who's death was it terminated?">
15. Q: "Can you describe the individual?"
A: "He was about medium height and had a beard."
Q: "Was this a male, or a female?"
16. Q: "Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a
deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?"
A: "No, this is how I dress when I go to work."
17. Q: "Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on
dead people?"
A: All my autopsies are performed on dead people."
18. Q: "All your responses must be oral, OK? What school did
you go to?"
A: "Oral."
19. Q: "Do you recall the time that you examined the body?"
A: "The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.."
Q: "And Mr. Dennington was dead at the time?"
A: No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was
doing an autopsy."
20. Q: "You were not shot in the fracas?"
A: "No, I was shot midway between the fracas and the
navel."
21. Q: "Are you qualified to give a urine sample?"
A: "I have been since early childhood?"
--------
>YOU KNOW YOU ARE ADDICTED TO THE INTERNET WHEN:
>
> 1 You kiss your girlfriend's home page.
> 2 Your bookmark takes 15 minutes to scroll from top to bottom.
> 3 Your eyeglasses have a web site burned in on them.
> 4 You find yourself brainstorming for new subjects to search.
> 5 You refuse to go to a vacation spot with no electricity and no phone
> lines.
> 6 You finally do take that vacation, but only after buying a cellular
> modem and a laptop.
> 7 You spend half of the plane trip with your laptop on your lap...and
> your child in the overhead compartment.
> 8 All your daydreaming is preoccupied with getting a faster connection to
> the net: 28.8...ISDN...cable modem...T1...T3.
> 9 And even your night dreams are in HTML.
>10 You find yourself typing "com" after every period when using a word
> processor.com.
>11 You refer to going to the bathroom as downloading.
>12 Your heart races faster and beats irregularly each time you see a
> new WWW site address in print or on TV, even though you've never
> had heart problems before.
>13 You step out of your room and realize that your parents have moved and
> you don't have a clue when it happened.
>14 You turn on your intercom when leaving the room so you can hear if new
> e-mail arrives.
>15 Your wife drapes a blond wig over your monitor to remind you of what
> she looks like.
>16 All of your friends have an @ in their names.
>17 When looking at a pageful of someone else's links, you notice all of
> them are already highlighted in purple.
>18 Your dog has its own home page.
>19 You've already visited all the links at Yahoo and you're halfway
> through Lycos.
>20 You can't call your mother...she doesn't have a modem.
----------------------------------------
Why I won't be Coming to Work Today
1. If it is all the same to you I won't be coming in to work. The
voices told me to clean all the guns today.
2. When I got up this morning I took two Ex-Lax in addition to my
Prozac. I can't get off the john, but I feel good about it.
3. I set half the clocks in my house ahead an hour and the other
half back an hour Saturday and spent 18 hours in some kind of
space-time continuum loop, reliving Sunday (right up until the
explosion). I was able to exit the loop only by reversing the
polarity of the power source of exactly e*log(pi) clocks in the
house while simultaneously rapping my dog on the snout with a
rolled up Times. Accordingly, I will be in late, or early.
4. My stigmata's acting up.
5. I can't come in to work today because I'll be stalking my
previous boss, who fired me for not showing up for work. OK?
6. I have a rare case of 48-hour projectile leprosy, but I know we
have that deadline to meet...
7. I am stuck in the blood pressure machine down at the Food Giant.
8. Yes, I seem to have contracted some attention-deficit disorder
and, hey, how about them Skins, huh? So, I won't be able to,
yes, could I help you? No, no, I'll be sticking with Sprint,
but thank you for calling.
9. Constipation has made me a walking time bomb.
10. I just found out that I was switched at birth. Legally, I
shouldn't come to work knowing my employee records may now
contain false information.
11. The psychiatrist said it was an excellent session. He even gave
me this jaw restraint so I won't bite things when I am startled.
12. The dog ate my car keys. We're going to hitchhike to the vet.
13. I prefer to remain an enigma.
14. My mother-in-law has come back as one of the Undead and we must
track her to her coffin to drive a stake through her heart and
give her eternal peace. One day should do it.
15. I can't come to work today because the EPA has determined that
my house is completely surrounded by wetlands and I have to
arrange for helicopter transportation.
16. I am converting my calendar from Julian to Gregorian. (prep. for
changing to Mayan)!
17. I am extremely sensitive to a rise in the interest rates.
18. I refuse to commute to my job until there is a commuter tax. I
insist on paying my fair share.
19. I am blind and my dog is dead.
and a late addition:
20. I've got to get all my belongings together and tie up any loose
ends before the comet leaves.
----------------------------------------
>>
>>Element: WOMEN
>>
>>Symbol: Wo
>>
>>Atomic Weight: 120 (more or less, usually more)
>>
>>Physical Properties:
>> Generally round in form.
>> Boils at nothing and may freeze anytime.
>> Melts whenever treated properly.
>> Very bitter if not used well.
>>
>>Chemical Properties:
>> Very active.
>> Highly unstable.
>> Possesses strong= affinity to gold, silver, platinum, and precious
>>stones.
>> Violent when= left alone.
>> Able to absorb great amounts of exotic food.
>> Turns slightly green when placed next to a better specimen.
>> Ages rapidly.
>>Usage:
>> Highly ornamental.
>> An extremely good catalyst for dispersion of wealth.
>> Probably the most powerful income reducing agent known.
>>
>>Caution: Highly explosive in inexperienced hands.
>>
>>
>>Element: MAN
>>
>>Symbol: XY
>>
>>Atomic Weight: 180+/-100
>>
>>Physical Properties:
>> Solid at room temperature but gets bent out of shape.
>> Fairly dense and sometimes flaky.
>> Difficult to find a pure sample.
>> Due to rust, aging samples are unable to conduct electricity as
>>easily as young fresh samples.
>>
>>Chemical Properties: Attempts to bond with Wo any chance it can get.
>> Also, tends to form strong bonds with itself.
>> Becomes explosive when mixed with Kd (element Kid) for prolonged
>>period of time.
>> Pretty basic.
>> Neutralize by saturating with alcohol.
>>
>>Usage: None really, except methane production.
>> Good samples are able to produce large quantities on command.
>>
>>Caution: In the absence of Wo, this element rapidly decomposes and
>>begins to smell.
>>
--------------------------------
>> Five reasons computers must be female...
>>
>> 5. No one but their creator understands their internal logic.
>>
>> 4. Even your smallest mistakes are immediately committed to memory for
>> future references.
>>
>> 3. The native language used to communicate with other computers is
>> incomprehensible to everyone else.
>>
>> 2. The message, "Bad command or filename," is about as informative as
>> "If you don't know why I'm mad at you, then I'm certainly not going to
>> tell you."
>>
>> 1. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending
>> half your paycheck on accessories for it.
>>
>> In the interest of gender equality ...
>>
>> TOP 5 REASONS WHY COMPUTERS MUST BE MALE
>>
>> 5. They're heavily dependent on peripheral tools and equipment.
>>
>> 4. They periodically cut you off right when you think you've
>> established a network connection.
>>
>> 3. They'll usually do what you ask them to do, but they won't do more
>> than they have to and they won't think of it on their own.
>>
>> 2. They're typically obsolete within five years and need to be traded
>> in for a new model. Some users, however, feel they've already invested
>> so much in the machine that they're compelled to remain with an
>> under powered system.
>>
>> 1. They get hot when you turn them on, and that's the only time you
>> have their attention.
----------------------------
> Have you seen these?
> I didn't know what "Hopelessly Mo" meant, but I caught on pretty
> quickly.
You know you're hopelessly Mo if:
*Your explanation for never having spoken to the family right
across the street is "What for? They're not even in our stake."
*Your idea of 'high class' is fresh flowers woven into the
basketball nets at cultural hall wedding receptions.
*You use your calling as a Sunday School gospel doctrine
teacher as a forum to present the "Amway Opportunity."
*The school board consults with you personally when
forecasting growth at the local elementary school.
*Waitresses automatically add a 15% gratuity when you take
your family out to dinner.
*You believe there is spiritual redemption in owning your own
wheat grinder.
*You look for the words "dishwasher Safe" when buying
packages of plastic knives and forks.
*You make your children read the Old Testament rather than
going to a movie with friends because you don't want them exposed to
sex and violence.
*You have a BYU cap in the rear window of your car even when
you are not driving to Cougar Stadium.
*You can honestly tell the full-time missionaries that you
don't know any non-Mormons.
*You see no problem in teaching a Sunday School lesson to a
group of boys who saw you punch a referee at a ward basketball game.
*You are anxiously awaiting the "Where Are They Now?" sequel
to Saturday's Warrior.
*You can't understand why anyone would pay so much money to
see Phantom of the Opera when they can see the stake roadshow for free.
*You think purchases at ZCMI count as Fast Offerings.
*You sincerely believe that family and friends enjoy watching
four hours of slides from your church mission to North Dakota.
*You find it physically impossible to continue facing forward
when you hear the overflow curtain being opened in sacrament meeting.
*You insist that your wife and children gather around the TV
with you so that you can sleep through general conference as a
family.
---------------------------
>Q: How many internet mail list subscribers does it take
> to change a light bulb?
>
>A: 1,331:
>
> 1 to change the light bulb and to post to the mail
> list that the light bulb has been changed
> 14 to share similar experiences of changing light
> bulbs and how the light bulb could have been
> changed differently.
> 7 to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs.
> 27 to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about
> changing light bulbs.
> 53 to flame the spell checkers
> 156 to write to the list administrator complaining about
> the light bulb discussion and its inappropriateness
> to this mail list.
> 41 to correct spelling in the spelling/grammar flames.
> 109 to post that this list is not about light bulbs and
> to please take this email exchange to alt.lite.bulb
> 203 to demand that cross posting to alt.grammar,
> alt.spelling and alt.punctuation about changing
> light bulbs be stopped.
> 111 to defend the posting to this list saying that we
> are all use light bulbs and therefore the posts
> **are** relevant to this mail list.
> 306 to debate which method of changing light
> bulbs is superior, where to buy the best light bulbs,
> what brand of light bulbs work best for this
> technique, and what brands are faulty.
> 27 to post URLs where one can see examples of
> different light bulbs
> 14 to post that the URLs were posted incorrectly, and
> to post corrected URLs.
> 3 to post about links they found from the URLs that
> are relevant to this list which makes light bulbs
> relevant to this list.
> 33 to concatenate all posts to date, then quote
> them including all headers and footers, and then
> add "Me Too."
> 12 to post to the list that they are unsubscribing
> because they cannot handle the light bulb
> controversey.
> 19 to quote the "Me Too's" to say, "Me Three."
> 4 to suggest that posters request the light bulb FAQ.
> 1 to propose new alt.change.lite.bulb newsgroup.
> 47 to say this is just what alt.physic.cold_fusion
> was meant for, leave it here.
> 143 votes for alt.lite.bulb.
---------------------------------------
1. Compaq is considering changing the command "Press Any Key" to "Press
Return Key" because of the flood of calls asking where the "Any" key is.
2. AST technical support had a caller complaining that her mouse was hard
to control with the dust cover on. The cover turned out to be the plastic
bag the mouse was packaged in.
3. Another Compaq technician received a call from a man complaining that
the system wouldn't read word processing files from his old diskettes.
After troubleshooting for magnets and heat failed to diagnose the problem,
it was found that the customer labeled the diskettes and then rolled them
into the typewriter to type the labels.
4. Another AST customer was asked to send a copy of her defective
diskettes. A few days later a letter arrived from the customer along with
xeroxed copies of the floppies.
5. A Dell technician advised his customer to put his troubled floppy back
in the drive and close the door. The customer asked the tech to hold on
and was heard putting the phone down, getting up and crossing the room to
close the door to his office.
6. Another Dell customer called to say he couldn't get his computer to
fax anything. After 40 minutes of troubleshooting, the technician
discovered the man was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in
front of the monitor screen and hitting the "send" key.
7. Another Dell customer needed help setting up a new program, so a Dell
tech suggested he go to the local Egghead. 'Yeah, I got me a couple of
friends,' the customer replied. When told Egghead was a software store, the
man said, 'Oh, I thought you meant for me to find a couple of geeks.'
8. Yet another Dell customer called to complain that his keyboard no longer
worked. He had cleaned it by filling up his tub with soap and water and
soaking the keyboard for a day, then removing all the keys and washing them
individually.
9. A Dell technician received a call from a customer who was enraged
because his computer had told him he was 'bad and an invalid.' The tech
explained that the computer's 'bad command' and 'invalid' responses
shouldn't be taken personally.
10. An exasperated caller to Dell Computer Tech Support couldn't get her
new Dell Computer to turn on. After ensuring the computer was plugged in,
the technician asked her what happened when she pushed the power button.
Her response, 'I pushed and pushed on this foot pedal and nothing
happens.' The 'foot pedal' turned out to be the computer's mouse.
11. Another customer called Compaq tech support to say her brand new
computer wouldn't work. She said she unpacked the unit, plugged it in, and
sat there for 20 minutes waiting for something to happen. When asked what
happened when she pressed the power switch, she asked, 'What power switch?'
12. A true story from a Novell NetWire SysOp:
Caller: 'Hello, is this Tech Support?'
Tech Rep: 'Yes, it is. How may I help you?'
Caller: 'The cup holder on my PC is broken and I am within my warranty
period. How do I go about getting that fixed?'
Tech Rep: 'I'm sorry, but did you say a cup holder?'
Caller: 'Yes, it's attached to the front of my computer.'
Tech Rep: 'Please excuse me if I seem a bit stumped. It's because I am.
Did you receive this as part of a promotional, at a trade show? How did
you
get this cup holder? Does it have any trademark on it?'
Caller: 'It came with my computer. I don't know anything about a
promotional. It just has 4X on it.'
At this point the Tech Rep had to mute the caller, because he couldn't stand
it. The caller had been using the load drawer of the CD-ROM drive as a cup
holder, and snapped it off the drive!"
---------------------------------
>THIS MISDIRECTED MESSAGE WAS INADVERTENTLY DELIVERED TO MY OFFICE.
>SORRY FOR THE DELAY IN GETTING IT TO YOU. I HOPE IT'S NOT TOO LATE.
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Stardate 10357.22 (March 28, 1997)
>
> To All Heaven's Gate Personnel:
>
>Due to extensive tail winds caused by the comet Hale-Bopp, pickup of
>the 39 passengers has been delayed until year 3024 when we pass the earth
>again.
>
>Do not eat the pudding at this time.
>
> ***REPEAT***
>
>Do not eat the pudding at this time.
-----------------------------
When a man opens the door of his car for his wife, you can be sure of one
thing: either the car is new or the wife.
A woman was telling her friend , "It is I who made my husband a millionaire."
"And what was he before you married him." Asked the friend. The woman
replied, "A multimillionaire".
At the cocktail party, one woman said to another, "Aren't you wearing your
wedding ring on the wrong finger?" The other replied, "Yes I am, I married
the wrong man."
Marriage is an institution in which a man loses his bachelor's degree and the
woman gets her master's.
Young Son: Is it true, Dad, I heard that in some parts of Africa a man
doesn't know his wife until he marries her? Dad: That happens in most
countries, son.
When a newly married man looks happy we know why. But when a ten-year married
man looks happy - we wonder why.
-------------------------------------
> > > THE IMPORTANCE OF KNOWING A FOREIGN LANGUAGE -
> > >
> > > " The story is told of the Mexican bandit who robbed a Texas bank of
> > > $250,000
> > > and escaped across the river.
> > > A month went by and the bandit thought he was safe.
> > > He was celebrating his good fortune at a local cantina (that's a bar,
> > > folks) when a Texas Ranger walked up and dragged him out into the
> > > dusty
> > > street.
> > > After he realized he had a communication problem, the ranger poked
> > > his
> > > head back into the bar:
> > > "Anybody here speak English?" he shouted. "I do, senior." came the
> > > reply.
> > > "Then commere." the ranger ordered.
> > > The conversation between ranger, translator and bandit started. Did
> > > he rob the bank?
> > > He did.
> > > Does he still have the $250,000?
> > > Yes again.
> > > Then the ranger pulled out his Colt .45, held the barrel of the gun
> > > to the bandits head and cocked the trigger.
> > > "Make sure he understands this next question real good." the ranger
> > > told the translator. "WHERE'S THE MONEY?"
> > > In Spanish the frightened bandit blurted out that the money
> > > was hidden in a waterproof bag at the bottom of the well in the town
> > > plaza.
> > > The translator looked up at the ranger: "He says he is not afraid to
> > > die!"
---------------------
LOST PRODUCTIVE TIME
It has come to our attention recently that many of you have been
turning in timesheets that specify large amounts of "Miscellaneous
Unproductive Time" (Code 5309). To our department, unproductive time
isn't a problem. What is a problem, however, is not knowing exactly
what you are doing during your unproductive time. Attached below is a
sheet specifying a tentative extended job code list based on our
observations of employee activities.
The list will allow you to specify with a fair amount of precision
what you are doing during your unproductive time. Please begin using
this job code list immediately and let us know about any difficulties
you encounter.
Attached: Extended Job Code List
Code
Number Explanation
---------- -----------
5316 Useless Meeting
5317 Obstructing Communications at Meeting
5318 Trying to Sound Knowledgeable While in Meeting
5319 Waiting for Break
5320 Waiting for Lunch
5321 Waiting for End of Day
5322 Vicious Verbal Attacks Directed at Coworker
5323 Vicious Verbal Attacks Directed at Coworker While
Coworker is Not Present
5393 Covering for Incompetence of Coworker Friend
5394 Blaming Incompetence of Coworker Who is Not a Friend
5400 Trying to Explain Concept to Coworker Who is Not
Interested in Learning
5401 Trying to Explain Concept to Coworker Who is Stupid
5402 Trying to Explain Concept to Coworker Who Hates You
5481 Buying Snack
5482 Eating Snack
5500 Filling Out Timesheet
5501 Inventing Timesheet Entries
5502 Waiting for Something to Happen
5503 Scratching Yourself
5504 Sleeping
5510 Feeling Bored
5600 Complaining About Lousy Job
5601 Complaining About Low Pay
5602 Complaining About Long Hours
5603 Complaining About Coworker (See Codes #5322 & #5323)
5604 Complaining About Boss
5605 Complaining About Personal Problems
5640 Miscellaneous Unproductive Complaining
5701 Not Actually Present At Job
5702 Suffering From Eight-Hour Flu
6102 Ordering Out
6103 Waiting for Food Delivery to Arrive
6104 Taking It Easy While Digesting Food
6200 Using Company Resources for Personal Profit
6201 Stealing Company Goods
6202 Making Excuses After Accidentally Destroying Company Files
6203 Using Company Phone to Make Long-Distance Personal Calls
6204 Using Company Phone to Make Long-Distance Personal
Calls to Sell Stolen Company Goods
6205 Hiding from Boss
6206 Gossip
6207 Planning a Social Event (e.g. vacation, wedding, etc)
6210 Feeling Sorry For Yourself
6211 Updating Resume
6212 Faxing Resume to Another Employer/Headhunter
6213 Out of Office on Interview
6221 Pretending to Work While Boss Is Watching
6222 Pretending to Enjoy Your Job
6223 Pretending You Like Coworker
6224 Pretending You Like Important People When in Reality
They are Jerks
6238 Miscellaneous Unproductive Fantasizing
6350 Playing Pranks on the New Guy/Girl
6601 Running your own Business on Company Time (See Code #6603)
6602 Complaining
6603 Writing a Book on Company Time
6611 Staring Into Space
6612 Staring At Computer Screen
6615 Transcendental Meditation
7281 Extended Visit to the Bathroom (at least 10 minutes)
7400 Talking With Divorce Lawyer on Phone
7401 Talking With Plumber on Phone
7402 Talking With Dentist on Phone
7403 Talking With Doctor on Phone
7404 Talking With Masseuse on Phone
7405 Talking With House Painter on Phone
7406 Talking With Personal Therapist on Phone
7419 Talking With Miscellaneous Paid Professional on Phone
7931 Asking Coworker to Aid You in an Illicit Activity
8000 Recreational Drug Use
8001 Non-recreational Drug Use
8002 Liquid Lunch
8100 Reading e-mail
and my favorite:
8101 Distributing humorous e-mails
----------------------------------------
The Top Ten Ways the Bible Would Have Been Different If Written by
College
Students:
10). Loaves and Fishes replaced by Pizza and Chips
9). Ten Commandments are actually only five, but because they are
double-spaced and written in a large font, they look like ten.
8). Forbidden fruit would have been eaten only because it wasn't
dining hall food.
7). Paul's Letters to the Romans become Paul's E-Mail to the Romans.
6). Reason Cain killed Abel: They were roommates.
5). The place where the end of the world occurs.... not the Plains of
Armageddon, but Finals.
4). Book of Armaments would be in there somewhere.
3). Reason why Moses and followers wandered in desert for 40 years:
They didn't want to ask directions and look like a Freshman.
2). Tower of Babel blamed for Foreign Language requirement.
1). Instead of creating the world in six days and resting on the
seventh, God would have put it off until the night before it was due
and then pulled an all-nighter and hoped no one noticed.
---------------------------------
>A programmer, a mechanical engineer, and an administrator were on their
>way to a meeting. They were driving down a steep, winding, mountain
>road with many switchbacks, when suddenly the brakes failed. The car
>ran off the road, bounced down the mountain, rolled over a few times,
>bumped into some rocks, and finally stopped only a few feet
>from the road below. No one was hurt, but they had a problem. They
>were on a mountain with no brakes in the car.
>
>"Let's have a meeting," the administrator said. "Propose a Vision,
formulate
>a Mission Statement, define some Goals, and by a process of Continuous
>Mission Improvement focusing on our Core Business, find a solution to
>this Critical Problem."
>
>"No, no," said the mechanical engineer. "That's never solved anything.
>I've got two shirt hangars, half a roll of duct tape, and a Swiss army
>knife. Give me a few minutes, and the brakes will be good enough to get
>us to the nearest gas station."
>
>"Wait," said the programmer. "Before we do anything, I think we should
>push the car back up the road and see if it happens again."
--------------------
When you know you have seen Star Wars too many times
10. Your poodles are named "C," "3," "P" and "O"
9. You won't sleep with your wife unless she says, "Help me, Obi Wan,
you're my only hope"
8. You spent $10,000 trying to Rogaine yourself into Chewbacca
7. You're continually stunned when the President makes major decisions
without consulting Mark Hamill
6. Your favorite pickup line: "Would you like to handle my light
saber?"
5. You keep referring to your lawn mower as "that crazy droid"
4. You spend most of your days trying to use "the Force" to open a can
of pears
3. You once saw an eggplant that looked kind of like Darth Vader and
almost had a
heart attack
2. Your sex life is strictly "Han Solo," if you know what I mean
1. You like Yoda so much, you voted for Ross Perot
---------------------------
>>The World According to Student Bloopers
>> Richard Lederer - St. Paul's School
>>
>> One of the fringe benefits of being an English of History teacher
>>is receiving the occasional jewel of a student blooper in an essay. I
>>have pasted together the following "history" of the world from
>>certifiably genuine student bloopers collected by teachers throughout the
>>United States, from eighth grade through college level. Read carefully,
>>and you will learn a lot.
>>______________________________________________________________________________
>>
>> The inhabitants of ancient Egypt were called mummies. They lived
>>in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot. The climate of the Sarah
>>is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere, so certain area are
>>cultivated by irrigation. The Egyptians built the Pyramids in the shape
>>of a huge triangular cube. The Pyramids are a range of mountains between
>>France and Spain.
>>
>> The Bible is full of interesting caricatures. In the first book
>>of the Bible, Guinesses, Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree.
>>One of their children, Cain, once asked, "Am I my brother's son?" God
>>asked Abraham to sacrifice Issac on Mount Montezuma. Jacob, son of
>>Isaac, stole his brother's birth mark. Jacob was a patriarch who brought
>>up his twelve sons to be patriarchs, but they did not take to it. One of
>>Jacob's sons, Joseph, gave refuse to the Israelites.
>>
>> Pharoah forced the Hebrew slaves to make bread without straw.
>>Moses led them to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread which is
>>bread made without any ingredients. Afterwards, Moses went up on Mount
>>Cyanide to get the ten commandments. David was a Hebrew king skilled at
>>playing the liar. He fought with the Philatelists, a race of people who
>>lived in Biblical times. Solomon, one of David's sons, had 500 wives and
>>500 porcupines.
>>
>> Without the Greeks we wouldn't have history. The Greeks invented
>>three kinds of columns - Corinthian, Doric, and Ironic. They also had
>>myths. A myth is a female moth. One myth says that the mother of
>>Achilles dipped him in the River Stynx until he became intollerable.
>>Achilles appeared in The Iliad, by Homer. Homer also wrote The Oddity,
>>in which Penelope was the last hardship that Ulysses endured on his
>>journey. Actually Homer was not writen by Homer, but by another man of
>>that name.
>>
>> Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people
>>advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock.
>>
>> In the Olympic games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurdled the
>>biscuits, and threw the java. The reward to the victor was a coral
>>wreath. The government of Athens was democratic because the people took
>>the law into their own hands. There were no wars in Greece, as the
>>mountains were so high that they couldn't climb over to see what their
>>neighbors were doing. When they fought with the Persians, the Greeks
>>were outnumbered because the Persians had more men.
>>
>> Eventually the Ramons conquered the Geeks. History calls people
>>Romans because they never stayed in one place very long. At Roman
>>banquets, the guests wore garlics in their hair. Julius Caesar
>>extinguisehed himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March
>>murdered him because they thought he was going to be made king. Nero was
>>a cruel tyranny who would torture his poor subjects by playing the fiddle
>>to them.
>>
>> Then came the Middle Ages. King Alfed conquered the Dames, King
>>Arthur lived in the Age of Shivery, King Harold mustarded his troops
>>before the Battle of Hastings, Joan of Arc was cannonized by Bernard
>>Shaw, and victims of the Black Death grew boobs on their necks. Finally
>>Magna Carta provided that no free man should be hanged twice for the same
>>offense.
>>
>> In midevil times most of the people were alliterate. The
>>greatest writer of the time was Chaucer, who wrote many poems and verses
>>and also wrote literature. Another tale tells of William Tell, who shot
>>an arrow through an apple while standing on his son's head.
>>
>> The Renaissance was an age in which more individuals felt the
>>value of their human being. Martin Luther was nailed to the church door
>>at Wittenberg for selling papal indulgences. He died a horrible death,
>>being excommunicated by a bull. It was the painter Donatello's interest
>>in the female nude that made him the father of the Renaissance. It was
>>an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented the
>>Bible. Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented
>>cigarettes. Another importatnt invention was the circulation of blood.
>>Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper.
>>
>> The government of England was a limited mockery. Henry VIII
>>found walking difficult because he had an abbess on his knee. Queen
>>Elizabeth was the "Virgin Queen." As a quenn she was a great success.
>>When Elizabeth exposed herself before her troops, they all shouted,
>>"hurrah." Then her navy went out and defeated the Spanish Armadillo.
>>
>> The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespeare.
>>Shakespeare never made much money and is famous only because of his
>>plays. He lived in Windsor with his merry wives, writing tragedies,
>>comedies and errors. In one of Shakespeare's famous plays, Hamlet
>>rations out his situation by relieving himself in a long soliloquy. In
>>another, Lady Macbeth tries to coonvince Macbeth to kill the King by
>>attacking his mnanhood. Romeo and Juliet are an example of heroic
>>couplet. Writing at the same time as Shakespeare was Miguel Cervantes.
>>He wrote Donkey Hoto. The next great author was John Milton. Milton
>>worote Paradise Lost Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained.
>>
>> During the Renaissance America began. Christopher Columbus was a
>>great navigator who discovered America while cursing about the Atlantic.
>>His ships were called the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Fe. Later the
>>Pilgrims crossed the Ocean, and this was known as Pilgrims Progress.
>>When they landed at Plymouth Rock, they were greeted by the Indians, who
>>came down the hill rolling their war hoops before them. The Indian
>>squabs carried porpoises on their back. Many of the Indian heroes were
>>killed, along with their cabooses, which proved very fatal to them. The
>>winter of 1620 was a hard one for the settlers. Many people died and
>>many babies were born. Captain John Smith was responsible for all this.
>>
>> One of the causes of the Revolutionary Warrs was the English put
>>tacks in their tea. Also the colonists would send their parcels through
>>the post without stamps. During the War, the Red Coats and Paul Revere
>>was throwing balls over stone walls. The dogs were barking and the
>>peacocks crowing. Finally the colonists won the War and no longer had to
>>pay for taxis.
>>
>> Delegates fron the original thirteen states formed the Contented
>>Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two
>>singers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin had gone to Boston
>>carying all his clothes in his pocket and a loaf of bread under each arm.
>> He invented electricity by rubbing cats backwards and declared "A horse
>>divided against itself cannot stand." Franklin died in 1790 and is still
>>dead.
>>
>> George Washington married Martha Curtis and in due time became
>>the Father of Our Country. The the Constitution of the United States was
>>adopted to secure domestic hostility. Under the constitution the people
>>enjoyed the right to keep bare arms.
>>
>> Abraham Lincoln became America's greatest Precedent. Lincoln's
>>mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built
>>with his own hand. When Lincoln was President, he wore only a tall silk
>>hat. He said, "In onion there is strength." Abraham Lincoln wrote the
>>Gettysburg Address while traveling from Washington to Gettysburg on the
>>back of an envelope. He also freed the slaves by signing the
>>Emasculation Proclamation, and the Fourteenth Amendment gave the
>>ex-negroes citizenship. But the Clue Clux Clan would torture and lynch
>>the ex-Negroes and other innocent victims. It claimed it represented law
>>and odor. On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theater
>>and got shot in this seat by one of the actors in a moving picture show.
>>The believed assassinator was John Wilkes Booth, a suppoingly insane
>>actor. This ruined Booth's career.
>>
>> Meanwhile in Europe the enlightenment was a reasonable time,
>>Voltare invented electricity and also wrote a book called Candy. Gravity
>>was invented by Isaac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in Autumn, when
>>the apples are falling on the trees.
>>
>> Bach was the most famous composer in the world, and so was
>>Handel. Handel was half German, half Italian, and half English. He was
>>very large. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Beethoven wrote music
>>even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took
>>long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him.
>>Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this.
>>
>> France was in a very seious state. The French Revolution was
>>accomplished before it happened. The Marseillaise was the theme song of
>>the French Revolution, and it catapulted into Napoleon. During the
>>Napoleonic Wars, the crowned heads of Europe were trembling in their
>>shoes. Then the Spanish gorillas came down from the hills and nipped at
>>Napoleon's flanks. Napoleon became ill with bladder problems and was
>>very tense and unrestrained. He wanted an heir to inherit his power, but
>>since Josephine was a baronnes, she couldn't bear children.
>>
>> The sun never sets on the British Empire because the British
>>Empire is in the East and the sun sets in the West. Queen Victoria was
>>the longest queen. She sat on a thorn for 63 years. Her reclining years
>>and finally the end of her life were exemplatory of a great personality.
>>Her death was the final event which ended her reign.
>>
>> The nineteenth century was a time of many great inventions and
>>thoughts. The inventiono of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to
>>spring up. Cyrus McCormick invented the McCormick raper, which did the
>>work of a hundered men. Samuel Morse invented a code of telepathy.
>>Lois Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbis. Charles Darwin was a
>>naturalist who wrote the Organ of the Species. Madman Curie discovered
>>stadium. And Karl Marx became one of the Marx brothers.
>>
>> The First World War, caused by the assassination of the Arch-Duck
>>by a surf, ushered in a new error in the anals of human history.
>>
----------------------
> "We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million
> typewriters will eventually reproduce the works of Shakespeare.
> Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.
----------------------------
Judgement of Valiance
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
A guy is at the pearly gates, waiting to be admitted, while St. Peter
is leafing through this Big Book to see if the guy is worthy of
entering.
Saint Peter goes through the books several times, furrows his brow,
and says to the guy, "You know, I can't see that you did anything
really good in your life but, you never did anything bad either. Tell
you what, if you can tell me of one REALLY good deed that you did in
your life, you're in."
The guy thinks for a moment and says, "Yeah, there was this one time
when I was drivin' down the highway and I saw a giant group of KKK
Biker Gang Rapists assaulting this poor girl. I slowed down my car to
see what was going on, and sure enough, there they were, about 50 of
'em torturing this young lady. Infuriated, I got out my car, grabbed
a tire iron out of my trunk, and walked straight up to the leader of
the gang, a huge guy with a studded leather jacket and a chain
running from his nose to his ear.
As I walked up to the leader, the KKK Biker Gang Rapists formed a
circle around me. So, I ripped the leader's chain off his face and
smashed him over the head with the tire iron. Then I turn around and
yell to the rest of them, 'Leave this poor, innocent girl alone!
You're all a bunch of sick, deranged animals! Go home before I teach
you all a lesson in pain!'
St. Peter, impressed, says "Really? When did this happen?"
"Oh, about ten minutes ago."
---------------------------
> > > The Arkansas School Board is designating Southern slang, or
> > > "Hickphonics,"as a language to be taught in all Southern schools.Here
> > > are excerpts from the Hickphonics/English dictionary:
> > >
> > >
> > > HEIDI - noun.Greeting.
> > >
> > > HIRE YEW - Complete sentence.Remainder of greeting.Usage: "Heidi. Hire
> > > yew."
> > >
> > > BARD - verb. Past tense of the infinitive "to borrow." Usage: "My
> > > brother bard my pickup truck."
> > >
> > > JAWJUH - noun. A state just north of Florida.Capital is Hot-lanta.
> > > Usage: "My brother from Jawjuh bard my pickup truck."
> > >
> > > MUNTS - noun. A calendar division.
> > > Usage: "My brother from Jawjuh bard my pickup truck, and I ain't herd
> > > from him in munts."
> > >
> > > FAR - noun. A conflagration.
> > > Usage: "If my brother from Jawjuh don't change the all in my pickup
> > > truck, that things gonna catch far."
> > >
> > > BAHS - noun. A supervisor.
> > > Usage: "If you don't stop reading these Southern words andgit back to
> > > work, your bahs is gonna far you!"
> > >
> > > TIRE - noun. A tall monument.
> > > Usage: "Lord willin' and the creek don't rise, I sure do hope
> > > to see that Eiffel Tire in Paris sometime."
> > >
> > > RETARD - Verb. To stop working.
> > > Usage: "My grampaw retard at age 65."
> > >
> > > TARRED - adverb. Exhausted.
> > > Usage: "I just flew in from Hot-lanta, and boy my armsare tarred."
> > >
> > > RATS - noun. Entitled power or privilege.
> > > Usage: "We Southerners are willin' to fat for are rats."
> > > FARN - adjective. Not local.
> > > Usage: "I cuddint unnerstand a wurd he sed ... must be from some farn
> > > country."
> > >
> > > DID - adjective. Not alive.
> > > Usage: "He's did, Jim."
> > > EAR - noun. A colorless, odorless gas (unless you are in LA).Usage:
> > > "He cain't breathe ... give 'im some ear!"
> > >
> > > BOB WAR - noun. A sharp, twisted cable.
> > > Usage: "Boy, stay away from that bob war fence."
> > >
> > > JEW HERE - Noun and verb contraction.
> > > Usage: "Jew here that my brother from Jawjuh got a job withthat bob
> > > war fence cump'ny?"
> > >
> > > HAZE - a contraction.
> > > Usage: "Is Bubba smart?" "Nah ... haze ignert."
> > > GUMMIT - Noun. A bureaucratic institution.
> > > Usage: "Them gummit boys shore are ignert."
-----------------------------
> A magician was working on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. The audience
> would be different each week, so the magician allowed himself to do the
> same tricks over and over again.
>
> There was only one problem: The captain's parrot saw the shows each
> week and began to understand how the magician did every trick. Once he
> understood he started shouting in the middle of the show:
>
> "Look, it's not the same hat"
>
> "Look, he is hiding the flowers under the table"
>
> "Hey, why are all the cards the Ace of Spades ?"
>
> The magician was furious but couldn't do anything; it was, after all,
> the captain's parrot.
>
> One day the ship had an accident and sank. The magician found himself
> on a piece of wood in the middle of the ocean with the parrot, of course.
>
> They stared at each other with hate, but did not utter a word. This
> went on for a day and another and another.
>
> After a week the parrot said: "OK, I give up. Where's the boat?"
------------------------------
>One day at a busy airport, the passengers on a commercial airliner are
> >seated, waiting for the cockpit crew to show up so they can get under
> >way.
> >
> >The pilot and co-pilot finally appear in the rear of the plane, and
> >begin walking up to the cockpit through the center aisle. Both appear to
> >be blind. The pilot is using a white cane, bumping into passengers right
> >and left as he stumbles down the aisle, and the co-pilot is using a
> >guide dog. Both have their eyes covered with huge sunglasses. At first
> >the passengers do not react; thinking that it must be some sort of
> >practical joke. However, after a few minutes the engines start spooling
> >up and the airplane starts moving down the runway.
> >
> >The passengers look at each other with some uneasiness, whispering among
> >themselves and looking desperately to the stewardesses for reassurance.
> >Then the airplane starts accelerating rapidly and people begin
> >panicking. Some passengers are praying, and as the plane gets closer and
> >closer to the end of the runway, the voices are becoming more and more
> >hysterical. Finally, when the airplane has less than 20 feet of runway
> >left, there is a sudden change in the pitch of the shouts as everyone
> >screams at once, and at the very last moment the airplane lifts off and
> >is airborne.
> >
> >Up in the cockpit, the co-pilot breathes a sigh of relief and turns to
> >the Captain: "You know, one of these days the passengers aren't going to
> >scream, and we're gonna get killed!"
-------------------------------------
> >Really Stupid People
> >=========================
> >
> > - Police in Wichita, Kansas, arrested a 22-year-old man at an
> >airport hotel after he tried to pass two (counterfeit) $16 bills.
> >
> > - A man in Johannesberg, South Africa, shot his 49-year-old friend
> >in the face, seriously wounding him, while the two practiced
> >shooting beer cans off each other's head.
> >
> > - A company trying to continue its five-year perfect safety record
> >showed its workers a film aimed at encouraging the use of safety goggles
> >on the job. According to Industrial Machinery News, the film's
> >depiction of gory industrial accidents was so graphic that
> >twenty-five workers suffered minor injuries in their rush to leave
> >the screening room. Thirteen others fainted, and one man required
> >seven stitches after he cut his head falling off a chair while
> >watching the film.
> >
> > - The Chico, California, City Council enacted a ban on nuclear
> >weapons, setting a $500 fine for anyone detonating one within city
> >limits.
> >
> > - A bus carrying five passengers was hit by a car in St. Louis,
> >but by the time police arrived on the scene, fourteen pedestrians had
> >boarded the bus and had begun to complain of whiplash injuries and
> >back pain.
> >
> > - Swedish business consultant Ulf af Trolle labored 13 years on a
> >book about Swedish economic solutions. He took the 250-page manuscript
> >to be copied, only to have it reduced to 50,000 strips of paper in
> >seconds when a worker confused the copier with the shredder.
> >
> > - A convict broke out of jail in Washington D.C., then a few days
> >later accompanied his girlfriend to her trial for robbery. At lunch, he
> >went out for a sandwich. She needed to see him, and thus had him paged.
> >Police officers recognized his name and arrested him as he returned to
> >the courthouse in a car he had stolen over the lunch hour.
> >
> > - Police in Radnor, Pennsylvania, interrogated a suspect by
> >placing a metal colander on his head and connecting it with wires to
> >a photocopy machine. The message "He's lying" was placed in the
> >copier, and police pressed the copy button each time they thought the
> >suspect wasn't telling the truth. Believing the "lie detector" was
> >working, the suspect confessed.
> >
> > - When two service station attendants in Ionia, Michigan, refused
> >to hand over the cash to an intoxicated robber, the man threatened to
> >call the police. They still refused, so the robber called the police
> >and was arrested.
> >
> > - A Los Angeles man who later said he was "tired of walking,"
> >stole a steamroller and led police on a 5 mph chase until an officer
> >stepped aboard and brought the vehicle to a stop.
>
----------------------------
> CREATIVE SKIING
> -----------------
> A friend just got back from a holiday ski trip with the
> kind of story that warms the cockles of anybody's heart.
> Conditions were perfect.12 below, no feeling in the toes,
> basic numbness all over, "tell me when we're having fun"
> kind of day.
>
> One of the women in the group complained to her husband that she
> was in dire need of a restroom. He told her not to worry, that he
> was sure there was relief waiting at the top of the lift in the
> form of a powder room for female skiers in distress. He was wrong,
> of course, and the pain didn't go away.
>
> If you've ever had nature hit its panic button in you, then you
> know that a temperature of 12 below zero doesn't help matters.
> So, with time running out, the woman weighed her options.
>
> Her husband, picking up on the intensity of the pain, suggested that
> since she was wearing an all white ski outfit, she should go off in
> the woods. No one would even notice, he assured her. The white will
> provide more than adequate camouflage.So she headed for the tree
> line, began disrobing and proceeded to do her thing. If you've ever
> parked on the side of a slope, then you know there is a right way and
> wrong way to set up your skis so you don't move. Yep, you got it.
> She had them positioned the wrong way.
>
> Steep slopes are not forgiving, even during embarrassing moments.
> Without warning, the woman found herself skiing backwards, out
> of control, racing through the trees, somehow missing all of them,
> and into another slope. Her derriere and the reverse side were still
> bare, her pants down around her knees, and she was picking up speed
> all the while.
>
> She continued on backwards, totally out of control, creating an
> unusual vista for the other skiers. The woman skied, if you define
> that verb loosely, back under the lift and finally collided violently
> with a pylon.
>
> The bad news was that she broke her arm and was unable to pull up her
> ski pants. At long last her husband arrived, put an end to her nudie
> show, then went to the base of the mountain and summoned the ski
> patrol, who transported her to a hospital. In the emergency room
> she was regrouping when a man with an obviously broken leg was put
> in the bed next to hers.
>
> "So, how'd you break your leg?" she asked, making small talk.
>
> "It was the darndest thing you ever saw," he said. "I was riding
> up the ski lift, and suddenly I couldn't believe my eyes.There was
> this crazy woman skiing backwards out of control down the mountain
> with her bare bottom hanging out of her clothes and pants down around
> her knees. I leaned over to get a better look and I guess I didn't
> realize how far I'd moved. I fell out of the lift. So, how'd you
> break your arm?"
>
---------------------------
>> #1
>> If an infinite number of rednecks riding in an infinite
>> number of pickup trucks fire an infinite number of shotgun
>> rounds at an infinite number of highway signs, they will
>> eventually produce all the world's great literary works in
>> Braille.
>>
>> #2
>> The reason hot-rod owners raise the backs of their cars is
>> that it's easier to go faster when you're always going
>> downhill. And, they get better gas mileage that way.
>>
>> #3
>> The quantity of consonants in the English language is
>> constant. If omitted in one place, they turn up in another.
>> When a Bostonian "pahks" his "cah," the lost r's migrate
>> southwest, causing a Texan to "warsh" his car and invest in
>> "erl wells."
-------------------------
Redneck Etiquette
PERSONAL HYGIENE
- Dirt and grease under the fingernails is a social no-no, as they
tend to detract from a woman's jewelry and alter the tastes of
finger foods.
- While ears need to be cleaned regularly, this is a job that
should be done in private using one's "own" truck keys.
- Plucking unwanted nose hair is time-consuming work. A cigarette
lighter and a small tolerance for pain can accomplish the same goal
and save hours. (Its a good idea to keep a bucket of water handy
when using this method.)
- The first rule of shaving is to take your time. A man who is
always clean-shaven runs the risk of being labeled a sissy or a
banker.
- Its recommended that women occasionally shave their legs and
underarms. No amount of effort, not even braiding, can make hair
in these body regions attractive.
- Unlike clothes and shoes, a toothbrush should never be a hand-me
down item.
- Proper use of toiletries can forestall bathing for several days.
However, if you live alone, deodorant is a waste of good money.
FASHION
- Pearls with a tube top? Yes, they are an excellent example of
understated elegance but "never" before April.
- No matter how durable, Army boots are not proper footwear for
mothers. And hip waders are not considered dress pants.
- As to proper clothing for men, this subject can be summarized in
a single phrase: No collar, no tie.
DINING OUT
- When decanting wine, make sure that you tilt the paper cup and
pour slowly so as not to "bruise" the fruit of the vine. If drinking
directly from the bottle, always hold it with your fingers covering
the label.
- In regards to table conversation, avoid stories about car wrecks,
operations, or sick pets. Nothing ruins a good meal quicker than
someone getting sick or sentimental at the table.
- While okay at home, it's considered crass to ask, "Are you gonna
eat the rest of that meatloaf?" Especially if you don't know the
person.
- Many establishments frown on the use of a "doggie bag" at an
all-you-can- eat salad bar. Avoid these pretentious places.
- Remember to leave a generous tip for good service. After all,
their mobile home costs just as much as yours.
OUT FOR THE EVENING
Sometimes you might find yourself in social settings where you don't
know anyone. Here are a few lines that have been proven effective
in breaking the ice:
- My old lady wants to get to know you.
- I bought some pearls just like those at a yard sale last weekend.
- Do I have anything stuck in my teeth?
- How long have you had that thing on your nose?
- Is that a new tattoo?
- When's your parole up?
ENTERTAINING IN YOUR HOME
- Do not allow the dog to eat at the table . . . no matter how good
his manners are.
- Be considerate of your guests. Point out in advance where the
injury threatening springs are located on the sofa.
- Establish early in the evening what is okay to spit in and what's
not okay to spit in.
- A centerpiece for the table should never be anything prepared by
a taxidermist.
- Always wipe your hands before picking your teeth.
- Make your guests feel at home. Let them adjust the rabbit ears
on the TV, and make the dog give up the couch.
- If guests overstay their welcome, a friendly hint may be in
order, such as, "Ya'll are either gonna have to leave or chip in on the
rent."
DATING (Outside the Family)
- Shower her with compliments: "You ain't near as ugly as your
sister."
THEATER ETIQUETTE
- Crying babies should be taken to the lobby and picked up
immediately after the movie has ended.
- Do not ask the concession stand attendant for the nacho cheese
recipe.
- Refrain from talking to characters on the screen. Tests have
proven they can't hear you.
WEDDINGS
- Kissing the bride for more than 15 seconds may get you cut.
- A bridal veil made of window screen is not only cost effective
but also a proven fly deterrent.
- For the groom, at least rent a tux. A leisure suit with a
cummerbund and a clean bowling shirt can create a natty appearance.
Though uncomfortable, say yes to socks and shoes for this special
occasion.
- For the reception, reserve the VFW far in advance, and avoid
Saturdays since that's square dancing night.
- When going through the receiving line, it's proper to say
something nice to the bride such as, "Your baby is real cute."
- If someone asks where the bride is registered, do not answer,
"The American Kennel Club."
- Livestock usually is a poor choice for a wedding gift.
- Is it okay to bring a date to a wedding? Not if you are the
groom.
- How many bridal attendants should the bride have? One for each of
her kids.
DRIVING ETIQUETTE
- Dim your headlights for approaching vehicles, even if the gun is
loaded and the deer is in sight.
- When approaching a four-way stop, the vehicle with the largest
tires always has the right of way.
- Never tow another car using pantyhose and duct tape.
- Never play Chinese fire drill with handicapped passengers,
especially if parked on a hill.
- When sending your wife down the road with a gas can, it is
impolite to ask her to bring back beer.
- Never relieve yourself from a moving vehicle, especially when
driving.
- Do not remove the seats from the car so that all your kids can
fit in.
- When traveling with your family, try to keep their "mooning" of
other drivers to a minimum.
- Remember that the median is not a passing lane.
- Do not lay rubber while traveling in a funeral procession.
TIPS FOR ALL OCCASIONS
- Don't make company sleep on dirty sheets. Give them directions
to the laundromat.
- It's considered tacky to take a cooler to church.
- Always offer to bait your date's hook, especially on the first
date.
- Even if you're certain that you are included in the will, it's
considered tacky to drive a U-Haul to the funeral home.
- Teach your children proper telephone etiquette. Nothing is more
embarrassing than hearing Junior say, "We ain't seen Daddy in eight
days, and Mama's too drunk to come to the phone."
- At a baby shower, never ask, "Do you have any idea who the father
is?"
- Never take a beer to a job interview.
- The socially refined never fish coins out of public toilets,
especially if other people are around.
- If you have to vacuum the bed, it's time to change the sheets.
- One should tip a valet extra if he has to push or jump-start your
car.
- Always identify people in your yard before shooting at them.
- When leaving town for the weekend, parents should not board their
kids at the local kennel.
- At a funeral, when viewing the body, never say, "He looks so
natural like he just got drunk and passed out."
- No matter how broke you are, never take your date flowers that
were stolen from a cemetery.
- Always say "Excuse me" after getting sick in someone else's car.
- Always provide an alibi to the police for family members.
------------------------------------
Cyrus, the New England farmer dies and goes to hell.
While down there the Devil notices that Cyrus is not suffering like
the rest. The Devil checks the gauges and sees that it's 90 degrees and
about 80% humidity. So he goes over to Cyrus and asks why he's so happy.
Cyrus says "I like it here. The temperature is just like plowing my
fields in June, ayuh."
The Devil isn't happy with the farmer's answer as well as attitude,
and decides to get him. So he goes over and turns up the temperature to
100 degrees and the humidity to 90%. After turning everything up he goes
looking for Cyrus. He finds him standing around just as happy as can be.
The Devil quizzes Cyrus again as to why he's so happy. The farmer says:
"This is even better. It's like pulling weeds and stumps in the fields
during July, ayuh."
The Devil, now upset, decides to really make this New Englander
suffer. He goes over to the controls and turns the heat up to 120 degrees
and the humidity to 100%. "Now lets see what this farmer is up to," he
says. He finds Cyrus sitting on the floor even happier then before.The
Devil can't figure it out. He asks the farmer why he's happy now. Cyrus
replies, "This is great, it's just like working in the silo with
my family and friends in August."
The Devil says "That's it, I'll get this guy yet." He goes over and
turns the temperature way down to a freezing 0 degrees and 0 humidity.
"Let's see what this jerk has to say about this now!" The Devil looks
around and finds Cyrus jumping up and down for joy and yelling:
"THE RED SOX HAVE FINALLY WON THE WORLD SERIES!!!!"
---------------------------------
Subject: The Pet Shop
A man goes into a pet shop to buy a parrot. The shop owner
points to three identical looking parrots on a perch and says:
"the parrot on the left costs 500 dollars".
"Why, does the parrot cost so much" asks the first man. The owner
says "Well the parrot knows how to use a computer".
The man then asks about the next parrot to be told that this one
costs 1,000 dollars because it can do everything the other parrot can
do plus it knows how to use the UNIX operating system.
Naturally, the increasingly startled man asks about the third parrot
to be told that it costs 2,000 dollars. Needless to say this begs the
question "What can it do?"
To which the owner replies "to be honest I have never seen it do a
thing but the other two call him boss!".
-------------------------------
Subject: A little political humor....
...to start the day.
President Clinton arrives in Washington D.C. after a leisure trip
to Arkansas. As the President gets off the plane and heads down the
stairs, the guard at the bottom notices that he is carrying an item
under each arm. As the President reaches the bottom, the Seargent-at-
Arms, notices that they look like pigs.
"Nice pigs, Sir", shouts the Seargent.
"Oh, son, these aren't pigs. These are genuine Razor-back hogs from
Arkansas. Got these for Hillary and Chelsea.", replies Clinton.
The Seargent hesitates only a moment to ponder the answer, and shouts,
"Nice trade, SIR!"
-----------------------
THREE COACHES
Three coaches flew to the NCAA convention. The plane crashed;
& all 3 died.
All 3 noticed God up in the clouds sitting in a chair. God motioned
for one of them to come into the clouds. God wanted to know three
things:
WHO are you?
What did you do?
What did people think of you?
The 1st person said, "I'm Denny Crum, I was 2nd best coach in the
nation. I won 2 national championships & over 20 games a year. The
people of Kentucky think I'm great."
God said, "Fine ,Denny, stand on my right side.
The next person said, "I'm Rick Pitino. I was the 3rd best coach in
the nation. I won an SEC Championship & turned the program around to a
fairly respectable one. The people of Kentucky think I'm great."
God said, "Fine Rick, stand on my left side."
The 3rd person stood before God & said, "I'm Bobby Knight & I have
won 3 national championships, 2 NIT championships, the Pan Am Games,
the Olympics, 9 Big Ten championships & was the youngest coach ever to
win 600 games, and the people of Indiana think you are sitting in my
chair."
------------------------
1. The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.
2. If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
3. Money can't buy happiness. But it sure makes misery easier to live with.
4. It has recently been discovered that research causes cancer in rats.
5. Always remember to pillage before you burn.
6. The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody
appreciates how difficult it was.
7. It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning
to others.
8. If "clothes maketh the man" then it follows that naked people have little
or no influence on society.
9. Vital papers will demonstrate their vitality by moving to where you can't
find them.
10. The law of Probability Dispersal decrees that whatever it is that hits
the fan will not be evenly distributed.
11. Indecision is the key to flexibility.
12. There is absolutely no substitute for a genuine lack of preparation.
13. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
14. The facts, although interesting, are usually irrelevant.
15. The careful application of terror is also a form of communication.
16. Things are more like they are today than they ever have been before.
17. Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.
18. Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.
19. All things being equal, fat people use more soap.
20. If you can smile when things go wrong then you have someone in mind to
blame.
21. One-seventh of life is spent on Monday.
22. By the time you can make ends meet, they move the ends.
23. This is as bad as it can get -- but don't bet on it.
24. Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty but only the pig enjoys it.
25. The trouble with life is that you are halfway through it before you
realize it's a "do it yourself" thing.
26. Drink varnish and you'll have a lovely finish.
27. We can sympathize with a child who is afraid of the dark, but the
tragedy of life is that most people are afraid of the light.
28. If only the good die young then what does that say about senior citizens?
29. Employ teenagers - while they know everything.
30. The best antiques are old friends.
31. Down with gravity!
32. Nobody's perfect and since I'm nobody...!
33. People who eat natural foods die from natural causes.
34. Why is there only one Monopolies Commission?
35. Some day my ship will come in, but with my luck, I'll be at the airport.
36. Age is a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind then it really
doesn't matter.
37. A friend in need may turn out to be a nuisance.
38. When the cat's away there are fewer hairs on the armchair.
39. An expert is nothing more than an ordinary person away from home.
40. If you can't be kind, be vague.
---------------------
>
>Three statisticians go out hunting together. After a while they spot a
>solitary rabbit. The first statistician takes aim and overshoots. The
second
>aims and undershoots. The third shouts out "We got him!"
------------------------
We can't take credit for coming up with this one. It is excerpted from
"Masquerade: The Amazing Camouflage Deceptions of World War II" by
Seymour Reit (Signet, 1980):
[One] enemy decoy, built in occupied Holland, led to a tale that has
been told and retold ever since by veteran Allied pilots. The German
"airfield," constructed with meticulous care, was made almost entirely
of wood.
There were wooden hangars, oil tanks, gun emplacements, trucks, and
aircraft. The Germans took so long in building their wooden decoy that
Allied photo experts had more than enough time to observe and report it.
The day finally came when the decoy was finished, down to the last
wooden plank. And early the following morning, a lone RAF plane crossed
the Channel, came in low, circled the field once, and dropped a large
wooden bomb.
--------------------------------
> >Bill Gates wanted to look good and impress everyone with his success. He
> >decided to measure the accomplishments of Microsoft against General
> >Motors.
> >
> >The comparison went like this: If automotive technology had kept pace
> >with computer technology over the past few decades, you would now be
> >driving a V-32 instead of a V-8, and it would have a top speed of 10,000
> >miles per hour. Or you could have an economy car that weighs 30 pounds
> >and gets a thousand miles to a gallon of gas. In either case the sticker
> >price of a new car would be less than $50.
> >
> >In response to all this goading, GM responds: "Yes, but would you really
> >want to drive a car that crashes twice a day?"
> >
>
-------------------------------
> >This piece was taken from MIT's Course Evaluation Guide, Fall, 1991
> >=============================================================
> >
> >The Best and Worst Comments Received:
> >
> >"Text is useless. I use it to kill roaches in my room."
> >
> >"He teaches like Speedy Gonzalez on a caffeine high."
> >
> >"In class, the syllabus is more important than you are."
> >
> >"Help! I've fallen asleep and I can't wake up!"
> >
> >"Text makes a satisfying 'thud' when dropped on the floor."
> >
> >"The class is worthwhile because I need it for the degree."
> >
> >"His blackboard technique puts Rembrandt to shame"
> >
> >"Textbook is confusing...someone with a knowledge of English should
> >proofread it."
> >
> >"Have you ever fallen asleep in class and awoke in another? That's
> >the way I felt all term."
> >
> >"This class was a religious experience for me...I had to take it
> >all on faith."
> >
> >"The recitation instructor would make a good parking lot attendant.
> >Tries to tell you where to go, but you can never understand him."
> >
> >"Problem sets are a decoy to lure you away from potential exam
> >material."
> >
> >"Recitation was great. It was so confusing that I forgot
> >who I was, where I was, and what I was doing--It's a great stress
> >reliever."
> >
> >"He is one of the best teachers I have had...He is well-organized,
> >presents good lectures, and creates interest in the subject. I
> >hope my comments don't hurt his chances of getting tenure."
> >
> >"I would sit in class and stare out the window at the squirrels.
> >They've got a cool nest in the tree."
> >
> >"The absolute value of the TA was less than epsilon."
> >
> >"TA steadily improved throughout the course...I think he started
> >drinking and it really loosened him up."
> >
> >"Information was presented like a ruptured fire hose--spraying in
> >all directions--no way to stop it."
> >
> >"I never bought the text. My $60 was better spent on the Led
> >Zeppelin tapes that I used while doing the problem sets"
> >
> >"What's the quality of the text? 'Text is printed on high quality
> >paper.'
> >
> >"The course was very thorough. What wasn't covered in class was
> >covered on the final exam."
------------------------------
LEAD STORIES
* The (Nashville) Tennessean reported in February on state
government engineer Ken Robichaux's lonely, 10-year crusade to
wipe out both the English system of measurement and the metric
system, in favor of one that combines weight, length, and volume
into a single set of measures denominated as (not surprisingly)
"robies." (For example, 25 robies could stand for any of 8 ounces,
1 cup, 250 ml's, 250 grams, or 250 cc's.) He said Al Gore, when he
was a senator, once called his ideas "intriguing."
* In Milwaukee, Wis., the family of Robert Senz demanded shortly
after his burial last July that Borgwardt Funeral Home dig up the
body because his wallet was missing. Sure enough, the wallet
containing $64 and credit cards was still in Senz's pocket. In
February 1997, Borgwardt sent the family a reburial bill for
$2,149, but then decided the whole thing was the county medical
examiner's fault and sent the bill there, but that office has denied
responsibility.
OOPS!
* In February in Redwood City, Calif., Rachel Landa, 48, got out
of her van to pump gas, but when she realized the hose wouldn't
reach, she instructed her 14-year-old daughter to get behind the
wheel and back it up. By the time the girl wrestled the van to a
stop, the mother had been run over three times (broken ankle, foot,
and finger), and the van had crashed into a traffic signal box
adjacent to the station.
* Latest Highway Truck Spills: Several hundred thousand apples
near Brighton, Mich., in November; a tractor-trailer full of Hills
Bros. ground coffee in downtown Louisville in December; a truck
hauling spaghetti sauce and ranch dressing (colliding with a
truckful of computers) on I-35 in Austin, Tex., in January; and
during a November ice storm, a tractor-trailer full of nuclear
weapons near Brownlee, Neb. (an accident kept secret for a month
by the federal government).
* John O'Neill, 73, had to be rescued by firefighters in Huntington,
N. Y., in February after he wandered out of a bar late at night and
somehow got wedged between two buildings overnight. He was
stuck so tight that he had to be pulled out from above.
WELL-PUT
* A breathalyzer company executive testifying in a Knoxville,
Tenn., DUI trial in September, disputing the defendant's contention
that an untimely belch yielded a falsely positive reading:
"Belching? I frankly have never seen a belch that brought alcohol
up into the oral cavity."
* Honduran Congressman Julio Villatoro, reacting in February to
the bigamy charge filed by his wife: "[I] have problems with my
wife, even though she knows a handsome man is not for one
woman but for several. God gave me a physique attractive to
women, and I take advantage of it."
* Employees who have become ill in asbestos-laden workplaces
have their own class-action lawsuit so lawyer Michael V. Kelley
filed one in January in Cleveland, Ohio, on behalf of employees in
those workplaces who are perfectly healthy (in case they someday
become ill). Said Kelley, "It's very pro-active."
* King Letsie III, 33, king of Lesotho, imploring other southern
African monarchs and dignitaries in December to help him find a
wife: "The pressure on me to find a wife soon is heavy, especially
[from] my mother." "[I] sometimes feel jealous when I see other
leaders getting partners with such remarkable ease."
RECENT CRIMINAL MOTIVES
* Kevin Carter, 21, and Michael Harrison, 26, were charged with
murder and armed robbery in Boynton Beach, Fla., in December.
Motive: to raise money to attend the police academy
* Michael Pollina, 26, pleaded guilty in Chicago in February to
three bank robberies. Motive: to pay for a lavish reception that he
and his fiancee had planned for their upcoming wedding
* Jack Swint, 42, pleaded guilty to passing bad checks in Roanoke,
Va., in November (while he was awaiting trial on other bad-check
charges). Motive: needed to pay for counseling sessions to help
him kick his bad-check habit
==============================
Copyright 1997 by Universal Press Syndicate.
--------------------------------
THE CAP'N'S RED SHIRT
Long ago, when sailing ships ruled the waves, a captain and his crew were in
danger of being boarded by a pirate ship. As the crew became frantic, the
captain bellowed to his First Mate, "Bring me my red shirt!" The First Mate
quickly retrieved the captain's red shirt, which the captain put on and led
the crew into battle against the pirate boarding party. Although some
casualties occurred among the crew, the pirates were repelled.
Later that day, the lookout screamed that there were two pirate vessels
sending boarding parties. The crew cowered in fear, but the captain, calm as
ever bellowed, "Bring me my red shirt!" And once again the battle was on,
however, the Captain and his crew repelled both boarding parties, although
this time more casualties occurred.
Weary from the battles, the men sat around on deck that night recounting the
day's occurrences when an ensign looked to the Captain and asked, "Sir, why
did you call for your red shirt before the battle?"
The Captain, giving the ensign a look that only a captain can give,
exhorted,
"If I am wounded in battle, the red shirt does not show the wound and, thus,
you men will continue to fight unafraid." The men sat in silence marveling
at
the courage of such a man.
As dawn came the next morning, the lookout screamed that there were pirate
ships, 10 of them, all with boarding parties on their way. The men became
silent and looked to the Captain, their leader, for his usual command. The
Captain, calm as ever, bellowed, "Bring me my brown pants!"
-----------------------------------
>
> > NERDS vs JOCKS
> >
> > In answer to the eternal question "Is it better to be
> > a jock or a nerd?" I submit the following:
> >
> > Michael Jordan will make over $300,000 a game:
> > $10,000 a minute, assuming he averages about 30
> > minutes per game.
> >
> > Assuming $40 million in endorsements next year, he'll
> > be making $178,100 a day (working or not)!
> >
> > Assuming he sleeps 7 hours a night, he makes $52,000
> > every night while visions of sugarplums dance in his
> > head.
> >
> > If he goes to see a movie, it'll cost him $7.00, but
> > he'll make $18,550 while he's there.
> >
> > If he decides to have a 5 minute egg, he'll make $618
> > while boiling it.
> >
> > He makes $7,415/hr more than minimum wage (after the
> > wage hike)
> >
> > He'll make $3,710 while watching each episode of
> > Friends.
> >
> > If he wanted to save up for a new Acura NSX ($90,000)
> > it would take him a whole 12 hours.
> >
> > If someone were to hand him his salary and endorsement
> > money, they would have to do it at the rate of $2.00
> > every second.
> >
> > He'll probably pay around $200 for a nice round of
> > golf, but will be `reimbursed' $33,390 for that
> > round.
> >
> > Assuming he puts the federal maximum of 15% of his
> > income into his tax deferred account (401k), he will
> > hit the federal cap of $9500 for such accounts at
> > 8:30 a.m. on January 1st, 1997.
> >
> > If you were given a tenth of a penny for every dollar
> > he made, you'd be living comfortably at $65,000 a
> > year.
> >
> > He'll make about $19.60 while watching the 100 meter
> > dash in the Olympics.He'll make about $15,600 while
> > the Boston Marathon is being run.
> >
> > While the common person is spending about $20 for a
> > meal in his trendy Chicago restaurant, he'll pull in
> > about $5600.
> >
> > Next year, he'll make more than twice as much as all
> > of our past presidents for all of their terms
> > combined.
> >
> > Amazing isn't it? BUT:
> >
> > JORDAN WILL HAVE TO SAVE 100% OF HIS INCOME FOR 270
> > YEARS TO HAVE A NET WORTH EQUIVALENT TO THAT OF BILL
> > GATES.
> >
> > NERDS RULE! NERDS RULE! NERDS RULE!
> >
> >
---------------------------------
>From an elementary school in Philadelphia - questions about love and
marriage were posed to kids ages 5 to 10. Their answers below are
enlightening:
WHAT IS THE PROPER AGE TO GET MARRIED?
Eighty-four, because at that age you don't have to work anymore,
and you can spend all your time loving each other in your bedroom. (Judy,
8)
Once I'm done with kindergarten, I'm going to find me a wife. (Tom, 5)
WHAT DO MOST PEOPLE DO ON A DATE?
On the first date they just tell each other lies, and that
usually gets them interested enough to go for a second date. (Mike, 10)
WHEN IS IT OKAY TO KISS SOMEONE?
You should never kiss a girl unless you have enough bucks to buy
her a big ring and her own VCR, 'cause she'll want to have videos of the
wedding. (Jim, 10)
Never kiss in front of other people. It's a big embarrassing
thing if anybody sees you. But if nobody sees you, I might be willing to
try it with a handsome boy, but just for a few hours. (Kally, 9)
THE GREAT DEBATE; IS IT BETTER TO BE SINGLE OR MARRIED?
It's better for girls to be single but not for boys. Boys need
somebody to clean up after them. (Lynette, 9)
It gives me a headache to think about that stuff. I'm just a kid.
I don't need that kind of trouble. (Kenny, 7)
CONCERNING WHY LOVE HAPPENS BETWEEN TWO PARTICULAR PEOPLE
No one is sure why it happens, but I heard it has something to do
with how you smell. That's why perfume and deodorant are so popular.
(Jan, 9)
I think you're supposed to get shot with an arrow or something,
but the rest of it isn't supposed to be so painful. (Harlan, 8)
ON WHAT FALLING IN LOVE IS LIKE
Like an avalanche where you have to run for your life. (Roger, 9)
If falling in love is anything like learning how to spell, I
don't want to do it. It takes too long. (Leo, 7)
ON THE ROLE OF GOOD LOOKS IN LOVE
If you want to be loved by somebody who isn't already in your
family, it doesn't hurt to be beautiful. (Jeanne, 8)
It isn't always just how you look. Look at me. I'm handsome like
anything and I haven't got anybody to marry me yet. (Gary, 7)
Beauty is skin deep. But how rich you are can last a long time.
(Christine, 9)
CONCERNING WHY LOVERS OFTEN HOLD HANDS
They want to make sure their rings don't fall off because they
paid good money for them. (Dave, 8)
CONFIDENTIAL OPINIONS ABOUT LOVE
I'm in favor of love as long as it doesn't happen when 'The
Simpsons' is on television. (Anita, 6)
Love will find you, even if you are trying to hide from it. I
have been trying to hide from it since I was five, but the girls keep
finding me. (Bobby, 8)
I'm not rushing into being in love. I'm finding fourth grade hard
enough. (Regina, 10)
THE PERSONAL QUALITIES NECESSARY TO BE A GOOD LOVER.
One of you should know how to write a check. Because, even if you
have tons of love, there is still going to be a lot of bills. (Ava, 8)
SOME SUREFIRE WAYS TO MAKE A PERSON FALL IN LOVE WITH YOU
Tell them that you own a whole bunch of candy stores. (Del, 6)
Don't do things like have smelly, green sneakers. You might get
attention, but attention ain't the same thing as love. (Alonzo, 9)
One way is to take the girl out to eat. Make sure it's something
she likes to eat. French fries usually works for me. (Bart, 9)
HOW CAN YOU TELL IF TWO ADULTS EATING DINNER AT A RESTAURANT ARE IN LOVE?
Just see if the man picks up the check. That's how you can tell
he's in love. (John, 9)
Lovers will just be staring at each other and their food will get
cold. Other people care more about the food. (Brad, 8)
It's love if they order one of those desserts that are on fire.
They like to order those because it's just like how their hearts are...on
fire. (Christine, 9)
WHAT MOST PEOPLE ARE THINKING WHEN THEY SAY 'I LOVE YOU'
The person is thinking: Yeah, I really do love him. But I hope
he showers at least once a day. (Michelle, 9)
HOW A PERSON LEARNS TO KISS
You learn it right on the spot when the gooshy feelings get the
best of you. (Doug, 7)
It might help to watch soap operas all day. (Carin, 9)
WHEN IS IT OKAY TO KISS SOMEONE/
It's never okay to kiss a boy. They always slobber all over
you... That's why I stopped doing it. (Jean, 10)
HOW TO MAKE LOVE ENDURE
Spend most of your time loving instead of going to work. (Tom, 7)
Don't forget your wife's name... That will mess up the love.
(Roger, 8)
Be a good kisser. It might make your wife forget that you never
take out the trash. (Randy, 8)
-----------------------------------
> > Lost in the fog...
> >
> > A helicopter was flying around above Seattle
> > yesterday when an electrical malfunction disabled
> > all of the aircraft's electronic navigation and
> > communications equipment. Due to the clouds and
> > haze, the pilot could not determine the helicopter's
> > position and course to steer to the airport.
> >
> > The pilot saw a tall building, flew toward it, circled,
> > drew a hand-written sign, and held it in the
> > helicopter's window. The pilot's sign read "WHERE
> > AM I?" in large letters.
> >
> > People in the tall building quickly responded to the
> > aircraft, drew a large sign, and held it in a building
> > window. Their sign read "YOU ARE IN A
> > HELICOPTER."
> >
> > The pilot smiled, waved, looked at his map, flew
> > directly to SEATAC airport, and landed safely.
> >
> > After they were on the ground, the copilot asked
> > the pilot how the "YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER" sign
> > helped determine their position.
> >
> > The pilot responded "Well, the answer they gave me
> > was technically correct but completely useless...so it
> > had to be the Microsoft Customer Support!
------------------------------
1. How Dogs Are Better Than Men
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Dogs do not have problems expressing affection in public.
Dogs miss you when you're gone.
You never wonder whether your dog is good enough for you.
Dogs feel guilt when they've done something wrong.
Dogs don't criticize your friends.
Dogs admit when they're jealous.
Dogs are very direct about wanting to go out.
Dogs do not play games with you -- except fetch (and they never
laugh at how you throw).
Dogs are happy with any video you choose to rent, because they
know the most important thing is that you're together.
Dogs don't feel threatened by your intelligence.
You can train a dog.
Dogs are easy to buy for.
Dogs are good with kids.
You are never suspicious of your dog's dreams.
Gorgeous dogs don't know they're gorgeous.
Dogs understand what no means.
Dogs don't make a practice of killing their own species.
Dogs understand if some of their friends cannot come inside.
Dogs do not read at the table.
Dogs will eat whatever you put on the table
You can house train a dog.
You can force a dog to take a bath.
Dogs don't correct your stories.
Dogs don't feel the need to abandon you for another.
Dogs just love to ride in the car; they don't mind if you do all the
driving.
Dogs admit it when they're lost.
Dogs look at your eyes.
Dogs take care of their own needs.
Dogs are color blind.
Dogs mean it when they kiss you.
Dogs are nice to your relatives.
Dogs obsess about you as much as you obsess about them.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
2. How Dogs and Men Are the Same
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Both take up too much space on the bed.
Both have irrational fears about vacuum cleaning.
Both are threatened by their own kind.
Both like to chew wood.
Both mark their territory.
Both are bad at asking you questions.
Both tend to smell riper with age.
Neither does any dishes.
Both fart shamelessly.
Neither of them notice when you get your hair cut.
Both like dominance games.
Both are suspicious of the postman.
Neither knows how to talk on the telephone.
Neither understands what you see in cats.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
3. Where Dogs Fall Down
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Men only have two feet that track in mud.
Men can buy you presents.
Men don't have to play with every person they see when you take them
around the block.
Men are a little bit more subtle.
Men don't eat cat turds on the sly.
Men open their own cans.
Dogs have dog breath all the time.
Men can do math.
Holiday Inns accept men.
Men are strong and like to lift things to prove it.
Men don't shed as much, and if they do, they hide it.
------------------------------------
>>>Some useful descriptions of people you may work with day to day:
>>>======================================
>>>
>>>Not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
>>>
>>>Got into the gene pool while the lifeguard wasn't watching.
>>>
>>>A room temperature IQ.
>>>
>>>Got a full 6-pack, but lacks the plastic thingy to hold them together.
>>>
>>>A gross ignoramus -- 144 times worse than an ordinary ignoramus.
>>>
>>>A photographic memory, but the lens cover is glued on.
>>>
>>>A prime candidate for natural deselection.
>>>
>>>Bright as Alaska in December.
>>>
>>>One celled organisms out-score him in IQ tests.
>>>
>>>Donated his body to scientists... Before he was done using it.
>>>
>>>During evolution his ancestors were in the control group.
>>>
>>>Fell out of the family tree.
>>>
>>>Gates are down, the lights are flashing, but the train isn't coming.
>>>
>>>Has two brains; one is lost and the other is out looking for it.
>>>
>>>He's so dense, light bends around him.
>>>
>>>If brains were taxed, he'd get a rebate.
>>>
>>>If he were any more stupid, he'd have to be watered twice a week.
>>>
>>>If you give him a penny for his thoughts, you get change back.
>>>
>>>If you stand close enough to him, you can hear the ocean.
>>>
>>>One neuron short of a synapse.
>>>
>>>Some drink from the fountain of knowledge, but he just gargled.
>>>
>>>Takes him an hour and a half to watch "60 Minutes".
>>>
>>>Was left on the Tilt-A-Whirl a bit too long as a baby.
>>>
>>>Wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
------------------------------------------
Once upon a time, in an absolute monarchy not far from here, a king
summoned two of his advisors for a test. He showed them both a shiny
metal box with two slots in the top, a control knob, and a lever.
"What do you think this is?"
One advisor, an electrical engineer, answered first. "It is a
toaster." The king asked, "How would you design an embedded computer
for it?" The engineer replied, "Using a four-bit microcontroller, I
would write a simple program that reads the darkness knob and
quantizes its position to one of 16 shades of darkness, from snow
white to coal black. The program would use that darkness level as the
index to a 16-element table of initial timer values. Then it would
turn on the heating elements and start the timer with the initial
value selected from the table. At the end of the time delay, it would
turn off the heat and pop up the toast. Wait 'til next week, and I'll
show you a working prototype."
The second advisor, a computer scientist, immediately recognized the
danger of such short-sighted thinking. He said, "Toasters don't just
turn bread into toast, they are also used to warm frozen waffles. What
you see before you is really a breakfast food cooker. As the
subjects of your kingdom become more sophisticated, they will demand
more capabilities. They will need a breakfast food cooker that can
also cook sausage, fry bacon, and make scrambled eggs. A toaster that
only makes toast will soon be obsolete. If we don't look to the
future, we will have to completely redesign the toaster in just a few
years.
"With this in mind, we can formulate a more intelligent solution to
the problem. First, create a class of breakfast foods. Specialize
this class into subclasses: grains, pork, and poultry. The
specialization process should be repeated with grains divided into
toast, muffins, pancakes, and waffles; pork divided into sausage,
links, and bacon; and poultry divided into scrambled eggs, hard-boiled
eggs, poached eggs, fried eggs, and various omelet classes.
"The ham-and-cheese omelet class is worth special attention because it
must inherit characteristics from the pork, dairy, and poultry
classes. Thus, we see that the problem cannot be properly solved
without multiple inheritance. At run time, the program must create
the proper object and send a message to the object that says, 'Cook
yourself.' The semantics of this message depend, of course, on the
kind of object, so they have a different meaning to a piece of toast
than to scrambled eggs.
"Reviewing the process so far, we see that the analysis phase has
revealed that the primary requirement is to cook any kind of breakfast
food. In the design phase, we have discovered some derived
requirements. Specifically, we need an object-oriented language with
multiple inheritance. Of course, users don't want the eggs to get
cold while the bacon is frying, so concurrent processing is required,
too.
"We must not forget the user interface. The lever that lowers the
food lacks versatility, and the darkness knob is confusing. Would-be
diners won't buy the product unless it has a user-friendly, graphical
interface. When the breakfast cooker is plugged in, users should see
a cowboy boot on the screen. Users click on it, and the message
'Booting UNIX v.8.3' appears on the screen. (UNIX 8.3 should be out
by the time the product gets to the market.) Users can pull down a
menu and click on the foods they want to cook.
"Having made the wise decision of specifying the software first in the
design phase, all that remains is to pick an adequate hardware
platform for the implementation phase. An Intel 80586 with 16MB of
memory, a 1.2GB hard disk, and a SuperVGA monitor should be
sufficient. If you select a multitasking, object oriented language
that supports multiple inheritance and has a built-in GUI, writing the
program will be a snap. (Imagine the difficulty we would have had if
we had foolishly allowed a hardware-first design strategy to lock us
into a four-bit microcontroller)."
The king wisely had the computer scientist beheaded, and the kingdom
lived happily ever after.
--------------------------------------------
The Daily Joke - Thursday - Math Translation
This is a guide to translating the language of math textbooks and
professors.
1) It can be proven...
This may take upwards of a year, and no shorter than four hours, and
may require something like 5 reams of scratch paper, 100 pencils, or 100
refills (For those who use mechanical pencils). If you are only an
undergraduate, you need not bother attempting the proof as it will be
impossible for you.
2) It can be shown...
Usually this would take the teacher about one hour of blackboard work,
so he/she avoids doing it. Another possibility of course is that the
instructor doesn't understand the proof himself/herself.
3) It is obvious...
Only to PhD's who specialize in that field, or to instructors who have
taught the course 100 times.
4) It is easily derived...
Meaning that the teacher figures that even the student could derive it.
The dedicated student who wishes to do this will waste the next
weekend in the attempt. Also possible that the teacher read this
somewhere, and wants to sound like he/she really has it together.
5) It is obvious...
Only to the Author of the textbook, or Carl Gauss. More likely only Carl
Gauss. Last time I saw this was as a step in a proof of Fermat's last
theorem.
6) The proof is beyond the scope of this text. Obviously this is a plot.
The
reader will never find any text with the proof in it. The Proof doesn't
exist. The theorem just turned out to be useful to the author.
7) The proof is left up to the reader.
...sure let us do all the work. Does the author think that we have nothing
better to do than sit around with THEIR textbook, and do the work that
THEY should have done?
"Rollerblade Barbie" by Dave Barry
As executive director of the Bureau of Consumer Alarm, I am always
on the alert for news stories that involve two key elements:
1. Fire
2. Barbie
So I was very interested when alert reader Michael Robinson sent me a
column titled "Ask Jack Sunn" from the Dec. 13, 1993, issue of the
Jackson, Mississippi Clarion-Ledger. Here's an excerpt from a
consumer's letter to this column, which I am not making up:
"Last year, my two daughters received presents of two Rollerblade
Barbie dolls by Mattel. On March 8, my 8-year-old daughter was playing
beauty shop with her 4-year-old brother. After spraying him with hair
spray, the children began to play with the boot to Rollerblade Barbie. My
little girl innocently ran the skate across her brother's bottom, which
immediately ignited his clothes."
The letter adds that "There are no warnings concerning fire on these
toys... I feel the need to warn potential buyers of their danger."
In his response, Jack Sunn says, cryptically, that "Mattel does not
manufacture Rollerblade Barbie any more." He does not address the
critical question that the consumer's letter raised in my mind, as I'm sure
it
did yours, namely: Huh?
I realized that the only way to answer this question was to conduct a
scientific experiment. As you may recall, last year, in response to a
news item concerning a kitchen fire in Ohio, I did an experiment proving
that if you put a Kellogg's strawberry Pop-Tart in a toaster and hold the
toaster lever down for five minutes and 50 seconds, the Pop-Tart will
turn into a snack-pastry blowtorch, shooting flames up to 30 inches high.
Also, your toaster will be ruined.
The problem was that I did not have a Rollerblade Barbie. My son
happens to be a boy, and we never went through the Barbie phase. We
went through the Masters of the Universe phase. For two years our
household was the scene of a fierce, unceasing battle between
armies of good and evil action figures. They were everywhere. You'd
open up the salad crisper, and there would be He-Man and Skeletor,
striking each other with carrots.
So at the end of a recent column, I printed a note appealing for a
Rollerblade Barbie. I got two immediately; one from Renee Simmons of
Clinton, Iowa, and one from Randy Langhenry of Gainesville, Ga., who
said it belonged to his 6-year-old daughter, Greta. ("It would help me if
you could get Barbie back to north Georgia before Greta notices she's
gone," Randy wrote.)
Rollerblade Barbie is basically a standard Barbie, which is to say, she
represents the feminine beauty ideal, if your concept of a beautiful
female is one who is six feet, nine inches tall and weighs 52 pounds (37
of which are in the bust area) and has a rigidly perky smile and eyeballs
the size of beer coasters and a one-molecule nose and enough hair to
clog the Lincoln Tunnel.
But what makes this Barbie special is that she's wearing two little
yellow Rollerblade booties, each of which has a wheel similar to the kind
found in cigarette lighters, so that when you roll Barbie along, her
booties shoot out sparks. This seems like an alarming thing for
Rollerblades to do, but Barbie, staring perkily ahead, does not seem to
notice.
To ensure high standards of scientific accuracy, I conducted the
experiment in my driveway. Aside from Rollerblade Barbie, my materials
consisted of several brands of hair spray and -- this was a painful
sacrifice -- a set of my veteran underwear estimated year of purchase:
1968).
I spread the underwear on the driveway, then sprayed it with hair
spray, then made Rollerblade Barbie skate across it, sparking her
booties. I found that if you use the right brand of hair spray -- I got
excellent results with Rave -- Rollerblade Barbie does indeed cause the
underwear to burst dramatically into flame.
(While I was doing this, a neighbor walked up, and I just want to say that
if you think it's easy to explain why you're squatting in your driveway, in
front of a set of burning underwear, surrounded by hair spray bottles,
holding a Barbie doll in your hand, then you are mistaken.)
At this point, the only remaining scientific question -- I'm sure this has
occurred to you -- was: Could Rollerblade Barbie set fire to a
Kellogg'sstrawberry Pop-Tart? The answer turns out to be yes, but you
have to be in the act of hair-spraying the Pop-Tart when Barbie
Rollerblades over it, so you get a blowtorch effect that could very easily
set fire to Barbie's
hair, not to mention your own personal self. Plus you get tart filling in
the booties.
So we can see why Mattel ceased manufacturing Rollerblade Barbie.
I imagine that whichever toy designer dreamed up this exciting concept
has been transferred to Mattel's coveted Bosnia plant. But what should
be done about all the Rollerblade Barbies that are already in circulation?
I
believe that the only solution is for all concerned consumers to demand
that our congress-humans pass a federal law requiring that all
underwear, snack pastries and other household objects carry a
prominent label stating:
"WARNING! DO NOT SPRAY HAIR SPRAY ON THIS OBJECT AND SKATE
ROLLERBLADE BARBIE OVER IT!"
But that is not enough. We also need to appropriate millions of dollars
for a massive federal effort to undo the damage that has been done so
far. I'm talking about scraping this crud off my driveway. Also, the
taxpayers owe Greta a new Barbie.
Editor's Note: We also need to ask whether it is wise to let an 8 year old
use hair spray to cover their 4 year old sibling.
The Daily Joke - Wednesday - The Gene Pool May Need Cleaning
Warning!
At a grocery store in San Jose, they have new credit card/bank card
readers at the checkout stands. If you don't know how to orient your
card to swipe it through the reader, the checkout person will say, "Strip
down, face toward me."
Editor's Note: Am I wrong, or is this just asking for trouble?
------------------------------
Computer Terms as defined by Rural Texans
Log On: Making the wood stove hotter
Log Off: Don't add wood
Monitor: Keep an eye on the wood stove, y'all!
Download: Getting the firewood off the pickup
Megahertz: When you're not careful downloading (watch the toes,
y'all!)
Floppy Disk: What you get from piling too much wood
RAM: The hydraulic thingy that makes the woodsplitter work
Hard Drive: Getting home in mud season
Prompt: What you wish the mail was in mud season
Windows: What to shut when it's cold outside
Screen: What you need for black fly season
Byte: What black flies do
Chip: Where not to step
Micro Chip: What's left in the bag when the chips are gone
Infrared: Where the leftovers go when Fred's around
Modem: What you did to the hay fields
Dot Matrix: Farmer Matrix's missus'
Lap Top: Where little kids feel comfy
Keyboard: Where you hang your keys
Software: Paper plates after the beans got cold
Mouse: What eats the horses' grain in the barn
Main Frame: The part of the barn that holds the roof up
Port: Fancy wine
Enter: C'mon in
Random Access Memory: You can't remember how much that new
rifle cost when your wife asks
1. ______
| sand |
|_____|
2. man
------------
board
3. stand
------------
i
4. /r/e/a/d/i/n/g/
5. wear
----------
long
6. r
road
a
d
7. cycle
cycle
cycle
8.
t
o
w
n
9. /
le /
/ vel
/
10. 0
------------
M.D.
Ph.D.
11. knee
------------
light
12. ii ii
-------------
O O
13. dice
dice
14. t
o
u
c
h
15. ground
---------------
feet
feet
feet
feet
feet
feet
16. mind
------------
matter
17. he's / himself
18. ecnalg
19. death / life
Answers
1. sand box
2. man overboard
3. I understand
4. reading between the lines
5. long underwear
6. cross road
7. tricycle
8. downtown
9. split level
10. two degrees below zero
11. neon light
12. circles under the eyes
13. paradise
14. touchdown
15. six feet underground
16. mind over matter
17. he's beside himself
18. backward glance
19. life after death
------------------------------------
> > Subject: Drug Dealers/Software Developers - a Comparison
> >
> > Drug dealers Software developers
> > ------------------------- ---------------------------
> > Refer to their clients Refer to their clients
> > as "users". as "users".
> >
> > "The first one's free!" "Download a free
> trial version..."
>
> > Have important South-East Have important South-East
> > Asian connections Asian connections
> > (to help move the stuff). (to help debug the code).
> >
> > Strange jargon: Strange jargon:
> > "Stick," "Rock," "SCSI," "RTFM,"
> > "Dime bag," "E". "Java," "ISDN".
> >
> > Realize there's Realize there's
> > tons of cash in the tons of cash in
> >14- to 25-year-old 14- to 25-year-old
> > market. market.
> >
> > Job is assisted by the Job is assisted by
> > industry's producing industry's producing
> > newer, more potent mixes. newer, faster machines.
> >
> > Often seen in the company Often seen in the company
> of of pimps and hustlers. of marketing people and
> venture capitalists.
> >
> > Their product causes DOOM. Quake. SimCity. Duke
> > unhealthy addictions. Nukem 'Nuff said.
> >
> > Do your job well, and Shucks!!!!!
> > you can sleep with
> > sexy movie stars who
> > depend on you.
----------------------------------
This is for real!
Typhoon Rips Through Cemetery: Hundreds Dead
Red Tape Holds Up New Bridge
Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim
Eye Drops Off Shelf
Panda Mating Fails: Veterinarian Takes Over
Iraqi Head Seeks Arms
Survivor of Siamese Twins Joins Parents
Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says
Drunk Gets Nine Months in Violin Vase
Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas In Spacecraft
Chef Throws His Heart Into Helping Feed Needy
Include Your Children When Baking Cookies
Headless Body Found in Topless Bar
------------------------------
Where do you want to go today?
Straight to hell, apparently.
There's that Microsoft commercial on TV: sublime choral
music drifts through the background as the unseen user surfs through the
Internet and various Microsoft content using Internet Explorer. The
commercial closes with the Microsoft slogan "Where do you want to go
today?" and a final, furious blast of music. However...
The background music is the Dies Irae of Mozart's Requiem Mass.
And, in the Requiem, the words accompanying the final blast of music are
"confutatis maledictis, flammis acribus addictis..." Or: "When the damned
are confounded, and consigned to sharp flames...".
But really, while IE will take you to hell for free, the upgrade
to purgatory is pretty steep.
-----------------------
I Write the Code
(to the tune of "I Write the Songs"):
I've been a geek forever,
And I wrote the very first DOS.
I put my software and IBM together--
I got profit, and they got the loss!
I write the code that makes the whole world run;
I'm gettin' royalties from everyone.
Sometimes it's garbage, but the press is snowed;
You buy the box, I sell the code.
Every software company
Is doing Microsoft's R&D...
You can't keep a good idea down these days.
Even Windows is a hack
We kinda based loosely on the Mac.
So it's big, so it's slow--
You've got nowhere to go!
I need cash, I don't need praise!
I write the code that fits the world today:
Big mediocrity in every way.
We'll make the Mac OS's share erode;
You'll have no choice--you'll buy my code.
I am Bill Gates, and I write the code!
(Copyright 1997 by David Pogue, writing in Macworld magazine;
http://www.concentric.net/~pogue)
----------------------------------------
Microsoft to Acquire LDS Church
by Chuck Huber
SALT LAKE CITY (AP)- In a surprise move that left competitors stunned,
Microsoft has followed up its successful merger with the Roman Catholic
Church by announcing a cash buyout of the Church of Jesus Christ -- Latter
Day Saints. In recent weeks, high officials of the LDS Church (more
commonly known as the Mormons) had been rumored to be in negotiations with
both Novell and Lotus, but the Microsoft move came as a complete surprise
to most industry/religious observers. With much of Microsoft's competition
based in Utah, many current employees of WordPerfect and Novell commented
(anonymously) that they would feel morally obliged to jump ship to
Microsoft. Novell is countering by pointing to non-competitive clauses in
senior personnel's contracts, and urging conversion to the Reorganized LDS
Church, with whom Novell has entered into hasty negotiations.
Microsoft spokespersons officially denied any intent to pirate Novell
employees with this move, though they indicated that they were willing to
sell Novell their Eastern Rite Catholic subsidiaries to avoid anti-trust
action.
According to the official press release, Microsoft CEO and Pontiff Bill
Gates said, "We've been hoping to acquire the Mormons for a long time.
They're a fast growing organization with a large, mobile and highly
dedicated sales force which will work synergistically with our worldwide
Catholic retail outlets. More importantly, we're acquiring the LDS
"convert-the-dead" technology which we will incorporate into OLE 3.0
(scheduled to arrive in the next versions of Windows and Windows NT,
currently codenamed "Rome" and "Jerusalem" respectively)."
Gates went on to say, "This will expand our user base to generations of
users who never before had the chance to purchase Microsoft products."
Microsoft insiders who declined to be quoted predicted record profits from
requiring deceased church members to purchase annual upgrades in order to
maintain their eternal salvation.
----------------------------------------
Subject: Another great tech support story
The typical life of a Tech Support Engineer.
"Hello. Tech Support; may I help you?"
"Yes, well, I'm having trouble with WordPerfect."
"What sort of trouble?"
"Well, I was just typing along, and all of a sudden the words went
away."
"Went away?"
"They disappeared."
"Hmm. So what does your screen look like now?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"It's blank; it won't accept anything when I type."
"Are you still in WordPerfect, or did you get out?"
"How do I tell?"
[Uh-oh. Well, let's give it a try anyway.] "Can you see the C:\ prompt
on the screen?"
"What's a sea-prompt?"
[Uh-huh, thought so. Let's try a different tack.] "Never mind. Can you
move the cursor around on the screen?"
"There isn't any cursor: I told you, it won't accept anything I type."
[Ah-at least s/he knows what a cursor is. Sounds like a hardware
problem. I wonder if s/he's kicked out his/her monitor's power plug.]
"Does your monitor have a power indicator?"
"What's a monitor?"
"It's the thing with the screen on it that looks like a TV. Does it
have a little light that tells you when it's on?"
"I don't know."
"Well, then look on the back of the monitor and find where the power
cord goes into it. Can you see that?"
[sound of rustling and jostling] [muffled] "Yes, I think so."
"Great! Follow the cord to the plug, and tell me if it's plugged into
the wall."
[pause] "Yes, it is."
[Hmm. Well, that's interesting. I doubt s/he would have accidentally
turned it off, and I don't want to send him/her hunting for the power
switch because I don't know what kind of monitor s/he has and it's
bound to have more than one switch on it. Maybe the video cable is
loose or something.] "When you were behind the monitor, did you notice
that there were two cables plugged into the back of it, not just one?"
"No."
"Well, there are. I need you to look back there again and find the
other cable."
[muffled] "Okay, here it is."
"Follow it for me, and tell me if it's plugged securely into the back
of your computer."
[still muffled] "I can't reach."
"Uh huh. Well, can you see if it is?"
[clear again] "No."
"Even if you maybe put your knee on something and lean way over?"
"Oh, it's not because I don't have the right angle-it's because it's
dark."
"Dark?"
"Yes-the office light is off, and the only light I have is coming in
from the window."
"Well, turn on the office light then."
"I can't."
"No? Why not?"
"Because there's a power outage."
("A power--!?!" ...[AAAAAAARGH!]) "A power outage? Aha! Okay, we've
got it licked now. Do you still have the boxes and manuals and packing
stuff your computer came in?"
"Well, yes, I keep them in the closet."
"Good! Go get them, and unplug your system and pack it up just like it
was when you got it. Then take it back to the store you bought it
from."
"Really? Is it that bad?"
"Yes, I'm afraid it is."
"Well, all right then, I suppose. What do I tell them?"
"Tell them you're TOO STUPID TO OWN A COMPUTER!" [slam]
------------------------------------
A Long time Ago, in a Galaxy far, far away...
Luke: "You used to program."
Ben: "I was once a software engineer the same as your father."
Luke: "My father wasn't a software engineer. He was a custodian at
Lockheed-Martin."
Ben: "That's what your Uncle told you. He didn't hold with your
father's ideals. He thought he should go to work. Not gotten
a degree."
Luke: "I wish I had known him."
Ben: "He was a cunning object-oriented analyst, and the best systems
programmer in the galaxy. I understand you've become quite a
good hacker yourself. And he was a good friend. For over ten
years the systems programmers created user interfaces. Before
the dark times. Before Microsoft."
Luke: "How did my father die?"
Ben: "A young systems programmer named Bill Gates, who was a student
until his mommy kicked him out of her basement, founded
Microsoft and helped destroy the intuitive user interface. He
betrayed and murdered the Macintosh. Gates was seduced by the
Dark Side of Money."
Luke: "Money?"
Ben: "Yes, Money is what gives a programmer his resources. It's an
exchange system created by human beings. It surrounds us.
Works for us. Binds the economy together. Which reminds me. Your
father wanted you to have this when you were old enough, but
your Uncle wouldn't allow it. He thought you'd follow old Obi-Wan
on some damn idealistic crusade."
Luke: "What is it?"
Ben: "It's an object modeling tool. The weapon of a systems
programmer. Not as random or clumsy as a lexical parser. An elegant
compiler for a more civilized age."
--------------------------
An update from "Jargon Watch" on new lingo flowing out of the
Silicon Valley and corporate jungles....
"Batmobiling" - Putting up emotional shields from the retracting armor that
covers the batmobile as in "she started talking marriage and
he started batmobiling"
"Prairie dogging" - In companies where everyone has a cubicle, something
happens and everyone pops up to look
"Beepilepsy" - Aflicts those with vibrating pagers characterized by sudden
spasms, goofy facial expressions and loss of speech
"Betamaxed" - When a technology is overtaken in the market by inferior but
better marketed competition as in "Microsoft betamaxed Apple
right out of the market"
"Blowing your buffer" - Losing your train of thought
"Cobweb" - A WWW site that never changes
"Elvis year" - The peak year of popularity as in "1993 was Barney the
Dinosaur's Elvis year"
"Generica" - Fast food joints, strip malls, sub-divisions as in "we were so
lost in generica that I couldn't remember what city it was"
"Going postal" - Totally stressed out and losing it like postal employees who
went on shooting rampages
"High dome" - Egghead, scientist, PhD
"Irritainment" - Annoying but you can't stop watching e.g. the O.J. trial
"Meatspace" - The physical world (as opposed to the virtual) also
"carbon community" "facetime" "F2F" "RL"
"Percussive maintenance" - The fine art of whacking a device to get it working
"Salmon day" - Swimming upstream all day only to get screwed in the end
anyway.
"Siliwood" - The coming convergence of movies, interactive TV and computers
also "hollywired"
"Square headed girlfriend" (boyfriend) - Computer
"Treeware" - Manuals and documentation
"Um-friend" - Sexual relationship as in "this is Dale, my...um...friend"
"World Wide Wait" - WWW
"Yuppie Food Coupons" - Twenty dollar bills from an ATM
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AIR FORCE DENIES STORIES OF UFO CRASH
Valles Marineris (MPI) - A spokesthing for Mars Air Force denounced
as false rumors that an alien space craft crashed in the desert,
outside of Ares Vallis on Friday. Appearing at a press conference
today, General Rgrmrmy The Lesser, stated that "the object was, in
fact, a harmless high-altitude weather balloon, not an alien
spacecraft".
The story broke late Friday night when a major stationed at nearby
Ares Vallis Air Force Base contacted the Valles Marineris Daily
Record with a story about a strange, balloon-shaped object which
allegedly came down in the nearby desert, "bouncing" several times
before coming to a stop, "deflating in a sudden explosion of alien
gases". Minutes later, General Rgrmrmy The Lesser contacted the
Daily Record telepathically to contradict the earlier report.
General Rgrmrmy The Lesser stated that hysterical stories of a
detachable vehicle roaming across the Martian desert were blatant
fiction, provoked by incidences involving swamp gas. But the
general public has been slow to accept the Air Force's explanation
of recent events, preferring to speculate on the "other-worldly"
nature of the crash debris. Conspiracy theorists have condemned
Rgrmrmy's statements as evidence of "an obvious government
cover-up", pointing out that Mars has no swamps.
------------
What if _____ made toasters?
If IBM made a toaster, it would be big and blue and they would make
just one toaster to which people would submit bread for overnight
toasting. IBM would project an eventual worldwide market of, oh, maybe
five or six of these big blue toasters.
If MICROSOFT made toasters, you would have to buy a toaster every time
you bought a loaf of bread. The new TOASTER '95 would be overpriced,
would take up 95% of your kitchen space, would secretly interrogate
your other appliances to find out who made them and if you are the
rightful owner, and would then falsely claim to be the very first
toaster that lets you control the darkness of your toast. Everyone
would hate MICROSOFT toasters, but would buy them anyway because most
of the good bread will work only with their TOASTER '95. Additionally,
once you have a TOASTER '95, it's nearly impossible to get rid of it.
If RADIO SHACK made toasters, their sales associates would try to sell
you the entire store full, but would be able to tell you nothing about
any of them . . . and would get angry if you asked. You could also buy
the toaster in individually plastic bagged pieces for assembly
yourself . . . but you would have to go to at least six stores for all
of the essential pieces.
If POPULAR SCIENCE made toasters, they would be highlighted as a
continuing feature article for several months running and be so
complicated and impractical that only the author would ever think
about making one. The Government would be petitioned to create an
Incentive Toasting scheme . .
-----------------------
> Cracking an international market is a goal of most growing corporations.
> It shouldn't be that hard, yet even the big multi-nationals run into
trouble
> because of language and cultural differences. For example:
>
> Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an
> American ad campaign: "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux."
>
> The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as Ke-kou-ke-la.
> Unfortunately, the Coke company did not discover until after thousands of
> signs had been printed that the phrase means "bite the wax tadpole" or
> "female horse stuffed with wax" depending on the dialect. Coke then
> researched 40,000 Chinese characters and found a close phonetic
> equivalent, "ko-kou-ko-le," which can be loosely translated as "happiness
in the
> mouth."
>
> In Taiwan, the translation of the Pepsi slogan "Come alive with the Pepsi
> Generation" came out as "Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the
> dead."
>
> Also in Chinese, the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan "finger-lickin' good"
> came out as "eat your fingers off."
>
> The American slogan for Salem cigarettes, "Salem - Feeling Free," got
> translated in the Japanese market into "When smoking Salem, you feel
> so refreshed that your mind seems to be free and empty."
>
> When General Motors introduced the Chevy Nova in South America, it was
> apparently unaware that "no va" means "it won't go." After the company
> figured out why it wasn't selling any cars, it renamed the car in its
> Spanish markets to the Caribe.
>
> Ford had a similar problem in Brazil when the Pinto flopped. The
> company found out that Pinto was Brazilian slang for "tiny male genitals".
> Ford pried all the nameplates off and substituted Corcel, which means
> horse.
>
> When Parker Pen marketed a ballpoint pen in Mexico, its ads were
> supposed to say "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you."
However, the
> company's mistakenly thought the spanish word "embarazar" meant
> embarrass. Instead the ads said that "It wont leak in your pocket and
make you
> pregnant."
>
> An American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the spanish market
> which promoted the Pope's visit. Instead of the desired "I Saw the
> Pope" in Spanish, the shirts proclaimed "I Saw the Potato."
>
> Chicken-man Frank Perdue's slogan, "It takes a tough man to make a
> tender chicken," got terribly mangled in another Spanish translation. A
> photo of Perdue with one of his birds appeared on billboards all over
Mexico
> with a caption that explained "It takes a hard man to make a chicken
aroused."
>
> Hunt-Wesson introduced its Big John products in French Canada as Gros
> Jos before finding out that the phrase, in slang, means "big breasts." In
> this case, however, the name problem did not have a noticeable effect on
sales.
>
> Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a
> notorious porno mag.
>
> In Italy, a campaign for Schweppes Tonic Water translated the name
> into Schweppes Toilet Water.
>
> Japan's second-largest tourist agency was mystified when it entered
> English-speaking markets and began receiving requests for unusual sex
> tours. Upon finding out why, the owners of Kinki Nippon Tourist Company
> changed its name.
----------------------
> Windows 95: n.
> 32 bit extensions and a graphical shell for a 16 bit patch to an
> 8 bit operating system originally coded for a 4 bit microprocessor,
> written by a 2 bit company, that can't stand 1 bit of competition.
>
-------------------------
"DOS Computers manufactured by companies such as IBM, Compaq, Tandy, and
millions of others are by far the most popular, with about 70 million
machines in use wordwide. Macintosh fans, on the other hand, may note that
cockroaches are far more numerous than humans, and that numbers alone do
not denote a higher life form."
(New York Times, November 26, 1991)
---------------------
>
>The End of the World
>
>>
>>When the end of the world arrives how will the media report it?
>>
>> USA Today:
>> WE'RE DEAD
>>
>> The Wall Street Journal:
>> DOW JONES PLUMMETS AS WORLD ENDS
>>
>> National Enquirer:
>> O.J. AND NICOLE, TOGETHER AGAIN
>>
>> Playboy:
>> GIRLS OF THE APOCALYPSE
>>
>> Microsoft Systems Journal:
>> APPLE LOSES MARKET SHARE
>>
>> Victoria's Secret Catalog:
>> OUR FINAL SALE
>>
>> Sports Illustrated:
>> GAME OVER
>>
>> Wired:
>> THE LAST NEW THING
>>
>> Rolling Stone:
>> THE GRATEFUL DEAD REUNION TOUR
>>
>> Readers Digest:
>> `BYE
>>
>> Discover Magazine:
>> HOW WILL THE EXTINCTION OF ALL LIFE AS WE KNOW IT
>> AFFECT THE WAY WE VIEW THE COSMOS?
>>
>> TV Guide:
>> DEATH AND DAMNATION: NIELSON RATINGS SOAR!
>>
>> Lady's Home Journal:
>> LOSE 10 LBS BY JUDGEMENT DAY WITH OUR NEW "ARMAGEDDON" DIET!
>>
>> America Online:
>> SYSTEM TEMPORARILY DOWN. TRY CALLING BACK IN 15 MINUTES.
>>
>> Inc. magazine:
>> TEN WAYS YOU CAN PROFIT FROM THE APOCALYPSE
>>
>> Microsoft's Web Site:
>> IF YOU DIDN'T EXPERIENCE THE RAPTURE,
>> DOWNLOAD SOFTWARE PATCH RAPT777.EXE.
>>
>> Sun:
>> ARMAGEDDON TOLERANT SOFTWARE NOW AVAILABLE!
>
>
-----------------------------
>>better proof-read your resume!
>>
>> Following are actual resume blunders as reported by Fortune:
>>
>>"I demand a salary commiserate with my extensive experience"
>>
>>"I have lurnt WordPerfect 6.0 computor and spreadsheat progroms"
>>
>>"Received a plague for Salesperson of the Year"
>>
>>"Reason for leaving last job: Maturity leave"
>>
>>"Wholly responsible for two (2) failed financial institutions"
>>
>>"Failed bar exam with relatively high grades"
>>
>>"It's best for employers that I not work with people"
>>
>>"Let's meet, so you can "ooh" and "aah" over my experience"
>>
>>"You will want me to be Head Honcho in no time"
>>
>>"Am a perfectionist and rarely if if ever forget details"
>>
>>"I was working for my mom until she decided to move"
>>
>>"Marital status: single. Unmarried. Unengaged. Uninvolved.
>No commitments"
>>
>>"I have an excellent track record, although I am not a horse"
>>
>>"I am loyal to my employer at all costs ... Please feel free to respond
>>to my resume on my office voice mail"
>>
>>"I have become completely paranoid, trusting completely no one and
>>absolutely nothing"
>>
>>"My goal is to be a meteorologist. But since I possess no training in
>>meteorology, I suppose I should try stock brokerage"
>>
>>"I procrastinate, especially when the task is unpleasant"
>>
>>"As indicted, I have over five years of analyzing investments"
>>
>>"Personal interests: donating blood. Fourteen gallons so far"
>>
>>"Instrumental in ruining entire operation for a Midwest chain store"
>>
>>"Note: Please don't misconstrue my 14 jobs as "job-hopping". I have never
>>quit a job"
>>
>>"Marital status: often. Children: various"
>>
>>"Reason for leaving last job: They insisted that all employees get to
>>work by 8:45 every morning. Could not work under those conditions"
>>
>>"The company made me a scapegoat, just like my three previous employers"
>>
>>"Finished eighth in my class of ten"
>>
>>"References: None. I've left a path of destruction behind me"
>>
>
-----------------------
>>Subject: TV dinners
>>
>>
>>INSTRUCTIONS FOR MICROSOFT'S NEW TV DINNER PRODUCT
>>
>>You must first remove the plastic cover. By doing so you agree to
>>accept and honor Microsoft rights to all TV dinners. You may not give
>>anyone else a bite of your dinner (which would constitute an
>>infringement of Microsoft's rights). You may, however, let others
>>smell and look at your dinner and are encouraged to tell them how good
>>it is.
>>
>>If you have a PC microwave oven, insert the dinner into the oven. Set
>>the oven using these keystrokes: >Then enter: >
>>If you have a Mac oven, insert the dinner and press start. The oven
>>will set itself and cook the dinner.
>>
>>If you have a Unix oven, insert the dinner, enter the ingredients of
>>the dinner (found on the package label), the weight of the dinner, and
>>the desired level of cooking and press start. The oven will calculate
>>the time and heat and cook the diner exactly to your specification.
>>
>>Be forewarned that Microsoft dinners may crash, in which case your
>>oven must be restarted. This is a simple procedure. Remove the
>>dinner from the oven and enter >This process may have to be repeated. Try unplugging the microwave
>>and then doing a cold reboot. If this doesn't work, contact your
>>hardware vendor.
>>
>>Many users have reported that the dinner tray is far too big, larger
>>than the dinner itself, having many useless compartments, most of
>>which are empty. These are for future menu items. If the tray is too
>>large to fit in your oven you will need to upgrade your equipment.
>>
>>Dinners are only available from registered outlets, and only the
>>chicken variety is currently produced. If you want another variety,
>>call Microsoft Help and they will explain that you really don't want
>>another variety. Microsoft Chicken is all you really need.
>>
>>Microsoft has disclosed plans to discontinue all smaller versions of
>>their chicken dinners. Future releases will only be in the larger
>>family size. Excess chicken may be stored for future use, but must be
>>saved only in Microsoft approved packaging.
>>
>>Microsoft promises a dessert with every dinner after '98. However,
>>that version has yet to be released. Users have permission to get
>>thrilled in advance.
>>
>>Microsoft dinners may be incompatible with other dinners in the
>>freezer, causing your freezer to self-defrost. This is a feature, not
>>a bug. Your freezer probably should have been defrosted anyway.
>>
-----------------
>>If you type any key, your computer will crash. If you call our technical
>>support, they will blame Microsoft.
-----------------------------------------
Farmer Joe decided his injuries from the accident were serious enough
to take the trucking company (responsible for the accident) to court.
In court the trucking company's fancy lawyer was questioning farmer
Joe.
Didn't you say, at the scene of the accident, "I'm fine," said the
lawyer. Farmer Joe responded, "Well I'll tell you what happened.
I had just loaded my favorite mule Bessie into the......."
"I didn't ask for any details," the lawyer interrupted, "just answer
the question." "Did you not say, at the scene of the accident, 'I'm
fine!'"
Farmer Joe said, "Well I had just got Bessie into the trailer and I
was driving down the road..."
The lawyer interrupted again and said, "Judge, I am trying to
establish the fact that, at the scene of the accident, this man told
the Highway Patrolman on the scene that he was just fine. Now several
weeks after the accident he is trying to sue my client. I believe he
is a fraud. Please tell him to simply answer the question."
By this time the Judge was fairly interested in Farmer Joe's answer
and said to the lawyer, "I'd like to hear what he has to say about his
favorite mule Bessie."
Joe thanked the Judge and proceeded, "Well as I was saying, I had just
loaded Bessie, my favorite mule, into the trailer and was driving her
down the highway when this huge semi-truck and trailer ran the stop
sign and smacked my truck right in the side.
I was thrown into one ditch and Bessie was thrown into the other. I
was hurting real bad and didn't want to move. However, I could hear
ole Bessie moaning and groaning. I knew she was in terrible shape just
by her groans. Shortly after the accident a Highway Patrolman came on
the scene.
He could hear Bessie moaning and groaning so he went over to her.
After he looked at her then he took out his gun and shot her between
the eyes.
Then the Patrolman came across the road with his gun in his hand and
looked at me.
He said, "Your mule was in such bad shape I had to shoot her. How are
you feeling?"
-------------------------------------
Mir Scientists Study Effects of Weightlessness on Mortal Terror
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
KOROLYOV, RUSSIA--U.S. and Russian scientists are increasingly
excited about the Mir space station project, which promises to reveal
more than has ever been known about the scientific relationship
between weightlessness and mortal terror.
"By stranding our scientists on a dilapidated space station with
faulty wiring, loose hardware, and malfunctioning air systems," NASA
head Daniel Goldin said, "we have created extremely favorable
conditions for learning about spaceborne panic."
The two Russians and one American on board the station are reportedly
terrified beyond lucidity.
Among the groundbreaking experiments conducted on board Mir: a June
25 collision with a cargo craft that depressurized the Spektr module;
last week's emergency power shortage, caused by a disconnected cable;
and the periodic release of "dry ice" steam that simulates a
shipboard fire. All have been deemed a huge success by agency heads.
"They are in a constant state of what aerospace scientists term
'mind-shattering terror,' frightened for their very lives," Russian
mission director Vladimir Solovyov said. "And we have not even used
the hull-mounted Alien puppet that taps on the window yet."
"We have also taken huge leaps in our understanding of the patterns
created when one wets his pants in the weightlessness of space,"
Solovyov said. "The urine spreads out in an expanding sphere,
something we did not expect."
Taking a break from his busy schedule, astronaut Michael Foale told
ABC News reporters: "Where's my mommy?"
"Please tell me the access code to the Soyuz capsule," Russian
cosmonaut Aleksandr Lazutkin said. "I would like to return to the
chaotic government and widespread hunger of my homeland."
Scientists expect to gain even more useful data during an experiment
at 3 a.m. tomorrow. As the astronauts sleep, whirling red siren
lights will flood the cabin while an ear-splitting klaxon alarm
jolts them awake.
Detailed scientific data will then be collected on such variables as
open weeping, uncontrollable spontaneous defecation and unusual hair
loss.
----------------------------
> Subject: Downsizing at NASA
>
> Downsize the Solar system
>
> Bob Riddle, Director
> KCMSD Planetarium Kansas City, MO
>
> (WASHINGTON D.C. The US Congress today, in an effort to
> recify the current stalemate with the President over the continuing
> resolution has made a dramatic announcement. In an effort to reduce
> the NASA budget, a resolution was passed today to downsize the solar
> system. According to an unnamed congressional staffer, House
> Republicans felt there has been "too much redundancy in the solar
> system" and that streamlining the 4.5 billion year old planetary
> system is long overdue. Such action would give NASA fewer places to
> go and this would allow the agency to carry out its space exploration
> goals within the funding profile that the House proposed earlier this
> summer.
>
> "Look, we have three terrestrial planets" said Congressman Rip U. Apart
> (R, Del.), "and only one of them really works! So why not get rid of the
> other
> two and clean up the neighborhood?"
>
> Most subcommittee members felt that while downsizing was definitely in the
> cards, eliminating both Mars and Venus was going too far.
> "We have too many international commitments to Mars." said Rush N. Hater
> (R, Calif.). "So I think we should keep Mars and dump Venus.
> Its too hot to live on, and liberal Democrats keep using
> it as an example of what global warming can do. So from a political
> and practical point of view, Venus has got to go."
>
> Also at risk is the planet Mercury which lacks support because of its small
> size
> and poor visibility from Earth. "Who needs it?" asked Congressman
> Newt Onian (R, N.C.). "Have you ever seen it? I haven't. So what good
> is it? We just don't need useless planets. And speaking of useless
> planets, what about the asteroids? If you've seen one, you've seen
> them all. So I say we ought to get rid of the little boogers once and
> for all."
>
> However, the downsizing recommendations do not stop
> with the terrestrial planets. The resolution also calls for a
> reduction in the number of gas giants which contain most of the
> planetary mass in the solar system. Most subcommittee members favor
> retaining Jupiter and Saturn, and eliminating Uranus and Neptune.
> "Jupiter employs the most molecules, and Saturn has those pretty
> little rings everyone likes." said Rep. Con Mann (R, Fla.). "On the
> other hand, Uranus is a bore and its rings are dirty. And Neptune,
> for God's sake, is just too far away. So begone with those ugly
> bruisers."
>
> But the influential Wright I.M. Fornow from South
> Carolina has publicly announced he will fight to eliminate Saturn.
> Fornow is especially miffed by NASA's success thus far in keeping
> Cassini, the next mission to Saturn, alive which he feels is waste of
> taxpayers money. "If there ain't no Saturn, then there ain't no
> Cassini" he exclaimed. The congressman also expressed concern about
> sending back-to-back spacecraft bearing Italian surnames to the outer
> planets (The Galileo spacecraft arrives at Jupiter this December).
>
> The subcommittee was unanimous in its views towards Pluto which
> they deemed a moral misfit. "Now here's a planet we can definitely do
> without." continued Fornow. "A few years ago, it was farthest from
> the sun. Now its not. Its just too confusing. And now they tell me
> its really two planets instead of one. What the hell is going on
> here?"
>
> The resolution must now be presented to the entire House,
> where it is expected to pass easily since only a minority of
> Representatives have constituents on the affected planets. NASA
> Administratorss have vowed to resist any further reductions to the
> solar system, saying that "NASA has expended considerable effort to
> make the planets cheaper, faster, and better. Much of this work would
> be wasted if the solar system were downsized."
>
> Critics say, however, that reducing the number of planets will not produce the
> expected savings to taxpayers. Textbooks, they note, would have to be
> revised to reflect the new arrangement, and facilities would need to
> be constructed to remove the planets themselves. The resolution is
> also likely to draw strong opposition from religious fundamentalists
> who have long opposed the elimination of any of the biblical planets.
> Thus, the matter is still far from resolved.
-----------------------------
I suppose you guys have all heard about the dyslexic, agnostic insomniac?
He stayed awake every night wondering if there was a Dog.
----------------------------
Caught in the Act or Lack of Common Sense
*****************************************
Originally from the San Jose Mercury news, "News of the Weird".
(a) Portsmouth, R.I. Police charged Gregory Rosa, 25, with
a string of vending machine robberies in January when
he (1) fled from police inexplicably when they spotted
him loitering around a vending machine and (2) later
tried to post his $400 bail in coins.
(b) Karen Lee Joachimmi, 20, was arrested in Lake City,
Florida for robbery of a Howard Johnson's motel. She
was armed with only an electric chain saw, which was
not plugged in.
(c) The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked
into a Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan at 7:50am,
flashed a gun and demanded cash. The clerk turned him
down because he said he couldn't open the cash register
without a food order. When the man ordered onion rings,
the clerk said they weren't available for breakfast. The
man, frustrated, walked away.
And it gets better:
(d) David Posman, 33, was arrested recently in Providence,
R.I, after allegedly knocking out an armored car driver
and stealing the closest four bags of money. It turned
out they contained $800 in PENNIES, weighed 30 pounds
each, and slowed him to a stagger during his getaway so
that police officers easily jumped him from behind.
(e) The Belgium news agency Belga reported in November that
a man suspected of robbing a jewelry store in Liege said
he couldn't have done it *because he was busy breaking
into a school at the same time.* Police then arrested
him for breaking into the school.
(f) Drug-possession defendant Christopher so-and-so, on trial
in March in Pontiac, Michigan, said he had been searched
without a warrant. The prosecutor said the officer didn't
need a warrant because a "bulge" in Christopher's jacket
could have been a gun. Nonsense, said Christopher, who
happened to be wearing the same jacket that day in court.
He handed it over so the judge could see it. The
judge discovered a packet of cocaine in the pocket and
laughed so hard he required a five-minute recess to compose
himself.
(g) Atlanta Braves pitcher John Smoltz gave himself
five-inch-long welts in March when he tried to iron his
polo shirt while wearing it. "I've ironed that way five
or six times," he said, "and never had it happen."
(h) Dave so-and-so of Anniston, Alabama, was injured recently
after he attempted to replace a tubelike fuse in his Chevy
pickup with a 22-caliber rifle bullet (used because it was
a perfect fit). However, when electricity heated the
bullet, it went off and shot him in the knee.
-------------------------
More bugs found in WIFE1.0 software.
SOFTWARE UPDATE INFORMATION
I'm currently running the latest version of GirlFriend and I've been
having some problems lately. I've been running the same version
of DrinkingBuddies 1.0 forever as my primary application, and all
the GirlFriend releases I've tried have always conflicted with it.
I hear that DrinkingBuddies won't crash if GirlFriend is run in
background mode and the sound is turned off. But I'm embarrassed
to say I can't find the switch to turn the sound off. I just run
them separately, and it works okay.
GirlFriend also seems to have a problem co-existing with my Golf
program, often trying to abort Golf with some sort of timing
incompatibility.
I probably should have stayed with GirlFriend 1.0, but I thought I
might see better performance from GirlFriend 2.0. After months of
conflicts and other problems, I consulted a friend who has had
experience with GirlFriend 2.0. He said I probably didn't have
enough cache to run GirlFriend 2.0, and eventually it would require a
Token Ring to run properly. He was right as soon as I purged my cache,
it uninstalled itself.
Shortly after that, I installed GirlFriend 3.0 beta. All the bugs
were supposed to be gone, but the first time I used it, it gave me a
virus. I had to clean out my whole system and shut down for while.
I very cautiously upgraded to GirlFriend 4.0. This time I used a
SCSI probe and also installed a virus protection program. It worked
okay for a while until I discovered that GirlFriend 1.0 was still in
my system. I tried running GirlFriend 1.0 again with GirlFriend 4.0
still installed, but GirlFriend 4.0 has a feature I didn't know about
that automatically senses the presence of any other version of
GirlFriend and communicates with it in some way, which results in the
immediate removal of both versions.
The version I have now works pretty well, but there are still some
problems. Like all versions of GirlFriend, it is written in some
obscure language I can't understand, much less reprogram. Frankly I
think there is too much attention paid to the look and feel rather
than the desired functionality. Also, to get the best connections
with your hardware, you usually have to use gold-plated contacts. And
I've never liked how GirlFriend is totally "object-oriented."
A year ago, a friend of mine upgraded his version of GirlFriend to
GirlFriendPlus 1.0, which is a Terminate and Stay Resident version of
GirlFriend. He discovered that GirlFriendPlus 1.0 expires within a
year if you don't upgrade to Fiancee 1.0. So he did, but soon after
that, he had to upgrade to Wife 1.0, which he describes as a huge
resource hog. It as taken up all his space, so he can't load anything
else.
One of the primary reasons he decided to go with Wife 1.0 was because
it came bundled with FreeSexPlus.
Well, it turns out the resource allocation module of Wife 1.0
sometimes prohibits access to FreeSexPlus, particularly the new
Plug-Ins he wanted to try. On top of that, Wife 1.0 must be running
on a well warmed-up system before he can do anything. Although he
did
not ask for it, Wife 1.0 came with MotherInLaw 1.0 which has an
automatic pop-up feature he can't turn-off.
I told him to try installing Mistress 1.0, but he said he heard if
you try to run it without first uninstalling Wife 1.0, Wife 1.0 will
delete MSMoney files before doing the uninstall itself. Then Mistress
1.0 won't install anyway because of insufficient resources.
I suppose the moral of the story is: know your system's hardware,
it's software requirements and compatibilities and be damn careful
about what software you install and when and how you upgrade.
End....
------------------------------------
On the subject of noisy neighbors, I heard a story about a
student at an English university, called Donald MacDonald from
the Isle of Skye ( or perhaps it was neill MacNeill from Barra,
but anyway ..), who was living in the hall of residence in his
first year there. After he'd been there a month, his mother
came to visit, no doubt carrying reinforcemens of whiskey and
oatmeal.
"And how do you find the English students, Donald?" she asked.
"Mother," he replied. "They're such terrible, noisy people. The
one on that side keeps banging his head against the wall, and
won't stop. The one on the other side screams and screams and
screams, away into the night."
"Oh Donald! How do you manage to put up with these awful noisy
English neighbours?"
"Mother, I do nothing. I just ignoe them. I just stay here quietly,
playing my bagpipes."
---------------------------------------------------------
A Canadian Officer, pinned down with his unit in 1944 in Italy,
urgently gignalled his CO.
"Need reinforcements to rescue us, please send six tanks or one
piper."
---------------------------------------------------------
Ireland gave the Scots the bagpipes . . . and they still haven't gotten
the joke yet.
--------------------------------------------------------
1. If a parsley farmer is sued, do they garnish his wages?
2. When it rains, why don't sheep shrink?
3. If a stealth bomber crashes in a forest, will it make a sound?
4. If a funeral procession is at night, do folks drive with their
lights off?
5. If a book about failures doesn't sell, is it a success?
6. Should vegetarians eat animal crackers?
7. Why do they call it a TV "set" when there is only one?
8. Do radioactive cats have 18 half-lives?
9. If you shoot a mime, should you use a silencer?
10. Do blind Eskimos have seeing-eye sled dogs?
11. What was the best thing before sliced bread?
12. Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle?
13. If you throw a cat out a car window, does it become kitty litter?
14. If corn oil comes from corn, where does baby oil come from?
15. If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex in the box?
16. Why do they put Braille on the number pads of a drive up teller
machine?
17. When a cow laughs, does milk come out its nose?
18. How did a fool and his money come together?
19. If nothing sticks to Teflon, how do they stick Teflon to the pan?
20. How do they get deer to cross at that yellow road sign?
21. If it's tourist season, why can't we shoot them?
22. What's another word for thesaurus?
23. Why do they sterilize needles for lethal injection?
24. What do they use to ship Styrofoam?
25. Why is abbreviation such a long word?
26. Why is there an expiration date on sour cream containers?
27. Why do kamikaze pilots wear helmets?
28. How do you know when it is time to tune your bagpipes?
29. When you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn?
30. Is it true that cannibals don't eat clowns because they taste funny?
-------------------
Winners of the
"Worst Analogies Ever Written in a High School Essay"
contest.
...He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience,
like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse
without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes
around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers
of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with
a pinhole in it. (Joseph Romm, Washington)
She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that
used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged
the door open again. (Rich Murphy, Fairfax Station)
The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way
a bowling ball wouldn't. (Russell Beland, Springfield)
McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty Bag
filled with vegetable soup. (Paul Sabourin, Silver Spring)
From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an
eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another
city and "Jeopardy" comes on at 7 p.m. instead of 7:30. (Roy
Ashley, Washington)
Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.
(Chuck Smith, Woodbridge)
Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the
center.(Russell Beland, Springfield)
Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever. (Unknown)
He was as tall as a 6' 3" tree. (Jack Bross, Chevy Chase)
The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when
you fry them in hot grease.(Gary F. Hevel, Silver Spring)
Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was
a movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like
"Second Tall Man." (Russell Beland, Springfield)
Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced
across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains,
one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the
other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph. (Jennifer
Hart, Arlington)
The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after
the Dr. on a Dr. Pepper can. (Wayne Goode, Madison, Ala.)
They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences
that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth (Paul Kocak, Syracuse, N.Y.)
John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who
had also never met. (Russell Beland, Springfield)
The thunder was ominous-sounding, much like the sound of a thin
sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in
a play. (Barbara Fetherolf, Alexandria)
His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances
like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free (Chuck Smith,
Woodbridge)
The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon.
---------------------------
>From an actual newspaper contest where entrants age 4 to 15 were asked
to imitate "Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey."
----------
My young brother asked me what happens after we die. I told him we get
buried under a bunch of dirt and worms eat our bodies. I guess I should
have told him the truth--that most of us go to Hell and burn
eternally--but I didn't want to upset him. Age 10
When I go to heaven, I want to see my grandpa again. But he better have
lost the nose hair and the old-man smell. Age 5
I once heard the voice of God. It said "Vrrrrmmmmm." Unless it was
just a lawn mower. Age 11
I don't know about you, but I enjoy watching paint dry. I imagine that
the wet paint is a big freshwater lake that is the only source of water
for some tiny cities by the lake. As the lake gets drier, the
population gets more desperate, and sometimes there are water riots.
Once there was a big fire and everyone died. Age 13
I like to go down to the dog pound and pretend that I've found my dog.
Then I tell them to kill it anyway because I already gave away all of
his stuff. Dog people sure don't have a sense of humor. Age 14
I believe you should live each day as if it is your last, which is why I
don't have any clean laundry because, come on, who wants to wash clothes
on the last day of their life? Age 15
Whenever I start getting sad about where I am in my life, I think about
the last words of my favorite uncle: "A truck!" Age 15
It sure would be nice if we got a day off for the president's birthday,
like they do for the queen. Of course, then we would have a lot of
people voting for a candidate born on July 3 or December 26, just for
the long weekends. Age 8
As you make your way through this hectic world of ours, set aside a few
minutes each day. At the end of the year, you'll have a couple of days
saved up. Age 7
Democracy is a beautiful thing, except for that part about letting just
any old yokel vote. Age 10
Home is where the house is. Age 6
Often, when I am reading a good book, I stop and thank my teacher. That
is, I used to, until she got an unlisted number. Age 15
It would be terrible if the Red Cross Bloodmobile got into an accident.
No, wait. That would be good because if anyone needed it, the blood
would be right there. Age 5
Give me the strength to change the things I can, the grace to accept the
things I cannot, and a great big bag of money. Age 13
The people who think Tiny Tim is strange are the same ones who think it
odd that I drive without pants. Age 15
I bet living in a nudist colony takes all the fun out of Halloween. Age13
For centuries, people thought the moon was made of green cheese. Then
the astronauts found that the moon is really a big hard rock. That's
what happens to cheese when you leave it out. Age 6
Think of the biggest number you can. Now add five. Then, imagine if
you had that many Twinkies. Wow, that's five more than the biggest
number you could come up with! Age 6
The only stupid question is the one that is never asked, except maybe
"Don't you think it is about time you audited my return?" or "Isn't is
morally wrong to give me a warning when, in fact, I was speeding?"
> >>Age15
Once, I wept for I had no shoes. Then I came upon a man who had no
feet. So I took his shoes. I mean, it's not like he really needed
them, right? Age 15
I often wonder how come John Tesh isn't as popular a singer as some
people think he should be. Then, I remember it's because he sucks.
> >>Age15
I gaze at the brilliant full moon. The same one, I think to myself, at
which Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato gazed. Suddenly, I imagine they
appear beside me. I tell Socrates about the national debate over one's
right to die and wonder at the constancy of the human condition. I tell
Plato that I live in the country that has come the closest to Utopia,
and I show him a copy of the Constitution. I tell Aristotle that we
have found many more than four basic elements and I show him a
periodic table. I get a box of kitchen matches and strike one. They gasp
with wonder. We spend the rest of the night lighting farts. Age 15
If we could just get everyone to close their eyes and visualize world
peace for an hour, imagine how serene and quiet it would be until the
looting started. Age 15
---------------------
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Microsoft Dinner 98
INSTRUCTIONS FOR MICROSOFT'S NEW TV DINNER PRODUCT:
You must first remove the plastic cover. By doing so you agree to
accept and honor Microsoft rights to all TV dinners. You may not give
anyone else a bite of your dinner (which would constitute an
infringement of Microsoft's rights). You may, however, let others smell
and look at your dinner and are encouraged to tell them how good it is.
If you have a PC microwave oven, insert the dinner into the oven. Set
the oven using these keystrokes:
mstv.dinn.//08.5min@50%heat
Then enter:
ms//start.cook_dindin/yummy\|/yum~yum:-)gohot#cookme.
If you have a Macintosh microwave oven, insert the dinner and press
start. The oven will set itself and cook the dinner.
If you have a Unix microwave oven, insert the dinner, enter the
ingredients of the dinner found on the package label, the weight of
the dinner, and the desired level of cooking and press start. The oven
will calculate the time and heat and cook the dinner exactly to your
specification.
Be forewarned that Microsoft dinners may crash, in which case your oven
must be restarted. This is a simple procedure. Remove the dinner from
the oven and enter:
ms.nodamn.good/tryagain\again/again.crap
This process may have to be repeated. Try unplugging the microwave and
then doing a cold reboot. If this doesn't work, contact your oven
vendor. The oven itself is obviously on the blink.
Many users have reported that the dinner tray is far too big, larger
than the dinner itself, having many useless compartments, most of which
are empty. These are for future menu items. If the tray is too large to
fit in your oven, you will need to upgrade your equipment.
Dinners are only available from registered outlets, and only the
chicken variety is currently produced. If you want another variety,
call Microsoft Help and they will explain that you really don't want
another variety. Microsoft Chicken is all you really need.
Microsoft has disclosed plans to discontinue all smaller versions of
their chicken dinners. Future releases will only be in the larger
family size. Excess chicken may be stored for future use, but must be
saved only in Microsoft approved packaging.
Microsoft promises a dessert with every dinner after '98. However, that
version has yet to be released. Users have permission to get thrilled
in advance.
Microsoft dinners may be incompatible with other dinners in the
freezer, causing your freezer to self-defrost. This is a feature,
not a bug. Your freezer probably should have been defrosted anyway.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
-------------------------------
Grepping in a '^(Unix|Wonderland)$'
(2the2nOfWintrWundrland)
CopyYeahRight 1994
cybervox@mercury.interpath.net
Let us ping, is it listening?
When you fing @snow.glistening
An ftp site, mgetting tonight,
Grepping in a '^(Unix|Wonderland)$'
Gone away: /usr/bin/sh,
Here to stay is tcsh
I'm in .deny (cron), my .newsrc's gone
Grepping in a '^(Unix|Wonderland)$'
In the rootdir we can build a shellscript
And pretend that it is parsing 'brown'
It echos 'Are you @ing?'
We'll say "No man."
But use expr when you're in town
Later we'll use vi
As we find for some files
To face and forsake
xmkmf when we make
Grepping in a '^(Unix|Wonderland)$'
sung to 'santa claus is coming to town'
better !pout !cry
better watchout
lpr why
santa claus town
cat /etc/passwd >list
ncheck list
ncheck list
cat list | grep naughty >nogiftlist
cat list | grep nice >giftlist
santa claus town
who | grep sleeping
who | grep awake
who | egrep 'bad|good'
for (goodness sake) {
be good
}
-----------------------------
Here's somebody's sig:
Customer: I'm using Windows.
Tech: Okay.
Customer: Well, my computer isn't working.
Tech: Yes, you said that.
-----------------------------------
STILL MORE DARWIN AWARD CANDIDATES
* BUXTON, N.C. A man died on a beach when an 8-foot-deep hole he had
dug into the sand caved in as he sat inside it. Beachgoers said Daniel
Jones, 21, dug the hole for fun, or protection from the wind, and had been
sitting in a beach chair at the bottom Thursday afternoon when it
collapsed, burying him beneath 5 feet of sand. People on the beach on the
Outer Banks used their hands and shovels, trying to claw their way to
Jones, a resident of Woodbridge, Va., but could not reach him. It took
rescue workers using heavy equipment almost an hour to free him while about
200 people looked on. Jones was pronounced dead at a hospital. You just
wouldn't believe the outpouring of concern, people digging with their
hands, using pails from kids," Dare County Sheriff Bert Austin said.
* In February, Santiago Alvarado, 24, was killed in Lompoc, Calif., as
he fell face-first through the ceiling of a bicycle shop he was
burglarizing. Death was caused when the large flashlight he had placed in
his mouth (to keep his hands free) crammed against the base of his skull
as he hit the floor.
* According to police in Dahlonega, Ga., ROTC cadet Nick Berrena, 20,
was stabbed to death in January by fellow cadet Jeffrey Hoffman, 23, who
was trying to prove that a knife could not penetrate the flak vest Berrena
was wearing.
* Sylvester Briddell, Jr., 26, was killed in February in Selbyville,
Del., as he won a bet with friends who said he would not put a revolver
loaded with four bullets into his mouth and pull the trigger.
* In February, according to police in Windsor, Ont., Daniel Kolta, 27,
and Randy Taylor, 33, died in a head-on collision, thus earning a tie in
the game of chicken they were playing with their snowmobiles.
* In October, a 49-year-old San Francisco stockbroker, who "totally
zoned when he ran," according to his wife, accidentally jogged off a
200-foot-high cliff on his daily run.
* In September in Detroit, a 41-year-old man got stuck and drowned in
two feet of water after squeezing headfirst through an 18-inch-wide sewer
grate to retrieve his car keys.
* In September, a 7-year- old boy fell off a 100-foot-high bluff near
Ozark, Ark., after he lost his grip swinging on a cross that marked the
spot where another person had fallen to his death in 1990.
DARWIN AWARD WANNA-BE'S
* In Guthrie, Okla., in October, Jason Heck tried to kill a millipede
with a shot from his .22-caliber rifle, but the bullet ricocheted off a
rock near the hole and hit pal Antonio Martinez in the head, fracturing his
skull.
* In Elyria, Ohio, in October, Martyn Eskins, attempting to clean out
cobwebs in his basement, declined to use a broom in favor of a propane
torch and caused a fire that burned the first and second floors of his house.
* Paul Stiller, 47, was hospitalized in Andover Township, N. J., in
September, and his wife Bonnie was also injured, by a quarter-stick of
dynamite that blew up in their car. While driving around at 2 a.m., the
bored couple lit the dynamite and tried to toss it out the window to see
what would happen, but they apparently failed to notice that the window was
closed.
* Taking "Amateur Night" Too Far: In Betulia, Colombia, an annual
festival in November includes five days of amateur bullfighting. This year,
no bull was killed, but dozens of matadors were injured, including one
gored in the head and one Bobbittized. Said one participant, "It's just one
bull against a thousand morons."
STUPID CRIMINAL TRICKS
* Jeffrey J. Pyrcioch, 19, and an alleged accomplice were arrested in
West Lafayette, Ind., in May on theft and fraud charges. Pyrcioch allegedly
cashed checks that he had written with disappearing ink, apparently
believing the checks would be blank by the time they were presented to the
bank for collection. However, traces of ink remained, and police said
Pyrcioch would have a better chance of getting away with it if he had not
used checks pre-printed with his name and account number on them.
[Washington Post, 6-2-96]
* In August, 12 men were arrested near Szczecin in northern Poland as
they were digging up a road because they had heard a rumor that it was
built with a large stockpile of police-confiscated hashish. The hashish had
been sold to a chemical plant to be incinerated into ash for road
construction.
* Paul Carthy, 25, pleaded guilty in Exeter, England, in September to
theft subsequent to his original charge of shoplifting from a liquor store.
In the second theft, he had stolen the magnetic letters off the name board
that was held up to his face when his mug shot was taken.
* In September, according to police in Junction City, Kan., David
Bell, 30, just released from jail for car theft, walked out the door and
stole another car to get home. And in October, William B. Singleton, 24,
just released from jail in Belton, Mo., on a larceny charge, allegedly
broke into a vending machine in the lobby of the police
station and stole a 60-cent Strawberry wisteroo while he waited for his
ride to arrive.
----------------------------
Press release: REDMOND, Wash. - Oct. 21, 1997 -- In direct response to
accusations made by the Department of Justice, the Microsoft Corp. announced
today that it will be acquiring the federal government of the United States
of America for an undisclosed sum. "It's actually a logical extension of our
planned growth", said Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, "It really is going to be
a positive arrangement for everyone".
Microsoft representatives held a briefing in the oval office of the White
House with U.S. President Bill Clinton, and assured members of the press that
changes will be "minimal". The United States will be managed as a wholly owned
division of Microsoft. An initial public offering is planned for July of next
year, and the federal government is expected to be profitable by "Q4 1999 at
latest", according to Microsoft president Steve Ballmer.
In a related announcement, Bill Clinton stated that he had willingly and
enthusiastically" accepted a position as a vice president with Microsoft, and
will continue to manage the United States government, reporting directly to
Bill Gates. When asked how it felt to give up the mantle of executive
authority to Gates, Clinton smiled and referred to it as "a relief". He went
on to say that Gates has a "proven track record", and that U.S. citizens
should offer Gates their "full support and confidence". Clinton will
reportedly be earning several times the $200,000 annually he has earned as
U.S. president, in his new role at Microsoft.
Gates dismissed a suggestion that the U.S. Capitol be moved to Redmond as
"silly", though did say that he would make executive decisions for the U.S.
government from his existing office at Microsoft headquarters. Gates went on
to say that the House and Senate would "of course" be abolished. "Microsoft
isn't a democracy", he observed, "and look how well we're doing". When asked
if the rumored attendant acquisition of Canada was proceeding, Gates said, "We
don't deny that discussions are taking place". Microsoft representatives
closed the conference by stating that United States citizens will be able to
expect lower taxes, increases in government services and discounts on all
Microsoft products.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in
software for personal computers, and democratic government. The company offers
a wide range of products and services for public, business and personal use,
each designed with the mission of making it easier and more enjoyable for
people to take advantage of the full power of personal computing and free
society every day.
About the United States
Founded in 1776, the United States of America is the most successful nation in
the history of the world, and has been a beacon of democracy and opportunity
for over 200 years. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the United States is a
wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation.
--------------------------------------
As migration approached, two elderly vultures doubted they could make
the trip south, so they decided to go by airplane.
When they checked their baggage, the attendant noticed that they were
carrying two dead raccoons. "Do you wish to check the raccoons
through as luggage?" she asked.
"No, thanks," replied the vultures. "They're carrion."
-------------------------------------------
