I am not a vegetarian because I love animals
I am a vegetarian because I hate plants.
-- A. Whitney Brown
Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same. -- Oscar Wilde
The dumber people think you are,
the more surprised they're going to be when you kill them.
-- William Clayton
The graduate with a Science degree asks, "Why does it work?"
The graduate with an Engineering degree asks, "How does it work?"
The graduate with an Accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?"
The graduate with a Liberal Arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?"
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely
rearranging their prejudices. -- William James
The Lord's Prayer is 66 words,
the Gettysburg Address is 286 words,
there are 1,322 words in the Declaration of Independence,
but government regulations on the sale of cabbage total 26,911 words.
-- From an article on the growth of federal regulations in the Oct. 24th issue of National Review
Half of the people in the world are below average.
There's so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?
-- Dick Cavett, mocking the TV-violence debate
If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life,
she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there are men on base.
-- Dave Barry
Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.
-- Laurie Anderson
On a tombstone: "I TOLD YOU I WAS SICK"
Somebody hits me, I'm going to hit him back. Even if it does look like he hasn't eaten in a while.
-- Charles Barkley, after blatantly elbowing an Angolan basketball opponent in the Olympics
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
-- Mark Twain
Calvin: People think it must be fun to be a super genius,
but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world.
Hobbes: Isn't your pants' zipper supposed to be in the front?
Laundry instructions on a shirt made by HEET (Korea):
For best results:
Wash in cold water separately, hang dry and iron with warm iron.
For not so good results:
Drag behind car through puddles, blow-dry on roofrack.
When authorities warn you of the sinfulness of sex, there is an important
lesson to be learned. Do not have sex with the authorities.
--From "Basic Sex Facts For Today's Youngfolk" in "Life In Hell''
by Matt Groening
"Time's fun when you're having flies." -- Kermit the Frog
Enjoy!
What do computer nerds use for birth control? Their personalities
Do files get embarrassed when they are unzipped?
Today's subliminal thought is: .......................
Is reading in the toilet multitasking?
My software never has bugs. It just develops random features.
Best file compression around: "DEL *.*" =3D 100% compression
Software salesman to programmer: "You start writing the program and
I'll go find out what they want."
It said "Insert Disk #3" but only two will fit
RAM DISK is not an installation procedure!
If at first you don't succeed, call it version 1.0
It's not hard to meet expenses. They're everywhere
Help Wanted: Telepath. You know where to apply
Do witches run spell checkers?
Copywight 1996. Elmer Fudd. All wights Weserved.
What has four legs and an arm? A happy pit bull
The name is Baud... James Baud
Why doesn't DOS ever say "EXCELLENT command or filename!"
As a computer, I find your faith in technology amusing.
Does fuzzy logic tickle?
A computer's attention span is only as long as its powercord.
11th Commandment: Covet not they neighbour's Pentium
Disinformation is not as good as datinformation
All computers wait at the same speed
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
All wiyht. Rho sritched mg kegtops awound?
"640K ought to be enough for anybody." -- Bill Gates, 1981
Read my chips: no new upgrades!
If debugging is the process of removing bugs, then programming must
be the process of putting them in.
Did you hear about the new supercomputer? It's so fast, it executes an
infinite loop in six seconds.
Oprah Winfrey virus: Your 500Mb hard drive suddenly shrinks to
320Mb, and then slowly returns to 500Mb
Texas virus: Doesn't do any damage, but makes sure it's bigger than
any other file on your system
Real computers don't each cache
Buy a Pentium 586/90 so you can re-boot faster
Computers make very fast, very accurate mistakes
Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are
Definitions:
- computer: a device designed to speed and automate errors
- upgrade: take the old bugs out, put new ones in.
- Ethernet: something used to catch the etherbunny
- mainframe: the biggest PC peripheral available
- Windows: just another pane in the glass
- programmer: a red-eyed, mumbling mammal capable of conversing with inanimate objects
- airline virus: you're in Dallas, but your data is in Singapore
- hardware: Parts of a computer that can be kicked
- budget: a method for going broke methodically
- shin: a device for finding furniture in the dark
Guy talking to a Pirate (The Pirate has a wooden leg, a hook for a
hand and an eye patch): What happened to your leg?
Pirate: Well...It was a stormy night, the main spar fell on me leg.
Me ship was headed for the rocks, I had to takes me faithful pocket
knife and cut me leg off so's I could steer me ship away from the
rocks.
Guy: What happened to your hand?
Pirate: Well...I was fishin', got too close to the water when a big
ol'shark came along and bit me hand clean off. Got this nifty hook
when we got to port.
Guy: What about your eye?
Pirate: Well...I was lookin' up when this sea gull pooped in me eye.
Guy: Surely that didn't cause you to lose an eye?
Pirate: Well...Ya see, it was me first day with the hook.
Today is election day in California.
- In 1645, one vote gave Oliver Cromwell control of
England.
- In 1649, one vote caused King Charles I of England to be
executed.
- In 1776, one vote made English the language of the
United States rather than German.
- In 1845, one vote caused Texas to be brought into the
Union.
- In 1868, one vote saved President Andrew Johnson from
impeachment.
- In 1876, one vote gave Rutherford B. Hayes the
Presidency of the United States.
- In 1876, one vote changed France from a monarchy to a
republic.
- In 1923, one vote gave Adolph Hiitler control of the
Nazi Party.
...So think about those examples when you consider what your one
vote is really worth] ...
Challenge the election laws: Vote!
Stan Webb forwards these rib ticklers...
Subject: Worst Analogies (taken from High School papers)
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)
Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who means to access
T:flw.quid55328.com\aaakk/ch@ung but gets T:\flw.quidaaakk/ch@ung
by mistake (Ken Krattenmaker, Landover Hills)
Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever. (Unknown)
He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch 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.
(Unknown)
X-Mozilla-Status: 0000
Three men are in a hot-air balloon. Soon, they find themselves lost
in a canyon somewhere. One of the three men says, "I've got an idea.
We can call for help in this canyon and the echo will carry our voices
far."
So he leans over the basket and yells out, "Helllloooooo! Where are
we?" (They hear the echo several times.)
15 minutes later, they hear this echoing voice: "Helllloooooo! You're
lost!!"
One of the men says, "That must have been a mathematician."
Puzzled, one of the other men asks, "Why do you say that?"
The reply: "For three reasons. (1) he took a long time to answer, (2)
he was absolutely correct, and (3) his answer was absolutely useless."
A small, 14-seat plane is circling for a landing in Atlanta. It's
totally fogged in, zero visibility, and suddenly there's a small
electrical fire in the cockpit which disables all of the instruments
and the radio. The pilot continues circling, totally lost, when
suddenly he finds himself flying next to a tall office building.
He rolls down the window (this particular airplane happens to have
roll-down windows) and yells to a person inside the building, "Where
are we?"
The person responds "In an airplane!"
The pilot then banks sharply to the right, circles twice, and makes a
perfect landing at Atlanta International.
As the passengers emerge, shaken but unhurt, one of them says to the
pilot, "I'm certainly glad you were able to land safely, but I don't
understand how the response you got was any use."
"Simple," responded the pilot. "I got an answer that was completely
accurate and totally irrelevant to my problem, so I knew it had to be
the IBM building."
"This Old Mainframe"--Host Bob Vila revamps a Univac and shows you how
you can turn an old PC into a functional doorstop or other decorative
object.
"My Three Suns"--Neighbors wonder why Steve Douglas keeps three
Unix-based workstations in a suburban neighborhood.
"Wang Can Cook"--Chef Charles Wang blends together software in an
incomprehensible manner from companies he's purchased. Studio guests
grudingly pay ever higher prices for his creations.
"Leave it to Spindler"--The Spindler tries to earn money by selling
apples, but finds he can't sell them for as much as he paid for them;
tries to make it up in volume. Ward, June, and the Board of Directors
sigh.
"Mayberry CPU"--Andy discovers that his digital clock has more
intelligence than Goober. Aunt Bea debugs Floyd's electronic cash
register.
"Mr. Rom's Neighborhood"--Mr. Rom puts young ones to sleep by reading
selections from various IBM documentation.
"Says Me Street"--Muppet-like forms of Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, and
Scott McNealy show children how to work and play together on the
information superhighway. Large character known as Big BlueBird is a
favorite of the kids, although no one really knows why.
INTERNAL CORRESPONDENCE
RE: REVISED TRAVEL POLICY - FEDERAL BUDGET IMPLICATIONS
With the new bugetary constraints, all company travel is subject to the
following changes in policy, effective immediately.
LODGING:
Employees are to utilise all friends & relatives who live in the area you
are
visiting; if none are available, consider the shelters for the homeless
which
are available in all major cities. If weather permits, bridges & overpasses
provide very good protection from the elements and you have the
opportunity to
meet new friends. Solar blankets are provided in the new travel packages
issued to all travelling employees.
MEALS
Salad bars are the most effective as one plate will serve four persons if no
one is watching. Many grocery stores offer free samples, and with creative
disguises, you may be able to obtain a full meal. KNowledge of indigenous
roots, berries and other food sources are encouraged. Remember to place
unknown berries under your lip for five minutes to determine if toxic. If
you
are attending meetings at convention centers or hotels, then visiting other
meetings at meal times is certainly encouraged. A selection of name
badges is
available in the new travel package so that you will be able to get by any
security.
TRAVEL
Bus schedules are available in the Corporate Travel offices. Hitchhiking
is a
viable consideration and you will find your safety vest and sign board in
your
travel package. Airline tickets will only be issued in extreme
circumstances,
and then to the most economical destination. If you are going to Adelaide
and
it is cheaper to fly to Melbourne, then travel to Melbourne will be
scheduled.
Please note that during layovers in airports there is an opportunity to make
additional money. In your travel package you will find a Hare Krishna badge
and hat, and also a pony tail with a bag of little plastic roses ( you must
provide your own orange sari, incense, and bells - copies of chants and
mantras are in the travel package). Please keep accurate records of funds
generated.
ENTERTAINMENT
The handbook "How not to pick up the cheque", is included in yur package.
Memorise this information......never pick up a cheque regardless of the
embarrassment to yourself or others.
STRICT ADHERENCE TO THIS TRAVEL POLICY IS IMPERATIVE
Subject: Federal Agents on the job
From a talk by R. James Woolsey, then Director of Central Intelligence,
given at a conference on global organized crime.
Just in case you think the FBI is not on the job, I have received a
true intercept (and this is not made up...it is not Saturday Night Live)
that the FBI made of itself while conducting an investigation in San Diego.
It was sent to me by a friend of mine who used to be with
counterintelligence in Washington. It is called "The FBI Pizza Call."
FBI agents conducted a raid of a San Diego psychiatric hospital
that was under investigation for medical insurance fraud. After hours of
reviewing thousands of medical records, the dozens of agents worked up
quite an appetite. The agent in charge of the investigation called a nearby
pizza parlor to order a quick dinner for his colleagues. The following
telephone conversation took place and was recorded by the FBI because they
were taping the hospital.
Agent: "Hello. I would like to order 19 large pizzas and 67 cans of soda."
Pizza Man: "And where would you like them delivered?"
Agent: "We're over at the psychiatric hospital."
Pizza Man: "To the psychiatric hospital?"
Agent: "That's right. I'm an FBI agent."
Pizza Man: "You're an FBI agent?"
Agent: "That's correct. Just about everybody here is."
Pizza Man: "And you're at the psychiatric hospital?"
Agent: "That's correct. And make sure you don't go through the front doors.
We have them locked. You will have to go around the back to the service
entrance to deliver the pizzas."
Pizza Man: "And you say you're all FBI agents?"
Agent: "That's right. How soon can you have them here?"
Pizza Man: "And everyone at the psychiatric hospital is an FBI agent?"
Agent: "That's right. We've been here all day, and we're starving."
Pizza Man: "How are you going to pay for all of this?"
Agent: "I have my checkbook right here."
Pizza Man: "And you're all FBI agents?"
Agent: "That's right. Everyone here is an FBI agent. Can you remember to
bring the pizzas and sodas to the service entrance in the rear? We have the
front doors locked."
Pizza Man: "I don't think so."
Click
Thought you might enjoy this....
The following was stolen from JINX: The World's Weirdest eZine. Send "Jinx
me"
to < jinx@thecentre.com for inclusion, subscription, and delight.
--
...you know, many important theological questions are answered if we
think of God as a Computer Programmer:
Q: Does God control everything that happens in my life?
A: He could, if he used the debugger, but it's tedious to step through all
those variables.
Q: Why does God allow evil to happen?
A: God thought he eliminated evil in one of the earlier versions.
Q: What causes God to intervene in earthly affairs?
A: If a critical error occurs, the system pages him automatically and he
logs on from home to try to bring it up. Otherwise things can wait until
tomorrow.
Q: Did God really create the world in seven days?
A: He did it in six days and nights while living on cola and candy bars.
On the seventh day he went home and found out his girlfriend had left him.
Q: How come the Age of Miracles Ended?
A: That was the development phase of the project, now we are in the
maintenance phase.
Q: Who is Satan?
A: Satan is a MIS director who takes credit for more powers than he
actually possesses, so people who aren't programmers are scared of him.
God thinks of him as irritating but irrelevant.
Q: What is the role of sinners?
A: Sinners are the people who find new an imaginative ways to mess up the
system when God has made it idiot-proof.
Q: Where will I go after I die?
A: Onto a DAT tape.
Q: Will I be reincarnated?
A: Not unless there is a special need to recreate you. And searching
those tar files is a major hassle, so if there is a request for you, God
will just say that the tape has been lost.
Q: Am I unique and special in the universe?
A: There are over 10,000 major university and corporate sites running exact
duplicates of you in the present release version.
Q: What is the purpose of the universe?
A: God created it because he values elegance and simplicity, but then the
users and managers demanded he tack all this senseless stuff onto it and
now everything is more complicated and expensive than ever.
Q: If I pray to God, will he listen?
A: You can waste his time telling him what to do, or you can just get off
his back and let him program.
Q: What is the one true religion?
A: All systems have their advantages and disadvantages, so just pick the
one that best suits your needs and don't let anyone put you down.
Q: How can I protect myself from evil?
A: Change your password every month and don't make it a name, a common
word, or a date like your birthday.
Q: Some people claim they hear the voice of God. Is this true?
A: They are much more likely to receive email.
X-Mozilla-Status: 0000
Pierre and Marie Curie were radiating enthusiasm;
Einstein thought it would be relatively easy to attend;
Volta was electrified and Archimedes, buoyant at thought;
Ampere was worried he wasn't up to current research;
Ohm resisted the idea at first;
Boyle said he was under too much pressure;
Edison thought it would be an illuminating experience;
Watt reckoned it would be a good way to let off steam;
Stephenson thought the whole idea was loco;
Wilbur Wright accepted, provided he and Orville could get a flight;
Dr Jekyll declined - he hadn't been feeling himself lately;
Morse's reply: I'll be there on the dot. Can't stop now, must dash.
Heisenberg was uncertain if he could make it.
Hertz said in the future he planned to attend with greater frequency.
Henry begged off due to a low capacity for alcohol.
Audubon said he'd have to wing it.
Hawking said he'd try to string enough time together to make a space in
his schedule.
Darwin said he'd have to see what evolved.
Schrodinger had to take his cat to the vet, or did he?
Mendel said he'd put some things together and see what came out.
Descartes said he'd think about it.
Newton was moved to attend.
Pavlov was drooling at the thought.
Gauss was asked to attend because of his magnetic personality.
: Descartes was walking into a bar.
: The bartender asked: 'How about a beer?'
: Descartes replied: 'I think not.', and disappeared.
There was a gathering of famous philosophers. Through the magic
of time travel, they were all gathered in one hotel. It was really
jam-packed. Socrates arrives, stops at the desk, and asks for his room
number and key.
"Sorry," says the clerk, "but you're not listed here, and we have
no extra rooms. But if you can get someone to let you use the second bed
in their room, I won't charge you anything extra."
Off grumbles Socrates, up and down the halls, on every floor,
knocking on doors. Each philosopher is very sorry, but won't let Socrates
sleep in his / her extra bed, each giving an answer consistent with her /
his view of the universe, of course.
Finally, after many hours of this, hundreds of doors and excuses
later, Socrates knocks on the last door. Descartes answers, looks down
his nose at the elderly, bedraggled-looking man, and says, "And what do
you want?"
"I think this is my room," says Socrates.
"I think not," replys Descartes... and disappears.
[Socrates called for room service, putting it on Descartes' bill,
of course, then took a shower and a nap, and went to the social hour to
discuss with the others the possible whereabouts of Descartes.]
--
Ah: The thing you see with, and the personal pronoun used
denoting individuality. "Ah think Ah've got somethin' in mah
ah."
Ast: To interrogate or inquire, as when a revenue agent seeks
information about illegal moonshine stills. "Don't ast me so
many question. I makes me mad."
Attair: Contradiction used to indicate the specific item desire.
"Pass me attair gravy, please"
Awl: An amber fluid used to lubricate engines. "Ah like attair
car, but it sure does take a lot of awl."
Bawl: What water does at 212 degrees Fahrenheit. "That gal
cain't even bawl water without burnin' it."
Bleeve: Expression of intent or faith. "Ah bleeve we ought to go
to church this Sunday."
Cent: Plural of cent. "You paid five dollars for that necktie?
Ah wouldn't give fiddy cent for it."
Co-cola: The soft drink that started in Atlanta and conquered the
world. "Ah hear they even sell Co-cola in Russia."
Cyst: To render aid. "Can Ah cyst you with those packages,
ma'am."
Dayum: A cuss word Rhett Butler used in "Gone With the Wind."
"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a dayum."
Everwhichways: To be scattered in all directions. "You should
have been there when the train hit attair chicken truck. Them
chickens flew everwhichways.
Far: A state of combustion that produces heat and light. "Ah
reckon it's about time to put out the far and call in the dawgs."
Flares: The colorful, sweet-smelling part of a plant. "If yo
wife's mad at ya, it's smart to take her some flares."
Good ole boy: Any Southern male between age 16 and 60 who has an
amiable disposition and is fond of boon companions, strong drink,
hound dawgs, fishin', huntin', and good lookin' women, but not
necessarily in that order. " Bubba's a good ole boy."
Griyuts: What no Southern breakfast would be without - grits. "Ah
like griyuts with butter and sawt on'em, but Ah purely love'em
with red-eye gravy."
Hale: Where General Sherman is going for what he did to Etlanna.
(Atlanta) "General Sherman said "War is Hale" and he made sure it
was."
Hep: to aid or benefit. "Ah can't hep it if Ah'm still in love
with you."
Idinit: Term employed by genteel Southerners to avoid saying
Ain't. "Mighty hot today, idinit?"
Jew: Did you. "Jew want to buy attair comic book, son, or just
stand there and read it here?"
Kumpny: Guests. "Be home on time. We's havin' kumpny for
supper."
Law: Police, or as Southerners pronounce it, PO-leece. "We
better get outta here. That bartender's doen called the law."
Likker: Whiskey; either the amber kind bought in stores or the
homemade white kind that federal authorities frown upon." Does he
drink? Listen, he spills more likker than most people drink.'
Mash: To press, as in the case of an elevator button. "Want me
to mash yo floor for you, Ma'am?"
Muchablige: Thank you. "muchablige for the lift, mister."
Nawthun: Anything that is not Southern. "He is a classic product
of the superior Nawthun educational system." (sarcasm)
Ovair: In that direction. 'Where's yo paw, son?" He's ovair,
suh."
Phraisin: Very cold. "Shut that door. It's phraisin in here."
Plum: Completely. "Ah'm plum wore out."
Retch: To grasp for. "The right feilder retch over into the
stands and caught the ball."
Saar: The opposite of sweet. "These pickles Sure are saar."
Shovelay: A GM car. "Nobody could drive a Shovelay like Junior
Johnson."
Sinner: Exact middle of. "Have you been to the new shoppin'
sinner."
Sugar: A kiss. "Come here and give me some sugar."
Tarred: Fatigued. "Ah'm too tarred to go bowlin' nonight."
Tar Arns: A tool employed in changing wheels. "You cain't change
a tar without a tar arn."
Uhmurkin: Someone who lives int he United States of Uhmurka.
"Thomas Jefferson was a great Uhmurkin."
War: Metal strands attached to posts to enclose domestic animals.
"Be careful and don't get stuck on that bob war."
Whup: To beat or to strike. "OOOEEE!!! Yer mama's gonna whup you
fer sayin' a cuss word."
Yankee shot: A Southern child's navel. "Momma, what's this on
mah belly?" "That's yo Yankee Shot."
Zat: Is that. "Zat yo dawg?"
THOUGHT YOU WOULD ENJOY THE FOLLOWING...
ISSUE | DEMOCRATS | REPUBLICANS
criminals | Give them a second | Give them the swift
| chance | sword of death
the poor | Give them some food | Give them the swift
| | sword of death
endangered | give them protection | Give them the swift
species | | sword of death
dictators | give them a way out | Give them the swift
| | sword of death
the uninsured | Give them some | Give them the swift
| health care | sword of death
the cost | $9,000,000,000,000,000| $29.95
| | (cost of one sword)
comments :
Bob:
It strikes me that Nick has overstated the cost of the democratic programs
by a few orders of magnitude. Also, he mischaracterizes the Republican
position on Dictators, at least judging by George Bush's handling of Hussein.
Also, he needs to refine the treatment of criminals; if we divide criminals
into "rich" and "poor" I think we get a more accurate model...
ISSUE | DEMOCRATS | REPUBLICANS rich criminals | Lock Them up | Give them a second | | chance poor criminals | Give them a second | Give them the swift | Chance | sword of deathIt explains so many things..... :-)
Actual Newspaper Headlines:
Include your Children when Baking Cookies Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers Safety Experts Say School Bus Passengers Should Be Belted Drunk Gets Nine Months in Violin Case Survivor of Siamese Twins Joins Parents Farmer Bill Dies in House Iraqi Head Seeks Arms Is There a Ring of Debris around Uranus? Stud Tires Out Prostitutes Appeal to Pope Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over Soviet Virgin Lands Short of Goal Again British Left Waffles on Falkland Islands Lung Cancer in Women Mushrooms Eye Drops off Shelf Teacher Strikes Idle Kids Reagan Wins on Budget, But More Lies Ahead Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim Shot Off Woman's Leg Helps Nicklaus to 66 Enraged Cow Injures Farmer with Ax Plane Too Close to Ground, Crash Probe Told Miners Refuse to Work after Death Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant Stolen Painting Found by Tree Two Soviet Ships Collide, One Dies Two Sisters Reunited after 18 Years in Checkout Counter Killer Sentenced to Die for Second Time in 10 Years Never Withhold Herpes Infection from Loved One Drunken Drivers Paid $1000 in `84 War Dims Hope for Peace If Strike isn't Settled Quickly, It May Last a While Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures Enfields Couple Slain; Police Suspect Homicide Red Tape Holds Up New Bridge Deer Kill 17,000 Typhoon Rips Through Cemetery; Hundreds Dead Man Struck by Lightning Faces Battery Charge New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Spacecraft Kids Make Nutritious Snacks Chef Throws His Heart into Helping Feed Needy Arson Suspect is Held in Massachusetts Fire British Union Finds Dwarfs in Short Supply Ban On Soliciting Dead in Trotwood Lansing Residents Can Drop Off Trees Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half New Vaccine May Contain Rabies Man Minus Ear Waives Hearing Deaf College Opens Doors to Hearing Air Head Fired Steals Clock, Faces Time Prosecutor Releases Probe into Undersheriff Old School Pillars are Replaced by Alumni Bank Drive-in Window Blocked by Board Hospitals are Sued by 7 Foot Doctors Some Pieces of Rock Hudson Sold at Auction [Editor's note: Sounds far-fetched to me. -- Scott]DARWIN AWARD
You all know about the Darwin Awards -- it's an annual honor given to the person who did the gene pool the biggest service by killing themselves in the most extraordinarily stupid way. Last year's winner was the fellow who was killed by a Coke machine which toppled over on top of him as he was attempting to tip a free soda out of it. And this year's nominee is: The Arizona Highway Patrol came upon a pile of smoldering metal embedded into the side of a cliff rising above the road at the apex of a curve. The wreckage resembled the site of an airplane crash, but it was a car. The type of car was unidentifiable at the scene. The lab finally figured out what it was and what had happened. It seems that a guy had somehow gotten hold of a JATO unit (Jet Assisted Take Off - actually a solid fuel rocket) that is used to give heavy military transport planes an extra "push" for taking off from short airfields. He had driven his Chevy Impala out into the desert and found a long, straight stretch of road. Then he attached the JATO unit to his car, jumped in, got up some speed and fired off the JATO! The facts as best as could be determined are that the operator of the 1967 Impala hit JATO ignition at a distance of approximately 3.0 miles from the crash site. This was established by the prominent scorched and melted asphalt at that location. The JATO, if operating properly, would have reached maximum thrust within 5 seconds, causing the Chevy to reach speeds well in excess of 350 MPH and continuing at full power for an additional 20-25 seconds. The driver, soon to be pilot, most likely would have experienced G-forces usually reserved for dog-fighting F-14 jocks under full afterburners, basically causing him to become insignificant for the remainder of the event. However, the automobile remained on the straight highway for about 2.5 miles (15-20) seconds before the driver applied and completely melted the brakes, blowing the tires and leaving thick rubber marks on the road surface, then becoming airborne for an additional 1.4 miles and impacting the cliff face at a height of 125 feet leaving a blackened crater 3 feet deep in the rock. Most of the driver's remains were not recoverable; however, small fragments of bone, teeth and hair were extracted from the crater and fingernail and bone shards were removed from a piece of debris believed to be a portion of the steering wheel.If you think your day is bad...
Fire Authorities in California found a corpse in a burnt out section of forest whilst assessing the damage done by a forest fire. The deceased male was dressed in a full wet suit, complete with a dive tank, flippers and face mask. A post mortem examination revealed that the person died not from burns but from massive internal injuries. Dental records provided a positive identification. Investigators then set about determining how a fully clad diver ended up in the middle of a forest fire. It was revealed that, on the day of the fire, the person went for a diving trip off the coast - some 20 kilometers away from the forest. The firefighters, seeking to control the fire as quickly as possible, called in a fleet of helicopters with very large buckets. The buckets were dropped into the ocean for rapid filling, then flown to the forest fire and emptied. You guessed it. One minute our diver was making like Flipper in the Pacific, the next he was doing a breaststroke in a fire bucket 300m in the air. Apparently, he extinguished exactly 1.78m (5'10") of the fire. Some days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed.The following is excerpts from an interview with Madonna by a Hungarian newspaper
(Blikk) translated into Hungarian and then back into English. Blikk: Madonna, Budapest says hello with arms that are spread-eagled. Did you have a visit here that was agreeable? Are you in good odor? You are the biggest fan of our young people who hear your musical productions and like to move their bodies in response. Madonna: Thank you for saying these compliments [holds up hands]. Please stop with taking sensationalist photographs until I have removed my garments for all to see [laughs]. This is a joke I have made. Blikk: Madonna, let's cut toward the hunt: Are you a bold hussy-woman that feasts on men who are tops? Madonna: Yes, yes, this is certainly something that brings to the surface my longings. In America it is not considered to be mentally ill when a woman advances on her prey in a discotheque setting with hardy cocktails present. And there is a more normal attitude toward leather play-toys that also makes my day. Blikk: Is this how you met Carlos, your love-servant who is reputed? Did you know he was heaven-sent right off the stick? Or were you dating many other people in your bed at the same time? Madonna: No, he was the only one I was dating in my bed then, so it is a scientific fact that the baby was made in my womb using him. But as regards these questions, enough! I am a woman and not a test-mouse! Carlos is an everyday person who is in the orbit of a star who is being muscle-trained by him, not a sex machine. Blikk: O.K., here's a question from left space: What was your book Slut about? Madonna: It was called Sex, my book. Blikk: Not in Hungary. Here it was called Slut. How did it come to publish? Were you lovemaking with a man-about-town printer? Do you prefer making suggestive literature to fast-selling CDs? Madonna: These are different facets to my career highway. Blikk: Thank you for your candid chitchat. Madonna: No problem, friend who is a girl.From Thursday's San Jose Mercury News:
Top 11 Reasons Engineers Make Better Husbands by Kathi Hunter (included a picture of her and her husband) 11. Engineers require very little mirror time (unlike the marketing guy I used to date). 10. You never have to worry about shopping for birthdays or Christmas - a Computer Literacy gift certificate will do just fine. 9. No need to buy expensive work clothes - a couple pairs of jeans and Dockers will carry you for about two years. 8. I was the first woman on my block to have my own e-mail address. 7. My shopping list has been on a spreadsheet for three years now. 6. Engineers never go carousing at bars - just Fry's Electronics. 5. Engineers actually know how to program VCRs. 4. The biggest argument at our house is Mac vs. PC. 3. There's always someone around to explain Dilbert to me. 2. My own Web site. 'Nuff said 1. He would never divorce me - California is a community property state and I would get half his software. Kathi Hunter lives in San Jose.....Things the English do better than us: traffic, churches, bacon, talk radio.
What's the difference between heaven and hell? Definition of Heaven: the English are the police, the French are the cooks, and the Germans are the engineers. Definition of Hell: the Germans are the police, the English are the cooks, and the French are the engineers.RITA RUDNER'S FACTS ABOUT MEN
1. Men like to barbecue. Men will cook if danger is involved. 2. Men who have pierced ears are better prepared for marriage. They've experienced pain and bought jewelry. 3. Marrying a divorced man is ecologically responsible. In a world where there are more women than men, it pays to recycle. 4. Men are very confident people. My husband is so confident that when he watches sports on television, he thinks that if he concentrates he can help his team. If the team is in trouble, he coaches the players from our living room, and if they're really in trouble, I have to get off the phone in case they call him. 5. Men like phones with lots of buttons. It makes them feel important. 6. Men love to be the first to read the newspaper in the morning. Not being the first is upsetting to their psyches. 7. All men are afraid of eyelash curlers. I sleep with one under my pillow, instead of a gun. 8. A good place to meet a man is at the dry cleaner. These men usually have jobs and bathe. 9. All men hate to hear "We need to talk about our relationship." These seven words strike fear in the heart of even General Schwartzkopf. 10. Men are sensitive in strange ways. If a man has built a fire and the last log does not burn, he will take it personally. 11. Men have an easier time buying bathing suits. Women have two types: depressing and more depressing. Men have two types: nerdy and not nerdy. 12. Men have higher body temperatures than women. If your heating goes out in winter, I recommend sleeping next to a man. Men are like portable heaters that snore. 13. Women take clothing much more seriously than men. I've never seen a man walk into a party and say "Oh, my God, I'm so embarrassed; get me out of here. There's another man wearing a black tuxedo." 14. Most men hate to shop. That's why the men's department is usually on the first floor of a department store, two inches from the door. 15. If a man prepares dinner for you and the salad contains three or more types of lettuce, he is serious. 16. If you're dating a man who you think might be "Mr. Right," if he a) got older, b) got a new job, or c) visited a psychiatrist, you are in for a nasty surprise. The cocoon-to-butterfly theory only works on cocoons and butterflies. 17. No man is charming all of the time. Even Cary Grant is on record saying he wished he could be Cary Grant. 18. When four or more men get together, they talk about sports. 19. When four or more women get together, they talk about men. 20. Men are less sentimental than women. No man has ever seen the movie THE WAY WE WERE twice, voluntarily. 21. Most women are introspective: "Am I in love? Am I emotionally and creatively fulfilled?" Most men are outrospective: "Did my team win? How's my car?" 22. If a man says, "I'll call you," and he doesn't, he didn't forget... he didn't lose your number... he didn't die. He just didn't want to call you. 23. Men hate to lose. I once beat my husband at tennis. I asked him, "Are we going to have sex again?" He said, "Yes, but not with each other." 24. Getting rid of a man without hurting his masculinity is a problem. "Get out" and "I never want to see you again" might sound like a challenge. If you want to get rid of a man, I suggest saying, "I love you... I want to marry you... I want to have your children." Sometimes they leave skid marks. 25. Men are self-confident because they grow up identifying with super- heroes. Women have bad self-images because they grow up identifying with Barbie. 26. Male menopause is a lot more fun than female menopause. With female menopause you gain weight and get hot flashes. Male menopause - you get to date young girls and drive motorcycles. 27. Men forget everything; women remember everything. 28. That's why men need instant replays in sports. They've already forgotten what happened.From an ex-field sales/support survivor:
I used to work in a computer store and one day we had a gentleman call in with a smoking power supply. The service rep was having a bit of trouble convincing this guy that he had a hardware problem. Service Rep: Sir, something has burned within your power supply. Customer: I bet that there is some command that I can put into Service Rep: There is nothing that software can do to help you with Customer: I know that there is something that I can put in... some command... maybe it should go into the CONFIG.SYS. [After a few minutes of going round and round] Service Rep: Okay, I am not supposed to tell anyone this but there is a hidden command in some versions of DOS that you can use. I want you to edit your AUTOEXEC.BAT and add the last line as C:\DOS\NOSMOKE and reboot your computer. [Customer does this] Customer: It is still smoking. Service Rep: I guess you'll need to call Microsoft and ask them for a patch for the NOSMOKE.EXE. [The customer then hung up. We thought that we had heard the last of this guy but NO... he calls back four hours later] Service Rep: Hello Sir, how is your computer? Customer: I called Microsoft and they said that my power supply is incompatible with their NOSMOKE.EXE and that I need to get a new one. I was wondering when I can have that done and how much it will cost..Grotesque pinkish mass
Grotesque pinkish mass In a blue can on a shelf Quivering alone Like some spongy rock A granite, my piece of Spam In sunlight on my plate Oh Argentina! Your little tin of meat soars Above the pampas The color of Spam is natural as the sky: A block of sunrise Little slab of meat In a wash of clear jelly Now I heat the pan Oh tin of pink meat I ponder what you may be: Snout or ear or feet? In the cool morning I fry up a slab of Spam A dog barks next door Pink tender morsel Glistening with salty gel What the hell is it? Ears, snouts, and innards, A homogenous mass Pass another slice Cube of cold pinkness Yellow specks of porcine fat Give me a spork please Old man seeks doctor "I eat Spam daily", he says. Angioplasty Highly unnatural The tortured shape of this "food" A small pink coffin Slicing your sweet self Salivating in suspense Sizzle, sizzle..Spam Pink beefy temptress I can no longer remain VegetarianMicrosoft Panhandler v1.0 (Beta)
Redmond, WA -- Microsoft Corporation chair, CEO and all-around babe magnet Bill Gates announced yesterday the introduction of a new product for Windows 95: Microsoft Panhandling. "The idea came to me the other day when a homeless man asked me for money,"recalls Gates. "I suddenly realized that we were missing a golden opportunity. Here was a chance to make a profit without any initial monetary investment. Naturally, this man then became my competition, so I had my limo driver run over him several times." Microsoft engineers have been working around the clock to complete Gates' vision of panhandling for the 21st century. "We feel that our program designers really understand how the poor and needy situation works," says Microsoft Homeless product leader Bernard Liu. "Except for the fact that they're stinking rich." Microsoft Panhandling will be automatically installed with Windows 95. At random intervals, a dialog box pops up, asking the user if they could spare any change so that Microsoft has enough money to get a hot meal. ("This is a little lie," admits software engineer Adam Miller, "since our diet consists of Coke and Twinkies, but what panhandler doesn't embellish a little?") The user can click Yes, in which case a random amount of change between $.05 and $142.50 is transferred from the user's bank account to Microsoft's. The user can also respond No, in which case the program politely tells the user to have a nice day. The "No" button has not yet been implemented. "We're experiencing a little trouble programming the No button," Bernard Liu says, "but we should definitely have it up and running within the next couple of years. Or at least by the time Windows 2014 comes out. Maybe." Gates says this is just the start of an entire line of products. "Be on the lookout for products like Microsoft Mugging, which either takes $50 or erases your hard drive, and Microsoft Squegee Guy, which will clean up your Windows for a dollar." (When Microsoft Squegee Guy ships, Windows 95 will no longer automatically refresh your windows.) But there are competitors on the horizon. Sun Microsystems and Oracle Corporation are introducing panhandling products of their own. "Gates is a few tacos short of a combination platter, if you get my drift," says Oracle Head Honcho and 3rd degree black belt Larry Ellison. "I mean, in the future, we won't need laptop computers asking you for change. You'll have an entire network of machines asking you for money." Gates responded with, "I know what you are, but what am I?" General pandemonium then ensued.BOOK: A new product!
A new aid to rapid--almost magical--learning has made its appearance. Indications are that if it catches on all the electronic gadgets will be so much junk. The new device is known as Built-in Orderly Organized Knowledge. The makers generally call it by its initials, BOOK(tm). Many advantages are claimed over the old-style learning and teaching aids on which most people are brought up nowadays. It has no wires, no electric circuit to break down. No connection is needed to an electricity power point. It is made entirely without mechanical parts to go wrong or need replacement. Anyone can use BOOK(tm), even children, and it fits comfortably into the hands. It can be conveniently used sitting in an armchair by the fire. How does this revoluntionary, unbelievably easy invention work? Basically BOOK(tm) consists only of a large number of paper sheets. These may run to hundreds where BOOK(tm) covers a lengthy program of information. Each sheet bears a number in sequence, so that the sheets cannot be used in the wrong order. To make it even easier for the user to keep the sheets in the proper order they are held firmly in place by a special locking device called a "binding". Each sheet of paper presents the user with an information sequence in the form of symbols, which he absorbs optically for automatic registration on the brain. When one sheet has been assimilated a flick of the finger turns it over and further information is found on the other side. By using both sides of each sheet in this way a great economy is effected, thus reducing both the size and cost of BOOK(tm). No buttons need to be pressed to move from one sheet to another, to open or close BOOK(tm), or to start it working. BOOK(tm) may be taken up at any time and used by merely opening it. Instantly it is ready for use. Nothing has to be connected up or switched on. The user may turn at will to any sheet, going backwards or forwards as he pleases. A sheet is provided near the beginnning as a location finder for any required information sequence. A small accessory, available at trifling extra cost, is the BOOKMark(tm). This enables the user to pick up his programme where he left off on the previous learning session. BOOKMark(tm) is versatile and may be used in any BOOK(tm). The initial cost varies with the size and subject matter. Already a vast range of BOOK(tm)s is available, covering every conceivable subject and adjusted to different levels of aptitude.One BOOK(tm), small enough to be held in the hands, may contain an entire learning schedule. Once purchased, BOOK(tm) requires no further upkeep cost; no batteries or wires are needed, since the motive power, thanks to an ingenious device patented by the makers, is supplied by the brain of the user. BOOK(tm)s may be stored on handy shelves and for ease of reference the program schedule is normally indicated on the back of the binding. All together the Built-in Orderly Organized Knowledge seems to have great advantages with no drawbacks. We predict a big future for it. Here's the supervisor's response: "BOOK(tm) does not, in spite of the claims, seem to have 'great advantages with no drawbacks'. Soon, it probably won't even be legal. Consider: It can be conveniently used sitting in an armchair by the fire. Being paper, it might burn in the fire. Probably fire laws in most locations wouldn't allow its use there. Worse, such a device, which encourages close proximity of the user to fire, will be outlawed by OSHA's request. "Each sheet bears a number in sequence, so that the sheets cannot be used in the wrong order." How quaint; to think that the programmer (author) would be allowed to turn over such an important task to the user! 'Cannot' is clearly misused; any user could incorrectly turn to the wrong page. A proper user interface might correct that, of course, such as requiring that each sheet be torn off to expose the next. This is a clear conflict with "The user may turn at will to any sheet, going backwards or forwards as he pleases." "'BOOK(tm)s may be stored on handy shelves and for ease of reference'. The user interface obviously needs more work before such a system can be practical. "'The motive power -- is supplied by the brain of the user'. Clearly, the inventors have not examined recent trends. No serious person would suggest even expecting a 'user' to have a brain present, much less to use it so continuously. I'd suggest the inventors return to their consoles and do a thorough associative search of the Web, like the rest of us, and forget this nonsense." Harry: Here are our ideas for ValuJet's new campaign. Let us know what you think. Best to Susan, Rob Advertising Dept. _______________________ ValuJet: Our Fares Come Down With Our Planes! ValuJet: The Subway. With Wings. ValuJet: Earn Bonus Miles With Our Frequent Near-Miss Program. ValuJet: Where Any Section Can Become A Smoking Section. ValuJet: It's The Ground, Stupid. ValuJet: We Offer Huge Out Of Court Settlements. ValuJet: The Down To Earth Airline. ValuJet: What Goes Up Must Come Down. ValuJet: Don't Worry. Be Happy. ValuJet: We Come Down Hard On Cheap Fares. ValuJet: Complimentary Champagne During Steep Descents. ValuJet: We Get You Down Ahead Of Schedule. ValuJet: For A Fistful Of Dollars . . . ValuJet: The Elevator Without Cables. ValuJet: Yo! Whassup Widda Wing? ValuJet: In-Flight Movies -- In The Plane To Your Left. ValuJet: Pilots? We Don't Need No Steenkin' Pilots! ValuJet: Our Engines Come On -- And Off! ValuJet: Chomp! Chomp! Chomp! ValuJet: Feelin' Lucky Today? ValuJet: Your Kids Will Love Our Inflatable Slides. ValuJet: 'Gator Aid. ValuJet: If It's Your Time -- It's Our Time. ValuJet: Obeying The Law Of Gravity. ValuJet: Look For Us In Your Neighborhood. ValuJet: A Hole Lot Of Airplane. ValuJet: Discounts For Group Swims. ValuJet: We'll Pick Up The Pieces. ValuJet: We Can Make An Impact. ValuJet: We Don't Forget To Feed The Fish. ValuJet: Nearer My God To Thee. ValuJet: Real Men Land Wherever They Want To.Subject: Adventurers' hints
In case anyone is considering doing some camping this summer, please note the following public-service announcement: In Alaska, tourists are warned to wear tiny bells on their clothing when hiking in bear country. The bells warn away most bears. Tourists are also cautioned to watch the ground on the trail, paying particular attention to bear droppings to be alert for the presence of grizzly bears. One can tell a grizzly dropping because it has bells in it.Just when you thought it was safe to go to the supermarket... "Pillsbury Dough Boy wanted for attempted murder."
A lady visiting her in-laws in Arkansas last week, went to a local supermarket. She parked next to a car with a woman sitting inside, her eyes closed and hands behind her head, apparently sleeping. When leaving the store a while later, she again saw the woman, her hands still behind her head but with her eyes open. The woman looked very strange, so the visiting woman tapped on the window and asked, "Are you okay?" The woman in the car answered, "I've been shot in the head, and I am holding my brains in." Not knowing what to do, the first woman ran into the store, where store officials called the paramedics. They had to break into the car because the door was locked. When they got in, they found that the woman had bread dough on the back of her head and in her hands. A Pillsbury biscuit canister had exploded, apparently from the heat in the car, making a loud explosion like that of a gunshot, and hit her in the head. When she reached back to find what it was, she felt the dough and thought it was her brains. She passed out from fright at first, then attempted to hold her brains in.These questions have actually been asked in court.
Q. "Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, in most cases he just passes away and doesn't know anything about it until the next morning?" Q. "Was it you or your brother that was killed in the war?" Q. "Were you alone or by yourself?" Q. "You say that the stairs went down to the basement?" A. "Yes." Q. "And these stairs, did they go up also?"The Washington Post: Sunday May 14, 1995, Final Edition
Report from Week 110, in which we asked you to come up with absurd warning labels for common products. We loved one particular entry for its wonderful idiocy: On a cardboard windshield sun shade: "Warning: Do Not Drive With Sun Shield in Place." We were going to make it a winner, until we discovered that it wasn't made up. Fourth Runner-Up -- On an infant's bathtub: Do not throw baby out with bath water. (Gary Dawson, Arlington) Third Runner-Up -- On a package of Fisherman's Friend(R) throat lozenges: Not meant as substitute for human companionship. (Tom Witte, Gaithersburg) Second Runner-Up -- On a Magic 8 Ball: Not advised for use as a home pregnancy test. (Chuck Smith, Woodbridge) First Runner-Up -- On a roll of Life Savers: Not for use as a flotation device. (Jean Sorensen, Herndon) And the winner of the Power Ranger pinata -- On a cup of McDonald's coffee: Allow to cool before applying to groin area. (Elden Carnahan, Laurel) ==== Honorable Mentions On a Pentium chip: If this product exhibits errors, the manufacturer will replace it for a $2 shipping and a $3 handling charge, for a total of $4.97. (Russell Beland, Springfield) On a refrigerator: Refrigerate after opening. (Cissie J. Owen, Leesburg) On a pack of cigarettes: WARNING -- The Tobacco Institute has determined that smoking just one cigarette greatly increases your risk of heart attack by making you so incredibly sexy that gorgeous members of the opposite sex surround you night and day, begging for intercourse and wearing you into exhaustion, unless, of course, you have another couple of cigarettes to steady your nerves. (Jacob Weinstein, McLean) On a disposable razor: Do not use this product during an earthquake. (Jim Gaffney, Manassas) On a handgun: Not recommended for use as a nutcracker. (Art Grinath, Takoma Park) On pantyhose: Not to be used in the commission of a felony. (Judith Daniel, Washington) On a piano: Harmful or fatal if swallowed. (Peter Fay, Herndon) On a can of Fix-a-Flat: Not to be used for breast augmentation. (Jerry Robin, Gaithersburg) On Kevorkian's suicide machine: This product uses carbon monoxide, which has been found to cause cancer in laboratory rats. (Meg Sullivan, Potomac) On Lyndon LaRouche literature: Mr. LaRouche is a serious political figure and not a paranoid lunatic, and should therefore -- Hey, what are you looking at? Quit staring at me. (Meg Sullivan, Potomac) On work gloves: For best results, do not leave at crime scene. (Ken Krattenmaker, Landover Hills) On a palm sander: Not to be used to sand palms. (Patrick G. White, Taneytown) On a calendar: Use of term "Sunday" for reference only. No meteorological warranties express or implied. (Elden Carnahan, Laurel) On Odor Eaters: Do not eat. (Chuck Smith, Woodbridge) On Sen. Bob Dole: WARNING: Contents under pressure and may explode. (Doug Keim, Schaumburg, Ill.) On a blender: Not for use as an aquarium. (Gary Dawson, Arlington) On a fax machine: WARNING! Never attempt to directly fax anyone an image of your naked buttocks. Always photocopy your buttocks and fax the photocopy. (John Kammer, Herndon) On syrup of ipecac: Caution: May cause vomiting. (Paul Styrene, Olney) On a revolving door: Passenger compartments for individual use only. (Elden Carnahan, Laurel) On a microscope: Objects are smaller and less alarming than they appear. (J. Calvin Smith, Laurel) On children's alphabet blocks: Letters may be used to construct phrases and sentences that may be deemed offensive. (David Handelsman, Charlottesville) On a wet suit: Capacity, 1. (J. Calvin Smith, Laurel) And Last: On The Washington Post: Do not cut up and use for blackmail note. (Joseph Romm, Washington).Subject: Funny: Model Wisdom
ON COURAGE "They were doing a full back shot of me in a swimsuit and I thought, oh my God, I have to be so brave. See, every woman hates herself from behind." -- Cindy Crawford ON SELF-KNOWLEDGE "Everywhere I went, my cleavage followed. But I learned I am not my cleavage." -- Carole Mallory ON POVERTY "Everyone should have enough money to get plastic surgery." -- Beverly Johnson ON FATE "I wish my butt did not go sideways, but I guess I have to face that." -- Christie Brinkley ON PSYCHOLOGY "I loved making 'Rising Sun.' I got into the psychology of why she liked to get strangled and tied up in plastic bags. It has to do with low self-worth." -- Tatjana Patitz ON ARRIVING "Because modeling is lucrative, I'm able to save up and be more particular about the acting roles I take." -- Kathy Ireland, star of 'Alien From L.A.' and 'Danger Island' ON CAREER CHOICES "My boyfriend thinks I lost my true calling to be a librarian." -- Paulina Porizkova ON PRIORITIES "I would rather exercise than read a newspaper." -- Kim Alexis ON GEOPOLITICS "Mick Jagger and I just really liked each other a lot. We talked all night. We had the same views on nuclear disarmament." -- Jerry Hall ON INNER STRENGTH "I love the confidence that makeup gives me." -- Tyra Banks ON DEATH "Richard doesn't really like me to kill bugs, but sometimes I can't help it." -- Cindy Crawford ON TRAVEL "I haven't seen the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the Louvre. I haven't seen anything. I don't really care." -- Tyra Banks ON BREAKTHROUGHS "Once I got past my anger toward my mother, I began to excel in volleyball and modeling." -- Gabrielle Reece ON EPIPHANY "I just found out that I'm one inch taller than I thought." -- Christie Brinkley ON HEREDITY "My husband was just OK looking. I was in labor and I said to him, 'What if she's ugly? You're ugly.'" -- Beverly Johnson ON THE BASICS "It's very important to have the right clothing to exercise in. If you throw on an old T-shirt or sweats, it's not inspiring for your workout." -- Cheryl Tiegs ON INTRODUCTIONS "I think most people are curious about what it would be like to be able to meet yourself -- it's eerie." -- Christy Turlington ON COURTSHIP "The soundtrack to 'Indecent Exposure' is a romantic mix of music that I know most women love to hear, so I never keep it far from me when women are nearby." -- Fabio ON PARADOX "Sometimes I get lonely, but it's nice to be alone." -- Tatjana Patitz ON THE CONSERVATION OF MATTER "I've looked in the mirror every day for 20 years. It's the same face." -- Claudia Schiffer ON TRAGEDY "The worst was when my skirt fell down to my ankles -- but I had on thick tights underneath." -- Naomi Campbell ON INSTINCT "If I'm making a movie and get hungry, I call time-out and eat some crackers." -- Carol Alt ON THE CASTE SYSTEM "We're not Prince Charles and Princess Di. We don't think of ourselves as royalty. We happen to be working people." -- Christie Brinkley ON OCCUPATIONAL HAZARDS "I tried on 250 bathing suits in one afternoon and ended up having little scabs up and down my thighs, probably from some of those with sequins all over them." -- Cindy Crawford ON ECONOMICS "I don't wake up for less than $10,000 a day." -- Linda Evangelista ON ZEN "When I model I'm pretty blank. You can't think too much or it doesn't work." -- Paulina Porizkova ON LOGIC "I think, If my butt's not too big for them to be photographing it, then it shouldn't be too big for me." -- Christy Turlington ON BODY PARTS "I don't know what to do with my arms. It just makes me feel weird and I feel like people are looking at me and that makes me nervous." -- Tyra Banks ON BODY LANGUAGE "You can usually tell when I'm happy by the fact that I've gained weight." -- Christy Turlington ON DEPRIVATION "If they had Nautilus on the Concorde, I would work out all the time." -- Linda Evangelista ON MOTIVATION "It was kind of boring for me to have to eat. I would know that I had to, and I would." -- Kate Moss ON VERSATILITY "I can do anything you want me to do so long as I don't have to speak." -- Linda Evangelista ON THE GRIEF PROCESS "When my Azzedine jacket from 1987 died, I wrapped it up in a box, attached a note saying where it came from and took it to the Salvation Army. It was a big loss." -- Veronica Webb ON VENGEANCE "Girls are always getting mad at each other and they tell their hairdresser to purposely mess up another girl's hair." -- Tasha ON BATTING .667 "I'm a pretty girl who's a model who doesn't suck as an actress." -- Cameron Diaz X-Mozilla-Status: 0000An Irishman in Dublin walks into a bar for the first time.
He orders three pints of Guinness and sits in the back room of the bar, drinking a sip out of each one of the pints in turn. When he finishes the three pints he heads back up to the bar and orders three more pints. The bartender tells the man that the beer would be fresher if he ordered one pint at a time. The man replies, "Well, you see, sir, I have two brothers. One is in America. One is in Australia. And I am the only one still here, in Dublin. As we all left to go our separate ways we promised that we'd drink this way to remember the nice days that we had and the times we drank together." At that, the bartender nodded approvingly. The man becomes a regular at that bar, and always drank in the same manner: three pints, and drinking them in turn. One day in late February he comes into the bar and orders only two pints. The bartender and the other regulars notice the missing pint and guessing its significance, become silent. When the man returns for the second round, the bartender says, "I don't want to interrupt you in your time of sorrow, since you are such a faithful customer, I feel that I should offer my condolences." The man looks momentarily confused then says, "Oh no, no cause for grief. I've just given up beer for Lent."Subject: Funny: THOSE DARN ENGINEERS... Engineers Explained
People who work in the fields of science and technology are not like other people. This can be frustrating to the nontechnical people who have to deal with them. The secret to coping with technology-oriented people is to understand their motivations. This chapter will teach you everything you need to know. I learned their customs and mannerisms by observing them, much the way Jane Goodall learned about the great apes, but without the hassle of grooming. Engineering is so trendy these days that everybody wants to be one. The word "engineer" is greatly overused. If there's somebody in your life who you think is trying to pass as an engineer, give him this test to discern the truth. ENGINEER IDENTIFICATION TEST You walk into a room and notice that a picture is hanging crooked. You: A. Straighten it. B. Ignore it. C. Buy a CAD system and spend the next six months designing a solar- powered, self-adjusting picture frame while often stating aloud your belief that the inventor of the nail was a total moron. The correct answer is "C" but partial credit can be given to anybody who writes "It depends" in the margin of the test or simply blames the whole stupid thing on "Marketing." SOCIAL SKILLS ------------- Engineers have different objectives when it comes to social interaction. "Normal" people expect to accomplish several unrealistic things from social interaction: *Stimulating and thought-provoking conversation *Important social contacts *A feeling of connectedness with other humans In contrast to "normal" people, engineers have rational objectives for social interactions: *Get it over with as soon as possible. *Avoid getting invited to something unpleasant. *Demonstrate mental superiority and mastery of all subjects. FASCINATION WITH GADGETS ------------------------ To the engineer, all matter in the universe can be placed into one of two categories: (1)things that need to be fixed, and (2)things that will need to be fixed after you've had a few minutes to play with them. Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems. Normal people don't understand this concept; they believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet. No engineer looks at a television remote control without wondering what it would take to turn it into a stun gun. No engineer can take a shower without wondering if some sort of Teflon coating would make showering unnecessary. To the engineer, the world is a toy box full of sub-optimized and feature-poor toys. FASHION AND APPEARANCE ---------------------- Clothes are the lowest priority for an engineer, assuming the basic thresholds for temperature and decency have been satisfied. If no appendages are freezing or sticking together, and if no genitalia or mammary glands are swinging around in plain view, then the objective of clothing has been met. Anything else is a waste. LOVE OF "STAR TREK" ------------------- Engineers love all of the "Star Trek" television shows and movies. It's a small wonder, since the engineers on the starship Enterprise are portrayed as heroes, occasionally even having sex with aliens. This is much more glamorous than the real life of an engineer, which consists of hiding from the universe and having sex without the participation of other life forms. DATING AND SOCIAL LIFE ---------------------- Dating is never easy for engineers. A normal person will employ various indirect and duplicitous methods to create a false impression of attractiveness. Engineers are incapable of placing appearance above function. Fortunately, engineers have an ace in the hole. They are widely recognized as superior marriage material: intelligent, dependable, employed, honest, and handy around the house. While it's true that many normal people would prefer not to date an engineer, most normal people harbor an intense desire to mate with them, thus producing engineerlike children who will have high-paying jobs long before losing their virginity. Male engineers reach their peak of sexual attractiveness later than normal men, becoming irresistible erotic dynamos in their mid thirties to late forties. Just look at these examples of sexually irresistible men in technical professions: * Bill Gates. * MacGyver. * Etcetera. Female engineers become irresistible at the age of consent and remain that way until about thirty minutes after their clinical death. Longer if it's a warm day. HONESTY ------- Engineers are always honest in matters of technology and human relationships. That's why it's a good idea to keep engineers away from customers, romantic interests, and other people who can't handle the truth. Engineers sometimes bend the truth to avoid work. They say things that sound like lies but technically are not because nobody could be expected to believe them. The complete list of engineer lies is listed below. "I won't change anything without asking you first." "I'll return your hard-to-find cable tomorrow." "I have to have new equipment to do my job." "I'm not jealous of your new computer." FRUGALITY --------- Engineers are notoriously frugal. This is not because of cheapness or mean spirit; it is simply because every spending situation is simply a problem in optimization, that is, "How can I escape this situation while retaining the greatest amount of cash?" POWERS OF CONCENTRATION ----------------------- If there is one trait that best defines an engineer it is the ability to concentrate on one subject to the complete exclusion of everything else in the environment. This sometimes causes engineers to be pronounced dead prematurely. Some funeral homes in high-tech areas have started checking resumes before processing the bodies. Anybody with a degree in electrical engineering or experience in computer programming is propped up in the lounge for a few days just to see if he or she snaps out of it. RISK ---- Engineers hate risk. They try to eliminate it whenever they can. This is understandable, given that when an engineer makes one little mistake, the media will treat it like it's a big deal or something. EXAMPLES OF BAD PRESS FOR ENGINEERS * Hindenberg. * Space Shuttle Challenger. * SPANet(tm) * Hubble space telescope. * Apollo 13. * Titanic. * Ford Pinto. * Corvair. The risk/reward calculation for engineers looks something like this: RISK: Public humiliation and the death of thousands of innocent people. REWARD: A certificate of appreciation in a handsome plastic frame. Being practical people, engineers evaluate this balance of risks and rewards and decide that risk is not a good thing. The best way to avoid risk is by advising that any activity is technically impossible for reasons that are far too complicated to explain. If that approach is not sufficient to halt a project, then the engineer will fall back to a second line of defense: "It's technically possible but it will cost too much." EGO --- Ego-wise, two things are important to engineers: * How smart they are. * How many cool devices they own. The fastest way to get an engineer to solve a problem is to declare that the problem is unsolvable. No engineer can walk away from an unsolvable problem until it's solved. No illness or distraction is sufficient to get the engineer off the case. These types of challenges quickly become personal -- a battle between the engineer and the laws of nature. Engineers will go without food and hygiene for days to solve a problem. (Other times just because they forgot.) And when they succeed in solving the problem they will experience an ego rush that is better than sex--and I'm including the kind of sex where other people are involved. Nothing is more threatening to the engineer than the suggestion that somebody has more technical skill. Normal people sometimes use that knowledge as a lever to extract more work from the engineer. When an engineer says that something can't be done (a code phrase that means it's not fun to do), some clever normal people have learned to glance at the engineer with a look of compassion and pity and say something along these lines: "I'll ask Bob to figure it out. He knows how to solve difficult technical problems." At that point it is a good idea for the normal person to not stand between the engineer and the problem. The engineer will set upon the problem like a starved Chihuahua on a pork chop.Subject: funny: UNIX is a joke! :-)
Regarding: UNIX is a joke! In an announcement that has stunned the computer industry, Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kernighan admitted that the Unix operating system and C programming language created by them is an elaborate prank kept alive for over 20 years. Speaking at the recent UnixWorld Software Development Forum, Thompson revealed the following: "In 1969, AT&T had just terminated their work with the GE/Honeywell/AT&T Multics project. Brian and I had started work with an early release of Pascal from Professor Niklaus Wirth's ETH labs in Switzerland and we were impressed with its elegant simplicity and power. Dennis had just finished reading 'Bored of the Rings', a National Lampoon parody of the Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy. As a lark, we decided to do parodies of the Multics environment and Pascal. Dennis and I were responsible for the operating environment. We looked at Multics and designed the new OS to be as complex and cryptic as possible to maximize casual users' frustration levels, calling it Unix as a parody of Multics, as well as other more risque allusions. We sold the terse command language to novitiates by telling them that it saved them typing. Then Dennis and Brian worked on a warped version of Pascal, called 'A'. 'A' looked a lot like Pascal, but elevated the notion of the direct memory address (which Wirth had banished) to the central concept of the language. This was Dennis's contribution, and he in fact coined the term "pointer" as an innocuous sounding name for a truly malevolent construct. Brian must be credited with the idea of having absolutely no standard I/O specification: this ensured that at least 50% of the typical commercial program would have to be re-coded when changing hardware platforms. Brian was also responsible for pitching this lack of I/O as a feature: it allowed us to describe the language as "truly portable". When we found others were actually creating real programs with A, we removed compulsory type-checking on function arguments. Later, we added a notion we called "casting": this allowed the programmer to treat an integer as though it were a 50kb user-defined structure. When we found that some programmers were simply not using pointers, we eliminated the ability to pass structures to functions, enforcing their use in even the Simplest applications. We sold this, and many other features, as enhancements to the efficiency of the language. In this way, our prank evolved into B, BCPL, and finally C. We stopped when we got a clean compile on the following syntax: for(;P("\n"),R-;P("|"))for(e=3DC;e-;P("_"+(*u++/8)%2))P("| "+(*u/4)%2); At one time, we joked about selling this to the Soviets to set their computer science progress back 20 or more years. Unfortunately, AT&T and other US corporations actually began using Unix and C. We decided we'd better keep mum, assuming it was just a passing phase. In fact, it's taken US companies over 20 years to develop enough expertise to generate useful applications using this 1960's technological parody. We are impressed with the tenacity of the general Unix and C programmer. In fact, Brian, Dennis and I have never ourselves attempted to write a commercial application in this environment. We feel really guilty about the chaos, confusion and truly awesome programming projects that have resulted from our silly prank so long ago." Dennis Ritchie said: "What really tore it (just when AIDA was catching on), was that Bjarne Stroustrup caught onto our joke. He extended it to further parody, Smalltalk. Like us, he was caught by surprise when nobody laughed. So he added multiple inheritance, virtual base classes, and later ... templates. All to no avail. So we now have compilers that can compile 100,000 lines per second, but need to process header files for 25 minutes before they get to the meat of "Hello, World". Major Unix and C vendors and customers, including AT&T, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, GTE, NCR, and DEC have refused comment at this time. Borland International, a leading vendor of object-oriented tools, including the popular Turbo Pascal and Borland C++, stated they had suspected this for a couple of years. In fact, the notoriously late Quattro Pro for Windows was originally written in C++. Philippe Kahn said: "After two and a half years programming, and massive programmer burn-outs, we re-coded the whole thing in Turbo Pascal in three months. I think it's fair to say that Turbo Pascal saved our bacon". Another Borland spokesman said that they would continue to enhance their Pascal products and halt further efforts to develop C/C++. Professor Wirth of the ETH institute and father of the Pascal, Modula 2 and Oberon structured languages, cryptically said "P.T. Barnum was right." He had no further comments.Subject: Funny: Subsidies
USDA To the Secretary of Agriculture: Dear Sir, My friend Jed received a $1000 check from the government for not raising 50 hogs, and so I am going into the not-raising-hogs business. I would appreciate your help in getting started. What I need to know is, what is the best kind of land not to raise hogs on? And, what is the best kind of hogs not to raise? I would perfer not to raise razorbacks, but if this is not the best kind not to raise, I will just as gladly not raise Durocs or Poland Chinas. The hardest part of this business is going to be keeping an individual record of each of the hogs I do not raise. Do you think it would be best for me to name each hog I do not raise? My friend Jed has been raising hogs for more than 20 years and the most he ever made was $400, until this year when he received $1000 for not raising hogs. Now that there is some money in the hog business, I'm ready to try my hand at it. So, if I get $100 for not raising 50 hogs, will I get $2000 for not raising 100 hogs, etc? This modern math is new to me so I can stand to be corrected. As I am new to this, I plan to start off on a small scale, holding myself down to not raising 1000 hogs for which I will, of course, receive $20,000. Now these hogs I will not raise will not eat 50,000 bushels of corn. I understand you pay farmers for not raising corn. Will you pay me for not raising the 50,000 bushels of corn, which I will not feed to the hogs I am not raising? I want to get started as soon as possible, as both Jed and I agree that this looks like a good time of year for not raising hogs and I need to prepare my land for not raising corn, too. A quick response would be most appreciated. Yours truly, Beauregard BrussardSubject: Funny: some fun things
========================< H U M O U R N E T >======================= SUBJ: Like, A Totally California State Residency Application... man... Name: ____________________________________ (Feel free to use popular nicknames, such as "Moon Beam", "Dweezil", "Moon Unit" "Capt. Trips", etc.) Age: _____ Inner Child's Age: ___ Age in Dog Years: ____ Age as told to you in a vision by ancient Mayan calendar: ____ Sex: _____ M _____ F _____ Hermaphrodite _____ Still working it out in therapy Footwear: ____ Birkenstocks ____ Barefoot Condition of Feet: ____ Wash Daily ____ Wash Weekly ____ Like, whenever I get to the beach, man... Occupation: ___ Massage Therapist ___ Astral Counsel ___ Pet Psychologist ___ Channeler of the Dead (real dead, not merely Grateful) ___ Follower of the Dead, (Grateful) ___ Tie-dye vendor at Dead Shows ___ Vendor of "nice hot, fresh veggie burritos" at concerts ___ Cooking up a scheme to channel Jerry Garcia ___ Assistant to Shirley MacLaine ___ Rent-A-Mob protester ___ Purveyor of Fine Herbal Remedies ___ Panhandler claiming to be a veteran ___ Professional Guest on Ricki Lake ___ LA rock star groupie ___ Bottom-feeding LA lawyer ___ Professional Emotional Victim Name(s) of Significant Other(s): ________________________________ Relationship(s) of Significant Other(s): ____ Astral Soulmate ____ One-night stand from the protest rally who stayed because the rent was cheap ____ My dog's massage therapist ____ "Just Friends" ____ They're really not that significant, but I'll try to claim them as tax deduction(s) Number of Children in Commune: _____ Number of Inner Children In Commune: _____ Number of your Inner Children which have been molested by one of Roseanne's multiple personalities: ____ Mother's Name: ____________________ Father's Name: ____________________ Where were you were conceived: ____ Woodstock ____ Monterey ____ Under the stars on in the commune's hot tub ____ In the back of a VW micro-bus on the way to a Dead show Name of book exposing your parents as inner-child abusers: __________________ Number of copies sold: ____ Number of Wind Chimes Owned: ____ Number of times you've given yourself a concussion by hitting head on wind chimes: ___ Number of time you've channeled dead space aliens: ____ Number of times a space alien has copped a feel off you: ____ Talk Shows on Which You Make a Regular Appearance: ____ Donahue ____ Ricki Lake ____ Geraldo ____ Sally Jesse ____ The morning news' surf report Number of times you've eaten your surfboard: ____ Above, while still in parking lot after tripping on your sandals: ____ Number of Grateful Dead concerts attended: ____ (if all, enter "on tour") Number of bongs you own: ____ Number of times you've drunk your bong water because the weed ran out: ____ Political Party Affiliation: (Choose as many as you have personalities) ____ Green Party ____ American Communist Party ____ Socialist Party ____ New Age Astral Party (channeling the spirits of dead Romans) ____ Hemp Party ____ The Party-Hearty Party ____ Inner Child Abuse Hotline Party ____ New Age Goddess Party How far is your home from the waterline: ___ Miles ___ Yards ___ Feet ___ I like to wake up with sand in my nose and seaweed in my teeth, in true harmony with nature as it washes up my nose Number of surfboards owned: ____ Number of seconds you can talk without using the words "totally", "like", "man" and "fer shure": ____ (enter, like 0, if you, like, totally don't know) ========================< H U M O U R N E T >======================= SUBJ: Fun With Freemen, Take One The FBI found the Unabomber suspect on a long list of heavily-armed recluses with a grudge against the U.S. Government. It's called the Montana White Pages. ========================< H U M O U R N E T >======================= SUBJ: Fun With Freemen, Take Two Q: How do Montanans file their state taxes? A: They let the Freemen fill them out, and the Unabomber mails them. ******************************************************************** Anyone w/out a Sense of Humor Is At The Mercy of The Rest of Us. :-)Subject: Fwd: IBM... a step ahead of the rest
KABINDA, ZAIRE-- In a move IBM officials 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. Just after Ndeti shattered the nut, a 200-person Southern Baptist gospel choir, on hand for the taping of the IBM commercial, broke out into raucous, joyous song in celebration of the tribesman's accomplishment. 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 easily sustained several minutes of vigorous pounding against a large stone. "I put the nut on a rock, and I hit it with the 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, complete 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 world closer together. Our cutting-edge technology is truly creating a global village. The Bantu tribesmen are members of an ever-growing, international community of users who have turned to IBM to solve their networking needs."The following conversation recently took place between an eight-year-old and his father.
Son: "Dad, I have to do a special report for school. Can I ask you a question?" Father: "Sure, Son. What's the question?" Son: "What is politics?" Father: "Well, let's take a look at home. For example, I am the wage earner, so let's call me Capitalism. Your mother is the administrator of the money, so let's call her the Government. We take care of you and your needs, so let's call you the People. Since the maid is paid with money that I earn, we'll call her the Working Class. Your baby brother we can call the Future. Now, do you understand, Son?" Son: "I'm not really sure, Dad. I'll have to think it over." Later that night, awakened by his baby brother's crying, the son went to see what was wrong. Discovering that the baby had seriously soiled his diaper, the boy went to his parent's room, and found his mother sound asleep. He then went to the maid's room. Where, peeking through the keyhole, he saw his father in bed with the maid. The boy's knocking went totally unheeded by his father and the maid, and so the boy went back to his room and then fell asleep. The next morning, he said to his father, "Dad, now I think I fully understand what politics is." Father: "Good, son: can you tell us in your own words?' Son: "Well, Dad, while Capitalism is screwing the Working Class, Government is sound asleep, the People are being totally ignored, and the Future is full of shit."Subject: Funny: Church Bulletins
"15 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 5:00 pm 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 get a piece of paper. 13. The ladies of the church have cast off clothing of every kind and they may be seen in the church basement Friday. 14. A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow. 15. At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be "What Is Hell?" Come early and listen to our choir practice.Subject: Funny: Top 20 Rejected Children's Books
Top 20 Rejected Children's Books 20. Where in the New York Area is Jimmy Hoffa? 19. The Unabomber Pop-Up Manifesto and Coloring Book 18. The Frog Formerly Known as Prince 17. Alice in WonderBraLand 16. The Legend of Three-Card Monte 15. 40 Whacks: Counting With Lizzie 14. The Little Engine That Could, If Only That Damned Goat Would Go Away 13. Girls Are From Venus, Boys Are From Cootieland 12. Where the Wildings Are 11. The Little Big Book of Necrophelia 10. The J. Edgar Hoover Dress-Up Book 9. Joe Camel and The Magic Cancer Stick 8. The Crack House at Pooh Corner 7. The Dummy's Guide to Crying 6. When Mommy Leaves Daddy, And What You Did to Cause It 5. Where's Waldo's Weewee? 4. The Dyslexic's Big Anagram Book 3. Barney's Bleeding and Nobody Can Help 2. Things Rich Kids Have, But You Never Will and the Number 1 Rejected Children's Book... 1. Furious George Delivers the Mail Subject: FW: Think you make enough money? Status: R Content-Length: 1909 __________________________________ Michael Jordan will make over $300,000 a game, $10,000 a minute assuming he averages about 30 minutes a game. Assuming $40 mil 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 Independence Day, 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 days. 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. He could take 1/100,000th of his income and buy some poor college student 5200 packages of Ramen. 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. And something to cheer you up after all of this. . . Jordan will only have to have this income for 270 more years to have a net worth equivalent to that of Bill Gates. Subject: True Story : Court Ruling on Email Status: R Content-Length: 1192 JUDGE RULES ON E-MAIL PRIVACY CASE TULSA, OKLA -- The Oklahoma Supreme Court has ruled on a case that many legal experts believe clearly delineates the e-mail privacy rights of computer users in the workplace. Judge Stan Musing declared that employees have a right to expect that their employers will refrain from monitoring e-mail messages transmitted on company systems. The case went to court after programmer Augustus Lindsey's supervisor monitored his e-mail and intercepted a message from Lindsey to a colleague. The message read: "That little sex kitten has been driving me wild. She's moaning and begging for it every minute. Last night I was afraid someone would hear, and we'd be thrown out of the building. But don't worry -- all is arranged. Wednesday she gets the knife". Lindsey's supervisor alerted authorities, suspecting that a crime was in the making. Lindsey was arrested on the spot and spent an uncomfortable night discussing the situation with the police. However, he was released in the morning, just in time to get his female cat to the vet for spaying. Lindsey sued his boss for invasion of privacy and sought punitive damages as well.**** VIRUS ALERT*********
Suggest you immediately scan your computer for the following viruses: PAT BUCHANAN VIRUS...Your system works fine, but it complains loudly about foreign software. COLIN POWELL VIRUS...Makes its presence known, but doesn't do anything. Secretly, you wish it would. HILLARY CLINTON VIRUS...Files disappear, only to reappear mysteriously a year later, in another directory. O. J. SIMPSON VIRUS...You know it's guilty of trashing your system, but you just can't prove it. BOB DOLE VIRUS...Could be virulent, but it's been around too long to be much of a threat. STEVE FORBES VIRUS...All files are flattened to the same size. 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." ROSS PEROT VIRUS...Activates every component in your system, just before the whole thing quits. TED TURNER VIRUS...Colorizes your monochrome monitor. 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 a bill for $4,500. 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. 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. 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 PCs 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. AIRLINE LUGGAGE VIRUS...You're in Dallas, but your data is in Singapore. FREUDIAN VIRUS...Your computer becomes obsessed with marrying into its own motherboard. PBS VIRUS...Your programs stop every few minutes to ask for money. ELVIS VIRUS...Your computer gets fat, slow, lazy, then self destructs, only to resurface at shopping malls and service stations across America. OLLIE NORTH VIRUS...Causes your printer to become a paper shredder. NIKE VIRUS...Just does it. JIMMY HOFFA VIRUS...Your programs can never be found again. KEVORKIAN VIRUS...Helps your computer shut down as an act of mercy.Subject: funny:10 commandments THE TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR C PROGRAMMERS
By Henry Spencer _________________________________________________________________ 1 Thou shalt run lint frequently and study its pronouncements with care, for verily its perception and judgement oft exceed thine. 2 Thou shalt not follow the NULL pointer, for chaos and madness await thee at its end. 3 Thou shalt cast all function arguments to the expected type if they are not of that type already, even when thou art convinced that this is unnecessary, lest they take cruel vengeance upon thee when thou least expect it. 4 If thy header files fail to declare the return types of thy library functions, thou shalt declare them thyself with the most meticulous care, lest grievous harm befall thy program. 5 Thou shalt check the array bounds of all strings (indeed, all arrays), for surely where thou typest ``foo'' someone someday shall type ``supercalifragilisticexpialidocious''. 6 If a function be advertised to return an error code in the event of difficulties, thou shalt check for that code, yea, even though the checks triple the size of thy code and produce aches in thy typing fingers, for if thou thinkest ``it cannot happen to me'', the gods shall surely punish thee for thy arrogance. 7 Thou shalt study thy libraries and strive not to reinvent them without cause, that thy code may be short and readable and thy days pleasant and productive. 8 Thou shalt make thy program's purpose and structure clear to thy fellow man by using the One True Brace Style, even if thou likest it not, for thy creativity is better used in solving problems than in creating beautiful new impediments to understanding. 9 Thy external identifiers shall be unique in the first six characters, though this harsh discipline be irksome and the years of its necessity stretch before thee seemingly without end, lest thou tear thy hair out and go mad on that fateful day when thou desirest to make thy program run on an old system. 10 Thou shalt foreswear, renounce, and abjure the vile heresy which claimeth that ``All the world's a VAX'', and have no commerce with the benighted heathens who cling to this barbarous belief, that the days of thy program may be long even though the days of thy current machine be short.In San Francisco, a would-be bank robber wrote a hold-up note on a deposit
slip he evidently got from a Wells Fargo ATM machine. He then took his note to a Bank of America branch office and handed it to a teller. The teller, thinking on her feet, told him: "I can't accept this, since it's a Wells Fargo form. There's a Wells Fargo office down the block where you might have more luck." The man turned around and left the bank. The teller quickly called the police, who had officers waiting at the Wells Fargo office by the time the would-be robber got there. They arrested him as soon as he handed his note to a Wells Fargo teller. Here is a true story someone found regarding exams at Cambridge University. It seems that during an examination one day a bright young student popped up and asked the proctor to bring him Cakes and Ale. The following dialog ensued: Proctor: I beg your pardon? Student: Sir, I request that you bring me Cakes and Ale. Proctor: Sorry, no. Student: Sir, I really must insist. I request and require that you bring me Cakes and Ale. At this point, the student produced a copy of the four hundred year old Laws of Cambridge, written in Latin and still nominally in effect, and pointed to the section which read (rough translation from the Latin): "Gentlemen sitting examinations may request and require Cakes and Ale". Pepsi and hamburgers were judged the modern equivalent, and the student sat there, writing his examination and happily slurping away. Three weeks later the student was fined five pounds for not wearing a sword to the examination. **************************************************************** Subject: Engineering Humor Status: R Two engineering students meet on campus one day. The first engineer calls out to the other, "Hey -- Nice bike! Where did you get it?" "Well," replies the other, "I was walking to class the other day when this pretty, young coed rides up on this bike. She jumps off, takes off all of her clothes, and says 'You can have ANYTHING you want!!'" "Good choice," says the first, "her clothes wouldn't have fit you anyway."Subject: Funny: Arkansas State Residency Application
ARKANSAS STATE RESIDENCY APPLICATION 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 knowSubject: Funny: Accident (at Sea) Report
Dear Sir, It is with regret and haste that I write this letter to you; regret that such a small misunderstanding could lead to the following circumstances, and haste in order that you will get this report before you form your own preconceived opinions from reports in the World Press, for I am sure that they will tend to overdramatise the affair. We had just picked up the pilot, and the apprentice had returned from changing the 'G' flag for the 'H', and being his first trip was having difficulty in rolling the 'G' flag up. I therefore proceeded to show him how, coming to the last part I told him to 'let go'. The lad, although willing, is not too bright, necessitating my having to repeat the order in a sharper tone. At this moment the Chief Officer appeared from the chartroom, having been plotting the vessel's progress, and thinking that it was the anchors that were being referred to, repeated the 'let go' to the Third Officer on the forecastle. The port anchor, having been cleared away, but not walked out, was promptly let go. The effect of letting the anchor drop from the 'pipe' while the vessel was proceeding at full harbour speed proved too much for the windlass brake, and the entire length of the port cable was pulled out 'by the roots'. I fear that the damage to the chain locker may be extensive. The braking effect of the port anchor naturally caused the vessel to sheer in that direction, right towards the swing bridge that spans a tributary to the river up which we were proceeding. The swing bridge operator showed great presence of mind by opening the bridge for my vessel. Unfortunately he did not think to stop the vehicular traffic. The result being that the bridge partly opened and deposited a Volkswagon, two cyclists and a cattle truck on the foredeck. My ship's company are at present rounding up the contents of the latter, which from the noise I would say were pigs. In his efforts to stop the progress of the vessel the Third Officer dropped the starboard anchor, too late to be of practical use for it fell on the swing bridge operator's control cabin. After the port anchor was let go and the vessel started to sheer I gave a double ring Full Astern on the Engine Room Telegraph, and personally rang the Engine Room to order maximum astern revolutions. I was informed that the temperature was 83 degrees, and was asked if there was a film tonight. My reply would not add constructively to this report. Up to now I have confined my report to the activities at the forward end of my vessel. Down aft they were having their own problems. At the moment the port anchor was let go, the Second Officer was supervising the making fast of the aft tug, and was lowering the ship's towing spring down into the tug. The sudden braking effect of the port anchor caused the tug to 'run in under' the stern of my vesel, just at the moment when the propeller was answering my double ring Full Astern. The prompt action of the Second Officer in securing the shipboard end of the towing spring delayed the sinking of the tug by some minutes thereby allowing the safe abandoning of that vessel. It is strange, but at the very same moment of letting go the port anchor there was a power cut ashore. The fact that we were passing over a 'cable area' at that time may suggest that we may have touched something on the river bed. It is perhaps lucky that the high tension cables brought down by the foremast were not live, possibly being replaced by the underwater cable, but owing to the shore blackout it is impossible to say where the pylon fell. It never fails to amaze me, the actions and behaviour of foreigners during moments of minor crisis. The pilot for instance, is at this moment huddled in the corner of my day cabin, alternately crooning to himself and crying after having consumed a bottle of gin in a time that is worthy of inclusion in the Guinness Book of Records. The tug captain on the other hand reacted violently and had to forcibly be restrained by the Steward, who has him handcuffed in the ship's hospital while he is telling me to do impossible things with my ship and my person. I enclose the names and addresses of the drivers, and insurance companies of the vehicles on my foredeck, which the Third Officer collected after his somewhat hurried evacuation of the forecastle. These particulars will enable you to claim back the damage that they did to the railings of number one hold. I am closing this preliminary report for I am finding it difficult to concentrate with the sound of police sirens and the flashing lights. It is sad to think that had the apprentice realised that there is no need to fly pilot flags after dark, none of this would have happened. Yours truly, Master...Subject: Funny: MIT Course Evaluation
Taken from the MIT Course Evaluation Guide, Fall, 1991 The Best and Worst Comments Received ==================================== "This class was a religious experience for me... I had to take it all on faith." "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 fell asleep in class and awoke in another? That's the way I felt all term." "In class I learn I can fudge answers and get away with it." "Keep lecturer or tenure board will be shot." "The recitation instructor would make a good parking lot attendant. Tries to tell you where to go, but you can never understand him." "Text is useless. I use it to kill roaches in my room." "In class the syllabus is more important than you are." "I am convinced that you can learn by osmosis by just sitting in his class." "Help! I've fallen asleep and I can't wake up!" "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." "He teaches like Speedy Gonzalez on a caffeine high." "This course kept me out of trouble from 2-4:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays." "Most of us spent the 1st 3 weeks terrified of the class. Then solidarity kicked in." "Bogus number crunching. My HP is exhausted." "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 more while doing the problem sets that I would have used the text." "What's the quality of the text? `Text is printed on high quality paper.'"Subject: Funny: Elephant Hunting
**** HUNTING AN ELEPHANT **** MATHEMATICIANS hunt elephants by going to Africa, throwing out everything that is not an elephant, and catching one of whatever is left. EXPERIENCED MATHEMATICIANS will attempt to prove the existence of at least one unique elephant before proceeding to step 1 as a subordinate exercise. PROFESSORS OF MATHEMATICS will prove the existence of at least one unique elephant and then leave the detection and capture of an actual elephant as an exercise for their graduate students COMPUTER SCIENTISTS hunt elephants by exercising Algorithm A: 1. Go to Africa. 2. Start at the Cape of Good Hope. 3. Work northward in an orderly manner, traversing the continent alternately east and west. 4. During each traverse pass, a. Catch each animal seen. b. Compare each animal caught to a known elephant. c. Stop when a match is detected. EXPERIENCED COMPUTER PROGRAMMERS modify Algorithm A by placing a known elephant in Cairo to ensure that the algorithm will terminate. ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE PROGRAMMERS prefer to execute Algorithm A on their hands and knees. ENGINEERS hunt elephants by going to Africa, catching gray animals at random, and stopping when any one of them weighs within plus or minus 15 percent of any previously observed elephant. ECONOMISTS don't hunt elephants, but they believe that if elephants are paid enough, they will hunt themselves. STATISTICIANS hunt the first animal they see N times and call it an elephant. CONSULTANTS don't hunt elephants, and many have never hunted anything at all, but they can be hired by the hour to advise those people who do. OPERATIONS RESEARCH CONSULTANTS can also measure the correlation of hat size and bullet color to the efficiency of elephant-hunting strategies, if someone else will only identify the elephants. POLITICIANS don't hunt elephants, but they will share the elephants you catch with the people who voted for them. LAWYERS don't hunt elephants, but they do follow the herds around arguing about who owns the droppings. SOFTWARE LAWYERS will claim that they own an entire herd based on the look and feel of one dropping. VICE PRESIDENTS OF ENGINEERING, RESEARCH, AND DEVELOPMENT try hard to hunt elephants, but their staffs are designed to prevent it. When the vice president does get to hunt elephants, the staff will try to ensure that all possible elephants are completely prehunted before the vice president sees them. If the vice president does see a nonprehunted elephant, the staff will (1) compliment the vice president's keen eyesight and (2) enlarge itself to prevent any recurrence. SENIOR MANAGERS set broad elephant-hunting policy based on the assumption that elephants are just like field mice, but with deeper voices. QUALITY ASSURANCE INSPECTORS ignore the elephants and look for mistakes the other hunters made when they were packing the jeep. SALES PEOPLE don't hunt elephants but spend their time selling elephants they haven't caught, for delivery two days before the season opens. SOFTWARE SALES PEOPLE ship the first thing they catch and write up an invoice for an elephant. HARDWARE SALES PEOPLE catch rabbits, paint them gray, and sell them as desktop elephants.Subject: Funny: The Island Formerly Known As Java :-) SUN MICROSYSTEMS SUES ISLAND OF JAVA*
Mountain View, CA -- Sun Microsystems today filed a trademark infringement against the island of Java* over the use of Sun's Java* trademark. Responding to criticism that the island has been called Java* for centuries, Sun lawyer Frank Cheatham said "Yeah, and in all that time they never filed for a trademark. They deserve to lose the name." Rather than pay the licensing fee, the island decided to change its name. They originally voted to change it to Visu Albasic, but an angry telegram from Redmond, Washington convinced them otherwise. The country finally settled on a symbol for a name -- a neatly-colored coffee cup which still evokes the idea of java. Since most newspapers and magazines will not be able to print the name of the island, it will hereafter be referred to in print as "The Island Formerly Known As Java*". The Island Formerly Known As Java* bills itself as a cross-landmass island, but so far has only been implemented in production on the Malay Archipelago. Africa is been rumored to have implemented it on Madagascar, but it is still in alpha testing. Lawyers from Sun would also like to locate the owners of the huge fiery ball at the center of the solar system. They have some legal papers for them... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- *Java is a Trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. Anyone caught using the trademark without permission will be beaten, flogged, sued, and forced to use Microsoft products.Subject: Funny: The Nature of the Universe
Carl Zwanzig: "Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together...." Douglas Adams: "There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened." Albert Einstein: "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." Unknown: "Astronomers say the universe is finite, which is a comforting thought for those people who can't remember where they leave things." Edward P. Tryon: "In answer to the question of why it happened, I offer the modest proposal that our Universe is simply one of those things which happen from time to time." John Andrew Holmes: "It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others." Max Frisch: "Technology is a way of organizing the universe so that man doesn't have to experience it." Kilgore Trout: "The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest." Woody Allen: "I'm astounded by people who want to 'know' the universe when it's hard enough to find your way around Chinatown." Douglas Adams: "In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move." William J. Broad: "The crux... is that the vast majority of the mass of the universe seems to be missing." Rich Cook: "Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." Fred Hoyle: "There is a coherent plan in the universe, though I don't know what it's a plan for." Ray Bradbury: "We are an impossibility in an impossible universe." Christopher Morley: "My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not signed." Edward Chilton: "I'm worried that the universe will soon need replacing. It's not holding a charge." Calvin and Hobbes (Bill Watterson): "The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us." Subject: Funny: Everything I need to know I learned in corporate America Status: RO Content-Length: 2059 EVERYTHING I NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN CORPORATE AMERICA 1. Indecision is the key to flexibility. 2. You can't tell which way the train went by looking at the track. 3. There is absolutely no substitute for a genuine lack of preparation. 4. Happiness is merely the remission of pain. 5. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be. 6. Sometimes too much to drink is not enough. 7. The facts, although interesting, are irrelevant. 8. The careful application of terror is also a form of communication. 9. Someone who thinks logically is a nice contrast to the real world. 10. Things are more like they are today than they ever were before. 11. Anything worth fighting for is worth fighting dirty for. 12. Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler. 13. Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate. 14. I have seen the truth and it makes no sense. 15. Suicide is the most sincere form of self-criticism. 16. If you think there is good in everybody, you haven't met everybody. 17. All things being equal, fat people use more soap. 18. If you can smile when things go wrong, you have someone in mind to blame. 19. One seventh of your life is spent on Monday. 20. By the time you make ends meet, they move the ends. 21. Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious. 22. The more you run over a dead cat, the flatter it gets. 23. There is always one more imbecile than you counted on. 24. This is as bad as it can get, but don't count on it. 25. Never wrestle a pig. You both get dirty and the pig likes it. 26. The trouble with life is, you're halfway through it before you realize it's a do-it-yourself thing. 27. Youth and skill are no match for experience and treachery. 28. No amount of advance planning will ever replace dumb luck. 29. Anything you do can get you fired; this includes doing nothing. 30. Money can't buy happiness; it can, however, rent it. 31. Never pass a snow plow on the right. -Gregory SingletonSubject: Funny Car Story
Following his company's IPO, a successful young entrepreneur goes out and buys the fastest car available, a 1996 Turbo BeepBeep. At $500,000, it is also the most expensive car in the world. While waiting for a red light, an old man on a moped pulls up next to him. The old man looks over the sleek, shiny surface of the car and asks, "What kind of car ya' got there, sonny?". The young man replies, "A 1996 Turbo BeepBeep. It cost $500,000." "That's a lot of money" says the old man, shocked. "Why does it cost so much? "Because this car can do up to 320 miles an hour!" states the technocrat proudly. The moped driver asks, "Can I take a look inside?" The old man pokes his head in the window and looks around. Leaning back on his moped, he says "That's a pretty nice car, all right, but I don't know if it's worth half a million." Just then, the light changes, and the guy decides to show the old guy what his car can do. He floors it, and within 30 seconds the speedometer reads 320 mph. He notices a dot in his rear view mirror that seems to be closing in on him. He slows down to get a better view, and suddenly, whhhoooossshhh! Something whips by him, going much faster! "What on earth could go faster than my Turbo BeepBeep?" the young man wonders. Then, ahead of him, he sees a dot coming toward him. Whoooooosh! It goes by again, heading the opposite direction! It almost looked like an old man on a moped! "Couldn't be," thinks the guy. "How could a moped outrun a Turbo BeepBeep?" Again, he sees a dot in his rear view mirror! Whooooosh Ka-BbblaMMM! It plows into the back of his car, demolishing the rear end. The young man jumps out, and sure enough, it is the old man!!! He runs up to the dying old man and says, "You're hurt bad! Is there anything I can do for you?" The old man groans and replies, "Yes. Unhook my suspenders from your side-view mirror!"Subject: FW: Humor: An Olympic Recap (fwd)
NBC's mad dash for Olympic cash By Dave Barry San Jose Mercury News, 7/31/96 AND NOW for my impression of the Olympics on TV: Trumpets: Bom!Bom!Bom-Bom Bom Bom Bom! BOB COSTAS: Good evening, and as you can tell by the sound of the Olympic themesong that we play almost as much as Kerri Strug's historic vault, it's time for our broadcast of The Recently Videotaped Olympic Games Featuring Americans. We're going to start by taking you right to the track-and-field stadium, where the men's 100-meter dash is about to get under way, despite the fact that it actually happened four hours ago. TRACK COMMENTATOR: Bob, this promises to be an exciting race, featuring Americans. COSTAS: And what are the obstacles that these Americans have overcome to create a Human Interest Factor for our broadcast? TRACK COMMENTATOR: Bob, from left to right, they have overcome psoriasis, vertigo and a bad allergy to vinaigrette dressing. COSTAS: We'll come right back to the men's 100-meter final, but right now we're going to replay the video of Kerri Strug, an American, overcoming her ankle injury to make her courageous vault. (Kerri Strug vaults.) COSTAS: What a human moment! Time for a commercial. ANNOUNCER: We're IBM. We're a giant corporation with vast computer expertise. That's why we're in charge of keeping track of all the statistics for these, the Olympic games of 1953. Thank you. Bom!Bom!Bom-Bom Bom Bom Bom! COSTAS: Now we're going to take you to women's beach volleyball, where the sun is shining brightly despite the fact that it is now 10:37pm on the East Coast. BEACH VOLLEYBALL COMMENTATOR: Thanks, Bob. This is Holly McPeak, an American, and as you can see in this digitized, computer-enhanced, ultra-slow-motion BeachCam close-up, she has overcome cellulite. COSTAS: I'll say. When is she going to serve? BEACH VOLLEYBALL COMMENTATOR: She'll be serving in about four seconds, Bob. COSTAS: I'm sorry, but we don't have that kind of time, because we need to show this Heartwarming Moment. (Kerri Strug vaults.) COSTAS: Now let's go out to the cycling competition, where I believe we have a race involving an American. CYCLING COMMENTATOR: That is correct, Bob. We have an American shown here pedaling furiously in 637th place, with a solid chance to move up to 636th. COSTAS: What obstacle has this American overcome? CYCLING COMMENTATOR: Bob, he is overcoming one hellacious case of hemorrhoids. COSTAS: We'll have more on that exciting cycling race, but right now we're going to return to the Olympic track stadium for an update on the men's 100-meter dash. TRACK COMMENTATOR: Bob, the race started about two seconds ago and should be over in about eight more seconds. None of the Americans has fallen down. COSTAS: We're going to break away from the men's 100-meter dash at this point, but we will be covering it throughout the course of the evening. Right now, however, we want you to see this moment, captured by our NBC cameras. (Kerri Strug vaults.) COSTAS: Now let's head out to the pool to check on the progress of the American swimmers, all of whom have overcome asthma. SWIMMING COMMENTATOR: Bob,here we see an American swimmer winning a race. This happened earlier. COSTAS: How much earlier? SWIMMING COMMENTATOR: Twenty-four years, Bob. This is Mark Spitz. COSTAS: Time for this commercial. ANNOUNCER: We're the Nike corporation. We pay famous athletes millions of dollars to wear our shoes. Because of this, you, the public, pay absurdly high prices for these shoes. Is that stupid, or what? Thank you. Bom!Bom!Bom-Bom Bom Bom Bom! (Kerri Strug vaults.) COSTAS: OK,right now there are some exciting gold-medal competitions going on in archery, shooting, rowing, kayaking, table tennis, softball, volleyball, team handball and judo, so right now we're going to take you to beach volleyball. BEACH VOLLEYBALL COMMENTATOR: Bob, as you can see, American Holly McPeak is bending over. COSTAS: I'll say. Bom!Bom!Bom-Bom Bom Bom Bom! (Kerri Strug vaults.)Subject: funny: The Diary of a Newbie
We see people move up to the Santa Cruz Mountains in summer or fall, then move back down when it quits raining. They sometimes don't make it through the winter before they move. The Diary of a Newbie DEAR DIARY AUG 12 Moved to out new home in Massachusetts. It is so beautiful here. The mountains are so majestic. Can hardly wait to see snow covering them. OCT 14 Massachusetts is the most beautiful place on earth. The leaves are turning all the colors and shades of red and orange. Went for a ride through the beautiful mountains and saw some deer. They are so graceful. Certainly they are th most wonderful animal on earth. This must be paradise. I love it here. NOV 11 Deer season will start soon. I can't imagine anyone wanting to kill such a gorgeous creature. Hope it will snow soon. I love it here. DEC 2 It snowed last night. Woke up to find everything blanketed with white. It looks like a postcard. We went outside and cleaned the snow off the steps and shoveled the driveway. We had a snowball fight (I won), and when the snowplow came by, we had to shovel the driveway again. What a beautiful place. I love Massachusetts. DEC 12 More snow last night. I love it. The snowplow did his trick again to the driveway. I love it here. DEC 19 More snow last night. Couldn't get out of the driveway to get to work. I am exhausted from shoveling. Damn snowplow! DEC 22 More of that white shit fell last night. I've got blisters on my hands from shoveling. I think the snowplow hides around the curve and waits until i'm done shoveling the driveway. Asshole! DEC 25 Merry Fucking Christmas! More friggen snow. If I ever get my hands on that son-of-a-bitch who drives the snowplow I swear I'll kill the bastard. Don't know why they don't use more salt on the roads to melt the fucking ice. DEC 27 More white shit last night. Been inside for three days, except for shoveling out the driveway after that snowplow goes through every time. Can't go anywhere, car is stuck in a mountain of white shit. The weatherman says to expect another 10" of the shit again tonight. Do you know how many shovels full of snow 10" is???? DEC 28 The fucking weatherman was wrong. We got 34" of that white shit this time. At this rate it won't melt before this summer. The snowplow got stuck up in the road and that bastard came to the door and asked to borrow my shovel. After I told him I had broken six shovels already shoveling all the shit he pushed into the driveway, I broke my last one over his fucking head. JAN 4 Finally got out of the house today. Went to the store to get food and on the way back a damned deer ran in front of the car and I hit it. Did about $3000 damage to the car. Those fucking beasts should be killed. Wish the hunters had killed them all last November. MAY 3 Took the car to the garage in Town. Would you believe the thing is rusting out from that fucking salt they put all over the roads. MAY 10 Moved to Georgia. I can't imagine why anyone in their right mind would ever live in that God-forsaken Commenwealth of Massachusetts. Subject: Dubious distinction (fwd) Status: R Content-Length: 2358 DUBIOUS ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS -- BRITISH DIVISION The following is from the British Sunday Express giving gongs (medals) for dubious distinctions. Tortoise Trophy To British Rail, which ingeniously solved the problem of lateness in the InterCity express train service by redefining "on time" to include trains arriving within one hour of schedule. Rubber Cushion To John Bloor, who mistook a tube of superglue for his hemorrhoid cream and glued his buttocks together. Crimewatch Cup Gold star: To Henry Smith, arrested moments after returning home with a stolen stereo. His error was having tattooed on his forehead in large capital letters the words "Henry Smith". His lawyer told the court: "My client is not a very bright young man." Silver star: To Michael Robinson, who rang police to deliver a bomb threat, but became so agitated about the mounting cost of the call that he began screaming "Call me back!" and left his phone number. Bronze star: To Paul Monkton, who used as his getaway vehicle a van with his name and phone number painted in foot-high letters on the side. British Cup To the passengers on a jam-packed train from Margate to Victoria, who averted their eyes while John Henderson and Zoe D'Arcy engaged in oral sex and then moved on to intercourse ... but complained when the pair lit up post-coital cigarettes in a non-smoking compartment. Flying Cross To Percy the Pigeon, who flopped down exhausted in a Sheffield loft, having beaten 1,000 rivals in a 500-mile race, and was immediately eaten by a cat. Alas, the 90-minute delay resulting from finding his remains and handing his ID tag to the judges relegated Percy from first to third place. Lazarus Laurel To Julia Carson, who as her tearful family gathered round her coffin in a New York funeral parlour, sat bolt upright and asked what the hell was going on. Celebrations were short-lived, due to the fact that Mrs. Carson's daughter, Julie, immediately dropped dead from shock. Silver Bullet To poacher Marino Malerba, who shot a stag standing above him on an overhanging rock -- and was killed instantly when it fell on him. -- They didn't want it good, they wanted it Wednesday. -Robert Heinlein A room without books is like a body without soul. -CiceroSubject: Funny: The chicken test.
In a recent issue of Meat & Poultry magazine, editors quoted from Feathers, the publication of the California Poultry Industry Federation, telling the following story. It seems the US Federal Aviation Administration has a unique device for testing the strength of windshields on airplanes. The device is a gun that launches a dead chicken at a plane's windshield at approximately the speed the plane flies. The theory is that if the windshield doesn't crack from the carcass impact, it'll survive a real collision with a bird during flight. It seems the British were very interested in this and wanted to test a windshield on a brand new, speedy locomotive they're developing. They borrowed the FAA's chicken launcher, loaded the chicken and fired. The ballistic chicken hattered the windshield, went through the engineer's chair, broke an instrument panel and embedded itself in the back wall of the engine cab. The British were stunned and asked the FAA to recheck the test to see if everything was done correctly. The FAA reviewed the test thoroughly and had one recommendation: "Use a thawed chicken".Subject: Funny: Cartoon Laws of Physics
Cartoon Laws of Physics Cartoon Law I Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of its situation. Daffy Duck steps off a cliff, expecting further pastureland. He loiters in midair, soliloquizing flippantly, until he chances to look down. At this point, the familiar principle of 32 feet per second per second takes over. Cartoon Law II Any body in motion will tend to remain in motion until solid matter intervenes suddenly. Whether shot from a cannon or in hot pursuit on foot, cartoon characters are so absolute in their momentum that only a telephone pole or an outsize boulder retards their forward motion absolutely. Sir Isaac Newton called this sudden termination of motion the stooge's surcease. Cartoon Law III Any body passing through solid matter will leave a perforation conforming to its perimeter. Also called the silhouette of passage, this phenomenon is the speciality of victims of directed-pressure explosions and of reckless cowards who are so eager to escape that they exit directly through the wall of a house, leaving a cookie-cutout-perfect hole. The threat of skunks or matrimony often catalyzes this reaction. Cartoon Law IV The time required for an object to fall twenty stories is greater than or equal to the time it takes for whoever knocked it off the ledge to spiral down twenty flights to attempt to capture it unbroken. Such an object is inevitably priceless, the attempt to capture it inevitably unsuccessful. Cartoon Law V All principles of gravity are negated by fear. Psychic forces are sufficient in most bodies for a shock to propel them directly away from the earth's surface. A spooky noise or an adversary's signature sound will induce motion upward, usually to the cradle of a chandelier, a treetop, or the crest of a flagpole. The feet of a character who is running or the wheels of a speeding auto need never touch the ground, especially when in flight. Cartoon Law VI As speed increases, objects can be in several places at once. This is particularly true of tooth-and-claw fights, in which a character's head may be glimpsed emerging from the cloud of altercation at several places simultaneously. This effect is common as well among bodies that are spinning or being throttled. A `wacky' character has the option of self-replication only at manic high speeds and may ricochet off walls to achieve the velocity required. Cartoon Law VII Certain bodies can pass through solid walls painted to resemble tunnel entrances; others cannot. This trompe l'oeil inconsistency has baffled generations, but at least it is known that whoever paints an entrance on a wall's surface to trick an opponent will be unable to pursue him into this theoretical space. The painter is flattened against the wall when he attempts to follow into the painting. This is ultimately a problem of art, not of science. Cartoon Law VIII Any violent rearrangement of feline matter is impermanent. Cartoon cats possess even more deaths than the traditional nine lives might comfortably afford. They can be decimated, spliced, splayed, accordion-pleated, spindled, or disassembled, but they cannot be destroyed. After a few moments of blinking self pity, they reinflate, elongate, snap back, or solidify. Corollary: A cat will assume the shape of its container. Cartoon Law IX Everything falls faster than an anvil. Cartoon Law X For every vengeance there is an equal and opposite revengeance. This is the one law of animated cartoon motion that also applies to the physical world at large. For that reason, we need the relief of watching it happen to a duck instead. Cartoon Law Amendment A A sharp object will always propel a character upward. When poked (usually in the buttocks) with a sharp object (usually a pin), a character will defy gravity by shooting straight up, with great velocity. Cartoon Law Amendment B The laws of object permanence are nullified for "cool" characters. Characters who are intended to be "cool" can make previously nonexistent objects appear from behind their backs at will. For instance, the Road Runner can materialize signs to express himself without speaking. Cartoon Law Amendment C Explosive weapons cannot cause fatal injuries. They merely turn characters temporarily black and smoky. Cartoon Law Amendment D Gravity is transmitted by slow-moving waves of large wavelengths. Their operation can be wittnessed by observing the behavior of a canine suspended over a large vertical drop. Its feet will begin to fall first, causing its legs to stretch. As the wave reaches its torso, that part will begin to fall, causing the neck to strech. As the head begins to fall, tension is released and the canine will resume its regular proportions until such time as it strikes the ground. Cartoon Law Amendment E Dynamite is spontaneously generated in "C-spaces" (spaces in which cartoon laws hold). The process is analogous to steady-state theories of the universe which postulated that the tensions involved in maintianing a space would cause the creation of hydrogen from nothing. Dynamite quanta are quite large (stick sized) and unstable (lit). Such quanta are attracted to psychic forces generated by feelings of distress in "cool" characters (see Amendment B, which may be a special case of this law), who are able to use said quanta to their advantage. One may imagine C-spaces where all matter and energy result from primal masses of dynamite exploding. A big bang indeed.Subject: funny: New Dog Breeds
New dog breeds Pekingese x Lhasa Apso = PEEKASSO, an abstract dog. Great Pyrenees x Dachshund = PYRADACHS, a puzzling breed. Pekingese x Dachshund = PEKING DACH, owned by Chinese restauranteurs. Kerry Blue Terrier x Bloodhound = BLUEBLOOD, a favorite of high society. Poodle x Great Pyrenees = POOPYREE, a dog that smells good. Pointer x Setter = POINTSETTER, a traditional Christmas pet. Irish Water Spaniel x English Springer Spaniel = IRISH SPRINGER, a dog fresh and clean as a whistle. Kerry Blue Terrier x Skye Terrier = BLUE SKYE, a dog for optimists. Smooth Fox Terrier x Chow Chow = SMOOCH, a dog who loves to kiss. Airedale x Spaniel = AIRIEL, a dog that brings in good TV reception. Labrador Retriever x Curly Coated Retriever = LAB COAT RETRIEVER, the choice for research scientists. Newfoundland x Basset Hound = NEWFOUND ASSET HOUND, a dog for financial advisors. Terrier x Bulldog = TERRIBULL, a dog that always makes mistakes. Keeshound x Setter = KEESTER, you can't get this dog off it's duff. Bloodhound x Labrador = BLABADOR, a dog that barks a lot. Chihuahua x Whippet = CHIAPET, order from TV ad, 3 for $19.95. Boxer x German Shepherd = BOXER SHORTS, a dog never seen in public. Basenji x Schipperke = BASERKE, a dog that's mad about its owner. Malamute x Pointer = MOOT POINT, owned by........... oh well, it doesn't matter anyway. Collie x Malamute = COMMUTE, a dog that lives on the subway. Deerhound x Terrier = DERRIERE, a dog that's true to the end. Subject: FUNNY: Conjugation Status: RO Content-Length: 293 Quotation from "The Language Instinct" (an excellent book by S. Pinker): Woman gets off a plane at Logan (Boston) airport and asks a taxi driver to take her to wherever she can get scrod. Taxi driver says: "Gee, I never heard it done before in the pluperfect subjunctive!" Subject: funny: marriage Subject: is it true ?! Getting married is very much like going to a continental restaurant with friends. You order what you want, then when you see what the other fellow has, you wish you had ordered that. 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." Man is incomplete until he is married. Then he is really finished. Marriage is an institution in which a man loses his bachelor's degree and the woman gets her master's. A little boy asked his father, "Daddy, how much does it cost to get married?" And the father replied, "I don't know, son, I'm still paying for it." 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." Then there was a man who said, "I never knew what real happiness was until I got married, and then it was too late. A happy marriage is a matter of give and take; the husband gives and the wife takes. Three rings: Engagement ring, Wedding ring, Suffering. When a newly married man looks happy we know why. But when a ten-year married man looks happy - we wonder why. Married life is very frustrating. In the first year of marriage, the man speaks and the woman listens. In the second year, the woman speaks and the man listens. In the third year, they both speak and the neighbors listen. After a quarrel, a wife said to her husband "You know, I was a fool when I married you." And the husband replied, "Yes, dear. but I was in love and didn't notice it." It doesn't matter how often a married man changes his job, he still ends up with the same boss. A man inserted an 'ad' in the classifieds: "Wife wanted". Next day he received a hundred letters. They all said the same thing: "You can have mine." When a man opens the door of his car for his wife, you can he sure of one thing: either the car is new or the wife. A perfect wife is one who helps the husband with the dishes. 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 multi-millionaire".Subject: funny: Origins
God says to Adam, "I have some good news and some bad news. What do you want to hear first?" Adam says, "Tell me the good news first." God says, "I'm going to give you a penis and a brain. You'll derive from these great pleasure and great intellect." Adam replies, "Wonderful! But what's the bad news?" God says, "I'm only going to give you enough blood supply to work one at a time." Subject: Funny: Bill at the Pearly Gates 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. The staffer was a young man in his late teens, face scarred with acne. He was wearing a blue T-shirt with the words TEAM PETER emblazoned on it in large yellow lettering. "Hello," said the staffer in a bored voice that could have been the voice of any clerk in any overgrown bureaucracy. "My name is Gabriel and I'll be your induction coordinator." Bill started to ask a question, but Gabriel interrupted him. "No, I'm not the Archangel Gabriel. I'm just a guy from Philadelphia named Gabriel who died in a car wreck at the age of 17. Now give me your name, last name first, unless you were Chinese in which case it's first 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?" Gabriel ignored the questions until he located Bill's records. Then Gabriel looked up in surprise. "It says here that you were the president of a large software company. Is that right?" "Yes." "Well then, do the math chip-head! 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. Jesus, when God said to 'go forth and multiply,' he didn't say 'like rabbits!' With that large a population, ten thousand people die every hour. Over a quarter-million people a day. Do you think Peter can meet them all personally?" "I guess not." "You guess right." So Peter had to franchise the operation. Now, Peter is the CEO of Team Peter Enterprises, Inc. 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." "Job assignment?" "Of course. Did you expect to spend the rest of eternity sitting on your ass and drinking ambrosia? 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 started to ask a question, but Gabriel interrupted him. "No, he's not *that* 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." "I had to wait *three* weeks," said Bill. Abraham stared at Bill angrily, and Bill realized that he'd made a mistake. Even in Heaven, it's best not to contradict a bureaucrat. "Well," Bill offered, "maybe that Bosnia thing has you guys backed up." Abraham's look of anger faded to mere annoyance. "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: funny: And now for a word from Bob Dole... = "The Internet is a good tool to use to get on the Net." = = --Presidential Candidate Bob Dole Subject: Funny: I Love Literal Translations! [Compiled by Stefan Hammond and Mike Wilkins for their book _Sex_&_Zen_&_a_Bullet_in_the_Head_, to be published by Fireside.] These are excerpted from a list of English subtitles used in films made in Hong Kong: 1. I am damn unsatisfied to be killed in this way. 2. Fatty, you with your thick face have hurt my instep. 3. Gun wounds again? 4. Same old rules: no eyes, no groin. 5. A normal person wouldn't steal pituitaries. 6. Damn, I'll burn you into a BBQ chicken! 7. Take my advice, or I'll spank you without pants. 8. Who gave you the nerve to get killed here? 9. Quiet or I'll blow your throat up. 10. You always use violence. I should've ordered glutinous rice chicken. 11. I'll fire aimlessly if you don't come out! 12. You daring lousy guy. 13. Beat him out of recognizable shape! 14. I have been scared sh*tless too much lately. 15. I got knife scars more than the number of your leg's hair! 16. Beware! Your bones are going to be disconnected. 17. How can you use my intestines as a gift? 18. The bullets inside are very hot. Why do I feel so cold? Subject: Funny:"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's strawberry 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. Subject: Funny: Bumper Stickers! Status: R Content-Length: 992 Bumper stickers from around the US: I love animals, they taste great. EARTH FIRST! We'll strip-mine the other planets later. Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math. Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off now. I won't rise to the occasion, but I'll slide over to it. Where there's a will, I want to be in it. Okay, who put a "stop payment" on my reality check? Warning: Dates in Calendar are closer than they appear. Give me ambiguity or give me something else. We have enough youth, how about a fountain of SMART? Make it idiot proof and someone will make a better idiot. He who laughs last, thinks slowest! What is a "free" gift? Aren't all gifts free? "Very funny, Scotty. Now beam down my clothes." I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it. The gene pool could use a little chlorine. All generalizations are false. A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James Subject: funny: Shortcut through the cemetary Two men were walking home after a Halloween party and decided to take a shortcut through the cemetery just for laughs. Right in the middle of the cemetery they were startled by a tap-tap-tapping noise coming from the misty shadows. Trembling with fear, they found an old man with a hammer and chisel, chipping away at one of the headstones. "Holy cow, Mister," one of them said after catching his breath, "You scared us half to death -- we thought you were a ghost! What are you doing working here so late at night?" "Those fools!" the old man grumbled. "They misspelled my name!" Subject: funny: Joe's condition Joe was moderately successful in the career, but as he got older he was increasingly hampered by incredible headaches. When his personal hygiene and love life started to suffer, he sought medical help. After being referred from one specialist to another, he finally came across a doctor who solved the problem. "The good news is I can cure your headaches. . ." "The bad news is that it will require castration. You have a very rare condition which causes your testicles to press up against the base of your spine. The pressure creates one hell of a headache. The only way to relieve the pressure is to remove the testicles." Joe was shocked and depressed. He wondered if he has anything to live for. He couldn't concentrate long enough to answer, but decided he had no choice but to go under the knife. When he left the hospital, his mind was clear, but he felt like he was missing an important part of himself. As he walked down the street, he realized that he felt like a different person. He could make a new beginning and live a new life. He walked past a men's clothing store and thought, "That's what I need: a new suit." He entered the shop and told the salesman, "I'd like a new suit." The salesman eyed him briefly and said, "Let's see . . .size 44 long." Joe laughed, "That's right, how did you know?" "It's my job." Joe tried on the suit. It fit perfectly. As Joe admired himself in the mirror, the salesman asked, "How about a new shirt?" Joe thought for a moment and then said, "Sure . . ." The salesman eyed Joe and said, "Let's see. . .34 sleeve and . . .16 and a half neck" Joe was surprised, "That's right, how did you know?" "It's my job." Joe tried on the shirt, and it fit perfectly. As Joe adjusted the collar in the mirror, the salesman asked, "How about new shoes?" Joe was on a roll and said, "Sure . . ." The salesman eyed Joe's feet and said, "Let's see. . .9 and a half..wide." Joe was astonished, "That's right, how did you know?" "It's my job." Joe tried on the shoes and they fit perfectly. Joe walked comfortably around the shop and the salesman asked, "How about a new hat?" Without hesitating, Joe said, "Sure . . " The salesman eyed Joe's head and said, "Let's see.. .7 5/8." Joe was incredulous, "That's right, how did you know?" "It's my job." The hat fit perfectly. Joe was feeling great, when the salesman asked, "How about some new underwear?" Joe thought for a second and said, "Sure . . " The salesman stepped back, eyed Joe's waist and said, "Let's see. . size 36." Joe laughed, "No, I've worn size 34 since I was 18 years old." The salesman shook his head, "You can't wear a size 34. It would press your testicles up against the base of your spine and give you one hell of a headache." - Don't always trust the 'experts', check your paradigm - Fix the problem, not the symptom of the problem!Subject: Funny: History of The Net ) History Of The Net ==================
First there was God. He was quite lonely so he created Dennis. Dennis was unimpressed with God. So,... God created Brian. But, Brian got bored with God. So Brian and Dennis started playing, and they created C. God saw C, and saw that it was good. So he decided to let Brian and Dennis play some more. Then Brian and Dennis created Unix. God saw Unix, and he was jealous. So he created Bill to torment Brian and Dennis and obscure their creation (for God could not destroy Unix, for he secretly admired its perfection). So Bill created Microsoft. And Microsoft created Windows. And God saw that it was bad, but he had market share, so he was happy. Then Bill got cocky, and his ego got bigger than God's. So to knock Bill down a couple of pegs, God put into effect, a wondrous plan. First God created Tim. And Tim created the World Wide Web (using Unix, of course). This was good, but not THAT good. So God created Marc. Marc created Mosaic (using Unix, of course). Mosaic created a huge feeding frenzy that has got a lot of people who are reading this their jobs. But that's a different story. Mosaic was good, and God saw it was good, so he allowed Marc to start Netscape. Back to this later. But all this time Brian and Dennis started to make something better than Unix called Plan 9 (because God was successful in foiling Brian and Dennis' previous seven plans [there was no Plan 8 because Brian and Dennis pulled the wool over God's eyes and just jumped to Plan 9, which was too bright a move for even God to figure out.] ) Eventually, God figured out how to create Larry. No one knows how or why he created Larry, except perhaps to reduce productivity at the Jet Propulsion Labs at NASA. [Rumors are that God created Larry because he secretly liked what Dennis and Brian had done with C, but didn't think C and Unix was enough -- this probably isn't true because God believed he had destroyed Brian and Dennis' plans by destroying Plans 1-7, and by creating Microsoft to slay their beloved Unix. Anyhow, Larry created Perl (using Unix and C, of course), and God saw it was good, so he made Randal. Larry and Randal wrote books about Perl. And everyone saw that this was good, except snobs who were too much into C, Windows, and Intel. (It so happens that Randal was so cool he figured out a way to break into Unix at Intel, and Intel sued him for it but that's another story also -- chances are Randal would not have been able to break into *Plan 9* at Intel, but Intel isn't cool enough to be running Plan 9) Anyhow, back to Randal. So Randal and Larry wrote books, but they had to be nice because of the people they worked for. So then came Tom. But back to Tom later. Anyhow, God saw Netscape (made using Unix and C, of course), and he saw it was good, and that annoyed Bill quite a bit. And that made Him very happy, and made Marc very rich. But Bill was very very rich. But that's a *completely* different story. But as good as Larry's creation, Perl, was, it couldn't do everything, so God created Scott. Scott announced Java, and this was big news. Now Java really pissed Bill off, because Bill also created Blackbird, and Java killed Blackbird. This was bad because killing Blackbird also meant killing the Microsoft Network. And many rejoiced over that, but that, too is another story. Now Java, obviously had done much to annoy Bill. For Java was so good that Bill had to license Java. All this time, Scott poked lots of fun at Bill because Sun, which was where Scott worked, made a better OS, derived -- of course -- from Unix, which was better than Bill's and Microsoft's Windows. Anyhow, even God's creations Steve and Steve who created Apple couldn't make Bill license the much superior MacOS. But finally, Bill had to license Java. So justice was served, and Bill's ego was served him on a platter for him to eat his words. Or something. That part is unclear. So by this time Windows and Microsoft and Bill in general really sucked. Especially considering the advantages that Brian and Dennis' C and Unix, running Marc's Netscape and Mosaic over Tim's World Wide Web, doing cool CGI stuff with Larry's Perl, which you learned from Randal and Tom, and got to program with Scott's Java. And God realized he had put Bill down too far. So then God made it so that Marc's Netscape and Mosaic could run on Windows. We already know that Bill had to license Java from Scott. We know that Bill missed the boat for not beating Tim to the punch on the World Wide Web. The last straw was for God to make it possible for Larry's Perl to run on Bill's Windows. So back to Tom. Tom was a Perl God. And God didn't like this, but Tom's a God so there isn't much God could do, so He couldn't stop Tom from saying things like "install an operating system on your poor lonely computer the way God and Dennis intended", and "Espousing the eponymous /cgi-bin/perl.exe?FMH.pl execution model is like reading a suicide note -- three days too late." The moral to the story? God is fickle. That's why Microsoft and Bill and Windows exists. Do what God intended, install C, Unix, Mosaic/Netscape, Java, and Perl on your system, and make Brian, Dennis, Larry, Tim, Tom, Randal, Scott, and even Steve and Steve, I'm sure, happy by doing so. Oh yeah, Linus was cool too. He's the guy you thank for being able to run all the cool stuff on your crappy little Pee Cee. Subject: funny: Crime pays People! Think!!! In prison: you spend the majority of your time in an 8x10 cell. At work: you spend the majority of your time in a 6x8 cube. In prison: you are rewarded with time off for good behavior. At work: you get rewarded with more work for good behavior. In prison: all of your expenses are paid by the taxpayer. At work: you pay the expenses to go to work so you can pay your taxes to pay for the prisoners. In prison: you get three free meals a day. At work: you only get a break for one meal, and you have to pay for it. In prison: there is a dress standard and a requirement to wear an ID but you are given your clothes with the ID conveniently sewn in. At work: you have to buy the clothes that meet the dress standard and you must remember to put on your ID badge. In prison: a guard unlocks and locks all of the doors for you. At work: you must carry a security card and unlock and lock doors for yourself. In prison: you can watch TV and play games. At work: you get fired for watching TV or playing games. In prison: you will be encouraged to learn a new career. At work: you must learn on your own time. In prison: you have an exercise room you can use almost any time. At work: you can only use the exercise room on your own time. In prison: you can fall asleep any time and nothing happens. At work: you get fired for falling asleep. In prison: you have full medical coverage with no deductibles. At work: you get partial coverage and you pay the deductibles. Subject: Funny: Glad to be a Man and a Woman's rebuttal. MAN, I'M GLAD I'M A MAN, MAN Everyday I give thanks to God I was born a man instead of a broad When Oprah comes on, I turn off the TV I don't shave my legs, I stand up to pee I go to a barber, not a beauty salon Don't pluck out my eyebrows just to draw them back on Don't wax my pubes so I can wear shorts I use my turn signal, I understand sports Man, I'm glad I'm a man, man Tell you the reason I am I don't go through a faze every 28 days Man, I'm glad I'm a man I pay cash at the grocery, no checks or coupons Don't take a lot of friends when I go to the john I don't throw a fit when I break a nail I don't buy a lot of shoes just because they're on sale I don't apply makeup in my rear-view mirror I don't think of Bambi when I'm out hunting deer I drink beer from a bottle, not from a glass I don't ask my friends about the size of my ass Man, I'm glad I'm a man, man Tell you the reason I am I don't face the pain of water-weight gain Man, I'm glad I'm a man Let me tell you ladies Listen to me ladies I love those things inside of your blouse I love your pretty faces Your warm and soft embraces But if I had my own two boobs, I'd never leave the house I don't spend two hours getting ready for a date I don't play with dolls unless they inflate When someone asks me my age, I never lie After sex in bed, my spot's always dry I don't read about orgasms in Vogue magazines I don't mind if my dates try to get in my jeans I don't spend a fortune on French lingerie This is the same underwear I wore yesterday Man, I'm glad I'm a man, man Tell you the reason I am I don't take a pill, I don't use Massengill Man, I'm glad I'm a man Man, I'm glad I'm a man, man Tell you the reason I am I find Michael Bolton completely revoltin' Man, I'm glad I'm a man _______________________________________________________________ I'm Glad I'm A Woman I'm glad I'm a woman, yes I am, yes I am I don't live off of Budweiser, beer nuts and Spam I don't brag to my buddies about my erections I won't drive to Hell before I ask for directions I don't get wasted at parties and act like a clown and I know how to put the damned toilet seat down! I won't grab your hooters, I won't pinch your butt my belt buckle's not hidden beneath my beer gut and I don't go around "readjusting" my crotch or yell like Tarzan when my head-board gets a notch I don't belch in public, I don't scratch my behind I'm a woman you see -- I'm just not that kind! I'm glad I'm a woman, I'm so glad I could sing I don't have body hair like shag carpeting It doesn't grow from my ears or cover my back When I lean over you can't see 3 inches of crack And what's on my head doesn't leave with my comb I'll never buy a toupee to cover my dome Or have a few hairs pulled from over the side I'm a woman, you know -- I've got far too much pride! And I honestly think its a privilege for me to have these two boobs and squat when I pee I don't live to play golf and shoot basketball I don't swagger and spit like a Neanderthal I won't tell you my wife just does not understand stick my hand in my pocket to hide that gold band or tell you a story to make you sigh and weep then screw you, roll over and fall sound asleep! Yes, I'm glad I'm a woman, a woman you see you can forget all about that old penis envy I don't long for male bonding, I don't cruise for chicks join the Hair Club For Men, or think with my dick I'm a woman by chance and I'm thankful it's true I'm so glad I'm a woman and not a man like you!Chemists discovered new elements!
Element : WOMAN Symbol : Wo Atomic Weight : 120 (more or less) 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. Possesses strong affinity to gold, silver, platinum, and precious stones. Violent when left alone. Able to absorb great amount of exotic food. Turns slightly green when placed beside a better specimen. Ages rapidly. Usage: Highly ornamental. An extremely good catalyst for disintegration of wealth. Probably the most powerful income reducing agent known. Caution: Highly explosive in inexperienced hands. Yet Another New Element on the Periodic Table Element : MAN Symbol : XY Common Name(s) : Varies anywhere from John to !@#$&*! Atomic Weight : 180+/-100 Physical Properties: Solid at room temperature but easily 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: Attempt 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 a prolonged period of time. 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.Subject: funny: Neuro-chemo Jurisprudence
A scientist went to a brain store to get some brain to use for experiments. He sees a sign remarking on the quality of professional brain offered at this particular brain store. So he asks the butcher: "How much for Engineer brain?" "3 dollars an ounce." "How much for Doctor brain?" "4 dollars an ounce." "How much for lawyer brain?" "100 dollars an ounce." "100 dollars an ounce! Why is lawyer brain so expensive?" "Do you have any idea how many lawyers you need to kill to get one ounce of brains?" Subject: humor: browser wars (fwd) Status: R Content-Length: 3549 WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP, Sept. 2, 2002) - Senate Majority Leader Ray Noorda (P-Utah) today demanded that the Department of Justice order Microsoft and Netscape to cease development of new Internet browsers, saying the ever-escalating battle for Internet dominance had sapped the American economy of its vitality. In an impassioned speech before the Perotista-controlled Senate, Noorda, once a key figure in the information technology industry, claimed American workers and shoppers are so consumed with downloading new browser versions, Netscape plug-ins and Microsoft ActiveX Controls that they no longer have time to produce anything of value or to consume products. "We have been transformed from a nation of thinkers and doers to a nation of downloaders worried about whether we are keeping up with the technological Joneses," Noorda said. Noorda's comments came only a day after Netscape released Version 407 of its Navigator browser, which includes the ability to listen to AM radio from any laptop. Version 407 had just completed its 37-hour beta trial, while versions 408-441 are in development. Microsoft, which has been criticized of late for slipping behind Netscape in the browser race, vowed to deliver Version 405 of its Internet Explorer "before the next major religious holiday," though company spokesman Jim Manzi declined to specify which religion the company was referring to. Mark Gibbs, author of IDG Books' bestselling Deleting Old Browsers for Dummies, said the continuing instability in the Internet market has virtually halted development of new applications. "How can you build to a platform that only lasts 51 days?" asked Gibbs. "The only apps being developed now are crossword puzzles and 3-D, rotatable crossword applets." According to research firm International Data Corp., the average PC user now has 62 browsers installed. That has significantly limited the usefulness of the desktop machine because each "browser/operating system/ object bucket/API repository" consumes a minimum of 1G bytes of storage and requires 256M bytes of RAM to operate (somewhat less if the touchscreen option is disabled). Intel Corp. recommends the use of at least a 757-MHz Decadium processor to support current browsers. "There is no capacity left to run any other application," said IDC Chief Executive Officer Bob Frankenberg. "Our PCs, in essence, are simply containers for browsers." In the late 1990's, it was hoped that the browser model of accessing information would actually allow for the development of simpler, less expensive desktop devices that would rely on applications and data housed on Internet servers. But the dream of the so-called Internet device died with the release of Internet Explorer Version 231, which cracked the 800M byte storage requirement and supported some 250,000 ActiveX Controls. "It's a shame, really," said former Oracle CEO Lawrence Ellison, who was a vocal proponent of the Internet device idea at the time. "We could have been freed from the Web of Microsoft control, no pun intended. But Bill outmanuevered us again," added "Big Larry" Ellison, who now runs the Used Cars 'R' Us operation on the Auto Mile in Redwood City, Calif. In response to Noorda's call for federal intervention, the Justice Department issued an electronic press release available on its Web site www.bookem.gov. "We firmly believe the free market is the best arbiter of whether development should continue on Web browsers and servers." (This statement best viewed with Internet Explorer Version 396.) Subject: funny: Joke re a confession - nae offence intended... Status: R Content-Length: 830 Two teenage boys turned up at the pineapple and the first went in for confession. He told the priest he'd had sex the night before. " Who was the girl involved ?" asked the priest. " I don't know, it was dark" replied the boy. " Was it Bernadette McLafferty?" The boy said he still didn't know. " Was it Theresa O'Hare......... or Rosemary McGinty?" asked the priest. "I don't know, it was too dark," insisted the boy. " Could it have been Anne-Marie, the baker's daughter?" asked the priest. The boy continued to deny any knowledge of the girl's identity. Finally, the exasperated priest sent the boy away and told him to return when he could reveal the girl's name. Outside his mate was waiting anxiously. "Did you get absolution?" he asked. "Naw" said his pal " But I got 4 names for the dancing this Saturday!" Subject: Strange signs... Status: R Content-Length: 3578 The following are signs that seemed strange to a British visitor on his trip across the good ol' U.S.A. At gaseterias through the nation: Eat here and get gas. At a Santa Fe gas station: We will sell gasoline to anyone in a glass container. In a New Hampshire jewelry store: Ears pierced while you wait. In a New York restaurant: Customers who consider our waitresses uncivil ought to see the manager. On the wall of a Baltimore convent: Trespassers will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Sisters of Mercy On a long-established New Mexico dry cleaners: 38 years on the same spot. In a Los Angeles dance hall: Good clean dancing every night but Sunday. On a movie theater: Children's matinee today. Adults not admitted unless with child. In a Florida maternity ward: No children allowed. In a New York drugstore: We dispense with accuracy. On a New Hampshire medical building: Martin Diabetes Professional Ass. In the offices of a loan company: Ask about our plans for owning your home. In a New York medical building: Mental Health Prevention Center In a toy department: Five Santa Clauses -- No waiting! On a New York convalescent home: For the sick and tired of the Episcopal Church. On a Maine shop: Our motto is to give our customers the lowest possible prices and workmanship. At a number of military bases: Restricted to unauthorized personnel. On a display of "I love you only" valentine cards: Now available in multi-packs. In the window of a Kentucky appliance store: Don't kill your wife. Let our washing machine do the dirty work. In a funeral parlor: Ask about our layaway plan. In a clothing store: Wonderful bargains for men with 16 and 17 necks. In a Tacoma, Washington men's clothing store: 15 men's wool suits, $10. They won't last an hour! On a shopping mall marquee: Archery Tournament -- Ears pierced Outside a country shop: We buy junk and sell antiques. On a Pennsylvania highway: Drive carefully. Auto accidents kill most people 15 to 19. In downtown Boston: Callahan Tunnel -- No end In the window of an Oregon store: Why go elsewhere and be cheated when you can come here? In a Maine restaurant: Open 7 days a week and weekends. In a New Jersey restaurant: Open 11 AM to 11 PM midnight. In front of a New Hampshire restaurant: Now serving live lobsters. On a radiator repair garage: Best place to take a leak. On a movie marquee: Now playing: ADAM AND EVE with a cast of thousands! In the vestry of a New England church: Will the last person to leave please see that the perpetual light is extinguished. In a Pennsylvania cemetery: Persons are prohibited from picking flowers from any but their own graves. On a roller coaster: Watch your head. On the grounds of a public school: No trespassing without permission. In a library: Blotter paper will no longer be available until the public stops taking it away. On a Tennessee highway: When this sign is under water, this road is impassable. Similarly, in front of a New Hampshire car wash: If you can't read this, it's time to wash your car. And apparently, somewhere in England in an open field otherwise untouched by human presence, there is a sign that says "Do not throw stones at this sign." Sign on a variety store in Westbrook, Maine: "Free Cigarettes with purchase of matches - $2.00" Seen in a Church: Would parishioners please note that the bowl to the rear of the church that says "For the sick" is for monetary contributions only. Thank you.Subject: Funny: Ingenuity in defeat
A Brit, a Frenchman, and a New Yorker are captured by cannibals. Their chief says tells them that not only are they going to be boiled and eaten, but their skins will be tanned and used to build war canoes. "But," he says, "we will let you choose how to die." The Brit asks for a gun, shouts "God save the Queen," and blows his brains out. The Frenchman says "Le Guillotine," and cries "vive la France" as the blade falls. The New Yorker says "give me a fork!" The cannibals comply, whereupon he starts stabbing himself all over his body with it, inflicting hundreds of stab wounds. Lying on the ground bleeding to death, the New Yorker looks up and shouts "Screw you and your canoe!"Subject: funny: Gifts From Sons
Four upscale gents go out to play golf one sunny morning. One is detained in the clubhouse, and the other three are discussing their children while walking to the first tee. "My son," says one, "has made quite a name for himself in the home-building industry. He began as a carpenter, but now owns his own design and construction firm. He's so successful in fact, in the last year he was able to give a good friend a brand new home as a gift." The second man, not to be outdone, allows how his son began his career as a car salesman, but now owns a multi-line dealership. "He's so successful, in fact, in the last six months, he gave a friend two brand new cars as a gift." Well, it turns out that the third man's son has worked his way up through a stock brokerage. And in the last few weeks has given a good friend a large stock portfolio as a gift. As the fourth man arrives at the tee box, another tells him that they have been discussing their sons and asks what line his son is in. "To tell you the truth, I'm not very pleased with how my son has turned out, he replies. "For fifteen years, he's been hairdresser, and I've just recently discovered he's gay. But, on the bright side, he must be good at what he does because his last three boyfriends have given him a brand new house, two cars, and a big pile of stock certificates." Subject: Funny: upgrading your house Status: RO Content-Length: 5208 ---------- Nov 28, 2005: Moved in to my new Hermosa Beach house at last. Finally, we live in the smartest house in the neighborhood. Everything's networked. The cable TV is connected to our phone, which is connected to my personal computer, which is connected to the power lines, all the appliances and the security system. Everything runs off a univeral remote with the friendliest interface I've ever used. Programming is a snap. I'm like, totally wired. Nov 30: Hot Stuff! Programmed my VCR from the office, turned up the thermostat and switched on the lights with the car phone, remotely tweaked the oven a few degress for my pizza. Everthing nice & cozy when I arrived. Maybe I should get the universal remote surgically attached. Dec 3: Yesterday, the kitchen CRASHED. Freak event. As I opened the refrigerator door, the light bulb blew. Immediately, everything else electrical shut down -- lights, microwave, coffee maker -- everything. Carefully unplugged and replugged all the appliances. Nothing. Call the cable company (but not from the kitchen phone). They refer me to the utility. The utility insists that the problem is in the software. So the software company runs some remote telediagnostics via my house processor. Their expert system claims it has to be the utility's fault. I don't care, I just want my kitchen back. More phone calls; more remote diag's. Turns out the problem was "unanticipated failure mode": The network had never seen a refrigerator bulb failure while the door was open. So the fuzzy logic interpreted the burnout as a power surge and shut down the entire kitchen. But because sensor memory confirmed that there hadn't actually been a power surge, the kitchen logic sequence was confused and it couldn't do a standard restart. The utility guy swears this was the first time this has ever happened. Rebooting the kitchen took over an hour. Dec 7: The police are not happy. Our house keeps calling them for help. We discover that whenever we play the TV or stereo above 25 decibels, it creates patterns of micro-vibrations that get amplified when they hit the window. When these vibrations mix with a gust of wind, the security sensors are actuated, and the police computer concludes that someone is trying to break in. Go figure. Another glitch: Whenever the basement is in self-diagnostic mode, the universal remote won't let me change the channels on my TV. That means I actually have to get up off the couch and change the channels by hand. The software and the utility people say this flaw will be fixed in the next upgrade -- SmartHouse 2.1. But it's not ready yet. Dec 12: This is a nightmare. There's a virus in the house. My personal computer caught it while browsing on the public access network. I come home and the living room is a sauna, the bedroom windows are covered with ice, the refrigerator has defrosted, the washing machine has flooded the basement, the garage door is cycle up and down and the TV is stuck on the home shopping channel. Through- out the house, lights flicker like stroboscopes until they explode from the strain. Broken glass is everywhere. Of course, the security sensors detect nothing. I look at a message slowly throbing on my personal computer screen: WELCOME TO HomeWrecker!!! NOW THE FUN BEGINS ... (Be it ever so humble, there's no virus like the HomeWrecker...). Dec 18: They think they've digitally disinfected the house, but the place is a shambles. Pipes have burst and we're not completely sure we've got the part of the virus that attacks toilets. Nevertheless, the Exorcists (as the anti-virus SWAT team members like to call themselves) are confident the worst is over. "HomeWrecker is pretty bad" one he tells me, "but consider yourself lucky you didn't get PolterGeist. That one is really evil." Dec 19: Apparently, our house isn't insured for viruses. "Fires and mudslides, yes," says the claims adjuster. "Viruses, no." My agreement with the SmartHouse people explicitly states that all claims and warranties are null and void if any appliance or computer in my house networks in any way, shape or form with a non-certified on-line service. Everybody's very, very, sorry, but they can't be expected to anticipate every virus that might be created. We call our lawyer. He laughs. He's excited! Dec 21: I get a call from a SmartHouse sales rep. As a special holiday offer, we get the free opportunity to become a beta site for the company's new SmartHouse 2.1 upgrade. He says I'll be able to meet the programmers personally. "Sure," I tell him. Subject: funny: Christmas tradition Status: RO Content-Length: 1266 Another joke to keep everyone in the right spirit..... How one Christmas tradition got started... It was supposed to be a happy time, but wasn't. Santa was really pissed. It was Christmas Eve and NOTHING was going right. Mrs. Claus had burned all the Christmas cookies. The Elves were bitching about not getting paid for the overtime they had put in while making toys, and the reindeers had been drinking all afternoon and were dead drunk. They had taken the sleigh out for a spin earlier in the day and crashed it into a tree, breaking off one of the runners. Santa was beside himself with anger. "I CAN'T believe it! I've got to deliver millions of presents all over the world in just a few hours from now and all my reindeers are drunk and my Elves are on strike. I don't even have a Christmas tree! I sent that stupid Little Angel out HOURS ago to find a tree and he isn't even back yet! What am I going to do?" Just then the Little Angel opened the front door and stepped in from the snowy night, dragging a Christmas Tree. He said, "Yo, Santa, where do you want me to stick the Christmas Tree this year?" And thus the tradition of Angels perched atop the Christmas tree came to pass............. Subject: funny: bumper stickers Status: RO Content-Length: 3871 * Never go to bed mad, stay up and fight. * I talk to myself because I like dealing with a better class of people. * I have a new philosophy. I'm only going to dread one day at a time. * The only reason people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory. * Stop crime at its source! Support Planned Parenthood. * The 100% American is 99% an idiot. * If you drink, don't drive. Don't even putt. * There's no point in being grownup if you can't be childish sometimes. * You're being followed; cut out the hanky-panky for a few days. * You've been leading a dog's life. Stay off the furniture. * The whole purpose of your life is to serve as a warning to others. * A gleekzorp without a ternpee is like a quop without a fertsneet (sort of) * Laugh at your problems, everyone else does. * If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will. * Don't abandon hope: your Tom Mix decoder ring arrives tomorrow. * Never sleep with anyone crazier than yourself. * I'm prepared for all emergencies. But I'm totally unprepared for everyday life. * A bird in the hand is safer than one overhead. * The new baby is like royalty, he's the prince of wails. * He heard she was stuck up and asked how much they got. * Ill-bred children are always displaying their pest manners. * He had never seen the Catskill Mountains, but had seen them kill mice. * The pants were very sad, they were depressed. * Her body was recovered, she bought a new suit of clothes. * If a women changed her sex, what would her religion be? She would be a he-then. * When asked if he had missed school lately, the boy said `Not a bit.` * The former ruler of Russia and his wife were called Tsar and Tsarina, so clearly their children were called Tsardines. * Students may like nitrates, they're cheaper than day rates. * New with a K in front is a Canoe. * He thought the formula for water was H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O, H-to-O. * Little rivers which run into the Nile, Juveniles. * Did you hear about the two peanuts walking down the road when one of them was assaulted? * It's bad luck to be superstitious. * Radioactive cats have 18 half-lives. * Support bacteria, it's the only culture some people have. * Don't let people drive you crazy when you know it's in walking distance. * When does summertime come to Minnesota you ask? Well, last year I think it was a Tuesday. * I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've always worked for me. * I believe in getting in hot water; it keeps you clean. * If you can't be good, be careful. If you can't be careful, give me a call. * Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror and you wouldn't have been notified. * According to my best recollection, I don't remember. * Get forgiveness now - tomorrow you may no longer feel guilty. * Tomorrow will be canceled due to lack of interest. * CChheecckk yyoouurr dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh.. * Cautious: Breathing may be hazardous to your health. * Schizophrenia beats being alone. * Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. * Anything worth doing is worth overdoing. * Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. Yes is the answer. * I think that I think, therefore I think that I am. * The more things change, the more they stay insane. * They're only trying to make me LOOK paranoid. * If you don't care where you are, then you ain't lost. * Do what comes naturally now. Seethe and fume and throw a tantrum. * Everybody is somebody else's weirdo. * Honk if you like peace and quiet. * Never count your chickens before they rip your lips off. * Quick!! Act as if nothing has happened! * Paul Revere was a tattle-tail. * Monday is an awful way to spend 1/7 of your life. * Fine day to throw a party. Throw him as far as you can. * Keep grandma off the streets. Legalize bingo.Return of the Grinch
by James Ricci (with apologies to Dr. Seuss) Way up in his cave north of Who-ville, the Grinch Was enjoying retirement; life was a cinch. He played on his PC and tweaked other hacks And talked of old times with his aged dog, Max. He rarely went down to the town of the Whos, Save to stock up on roast beast and Who-hash and booze. He preferred not to rub on the slow-healing sore Of his near-theft of Christmas two decades before. Well, one day as Grinch sat keyboarding on-line, Some E-mail arrived of intriguing design: "Please, Mr. Grinch, let me come visit you." The message was signed by one "Cindy-Lou Who." "Cindy-Lou Who," thought the Grinch, "Cindy-Lou Who, "Now, who is this Who name of Cindy-Lou Who?" He scratched his head hard till his memory expanded - Ah, she'd been the tot who had caught him red-handed All those long years ago when, with devilish glee, He'd been making away with her folks' Christmas tree! So Grinch swept his cave of its Grinchy debris, And combed out his fur to receive company, This Cindy-Lou Who, who was now twenty-two, A graduate student at East Who-ville U., Her voice was no longer the coo of a dove, But firm and commanding, as if from Above. She wasted few words in unveiling her plan: She wanted the Grinch to steal Christmas - again! "Since your last theft attempt, time has taken its toll; "Now Who-ville's Christmas deserves to be stole," said Cindy-Lou in a most righteous tone (Grinch captivated by how much she'd grown!). "Back then when you took all the presents away, "We Whos nonetheless celebrated the day. "But now no one holds hands, and nobody sings. "All we Whos care for is getting more things. "The radio broadcasts Yule songs in July, "To pump up the Whos to get out there and buy, "Lest Christmas morn, when they rise from their sleep, "The gifts 'neath the tree aren't eleven feet deep. "The whole, long ordeal leaves most every-Who stressed, "Exhausted, debt-ridden and deeply depressed. "Oh, we must stop this madness, we must, must, must, must! "Before the day's meaning has turned all to dust." Said Grinch, "Heaven's sakes, Missy, why come to me? "I can't steal Christmas - I'm seventy-three." Said she, "Oh, I know that you'll think of a plan; "You did it before, you can do it again." Then she gave to old Grinch, to ensure his enthralled-ness, A daughterly kiss on his male-pattern baldness, Making him blush underneath all his fur And vow to himself, "I will do it - for her." So Grinchy dug out the old Santy Claus suit That, in the first heist, was his best attribute. Then he called his dog, Max, and took some red thread, And tied a big horn on the doggy's old head. He hitched up the pooch to a ramshackle sleigh, Which he filled up with sacks for to haul loot away. Then he waited for darkness to fall on the town, And told Max, "Giddap," and began the trip down. On the south edge of Who-ville, a newly built part, He came to a stop at the giant Who-Mart. Grinchily sly, he slunk in a side door And filled up a sack with goods from Aisle 4. But he saw as he picked through the toys and CDs, No bag in the world could contain all of these. All Christmas was stealable two decades before; Today you could not make a dent in one store! Just then he heard footsteps and looked up to see Security guards coming 'round from Aisle 3. He tugged on the sack, but he just couldn't budge it; And time was a-wasting, as Grinchy adjudged it. So he ran from the store, oh, he ran, ran, ran, ran, Ran faster than ever in his whole life span. Flogging poor Max like some poor galley slave, He barely escaped to his hideaway cave. Looking down on the town, the Grinch pondered his fix: "Surely there's more in my old bag of tricks." On what thing, he wondered, did Christmas depend, The supply of which he, Grinch, might act to suspend? "Why, batteries, of course!" he told Max (who just looked). "Without them, this Christmas' goose will be cooked!" So, with squirt gun and mask, he headed off straight With Max and the sleigh to the new Interstate. "When the truck full of batteries comes down the road," The Grinch-jacker chortled, "We'll hijack its load!" Max, for his part, felt unsure and afraid To be used, at his age, as a street barricade. At last came the semi, and Grinchy yelled, "Stop!" And brandished his squirt gun like some kind of cop. But the truck just roared on, and it knocked the Grinch flat And crunched through the sleigh - and, well, that was that. Lucky for Grinch, he'd just joined HMO - The truck broke his hinch bone and linch bone and toe. "I can still use my hands," Grinch told Max (who just snored), And sat himself down at his PC keyboard. "I'll make a computer bug cripple and maim "Every Who-ville computer and video game. "All Christmas purists will surely admire us "When they see the effects of our cyberspace virus." Grinch started to program, oh, he hacked, hacked, hacked, hacked, And soon had a virus all set too attack. He was poised to press ENTER and set off the plague When he heard a loud knock on the door of his cave. "Police! Open up!" came the shout from outside The hair stood at attention on Grinchy's scared hide The cops bashed the door down, the impatient toughs; They read Grinch his rights, and then slapped on the cuffs. Through Grinch-prints they'd traced him and made the charge stand: Attempted hijacking and larceny, grand. Another fact made Grinch's plight still more tender - He might go to trial as a repeat offender. And so Grinchy landed in Who-ville's Who's-gow Along with poor Max, his reluctant bow-bow. They cowered in corners and tried to steer clear Of guys with tattoos and lascivious leers. Then one day a visitor came to see Grinch; His suit looked hand-tailored, each exquisite inch. Reading his business card, jailbird Grinch saw: "Robert Shapir-who, Attorney-at-Law." "I'm taking your case," said the lawyer, "and, too, "My fees will be paid by Ms. Cindy-Lou Who. "I'll make you a hero, role model, the works. "They'll never convict you, the slow-witted jerks." Shapir-Who sent Grinch super-agent Mike Who-vitz, Who soon orchestrated a media-zoo blitz. Newspapers headlined, "Grinch motives were pure." Talk-show hosts called his confinement "manure." A hurry-up movie was made of his plight. He spoke, live, with Who-prah via satellite. Everyone talked of his brave, lonely quest To bring Christmas back to an era more blessed. His fame soon surpassed more illustrious names, And led to Grinch dolls, bikes and video games, Which all hit the shelves just in time for Yule sales, And made for store profits of unheard-of scales. "Grinch," said Shapir-who, "with this latest deal, You're sure to be bigger than Shaquille Who'Neal." Bigger than Shaq? That thought took Grinch aback! But he did have endorsements too many to track. At his trial, crowds applauded when Grinchy stepped forth, Looking nobly self-righteous as Who-liver North. His lawyer orated, oh, he talked, talked, talked, talked - And the jury acquitted the Grinch, in a walk. After, a limousine whisked Grinchy home - Not too a cave, but a new pleasure-dome With thirty-four rooms and a house staff of three, Who toasted with bubbly his being set free. Next morning, while Grinch lounged in opulent glitz, Discussing residuals with agent Who-vitz, The butler announced with pretentious ado, "A certain Ms. Who has arrived to see you." Grinch put down his cell-phone and tightened his tie, And straightened the brow over each Grinchy eye. But Cindy-Lou scoffed at his mansion and loot, And, smirking, derided his Who-mani suit. "I was foolish," she spat, "thinking you'd lift the curse. "You didn't save Christmas, you just made things worse." Said Grinch, in a half-hearted, mumbly way: "I tried to do right - it just happened to pay." But his high spirits fell, oh they fell, fell, fell, fell, They could not have fallen more if they'd fell in a well. And suddenly Grinchy knew what he must do To regain the esteem of Ms. Cindy-Lou Who. Straight off he called up his financial advisor, Knowing his wishes were sure to surprise her, And he emptied his savings and 401Ks, Got rid of his stocks and his fat IRAs. He sold off the mansion and world-class wine cellar, Sold the cigar boat with corkscrew propeller. Grinch rented the Who-Dome and gave dinner, free, To twenty-eight thousand, eight hundred and three. And not only Whos but all Whats, Whys and Hows From neighboring villages, cities and towns. Homeless and friendless, the rich and the poor - No living creature was turned from the door. The menu was Who-hash and prime-rib roast beast, And plum cakes and loaves of bread baked with Who-yeast. But before the feast started, all present joined hands And sang Christmas songs played by two dozen bands. And all, intermingling, wished all others well, And couldn't remember so fine a Noel. Impressed, Cindy-Lou gave the Grinch a great hug And planted a smooch on his Grinchy old mug. "You failed to steal Christmas," she whispered, "and yet "You've set an example we'll never forget." And afterward, Grinchy went home to his cave, Quite pleased with himself and the Christmas he gave. He felt that his heart, once two sizes too small, Could now scarcely fit inside Carnegie Hall. "It just goes to show," he said, nodding his head, "You get more from giving than getting ahead. "You're richer admired than rich-and-reviled." He patted the head of old Max (who just smiled).Subject: funny: What was that ?
I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous. I always wanted to be a procrastinator. If you want people to know where you stand, wear the same socks for two weeks. The shortest distance between two point is how far apart they are. Some people say that I'm superficial, but that's just on the surface. One one hand, I'm indecisive; but on the other, I'm not. If there's one thing I can't stand it's intolerance. The world's full of apathy, but I don't care. Perspective is in the eye of the beholder. Prejudiced people are all alike. What is the probability that something will happen according to the odds? Those who judge others will burn in Hell! Exaggeration is not all it's cracked up to be. Evil is not all bad. I'm still not sure I understand ambiguity. There's no such thing as nonexistence. Cooperation can only be reached if we work together. He doesn't have much of a reputation, or so I've heard. I disagree with unanimity. I have my doubts about disbelief. Avoid Alliteration. Always. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with. One should never generalize. Avoid cliches like the plague. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms. I always try to do things in chronological order. A Plateau is the highest form of flattery. I have a twin brother; he's identical, but I'm not. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than an understatement. Death to all fanatics! If you believe in telekenesis, raise my hand. An oral contract isn't worth the paper it's written on. It's Deja Vu all over again. If we do not succeed, we run the risk of failure. Don't be redundant by repeating yourself again. I am becoming increasingly worried that there isn't enough anxiety in my life. I have this nagging fear that everyone is out to make me paranoid. There are only three kinds of people; those who can count, and those who can't. "No officer, I do not wish to give up my right to remain silent!"Subject: funny: Two old ladies -Two Old Ladies-
Two old ladies were waiting for a bus and one of them was smoking a cigarette. It started to rain, so the old lady reached into her purse, took out a condom, cut off the tip and slipped it over her cigarette and continued to smoke. Her friend saw this and said, "Hey that's a good idea! What is it that you put over your cigarette?" The other old lady said, "It's a condom." "A condom? Where do you get those?" The lady with the cigarette told her friend that you could purchase condoms at the pharmacy. When the two old ladies arrived downtown, the old lady with all the questions went into the pharmacy and asked the pharmacist if he sold condoms. The pharmacist said yes, but looked a little surprised that this old woman was interested in condoms, so he asked her, "What size do you want?" The old lady thought for a minute and said, "One that will fit a Camel."Subject: funny: Letter from the Smithsonian
Ok, the story behind this... There's this nutball who digs things out his back yard and sends the stuff he finds to the Smithsonian Institute, labeling them with scientific names, insisting that they are actual archeological finds. The really weird thing about these letters is that this guy really exists and does this in his spare time! Anyway... here's a letter from the Smithsonian Institute from when he sent them a Barbie doll head. ==================================================== Paleoanthropology Division Smithsonian Institute 207 Pennsylvania Avenue Washington, DC 20078 Dear Sir: Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled "211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline post. Hominid skull." We have given this specimen a careful and detailed examination, and regret to inform you that we disagree with your theory that it represents "conclusive proof of the presence of Early Man in Charleston County two million years ago." Rather, it appears that what you have found is the head of a Barbie doll, of the variety one of our staff, who has small children, believes to be the "Malibu Barbie". It is evident that you have given a great deal of thought to the analysis of this specimen, and you may be quite certain that those of us who are familiar with your prior work in the field were loathe to come to contradiction with your findings. However, we do feel that there are a number of physical attributes of the specimen which might have tipped you off to its modern origin: 1. The material is molded plastic. Ancient hominid remains are typically fossilized bone. 2. The cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic centimeters, well below the threshold of even the earliest identified proto-hominids. 3. The dentition pattern evident on the "skull" is more consistent with the common domesticated dog than it is with the "ravenous man-eating Pliocene clams" you speculate roamed the wetlands during that time. This latter finding is certainly one of the most intriguing hypotheses you have submitted in your history with this institution, but the evidence seems to weigh rather heavily against it. Without going into too much detail, let us say that: A. The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog has chewed on. B. Clams don't have teeth. It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your request to have the specimen carbon dated. This is partially due to the heavy load our lab must bear in its normal operation, and partly due to carbon dating's notorious inaccuracy in fossils of recent geologic record. To the best of our knowledge, no Barbie dolls were produced prior to 1956 AD, and carbon dating is likely to produce wildly inaccurate results Sadly, we must also deny your request that we approach the National Science Foundation's Phylogeny Department with the concept of assigning your specimen the scientific name "Australopithecus spiff-arino." Speaking personally, I, for one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance of your proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down because the species name you selected was hyphenated, and didn't really sound like it might be Latin. However, we gladly accept your generous donation of this fascinating specimen to the museum. While it is undoubtedly not a hominid fossil, it is, nonetheless, yet another riveting example of the great body of work you seem to accumulate here so effortlessly. You should know that our Director has reserved a special shelf in his own office for the display of the specimens you have previously submitted to the Institution, and the entire staff speculates daily on what you will happen upon next in your digs at the site you have discovered in your back yard. We eagerly anticipate your trip to our nation's capital that you proposed in your last letter, and several of us are pressing the Director to pay for it. We are particularly interested in hearing you expand on your theories surrounding the "trans-positating fillifitation of ferrous ions in a structural matrix" that makes the excellent juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex femur you recently discovered take on the deceptive appearance of a rusty 9-mm Sears Craftsman automotive crescent wrench. Yours in Science, Harvey Rowe Curator, AntiquitiesSubject: Funny: Job Interview
Reaching the end of a job interview, the Human Resources Person asked the young Engineer fresh out of MIT, "And what starting salary were you looking for?" The Engineer said, "In the neighborhood of $75,000 a year, depending on the benefits package." The HR Person said, "Well, what would you say to a package of 5-weeks vacation, 14 paid holidays, full medical and dental, company matching retirement fund to 50% of salary, and a company car leased every 2 years - say, a red Corvette?" The Engineer sat up straight and said, "Wow!!! Are you kidding?" And the HR Person said, "Certainly, ...but you started it."Subject: Funny: Calif. Highway Patrol
The woman in question, a woman as it happens, was pulled over for speeding by a California Highway Patrol motorcycle officer. When he walked up to her window and opened his ticket book she said jokingly: "I bet you're going to sell me a ticket to the Highway Patrolman's Ball." He replied: "No, Highway Patrolmen don't have balls." There followed a moment of silence while she smiled and he realized what he'd said. He then closed his book, got back on his motorcycle and left. She was laughing too hard to start her car for several minutesSubject: funny: Go Jets
A guy walks into a bar with a dachsund under his arm. The dog is wearing a NY Jets jersey, helmet, and is festooned with Jets pom poms. The bartender says, "Hey! No pets are allowed in here! You'll have to leave!" The guy begs him: "Look, I'm desparate. We're both big fans, the TV is broken, and this is the only place around where we can see the game!" After securing a promise that the dog will behave, and warning him that he and the dog will be thrown out if there's any trouble, the bartender relents and allows them to stay in the bar and watch the game. The game begins with the Jets receiving the kickoff. They march downfield, get stopped at about the 30, and kick a field goal. With that the dog jumps up on the bar, and begins walking up and down the bar giving a high-five to everyone. The bartender says, "Wow, that is the most amazing thing I've ever seen! What does the dog do if they score a touchdown?" The owner replies, "I don't know, I've only had him for 4 years."Subject: Funny: If restaurants Operated like Technical Support
If restaurants Operated like Technical Support... Patron: Waiter! Waiter: Hi, my name is Bill, and I'll be your Support Waiter. What seems to be the problem? Patron: There's a fly in my soup! Waiter: Try again, maybe the fly won't be there this time. Patron: No, it's still there. Waiter: Maybe it's the way you're using the soup; try eating it with a fork instead. Patron: Even when I use the fork, the fly is still there. Waiter: Maybe the soup is incompatible with the bowl; what kind of bowl are you using? Patron: A SOUP bowl! Waiter: Hmmm, that should work. Maybe it's a configuration problem; how was the bowl set up? Patron: You brought it to me on a saucer; what has that to do with the fly in my soup?! Waiter: Can you remember everything you did before you noticed the fly in your soup? Patron: I sat down and ordered the Soup of the Day! Waiter: Have you considered upgrading to the latest Soup of the Day? Patron: You have more than one Soup of the Day each day?? Waiter: Yes, the Soup of the Day is changed every hour. Patron: Well, what is the Soup of the Day now? Waiter: The current Soup of the Day is tomato. Patron: Fine. Bring me the tomato soup, and the check. I'm running late now. [waiter leaves and returns with another bowl of soup and the check] Waiter: Here you are, Sir. The soup and your check. Patron: This is potato soup. Waiter: Yes, the tomato soup wasn't ready yet. Patron: Well, I'm so hungry now, I'll eat anything. [waiter leaves.] Patron: Waiter! There's a gnat in my soup! The check: Soup of the Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $5.00 Upgrade to newer Soup of the Day. . . . . . . . $2.50 Access to support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $1.00Subject: funny: consider the last name, too
once you think you've got the first name right. . . by Gaelyn Davidson Date: 12/05/96 consider the last name, too If Yoko Ono married Sonny Bono, she'd be Yoko Ono Bono. If Dolly Parton married Salvador Dali, she'd be Dolly Dali. If Bo Derek married Don Ho, she'd be Bo Ho. If Oprah Winfrey married Depak Chopra, she'd be Oprah Chopra. If Cat Stevens married Snoop Doggy Dogg, hey! it's the '90's!, he'd be Cat Doggy Dogg. If Olivia Newton-John married Wayne Newton, then divorced him to marry Elton John, she'd be Olivia Newton-John Newton John. If Sondra Locke married Elliott Ness, then divorced him to marry Herman Munster, she'd become Sondra Locke Ness Monster. If Bea Arthur married Sting, she'd be Bea Sting. If Liv Ullman married Judge Lance Ito, then divorced him and married Jerry Mathers, she'd be Liv Ito Beaver. If Snoop Doggy Dogg married Winnie the Pooh, he'd be Snoop Doggy Dogg Pooh. How about a baseball marriage? If Boog Powell married Felipe Alou, he'd be Boog Alou. If G. Gordon Liddy married Boutros-Boutros Ghali, then divorced him to marry Kenny G., he'd be G. Ghali G. Nog (Quark's brother on "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine") has no other name, so he uses it twice when getting a marriage license. IF he married Howard Hughes, and then Pamela Dare, he'd be Nog Nog Hughes Dare. If Shirley Jones married Tom Ewell, then Johnny Rotten, then Nathan Hale, she'd be Shirley Ewell Rotten Hale. (I really had to think about this one to get it!) If Jack Handy (SNL writer) married Andy Capp, then married Jack Paar, then moved on to Stephen King, he'd be Jack Handy Capp Paar King. If Javier Lopez married Keiko the whale, and Edith Piaf married Rose Tu the elephant, they would be Javier Keiko and Edith Tu. If Ivana Trump married, in succession, Orson Bean (actor), King Oscar (of Norway), Louis B. Mayer (of MGM), and Norbert Wiener (mathematician), she would then be Ivana Bean Oscar Mayer Wiener. If Woody Allen married Natalie Wood, divorced her and married Gregory Peck, divorced him and married Ben Hur, he'd be Woody Wood Peck Hur. If Dolly Parton married Tommy Smothers, then went even further back in show business and married Mr. Lucky, then divorced and married Martin Short, then divorced and married football kicker Ray Guy, we could all nod understandingly when we heard, "Dolly Parton Smothers Lucky Short Guy."Subject: funny: kiddie strikes again!
"This is Brucie Kaufman of Scarsdale, New York" "Your number please?" asked the operator. "I'm nine years old." "Number please, sir" "I wanta talk with President Johnson" "I just want the phone number," the operator insisted. "I dunno. My name is Brucie Kaufman." "Do you want the party's address?" the operator asked. "I think Washington." "The area code for Washington is 202. Please hang up and dial that number." "Operator" "Hello, this is Brucie Kaufman of Scarsdale, New York" "Number please" "Can I talk with President Johnson, please?" "Is that the White House exchange, sir?" "Hello." "Yes, hello. Shall I try him at the White House?" "Awright" "Good afternoon, White House." "Go ahead, sir." "Hullo." "Good afternoon, Whi__" "Is President Johnson there?" "May I ask who is calling, please?" "Brucie Kaufman." "What is the nature of your business?" "I'm nine." "Just a second," the operator replied. "Mabel, this is Virginia on 84. I have a code number call for the President." "Go ahead, Ginny. Switch it to the East Room operator." "East Room. Is this code number nine?" "I'm nine." "Name, please." "Brucie Kaufman." "Do you want the President direct?" "Is this President Johnson?" "Not yet, sir. Where are you calling from?" "I'm home." "Is anyone with you?" "No. I'm playing with my airplanes." "Thank you. Just a second." "Charlotte, this seems to be a home-base call concerning air power. Can you switch to the Presidential staff?" "Who is calling?" "A Mr. Kaufman. Sounds important." "Is it a foreign accent?" "I think so. I don't recognize it." "I'll switch to Mrs. Lewis. It think the President is in. Do you think it's Vietnam?" "Should I ask?" "Yes, go ahead." "Mr. Kaufman?" "Brucie Kaufman." "Is this regarding Vietnam?" "Okay." "Where are your airplanes?" "They're right here. I have 20 airplanes." "Will you hold, please? Thank you. Charlotte? You're right and he's got 20 planes ready to go. Get Mrs. Lewis right away." "Mrs. Lewis speaking." "Go ahead, sir." "This is Brucie Kaufman of ____" "Will you speak to anyone else? I can get you the Defense Department." "No, I just wanta talk to President Johnson." "I'm trying to reach him now. Can he get in touch with you? Are you staying near the phone?" "No, I'm going outside with my airplanes." "We'll get him now. Please hold." "Mr. President. We have a Vietnam code call. He says the airplanes are ready. Will you take it?" "Hello, this is President Lyndon Johnson." "Hullo, this is Brucie Kaufman of 12 Skylark Lane, Scarsdale, New YorkThought for the day:
A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk I have a workstation........Subject: funny: The history of the finger... Pluck Yew Pal!!
The 'Car Talk' show (on NPR) with Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers, has a feature called the 'Puzzler', and their most recent 'Puzzler' was about the battle of Agincourt. The French, who were overwhelmingly favored to win the battle, threatened to cut a certain body part off of all captured English soldiers so that they could never fight again. The English won in a major upset and waved the body part in question at the French in defiance. The puzzler was: What was this body part? This is the answer submitted by a listener: Dear Click and Clack, Thank you for the Agincourt 'Puzzler', which clears up some profound questions of etymology, folklore and emotional symbolism. The body part which the French proposed to cut off of the English after defeating them was, of course, the middle finger, without which it is impossible to draw the renowned English longbow. This famous weapon was made of the native English yew tree, and so the act of drawing the longbow was known as "plucking yew". Thus, when the victorious English waved their middle fingers at the defeated French, they said, "See, we can still pluck yew! PLUCK YEW!" Over the years some 'folk etymologies' have grown up around this symbolic gesture. Since 'pluck yew' is rather difficult to say (like "pleasant mother pheasant plucker", which is who you had to go to for the feathers used on the arrows), the difficult consonant cluster at the beginning has gradually changed to a labiodental fricative 'f', and thus the words often used in conjunction with the one-finger-salute are mistakenly thought to have something to do with an intimate encounter. It is also because of the pheasant feathers on the arrows that the symbolic gesture is known as "giving the bird". And yew all thought yew knew everything!Subject: funny: cooking tips
recipe A series of step-by-step instructions for preparing ingredients you forgot to buy, in utensils you don't own, to make a dish the dog won't eat the rest of. preheat To turn on the heat in an oven for a period of time before cooking a dish, so that the fingers may be burned when the food is put in, as well as when it is removed. oven Compact home incinerator used for disposing of bulky pieces of meat and poultry. microwave oven Space-age kitchen appliance that uses the principle of radar to locate and immediately destroy any food placed within the cooking compartment. calorie Basic measure of the amount of rationalization offered by the average individual prior to taking a second helping of a particular food. arab coffee Thick, black, bitter coffee, traditionally served in tiny cups at gunpoint. Around Holiday time we all get to see the family and pass on lore and gossip. One day a little girl was watching her mother make a great roast beef. She cut off the ends, wrapped it in string, seasoned it and set it in the great roasting pan. The little girl asked her mother why she cut off the end of the roast. The mother said after some thought that it was the way that her mother had done it. That weekend grandma came over to visit and the little girl and the mother went to her and asked why she had cut the end off of the roast before cooking. After some thought she replied that it was because that was the way her mother had done it. Now, great-grandmother was quite old and in a nursing home. But the little girl had the chance the next weekend to see her and asked again the questions. She looked at the child, a bit annoyed, and said, "Why so it would fit in the pan, of course."Subject: Funny: A Czech laborer and a Russian solder shared a train seat.
Back when there was a Soviet Union, there was, understandably, some animosity between the Russian solders and the Czech civilians. One day in a train car, a Czech laborer and a Russian solder shared a seat, while across from them in the seat facing them, was a pretty young girl and an old lady. The train entered a tunnel and it was pitch black. The passengers in the car heard a loud smooch, then a slap across someone's face. The old lady thought to herself, "Now there's a girl with good morals. I'm glad she slapped the man." The pretty young girl thought to herself, "My! Isn't it strange that one of those men would kiss the old lady, and not me?" The Russian solder thought to himself, "Just great! This Czech sitting next to me kisses the girl, and she slaps me instead!" Finally, the Czech thought to himself, "This is great! I kiss the back of my hand, slap a Russian solder, and get away with it!"