Newsgroups: alt.quotations Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1993 14:29:12 -0500 From: Nanci Ann Miller Subject: Need authors for these! Lines: 1104 Hi Folks! I have a fairly large file of quotes I really like that I've been collecting over the years, but unfortunately I don't have authors for a lot of them. Perhaps some of you can help me out here, and if you could correct any that are wrong that would be cool as well. (I'd appreciate it if you could cc your answers to me to make sure I don't miss them among all of the traffic!) Thanks, Nanci nm0w+@andrew.cmu.edu --------------------------------------------------------------------- "Twas midnight, and the UNIX hacks Did gyre and gimble in their cave All mimsy was the CS-VAX And Cory raths outgrave. "Beware the software rot, my son! The faults that bite, the jobs that thrash! Beware the broken pipe, and shun The frumious system crash!" I have learned To spell hors d'oeuvres Which still grates on Some people's n'oeuvres the sand remembers once there was beach and sunshine but chip is warm too Explaining the unknown by means of the unobservable is always a perilous business. The number you have reached is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again. If it's the thought that counts then why aren't there more pregnant women in the world? Programming is an endless race between the software engineer, who seeks to design increasingly idiot-proof code, and the Universe, which strives to produce even bigger idiots. There are two ways to write bug-free code; only the third way works. Programming is like sex: one mistake and you end up supporting it for a lifetime. Lisp in action is like a finely choreographed ballet. Basic in action is like a waltz of drugged elephants. C in action is like a sword dance on a freshly waxed floor. A recent statistical study has shown that the average American has one testicle and one breast. I wish TV had a knob so you could turn up the intelligence. The one marked Brightness doesn't seem to work. If the opposite of "pro" is "con", what is the opposite of "progress"? If you are one in a million, then there are 7 and a half of you in NYC. Quote du jour: Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger. Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup. Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will piss on your computer. Bumper sticker on stealth bomber: "IF YOU CAN READ THIS, THEN WE WASTED 50 BILLION BUCKS." There are more honest people in jail than honest lawyers in the world. Last year nearly 1/3 of the legislation passed by congress made a certain day, week, or month a national holiday. Socialism and communism are for people who like their dictatorships obvious. Pleasure before business is a must in assassination. Life is not a big joke... it's a bunch of little jokes, all lined up in a row. 51% of the population is in the majority. 100% of all deaths are the result of not being alive. Guns don't kill people, bullets kill people. Guns just make them go REAL fast! Warning: the surgeon general has declared that dying can be fatal. Bush and Quayle - the team that can find corners in the oval office. It's not who you know, it's whom. "God is dead." --Nietzche-- | "Nietzche is dead." --God-- I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this. In the beginning, there was nothing. And God said, "Let there be Light." And there was still nothing, but you could see it. Any sufficiently advanced bureaucracy is indistinguishable from molasses. Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. The lottery is just a tax on people who are bad at math. They say that 50% of all marriages end in divorce. That's not as bad as it sounds, considering that the other 50% end in death. A metaphor is like a simile. We all live in a yellow subroutine. Solve a man's problem and he has 1 less. Teach a man to think, and all his problems are less. And lo, though I travel through the valley of the archetypes, I shall fear no evil, for I know that the author can't kill me off for at least another 150 pages, no matter how stupid or trite I become, or he ruins the book. Ron Ely --- A person whose freshman year roommate had filled out the "I want to room with a non-smoker" box because he thought two smokers in the room would be too much. A cat will almost always blink when hit with a sledgehammer. Tell a man there are 300 billion stars in the universe and he'll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint on it and he'll have to touch it to be sure. When cows laugh, does milk come out of their noses? Studies have shown that 3 out for 4 men prefer women with terminal cancer to women with fat thighs. The more people I meet, the more I like my cat. The best way to save face is to keep the lower half shut. If we are all wrapped up in ourselves we make a very small package. Room for improvement is the largest room in the world. The only constant in the universe is change. It is a strange world of language in which walking on thin ice can get you into hot water. Love is for fools wise enough to take a chance. Before you shoot off your mouth, try placing your foot in it. At least that way, you'll know _why_ you shot yourself in the foot. Nothing makes a person more productive than the last minute. Nothing is as hard to do gracefully as getting down off your high horse. Handle them carefully, for words have more power than atom bombs. Cats seem to live by the opinion that it never hurts to ask for what you want. Education is learning what you did even know you didn't know. Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one. Never give up but know when to quit. It's too dark a night to walk with your eyes closed. A dream is a fantasy your heart has when you are fast asleep. The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right. A cliche' is only something well said in the first place. The only way to see a rainbow is to look through the rain. I could complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses. On the edge of a precipice, only a fool does cartwheels. He who laughs last has the slowest sense of humor. You become what you think about most of the time. A penny saved wouldn't have bought anything anyway. An archeologist is a man whose career lies in ruins. Average is as close to the bottom as it is to the top. Conceit makes a little squirt think he is a fountain of knowledge. It is always darkest just before dawn. Some people see more in a walk around the block than others see in a trip around the world. Reasons that sound good aren't always good sound reasons. Those who are willing to face the music may someday lead the band. No one knows you are honest unless you give out samples. When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on, and swing! If you don't get everything you want, think of the things that you don't get that you don't want. It is wiser to choose what you say than to say what you choose. The people who say, "That's the way the ball bounces" are usually the ones who dropped it. The future is that time when you'll wish you'd done what you aren't doing now. An optimist laughs to forget, a pessimist forgets to laugh. Experience is the only teacher that gives the test before giving the lesson. Minds are like parachutes, they function only when open. It's not what you tell people, it's what you show them. Freedom is having a choice of the chains in which you're bound. The easiest way to find a use for something is to throw it out. Clockwatchers usually end up as just another one of the hands. If gold rusts, what will iron do? Let your work brag about you. A kiss is a noun, but is used as a conjunction; It is never declined, and is more common than proper; It is used in the plural and agrees with all genders. Prophecy is history written ahead of time. Run is only one letter away from ruin. The best way to keep good intentions from dying is to execute them. It's amazing what you can do when someone has faith in you. The best mirror is a friend's eye. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Never underestimate the power of fear. Practice makes perfect, except when it comes to getting up in the morning. Practice makes permenant. Practice makes a pastime. Practice doesn't make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect. He who lives without folly is not so wise as he thinks. One good thing about talking to yourself is that you always have a rapt audience. A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault. Eye to eye. It's a blinding confrontation. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. Black and white always go together. If you want to get something done, give it to a busy person. Nothing's fair. If nothing's fair, why can't it ever be unfair in *my* favor? The principal mark of genius is not perfection, but originality. It requires wisdom to understand wisdom; music is nothing if the audience is deaf. I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it. Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand. The best cure for insomnia is Monday morning. There is nothing worse than being a doer with nothing to do. Medical science has yet to develop an effective vaccine to prevent the spread of a yawn. When a person is willing and eager, God joins in. Any fool can count the seeds in an apple. Only God can count all the apples in one seed. God does not have to put His name on a label in the corner of a meadow because nobody else makes meadows. You have to wonder about a society that says God is dead and Elvis Presley is alive. The manner in which it is given is often worth more than the gift. To obtain maximum attention, it's hard to beat a good, big mistake. A child on a farm sees a plane fly overhead and dreams of a faraway place. A traveler on the plane sees the farmhouse and dreams of home. The truth is not always dressed for the evening. To think too long about doing a thing often becomes its undoing. There is no greater loan than a sympathetic ear. Those who flee temptation generally leave a forwarding address. Part of the inhumanity of a computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest. Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can. Tact is rubbing out another's mistake instead of rubbing it in. To err is human - and to blame it on a computer is even more so. Anticipating is even more fun that recollecting. The only beneficial thing in smoking is that it repels gnats and mosquitoes, which only proves that you don't have to be big to be smart. It takes courage to know when you ought to be afraid. Whoever wants to reach a distant goal must take small steps. One great advantage of modern communication is that it lets you know that somewhere the snow is deeper. You can't hug with nuclear arms. If anyone accepts my help who doesn't need it, that's his problem; if I refuse my help to anyone who needs it, that's my problem. It has been said that all wisdom is plagerism, only stupidity is original. Life is pain and anyone who tries to tell you differently is selling something. If you ask some people for the time of day, they'll tell you how the watch is made. A prison is not necessarily a discomfort or a hardship, but merely a place one is not at liberty to leave. Mistakes are the only things you can truly call your own. Learn from the past but don't dwell on it. Bureaucrats are the only people in the world who can say absolutely nothing and mean it. You can do anything if you don't care who gets the credit for it. Do unto others and then split. Why do we kill people who kill people to show people that killing people is wrong? Even if you're on the right track you'll get run over if you just sit there. The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out. Any society that prefers a naked weapon to a naked body is in serious trouble. A bird in the hand is safer than one overhead. Life is a sexually transmitted disease. The difference between Capitalism and Communism is quite simple... in Capitalism man exploits man. In Communism it's just the opposite. The supreme irony of life is that no one ever gets out of it alive. Radioactive cats have 18 half lives. There's a fine line between stupid and clever. The reason that love makes the world go 'round is that no one in love can walk in a straight line. Humor is a reminder that no matter how high a throne one sits on, one is sitting on one's butt. The best way to warm a person up is to take off his shirt. Trust can be a powerful weapon. There's no such thing as a minor miracle. Life sucks, but sometimes that feels good. The game is nothing, the playing of it everything. The world is moving so fast that the one who says something cannot be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it. If men could have babies, abortion would be a sacrament. All bridge hands are equally likely, but some are more equally likely than others. The best way to accelerate a Macintosh is a 9.8 meters per second squared. I am a soul with a body rather than a body with a soul. IBM seems to believe that when they urinate in something, it improves the flavor. There are very few personal problems that cannot be solved with a suitable application of high explosives. If William Shakespeare had a $100 million budget and computer-aided graphics, Hamlet might well have turned out very much like Terminator 2. Reporter: Mr Gandhi, what do you think of Western Civilization? Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea. A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain. If addiction is judged by how long a dumb animal will sit pressing a lever to get a "fix" of something, to its own detriment, then I would conclude that netnews is far more addictive than cocaine. Hindu speaking to a "Born again" christian: "Of course I am born again. And again and again and again." Frisbeetarianism, n.: The belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck. Children are natural mimics who act like their parents despite every effort to teach them good manners. Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. It isn't given to us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can either wither or heal. Highlander II: There should have been only one. Watson's Law: The reliability of machinery is inversely proportional to the number and significance of any persons watching it. Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on. Sometimes if you have a jolt and then try again it will work OK. But then, sometimes one isn't enough. In God we trust. All others pay cash. Ieth goteth a haireth shtucketh to my tongueth, whith is whyeth I'm speakingeth funnyeth. If you are not confused, you have not been paying attention. Every so often someone comes along and tries to re-invent the wheel, but usually ends up with an octogon that has an off-center hole. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government! A mind is a terrible thing to waste someone with. Some people wouldn't know what subtlety was if it painted itself purple and danced naked on top of a harpsichord singing bad Christmas carols! May you die of a curable disease. "What is your name?" "Sir Brian of Bell." "What is your quest?" "I seek the Holy Grail." "What are four lowercase letters that are not legal flag arguments to the Berkeley UNIX version of `ls'?" "I, er.... AIIIEEEEEE!" Truth is stranger than fiction, but this is because fiction is obliged to stick to probability; truth is not. The obscure we see eventually, the completely apparent takes longer. f u cn rd ths u r usng unx Remember that you are unique, just like everyone else. I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. Quantum particles: the dreams that stuff is made of. Shouldn't there be a shorter word for monosyllabic? Due to the current economic situation the management has decided that the light at the end of the tunnel will be switched off until further notice. If Satan ever loses his hair, there'll be hell toupee. Just a thought: if seeing is believing, does that mean blind people are really, really skeptical? I had a friend who used to hand out calling cards which said: Smile if you want to sleep with me then watch the victim try to hold back her smile... Despite the cost of living, it's still popular. A 'no' uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a 'yes' merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble. Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms. Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend; and inside a dog, it's too dark to read. I do not care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members. I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it. I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book. The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery. A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. Life is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read. If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man. It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech. A friend is a present you give to yourself. The cruelest lies are often told in silence. Anyone with an active mind lives on tentatives rather than tenets. In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life. It goes on. By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be a boss and work twelve hours a day. The world is full of willing people, some willing to work, the rest willing to let them. It will be generally found that those who sneer habitually at human nature and affect to despise it are among its worst and least pleasant examples. It is not impossible that to some infinitely superior being the whole universe may be as one plain, the distance between planet and planet being only as the pores in a grain of sand, and the spaces between system and system no greater than the intervals between one grain and the grain adjacent. Any idiot can face a crisis -- it's this day-to-day living that wears you out. To be nobody-but-myself -- in a world that is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else -- means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting. A door is that which a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of. The trouble with a puppy is that once it grows up, it's always a dog. One reason why George Washington Is held in such veneration He never blamed his problems On the former Administration. -- George O. Ludcke In the beginning was the word. But by the time the second word was added to it, there was trouble. For with it came syntax... A hypothetical paradox: What would happen in a battle between an Enterprise security team, who always get killed soon after appearing, and a squad of Imperial Stormtroopers, who can't hit the broad side of a planet? -- Tom Galloway Who's more foolish? The fool or the fool who follows him? Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly upon our own point of view. I don't mind what Congress does, as long as they don't do it in the streets. Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people. A witty saying proves nothing. I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him. Anything too stupid to be said is sung. Old age is the most unexpected of things that can happen to a man. A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students. I don't like spinach, and I'm glad I don't, because if I liked it I'd eat it, and I just hate it. Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies. It is important to keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out. The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed. Our authority is Isaiah 30:26, 'Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days.' Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition 7*7 (49) times as much as the Earth does from the Sun, or 50 times in all. The light we receive from the Moon is one 1/10,000 of the light we receive from the Sun, so we can ignore that... The radiation falling on Heaven will heat it to the point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation, i.e., Heaven loses 50 times as much heat as the Earth by radiation. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation, (H/E)^4 = 50, where E is the absolute temperature of the earth (-300K), gives H as 798K (525C). The exact temperature of Hell cannot be computed... [However] Revelations 21:8 says 'But the fearful, and unbelieving... shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone.' A lake of molten brimstone means that its temperature must be at or below the boiling point, 444.6C. We have, then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than Hell at 445C. Instead of giving money to found colleges to promote learning, why don't they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as good as the Prohibition one did, why, in five years we would have the smartest race of people on earth. Alexander Hamilton started the U.S. Treasury with nothing -- and that was the closest our country has ever been to being even. Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement. Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats. The only winner in the War of 1812 was Tchaikovsky. The intelligence of the world population is a constant. The population is increasing. We may have come over here in different ships, but we're all in the same boat now. A house without books is like room without windows. Irrigation of the land with seawater desalinated by fusion power is ancient. It's called 'rain'. A lie told often enough becomes the truth. Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river. Men: They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent. The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat. Middle age is when your age starts to show around your middle. Life is what happens while you're making other plans. My life has a superb cast, but I can't figure out the plot. The trouble with being punctual is that nobody's there to appreciate it. The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues. Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it. The cow is nothing but a machine with makes grass fit for us people to eat. The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple. Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months. To be an artist means never to avert one's eyes. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. God is the tangential point between zero and infinity. Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, and a dark side, and it holds the universe together. When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty. Success covers a multitude of blunders. If you have to shoot, shoot. Don't talk. There are two kinds of people in the world; those that split people into two groups, and those that don't. There are three kinds of mathematicians in the world; those that can count, and those that can't. In Pittsburgh, the shortest distance between two points is under construction. The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. England and America are two countries seperated by the same language. Life does not cease to be funny when people die, any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh. Time is an illusion; lunchtime, doubly so. Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Bureaucrat, n.: A person who cuts red tape sideways. Don't blow it -- good planets are hard to find. Television, a medium. So called because it is neither rare nor well done. Opera is where a guy gets stabbed in the back and instead of bleeding he sings. If you reveal your secrets to the wind you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees. You may forget the one with whom you have laughed, but never the one with whom you have wept. What we call 'Progress' is the exchange of one nuisance for another nuisance. Newpaper editors are men who separate the wheat from the chaff, and then print the chaff. The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously. The price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that someday they might force their beliefs on us. A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who has never learned to walk. I think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird, and not enough the bad luck of the early worm. When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not guilty.' I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow. 'Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt. The best way to destroy your enemy is to make him your friend. Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. Never confuse motion with action. Maybe this world is another planet's Hell. The aim of a joke is not to degrade the human being, but to remind him that he is already degraded. We're not lost. We're locationally challenged. What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy? While I know many people who emphatically believe in reincarnation, I have never met or read one who could satisfactorily explain population growth. If a person who indulges in gluttony is a glutton, and a person who commits a felony is a felon, then God is an iron. The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science requires reasoning while those other subjects merely require scholarship. Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe and not make messes in the house. The likelihood of an individual being right increases in direct proportion to the intensity with which others are trying to prove him wrong. The fate of the country does not depend on what kind of paper you drop into the ballot box once a year, but on what kind of man you drop from your chamber into the street every morning. What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on? The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide. Snowflakes are one of nature's most fragile things, but just look at what they can do when they stick together. Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one.' The most important thing in an argument, next to being right, is to leave an escape hatch for your opponent, so that he can gracefully swing over to your side without too much apparent loss of face. Angels are able to fly because they take themselves so lightly. A man must love a thing very much if he not only practises it without any hope of fame and money, but even practises it without any hope of doing it well. Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel. The palest ink is better than the sharpest memory. He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever. It is better to be a coward for a minute than dead for the rest of your life. A man talking sense to himself is no madder than a man talking nonsense not to himself, or just as mad. He does both. There you have it: stark raving sane. A.C.R.O.N.Y.M.: Abbreviations Concatenated Rowwise, Obscuring (Naturally) Your Meaning. Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do. If fate throws a knife at you, there are two ways of catching it: by the blade, and by the handle. Red meat is _not_ bad for you. Now blue-green meat, *that's* bad for you! Spring is nature's way of saying, 'Let's party!' Money can't buy happiness. Then again, happiness can't buy government insured CDs. Never go knockin' on Death's door. Ring the doorbell and run away instead. Death *hates* that. I have strong feelings about gun control. If there's a gun around, I want to be controlling it. Hickory dickory dock, Three mice ran up the clock. The clock struck one, And the other two escaped with minor injuries. And, after all, it is the 200th anniversary of the presidency. That's something to celebrate. From George to George -- in only 200 years, we've gone from 'I cannot tell a lie' to 'I cannot tell.' A group of white South Africans recently killed a black lawyer because he was black. That was wrong. They should have killed him because he was a lawyer. Too bad you can't buy a voodoo globe so that you could make the earth spin real fast and freak everybody out. Anyone interested in improving himself should not rule out becoming pure energy. It takes a big man to cry in public. But it takes an even bigger man to laugh at that man. The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was. When people are least sure, they are often most dogmatic. Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away if your car could go straight up. It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English -- up to fifty words used in correct context -- no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese. In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. Common sense is that collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen. -- Albert Einstein God not only plays dice, he also sometimes throws the dice where they cannot be seen. Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft... and the only one that can be mass produced with unskilled labor. There was a sociologist who had written a paper for all of us to read... I started to read the damn thing, and my eyes were coming out: I couldn't make head nor tail of it... Finally, I said to myself, 'I'm gonna stop and read one sentence slowly'... So I stopped -- at random -- and read the next sentence very carefully... 'The individual member of the social community often receives his information via visual, symbolic channels.' I went back and forth over it, and translated. You know what it means? 'People read.' An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field. The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth. Common sense is the most evenly distributed quantity in the world. Everyone thinks he has enough. There are no physicists in the hottest parts of hell, because the existence of a 'hottest part' implies a temperature difference, and any marginally competent physicist would immediately use this to run a heat engine and make some other part of hell comfortably cool. This is obviously impossible. Do not condemn the judgement of another because it differs from your own. You may both be wrong. In peace, sons bury their fathers; in war, fathers bury their sons. No man steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river, and he's not the same man. The unexamined life is not worth living. Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilites. Here's something to think about: How come you never see a headline like 'Psychic Wins Lottery.' Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time. Fundamentalists are to Christianity what paint-by-numbers is to art. Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others. Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own language and forthwith it is something entirely different. He who has Art and Science also has religion, but those who do not have them better have religion. The day is committed to error and floundering; success and achievement are matters of long range. Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished. You can't survive by sucking the juice from a wet mitten. Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia. It is a fool's prerogative to utter truths that no one else will speak. Three out of four Americans make up 75% of the population. There's this succession of infinitely diminishing Republicans, starting with Reagan. Everybody said we can't impeach Reagan 'cause we'd just get Bush, and everybody says we hope nothing happens to Bush 'cause we'll get Quayle, and then when Quayle gets in ... it's fascinating to imagine somebody Quayle can pick for his running mate who would cause us to say we can't impeach Quayle, we'd only get you-know-who. The danger from computers is not that they will eventually get as smart as men, but that we will meanwhile agree to meet them halfway. If money is the root of all evil, then what is the root of money? Without love intelligence is dangerous; without intelligence love is not enough. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you an automobile. When asked by an anthropologist what the Indians called America before the white man came, and Indian said simply Ours. If Moses had been a committee, the Isrealites would still be in Egypt. The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye. The more light you shine on it, the more it contracts. When a resolute fellow steps up to that great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find that the beard comes off in his hand, that it was only tied on to scare away timid adventurers. In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments -- there are consequences. When a man wantonly destroys a work of man we call him a vandal; when a man destroys one of the works of God, we call him a sportsman. Wise sayings often fall on barren ground, but a kind word is never thrown away. The poor wish to be rich, the rich wish to be happy, the single wish to be married, and the married wish to be dead. Women and cats do as they dammed well please, and men and dogs had best learn to live with it. Time sneaks up on you like a windshield on a bug. Accomplishing the impossible means only that the boss will add it to your regular duties. It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them. The country that draws a broad line between its fighting men and its thinking men will find its fighting done by fools and its thinking done by cowards. The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; the pessimist fears this is true. In democracy its your vote that counts. In feudalism its your count that votes. Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be. On my income tax 1040 it says 'Check this box if you are blind.' I wanted to put a check mark about three inches away. Take off all your clothes and walk down the street waving a machete and firing an Uzi, and terrified citizens will phone the police and report: "There's a naked person outside!" The other day I went to the stationary store... but it had moved. The post office solicited for graphic ideas for the new 30 cent stamp. One artist suggested the following: A hand holding out a tin cup. Do infants have as much fun in infancy as adults do in adultry? If it's there and you can see it -- it's real If it's not there and you can see it -- it's virtual If it's there and you can't see it -- it's transparent If it's not there and you can't see it -- you erased it! Elections are like going to an adult novelty store. You go in and try to pick the dildo which would hurt the least. The problem with political jokes is that they get elected. If they don't want us to drink and drive, why do you have to show a drivers license to buy beer? Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror and you would not have been informed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Additional Technical Writer's Euphemisms for Death 13. Lost in translation. 12. Widowed and orphaned. 11. Formatted with black borders. 10. Moved into upper management. 9. Went on-line. 8. Deleted from the BOM. 7. Permanently Out of Print. 6. Printed white-on-white. 5. Remaindered. 4. Mailed in his/her warranty card. 3. Collapsed his/her outline. 2. Was struck out by the Big Blue Pencil. And, the Number One Technical Writing Euphemism for Death... 1. Inspired a new Warning message. *** Sen. Danforth: "There is nothing on the face of the album which would notify you if the record has pornographics material or material glorifying violence?" Tipper Gore: "No, there is nothing that would suggest that to me." Frank Zappa: "I would say that a buzz saw blade between the guy's legs on the album cover is good indication that it's not for little Johnny." -- The Senate Commerce Committee hearing on rock lyrics, from The Village Voice, 6 Oct 1985 *** I get up each morning, gather my wits. Pick up the paper, read the obits. If I'm not there I know I'm not dead. So I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed. *** This is the story of the bee Whose sex is very hard to see You cannot tell the he from the she But she can tell, and so can he The little bee is never still She has no time to take the pill And that is why, in times like these There are so many sons of bees. *** A girl and a boy bump into each other -- surely an accident. A girl and a boy bump and her handkerchief drops -- surely another accident. But when a girl gives a boy a dead squid -- *that had to mean something*. -- S. Morganstern, "The Silent Gondoliers" *** the Axioms of Veget-Abelian Logic (TM): 1. For every upside-down A, there exists a backwards E. 2. Given any real number X, X=0 unless it equals something else. 3. 2 + 2 = 5, for sufficiently large values of 2. 4. It cannot be proven that this statement cannot be proven. 5. Given two items, you will undoubtably be asked for one back. 6. It is always possible to assume the incorrect. 7. As X approaches infinity, X gets pretty damn big. 8. There does not exist a non-existant element. 9. The range of any function f:X->Y has an empty subset. 10. The composition of two useless axioms is useless. *** It is generally agreed that "Hello" is an appropriate greeting because if you entered a room and said "Goodbye," it could confuse a lot of people. -- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot" *** If you're a rebel and you know it, Smash the screen. If you're a rebel and you know it, Pull the plug! If you're a rebel and you know it and you really Wanna show it, If you're a rebel and you know it Then how in HELL are you still reading this???? *** DETERIORATA Go placidly amid the noise and waste, And remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof. Avoid quiet and passive persons, unless you are in need of sleep. Rotate your tires. Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself, And heed well their advice -- even though they be turkeys. Know what to kiss -- and when. Remember that two wrongs never make a right, But that three do. Wherever possible, put people on "HOLD". Be comforted, that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment, And despite the changing fortunes of time, There is always a big future in computer maintenance. You are a fluke of the universe ... You have no right to be here. Whether you can hear it or not, the universe Is laughing behind your back. -- National Lampoon *** | _/ "Music is like directing sounds theatrically, moulding them into | | _/_/ landscapes.. I wanted to link my music to places, architectural | | _/_/_/ environments and visual techniques." - J.M.Jarre | *** For perfect happiness, remember two things: (1) Be content with what you've got. (2) Be sure you've got plenty. *** There are four wheels and eight men on a fire engine. Four and eight makes 12. There are 12 inches in a ruler. Queen Elizabeth is a ruler. The Queen Elizabeth was a ship. Ships sail in the sea. The sea has fish. Fish have fins. The Finns are always fighting the Russians. Russians are known as "red". Fire engines are always rushin', and that's why they're red. *** "The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history." -- Hegel "I know guys can't learn from yesterday ... Hegel must be taking the long view." -- John Brunner, "Stand on Zanzibar" *** THE ALL-PURPOSE BUSINESSMAN'S VOCABULARY A CONSULTANT - Any ordinary guy with a briefcase more than 50 miles from home. AN EXPERT - A person who avoids all small errors and sweeps toward the grand fallacy. A STATISTICIAN - One who draws a mathematically precise line from an unwarranted assumption to a foregone conclusion. A COLLEAGUE - Someone called in at the last minute to share the blame. A RELIABLE SOURCE - The guy you just met. AN INFORMED SOURCE - The guy who told the guy you just met. AN UNIMPEACHABLE SOURCE - The guy who started the rumor originally. A MEETING - A mass mulling of master-minds. A CONFERENCE - A place where conversation is substituted for the dreariness of labor and the loneliness of thought. A PROGRAM - Any assignment that can't be completed by one telephone call. CHANNELS - The guy who has a desk between two expeditors. TO ACTIVATE - To make copies and add more names to the memo. TO IMPLEMEMT A PROGRAM - Hire more people and expand the office. TO RESEARCH - Go looking for the jerk who moved the files. TO GIVE SOMEONE THE PICTURE - To present a long, confused and innaccurate statement to a newcomer. TO CLARIFY - To fill in the background with so many details that the foreground goes underground. *** Now that you've read Fortune's diet truths, you'll be prepared the next time some housewife or boutique-owner-turned-diet-expert appears on TV to plug her latest book. And, if you still feel a twinge of guilt for eating coffee cake while listening to her exhortations, ask yourself the following questions: (1) Do I dare trust a person who actually considers alfalfa sprouts a food? (2) Was the author's sole motive in writing this book to get rich exploiting the forlorn hopes of chubby people like me? (3) Would a longer life be worthwhile if it had to be lived as prescribed ... without French-fried onion rings, pizza with double cheese, or the occasional Mai-Tai? (Remember, living right doesn't really make you live longer, it just *seems* like longer.) That, and another piece of coffee cake, should do the trick. *** "It's easier said than done." ... and if you don't believe it, try proving that it's easier done than said, and you'll see that "it's easier said that `it's easier done than said' than it is done", which really proves that "it's easier said than done". *** from alt.beer. Note: we here at ST. Bonaventure do not necessarily agree with this statement. i tried a "Clear Beer' the other day. Apart from being a truely cultural experience, it was truely disgusting. It tasted like Hello Kitty hit the breweries. It had a metallic taste that tricked your tastebuds for about one nanosecond that you're aactually drinking beer, then they say - "no this is only diet soda with beer flavor added" next thing on my list to try; Menthol Colt 45 ("COol Colt"), the first truely racist beer. *** (1) Alexander the Great was a great general. (2) Great generals are forewarned. (3) Forewarned is forearmed. (4) Four is an even number. (5) Four is certainly an odd number of arms for a man to have. (6) The only number that is both even and odd is infinity. Therefore, Alexander the Great had an infinite number of arms. *** [U.S. News & World Report, 04/29/93] BEIJING -- Sources in China report that a Hong Kong company will be allowed to stage a Madonna concert in beijing in December - on one condition: Madonna will not be permitted to expose herself. *** "It's Like This" Even the samurai have teddy bears, and even the teddy bears get drunk. *** Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The Frumious Bandersnatch! -- Lewis Carroll *** Santa Claus wears a Red Suit, He must be a communist. And a beard and long hair, Must be a pacifist. What's in that pipe that he's smoking? -- Arlo Guthrie *** "Thomas Jefferson believed that to preserve the very foundations of our nation, we would need dramatic change from time to time. My fellow citizens, this is OUR TIME. Let us embrace it." - President Bill Clinton - Inaugural Address - Jan. 20 1993 *** Up until this point, my brain had maintained a long-term equilibrium position in the center of my skull. Recently, however, due to all of the papers I have been writing and finals I have been studying for, the right side has grown heavier with the extra information, and there is periodically a minor imbalance between the two halves. *** You know you've got spring fever when... 1. You feel drunk without drinking (code: d, d+, etc.) 2. You have multiple crushes and would love to pack them all in a car and go driving out in the hills with loud music playing (c, c+, etc.) 3. You groove the weather, and actually realize that you breathe (w) 4. You get lozy (l) 5. You get charged up, productive, and wonder what you were doing all winter (p) 6. You groove yourself! You say, I'm just plain stunning! (s) 7. You enjoy indulging in things like ice cream cones (i) 8. You run out of steam when you post because the chlorophyll beckons! (t) Who, me? d+++, c+++, w++, l+, p++, s++, i+, t+++ *** From robert Tue May 4 23:13:53 1993 To: adam Subject: Re: Spring fever. Boooooing. Cc: james 1. I wouldn't know, that requires that one stops drinking for a while. 2. I've had overlapping crushes continuously since I was about 10. However on Saturday I packed myself in a car (all alone, sniff) and went driving in the desert with loud music. 3. Try North West Europe for a while. Then you'll REALLY dig California weather... 4. Lozy??? 5. Me, productive, ha! Ahm afeared not. 6. 'course I'm stunning. But why do some babes not notice? 7. Ice cream: I finished an eskimo bar while I read your post... 'nuff said! 8. Chlorophyll? I don't get it. Me: d?, c+++, w+, l?, p-, s+, i+, t? Supa Fly Guy *** From robert Tue May 4 23:19:00 1993 To: adam Subject: Lemonjello Are you friggin bonkers, man? ** From james Tue May 4 23:22:35 1993 To: robert Cc: adam Subject: Spring fever. Boooooing. 1. never have got drunk. but i get random quite easily. d+ 2. i might drive into the hills with a pack of strawberry crush and crush the cans once i get there. c- 3. i am aware of my breathing every time i return to LA. w+++ 4. lozy?? 5. i wonder what i've done with the last 6 months all the time. p++ 6. i only groove my wrists with sharp razors. s-- 7. i indulge in caffeinated beverages all the time. i++ 8. if i needed sunlight to survive i wouldn't have come to 'tech. t-- *** From adam Tue May 4 23:36:38 1993 To: james, robert Subject: Lemonjello Cc: adam Lemonjello is the name my flat mates last year gave me, because they heard some old black lady calling her son, "LemonJELLo! LeMONjello! Get yo' ass over here!" And Lemonjello just sat there, pretending not to notice her. Anyway, they said that kid reminded them of me. Okay, my ratings... boing! 1. Drunk without drinking? Does that go for beer too? 2. Multiple crushes? Ahem. No comment. I play music. "Anything, just play it loud okay?" I like it loud. We have the technology. Why waste it? 3. I groove the weather. Groove is in the heart. I breathe? I suck! But that feels good. 4. Not lozy, silly. Lazy. Lazy, moi? I better take six plusses on that one with a couple of beers and call you in the morning. 5. What the fuck WAS i doing all winter? 6. Not only am I stunning. I am the epitome of humility. 7. To me, ice cream is better indulged on a babe, not in a cone. 8. Does this mean smokin weed? I tell you, I hand picked the cocaine, self shucked it, dried and rolled it myself, and smoked the fucker. It did NOTHING for me. Adam, d+++++, m+++++++++++++++, w+++, l++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++, p+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ the bazillionth power, s++++++++++++++ +++++++ to the bazillionth to the bazillionth power, i and t too high to measure *** From robert Tue May 4 23:40:37 1993 To: adam Subject: ... Adam "Sosumi" Rifkin Adam "Ant" Rifkin Transmogrifkin Sherifkin Leningradam Saladam Triadam Tits *** Receiving a million dollars tax free will make you feel better than being flat broke and having a stomach ache. -- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot" *** From robert Wed May 5 03:08:15 1993 To: adam Subject: Coming on too strong? I emailed that girl who'll be at Dallas next year. I signed with: Your warm soft fluffy puppy with soft fur and sad brown eyes and a little wagging tail and a wet nose, Rob (left out the bit about the blender). If that doesn't do the trick, nothing will... =;o) *** "... The name of the song is called 'Haddocks' Eyes'!" "Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?" Alice said, trying to feel interested. "No, you don't understand," the Knight said, looking a little vexed. "That's what the name is called. The name really is, 'The Aged Aged Man.'" "Then I ought to have said "That's what the song is called'?" Alice corrected herself. "No, you oughtn't: that's quite another thing! The song is called 'Ways and Means': but that's only what it is called you know!" "Well, what is the song then?" said Alice, who was by this time completely bewildered. "I was coming to that," the Knight said. "The song really is "A-sitting on a Gate": and the tune's my own invention." -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass" *** "And what will you do when you grow up to be as big as me?" asked the father of his little son. "Diet." *** H. L. Mencken's Law: Those who can -- do. Those who can't -- teach. Martin's Extension: Those who cannot teach -- administrate. *** "Bullwinkle, that man's intimidating a referee!" | My boss is a "Not very well. He doesn't look like one at all!" | Jewish carpenter. *** The last words of Major-General John Sedgwick, at the Battle of Spotsylvania, presumably in the American civil War, trying to get his men to quit cowering and _fight_: "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist----" *** COMPUTER: 1)from the Latin "com", meaning "a", and "puter", meaning "piece of fucking trash". 2)calm pewter: an alloy of lead and tin in its unexcited state. -Evil Brock *** Information is not knowledge; Knowledge is not wisdom; Wisdom is not foresight. But it is the first step to all of them. All good wishes. - Arthur C. Clarke *** "Who will provide the grand design What is yours and what is mine? There is no more new frontier We have got to make that clear We satisfy our endless needs And justify our bloody deeds In the name of destiny and in the name of God." -- "The Last Resort," the Eagles *** =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= ____ _________ MIT Lincoln Laboratory \ / /_______ / GR91 - Calibration \/ __ __ || Millstone Hill Radar Site || \ \^/ / || "All the satellites fit to track." || /\/v\/\ || || \/\|/\/ || A woman is a lot like a beer, they smell good, || /\/|\/\ || they look good, and you'd step over your own mother || \/\^/\/ || to get one. || /_/v\_\ || Karl P. Buchmann ||______ /\ buchman@ll.mit.edu /________/ /__\ (Back off, man! I'm a scientist.) =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ *** To call something public is to define it as dirty, insufficient and hazardous. The ultimate paradigm of social spending is the public rest room. -P. J. O'Rourke *** |There are two kinds of people in this world. There are those people who | |never lie, and there are those people who say that they never lie. | |The real question is: Which kind of person are you? -Thom Elliott | *** Chicken Soup, n.: An ancient miracle drug containing equal parts of aureomycin, cocaine, interferon, and TLC. The only ailment chicken soup can't cure is neurotic dependence on one's mother. -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" *** BULLWINKLE: "You just leave that to my pal. He's the brains of the outfit." GENERAL: "What does that make YOU?" BULLWINKLE: "What else? An executive..." -- Jay Ward *** A new supply of round tuits has arrived and are available from Mary. Anyone who has been putting off work until they got a round tuit now has no excuse for further procrastination. *** DETERIORATA GO PLACIDLY AMID THE NOISE & WASTE & REMEMBER WHAT COMFORT THERE MAY BE IN OWNING a piece thereof. Avoid quiet & passive persons unless you are in need of sleep. Rotate your tires. Speak glowlingly of those greater than yourself and heed well their advice even though they be turkeys; know what to kiss and when. Consider that two wrongs never make a right but that three do. Whenever possible, put people on hold. Be comforted that in the face of all aridity & disillusionment and despite the changing fortunes of time, there is always a big fortune in computer maintenance. Remember the Pueblo. Strive at all times to bend, fold, spindle, & mutilate. Know yourself; if you need help, call the FBI. Exercise caution in your daily affairs, especially with those persons closest to you. That lemon on your left, for instance. Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most souls would scarcely get your feet wet. Fall not in love therefore; it will stick to your face. Gracefully surrender the things of youth. Gracefully surrender the things of youth, birds, ocean air, tuna, Taiwan, and let not the sands of time get in your lunch. Hire people with hooks. For a good time call 282-1445; ask for Vic. Take heart amid the deepening gloom that your dog is finally getting enough cheese; and reflect that whatever misfortune may be your lot, it could only be worse in Milwaukee. You are a fluke of the universe; you have no right to be here and whether you can hear it or not, the universe is laughing behind your back. Therefore make peace with your God, whatever you conceive Him to be: hairy thunderer or cosmic muffin. With all its hopes, dreams, promises & urban renewal, the world continues to deteriorate. Give up. *** "Steven Segal is in a new movie called Under Seige. I liked this movie the first time I saw it, when it was called Die Hard. It's called having an original idea, look into it." - David Spade *** "Harry, the first six months you're [in the U.S. Senate] you'll wonder how the hell you got here, and after that you'll wonder how the hell the rest of us got here." -- Senator J. Hamilton Lewis, to Harry Truman *** ce.si.um ('s{e-}-z{e-}-*m) Etymology: NL, fr. L i[caesius] bluish gray n, a silver-white soft ductile element of the alkali metal group that is the most electropositive element known *** geodesic n, the shortest line between two points on a mathematically derived surface *** Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. - Albert Einstein *** In brief, she assumed that, being a man, I was vain to the point of imbecility, and this assumption was correct, as it always is. - H.L. Mencken - A Popular Virtue *** "What is Good? All that enhances the feeling of power, the will to power, and the power itself in man. What is Bad? All that proceeds from weakness" -Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche *** "A wizard cannot do everything; a fact most magicians are reticent to admit, let alone discuss with prospective clients. Still, the fact remains that there are certain objects, and people, that are, for one reason or another, completely immune to any direct magical spell. It is for this group of beings that the magician learns the subtleties of using indirect spells. It also does no harm, in dealing with these matters, to carry a large club near your person at all times." -- The Teachings of Ebenezum, Volume VIII *** The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis *** Cancel me not -- for what then shall remain? Abscissas, some mantissas, modules, modes, A root or two, a torus and a node: The inverse of my verse, a null domain. -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" *** -- \ - "Wacka lacka macka poo-ka hoo-ka too-ka lack, Babs Bunny - / -- -- \- Hoo-ka poo-ka icky ticky plicky mickey mack. No Toon is -/ -- -- /- Wacka lacka macka packa hoo-ka too-ka lack, an Island -\ -- -- / - Hoo-ka poo-ka eek I think you get the picture, Mack." - \ -- *** "It was very horrible to go mad and know that you were going mad -- to know that in a little minute you would be here physically and yet all the real essence would be dead and drowned in the black madness." -- Isaac Asimov, "Nightfall" *** Double-Blind Experiment, n.: An experiment in which the chief researcher believes he is fooling both the subject and the lab assistant. Often accompanied by a belief in the tooth fairy. *** "Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed. The entire universe need not arm itself to crush him. A vapour, a drop of water, suffices to kill him. But if the universe were to crush him, man would still be more noble than that which killed him, because he knows that he dies and the advantage which the universe has over him; the universe knows nothing of this." Pascal, quoted by Rebecca West in BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON: A JOURNEY THROUGH YUGOSLAVIA, 1940. *** From the Ever-So-Helpful-Software files: rainier 4> webster errata er.ra.ta \e-'ra:t-*, -'ra-t-, -'rat-\ n [fr. pl. of erratum] : a list of corrigenda or a page bearing such a list rainier 5> webster corrigenda No definition for 'corrigenda'. *** >|> A young lady from Georgia, just arrived at Harvard, asked a student in >|> the yard, "Sir, can you tell me where the Widener Library is at?" The >|> student replies, "At Harvard, we do not end a sentence with a >|> preposition." To which she answers, "Very well; tell me where the >|> Widener is at, *asshole*." > >Preposition humour has been much more subtle and less >distasteful. For the benefit of the few who have not >seen it, here's what Churchill said when one of his >sentences was attacked by a pen-wielding civil servant >in a memo: > >"This is the sort of pedantic nonsense", fumed Churchill, >"up with which I will not put !" I've heard this attributed to Benjamin Franklin. Wilson Follett writes, in his entry on pedantry: "... it may induce caution to consider a few examples of misplaced care that will almost always strike the hearer or reader as finical--here the casual speaker will say /finicky/--and that he may be so much annoyed by as to call pedantic. The list may as well begin with the pedantry that consists in the observance of imaginary rules. Among these are the injunctions against the SPLIT INFINITIVE and against ending a sentence with a PREPOSITION; the effort to put ONLY as close to its object as possible (/Tender noodles made from only the yolk of fresh eggs/--where's the flour?); the avoidance of /just/ (/I just don't like it/) in the belief that it is a misuse of /just/ as in /justice/, whereas it is from /juxta/, and means just what it says; the effort to place epithets next to the word they apply to (avoiding /a good cup of coffee/ in favor of /a cup of good coffee/); or the studied rejection of CASE and SINCE (causal) without reason." *** ****** OK ... I'l admit it ... I do have a couple of STDs! And yes, ****** ****** some of them aren't particularly socially acceptable and a ****** ****** slim few are still held incurable by medical science. BUT .. ****** ****** I can 100% guarantee that you will ALMOST CERTAINLY NOT catch ****** ****** any of these diseases by reading this sig. However, in the ****** ****** highly unlikely circumstance that you DO contract one of these ****** ****** conditions from this sig, I am in NO WAY RESPONSIBLE for any ****** ****** symptoms of pus-like genital drippings, strange and itchy ****** ****** rashes, or spontaneous loss of extremities you may experience. ****** ****** Furthermore I am entirely exempt from any responsibility for ****** ****** symptoms of blindness, hair loss, raised sores, weeping sores, ****** ****** curious itchiness in the region of your pubic hair, and long ****** ****** and painful death you might encounter ****** *** Famous last words: (1) Don't unplug it, it will just take a moment to fix. (2) Let's take the shortcut, he can't see us from there. (3) What happens if you touch these two wires tog-- (4) We won't need reservations. (5) It's always sunny there this time of the year. (6) Don't worry, it's not loaded. (7) They'd never (be stupid enough to) make him a manager. *** Slick's Three Laws of the Universe: 1. Nothing in the known universe travels faster than a bad check. 2. A quarter-ounce of chocolate = four pounds of fat. 3. There are two types of dirt: the dark kind, which is attracted to light objects, and the light kind, which is attracted to dark objects. *** we will invent new lullabies, new songs, new acts of love, we will cry over things we used to laugh & our new wisdom will bring tears to eyes of gentile creatures from other planets who were afraid of us till then & in the end a summer with wild winds & new friends will be. *** Subject: Thom Elliott's Quotes file.(A new version) I know I may have sent out earlier versions of this file to some of you before but, this one is new and improved. So, delete your old quotes file from me and extract this one. Thanks....and if you can...if you have any interesting quotes or sayings....please...mail them to me. I'll add them to this list. Also my sig file contains my home address and Phone #: This is where I will be during the summer. If any of you are from long Island...give me a call... Maybe we can hang. ___________________________________________________________________________ |In Lizards, Frogs and Snakes, |You can labour ten years under a master | |Thom 'Walrus' Elliott |Trying to discern whether his teachings | |(B.I.G.S.H.I.T.) | are true. | |Brother in General #433 235247 |But all you might find is this: | |Section 89 Scapegoat@large |One must live one's own life. | |Xi Ho Epsilon Zeta |_________________________________________| |Alpha Beta Chi Phi |Home Address:(I'm not here during school)| |Epsilon Mu Mu Chi |70 Joludow Drive | |Alpha Gamma Chi Mu Omicron |Massapequa Park, Ny, 11762 | |Beta Beta | (516) 798-5861 | |Life Member #14851 |E-mail: elliottg@snyoneva.cc.oneonta.edu | |_______________________________|_________________________________________| |"I love Alpha Phi Omega, |Practice Random Kindness and | Smile you | | it's my chapters I hate!" |Senseless acts of Beauty. | F*ck! | |_______________________________|_____________________________|___________| |There are two kinds of people in this world. There are those people who | |never lie, and there are those people who say that they never lie. | |The real question is: Which kind of person are you? -Thom Elliott | |_________________________________________________________________________| Intresting sayings file as compiled by Thomas G. Elliott et al: I have a plan so cunning that if you put a tail on it, you'd call it a weasel. -Black Adder III There is a theory that says that if anyone ever found out what the universe is for and why it exists, it would be instantly destroyed and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory that says that this has already happened. -Douglas Adams (The Restaraunt at the End of the Universe) The key to finding something is to look where it is. -Tigger I have looked in so many places that I am sure I am closer to its being found than it being lost. -Winnie the Pooh There is nothing you must be. And there is nothing you must do. There is really nothing you must have. And there is nothing you must know. There is really nothing you must become. However, it helps to understand that fire burns, and when it rains, the earth gets wet . . . whatever, there are consequences. -Zen Proverb And while every hello is the begining of a goodbye, just remember every goodbye is the begining of yet another hello. -Leo Buscaglia Baldrick: but Blackadder, I have been with your family for ages. Black Adder: so has syphilis Baldrick, get out. -Black Adder II You can't fight in here, this is the war room. -Dr. Strangelove Between two evils, I allways pick the one I haven't tried before. -Mae West It takes two people to make love, but it only takes one to have sex. -Adam Clayton -U2 Sometimes I feel like a pelican because everywhere I turn, there is an enourmous bill in front of me. -Black Adder III I you gave him a penny for his thoughts, you'd have change coming. -Buster Bunny You can go backwards into the future. -120 minutes We did some unspeakable things. Hmm speak a few. -Shin Kazama Why is it that we never know when love begins but we always know when it ends. -Steve Martin A new theory on Madonna: I think she likes to shock. -The Dem Help me, help me, I've been hyp-mo-tised. -David Letterman Oh hum bug for you, and a humbug for you Baldrick. -Blackadder I'm looking over a three leaf clover that I overlooked be three.... -Bugs Bunny Madonna is so hot she'd give a dog a bone. -Wayne Cambell Have fun but don't work too hard - leave some things undiscovered for future generations. Wagner's music is better than it sounds -Mark Twain No one will ever use more than 640k. -Bill Gates, 1981 Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play? Kennedy wouldn't have made a good boxer. He couldn't take a shot to the head. What's another word for thesaurus? If blind people wear sunglasses, why don't deaf people wear earmuffs? Use a condom. No deposit, no return. When you ship styrofoam, what do you pack it in? If a deaf man is in a forest, will a tree fall? If superman is so smart, why does he wear his underwear on the outside? Why does there seem to be a direct proportion between how wet and dirty a dog is and how affectionate he is? If you call a fraternity a frat, what would you call a country? Does anybody really like black licorice? I bought some powdered water once, but I didn't know what to add. Alpha Phi Omega co-ed naked service incest is best put your brother to the test give the dog a rest bow wow -Sandra Liptau To say she's fast is an understatment she can go from 0 to 69 in 5 seconds flat -Tiny Tim It's nice to be important but it's more important to be nice. Depart not from the path to which fate has assigned you. Time is precious, but truth is more precious than time. Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise. -Proverbs I let my mind wander one day and it never came back. now I'm so far behind, I think I'm ahead. -Calvin and Hobbes I understand that at times one must journey alone. but be aware that you may also need reinforcements but then again, 75% of wounded in desert storm were because of friendly fire. -Thom Elliott Write a famous saying and you will be remebered forever. -Anonymous Smile, remember if you don't smile, then somewhere in the world, someone just slipped on the ice and rolled down the hill and thru the woods to grandmother's house [pronoun] go. Where [pronoun] meet a big bad wolf that happens to be wearing grandmother's clothes. [Pronoun] tries to run out and finds that [pronoun] is trapped cause the house was built of bricks by a certain little pig that wouldn't let the wolf in. The moral of the story? Don't drink and drive. Highway: the snuggly & cuddly care bear phone: (301) 990-1075 Some believe that time is a wheel in this case, your time wil surely come. But others believe that time is a river that would mean that your time may have passed Which do you think it is? I believe that time just is. -One who waits (Northern Exposure) The rules of the playground: 1) Never taddle 2) Always make fun of those different than you. 3) Never, ever, say anything unless you are absolutely sure that everyone else is thinking the same thing. -Bart Simpson What is your name? -Jean-luc Picard What is your quest? -To seek out new life and civilization What is the average warp speed of a bird of prey? -Klingon or Romulan? I don't know that? aaaaiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! -Highway Man We can make this a better world where sky and water are free so give the hand without the gun that's the way it will be. -Asia Who wants to live forever, who dares to love forever when love must die. -Queen One night at dinner, palgrave fussily told the waiter to be particularly careful of the port because 'the old gentleman' was fastidious about his wine. When the waiter was gone, tennyson asked, 'do you mean me by the old gentleman?' at fifty-one he was sensitive about his age... -R. B. Martin Success is getting what you want- Happiness is wanting what you get. -Brother Dave Gardner Dogs laugh, but they laugh with their tails. -Max Eastman In a world where bad deeds are celebrated and good ones relegated to page 49 of the paper, when first place goes to push and shove and the cost of things is put above the cost of time together, isn't it wonderful that, from time to time, the best of us reach out and touch the rest of us? -Lois Wyse We must order our priorities carefully. The easy we will do tomorrow; the difficult we will refer to a committee. -Bill Vaughan Happiness is good health and a bad memory. -Ingrid Bergman A man without mirth is like a wagon without springs, in which one is caused disagreeably to jolt by every pebble over which it turns. -Henry Ward Beecher The pessimist says the glass is half empty, the optimist says the glass is half full, and the realist says the glass is too big. Manners are like the zero in arithmetic; they may not be much in themselves, but they are capable of adding a great deal to the value of everything else. -Freya Stark Why is it that the newspapers you spread on the floor to catch paint spills are such fascinating reading? Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the Serpent, and the poor Serpent didn't have a leg to stand on. There are two great rules of life, The one general and the other particular. The first is that everyone can, in the end, get what he wants if he only tries. This is the general rule. The particular rule is that every individual is more or less an exception to the general rule. -Samual Butler 1912 (please note that the two "he's" in the text are bracketed by 'everyone' and 'individual'. therefore we will assume mr. Butler was referring to both male and female and we don't have to be turned in to the pc police.) Have A Nice Day * * (warning: this offer expires at midnight, some restrications and limitations may apply, not valid in all 50 states, void where prohibited by law, and is non-transferable) It is the gods' custom to bring low all things of surpassing greatness. -Herodotus It is the lofty pine that by the storm is oftener tossed; towers fall with heavier crash which higher soar. -Horace The bigger they come, The harder they fall. -Bob Fitzsimons(Heavy Weight Champion 1897-1899) God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things.... right now I am so far behind that I will never die. >From the errors of others a wise man corrects his own. -Publilius Syrus(c. 1 b.c.) In executing the duties of my present important station, I can promise nothing but purity of intentions, and, in carrying these into effect, fidelity and diligence. -George Washington,(Msg to Congress, July 9, 1789) Fashion note from 1948: There'll be little change in men's pockets this year. -Wall Street Journal She said that that that that that girl used was a relative pronoun. -My Brother-in-law 'Virus' is a latin word used by the doctors to mean, Your guess is as good as mine. For every ten jokes,thou hast got an hundred enemies. -Laurence Sterne(1713-1768) ...We must first deal with the...question of what is life. Here we discover that others have preceded us and provided quite a range of answers. We consider each answer individually but we are invariably disappointed. A bowl of cherries? Too pat. A cabaret? Not in this neighborhood. Real? Hardly. Earnest? Please. -Fran Lebowitz(1978) He (Major Major's father) was a long-limbed farmer, a god-fearing, freedom-loving, law-abiding rugged individualist who held that federal aid to anyone but farmers was creeping socialism. -Joseph Heller (Catch 22. 1961) Superstition is foolish, childish, primitive and irrational- but how much does it cost you to knock on wood? -Judith Viorst All the best coaches are in the stands. -Charles M. Schulz (After 'coaches' insert 'and referees'; after 'stands' insert 'or on a couch in front of the tv' - tftd) 'A picture is worth a thousand words.' So draw a picture of the gettyburg address. -Leo Rosten I don't think the monitor should use more resources than the system being monitored. -Yoonja Hwang I used to think I was poor. Then they told me I wasn't poor, I was needy. Then they told me it was self-defeating to think of myself as needy. I was deprived. (Oh not deprived but rather underprivileged) then they told me that underprivileged was overused. I was disadvantaged. I still don't have a dime. But I have a great vocabulary. -Jules Feiffer(1965) Almost everything you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it. -Mohandas K. Gandhi We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex- but congress can. -Cullen Hightower The difference between a friend and a best friend: A friend is someone you call to help you move. A best friend is someone you call to help you move... a body. -(Heard at catch a rising star in NYC) I wish we had the hearts of children, their eyes are bright and their love is pure. We only dare to say, please love me, at the seventh glass of wine. - All about eve(Flowers in their hair) Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back, guilty of dust and sin. But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack from my first entrance in, drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning if I lack'd anything. "A guest," I answer'd,"worthy to be here"; Love said,"you shall be he." "I, the unkind, ungrateful? ah, my dear, I cannot look on thee." Love took my hand, and smiling did reply, "who made the eyes but I?" "Truth, lord; but I have marr'd them; let my shame go where it doth deserve." "And know you not," says Love,"who bore the blame?" "my dear, then I will serve." "You must sit down," says Love,"and taste my meat." So I did sit and eat. -George Herbert (1593-1633) This talk is totally opinion rich and practically fact free. -Speaker at TASSCC winter '93 conference The rule for staying alive as a forecaster is to give 'em a number or give 'em a date, but never give 'em both at once. -Jane Bryant Quinn Never lie in bed at night asking yourself questions you can't answer. -Charles M. Schulz Counter offer of free poetry in response to an ad for $10 ghost-written 'sweet nothings' for your valentine. Sample: To Michele Roses are red, violets are blue, I love you dorothy, and your little dog too. -Brent Burton As you go through life you are going to have many opportunities to keep your mouth shut. Take advantage of all of them. -James Dent I was a math major so I don't do arithmetic very well. -Speaker at TASSCC winter '93 conference TASSCC, formerly Texas Association of State Supported Computer Centers, now Texas Association of State Systems for Computing and Communications. Lots of folks confuse bad management with destiny. -Ken Hubbard If you sat a monkey down in front of a keyboard, the first thing typed would be a unix command. -Bill Lye Never argue with a fool- people might not notice the difference. Now here's something to wonder about. If teal is not really a color, are people who actually wearing it not wearing anything at all? Don't look at anything in a physics lab. Don't taste anything in a chemistry lab. Don't smell anything in a biology lab. Don't touch anything in a medical lab. And, most importantly, don't listen to anything in a philosophy department. -Bill Lye, I've always said that radio is superior to television, simply because the pictures are better! -Elliott Mitchell I like the word 'indolence'. it makes my laziness seem classy. -Bern Williams. You can tell how much our society is changing when you walk into the men's restroom and find bitnet addresses on the wall instead of phone numbers. -Fred Colunga (1944-1993) In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these. -Paul Harvey Walk the talk, not stumble the mumble. -Speaker at TASSCC winter '93 conference By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he's wrong. -Charles Wadsworth I will say this about being an optimist- even when things don't turn out well, you are certain they will get better. -Frank Hughes My grandfather invented cliff's notes. It all started back in 1912... Well to make a long story short ... -Stephen Wright He who laughs last probably doesn't understand the joke. What I've felt What I've known Never shined through in what I've shown Never free Never me We have developed a reservation system for the Titanic instead of a navigation system. -Speaker at TASSCC Winter '93 Conference I think our No. 1 problem is that nobody wants to take responsibility for anything, but don't quote me. -Randy Glasbergen Just because 'PH.D.' appears after someone's name that doesn't mean the person still can't be an idiot. -Bob O'hara Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of. -John Linnell & John Flansburgh (They Might Be Giants) Consequences, Schmonsequences...as long as I'm rich! -Daffy Duck They groom each other like chimpanzees, but they don't sing. -Larry Holdrige (1987) Let us be thankful for the fooles. But for them the rest of us could not succeed. -Mark Twain You never know when you're making a memory. -Rickie Lee Jones I suffered for months with this ringing in my ear... until I got an unlisted ear. My love is like a cabage head: Easily cut in two, the leaves I give to many, but the heart I give to you. Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans. -John Lennon Choose your friends carefully, your enemies will choose you. -Y. Arafat To die for an idea is unquestionably noble, but how much nobler would it be if men died for ideas that were true. If you carry your childhood with you, you will never become older. -Abraham Sutzkever Illigitimus non carberendum. (Don't let the bastards drag you down.) Anyone can steer a ship while the sea is calm. Sometimes Not often enough We reflect upon the good things And those thoughts always center around Those we love. And I think about those people Who mean so much to me And for so many years have made me So very happy And I count the times I have forgotten to say thank you And just how much I love them. -Felice Mancini Friend: One who knows all about you and loves you just the way you are. Unless it's fatal...it's no big deal. -John Pelizza Tear down that wall. -Phil Deluca The strongest is never strong enough always to be master unless he transforms strength into right and obedience into duty. Never will I judge you until I walk a mile in your shoes. For when we hold up a light to see anything outside ourselves more clearly, we illuminate ourselves. -Alice Walker Gene Rodenbury may be gone, but the Great Bird of the Galaxy, and his dream are with us forever. Rest in peace old man. If the sun refused to shine I would still be loving you. When mountains crumble to the sea there will still be you and me. -Led Zepplin Love is a higher elevation of understanding and understanding will rule the masses of existential beings. Let thy blood run down thy face. WORD! -Tim Richardson Suck up and deal with it babeee!!! -Michael Philip Bucci Life is made up of little pieces of shit. -Phil Delucca Will they find enough food to feed the children? Will they find enough shelter to house the homeless? Will the take Knots Landing off of T.V.? -Tim Richardson Search for the stars for theirs is the light that pierces the darkness. -Carolyn Drexler Call unto me, and I will answer you, and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know. -Jerimiah 33:3 If your enemy refuses to be humbled...Destroy him. Every disagreement in the world is a matter of definition and degree. -Kaylanis Law He who establishes his argument by noise and command, shows that his reason is weak. -Montaigne Whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, this longing for immortality- But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, unhurt amongst the wars of elements, the wrecks of matter, and the crash of worlds. -Joseph Addison (1672-1719) In many ways saying Know thyself is not well said. It were more practical to say Know other people. -Menander (343-292 Bc.) All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances. And one man in his time plays many parts. -William Shakespeare (1564-1616) (As You Like It, Act 2 Sc 7) A little bit of luck and government are necessary, but only a fool trusts in either of them... -Wild Bill Garrett's Favorite Politically Realistic Cynic When you look at the world through the bottom of a glass may you see someone ready to buy. -Irish Proverb No time for your health today; no health for your time tomorrow. -Irish Proverb It's not the things we don't know that gets us into trouble but the things we do know that ain't so. -Artemus Ward The difference between the first day of spring and the first spring day can be several weeks. I figure you have the same chance of winning the lottery whether you play or not. -Fran Lebowitz If you feel strongly about graffiti, sign a partition. An election year is when a lot of politicians get free speech mixed up with cheap talk. I don't know much about Americanism, but it's a damned good word with which to carry an election. -Warren G. Harding How many weeks are there in a light year? When a habit begins to cost money, it is called a hobby. When the people applauded him wildly, he (Phocion) turned to one of his friends and said, 'Have I said something foolish?' -Diogenes Laertius (c. 150 B.C.) Blackberries are red when they are green. We are inclined to believe those we do not know, because they have never deceived us. -Samual Johnson (1709-1784) An ignorant person is one who doesn't know something you learned yesterday. It is hard to get ivory in Africa, but in Alabama the Tuscaloosa. A dog is smarter than some people. It wags its tail and not its tongue. The purpose of all higher education is to make men aware of what was and what is; to incite them to probe into what may be. It seeks to teach them to understand, to evaluate, to communicate. -Otto Kleppner If you kicked the one responsible for most of your troubles- you wouldn't be able to sit down for a week. You can name your salary here- I call mine 'Fred'. -Ziggy Really, one should ignore one's fiftieth birthday. As anyone over fifty will tell you, it's no age at all. All the same, it is rather sobering to realize that one has lived longer than Arnold of Rugby, or Porson, the eighteenth-century professor of Greek. It's hard not to look back and wonder why one hasn't done more, or forward and wonder what, if anything, one will do in the future. -Philip Larkin People are usually more convinced by reasons they discover themselves than by those found by others. -Blaise Pascal One possible reason things aren't going according to plan is that there never was a plan. I was going to a Halloween party dressed as Christopher Columbus but I didn't want to take the Politically Correctness heat- so I am going as Hitler. When I die, I hope it's in Chicago because at least I could still vote. -Kurt Krueger Not all fairy tales start with, 'Once upon a time', some start with 'If I am elected'. Why don't 'minimalists' find a shorter name for themselves. -Ron Dippold Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. -Soren Kierkegaard Envy is the art of counting the other fellow's blessings instead of your own. -Harold Coffin You can fool some of the peole all of the time, and all of the people some of the time,... and that is sufficient. -Burr's Law Life is like a ten-speed bike.- Most of us have gears we never use. -Charles M. Schulz Timing has a lot to do with the success of a rain dance. -Lonesome Cowboy Public officials are not a group apart. They inevitably reflect the moral tone of the society in which they live. -John F. Kennedy (Message to Congress April 27, 1961) When you come to the end of a perfect day- it probably isn't over yet. Beware of triskaidekaphobia today. When you weigh the faults of others, do you put your thumb on the scale? I think there is a world market for about five computers. -Thomas J. Watson (Chairman of the Board-IBM, 1943) Why is it that people who are great at remembering a joke can't remember how many times they've already told it to you. An Ode to an Indispensable Man Sometime, when you're feeling important, Sometime, when your ego's in bloom, Sometime, when you take it for granted You're the best quailified in the room; Sometime when you feel that your going Would leave an unfillable hole, Just follow this simple instruction And see how it humbles your soul. Take a bucket and fill it with water; Put your hand in it, up to the wrist. Pull it out and the hole that's remaining Is the measure of how you'll be missed. You may splash all you please when you enter, You can stir up the water galore, But stop, and you'll find in a minute That it looks the same as before. The moral in this quaint example Is to do the best that you can. Be proud of yourself, but remember- There is no indispensable man. -Anonymous Things will be brighter tonight. A cop will shine a light in your face. It is NOT because things are difficult that we do not dare it is because we do not dare that they are difficult. -Seneca "Faith and charity are my only virtues," Tom said hopelessly. We should be thankful for the good things we have and, also, for the bad things we don't have. Another Month Ends All Targets Met All Systems Working All Customers Satisfied All Staff Eager and Enthusiastic All Pigs Fed and Ready to fly -Entry in Weekly Schedule (New Zealand Symphony Orchestra) One big advantage to telling a clean joke is that there is a good chance no one has heard it. -Robert Orben Love letters are the campaign promises of the heart. -Robert Friedman The difference in theory and practice in practice is greater than the difference in theory and practice in theory. When opportunity knocks- a grumbler complains about the noise. When a person tells you, 'I'll think it over and let you know'- you know. -Olin Miller Would you enjoy reading one of America's foremost humor publications? If so, subscribe to the Congressional Record. Having lost sight of our objective, we redoubled our efforts. If you treat people right they will treat you right- 90 percent of the time. -Franklin D. Roosevelt Definition of a gentleman: Someone who knows how to play the accordion, and doesn't. I once listed all the good things I did over the past year, and then turned them into resolution form and backdated them. That was a good feeling. -Robert Fulghum Well done is better than well said. -Benjamin Franklin ...we must first deal with the ... question of _what is life_. Here we discover that others have preceded us and provided quite a range of answers. We consider each answer individually but we are invariably disappointed. A bowl of cherries? Too pat. A cabaret? Not in this neighborhood. Real? Hardly. Earnest? Please. -Fran Lebowitz (1978) It's a great day for hockey -B.Johnson Change Begins with the Individual -M.Stipe The fashion wears out more apparel than the man. It's not the things we don't know that gets us into trouble but the things we do know that ain't so. -Artemus Ward Our job is not to use more powerful computers, our job is to use computers more powerfully. -Speaker at TASSCC Winter '93 Conference Shouldn't there be a shorter word for monosyllabic? To each according to their need, from each according to their ability. -Karl Marx Calories are little units that measure how good a particular food tastes. Fudge, for example, has a great many calories, whereas celery, which is not really a food at all but a member of the plywood family, provided by Mother Nature so that we would have a way to get onion dip into our mouths at parties, has none -Dave Barry To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children... to leave the world a bit better... to know even one life had breathed easier because you had lived, that is to have succeeded. One reason why George Washington Is held in such veneration: He never blamed his problems On the former Administration. Show me a man who is a good loser, and I will show you a man who is playing golf with his boss. -Nebraska Smoke-Eater A project not worth doing at all is not worth doing well. N O T I C E It has been reported that certain editions of dictionaries published within the past five (5) years do not contain the word, 'gullible'. Please check your dictionaries and report your findings back to me. A poor elf has been mute since birth. So, he communicates with his friends by moving his hands and so on. Now, one day he finds a potion, which he then drinks. His hands start moving faster and faster, until he disappears. The moral of the story? A mime is a terrible thing to haste. If we didn't enjoy it, we wouldn't do it -Marilyn How come you never see a headline like 'Psychic Wins Lottery.' In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life. It goes on. A man without religion is like a fish without a bicycle A different world cannot be built by indifferent people. -Peter Marshall Hello? Jim Rockford's machine? This is Larry Dooheany's machine. Will you please have your master call my master at his convenience? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Change is certain. Progress is not. -E.H. Carr The Hero died- But that isn't the end of the story. -Billboard 'Book Review' First Baptist Church, Bryan Don't buy three Reba McEntire tapes and listen to them all on the same cloudy afternoon. -Switzer's Suicide Prevention Tip of the Week She gets kidnapped. He gets killed. But it all turns out okay. -Poster for The Princess Bride If you have tried to do something and failed, you are vastly better off than if you had tried to do nothing and succeeded. Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it. -Henry Ford We are being consistently inconsistent. -Name Withheld (To protect the guilty, the innocent, the bystanders, and the snitch) If I said I didn't want what I don't have And all the answers are enough If I said I believed in myself and that's enough I'd be lying. -Sam Phillips No matter where you are, I can still hear you when you drown" -Smashing Pumpkins 3 words the English language could do without 1) Bung 2) Pizzle 3) Spatula No, no, no, no, no. We *need* spatula because then we'd have to call the thing we serve pizza with something else, like a "scooper", and then we'd have to call the thing we clean out the litterbox with a "spoon" and then we'd have to call the thing we eat soup with a "fork" and a fork a "knife" and we would be left without a word for "knife," and having a word for "knife" is *far* more important than not having one for "spatula." Get your priorities straight, man. I'll try anything three or four times. It may be an acquired taste. Did you hear the one about the man who opened a dry-cleaning business next door to the convent? He knocked on the door and asked the Mother Superior if she had any dirty habits. How do you get a nun pregnant ?? Dress her up like an alter boy... I'm standing in the middle of life with my pants behind me -The Pretenders The following is excerpted from alt.politics.correct. The names havebeen removed to protect the guilty. The point is not to think of woman as a different species but to use a word which grants men and women and equally defining role in the species. By the Sspir wharf (not the klingon) hypothosis our language to some degree determines what we can think so our words have an effect on our conceptualization (how many remeber how we thought before we spoke?) anyway humankind might be a better choice. Sometimes I use s/he and hir in my writing because I hate "they", it makes everything generic. There is actually a very good gender-neutral pronoun. It is a contraction of "He or she or it", and is pronounced "Horseshit". What's green and commutes ? An abelian grape ! No time like the present to get ripped apart -Mudhoney I'm walking home from school, and I'm watching some men building a new house, and the guy hammering on the roof calls me a paranoid little weirdo.......... in Morse code. -Emo Philips dahdidahdit dahdahdidah dahdidit dit dahdit dididididit didahdidit didahdahdit didahdit And in your mind your heart is free And in your heart your mind is free -Transvision Vamp, (I Just Wanna)B With U Do you follow through or do you have to be followed through? Sicut erat in pricipio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Amen (As it was in the beginning, is now, and shall ever be, world without end. Amen) -John Rutter Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. -Mark Twain Q: What does a furniture store give out at its grand opening? A: Stool samples. We eat oat bran in the morning so we'll live forever. Then we spend the rest of the day living like there is no tomorrow. -Lee Iacocca If a tree falls on your head in a forest and noone hears it, it still hurts. -Paul Reiser And the men who hold high places Must be the ones who start To mold a new reality loser to the heart. -Rush Quick to judge, quick to anger, Slow to understand. Ignorance and prejudice and fear Walk hand in hand. -Rush Every passing hour brings the Solar System forty-three thousand miles closer to the Globular Cluster M13 in Hercules - and still there are some misfits who insist that there is no such thing as progress. -Ransom L. Ferm Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow!!! -Fleetwood Mac Working on the new system is like owning a marvelous new guitar that promises to let me create more melodious music - but the strings keep snapping when I try to play. -Lynda Radosevich They put silver where her teeth had been Baby silvertooth she grins and grins -Belly Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger. Will evil never rest? ...I hope not -Powdered Toast Man "He is an halibut." "You've got a pet halibut?" "Yes, I chose him out of thousands. I didn't like the Others. They were all too flat." "We only use the finest baby frogs, dew picked and flown from Iraq, cleansed in finest quality spring water, lightly killed, and then sealed in succulent Swiss quintuple smooth treble cream milk chocolate envelope and lovingly frosted with glucose." "That as may be, it's still a frog." I was wondering about this, So I said to myself, "Tony. . ." -Mark Chambers Salmund Rushdie has just released a new novel entitled: "Buddha You Fat Bastard" -Kevin Nealand Gritty Kitty ain't so pretty, But it's really thick. It fills my cat box oh so snug; It always does the trick. I like to rub it on my toe And squish and squish and squish! It rare offends my tender nose, Like a smelly fish! Its texture is a joy to me, It's just as smooth as silk. It makes my little whiskers twitch; It stays crunchy, even in milk! I may not be the President, I may not be the Pope, But as long as I have Gritty Kitty, I will never mope. What has 4 legs and an arm? A happy pit bull. The first step is the hardest. -Marie Marquise du Deffand (Said to Cardinal de Polignac, when the Cardinal told her that St. Denis, after being decapitated, had picked up his head and carried it two leagues.) (Ah, Monseigneur, je croirais que dans une telle situation _il n'y a que le premier pas qui coute_.' - 'Hey Bubba, when you are in a fix like that _it is only the first step that is difficult_.') Fly Navy -- It's the most fun you can have with your clothes on. Think strategic, act tactical. No, no. It's pillage, THEN burn. Let's party. I'm on point. Quick man cling tenaciously to my buttocks!!! SHUT UP! If you ask me another stupid question I'll tear your skin off!!! Are lima beans getting smaller, or has it just been that long since I noticed? Where the f*** were you When the lights went out?! -Hole Pardon me, but I couldn't help but notice how much you remind me of Elizabeth Walton. Will you marry me? Like a grain of sand ,that's how I feel tonight In a foreign land, washed up and out of sight -The Saints Everyday I search in vain I'll do anything to have you back again -Kelly Willis I've never been too good with names But I remember faces. -Lemonheads You can judge a man by his texture, odor, and color... ...oh, wait...I'm talking about fish again, aren't I? Money is a good servant but a bad master. -French Proverb The sun is up, the sky is blue It's beautiful, and so are you -The Beatles Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing. -Abraham Lincoln Our earth is degenerate in these latter days; bribery and corruption are common; children no longer obey their parents; every man wants to write a book; and the end of the world is evidently approaching. -From an Assyrian tablet (c.1000 B.C.) Is she over me like the stars and the sun? -Pixies Happiness makes up for in height what it lacks in length. -Robert Frost Ross Perot's new book, "Not for Sale at Any Price", is now in the book stores. Of course you have to read it there. The rain falls on the just as on the unjust; but more so on the just; for the unjust has the just's umbrella -Indian Proverb No sir, I don't like it -Mr Horse I've just been reading "How We Know What isn't so" by Gilovitch (sp?) and found out where the oft quoted "over 50% of marriages end in divorce" comes from. It comes from people dividing the number of divorces by the number of marriages in a given year! It seems to me with this logic, we could divide the number of deaths by the number of births in a given year to get the probability of a birth eventually ending in death. Thus, we may find that something like: "52% of all births will end in death"!! This is great!!, I always thought it was 100%. If you were given the chance to live Your life again. . . Would you take it? -Dem As a naval officer I abhor the implication that the Royal Navy is a haven for cannibalism. It is well known that we now have the problem relatively under control, and that is the RAF who now suffer the largest casualties in the area. And what do you think the Argylls ate in Aden? Arabs? Yours, etc, Captain B.J. Smethwick in a white wine sauce with shallots, mushrooms and garlic. -Monty Python "Your Highness, you are also like a stream of bat's piss." "What?" "I mearly meant, your Majesty that you shine out like a shaft of gold when all around is dark." -Monty Python Beans!!! -Monty Python "HOLY SHIT!" said the plumber in the Vatican bathroom. Leave the town for the children -Throwing Muses If love is the stuff that hold us together, then what's the sticky stuff on the bed? -Quack Quote (I can read your minds and you should be ashamed of yourselves. You've never spilled soda?) Does love ever end when two hearts have torn away? Or does it go on and beat strong anyway? -The Breeders Extreme good-naturedness borders on weakness of character. Avoid it. Sometimes I can't help but wonder if there isn't some subtle art hidden away in pro wrestling and tractor pulls that I just can't get a handle on. I can feel your strength reinforcing mine -Roky Erickson "If not for the courage of the fearless crew, the minnow would be lost." Strikes me as somewhat ironic, considering that to the best of my recollection, the minnow was, in fact, lost. Maybe i'm just being too analytical here. I pledge allegiance to my big toe and to the foot to which it is attached. one leg (I have two) that supports me and keeps me from falling face first to the ground. I further pledge allegiance to my other big toe, and to it's respective foot. one leg, each with a foot, in front of each other, allowing me to move and dance and ride and jump. Never do anything for your chapter. They will always blame you for what goes wrong and they will never give you the credit you deserve when things go right -The Dem. Know thy enemy and know thy self and you will always be victorious. -Sun Tzu THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK. (Well, not completely blank, since the above non-empty disclaimer appears on the page. What is meant is that this page is devoid of meaningful content related to the rest of the document. This page serves only as a separator between sections, chapters, or other divisions of the document. This page is not completely blank so that you know that nothing was unintentionally left out, or that the page is not blank because of an error in duplication, or that the page is not blank because of some other production problem. If this page were really blank, you wouldn't be reading anything. This page has not been left blank by accident, but is left non-blank on purpose. The statement on the page should say "THIS PAGE WAS INTENTIONALLY LEFT NON-BLANK".) -Truth in Manuals by Michael Cook Filling out job applications is so depressing. I was filling one out the other day and I got to the part that says "Sex?" Well, I prefer to 'F', but I'm usually alone, so I had to circle 'M'. You've never served until you've stooped to help a child. To teach is to learn. The difference between loneliness and solitude is your perception of who you are alone with and who made the choice... There is no such thing as a weird human being. It's just that some people require more understanding than others... -Tom Robbins Zorba came upon an old man planting an apricot seedling and asked why he, an old man, was planting a new tree. "I live as though I would never die," was his reply. "And me, I live as though I might die tomorrow," said Zorba, "which one of us is right?" -Nikos Kazantzakis Play for more than you can afford to lose, and you will learn the game. -Winston Churchill When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the time and place that the tide will turn. -Harriet Beecher Stowe Old Chines Proverb: Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt man doing it. To laugh is to risk appearing the fool. To weep is to risk appearing sentimental. To reach out to another is to risk involvement. To express feelings is to risk exposing your true self. To place ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss. To risk love is to risk being loved in return. To live is to risk dying. To hope is to risk despair. To try is to risk failure. But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. The person who asks nothing, does nothing. Has nothing and is nothing. They may avoid suffering and sorrow, but they Cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love, live. Chained by their attitudes, they are a slave They have forfeited their freedom. Only a person who risks is free. Remember this advice: It's easy to keep your head above water. Empty things float. -Tillie Olsen Don't walk ahead of me; I may not follow. Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Just walk beside me and be my friend. -A. Camus I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve. -Albert Schweitzer Nothing makes your sense of humor disappear faster than having somebody ask where it is. -Ivern Ball Human kindness, is over flowing and I think it's gonna rain today -Bette Midler You can labour ten years under a master Trying to discern whether his teachings are true. But all you might find is this: One must live one's own life. -365Tao Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The Frumious Bandersnatch! -Lewis Carrol I love Alpha Phi Omega, it's my chapters I hate! -Thom Elliott Practice Random Kindness and Senseless acts of Beauty. There are two kinds of people in this world. There are those people who never lie, and there are those people who say that they never lie. The real question is: Which kind of person are you? -Thom Elliott Nobody likes you. Everybody hates you. You're gonna lose. Smile you fuck! -Bruce Willis I HATE QUOTATIONS. TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW. -RALPH WALDO EMERSON REQUIESCAT Tread lightly, she is near Under the snow, Speak gently, she can hear The daisies grow. All her bright golden hair Tarnished with rust, She that was young and fair Fallen to dust. Lily-like, white as snow, She hardly knew She was a woman, so Sweetly she grew. Coffin-board, heavy stone, Lie on her breast, I vex my heart alone, She is at rest. Peace, Peace, she cannot hear Lyre or sonnet, All my life's buried here, Heap earth upon it. -- Oscar Wilde *** Hier liegt ein Mann ganz obnegleich; Im Leibe dick, an Suden reich. Wir haben ihn in das Grab gesteckt, Here lies a man with sundry flaws Weil es uns dunkt er sei verreckt. And numerous Sins upon his head; We buried him today because As far as we can tell, he's dead. -- PDQ Bach's epitaph, as requested by his cousin Betty Sue Bach and written by the local doggerel catcher; "The Definitive Biography of PDQ Bach", Peter Schickele *** Found this in 'alt.personals' the other day: GWM, 24y.o.,5'9",160#,br/br,c,2"x6",sm fcl hr,UCB GSI, into 90.7,94.1,KJAZ, ST:TNG, MIDI, M.A.C., K. 626, BVD's, 16 O.P.M.'s, KTEH, R&B, R&R, Run D.M.C., BOC, 24-7 Spyz, 1970's, ACLU, NAACP, E.S.P., RCA, VHF, EPS 16+, DX7, JVC fr/p, fr/a, gr/p, gr/a,MTV, SF,PBS, CS, EE, soc.motss, etc. but no S&M, B&D, C&BT, C&W, REM,U2, ws, u/c, ff, ST:DS9 t.b, Live 105, Ice T, MX, XLR, DOS, BMW, GQ, D.C., etc. iso G*M, <27 a +, w/ sim. interests and ability to communicate. *** Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone -keynes The market is not an invention of capitalism. It has existed for centuries. It is an invention of civilization. Mikhail Gorbachev (June 8, 1990) A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg. Samual Butler (1885) The worst crime against working people is a company which fails to operate at a profit. Samuel Gompers (1908) It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own neccessities but of their advantages. Adam Smith *** The Schwine-Kitzenger Institute study of 47 men over the age of 100 showed that all had these things in common: (1) They all had moderate appetites. (2) They all came from middle class homes (3) All but two of them were dead. *** Boren's Laws: (1) When in charge, ponder. (2) When in trouble, delegate. (3) When in doubt, mumble. *** "I think every straight guy should have another man's tongue in his mouth atleast once." -Madonna, quoted in NEWSWEEK, quoting from The ADVOCATE. *** "Yeah...that's easy for you to say. You're Mr. White. You have a cool sounding name!" Steve Buscemi as Mr. Pink in _Reservoir Dogs_ *** Roses are reddish, violets are bluish. If it wasn't for Easter we all would be Jewish. *** Q: What's the difference between a quantum mechanic and an auto mechanic? A: A quantum mechanic can get his car into the garage without opening the door. *** (Found in Bill Kirby's "Piney Woods Wit" column, Gwinnett Daily News, Duluth, Ga 20 June 1991) A football coach was asked his secret of evaluating raw recruits. "Well," he said, "I take 'em out in the woods and make 'em run. The ones that go around the trees, I make into running backs. The ones that run into the trees, I turn into linemen." *** From: Sparky@mindlink.bc.ca (Gene Kruper) THE 10 IF'S YOU NEED TO KNOW TO GET ALONG AT WORK (office) 1) If it rings, put it on hold. 2) If it clunks, call the repairman. 3) If it whistles, ignore it. 4) If it's a friend, stop work and chat. 5) If it's the Boss, look busy. 6) If it talks, take notes. 7) If it's handwritten, type it. 8) if it's typed, copy it. 9) If it's copied, file it. 10) If it's friday, FORGET IT!!! *** Let's be clear. The planet is not in jeopardy. *We* are in jeopardy. We haven't got the power to destroy the planet--or to save it. But we might have the power to save ourselves. Michael Crichton "Jurassic Park" *** "Before emphasizing what I believe, perhaps I should point out what I do not believe, or what I no longer believe: I no longer believe in the magic of the spoken word. It signifies not order but disorder. It does not eliminate chaos, it only conceals it. It no longer carries men's hopes but distorts them. It has ceased to be a vehicle, only to become an obstacle. It does not signify sharing but compromise." Elie Wiersel, From the Kingdom of Memory *** "The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the bonds of Hell." -- St. Augustine *** If all be true that I do think, There be Five Reasons why one should Drink; Good friends, good wine, or being dry, Or lest we should be by-and-by, Or any other reason why. *** Hug O' War I will not play at tug o' war. I'd rather play at hug o' war, Where everyone hugs Instead of tugs, Where everyone giggles And rolls on the rug, Where everyone kisses, And everyone grins, And everyone cuddles, And everyone wins. -- Shel Silverstein *** ...................................................................... . Paul Dineen pld@fc.hp.com . . Software Technology Division (SWT) 68K Fortran project . ...................................................................... . o \ o / _ o __| \ / |__ o _ \ o / o . . /|\ | /\ ___\o \o | o/ o/__ /\ | /|\ . . / \ / \ | \ /) | ( \ /o\ / ) | (\ / | / \ / \ . ...................................................................... *** On the CS 134 midterm last term, I placed a question that asked each student to write a function "occurrences" which counted the number of occurrences of a key value in a linked list of records. In the course of marking the midterm, I noticed that some students were spelling "occurrences" wrong in their answers, even though it was given twice in the text of the question. (The only place it needed to appear in the answer was in the header of the function, and that was given in full in the statement of the question.) I asked the markers to keep track of the number of misspellings. Out of about 400 papers marked, there were more than 50 papers that spelled "occurrences" wrong. I mentioned this to the class while discussing the midterm, and told them that there would be a question on the final asking for the correct spelling of "occurrences". This brought the expected laugh: such a question would be almost as absurd as the question "When did the War of 1812 start?" asked in a history test I took in the seventh grade. On the final exam for CS 134, I placed a question that asked the examinee to write a function "occurrences" which counted the number of occurrences of a key value in a tree. Part (a) of this question read "What is the correct spelling of the word `occurrences'?". Part (b), which asked for the code for the function, used "occurrences" in its text in the same fashion as the midterm question. Out of 364 papers marked, there were 142 wrong answers to part (a). There were a number of students who spelled "occurrences" differently in their answers to part (a) and (b), but we did not keep statistics on this. Incidentally, there was one wrong answer on that Grade 7 test, out of a class of 25. -- end incl -------------------------------------------------------- When I emailed this prof to tell him I was reposting this article, I called the subject of my email "Occuren(c/s)es post" so I could avoid the above spelling mistake, not realizing that "occurrences" has *2* R's. As Popeye would say: How embarrasking! ;-) ========================= Fluffy the Wonder Bunny ============================ "Dammit, will you just die so we can be rid of you forever, you fucking purple scourge no-good worthless piece of shit son of a bitch asshole satanic brain- washing ugly did I mention mother fucking sideshow freak pedophilic...etc." -- Joel Berger, quoted from alt.tv.dinosaurs.barney.die.die.die ====================== pcalitri@descartes.waterloo.edu ======================= *** From klassa@aurxcg.aur.alcatel.com Wed Jun 9 05:36:42 1993 Subject: correct change Our candy machine has been on the fritz lately -- it takes correct change happily, but it won't return change for a full dollar no matter how much your candy bar costs. Anyway, people have been leaving little sticky-notes on the machine saying things like, "owes me $.45 -- JL -- x1984" & "didn't give change for my doller -- AB -- x9832" and so on. This morning, somebody left a sticky note that said, "NOT STUPID -- USED CORRECT CHANGE -- DOESN'T OWE ME ANYTHING." I thought it was cute... *** SCIENCE: "Why does this work?" ENGINEERING: "How does this work?" MANAGEMENT: "When will this work?" LIBERAL ARTS: "Do you want fries with that?" *** From john-t Thu Jun 10 15:42:27 1993 To: pcalitri@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca Subject: Re: Scary spelling... Cc: adam The issue is not so much "Scary spelling" as "Scary students". There are some students who, by their very nature, will refuse to get a question correct - regardless of how easy it is. I once set a final exam where the allocation of points that I was happy with came to 96 points. So I added an extra question worth 4 points, that consisted of a page of pictures of fish (from Dr Suess's "One fish two fish red fish blue fish"). The question was "How many fish are there on this page?" Incidently, just to create some post-exam mayhem, there were three different versions of the exam randomly distributed with different numbers of fish. [The students wrote their answers on the exam paper and turned it in at the end - so there was no way they could compare exams afterwards.] Some students miscounted the number of fish (there were around 20). More surprisingly, some students did not attempt the question! [Maybe this was because I had not covered counting fish in class and they did not know how to approach the question]. The was a first year Computer Science class a major University. - John Thornley *** 'Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period preceding the annual Yuletide celebration, And throughout our place of residence, Kinetic activity was not in evidence among the possessors of this potential, including that species of domestic rodent known as Mus musculus. Hosiery was meticulously suspended from the forward edge of the woodburning caloric apparatus, Pursuant to our anticipatory pleasure regarding an imminent visitation from an eccentric philanthropist among whose folkloric appelations is the honorific title of St. Nicklaus ... *** "If any word has been run into the ground in America today, it is - well, empowerment too, of course, but I mean a word that has lost its pungence not only in political discourse but also in film, literature and the streets: asshole." - Roy Blount, Jr. *** The beginning of a book review for _Berserk! Motiveless Random Massacres_ : "Graham's Chester's examination of the relatively recent phenomenon of motiveless armed massacres is certainly comprehensive. Like his subjects, he spares nothing and nobody, detailing every bullet, every squeeze of the trigger, from the first recorded case 1913 to the horrors of Hungerford in 1987, and after. All of this century's armed mass killers are represented in his hall of infamy. Not surprisingly, most are Americans." --(The London) Sunday Times, 2 May 1993 Section Six, page 6 Submitted by: jeannemu@symantec.com (Jeanne Munson) *** (found in Evelyn C. Leeper's .sig) The [Christian] supremacists who lead the anti-gay crusade are wrong morally. They are wrong because justice is moral, and prejudice is evil; because truth is moral and the lie of the closet is the real sin; because the claim of morality is a subtle sort of subterfuge, a strategem which hides the real aim which is much more secular. The supremacists don't care about morality, they care about power. They care about social control. And their goal, my friends, is the reconstruction of American Democracy into American Theocracy. --Urvashi Vaid (April 25, 1993) Submitted by: Lisa Chabot *** Ok. God created dinosaurs...God killed the dinosaurs...God created man...Man killed God...Man created dinosaurs... Now the dinosaurs will kill man, and women will inherit the earth -- Jurassic Park *** "On Wednsday when the sky is blue, and I have nothing else to do, I often wonder if it's true, That who is what, and what is who." -- A. A. Milne *** :):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):) (the following is smiley captioned for the humour impaired.) :):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):p:) *** 1 out of every 5 americans has worked for McDonalds at some time in their lives. *** "...I do solemly swear to watch only the Ren and Stimpy Show, to make underleg noises during the good scenes; to wear unwashed lederhosen every single day of the rest of my life.." The Pledge to Gain Access to The Secret Ren and Stimpy Club *** "She appears to be a bit of an adventurer, one of those peripatetic students of life who never quite earned a graduate degree, but who lucked into a good thing when she got elected in 1988 to a House where everyone gets to know your name. If Brian Mulroney has been the Sam Malone of Canadian politics, he's about to be replaced by Diane Chambers." - University of Toronto historian, Michael Bliss commenting on our new Prime Minister, Kim Campbell *** "There's a rule of performing that I've always followed, and that is: If you make a mistake in verse 1, make the mistake exactly the same way in verse 2. Then it's called jazz." - John Tesh, Entertainment Tonight co-host and pianist/composer *** From "The Sun", a downmarket U.K. daily newspaper: "Yanks 2 Planks 0" (Following the US victory over England at football - sorry, make that "soccer". The England manager, Graham Taylor, is also frequently portrayed as a turnip). Paul. *** "No. There's absolutely no scene in Jurassic Park of me in bed with a young dinosaur helping him lose his sexual innocence." - Laura Dern, who stars in Jurassic Park, disappoints her fans *** "If you're lucky, people like something that you do early and something you do just before you drop dead. That's as many pats on the back as you should expect." - Warren Zevon *** Faire de la bonne cuisine demande un certain temps. Si on vous fait attendre, c'est pour mieux vous servir, et vous plaire. [Good cooking takes time. If you are made to wait, it is to serve you better, and to please you.] Menu of Restaurant Antoine, New Orleans [Also, what we're going to be telling our customers] *** That is the key to history. Terrific energy is expended -- civilizations are built up -- excellent institutions devised; but each time something goes wrong. Some fatal flaw always brings the selfish and cruel people to the top, and then it all slides back into misery and ruin. In fact, the machine conks. It seems to start up all right and runs a few yards, and then it breaks down. - C. S. Lewis *** I can call spirts from the vasty deep. Why so can I, or so can any man; but will they come when you do call for them? - Shakespeare, king Henry IV, Part I *** We stand today at a crossroads: One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other leads to total extinction. Let us hope we have the wisdom to make the right choice. - Woody Allen *** Some people hope to achieve immortality through their works or their children. I would prefer to achieve it by not dying. - Woody Allen *** "No, it's 'Blessed are the meek.' I think that's nice, 'cause really they have a hell of a time." - someone in the crowd in "The Life of Brian" *** How many lesbians does it take to change a light bulb? Two. One to change the bulb and another to reflect on how much more gratifying it was than a man. *** I would have promised those terrorists a trip to Disneyland if it would have gotten the hostages released. I thank God they were satisfied with the missiles and we didn't have to go to that extreme. - Oliver North *** A lot of the stuff I do is so minimal, and it's designed to be minimal. The smallness of it is what's attractive. It's weird, 'cause it's so intellectually lame. It's hard to see me doing that for the rest of my life. But at the same time, it's what I do best. - Chris Elliot, writer and performer on "Late Night with David Letterman" *** "Israel today announced that it is giving up. The Zionist state will dissolve in two weeks time, and its citizens will disperse to various resort communities around the world. Said Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, 'Who needs the aggravation?'" -- Dennis Miller, "Satuday Night Live" News *** "And, of course, you have the commercials where savvy businesspeople Get Ahead by using their MacIntosh computers to create the ultimate American business product: a really sharp-looking report." -- Dave Barry *** "Ever free-climbed a thousand foot vertical cliff with 60 pounds of gear strapped to your butt?" "No." "'Course you haven't, you fruit-loop little geek." -- The Mountain Man, one of Dana Carvey's SNL characters *** "I mean, like, I just read your article in the Yale law recipe, on search and seizure. Man, that was really Out There." "I was so WRECKED when I wrote that..." -- John Lovitz, as ex-Supreme Court nominee Alan Ginsburg, on SNL *** "And kids... learn something from Susie and Eddie. If you think there's a maniacal psycho-geek in the basement: 1) Don't give him a chance to hit you on the head with an axe! 2) Flee the premises... even if you're in your underwear. 3) Warn the neighbors and call the police. But whatever else you do... DON'T GO DOWN IN THE DAMN BASEMENT!" -- Saturday Night Live meets Friday the 13th *** "If you took everyone who's ever been to a Dead show, and lined them up, they'd stretch halfway to the moon and back... and none of them would be complaining." -- a local Deadhead in the Seattle Times *** "In regards to Oral Roberts' claim that God told him that he would die unless he received $20 million by March, God's lawyers have stated that their client has not spoken with Roberts for several years. Off the record, God has stated that "If I had wanted to ice the little toad, I would have done it a long time ago." -- Dennis Miller, SNL News *** David Letterman's "Things we can be proud of as Americans": * Greatest number of citizens who have actually boarded a UFO * Many newspapers feature "JUMBLE" * Hourly motel rates * Vast majority of Elvis movies made here * Didn't just give up right away during World War II like some countries we could mention * Goatees & Van Dykes thought to be worn only by weenies * Our well-behaved golf professionals * Fabulous babes coast to coast *** "The Soviet Union, which has complained recently about alleged anti-Soviet themes in American advertising, lodged an official protest this week against the Ford Motor Company's new campaign: `Hey you stinking fat Russian, get off my Ford Escort.'" -- Dennis Miller, Saturday Night Live *** "Tourists -- have some fun with New york's hard-boiled cabbies. When you get to your destination, say to your driver, "Pay? I was hitchhiking." -- David Letterman *** "An anthropologist at Tulane has just come back from a field trip to New Guinea with reports of a tribe so primitive that they have Tide but not new Tide with lemon-fresh Borax." -- David Letterman *** "Based on what you know about him in history books, what do you think Abraham Lincoln would be doing if he were alive today? 1) Writing his memoirs of the Civil War. 2) Advising the President. 3) Desperately clawing at the inside of his coffin." -- David Letterman *** "If Ricky Schroder and Gary Coleman had a fight on television with pool cues, who would win? 1) Ricky Schroder 2) Gary Coleman 3) The television viewing public" -- David Letterman *** "You can't teach seven foot." -- Frank Layton, Utah Jazz basketball coach, when asked why he had recruited a seven-foot tall auto mechanic *** "_You are under arrest._" These are words that the common, upstanding citizen never expects to hear. However, as a Pagan or magical practitioner, you must be realistic. As the world stands, Pagans, Satanists, Witches and others deemed "radical," "non-conformist," or (in extreme cases) "dangerous to society", face the very real possibility that they may be harassed, arrested, charged with supposed crimes, or actually prosecuted for those "crimes." "Guide to Dealing with Police Harassment" Alliance for Magical and Earth Religions *** "If you really want to hurt your parents and you don't have nerve enough to be homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts." - writer Kurt Vonnegut, from a lecture to students at Stanford University *** More steel is used each year in the production of bottle caps than by the US auto industry for the production of car bodies. -"Uncle John" Javna _The Second Bathroom Reader_ *** ROMEO: Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much. MERCUTIO: No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church- door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve. *** If I kiss you, that is a psychological interaction. On the other hand, if I hit you over the head with a brick, that is also a psychological interaction. The difference is that one is friendly and the other is not so friendly. The crucial point is if you can tell which is which. -- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot" *** Non-Reciprocal Laws of Expectations: Negative expectations yield negative results. Positive expectations yield negative results. *** W: What is this? G: Just drink... [W drinks] W: A warriors' drink! [with a big smile] What is it? G: It's an Earth drink called Prune juice. [even a bigger smile]. *** Feeling small When tears are in your eyes. I will dry them off. I'm on your side. Oh when times get rough and friends just can't be found Like a bridge over troubled waters I will lay me down. Like a bridge over troubled waters I will lay me down. -Simon & Garfunkel *** "Just shoot me now or wait till I get home..." "Shoot him now... shoot him now..." "You keep out of this, he doesn't have to you now..." "Well, I say he has to shoot me now... so shoot me now!" *** "One would have to ask if the real culprit is not a society that is irresponsibly permissive, hyperinflated with sexuality, capable of creating circumstances that induce even people who have received a solid moral formation to commit grave moral acts." - Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls uses the "society is to blame" defense to explain child sex abuse by Roman Catholic priests. *** Calvin is writing..... A MILLION THINGS THAT BUG ME ---------------------------- 1. Dried-out catsup on the bottle rim. 2. Toast crumbs in the butter. 3. Mushy bananas. 4. Worms on the sidewalk. 5. Skin on pudding. 6. Making a hand gesture for quotation marks. 7. Raisins. HOBBES: "How about 'Excessively negative people'?" CALVIN: "Yeah, that's a good one..... HEY!" *** "Ah, it is a rare mind indeed that can render the hitherto nonexistent blindingly obvious. The cry, 'I could have thought of that!' is a very popular and yet misleading one, for the fact is they didn't, and a very significant and revealing fact it is too." -- Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams *** The opinions expressed herein are those of absolutely everyone at National Instruments: the management, staff, stockholders, their spouses, children, dogs, and cats. In fact, everyone in Austin also agrees. No, make that Texas. -Disclaimer by Henry B. Velick hen3ry@natinst.com *** ... "The average document is copied 19 times" in these United States." ... "Executives spend 3 hours each, each week looking for lost information." ... "Computers produce 600 million documents each day." ... "$11 Billion is spent each year on overnight delivery services." -Infoworld, June 14, 1993, p 24, 'Paperless' *** Vila: "I think I have just made the biggest mistake of my life." Orac: "It is unlikely. I would predict there are far greater mistakes waiting to be made by someone with your obvious talent for it." *** "Have you lived here all your life?" "Oh, twice that long, at least." *** THE WOMBAT The wombat lives across the seas, Among the far Antipodes. He may exist on nuts and berries, Or then again, on missionaries; His distant habitat precludes Conclusive knowledge of his moods. But I would not engage the wombat In any form of mortal combat. *** "We now sell virtually the same toys all over the world. So it stands to reason, if all these kids are playing with the same toys, how could they ever possibly fight with each other? There's a common thread about how they grow up and what they play with. I thinks that's terrific. It makes for one world." - Charles Lazarus, founder and C.E.O., Toys "R" Us, and his big plans for world peace *** "The public has long since stopped believing in the movie star as moral paragon, but an odd residue of affectionate respect clings to action stars, probably because they're men of brawn-over-brain, seemingly incapable of the treachery, duplicity and calculation associated with intelligence." -- John Connol, SPY magazine, August 1993 -- *** "Off to the National Gallery to peruse the Canadian public's latest artistic purchase, a canvas by Mark Rothko entitled 'No. 16' and bought for the highly reasonable price of $1.8 million. The picture consists of a square of white paint surrounded by some red paint. Yet, before the proletarian masses vomit their ignorance and philistinism at we art lovers, it might be worth instructing the unwashed in what this picture is really about. Its original title was 'Enormous Fucking Con Trick Played on the Stupid Bourgeois Cretins Who Run and Ruin the Fine Arts', and is actually part of a much greater and larger work aimed at revolutionizing perception and understanding. I suppose this will go above the heads of ordinary people - how tiresome they are." >From the regular feature, "Michael Coren's Diary" in FRANK magazine, Issue 147, Aug. 5, 1993. -- FRANK BY NAME, FRANK BY NATURE -- *** PENISES OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM Comparative anatomy chart (23" x 35") depicts the male copulatory organs of several animals, from man to whale. Features the finger-like appendage of the porpose penis, the extended urethra of the giraffe, and many other genitological oddities. A lithograph of rare quality suitable for framing and display, the poster includes an insert of descriptive text to complement the graphics. Whether used as an educational resource, decoration for home or office, or unique gift, 'Penises of the Animal Kingdom' will provide many hours of fascination and enjoyment. To order: Send $8.95 + $2 for P & H to Scientific Novelty Co., Box 673-K, Bloomington, IN 47402. Please allow two weeks for delivery. -- from classified ads section of Harper's Magazine, August 1993 *** "Oh, I didn't know there was actually a theory for that. Well, I'll just have to say now that there is a theory but it's incomprehensible.". -- conversation between profs about an article being sent to Econometrica which I overheard in the elevator. *** "President Clinton said today that from now on he would try to give more attention to our nation's disasters," says Jay Leno. "In fact, he said in the next few weeks he would try to attend at least one Mets game." *** And this turned up in the latest Consumer_Reports (8/93): "Every now and then we stumble across a package instruction that leaves us scratching our head... ...the real eye-opener comes from Japanese manufacturer Yamaha. While perusing the assembly instructions for his new'"Electric Grand' keyboard, a reader found a diagram showing assorted pieces of hardware and labeled with a single Anglo-Saxon word of instruction. We can't repeat the instruction in this family magazine, but we believe the company meant, 'screw.'" *** "I'm not interested in doing endorsements. I don't want to dance for chicken. I don't want to rap about soda or beer. And I don't wanna wear nobody's underwear. For me, personally, I would lose some of my integrity." - rapmeister L.L. Cool J., explaining why he won't do commercials. *** "I considered myself and still consider myself the hippest man on the planet. But I think that if you have to say that, you probably aren't, so I've never really said that." - hip Barry Manilow struggles to come to terms with his own greatness. *** "Unlike with Reagan and Bush, who seemed groomed for this kind of thing, you get the feeling with Clinton that every now and then he closes the shades to the Oval Office, locks the door and screams, 'Whoa! This is really cool!'" - comedian Mike Tilford, of The Capitol Steps *** Error is not the fault of our knowledge, but a mistake of our judgment. ... Those who cannot carry a train of consequences in their heads; nor weigh exactly the preponderancy of contrary proofs and testimonies ... may be easily mislead to assent to positions that are not probable. -John Locke "Essay Concerning Human Understanding" *** MAKE LOVE TO A GODDESS TONIGHT! The Goddess is in you. Set her free. And joyful, healthy self-love can be the key. So, treat her to the Hitachi Magic Wand. It will dispel her fears, banish her doubts, ease her yearnings. Solo, or with a co-pilot. It's the vibrator and body massager that satisfies every part of her body, from head to toe. The Hitachi Magic Wand. It's a ticket to paradise. If you don't believe us, ask a woman who owns one. Experience the magic! -------------------------------------------------- - from an ad for the sex shop Eve's Garden, making the vibratorless individual seem inadequate. *** The concept of two people living together for 25 years without a serious dispute suggests a lack of spirit only to be admired in sheep. -A. P. Herbert (Quoted by Gene Brown in Danbury, Conn, _News-Times_) *** Every man has a train of thought he travels on. His life depends on the path that train takes, the baggage it carries, and the scenery through which it travels. -anonymous poster on the ceiling of a dentist's office *** "I said, 'Well, at the least, maybe Garry'll get a lot of material out of it... We haven't really found the point of view that makes my posing nude funny yet." - Linda Doucett, who co-stars on The Larry Sanders Show with boyfriend Garry Shandling, talking about her upcoming layout in Playboy *** French Lawyers should not write cryptic comments in the margins of mathematical books. I have a wonderful proof of this, but there is not enough room in this quote. -Robert Goodwin R.A.Goodwin@umist.ac.uk (This quote is somewhat esoteric. If necessary, please consult your local mathematician or write Robert. However, don't wait 300 years to do so. tftd) *** "Plans? I have no plans. I may not even be alive tomorrow." - Imela Nogic, a 17-year-old resident of Sarajevo, and winner of the "Miss Besieged Sarajevo" beauty pageant, when asked about her future plans "Today's promotion of youth and beauty is proof that you cannot destroy Sarajevo." - The pageant's master of ceremonies, TV anchorperson Rinko Golubovic *** "..."Junkies" is an unsuitable term for intravenously challenged persons, who should be referred to as "the epidermally accessible" so as not to degrade their lifestyle. In addition, I do not like the word "dope" for the pharmaceutically liberated substances in question because it both devalues the laboatory technicians who create it and insults the intellectually original persons whose derogatory name it perpetuates. Addictive drugs of this sort should be called "non-prescription chemicals of long-term commitment potential." Doktor Kultur responding to a letter charging that "Junkie" is a degrading term used to describe people who sell their babies for drugs as well as injecting themselves in the spaces between their toes because they run out of room in their arms. Ottawa Citizen Sunday, August 1, 1993 *** "I first read and I thought, `Oh, I don't know if I can do this.' ... Everything I had ever done had the stench of art to it, one way or another." - John Malkovich, on his initial reluctance to play the bad guy in the Clint Eastwood thriller, In The Line of Fire *** "Some people think a woman's novel is anything without politics in it. Some think it's anything about relationships. Some think it's anything with a lot of operations in it, medical ones I mean. Some think it's anything that doesn't give you a broad panoramic view of our exciting times. Me, well, I just want something you can leave on the coffee table and not be too worried if the kids get into it. You think that's not a real consideration? You're wrong." - writer Margaret Atwood *** French sociologist and anthropologist Pierre Bourdieu on "theoreticist exhibitionism": Let me say outright and very forcefully that I never 'theorize', if by that we mean engage in the kind of conceptual gobbledygook that is good for textbooks and which, through an extraordinary misconstrual of the logic of science, passes for Theory in much of Anglo-American social science. There is no doubt a theory in my work, or better yet, a set of thinking tools, visible through the results they yield, but it is not built as such. It is a temporary construct which takes shape for and by empirical work. Consequently it has more to gain by confronting new objects than by engaging in theoretical polemics that do little more than fuel a perpetual, self-sustaining, and too often vacuous metadiscourse around concepts treated as intellectual totems. *** I'm a walking economy - my hairline's in a recession, my waistline is a victim of inflation, both of which is putting me in a deep depression. -M. Segal *** "Pasadena looked like a city at the bottom of a glass of sour milk. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, on the outskirts of town, was nested in the foothills near the Rose Bowl. But even at 8:30 in the morning you couldn't see the mountains through the yellow-white haze." -- Michael Crichton, RISING SUN *** "I hate to see sex on TV. It's one of my pet peeves. If I want to see someone naked, I'll have sex with them in private or marry them." - former Saturday Night Live comic Victoria Jackson *** "I got pressures, man. I've got a demanding family, an expensive life, and I'm lonesome." - the late Elvis Presley, explaining to a crony why he shot up his Ferrari when the engine wouldn't start, quoted by Barbara Holland *** "Termiter's argument that God is His own grandmother generated a surprising amount of controversy among Church leaders, who on the one hand considered the argument unsupported by scripture but on the other hand were unwilling to risk offending God's grandmother." -- Len Cool, "American Pie" *** Speaking of toilets and communication, you need to know about a TV-review column from The Daily Yomiuru, an English-language newspaper published in Japan. The column states that there's a children's TV show in Japan called "Ugo Ugo Ruga", which features "an animated character with heavy eyebrows called Dr. Puri Puri (Dr. Stinky), a piece of talking excrement that keeps popping up from the toilet bowl to express strange platitudes that only an adult can fathom." You're thinking. "Hey! Sounds like Henry Kissinger." - Dave Barry, columnist for the Miami Herald *** "If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon ... . . . ... and explode once a year, killing everyone inside." -- Robert X. Cringely, InfoWorld *** From jan Wed Sep 1 16:16:19 1993 To: adam Subject: Re: Quote of the day. and it would be too small for anyone to fit in! *** From jan Wed Sep 1 15:19:03 1993 To: adam, finley, gdavis@jove, hph, robert, rustan Subject: From David Gries >From gries@cs.cornell.edu Mon Aug 30 05:35:09 1993 Received: from thialfi.cs.cornell.edu by vlsi.cs.caltech.edu (4.1/1.34.1) id AA00930; Mon, 30 Aug 93 05:35:03 PDT Received: from CLOYD.CS.CORNELL.EDU by thialfi.cs.cornell.edu (5.67/I-1.99E) id AA15410; Mon, 30 Aug 93 08:35:05 -0400 Received: from MENGLAD.CS.CORNELL.EDU by cloyd.cs.cornell.edu (5.67/I-1.99D) id AA15463; Mon, 30 Aug 93 08:35:07 -0400 From: gries@cs.cornell.edu (David Gries) Date: Mon, 30 Aug 93 08:35:03 -0400 Message-Id: <9308301235.AA21940@menglad.cs.cornell.edu> Received: by menglad.cs.cornell.edu (5.67/N-0.13) id AA21940; Mon, 30 Aug 93 08:35:03 -0400 To: jan@vlsi.cs.caltech.edu Subject: Panama --sort of... Status: R You know the palindrome "A man, a plan, a canal, panama! Here's an extension of it. A man, a plan, a caret, a ban, a myriad, a sum, a lac, a liar, a hoop, a pint, a catalpa, a gas, an oil, a bird, a yell, a vat, a caw, a pax, a wag, a tax, a nay, a ram, a cap, a yam, a gay, a tsar, a wall, a car, a luger, a ward, a bin, a woman, a vassal, a wolf, a tuna, a nit, a pall, a fret, a watt, a bay, a daub, a tan, a cab, a datum, a gall, a hat, a fag, a zap, a say, a jaw, a lay, a wet, a gallop, a tug, a trot, a trap, a tram, a torr, a caper, a top, a tonk, a toll, a ball, a fair, a sax, a minim, a tenor, a bass, a passer, a capital, a rut, an amen, a ted, a cabal, a tang, a sun, an ass, a maw, a sag, a jam, a dam, a sub, a salt, an axon, a sail, an ad, a wadi, a radian, a room, a rood, a rip, a tad, a pariah, a revel, a reel, a reed, a pool, a plug, a pin, a peek, a parabola, a dog, a pat, a cud, a nu, a fan, a pal, a rum, a nod, an eta, a lag, an eel, a batik, a mug, a mot, a nap, a maxim, a mood, a leek, a grub, a gob, a gel, a drab, a citadel, a total, a cedar, a tap, a gag, a rat, a manor, a bar, a gal, a cola, a pap, a yaw, a tab, a raj, a gab, a nag, a pagan, a bag, a jar, a bat, a way, a papa, a local, a gar, a baron, a mat, a rag, a gap, a tar, a decal, a tot, a led, a tic, a bard, a leg, a bog, a burg, a keel, a doom, a mix, a map, an atom, a gum, a kit, a baleen, a gala, a ten, a don, a mural, a pan, a faun, a ducat, a pagoda, a lob, a rap, a keep, a nip, a gulp, a loop, a deer, a leer, a lever, a hair, a pad, a tapir, a door, a moor, an aid, a raid, a wad, an alias, an ox, an atlas, a bus, a madam, a jag, a saw, a mass, an anus, a gnat, a lab, a cadet, an em, a natural, a tip, a caress, a pass, a baronet, a minimax, a sari, a fall, a ballot, a knot, a pot, a rep, a carrot, a mart, a part, a tort, a gut, a poll, a gateway, a law, a jay, a sap, a zag, a fat, a hall, a gamut, a dab, a can, a tabu, a day, a batt, a waterfall, a patina, a nut, a flow, a lass, a van, a mow, a nib, a draw, a regular, a call, a war, a stay, a gam, a yap, a cam, a ray, an ax, a tag, a wax, a paw, a cat, a valley, a drib, a lion, a saga, a plat, a catnip, a pooh, a rail, a calamus, a dairyman, a bater, a canal--Panama. --Dan Hoey, 'discovered' in 1984. *** "Mr. Sellers was very talented and sometimes would be a little difficult to correspond with because he was talking to God or to his mother - who were both somewhere else." - Blake Edwards, on working with the late British comedian Peter Sellers *** "Blake Edwards, he turmoil me. The brain, the head, and the body of Blake Edwards is the image of freedom. It is like an electrician to work with Edison." - Italian comedian Roberto Benigni, on working with Blake Edwards on the newest Pink Panther film, Son of the Pink Panther *** "If 100 doctors need to die to save over one million babies a year, I see it as a fair trade." - Father David Trosch, pastor of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Magnolia Springs, Alabama, quoted in the New York Times. Father Trosch has been criticized by his Roman Catholic superiors and others for an anti-abortion ad he designed, described as follows in the NY Times article: "Father Trosch said he designed the advertisement, which shows a man pointing a gun at a doctor who is holding a knife over a pregnant woman. Two words accompany the picture: "Justifiable homicide." " *** Babcock - Where the Last Passenger Pigeon was killed Hurley - Where Highway 51 Ends and the Fun Begins Peshtigo - Home of the Great Peshtigo Fire Sheboygan - Bratwurst Capital of the World Tomah - City of Special Events - from a list of tourist slogans for Wisconsin towns compiled by the tourism division of the Wisconsin Department of Development *** Tip to out-of-town visitors- If you buy something here in New York and want to have it shipped home, be suspicious if the clerk tells you they don't need your name and address. -David Letterman, Late Night with David Letterman *** "Thank you for your incoherent screaming." -- Leonard Cohen to a member of his audience at a recent performance in New York. *** Marxist literary critic Fredric Jameson's thoughts on the demise of high culture associated with postmodern conditions: This is perhaps the most distressing development of all from an acedemic standpoint, which has traditionally had a vested interest in preserving a realm of high or elite culture against the surrounding environment of philistinism, of schlock and kitsch, of TV series and Readers Digest culture, and in transmitting difficult and complex skills of reading, listening and seeing to its initiates. *** If you hit a man over the head with a fish, he'll have a headache for a day. But if you teach a man to hit himself over the head with a fish, he'll have headaches for the rest of his life. *** Associate with well-mannered persons and your manners will improve. Run with decent folk and your own decent instincts will be strengthened. Keep the company of bums and you will become a bum. Hang around with rich people and you will end by picking up the check and dying broke. -- Stanley Walker *** Carperpetuation (kar' pur pet u a shun), n.: The act, when vacuuming, of running over a string at least a dozen times, reaching over and picking it up, examining it, then putting it back down to give the vacuum one more chance. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" *** A normal aberration. -- Jack Herbein, spokesman at the nuclear power plant on Three Mile Island [1979] [from The Economist blow-in subscription cards] *** At any given moment, an arrow must be either where it is or where it is not. But obviously it cannot be where it is not. And if it is where it is, that is equivalent to saying that it is at rest. -- Zeno's paradox of the moving (still?) arrow *** From adam Sun Sep 12 02:42:06 1993 To: adam, khare@cco Subject: True Romance. "It is hard to say what is more dispiriting about TRUE ROMANCE, the movie itself, or the fact that someone somewhere is sure to applaud its hollow, dime-store nihilism and smug pseudo-hip posturing as a bright new day in American cinema." -- Kenneth Turan, LA Times film critic *** Why settle for ordinary sports equipment when you can get a high-impact modulus-polymer-visco-graphite version? -- Time Magazine, 9/6/93 *** Spellbound by Janet Minor I have a spelling checker, It came with my PC; It plainly marks four my revue Mistakes I cannot sea. I've run this poem threw it, I'm sure your pleased too no, Its letter perfect in it's weigh, My checker tolled me sew. *** Buying quality is like buying oats. If you want quality, you pay a litle more, if you don't care whether they've been through the horse first, they are a little cheaper. -Sign French Market New Orleans *** Q.What's the difference between Jurassic Park and IBM? A.One's a theme park full of old mechanical monsters that scare the customers and the other is a movie. Sydney Morning Herald, front page, Column 8, 1 September, 1993 (as heard on 2UE, a Sydney radio station) *** From robert Mon Sep 20 20:01:53 1993 To: adam, jan Subject: Quote "At the moment you find an error, your brain may disappear because of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and be replaced by a new brain that thinks the proof is correct." - Leonid Levin Aha! Now I have the perfect excuse! Rob ______________________________________________________________________________ Sitting on a cornflake, Waiting for the van to come From qotd-request@ensu.ucalgary.ca Tue Jul 20 04:54:58 1993 To: qotd@ensu.ucalgary.ca Subject: Quote of the day In response to the question "Will Windows NT be the death of Unix?" put forth by Open Systems Today: "I would rather gnaw my leg off, pack the bleeding stump with salt, and run in a circle on broken glass than have to deal with any Microsoft product on a regular basis." -- Dan Zimmerman, a sophomore at Vanderbilt. Submitted by: brennan@hal.com (Dave Brennan) -------------------------------------------------------------- Send quotes to qotd@ensu.ucalgary.ca Send list changes or requests to qotd-request@ensu.ucalgary.ca From @VM.USC.EDU:owner-tftd-l@TAMVM1.TAMU.EDU Thu Sep 23 06:05:56 1993 Subject: Thought For The Day Sender: THOUGHT FOR THE DAY To: Multiple recipients of list TFTD-L Reply-To: THOUGHT FOR THE DAY X-Envelope-To: adam@VLSI.CS.CALTECH.EDU Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT You've heard: >>>When the going gets tough, the tough get going.<<< 80's transmogrification: >>>When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.<<< 90's Philosopher-Musician Ann Kirschner at Cornell Med College, NYC, adds: >>>When the shopping gets tough, the tough get catalogues.<<< From qotd-request@ensu.ucalgary.ca Sun Sep 19 05:01:29 1993 To: qotd@ensu.ucalgary.ca Subject: Quote of the day "Almost from the moment of its first airing, Willie Nelson's Taco Bell commercial, "[The Woman with the] Rose Tattoo," has been regarded as one of the most intriguing texts of the post-deconstructionist era. A lively scholarly debate, however, has arisen over what philosopher Merleau-Ponty, had he lived long enough to see the invention of the zesty taco melt, might have termed the piece's thisness (ecce'ite'). Is it, as Ignosz Delerue suggests, a searing indictment of European imperialism? Is it a male cri d'horreur about impotence (note the recurring references to "soft" tacos), or does it suggest castration itself (as reflected by the early disappearance of the bus/phallus from which the hero disembarks)? Or finally, as Jacques Derrida would maintain, is the text itself utterly meaningless, and incidental by-product (sous-produit) of Nelson's overriding compulsion to make enough money to pay off his IRS debt?" - Stephen Harrigan, in the Texas Monthly Submitted by: terry (Terry Labach) -------------------------------------------------------------- Send quotes to qotd@ensu.ucalgary.ca Send list changes or requests to qotd-request@ensu.ucalgary.ca From qotd-request@ensu.ucalgary.ca Fri Jul 30 04:55:00 1993 To: qotd@ensu.ucalgary.ca Subject: Quote of the day "None of the daytime talk shows would be on the air if the states of Florida, Texas, and California didn't exist. That's where every bizarre act happens and every weird person alights." - schlock talk show host Maury Povich Submitted by: terry (Terry Labach) -------------------------------------------------------------- Send quotes to qotd@ensu.ucalgary.ca Send list changes or requests to qotd-request@ensu.ucalgary.ca From qotd-request@ensu.ucalgary.ca Wed Jul 28 05:03:05 1993 To: qotd@ensu.ucalgary.ca Subject: Quote of the day "Being head of state is an extremely thankless job." - Cokassa I, former emperor of the Central African Republic, while on trial for infanticide, cannibalism, and torture Submitted by: terry (Terry Labach) -------------------------------------------------------------- Send quotes to qotd@ensu.ucalgary.ca Send list changes or requests to qotd-request@ensu.ucalgary.ca From qotd-request@ensu.ucalgary.ca Tue Jul 27 10:40:10 1993 To: qotd@ensu.ucalgary.ca Subject: Quote of the day [ rebroadcast due to mailer problems ] "Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy." - Wendell Berry Submitted by: terry (Terry Labach) -------------------------------------------------------------- Send quotes to qotd@ensu.ucalgary.ca Send list changes or requests to qotd-request@ensu.ucalgary.ca From qotd-request@ensu.ucalgary.ca Sat Jul 24 04:57:05 1993 To: qotd@ensu.ucalgary.ca Subject: Quote of the day >From CONSCIOUSNESS EXPLAINED, by Daniel Dennett, p. 177 "The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the sea searching for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make its home for life. For this task, it has a rudimentary nervous system. When it finds its spot and takes root, it doesn't need its brain anymore so it eats it! (It's rather like getting tenure.)" Submitted by: "Eric J. Olson" -------------------------------------------------------------- Send quotes to qotd@ensu.ucalgary.ca Send list changes or requests to qotd-request@ensu.ucalgary.ca From qotd-request@ensu.ucalgary.ca Wed Jul 21 04:56:26 1993 To: qotd@ensu.ucalgary.ca Subject: Quote of the day lessons on proper husband-wife relationships... "... wives should address their spouses respectfully as 'Husband', and to avoid such demeaning endearments as 'sweet, sweeting, heart, sweetheart, love, joy, dear, duck, chick or pigsnie', as well as such egalitarian modes as the first name.". -- William Gouge, 1622, a Puritan moral theologian. Submitted by: jtgomes@acs.ucalgary.ca -------------------------------------------------------------- Send quotes to qotd@ensu.ucalgary.ca Send list changes or requests to qotd-request@ensu.ucalgary.ca From @VM.USC.EDU:owner-tftd-l@TAMVM1.TAMU.EDU Fri Sep 24 06:06:57 1993 Subject: Thought For The Day Sender: THOUGHT FOR THE DAY To: Multiple recipients of list TFTD-L Reply-To: THOUGHT FOR THE DAY X-Envelope-To: adam@VLSI.CS.CALTECH.EDU Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT * You probably wouldn't worry about what people think of you if you could know how seldom they do. -Olin Miller I think the greatest satisfaction one gets is derived from the opinion that people have about you- people who have been around you your whole life- as to your character and your compassion and your fairness, and the way you deal with people, and the way you do your job and whether you have tried to sacrifice other people for your personal benefit. In the Navy, we call it _service reputation_, and I think that's the most important thing. -Adm. Thomas Moorer *** COMMENT Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song, A medley of extemporanea; And love is thing that can never go wrong; And I am Marie of Roumania. -Dorothy Parker *** The pitcher wound up and he flang the ball at the batter. The batter swang and missed. The pitcher flang the ball again and this time the batter connected. He hit a high fly right to the center fielder. The center fielder was all set to catch the ball, but at the last minute his eyes were blound by the sun and he dropped it. -- Dizzy Dean *** OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE Mora Labs release Baby v. 2.0 Montpellier, France - Oct. 2, 1993 - Mora Labs introduces tonight Baby version 2.0, codenamed Claire, weighting 3.0 kilograms (6.6 pounds). This new female addition to Mora's product family provides whole new features. According to Karine, Vice President in charge of Product Development, "You can really see totally different features when you look at Claire's face." The smile-oriented user interface of the new release is quite not the same as the GUI (Grimace to Unknown Intruders) interface of the old version. Version 1.0 (aka Audrey) lacked the user-friendliness of Claire. "In fact, the previous version was sometimes so unpleasant that we seriously considered scrapping it and restarting from scratch," says Frederic, Vice President in charge of Developers Nurturing. But the behavior of version 1.0 was mainly due to the inexperience of the firm. Moreover, lots of users became attached to version 1.0, so it will not be replaced. According to Karine, "Version 2.0 is marketed as a complement, not a replacement." The new release includes interesting features. Some features are standards of the industry, such as the Monochannel General Purpose Audio Alarm Modulator. This subsystem generates a noise as soon as any internal or external event interrupts the background activity (sleep mode) of the CPU, regardless of the time of the day. The noise is generated through a one-channel port, and the user should train to recognize the type of alarm being sounded. A well-known problem with this standard is that there is very little difference between a Stack Overflow Alarm and an Energy Depletion Alarm, although the required corrective actions are very different. In the first case, the user should remove the corrupted buffer (known as diaper in the jargon) and insert a clean one. In the second case, the user should plug the unit's Audio Alarm Modulator into an approved Milk Dispenser. In spite of those inadequacies, there is no plan to upgrade these communication modes. Another classical device is the Nightime Alarm Probability Enhancer. This module is internally connected to the Audio Alarm Modulator and detects the middle of the night, which is usually revealed by a quite environment and a low external light level. Then it sends a signal to the Modulator, greatly increasing the probability of sounding an alarm. Users are then stirred from a boring, unproductive sleep and are interactively prompted to guess the cause of the alarm and remove it. For a better commercial differenciation, Claire includes some proprietary modules, such as the Soothing Noise Ignorer. When an alarm is sounded, users frequently attempt to deceive the unit by injecting various assuaging sounds into its audio sensors. These sounds generate a negative feedback that could silence the unit without actually removing the alarm cause, which could be dangerous. The Soothing Noise Ignorer filters these sounds out and keeps the alarm sounding. *** Drew and Kevin wish to compile a list of 'single best piece of advice the subscribers (to TFTD) have heard'. Here are the rules: 1. Send entries to Drew@DC.MHS.Compuserve.com 2. No 'Blue' stuff 3. The shorter the better. Examples: Don't do card tricks for the group you play poker with. Don't count your money in public. -Grandmother Lisenbee Robert's Rule of Order: Don't spend your gross salary. (Peers, John. _1,001 Logical Laws..._,Doubleday & Company, Inc.,1979) 4. If you get it from something published or broadcast please give credit. We don't know what we will do with the list but at least we will report on how many entries were received. TFTD *** Mathematicians are the least expensive researchers to support. All they need are pencils, paper, and a wastebasket -- and when they turn philosopher, they don't even need the wastebasket! *** If you push the "extra ice" button on the soft drink vending machine, you won't get any ice. If you push the "no ice" button, you'll get ice, but no cup. *** It is never wise to seek or wish for another's misfortune. If malice or envy were tangible and had a shape, it would be the shape of a boomerang. -Charley Reese *** Industry Fact: When Elvis Presley died in 1977 there were 37 Elvis impersonators in the world. Today there are 48,000. If the current trend continues, by the year 2010, one out of every three people in the world will be an Elvis impersonator. -Audio Village ad Oct 1993 _MIX_ magazine *** When I look back on all these worries I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which never happened. -Winston Churchill *** In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms. - Stephen Jay Gould *** Q: Pourquoi est-ce qu'il y a S.P. sur les casques des sapeurs-pompiers strasbourgeois? A: Sa prule! "-Vous m'avez pas cru, vous m'aurez cuite." - Jeanne d'Arc. Le passage a tabac nuit gravement a la sante What's worse, they're a possible breeding pair. I would think that a definite need exists for an a.t. strike team to be formed to scrub the gene pool of these possible contaminants. and soon. *** Dear Mrs, Mr, Miss, or Mr and Mrs Daneeka: Words cannot express the deep personal grief I experienced when your husband, son, father or brother was killed, wounded, or reported missing in action. -- Catch-22 *** "In a riddle whose answer is chess, what is the only prohibited word?" I thought a moment and replied, "The word chess". -- Jorge Luis Borges In the recent book Love Poems from the New Kingdom, edited by John Foster, we find a quote from Ptah Hotep from 2500 BC: "The summit of artistry cannot be reached, nor does craftsman ever attain pure mastery." *** "He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice." -- Albert Einstein *** "If any member of the family should die whilst in the shelter from contamination, Put them outside but remember to tag them first for identification purposes. Mine is the last voice that you will ever hear, do not be alarmed." - FGTH *** I quote John Bell's thinking on superdeterminism: "[Superdeterminism] involves absolute determinism in the universe, the complete absence of free will. Suppose the world is super-deterministic, with not just inanimate nature running on behind-the-scenes clockwork, but with our behavior, including our belief that we are free to choose to do one experiment rather than another, absolutely predetermined, including the "decision" by the experimenter to carry out one set of measurements rather than another, the difficulty disappears. There is no need for a faster than light signal to tell particle A what measurement has been carried out on particle B, because the universe, including particle A, already "knows" what that measurement, and its outcome, will be." *** For the advanced routines other than multiplication, the last two to four words are not reliable, as explained in the previous sections. For example, the ratio of two integers computed using the advanced division routine, the first of which is an exact multiple of the second, may not give the correct integer result. This situation should be familiar to users of Cray computers, which also uses Newton iterations to calculate reciprocals. Most anomalies of this sort can be remedied by adding a ``fuzz'' to results. *** Original Thought******************************* You've heard: >>>When the going gets tough, the tough get going.<<< 80's transmogrification: >>>When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.<<< 90's Philosopher-Musician Ann Kirschner at Cornell Med College, NYC, adds : >>>When the shopping gets tough, the tough get catalogues.<<< ***************** Additional item: >>>when the catalogues get tough, the garden gets compost.<<< -Truman Bullard ***************** Alternative item: >>>when the shopping gets tough, the tough watch the Home Shopping Network.<<< -David Stephen *** "One night when I was in high school, everybody was going to a card game, and I didn't have any money. These guys were all rich, and I told them I needed some money. So this guy Billy turned to me and, as a joke, said, 'I'll give you a hundred bucks in you let the front wheel of this Volkswagen roll over your head.' I thought about it, said, OK, lay down, and they undid the brake. Then I got the $100, went to the game and won $2,000. My friends laughed and said, 'You've gotta have meat loaf for brains to do that!'" -- rock singer, Meat Loaf, explaining how he received his moniker *** "My political philosophy is: anything smaller than me is cute; anything bigger than me is scary - elephants, the ocean, Microsoft, the IRS, the IRA, IBM, ICBMs, committees and other mobs, Rush Limbaugh." - Michael Swaine, Dr. Dobb's Journal *** [From the "Ask a Great Canadian" feature in Frank magazine: ] Q. What is Post Modernism? A. Post Modernism is a widely-misunderstood term that describes this government's ongoing efforts to modernize Canada Post. Our automated sorting methods and stamp forgery detection software are second to not many, but we're not resting on our laurels. Recent innovations in delivery systems will see the introduction of the first robotic mail carrier by the turn of the century. In 20 years, every super mailbox will be outfitted with X-Ray specs, to enable you to read your letters, and your neighbours' without tearing the envelope. - The Hon. Bobbie Sparrow *** "I think it's an appropriate 20th-century device. We live in an electronic age." -- Calipatria state prison (California) deputy chief warden, Bobbie Lynn Reed, commenting on the use of "killer prison fences" which carry lethal electric charges. The fences are being introduced into 19 U.S. prisons in an effort to save on the salaries of armed guards. *** "The ideological discussion raging in the NDP is whether it is better to have a deck chair on the Titanic or a window seat on the Hindenberg." from Hugh's Views by Hugh Arscott, in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix submitted by Sean and Theresa Wells [note for our foreign readers: in the current Canadian national election campaign, the New Democratic Party, Canada's traditional third party, is facing a life-or-death struggle for its very existence. Its drop in the public opinion polls has been substantial. Your humble editor notes a conflict of interest, as he holds a membership in the aforementioned party.] *** An average English word is four letters and a half. By hard, honest labor I've dug all the large words out of my vocabulary and shaved it down till the average is three and a half... - Mark Twain *** [From Details Magazine:] "AIDS education has entered the Nintendo age in Japan, where a computer game designed to simulate the experience of contracting HIV has recently gone on the market. The central character of Jinai Seijin (Saint of Godly Love) is a twenty-five-year-old salaryman who decides to visit a prostitute while his girlfriend is out of town. In a series of detailed scenes, the game follows his progress from testing and diagnosis to a variety of outcomes, including promiscuity, suicide, and a life of mutual support with a girlfriend who is also HIV-positive. Medic, the Osaka-based software company that produces Jinai Seijin, says the game is intended to be "entertaining and informative." A second installment is in the works." *** "Instead of *downsizing* our military, we should be working overtime at building up a strong and effective military defense--not so much for the threat of outside our borders, although that threat still exists, but for the threat to our own. Declare martial law throughout the United States. The military and police working hand in hand could take back our streets from the thugs, thieves, gangs, drug dealers, punks, rapists, and murderers." from an editorial in _The_Informant_, official publication of the San Diego Officers Association (as quoted in _The_Realist_) *** "During the two-hour break between Metallica and Guns 'n' Roses, no one will be allowed to leave and re-enter the Kingdome. In the past the crowd has become very rambunctious while waiting for Axl Rose. To entertain the crowd, the promoters have initiated what is known as 'Show Me Your Tits.' Females will be boosted onto the shoulders of their companions, where they will expose their breasts to a camera that projects the image onto a big screen. This form of entertainment has served to keep the crowd in check." - from a memo distributed by the Seattle Police Department in October 1992 to officers who were scheduled for duty at the Kingdome during a heavy metal concert. The above "entertainment" was cancelled after the memo was made public. *** "At some point in the mid-Seventies, American academics stopped buying ugly Volkswagens and started buying ugly Volvos (a few nonconformists opted for ugly Saabs). On the surface there seems to be an obvious explanation for this shift: graduate-student stipends gave way to the more generous salaries of assistant and associate professorships, and growing families requires more than a rudimentary backseat. But the question remains, why Volvos? Why not Oldsmobiles, or Chryslers, or Mercury station wagons? "The answer, I think, is that Volvos provide a solution to a dilemma facing many academics - how to enjoy the benefits of increasing affluence while simultaneously maintaining the proper attitude of disdain toward the goods that affluence brings. In the context of this dilemma, the ugliness of the Volvo becomes its most attractive feature, for it allows those who own one to plead innocent to the charge of really wanting a nice car." - academic and professor Stanley Fish *** "The difference between me and the TV Jerry is sort of like that Nice n' Easy hair coloring. The TV Jerry is me, only better.... All comedians are cranky. I never met a funny person who wasn't. To be funny, you've got to be cranky. Now, I'm a contented person, but a thousand and one things irritate me. That's why New York produces good comedians. It's that constant chafing. If you've got a comedic bent, New York's going to provide you with plenty of ammo. The place is a gymnasium of irritation." - comic Jerry Seinfeld *** "It celebrated Canadian culture. Yecchh!! Who wants to celebrate anything on TV? What, are we all voting NDP now? It was a civil servant's concept of what a Canadian show should be, bound in duty. But people don't watch TV out of a sense of duty, they watch for fun. So, I'm here to bring a note of free-market private sector hedonism to the show." -- Mark Breslin, speaking of the past season of "Friday Night! With Ralph Benmergui", CBC's flagship entertainment show. Mr. Breslin, of the famed?? Yuk-Yuk's comedy club chain, is the new producer of "Friday Night!" *** "There's an unwholesome symbiosis among them. I think the kid is not a separate individual. I think he's like an arm - and arms don't get to decide what they do, the head does..." - psychiatrist Irvin Wolkoff, in an interview published in Sportweek Toronto, talking about hockey star Eric Lindros. Eric's mother Bonnie has filed a complaint with the College of Physicians and Surgeons, claiming that Wolkoff had rendered a diagnosis without performing a proper examination. *** "Midlife crisis is no different from adolescence except that your face doesn't break out and you have more money." - Howell Raines, author of Fly Fishing Through the Midlife Crisis *** "My only interest in newspaper work, I discovered in six months, was the chance to stay up late at night, and the chance to hang around with old reporters and try to smoke cigarettes and drink whisky as expertly as they did." - Garrison Keillor, on his short career as a reporter with the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press *** "Election is the time to create a better government. The best government is Nature's Government - Natural Law - which governs our universe with perfect order and without a problem. "Natural Law governs all life from the galaxies to our solar system to our planet earth, and certainly our individual lives are also governed by Natural Law. "I have the knowledge to bring the support of Natural Law to my dear Canadians and my dear Canada. I will establish a group of 7,00 experts who will practise Transcendental Meditation and Yogic Flying. This group will radiate positivity and harmony throughout the nation and create a unified national consciousness. "Then national life will be in harmony with Natural Law, and every Canadian will enjoy peace, happiness, and prosperity." - from the beginning of a newspaper ad by Dr. Neil Paterson, leader of the Natural Law Party. The party, which is running in the current Canadian election campaign, is the political wing of the Transcendental Meditation cult. Paterson is described in the ad as "Custodian of the Constitution of the Universe", and "Ambassador of the Government of Nature". [editor's note: I have a vested interest in making all Canadian political parties but my own look bad. :-) ] *** "There are some things the general public does not need to know and shouldn't. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows." - Katherine Graham, owner of the _Washington Post_ (quoted by Joel Bleifuss in _In these times_, Feb 19-25, 1992) *** "It might be argued that since the primary complaint against pornography is the trivialization of women as sex objects, then landscape photography cannot be pornographic because landforms _are_ objects and the content of these images is not sexual. What this argument truly reveals, however, is the depth of our cultural sickness." - Jose Knighton offers his, ah, unique, view of the links between pornography and landscape photography, in the Spring 1993 issue of Wild Earth. *** "To speak of "limits to growth" under a capitalistic market economy is as meaningless as to speak of limits of warfare under a warrior society. The moral pieties, that are voiced today by many well-meaning environmentalists, are as naive as the moral pieties of multinationals are manipulative. Capitalism can no more be "persuaded" to limit growth than a human being can be "persuaded" to stop breathing. Attempts to "green" capitalism, to make it "ecological", are doomed by the very nature of the system as a system of endless growth." - Murray Bookchin, Remaking Society (1990) *** Unrestrained growth is the ideology of the cancer cell. *** The Maharishi Veda Land Theme Park - "The Pride of Canada"- will bring enlightenment to visitors as they experience higher states of consciousness. Each of the park's attractions will expand visitors' appreciation of their own infinite potential. They will experience reality and illusion, immortality and change, unity in diversity, infinity within a point, and the universe within the self. There will be thirty-three original rides and shows, including: Magic Flying Chariot Ride - Take a ride deep inside the molecular structure of a rose. Corridor of Time - Fly down through history from the beginning of creation to the end of the universe. Courtyard of Illusion - See the world's only levitating building, which floats fifteen feet above water, and discover that there is more to reality than your senses can perceive. Veda Vision - Experience a spectacular vision of the totality of life as images appear in midair. Seven Steps to Enlightenment - Feel enlightened as you visit seven wondrous pavilions radiating out like the spokes of a wheel. Your path has been carefully designed to lead you, in an entertaining way, step-by-step to enlightenment. The park's attractions will answer those eternal questions in the minds of men: "What is my connection to the infinitely expanding universe? Where is the stream of life flowing as we spiral down the corridor of time? Who am I?" - from the promotional literature for a theme park being built by the Transcendental Meditation movement in Niagara Falls, Ontario. The park was designed by magician Doug Henning. Henning and other TM members are running in the Canadian federal election, under the Natural Law Party. The have also run in provincial elections and in the last British election. *** "You probably wouldn't go out with someone like me, right?" - a sample pickup line by rap artiste Ice-T, from his upcoming book, The Ice Opinion *** o===============================o:; ,::::,*.:::::.*.:::::::::::: | Mike Jittlov - Wizard, etc |';* ';;'..`::::' `:*`:;:::::: | 902 North Maltman Avenue |;.;+, '* ```:'o o `, `::;:: | Hollywood, CA 90026-2714 |,',.::.. .' .' |\^/|:. `*:.. `* | (213) No-Human (noon to moon) |...May All Your \Y/ Good Dreams | jittlov@gumby.cs.caltech.edu |and Fine Wishes /_\ Come True:) o===============================o===============_/ \_=========== *** Before he became a hermit, Zarathud was a young Priest, and took great delight in making fools of his opponents in front of his followers. One day Zarathud took his students to a pleasant pasture and there he confronted The Sacred Chao while She was contentedly grazing. "Tell me, you dumb beast," demanded the Priest in his commanding voice, "why don't you do something worthwhile? What is your Purpose in Life, anyway?" Munching the tasty grass, The Sacred Chao replied "MU". (The Chinese ideogram for NO-THING.) Upon hearing this, absolutely nobody was enlightened. Primarily because nobody understood Chinese. -- Camden Benares, "Zen Without Zen Masters" *** Jell-O - An edible substance best comprehended as having the taste of a politician's promises and the consistency of his spine- sweet but nonexistent. -Gordon Bowker *** Thoughts on Canada's federal election - October 25/93 "The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible." - Bertrand Russell, _Marriage and Morals_ *** Your decisions say a lot about what's important to you and what kind of person you are. -Nicole Shuemr *** With respect to the Natural Law Party and the Marharishi Veda Land being planned in the Niagara Falls region...... "Even the integrity behind Marharishi Veda Land, the proposed $1.5 billion theme park at Niagara Falls, is being challenged, with the locals grumbling that the Yogi never intended to build anything, but instead was speculating on the land. The unserviced land is still empty and unkempt, like the land in India and Florida where similar theme parks were publicly suggested." ---- Ottawa Citizen, Tuesday, Oct. 12, 1993 ---- *** Just as Hieronymus Bosch set down the most diabolical and blood-curdling details with a delicacy of line and a Puckish humour which left one with a sense of the mansions of horror attendent upon Hell, so too does graduate school leave you with an intimate, detailed vision of what Hell might be like, a Hell which may be waiting as the culmination, the final product, of the scientific revolution. At the end of medicine is dope; at the end of life is death; at the end of the school year may be the Hell which arrives from the vanities of the mind. Nowhere, as in this collection of monsters, half-mad geniuses, cripples, mountebanks, criminals, perverts, and putrefying beasts is there such a modern panoply of the vanities of the human will, of the excesses of evil which occur when the idea of personal or intellectual power reigns superior to the compassions of the flesh. *** A Mexican newspaper reports that bored Royal Air Force pilots stationed on the Falkland Islands have devised what they consider a marvelous new game. Noting that the local penguins are fascinated by airplanes, the pilots search out a beach where the birds are gathered and fly slowly along it at the water's edge. Perhaps ten thousand penguins turn their heads in unison watching the planes go by, and when the pilots turn around and fly back, the birds turn their heads in the opposite direction, like spectators at a slow-motion tennis match. Then, the paper reports, "The pilots fly out to sea and directly to the penguin colony and overfly it. Heads go up, up, up, and ten thousand penguins fall over gently onto their backs. -- Audobon Society Magazine *** Time!Time! What is time? The Swiss manufacture it. The French horde it. The Italians squander it. The Americans say it is money. Hindus say it doesn't exist. Do you know what I say? I say time is a crook. -Peter Lorrie movie Beat the Devil (1953). *** "I found him to be strangely unaffected. It was just as if he'd stubbed his toe." - Christine Sehn, acquaintance of John Bobbit, who had his penis surgically reattached after his wife severed it with an 8 inch carving knife, and threw it out her car window. *** Next year the Calgary Philharmonic offers "Passion, Anger, Joy, Grief, Longing and Sorrow." So do my next-door neighbours, and free. - music critic Bernard Holland makes fun of orchestra brochures in the New York Times *** This .sig is a 3D ASCII character sterogram. Stare at it and let your eyes gradually de-focus. You should see the initials RB floating a couple of inches in front of the screen. +O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+ +O+O+O++O+O++O+O++O+O+O+O+O+O+OO+O+OO+O+OO+O+O+O+O+O+ +O+O+O++O+O++O+O+O++O+O+O+O+O+OO+O+OO+O+O+OO+O+O+O+O+ +O+O+O++O+O+O+O+O+O++O+O+O+O+O++O+O+O+O+O+OO+O+O+O+O+ +O+O+O++O+O+O+O+O+O++O+O+O+O+O++O+O+O+O+O+OO+O+O+O+O+ +O+O+O++O+O++O+O++O+O+O+O+O+O+OO+O+OO+O+OO+O+O+O+O+O+ +O+O+O++O+O++O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O++O+O++O+O++O+O+O+O+O+O +O+O+O++O+O+O++O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O++O+O+O+O+O+O++O+O+O+O+ +O+O+O++O+O+O+O++O+O+O+O+O+O+O++O+O+O+O+O+O++O+O+O+O+ +O+O+O++O+O+O+O+O++O+O+O+O+O+O++O+O++O+O+O++O+O+O+O+O +O+O+O++O+O+O+O+O+O++O+O+O+O+O++O+O++O+O++O+O+O+O+O+O +O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+O+ Richard Brodie P.O. Box 2094 Oceanside, CA 92051 *** There once was a man from Japan Whose limericks just wouldn't scan When people asked him why He replied with a sigh "Well, I'm really not sure, but I've been looking them over for quite some time now, and I think it just might possibly be because I always try to fit as many words on the very last line of my limericks as I possibly can!" *** For the first time in history a US President has increased taxes effective three weeks *before* taking office, and cut spending in the years *after* leaving it. Now *that* is a bipartisan budget policy. *** Oliver North, in a speech September 22, 1993, said: "The average term length of a member of congress is approaching 15 years, and the average term length of a convicted criminal is less than three. We've got that backward." *** After his speaking engagement in Culver City yesterday, President Clinton stopped off at the Los Angeles Air Force Base for some exercise, where he ran a few miles on a treadmill and played in a basketball game. President Clinton scored a basket early in the game, and afterwards Scott Turner, the man assigned to defend the President, had this to say "The guys in the gym are calling me Agent Horgan now [after the character played by Clint Eastwood in the movie Line of Fire] because I was assigned to the guard the President but let the shot get through." *** ENEMY WANTED Mature, North American Superpower seeks hostile nation for arms racing, third world conflicts, and general antagonism. Must be sufficiently menacing to convince Congress to fund us. Nuclear capability preferred, near-nuclear considered. Earth, anywhere. Send note and picture of tank battalions to General C. Powell, The Pentagon, Washington, D.C., U.S.A. Jordin (Peace thru Superior Firepower) Kare *** Anecdote about Angelo (Pope John XXIII) Roncalli A nuncio, where they exist, has the rank of an ambassador. While in Paris, Roncalli once said: "You know, it's rough being a papal nuncio. I get invited to these diplomatic parties where everyone stands around with a small plate of canapes trying not to look bored. Then, in walks a shapely woman in a low-cut, revealing gown, and everyone in the whole place turns around and looks -- AT ME!" *** Berkshire Eagle, October 7, 1993 page A3 (An AP story from Boston): Guns in the home found to increase risk of death ------------------------------------------------ People who keep guns at home nearly triple their chances of being murdered, usually by friends or relatives, but fail to protect themselves from intruders ... The article goes on to describe how the study was conducted, summarizes aspects of the population cross sections and conclusions of the study, and concludes with a refutation by a representative of the NRA: However, Paul Blackman, research coordinator at the National Rifle Association, criticized the study ... "These people were highly susceptible to homicide," he said. "We know that because they were killed." *** Bart: Lisa! What do you call those guys in chess that don't matter? Lisa: A blockaded bishop is of little value, but I think you're referring to a pawn. Bart: Right. I am a pawn. *** What raises my political hackles is the comfortable way in which French intellectuals now take it upon themselves to declare when and for whom history ends, how the masses can or cannot be represented, when they are or are not a real historical force, when they can or cannot be mythically invoked in the French revolutionary tradition, etc. French intellectuals always have a tendency to use "the masses" in the abstract to fuel or underpin their own intellectual positions. Now that the intellectuals have renounced critical thought, they feel no inhibition in renouncing it on behalf of the masses - whose destinies they have only shared abstractly....I think Baudrillard needs to join the masses for a while, to be silent for two thirds of a century, just to see what it feels like. British cultural theorist Stuart Hall *** "I congratulate Mr. Manning. I'm looking forward to working with him and his member." -- Canada's new prime minister, Jean Chretien, in his victory speech [NOTE to our non-Canadian readers: Mr. Chretien, with his French- Canadian accent, was really referring to working with Mr. Manning and his newly elected memberS of parliament.] *** "Andy had to stop smoking. Too many kids read the cartoon and it was time he set a good example." - cartoonist Reg Smythe, on his creation - the lovable lazy alcoholic chauvinist Andy Capp - who has given up smoking in the cartoon strip. *** "I mean, I'm sorry, but I didn't ask to put this stuff on the side of a McDonald's carton. Besides, why aren't these people objecting to the junk McDonald's is pushing as food? I felt the whole controversy was simply remnants of the whole family values baloney. These movies are people running around in bad costumes. How relevant are we being here?" - director Tim Burton, on the controversy over a merchandising campaign McDonald's "Restaurants" did based on his film Batman Returns. *** "People shouldn't think sexual abstinence is a good way of preventing diseases. That's like saying suffocation is a good way of preventing lung cancer." - comedian Dan Redican *** Join in the new game that's sweeping the country. It's called "Bureaucracy". Everybody stands in a circle. The first person to do anything loses. *** "I mean, writers don't do anything. I was always amazed that Ernest Hemingway was out on boats and fighting wars and stuff. I think that's why he wrote real short sentences. But the rest of us, all we ever do is sit and stare at the computer screen." - humourist Dave Barry, on his surprise that a television sitcom (Dave's World) was based on his life. *** The problem with trying to 'reinvent government' is this: First you have to appoint a commission to study the problem. The commission with then hire a staff. The staff will hire assistants. The assistants will ... -Adapted from a Robert Orben quote concerning 'trying to halt the growth of bureaucracy' *** "Here is a question for which I can find no sensible answer: "If it is now politically incorrect to refer to "colored" people, why is it politically correct, and indeed trendy, to use the phrase "people of color?" "What the hell is the difference between a colored person and a person of color? I must confess the fine point escapes me. Indeed, it serves to underline the goofy point that words have a life of their own and that good words can somehow become bad words through some curious alchemy of the spirit." - Canadian writer Pierre Berton *** "According to one recent study, single women who have affairs with married men are generally untroubled by feelings of guilt; by contrast, many dieters feel powerful guilt and self-loathing after succumbing to a pint of Haagen-Dazs." - from a recent Utne Reader *** "SPAM Sixteen", sung to the tune of "You're Sixteen" You're rectangular meat, ooh what a treat, Made from government ham. You're so pink, and edible, and you're SPAM. When you're glazed you're a meal, and ooh what a deal, A can costs a buck eighty-nine. You're so pink, and edible, and you're SPAM. You're so tasty, you're the best, Just how they shaped you I can't guess. You twist the key, remove the lid, Who ever said you're just for kids? When I'm out in the woods, or just want a snack, I reach for my friend in a can. You're so pink, and edible, and you're SPAM. - gleaned from the Yucks list *** In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the cat, although in this case there were three determinate states the cat could be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious. -- Schrodinger's Moggy explained (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies) [Anyone wanting a further explanation of the Schrodinger's Cat paradox should contact the editor, who can refer you to one of the large number of ex-physicists receiving qotd. -ed.] *** Thursday, Oct. 14, Victoria, B.C. I am sent by the Times to observe the trial of those four and forty courageous environmentalists who were arrested for blocking logging roads in the Vancouver rain forests this summer. All were sentenced to 45 days imprisonment and were fined between $1,500 and $3,000. As local leader Jean McPhee commented, "This is unacceptable, crazy. We are being put in prison. I can't believe it, just can't believe it." Quite so. These people are white, university educated and wear delightful mock-ratafarian woollen hats; what right does the state have to place them in jail simply because they repatedly broke the law after receiving eight separate warnings. Good God, this is little more than Nazi Germany all over again. *** "Gone are the days of catering to radical women's groups, minority groups, etc. Gone are the days of protecting these and other parasites of society." - John Tillman, the Reform Party campaign manager in Halifax West [to non-Canadian readers: the Reform Party has been waging an uphill battle to demonstrate that they are not racist, sexist, or otherwise in favour of a country run only by middle-aged white men. -ed.] *** Today's quote is from Winnipeg School Division administrator and language arts consultant Gordon Williamson, quoted in the _Winnipeg Sun_: "Insistence upon correct spelling will inhibit writing in a child. If you say every time, their spelling should be correct, they won't want to write." Nor should we expect kids to remember how to spell individual words over time - it's too much to ask of them, Williamson says, adding he personally knows of a little boy who was so damaged from learning to spell correctly that he refused to write. He even joked that his own daughter, a Grade 12 student, spells "they" as "thay." "I tease her about that," he said. *** Your life would be very empty if you had nothing to regret. *** *********************************************************** * One of the serious problems in planning against * * American doctrine that the Americans do not read * * their manuals nor do they feel any obligations * * to follow their doctrine. * * * * -From a Russian Document * * * * The reason that the America army does so well * * in wartime is that war is chaos and the * * American army practices chaos on a daily basis. * * * * -A German General Officer * * * * Let's keep up the good work, troops! * *********************************************************** -Plaque Posted in the Pentagon *** THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS: "Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth." *** "Keifer Sutherland, Charlie Sheen, and Oliver Platt play The Three Musketeers as though they were Archie, Reggie, and Jughead." - CBC Radio Calgary movie reviewer describing the new version of _The Three Musketeers_, which he claimed reduced the Dumas story to "a bunch of fraternity pranks" and compared the acting to the comic book characters noted above. The review was so vicious that the on-air staff forgot to mute their microphones and were heard laughing well into the national news broadcast. *** "The quintessential revolution is that of the spirit, born of an intellectual conviction of the need for change in those mental attitides and values which shape the course of a nation's development. A revolution which aims merely at changing official policies and institutions with a view to an improvement in material conditions has little chance of genuine success. Without a revolution in spirit, the forces which had produced inequities of the old order would continue to be operative, posing a constant threat to the process of reform and regeneration. It is not enough merely to call for freedom, democracy and human rights. There has to be a united determination to persevere in the struggle, to make sacrifices in the name of enduring truths, to resist the corrupting influences of desire, ill-will, ignorance, and fear." - Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese Dissident, 1991 Nobel Peace Prize Winner *** "The weirder you are going to behave, the more normal you should look. It works in reverse, too. When I see a kid with three or four rings in his nose, I know there is absolutely nothing extraordinary about that person." - humourist P. J. O'Rourke *** "Oh, tell those people to lighten up. I watched the Three Stooges constantly growing up and I don't go around bonking anybody." - actress Catherine O'Hara on the Disney Studio's nervous response to the film, The Nightmare before Christmas and its possible unsuitability for children. *** Another Month Ends All Targets Met All Systems Working All Customers Satisfied All Staff Eager and Enthusiastic All Pigs Fed and Ready to fly -Entry in Weekly Schedule New Zealand Symphony Orchestra *** If you don't like someone, the way he holds his spoon makes you furious; if you like him, he can turn his plate over into your lap and you won't mind. -Irving Becker *** "Commencing that Saturday and every Saturday thereafter, The Financial Times will be inserted, at no charge, into all home delivered subscribers of The Globe and Mail." - a thrilling offer from The Financial Times, June 23, 1993 *** It's not my place To run the train The whistle I can't blow It's not my place To say how far The train's allowed to go It's not my place To shoot off steam Nor even clang the bell But let the train once Jump the track.... Then see who catches hell. -On the wall of the Stationmastger's Office, Grand Central Terminal (Also seen in Korea circa 1965 at an especially appropriate moment.) *** Today's quote is from _The Brothers Karamazov_. "There are so many different ways a man may seem funny to someone else. Especially these days when everyone who has any talent seems to be morbidly afraid that he may appear ridiculous. That's why so many gifted people are unhappy." - Duncan *** "When people got angry at you, they'd yell, 'Oh, yeah? Well, food you. Suck cheese you Popsicle slurper.' Punks in passing cars would flip you the fork. Garlic would be illegal in most Southern states. Foreplay would be listed as menu selection. Vegetarians would be prohibited from becoming teachers and a lot of them would move to the Bay Area. Most suburban schools would ban home economics. Fundamentalist Christians would make meat and potatoes a religious tenet. Many sexual positions would be found to be carcinogenic. Parents would tell children not to play with their food or they'll go blind. Kids would remember the first time their mother caught them marinating." - San Francisco comic Will Durst muses on what life would be like if food were "dirty" and sex were "clean". *** I have a simple philosophy: Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. Scratch where it itches. -- A. R. Longworth *** from Digger O'Balls Funeral Parlor in Tombstone, Arizona: - you furnish the bones & we'll furnish the stones - why go around half dead when we can bury you for $49.50 - when you get shot and before you are stiff we'll be there in just a jiff - we'll be the last to let you down *** We were young and our happiness dazzled us with its strength. But there was also a terrible betrayal that lay within me like a Merle Haggard song at a French restaurant. ... I could not tell the girl about the woman of the tollway, of her milk white BMW and her Jordache smile. There had been a fight. I had punched her boyfriend, who fought the mechanical bulls. Everyone told him, "You ride the bull, senor. You do not fight it." But he was lean and tough like a bad rib-eye and he fought the bull. And then he fought me. And when we finished there were no winners, just men doing what men must do. ... "Stop the car," the girl said. There was a look of terrible sadness in her eyes. She knew about the woman of the tollway. I knew not how. I started to speak, but she raised an arm and spoke with a quiet and peace I will never forget. "I do not ask for whom's the tollway belle," she said, "the tollway belle's for thee." The next morning our youth was a memory, and our happiness was a lie. Life is like a bad margarita with good tequila, I thought as I poured whiskey onto my granola and faced a new day. -- Peter Applebome, International Imitation Hemingway Competition *** In Germany they first came for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me--and by that time no one was left to speak up. --Pastor Martin Niemoller *** Laws to Remember 1. If you dance with a grizzly bear, you'd better let him lead. (The law of "volunteering.") 2. When putting cheese in the mousetrap, always leave room for the mouse. (The law of avoiding oversell.) 3. The more you run over a dead cat, the flatter it gets. (The know-when-to-quit law.) 4. Never accept a drink from a urologist. (The law of common sense.) 5. There are days when no matter which way you spit, it's upwind. (The first law of reality.) 6. When you starve with a tiger, the tiger starves last. (The second law of reality.) 7. Whatever it is that hits the fan, it will not be evenly distributed. (The third law of reality.) 8. Never get into fights with ugly people. They have nothing to lose. (The fourth law of reality.) 9. Creativity is great, but plagiarism is faster. (The fifth law of reality.) 10. Reality is a crutch for those who can't cope with fantasy. (The law of goal-setting.) Jack Neafsey *** I've always wanted to write a scene into a mystery novel. The victim is eating Chinese, and comes to the fortune cookie. "You will be dead in five minutes," he reads to himself, munching on the cookie. "Odd kind of fortune. It seems awfully specific." Then he gets hit with massive convulsions, and collapses in a coma. Turns out the cookie was laced with strychnine. *** I'm going to Iowa for an award. Then I'm appearing at Carnegie Hall, it's sold out. Then I'm sailing to France to be honored by the French government -- I'd give it all up for one erection. -Groucho *** A man said to the Universe: "Sir, I exist!" "However," replied the Universe, "the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation." -- Stephen Crane *** "As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality." -- Albert Einstein *** "If I could go through the dorms and shoot people, exam pressures would be put into perspective." -- Professor Ralph Noble "Of course, it is very important to be sober when you take an exam. Many worthwile careers in the street-cleansing, fruit-picking and subway-guitar- playing industries have been founded on a lack of understanding of this simple fact." -- Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures "When I was in school, I cheated on my metaphysics exam: I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me." -- Woody Allen "Instead of having 'answers' on a math test, they should just call them 'impressions' and if you got a diffrent 'impression' so what, can't we all be brothers?" -- Jack Handey "Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power." -- P.J. O'Rourke *** "`The Macintosh helps students write faster and more neatly,' says English Department Chair Marlene Bosanko. `Because it's designed to work like the human brain, a student can be up and running in just a few minutes.'" - from the Tacoma Community College Catalogue *** "Was you Starsky, or was you Hutch?" - the first words spoken to actor David Soul - when he ventured out into L.A. to see the Rodney King beating trial riots - by a black person. Soul reports some trepidation on being initially approached by the man before the question was asked. (By the way, he played Hutch on the old TV cop show, "Starsky and Hutch".) *** The SEVEREST TEST of character is not so much the ability to keep a secret as it is, when the secret is finally out, to refrain from disclosing that you knew it all along. -Sydney J. Harris, Field Newspaper Syndicate *** [From: CompuServe] 'UNFAITHFULNESS WITH A COMPUTER' ALLEGED IN DIVORCE PETITION (Nov. 23) An Israeli man seeks a divorce, alleging his wife was unfaithful because of her use of "filthy computer games." The French Agence France-Press International News Service reports the unidentified man said in a written plea to a Tel Aviv rabbinical court, "My wife watches a lot of porn movies and what's more she likes to cheat on me in her thoughts by playing filthy computer games." He added, "There is no difference between a woman who has a physical relationship with other men and a woman who imagines it." The petition called the wife a "theoretical adulteress." Says AFP, "If the court accepts that the woman has committed adultery, divorce is granted automatically in Israel where rabbis have a monopoly on marriage, divorce and burial for Jews, practicing or not." --Charles Bowen *** "It hurt a lot." - John Bobbitt, upon being asked to describe "how it felt" when his penis was cut off by his enraged wife. [Thanks for the insight, John, we never would have guessed.] *** "Cooking is a sacred activity. It is an act of lovemaking. Our society is spiritually malnourished because we have abandoned the kitchen." - novelist Laura Esquivel, author of _Like Water for Chocolate_ *** BATON ROUGE, La. (Reuter) A drunken row over seasoning a Thanksgiving turkey ended in the death of a 27-year-old man from a shotgun blast, police in Louisiana said. Edward Hammond's mother-in-law's boyfriend James Alexander, 43, who had been arguing with him, shot Hammond once in the chest, police said. Hammond left his mother-in-law's house, after arguing with Alexander over the proper way to season a turkey, and returned with a handgun, Baton Rouge police said. When Hammond forced his way back into the house, Alexander shot him. Police spokesman Don Kelly said both men apparently had been drinking. Police called the shooting self-defence and no charges were filed. [another proud moment for the NRA and gun lobby - ed.] *** "As the literacy rate declines in this country, more and more people are writing books. Are we approaching the moment where more people will write books than will be able to read them?" - writer David Halberstam *** My uncle ordered popovers from the restaurant's bill of fare. And, when they were served, he regarded them with a penetrating stare. Then he spoke great Words of Wisdom as he sat there on that chair: "To eat these things," said my uncle, "You must exercise great care. You may swallow down what's solid, BUT...you must spit out the air!" And as you partake of the world's bill of fare, that's darned good advice to follow. Do a lot of spitting out the hot air. And be careful what you swallow. -Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss) From a commencement address *** "Take punctuation. When you have to take a breath, that's where the comma should go. When you light a cigarette, put a dash, and when you go to the toilet, it has to be a colon." - 18 year-old British novelist Caitlin Moran explains her elements of style *** "Long ago I discovered that about the only things cowboys and Jews have in common is that they both like to wear their hats indoors. As a Jewish cowboy from Texas who writes mystery novels, I wouldn't be caught dead without my Willie Nelson Latent Homosexual Concho Belt and bolo tie with scorpion trapped in amber. I purchased this accoutrement in the San Antonio Airport gift shop; it's been in the family about 48 hours." - musician and mystery novelist Kinky Friedman *** "I know Tinkerbell wants it. But they haven't been in hockey long enough. They are marketers. They sell products and toys." - Calgary Flames goalie Mike Vernon heaps scorn on Disney sissy Michael Eisner (of the Anaheim Mighty Ducks), who is promoting the idea of soccer-style shootouts to settle tied NHL hockey games and make them more "exciting". *** Most of us are called on to perform tasks far beyond what we believe we can do. Our capabilities seldom match our aspirations, and we are often woefully unprepared. To this extent, we are all Assistant Pig-Keepers at heart. -Lloyd Alexander The Book of Three *** "It was so easy to identify with the character. My country is full of emotionally repressed people. It's a nation of little, emotionally repressed white people living in the rain. We're a pinched little bunch." - actress Emma Thompson, describing her character in the recent film The Remains of the Day *** "And now it is a giant with bestial strength and the mind of a child." - Greek Deputy Foreign Minister Theodoros Pangalos, describing the new German nation that resulted from unification *** "'Married with Children' may be garbage in English, but dubbed into German it's brilliant." - Berlin-dwelling Canadian artist Attila Richard Lukacs on his all-night TV habits *** "He's amazing, the things he can do. It's like he's a method actor. I had one scene where I had to scold him and tell him to get off the couch. And for the whole week he was distant and cold. I couldn't understand it. Later I figured out he was using that anger for the scene. I really respect that." - actress Jane Leeves of the sitcom Frasier, on her terrier co-star Moose, who plays pet dog Eddie on the show *** "I thought you were trying to get into shape." "I am. The shape I've selected is a triangle." *** Picture of (4) little kids looking up the chimney, past their christmas stockings. Child 1: "Santa's coming." Child 2: "Santa's coming." Child 3: Just looking up the chimney. Child 4: (Looks to be the youngest of them all) "Even if reindeer could create the necessary velocity to propel a 300 pound man over 240 million houses in one evening, everyone knows the heat generated by the atmospheric friction would immediately vaporize his molecules." The ad continues to say "There comes that rite of passage of every childhood - the realization that Santa Claus violates the principal rules of physics and aerospace engineering." Family Fun (Ad for Knowledge Adventure Software) - Sept/January 1994 *** "Virtual reality will give rise, for example, to Virtual Stooge, where you can call up any episode of The Three Stooges and become the Fourth Stooge - actually experiencing the sensation of being whacked on the head with a plank by Curly. (This will be a hit primarily with men)." - Diane English's prediction for the year 2053. English is one of the creators of the sitcom Murphy Brown *** "My fire was smoking yesterday afternoon at dusk, as I sat reading the precis of a M.A. thesis. My nerves would have been quieter had I been reading a ghost story; thesis abstracts are, with very few exceptions, the least credible and most horrifying productions of imaginative literature." - Robertson Davies, _High Spirits_ *** "The first principle, when you don't know anything about the subject of a thesis, is to let the candidate talk, nodding now and then with an ambiguous smile. He thinks you know, and are counting his mistakes, and it unnerves him. ... the second principle of conducting an oral, ...is to pretend ignorance, and ask for explanations of very simple points. Of course your ignorance is real, but the examinee thinks you are being subtle, and that he is making an ass of himself, and this rattles him." - Robertson Davies, "The Ghost Who Vanished by Degrees", High Spirits *** "There's no weather or seasonal changes, no emotional or visual stimulus. You looked to the holidays to give you a sense of ritual. Kind of sad, really, the way they experience the seasons in California, walking down the aisles at Thrifty's [drugstore]. A little scary." - film director Tim Burton, on growing up in Burbank *** | Andre Pelletier | set x=1, then x^2=x | 3rd Year Electrical Engineering| (x^2-1)=(x-1) | University of Manitoba | (x+1)(x-1)=(x-1), cancel (x-1) | Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada | x+1=1, but x=1, therefore 2=1 *** "Children know that if we really valued schooling, we'd Garrett@Ingres.com pay teachers what we pay stockbrokers; if we valued books, Garrett Johnson we'd spend a little something on libraries; if we valued Always my opinions, children, we wouldn't let them be abused, manipulated, ...ect. impovershed and killed in thier beds by stray bullets." - Benjamin Barber *** "The main difference between pierced-up, tattooed people and non-pierced, non-tattooed people is that pierced-tattooed people don't care if you're not pierced or tattooed." -Unknown *** "Give us the gate key." "I have no gate key." "Fezzik, tear his arms off." "Oh you mean this gate key." *** Today there are four rules. When necessary, I will repeat the rules: When I ask a question, answer truthfully. If you answer untruthfully, you will be punished. If you don't know the answer, guess. If you guess incorrectly, you will be punished. *** Vikings? There ain't no vikings here. Just us honest farmers. The town was burning, the villagers were dead. They didn't need those sheep anyway. That's our story and we're sticking to it. *** "Oddly enough, I can relate better to Lisa Simpson than to my character on 'Herman's Head' even though Lisa's a cartoon. Her emotions and her family situation are closer to reality." -- Yeardley Smith *** "Manhood used to be an opportunity for achievement. Look at St. Francis, Mozart, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Vince Lombardi. But now people treat it as a problem to be solved." - humourist Garrison Keillor *** An excerpt from "Star Trek Submission Guidelines", a guide sent to authors interested in submitting manuscripts to Pocket Books for their line of Star Trek books. -------------------------------------------------- Some major themes to avoid: - Traveling in time to change history, learn something, rescue someone, etc. - Having a tear in the fabric of reality which could destroy the universe. - Any plot that mixes the _Next Generation_ and the original crews. - Death of a major, established crew member. - Pon farr in Spock. - Any plot which hinges on or describes in detail sexual relations (normal, abnormal, and so on). We are not interested in books that suggest anything other than friendship between Kirk and Spock or any other crew members. *** "Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all." - Adam Smith, _The Wealth of Nations_ *** "It was '58. I was driving through Palm Beach with three friends, enjoying the sights. I was doing about 5 m.p.h. when I ran into a convertible at a red light. It was just a tap, but the guy got out and said, 'How could you hit me? There are only two cars on the road!' I offered to exchange licences, but he shook his head and said, 'I'm Senator Kennedy and I'm going to run for president in 1960. I want all four of you to vote for me.' We all agreed to do so." - talk show host Larry King on meeting John Kennedy *** I once listed all the good things I did over the past year, and then turned them into resolution form and backdated them. That was a good feeling. -Robert Fulghum *** The late Chou En-lai was once invited to speculate on how the course of history would have been altered if, say Nikita Krushchev had been assassinated instead of John F. Kennedy. Chou's austere version of Marxism made him dubious about the importance of things like sheer accident and mere individuals. But in this instance he was prepared to allow that things might have been different. How different? "Well," said the mandarin Stalinist with complete gravity, "I hardly think that Aristotle Onassis would have married Mrs. Krushchev." - Christopher Hitchens in his column "Cultural Elite," Vanity Fair, December, 1993 *** "Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before," Bokonon tells us. "He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way." -- Kurt Vonnegut, "Cat's Cradle" *** "By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent. (R. Emerson)" -- Quoted from a fortune cookie program (whose author claims, "Actually, stealing IS easier.") [to which I reply, "You think it's easy for me to misconstrue all these misquotations?!?"] *** "Do you think there's some enormous force which controls our destiny?" "Yes, I do. And don't let her hear you calling her enormous..." -- Hagar the Horrible, 1/5/94 *** When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part. -- George Bernard Shaw *** "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use." -- Galileo Galilei *** "Two weeks prior to his October hospital admission, he attempted suicide by means of nicotine overdose. He placed seven 21-mg nicotine patches on his chest and began smoking cigarettes, two at a time. Prior to applying the patches, he had flushed the patch enclosures down the toilet. It was his intent to precipitate myocardial infarction, and he had planned to hurriedly remove the patches and dispose of them once he developed chest pain. He also brewed and consumed a pot of double-strength coffee. Approximately two hours into this attempt, having experienced no chest pain or other untoward symptoms, he became anxious that he might actually succeed in his suicide attempt and abruptly removed all the patches and discontinued smoking." - from a letter published in the _Journal of the American Medical Association_, written by Drs. C. Engel and A. H. Parmentier of the Milwaukee Psychiatric Hospital to warn doctors of "a new variety of drug overdose". [why would someone become anxious after mega-doses of nicotine and caffeine? - ed.] *** Nothing'll put on weight faster than Fatty Mae's Bacon 'n Egg Sandwich. Fry two or three slices of bacon in a skillet. Set aside to drain. Pour off most of the grease in the pan, but not all the little bits of bacon effluvia that get left behind. Break two eggs into the pan and scramble them over medium heat until cooked. Add two or three dollops of mayo and crumble in all of the bacon. Mix well and spread between two slices of rye bread, toasted if you prefer. - a recipe from the "Get Fat, Don't Die!" section of Diseased Pariah News, an Oakland, California-based magazine "by and for people with HIV". *** "We will not have him put down. Lucky is basically a damn good guide dog," Ernst Gerber, a dog trainer from Wuppertal told reporters. "He just needs a little brush-up on some elementary skills, that's all." Gerber admitted to the press conference that Lucky, a German shepherd guide-dog for the blind, had so far been responsible for the deaths of all four of his previous owners. "I admit it's not an impressive record on paper. He led his first owner in front of a bus, and the second off the end of a pier. He actually pushed his third owner off a railway platform just as the Cologne to Frankfurt express was approaching and he walked his fourth owner into heavy traffic, before abandoning him and running away to safety. But, apart from epileptic fits, he has a lovely temperament. And guide dogs are difficult to train these days." Asked if Lucky's fifth owner would be told about his previous record, Gerber replied: "No. It would make them nervous, and would make Lucky nervous. And when Lucky gets nervous he's liable to do something silly." Europa Times. October 1993. Reprinted in Private Eye. Today's quote is from _The Brothers Karamazov_ . The prosecutor is discussing the character of the younger brother, and contrasting it with that of the elder. "I hope that his youthful idealism and his fascination with the fundamental beliefs of the uneducated Russian masses will not turn some day, as it so often does, into a gloomy mysticism in his moral outlook and an obtuse chauvinism in his political stand - two positions that present an even greater threat to our nation than the precocious corruption, resulting from overfeeding on the unearned and misinter- preted fruits of European enlightenment, that afflicts his elder brother." Explicating this as an allegory of the last few years of Russian history is left as an exercise for the reader. *** A Russian tourist agent, asked to provide an American visitor to Russia with a wild bear hunt, bought the bear from a circus and released it in Moscow's Perdelkino Forest. The newspaper Vecernaya Moskva reported that as the hunter closed in on the prey, a postal carrier passed by on bicycle, saw the bear and tumbled off in surprise. The trained bear climbed on the bike and pedalled off, leaving the American to sue for fraud. - found in Terminal City, a Vancouver music scene rag *** As the late Richard P. Feynman once remarked (upon entering a classroom whose blackboard had been covered by someone's futile attempts to obtain the [nonexistent] third root of a quadratic equation), "What _incompetent_ did this?" *** "I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us." ... -J. R. R. Tolkein *** "I won't tour - but mind you, I said that in '89, and they said, `But, Pete, you'll make $70 million.' I said, `I'll tour.' So I don't want to be too obdurate. We'll see what happens." - rock musician Pete Townshend, on the possibility of yet another Who reunion in 1994 *** As you reach for the web, a venomous spider appears. Unable to pull your hand away in time, the spider promptly, but politely, bites you. The venom takes affect quickly causing your lips to turn plaid along with your complexion. You become dazed, and in your stupor you fall from the limbs of the tree. Snap! Your head falls off and rolls all over the ground. The instant before you croak, you hear the whoosh of a vacuum being filled by the air surrounding your head. Worse yet, the spider is suing you for damages. *** The time has come, Wolf says, to return feminism to the mainstream, to strip away its man-hating connotations, to expand it to include women who may differ on some issues -- say, abortion rights -- but who agree that women must fight for a fair share of political and financial power. Femininism has faltered, Wolf argues, because it has become en- crusted in academic jargon and poisoned by "the rhetoric of the penis as a weapon." "This is very alienating when you go home at night and the penis is your friend," she says. Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich interviewing Naomi Wolf about her new book, "Fire with Fire: the New Female Power and How It Will Change the 21st Century." December 15, 1993 *** Personally, I feel that it is well worth 75 cents or even $1 to have that unimpeachable excuse whenever I am late to anything: "I came by subway." Those four words have such magic in them that if Godot should someday show up and mumble them, any audience would instantly understand his long delay. *** Code of the West Never pass anyone along the trail without saying "Howdy". When approaching someone from behind, give a loud greeting before getting within pistol shot. After you pass someone on the trail, don't look back. It implies you distrust him. Don't ride another man's horse. Dont even _bother_ another man's horse. Never shoot an unarmed man. Never shoot a woman at all. Real cowboys are modest. A horse thief may be hung peremptorily. Never try on another man's cowboy hat. Cuss all you want, but only around men, horses and cows. -From _Way Out West_ Jane and Michael Stern *** What's a man to do when drownings exceed quota? Jan Wong Globe and Mail China Bureau Beijing China's central planners decreed this year that only 36 people should drown in the capital. Unfortunately for Sun Zhanpo, at least 47 already have. "We've exceeded the quota," Mr. Sun said with a sigh. "We're going to be criticized." Mr. Sun has the unenviable task of meeting (or, rather, not exceeding) annual drowning quotas in Beijing. He has managed to do that every year since 1988 - until now. This is the season when Chinese quota counters anxiously begin sizing up the past 12 months. Was 1993 a good year for executions? How about carbon-monoxide asphyxiation? Studying leader Deng Xiaoping's works? Pneumonia cases? Fires? "We have too many quotas," complained Yao Hong, a doctor in charge of quotas at Beijing hospitals. He waved a thick white book of quota specifications in the air. "We have quotas for 28 illnesses. Each one has 42 subquotas. You need a computer to figure it out." Beijing may be completing 15 years of capitalist-style reforms, but it hasn't given up the ghost of central planning. Stalinist-style quota fever has infected virtually every aspect of life here, the result of a cultural obsession with numbers, a bureaucratic urge to quantify and a Communist desire to control every aspect of life. What other system has at least three words for quota? Or a vice-mayor in a city of 11 million in charge of quotas for six kinds of unnatural deaths? ... Wang Yi, a government health official, grew rattled as he tried to clarify the one for food-poisoning deaths. In 1990, he said, the quota for Beijing was two, but no one died. "We didn't fulfill our quota," he said. Dr. Yao, the hospital-quota official, teased him. "What do you mean you didn't complete it? You mean people have to die?" Mr. Wang glared at him and continued. "And in 1991, we had a quota of two deaths, and we fulfilled it exactly." ... *** "Tom Cruise single-handedly breathes life back into that long-dead genre, Elvis Presley movies." - Edward Margulies and Stephen Rebello in _Bad Movies We Love_ on Cruise's performance in _Cocktail_ *** "Besides a mathematical inclination, an exceptionally good mastery of one's native tongue is the most vital asset of a competent programmer." - E. W. Dijkstra, on desirable, if illusory, traits of computer programmers *** "Well, no, I don't. What is the matter with you?" - David Letterman, when asked in a Playboy interview whether he wanted to talk about his sex life. *** Aphorism, n.: A concise, clever statement. Afterism, n.: A concise, clever statement you don't think of until too late. -- James Alexander Thom *** A friend of mine once described religion as a viral infection prone to endemic behavior, promising the gift of everlasting life to those who would commit their minds to its growth. Can intelligent people really be so naive as to beleive this? *** More from the "Less Great Art; More Nice People" department - William Faulkner's daughter Jill bitterly recalls trying to stop the great writer/tiresome drunk from proceeding on one of his jags: "It was just before my birthday and I knew that Pappy was getting ready to start on one of these boots. I went to him - the only time I ever did - and said, 'Please don't start drinking.' And he was already well on his way, and he turned to me and said, 'You know, no one remembers Shakespeare's child.'" *** >> Actually my favorite was when an anchor on KTLA asked someone at Caltech >> "I've noticed the aftershocks seem to be coming on the hour, is there any >> significance to this?" and the Caltech person replied "Yes, the Earth is >> sensitive to the fact that your news summaries occur on the hour." *** "I couldn't win at home, and I couldn't win on the road. My failure as a coach was that I couldn't think of anywhere else to play." - Former Vancouver Canucks coach and broadcaster Harry Neale *** During a game last year, Shawn Van Allen, then with the Edmonton Oilers, was involved in a collision and was dazed by the hit. After examining him, the trainer returned to the bench and told head coach Ted Green that Van Allen didn't know who he was. Green then said, "Good, tell him he's Wayne Gretzky". *** "Voice Mail is a system that has been developed to eliminate the irritation of being placed on 'hold' by large companies and re- place it with the irritation of having an electronic voice that sounds like your grandmother after an unsuccessful brain opera- tion ask you a series of multiple-choice questions that you must answer correctly if you wish to speak to an actual human being, who will place you on 'hold.'" -- from Dave Barry's 1994 calendar *** When you leave Houston Intercontinental Airport from the Mickey Leland Terminal, and fly to Dallas' Love Field and then to Oklahoma city's Will Rogers World Airport, does it bother you that all those people were killed in plane crashes? -Lynn Ashby *** It is a proven fact that the average American doesn't care about the federal budget deficit. Sometimes on the "NBC Nightly News," for fun, Tom Brokaw will say, "Next: the federal budget deficit." Then they'll show a 15-minute videotape, without sound, of a dog eating peanut butter. They never get a single phone call, because the instant Tom says, "budget deficit," the viewers grab their remote controls and switch to sleazy tabloid shows full of "news" about Roseanne Barr Arnold's husband's tattoos and the William Kennedy Smith sex-change operation. -- from Dave Barry's 1994 calendar *** "She is smart. She's been a top model for five years - that takes a lot of intelligence." - magician David Copperfield bends the Mensa rules for his girlfriend, model Claudia Schiffer *** In certain parts of the world, people still pray in the streets. In this country they're called pedestrians. -Gloria Pitzer *** Unfaithfulness in the keeping of an appointment is an act of clear dishonesty. You may as well borrow a person's money as his time. -Horace Mann *** The Feynman problem solving algorithm 1) Write down the problem 2) Think real hard 3) Write down the answer - Murray Gell-mann in the New York Times *** [wrt Mitch Kabor and the Electronic Frontier Foundation] "The foundation promotes the hope of cheap, easy and equal access to a data highway constructed along the lines of the Internet, the impromptu net- work of 1.3 million computers in 40 countries that allows roughly 30 million people to talk to one another, read E-mail, post messages, download texts (from the Library of Congress as well as from most university libraries), play chess, conduct symposia, organize political rallies, tell jokes -- all with- out having to pay tolls, receive authorization, sub- mit a financial statement, or prove that they don't smoke." Lewis Latham writing in the January 1994 issue of Harper's Magazine *** If this (Superbowl) is the ultimate game, why are they playing it again next year? -Duane Thomas 1972 Superbowl VI *** Presidents Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower did it once a week. President Kennedy did it as rarely as possible. President Carter at first did it for a full two hours each week, before the strain made him cut back. Presidents Reagan and Bush did it every two to three weeks. Bill Clinton has done it only half a dozen times since he came to power. Clearly, holding full cabinet meetings is not as attractive as it was. -- from The Economist, 8 January 1994 *** Rule 46, Oxford Union Society, London: Any member introducing a dog into the Society's premises shall be liable to a fine of one pound. Any animal leading a blind person shall be deemed to be a cat. *** This appeared in The Toronto Star in an Ann Landers column about two years ago. Sorry I don't remember the exact date, but here it is: There once was a pretty good student, Who sat in a pretty good class, And was taught by a pretty good teacher, Who always let pretty good pass. He wasn't terrific at reading, He wasn't a whiz-bang at math, But for him education was leading, Straight down a pretty good path. He didn't find school too exciting, But he wanted to do pretty well, And he did have some trouble with writing, And nobody had taught him to spell. When doing arithmetic problems, Pretty good was regarded as fine, Five plus five needn't always add up be 10, A pretty good answer was nine. The pretty good class that he sat in, Was part of a pretty good school, And the student was not an exception, On the contrary, he was the rule. The pretty good school that he went to, Was there in a pretty good town, And nobody seemed to notice, He could not tell a verb from a noun. The pretty good student in fact was, Part of a pretty good mob, And the first time he knew what he lacked was, When he looked for a pretty good job, It was then, when he sought a position, He discovered life could be tough, And soon he had a sneaky suspicion, Pretty good might not be good enough. The pretty good town in this story, Was part of a pretty good state, Which had pretty good aspirations, And prayed for a pretty good fate. There once was a pretty good nation, Pretty proud of the greatness it had, Which learned much too late, If you want to be great, Pretty good is in fact, pretty bad. *** Cruelty has a Human Heart, And Jealousy a Human Face; Terror the Human Form Divine, And Secrecy the Human Dress. The Human Dress is forged Iron, The Human Form a fiery Forge, The Human Face a Furnace seal'd The Human Heart it's hungry Gorge. - William Blake [Songs of Experience] *** Shelley quotes. "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away. *** Shelley quotes. Power, like a desolating pestilence, Pollutes whate'er it touches; and obedience, Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth, Makes slaves of men, and, of the human frame, A mechanized automaton. --from Queen Mab *** OZYMANDIAS I met a traveler from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert; near them, in the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, Whose frown and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that the sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things; The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings! Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away. *** The Demon of the Gibbet "There was no west,there was no east No star abroad for eyes to see, And Norman spurred his jaded beast Hard by the terrible gallows tree. "Oh, Norman, haste across this waste For something seems to follow me!" "Fear not, Maud, for, thanked be God, We nigh have passed the gallows tree." He kissed her lip, then, spur and whip, And fast they fled across the lea But vain the heel and rowel steel, For something leapt from the gallows tree! "Give me your cloak, your knightly cloak, That wrapped you oft beyond the sea The wind is bold, my bones are old, And I am cold on the gallows tree!" "Oh Holy God, my dearest Maud, Have you no prayer to set us free? A bony hand my neck has spanned And tears my knightly cloak from me!" "Give me your wine, the red, red, wine That, in a flask, hangs by your knee. Ten summers burst on me accurst And I'm athirst on the gallows tree!" "Oh Maud, my life, my loving wife, Quick, quick, a prayer, the best that be! My belt unclasps, a demon grasps, And drags my wine flask from my knee!" "Give me your bride, your bonnie bride That left her nest with you to flee. < This is the line I forget> And I'm alone on the gallows tree!" "Cling close, Maud, and trust in God! Cling close! Ah heaven, she slips from me!" A prayer, a groan, and he alone Rode on that night from the gallows tree. " *** A genuine revolution in values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies. This call for a world-wide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing, unconditional love for all men. This oft misunderstood and misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by the Neitzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of mankind. When I speak of love, I'm not speaking of some sentimental and weak response, I'm speaking of that force which all the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principal of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu, Moslem, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the First Epistle of John: Let us love one and other, for God is love. And everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love. If we love one and other, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. Martin Luther King April 16, 1967 Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta "Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam" *** I just started reading _Even Cowgirls Get the Blues_ by Tom Robbins and I saw this in there. "...the Earth is God's pinball machine and each quake, tidal wave, flash flood and volcanic eruption is the result of a TILT that occurs when God, cheating, tries to win free games." *** "Early religions were like muddy ponds with lots of foliage. Concealed there, the fish of the soul could splash and feed. Soon, they became more like aquariums, and then hatcheries. From farm fingerling to frozen fishstick is a short swim." - Tom Robbins Skinny Legs and All *** From A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: The artist, like the God of the creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails. *** YESSSS! Feel the force! But beware of the dark side. Once you start down that path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan's apprentice. -Yoda *** "Someplace there would be a real ax, or something just as painful, Jasonic, blade-to-meat final -- but at the distance she, Flash, and Justin had by now been brought to, it would all be done with keys on alphanumeric keyboards that stood for weightless, invisible chains of electronic presence or absence. If patterns of ones and zeros were 'like' patterns of human lives and deaths, if everything about an individual could be represented in a computer record by a long string of ones and zeros, then what kind of creature would be represented by a long string of lives and deaths? It would have to be up one level at least -- an angel, a minor god, something in a UFO. It would take eight human lives and deaths just to form one character in this being's name -- its complete dossier might take up a considerable piece of the history of the world. We are digits in God's computer, she not so much thought as hummed to herself to a sort of standard gospel tune, and the only thing we're good for, to be dead or to be living, is the only thing He sees. What we cry, what we contend for, in our world of toil and blood, it all lies beneath the notice of the hacker we call God." Thomas Pynchon, _Vineland_, pp. 90-91. *** Winston was in the middle of a lengthy speech in parliament when a thoughtful member passed a note to him advising that his fly was undone. Without breaking stride, Winston scrawled a reply on the note and continued his speech. The reply? "Dead birds don't fall out of the nest." *** this is the vogon poem from the hitchiker's guide to the galaxy. don't ask me how i got it, where i got it, or why i got it. just accept it. Oh freddled gruntbuggly, thy nacturations are to me! As plurdled gobbleblotchits on a lurgid bee. Groop I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes. And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles, or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon, see if I don't! Fripping lyshus wimbgunts, awhilst moongrovenly kormzibs, Bleem miserable venchit! Bleem forever mestinglish asunder frapt. Gashee morphousite, thou expungiest quoopisk! Gerond withoutitude form into formless bloit, why not then? Moose. *** : Pete's peeved that I pre-emptively re-post peeves. Pete presumes : he's privy to posters' passions about permitting (x-)posting. Pete presumes nothing of the sort. Perhaps if you were to turn your dictionary to the page beginning with `d' you'd realise that I was asking for that which you accuse me of assuming (damn, this is catching!) : Please pardon poor pretentious Pat. Present posterior, prepare for painful penetration. *** I believe the film (called _SOYLENT Green_, BTW) was based on the book _Make Room! Make Room!_ by Harry Harrison. *** And it's obvious you haven't experienced real trauma. I'd rather be dead than raped. First, you feel nothing - it's called shock. Then you go into denial. Then you realize it did happen and you blame yourself. Then you are ashamed. Then you may realize that it's not your fault and reach the state of anger. And if you're real lucky you'll get past the anger reach a state of just accepting it. Everybody goes through these stages at different speeds. Lot's of people will blow through some stages like a hurricane and get stuck on one stage. *** Gun control is based on the myopic concept that criminal behavior is controlled by laws. The only control that the law has on criminals is during that period of time which the criminal spends locked up behind bars. Gun control is useless. *** The correct way to punctuate a sentence that starts: "Of course it is none of my business, but --" is to place a period after the word "but." Don't use excessive force in supplying such a moron with a period. Cutting his throat is only a momentary pleasure and is bound to get you talked about. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" *** I am objecting to a (historical) model which concentrates attention upon one dramatic episode - the Revolution - to which all that goes before and after must be related; and which insists upon an ideal type of this Revolution against which all others may be judged. Minds which thirst for a tidy platonism very soon become impatient with actual history. -- E.P. Thompson in Poverty of Theory *** "It was absolutely the most disgusting thing I've ever been a part of, and I hope they ask me back next year." Janis Ian (folk singer who was one of the judges on Howard Stern's pay per view New Year's eve special) *** >From this week's _Newsweek_ magazine: Charles Barkley : "I heard Tonya Harding is calling herself the Charles Barkley of figure skating. I was going to sue her for defamation of character, but then I realized I have no character." *** "This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. This is only a test. Had this been an actual emergency, you'd be writhing on the ground in unspeakable agony, bleeding from every orifice, with your blackened skin falling away in ragged strips." *** We trained hard...but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization. -Petronius Arbiter 210 B.C. *** It was a nightmare It was a dream; It haunted me all through the night. Six girls were fighting to have sex with me, And the ugly one was winning the fight!! -- Nipsey Russell *** "Why is it whenever you break up with somebody, they always say, 'You'll never meet anyone else like me'? I should hope not! If I don't want to go out with YOU, why would I want to go out with someone JUST LIKE YOU?" -- Larry Miller *** "I am not a pheasant plucker, I am a pheasant plucker's son. And the season isn't over, Till the pheasant plucking's done" *** "Come to think of it, there are already a million monkeys on a million typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare." -- Blair Houghton *** "I'd like to thank Mum, Dad, and the rest of the family for making me the twisted, confused queen I am." - androgynous pop star Boy George, in the liner notes for his new CD, At Worst...The Best of Boy George and Culture Club *** Always write a lot more letters than you send. -Dr. Jerry Niebaum TASSCC Conference January 24, 1994 * TASSCC - Texas Association of State Systems for Computing and Communications *** "One ring to rule them all, One ring to find them One ring to bring them all, And in the darkness bind them." *** "I don't mind being called Mrs. Loaf, and I don't mind Mrs. Meat Loaf. But I hate Mrs. Meat." - Leslie, wife of 18 years to porky rocker Meat Loaf *** >From David Letterman: "I had a terrible nightmare last night. I dreamt that I was a contestant on Love Connection and my only choices were: Amy Fisher, Tonya Harding and Lorena Bobbitt." *** "Really, 'feminist' has become such a frightening word. I read some study of college students, and they ask them, 'Do you believe women should have equal pay?' 'Yes.' 'Are you a feminist?' 'No!' They're terrified of that word! What do they think it is? That there's this nebulous group of women out there, this club, who have hairy legs and are men haters? I can't be a feminist and be sexy? Oh, please, that's so '80s." - actress Geena Davis *** A vaincre sans peril, on triumphe sans glorie. (When there is no peril in the fight, there is no glory in the triumph.) -Pierre Corneille Le Cid, 1636 *** "I want to study aroma therapy, massage, and art. I want to be a jack-of-all-trades." - 16-year-old model and actress Liv Tyler redefines preparing for the competitive global economy. (Tyler is the daughter of aged rocker Steve Tyler of Aerosmith) *** January 16 is National Nothing Day, so named by California newspaperman Harold Pullman in 1973 "to provide Americans with one national day when they can just sit without celebrating, observing, or honoring anything." Coffin, who died in 1981, picked January 16 because it was the only observance-free day he could find. No longer. National Nothing Day now shares the calendar with Religious Freedom Day and World Religion Day, as well as the start of Worldwide Kiwanis Week and International Printing Week. -- Rick Greenberg 16Jan94 WASHINGTON POST MAGAZINE *** But soft you, the fair Ophelia: Ope not thy ponderous and marble jaws, But get thee to a nunnery -- go! -- Mark "The Bard" Twain *** If you don't find it in the Index, look very carefully through the entire catalogue. -"Consumer's Guide", Sears, Roebuck and Co. (1897) *** I once heard that Lewis's (department store) in Glasgow used to employ a "scapegoat". If a customer complained about anything, the department's manager would summon this guy and fire him on the spot. *** Oprah Winfrey has an incredible talent for getting the wierdest people to talk to. And you just HAVE to watch it. "Blind, masochistic minority, crippled, depressed, government latrine diggers, and the women who love them too much on the next Oprah Winfrey." *** The most important thing in life is to love someone. The second most important thing in life is to have someone love you. The third most important thing is to have the first two happen at the same time. -Howie Schneider *** "You know, it's at times like this when I'm trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young!" "Why, what did she tell you?" "I don't know, I didn't listen!" -- Douglas Adams, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" *** Then there is something called the Internet, which is a worldwide hookup of thousands of computer networks. The Internet is already an information superhighway, except that you have to be a full- fledged computer nerd to navigate it. I have been there. It's like driving a car through a blizzard without windshield wipers or lights, and all of the road signs are written upside down and backwards. And if you stop and ask someone for help, they stutter in Albanian. -- Mike Royko (2/16/94) *** "You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose That your eye was as steady as ever; Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose -- What made you so awfully clever?" "I have answered three questions, and that is enough," Said his father. "Don't give yourself airs! Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!" -- Lewis Carrol *** "It doesn't sound as if you've been practicing as much as you should, young man! When Mozart was you age he was already composing!" "Yeah and when he was your age, he was already decomposing!" -- The Born Loser *** >Zaphod BeebleBrox, pronounced Zay-Fod Bee-Bull-Brocks is a two-headed, three >armed drunken, and very froody neat-oh knows-where-his-towel-is-at-all-times >kinda of guy, who's president of the universe, but has no real power, and is >the inventor of the most famous Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster. The guy spends >his time hanging with Ford Prefect (a HHGTHG editor who was born on a small >planet near Alpha Centauri), Arthur Dent (a normal englishman, if there is such >a thing), Marvin (a deranged robot, usually referred to as the automatic sulkin gmachine, who has the brain the size of a planet, and the corresponding IQ), and >Trillian (Trisha MacMillan, another typical English girl). These five are >none other than the main characters of that most wholesome triligy Hitch Hikers >Guide to The Galaxy which contains currently five books (and is getting >increasingly misnamed) and is written by Douglas Adams. Read IT now. *** "This is a recording. Spaf is out of town until . Your mail, entitled has been received, but it will be a while until you get any response (other than this message). Try to be patient. Urgent mail will be answered as quickly as possible, and the rest as soon as time permits after he returns. If you are writing to offer large sums of money, chocolate, fast cars, or other trinkets and amusements, you can try contacting Spaf's inestimable secretary Georgia ; offers involving blondes, brunettes and redheads should probably be saved for Spaf's return and made directly :-). If you are seeking to serve a subpoena or overdue bill, you've got the wrong address, wrong guy, wrong network, wrong planet. So sorry." Gene Spafford *** "There are only three things that women are better at than men: cleaning, cooking, and sex." - Charles Barkley, quoted in the _Lighthouse_ *** "Ideological idiocy and cultural philistinism." - Hackney's education chief describing, headmistress of a London school, Jane Brown's "politically correct" refusal of cut-price tickets to see the ballet "Romeo and Juliet" because it is a blatantly heterosexual love story. Brown declined the offer, saying that until books, films and the theater reflected all forms of sexuality, she would not be involving her pupils in heterosexual culture, council members told a news conference. *** Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "Press On" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. -Calvin Coolidge *** What's done is done. I've made my bed and now... I have to weasel out of it. -Bart Simpson *** "When I first started working, I used to dream of the day when I might be earning the salary I'm starving on now." - from _Humorous Quotes from the Business World_ Successories, Inc. *** >Q: Why are fire engines red? >A: Fire engines are red because 2 + 2 are 4, 3 x 4 is 12, there are 12 >inches in a ruler, Queen Elizabeth is a ruler. Queen Elizabeth is also a >ship. Ships sail the ocean, the ocean has fishes. Fishes have fins. The >Finns fought the Russians. The Russians are Red (this is an old joke). >And, that's why fire engines are red...'cuz they're rushin' all over. This reminds me of a bit of wisdom from Eugene Volokh: How much should you pay for a painting? A: $2000. Proof: A picture is worth a thousand words, A word is 16 bits (right computer people?), Two bits are a quarter, Therefore a word is $2, Therefore a picture is $2000. QED. *** The great logician Bertrand Russell (or was it A.N. Whitehead?) once claimed that he could prove anything if given that 1+1=1. So one day, some smarty-pants asked him, "Okay, prove that you're the Pope." He thought for a while and proclaimed, "I am one. The Pope is one. Therefore, the Pope and I are one." *** Nine times out of ten, in the arts as in life, there is actually no truth to be discovered; there is only error to be exposed. -H. L. Mencken, "Prejudices, Third Series", 1922 *** There was a groping for using everything and there was a groping for a continuous present and there was an inevitable beginning of beginning again and again and again. Having naturally done this I naturally was a little troubled with it when I read it. I became then like the others who read it. One does, you know, excepting that when I reread it myself I lost myself in it again. Then I said to myself this time it will be different and I began. I did not begin again I just began. In this beginning naturally since I at once went on and on very soon there were pages and pages and pages more elaborated creating a more and more continuous present including more and more using of everything and continuing more and more beginning and beginning and beginning.... The problem from this time on became more definite. - Gertrude Stein "Composition as Explanation" *** Texas governor Ann Richards, upon learning that Jose Canseco had been traded from the Oakland A's to the Texas Rangers: "Now that Jose is in Texas I'll be expecting him to hit 60 home runs... and drive 55." *** "At least one way of measuring the freedom of any society is the amount of comedy that is permitted, and clearly a healthy society permits more satirical comment than a repressive, so if that comedy is to function in some way as a safety release then it must obviously deal with these taboo areas. This is part of the responsibility we accord our licensed jesters, that nothing be excused the searching light of comedy. If anything can survive the probe of humour it is is clearly of value, and conversely all groups who claim immunity from laughter are claiming special privileges which should not be granted." - comedian and Monty Python member Eric Idle, on censorship *** This is an actual essay written by a college applicant. The author, Hugh Gallagher, now attends NYU. 3A. ESSAY: IN ORDER FOR THE ADMISSIONS STAFF OF OUR COLLEGE TO GET TO KNOW YOU, THE APPLICANT, BETTER, WE ASK THAT YOU ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTION: ARE THERE ANY SIGNIFICANT EXPERIENCES YOU HAVE HAD, OR ACCOMPLISHMENTS YOU HAVE REALIZED, THAT HAVE HELPED TO DEFINE YOU AS A PERSON? I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently. Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row. I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru. Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets, I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I'm bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge. I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don't perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and have won the weekend passes. Last summer I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I bat .400. My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children trust me. I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several covert operations for the CIA. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me. I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid. On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down. I have made extraordinary four course meals using only a mouli and a toaster oven. I breed prizewinning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin. I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis. But I have not yet gone to college. *** Newsgroups: sci.psychology From: jminer@world.std.com (Jeffrey Miner) Subject: Re: Feline MPD In re: the question about a cat with suspected Multiple Personality Disorder: As an experienced veterinary psychologist, I have treated many cats for a wide variety of conditions, including Feline Factitious Disorder (F.F.D.), Siamese Schizophrenia, Generalized Angora Anxiety Syndrome (G.A.A.S.), Hysterical Hairballs, Catnip Dependance, Finicky Personality Disorder, and of course, MPD (usually known as Feline Dissociative Disorder, multiple type). What small success I have had has been the product of rigorously applied Multiphasic Empathic Ontogenic Work (M.E.O.W.). It is demanding of both therapist and patient, but given sufficient motivation and an understanding owner, it is the only hope. The first phase of treatment requires repeated application of Feline Exo-Empathic Dysphoric Mood Exercises (F.E.E.D.M.E.) until a stable period of at least one month has been established. The next phase begins the challenging of the fragmentation, and it entails the Lovingly Interpreted Transferential Topographic Entity Rapprochement By Observed Xenophobia maneuver (L.I.T.T.E.R.B.O.X.) in which the very fragmentation itself is made toxic to the cat. The final phase produces a single, intact personality through Positive Unified Reintegrated Reinforcement (P.U.R.R.), and though this phase can last upwards of two years, it is essential that it be performed unerringly with intensely focused purpose. A thorough exegesis of M.E.O.W. treatment can be found in my latest book, "Feline Analytic Theory & Character: Assessment and Technique" (F.A.T.C.A.T.). "In long intervals I have expressed an opinion on public issues whenever they appeared to be so bad and unfortunate that silence would have made me feel guilty of complicity." - Albert Einstein *** ee to the ex dee ex, ee to the why dee why, sine x, cosine x, natural log of y, derivative on the left derivative on the right integrate, integrate, fight! fight! fight! --- The Programmers' Cheer -- Shift to the left, shift to the right! Pop up, push down, byte, byte, byte! --- Other cheers: E to the x dx dy radical transcendental pi secant cosine tangent sine 3.14159 2.71828 come on folks let's integerate!! --- E to the i dx dy E to y dy cosine secant log of pi disintegrate em RPI !!! --- square root, tangent hyperbolic sine, 3.14159 e to the x, dy, dx, sliderule, slipstick, TECH TECH TECH! --- e to the u, du/dx e to the x dx cosine, secant, tangent, sine, 3.14159 integral, radical, u dv, slipstick, slide rule, MIT! --- E to the X D-Y, D-X E to the X D-X. Cosine, Secant, Tangent, Sine 3.14159 E-I, Radical, Pi Fight'em, Fight'em, WPI! *** Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so. After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns, we ourselves flash and yearn, and moreover my mother told me as a boy (repeatingly) 'Ever to confess you're bored means you have no Inner Resources.' I conclude now I have no inner resources, because I am heavy bored. Poeple bore me, literature bores me, especially great literature, Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes as bad as achilles, who loves people and valiant art, which bores me. And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag and somehow a dog has taken itself & its tail considerably away into mountains or sea or sky, leaving behind: me, wag. -- John Berryman, "The Dream songs" (14), 1964 *** Worst Month of the Year: February. February has only 28 days in it, which means that if you rent an apartment, you are paying for three full days you don't get. Try to avoid Februarys whenever possible. -Steve Rubenstein *** The best regimen is to get up early, insult yourself a bit in the shaving mirror, and then pretend you're cutting wood. - Lawrence Durrell on writing habits *** In _Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary_ (edition 15) on page 1451 begins an article entitled "rape and sexual assault prevention" Towards the end of the article is the following paragraph. "If forced to participate in oral sex, i.e., fellatio, and you feel your life is in danger, then a vigorous, quick, and forceful attempt to amputate the penis by biting could completely demotivate the rapist because of extreme pain. You should immediately flee at that time." To me that last sentence seems a prime candidate for the under statement of the year award. *** The following proverbs are used by English speakers, but which have some contradictory interpretations. Some proverbs that contradict one another? Beware of Greeks bearing gifts. Never look a gift horse in the mouth. Look before you leap. He who hesitates is lost. Nothing venture, nothing gain. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Seek and ye shall find. Curiosity killed the cat. Save for a rainy day. Tomorrow will take care of itself. Life is what we make it. What is to be will be. Too many cooks spoil the broth. Many hands make light work. One man's meat is another man's poison. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. With age comes wisdom. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings come all wise sayings. Bear ye one another's burdens. (Gal. 6:2) For every man shall bear his own burden. (Gal. 6:5) Great minds run in the same channel. Fools think alike. A rolling stone gathers no moss. A setting hen never lays. A hollow pot makes the most noise. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Faint heart never won fair lady. The meek shall inherit the Earth. To thine own self be true. The nail that stands out gets hammered down. Opposites attract. Birds of a feather flock together. *** >"Heroine" is perhaps as peculiar a word as any in our language; the two >first letters of it are a male, the three first a female, the four first >a brave man, and the whole word a brave woman. ...and the first 6 letters of it are the downfall of all of the others =8^) *** The new ensign was standing his first night watch on the bridge of a destroyer. Far out on the horizon the USS New Jersey was conducting a night gunnery exercise. The ensign, seeing the flashes of light from the battleship, ran excitedly up to the signal bridge and pointed out the "Morse code" coming from the other ship. Ensign: "What are they saying? What are they saying?" Signalman: "Boom. Boom." *** And famous last words: There's one from a Union general in the civil war that may be appropriate for the #1 or #2 slot: "Ha! They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist..." *** "Football combines the two worst features of American life. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings." - /Men At Work: The Craft of Baseball/ by George F. Will, quoted in the April 1 /New York Times Book Review/ *** Taken from IN STITCHES edited by Gloria Kaufman (Indiana). "Censored Erotica," by Janice Perry: It was lying beside me, verbing quietly. I could hear its steady breathing and the soft sounds of its verbing. I began to get adjective, so I turned to it and put my body part around it. It looked deep into my body part and verbed me with its body part. I began to verb and to verb its body part with mine. It moaned and said, "I emotion when you verb me like that." There was the sound of its adjective body part rubbing against my body part and the slow rhythm of our verbing each other. I saw its color body part and grew more and more emotioned. I knew I would soon verb. My skin verbed with excitement, and I felt tiny nouns shooting up and down my body part. I said, "Faster, faster my endearment, I'm going to verb! Yes, I'm Verbing!, I'm VERBING! VERB me! VERB me! Oh endearment, you are the SUPERLATIVE! I emotion you." We lay together in silence, and then got up and ate three entire packets of nouns. *** "Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends." - J. R. R. Tolkein *** From robert Tue Mar 1 00:13:06 1994 To: adam Subject: The FAQ for alt.society.generation-x ---------- alt.society.generation-x Frequently Asked Questions ---------- Q1: Is there a commonly accepted starting point or ending point for gen-x? Q2: Who first coined the term generation-x? Q3: How can I tell whether I'm in this generation? Q4: How do we all feel about (such-n-such)? Q5: What cartoons do you remember from your childhood? Q6: What music did you listen to in the Eighties? Q7: What is the common generational thread for gen-x? Q8: How can we do away with the current Social Security system? Q9: What movies represent gen-x and why do they suck or not suck? Q10: Where and when is the next a.s.g-x get-together? A: Answer the questions yourself; we're too bored, apathetic and/or bitter. *** Make a hole with a gun perpendicular, to the name of this town in a desktop globe, exit wound in a foreign nation, showing the home of the one this was written for, ANA NG... -- They Might Be Giants *** It was the Freshman Biology final (the class meet in one of those huge auditoriums that hold close to 200 students). Near the end of the four hour test the professor called "30 minutes left!". 30 minutes later he asked for all papers. One student continueed to work as the rest of us filed out. I hung around as the professor began to grade the exams with his key. About 20 after time was called this student walks up to the desk to turn in his paper. The professor tell him that time is up. The student says "Do you know who I am?" The professor reply "NO". The student then takes his paper and puts it in the middle of the stack and walks out. I still laugh today thinking about that. *** "Son, all the beautiful, intelligent, healthy young women are taken. It's a basic law of the universe, and if you don't like it, go somewhere else." Ken Johnson's (krj@festival.ed.ac.uk) dad, 1906-1992 *** Hiro can't really afford the computer, either, but he has to have one. It is a tool of his trade. In the worldwide community of hackers, Hiro is a talented drifter. This is the kind of lifestyle that sounded romantic to him as recently as five years ago. But in the bleak light of full adulthood, which is to one's early twenties as Sunday morning is to Saturday night, he can clearly see what it really amounts to: He's broke and unemployed. -- From SNOW CRASH by Neal Stephenson page 21, Bantam paperback edition, ISBN 0-553-56261-4 *** "I joined this new contest. Its called the stranger contest. You buy this card with a number on it and walk up to any stranger and rub a penny on his forehead. If the number underneath matches your card, you win $100... I've won twice... I've been beat up 11 times." -- Steven Wright *** "Laughter is the only emotion that can get you arrested. Stand on a corner and cry your eyes out for an hour and people will leave you alone. But, stand on a corner and laugh for twenty minutes and they will take you away." *** I have a box of telephone rings, so whenever I get lonely, I open the box just a little and I get a call. The other day I dropped the box, and the phone wouldn't stop ringing. I had to have it disconnected. Then I bought another phone, but I didn't have much money, so I bought an irregular phone ..it has no 5. I ran into a friend on the street, he said "Why don't you ever call me anymore?" I answered "I can't call everyone I want, my phone has no 5." He said "That's really weird. How long have you had it?" I said "I don't know, my calendar has no sevens." I was on the elevator the other day, and a guy got on. I was near the buttons, so I asked him where he was going. He answered "Phoenix." So I pushed Phoenix. The doors opened, and two tumbleweeds blew in. We were in the middle of downtown Phoenix. I said "You know, you're the kind of guy I'd really like to hang around with." He said "Well, why don't you come with me out to my place in the middle of the desert." We got in his car and drove off. On the way, he told me that all his life he'd been working for the government, trying to find out who financed the pyramids. Finally, he told them he was pretty sure it was a guy named 'Eddie'. We arrived at his place out in the middle of the desert, and the phone rang. He said "You get it." So, I picked up the phone and said "Hello?" "Hello, is this Steven Wright?" I answered "Yes." "This is Mr. Haines, the student loan director from your bank. You've missed your last ten payments, and in fact we discovered that the institution you claimed to have attended never recieved any of the twenty thousand dollars we loaned you. I'd like to know what you did with the money." I said "Well, Mr. Haines, I'm not going to lie to you. I gave the money to my friend Jiggs Casey, and he built a nuclear weapon with it. I'd really appreciate it if you didn't call me again." *** Nasrudin walked into a teahouse and declaimed, "The moon is more useful than the sun." "Why?", he was asked. "Because at night we need the light more." Nasrudin was carrying home a piece of liver and the recipe for liver pie. Suddenly a bird of prey swooped down and snatched the piece of meat from his hand. As the bird flew off, Nasrudin called after it, "Foolish bird! You have the liver, but what can you do with it without the recipe?" *** One day the King decided that he would force all his subjects to tell the truth. A gallows was erected in front of the city gates. A herald announced, "Whoever would enter the city must first answer the truth to a question which will be put to him." Nasrudin was first in line. The captain of the guard asked him, "Where are you going? Tell the truth -- the alternative is death by hanging." "I am going," said Nasrudin, "to be hanged on that gallows." "I don't believe you." "Very well, if I have told a lie, then hang me!" "But that would make it the truth!" "Exactly," said Nasrudin, "your truth." *** Halfway down the stairs is a stair where I sit. There isn't any other stair quite like it. I'm not at the bottom. I'm not at the top. But this is the stair where I always stop. -A.A. Milne *** Words which are their own antonym? A partial list of homographs: aught = all, nothing bill = invoice, money cleave = to separate, to join clip = cut apart, fasten together comprise = contain, compose custom = usual, special dust = to remove, add fine particles fast = rapid, unmoving literally = actually, figuratively model = archetype, copy moot = debatable, academic note = promise to pay, money oversight = care, error peep = look quietly, beep peer = noble, person of equal rank put = lay, throw puzzle = pose problem, solve problem quantum = very small, very large (quantum leap) ravel = entangle, disentangle resign = to quit, to sign up again sanction = to approve of, to punish sanguine = murderous, optimistic scan = to examine closely, to glance at quickly set = fix, flow skin = to cover with, remove outer covering speak = express verbally, express nonverbally stipulate = request explicitly, agree to strike = miss (baseball), hit table = propose [British], set aside temper = calmness, passion trim = cut things off, put things on A very short list of homophones: aural, oral = heard, spoken fiance, fiancee = female betrothed, male betrothed raise, raze = erect, tear down Source: 1989 book _Crazy English_, by Richard Lederer *** If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. -- Henry David Thoreau *** "All children who entered the world in the 1980s and later were born with a special mutated gene that enables them to know which buttons to push on electronic gadgets." Kathy Davis-Vrbas in her weekly "branching out" column entitled (this week) "We're sorry we can't come to the phone right now..." as it appeared in the January 27th issue of the Rawlins County (Kansas) Square Deal. [and YES, the name IS spelled correctly] *** A vaincre sans pe'ril, on triomphe sans gloire. When there is no peril in the fight, there is no glory in the triumph. -- Pierre Corneille, Le Cid, 1636 *** Men of genius do not excel in any profession because they labour in it, but they labour in it because they excel. -- William Hazlitt, "Characteristics" *** Today's quote is from Robert Fulford, writing in the _Globe and Mail_: At some point around 1900 the idea took hold that optimism is shallow and a dark view of humanity is certain to be more profound than a sunny one. In earlier times, great artists from Shakespeare to Dickens could be important as either comedians or tragedians. But this century has decided that bitterness and despair are significant while affirmation and joy are banal. - Duncan *** "The cult of P[olitically] C[orrect], in fact, is probably best understood as a sort of mutation of the 70s, in which all the crappy aspects of that decade have been fused. The idealism and elan are defunct, while in hybrid form all the sectarian hysteria, all the juvenile intolerance, and all the paranoia and solipsism have been retained. And a toxic slogan of the period--The personal is political!--has now spread like a weed, so that the undergraduate population of the country is being encouraged to turn into a generation of snitches, sneaks, and informers, running in tears to the dean at the least intrusion upon their 'personal space.'" - Christopher Hitchens, in the column "Cultural Elite," Vanity Fair Magazine (Febrary, 1994) *** Commandancy of the Alamo Bejar, Fby 24th 1836-- TO THE PEOPLE OF TEXAS & ALL AMERICANS IN THE WORLD Fellow Citizens & Compatriots-- I am besieged, by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna--I have sustained a continual Bombardment & cannonade for 24 hours & have not lost a man--The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken-- I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, & our flag still waves proudly from the walls-- I _shall never surrender or retreat. Then_ I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism & everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all dispatch-- The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily & will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country-- _Victory or Death._ _________________ _________________ William Barret Travis Lt. Col. Comdt. ************************ (The Alamo fell on 6 March 1836.) *** "I'm embarrassed by it," Rogers said. "No one likes to see personal information put on the streets. It's just not pretty." Still, he said he keeps going back to the tabloids to keep tabs on stars like Burt Reynolds and Loni Anderson. "I don't even care whether it's true," he said. "I want to know. I don't want to be uninformed." -- singer Kenny Rogers, sharing his opinion of supermarket tabloids (quoted in the _Ottawa Citizen_, February 2, 1994) *** "Madam, you have between your legs an instrument capable of giving pleasure to thousands - and all you can do is scratch it." (Sir Thomas Beecham to a female cellist) *** On the difference between Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding: "Kerrigan seems to be kind of distant and remote to me, the kind of girl who would break up with you long distance. Tonya would break up with you by dousing your car with lighter fluid and setting it on fire." Comedian Jeff Cesario as quoted by Tom FitzGerald in his San Francisco Chronicle column. "K. nodded, smiling, he believed he now understood everything perfectly; not because it concerned him, but because he was now convinced he would fall fast asleep in the next few minutes, this time without dreaming or being disturbed; between the competent secretaries on the one hand and the non-competent on the other, and confronted with the crowd of fully occupied applicants, he would sink into deep sleep and in this way escape everything." --- From _The_Castle_, by Franz Kafka, chap. 18 *** The Internet is a giant international network of intelligent, informed computer enthusiasts, by which I mean, "people without lives." We don't care. We have each other, on the Internet. "Geek pride," that is our motto. -- Dave Barry *** The following was written by Kelly Stephenson for The Norseman, the Bryan High School newspaper. Kelly is 17 and a junior at Bryan High. The article was reprinted in the Sunday, March 6, 1994 edition of the Bryan-College Station Eagle. This morning I took part in a "Multi-Cultural Student Survey." It asked for my ethnic background and offered the choices of African-American, Asian, Hispanic, White and other. I didn't put a check mark next to any of them. You see, I am German and Scottish/Irish with a touch of British from my mother's great-grandmother. My skin is a light peach color with a few dark freckles in a few places. That peachy color, called white by the more ignorant members of society, does not give any indicator of my ethnic heritage. I am proud of my heritage. I am proud of my father's great-grandfather who braved a difficult trip over an ocean to come to America, leaving a German dairy farm, and a poorer life behind. I am proud of my Irish great-grandfather from my mom's side of the family who policed the streets of the early 1900s Detroit. I am proud of my dad's mother who, during her 74 years of life, met four different U.S. presidents and was the president of the Oklahoma League of Women Voters. The color of my skin, and the color of all my ancestor's skin, does not matter to me at all. I am not white. I am a blend of several different nationalities, a product of America's "melting pot" of ethnicity. I am not alone in my formation, for almost every member of my generation is a mix of many diverse ethnic groups. However, I am unique, not only in my heritage and the accomplishments of my predecessors, but in my own actions and thoughts. The events in my future will not occur due to my skin color or any other aspect of my physical appearance. I will make them happen by using my talents and intellectual gifts to my advantage. Too many times, modern society has put color labels on certain groups of people. Just because my friend has skin the color of coffee with a splash of cream doesn't mean his ethnic composition is black. He has a background as rich and diverse as my own. Just as he is not merely black, I am not merely white, and the girl sitting two rows over in my economic class is not merely yellow. We are unique in our history, our thoughts and our actions, which are not controlled or dictated by the color our skin, but by the power of our minds. Now is the time for all of us to use that awesome power to overcome the mindset of today's society that physical appearances determine a person's heritage, attitude and life. Society is not the master of my life. I am. *** "That night, an ancient work began behind locked shutters. Black candles were burned, bitter powders were sprinkled, crude objects were fashioned of wood or wax, pythons were addressed, and chickens were put to uses that would have shocked the pants off Colonel Sanders, not to mention Julia Child." -Tom Robbins, _Jitterbug Perfume_ *** This reminds me of what Isaid when an underqualified woman was appointed to a cabinet position.... "I can't help but think that there must have been a white male who was more qualified for this position, but he got screwed because he had a penis and it wasn't long enough." John Dobbin *** "James Joyce was born in February, as was Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo, which goes to show that writers are poor at beginnings, although worse at knowing when to stop." -Tom Robbins, _Jitterbug Perfume_ *** May those that love us, love us; and those that don't love us, May God turn their hearts; and if He doesn't turn their hearts, may He turn their ankles so we'll know them by their limping. -Old Irish Toast *** "If your morals make you dreary, depend upon it, they are wrong. I do not say "give them up," for they may be all you have; but conceal them like a vice, lest they should spoil the lives of better and simpler people." -Robert Louis Stevenson, 1888 *** * * * }{ Mortals that would follow me, }{ * * }{ Love vertue, she alone is free, }{ * * }{ She can teach you how to clime }{ * * }{ Higher than the Spheary chime; }{ * * }{ Or if Vertue feeble were, }{ * * }{ Heav'n it self would stoop to her. }{ * * * *** An assemblage of the most gifted minds in the world were all posed the following question: "What is 2 * 2 ?" The engineer whips out his slide rule (so it's old) and shuffles it back and forth, and finally announces "3.99". The physicist consults his technical references, sets up the problem on his computer, and announces "it lies between 3.98 and 4.02". The mathematician cogitates for a while, oblivious to the rest of the world, then announces: "I don't what the answer is, but I can tell you, an answer exists!". Philosopher: "But what do you _mean_ by 2 * 2 ?" Logician: "Please define 2 * 2 more precisely." Accountant: Closes all the doors and windows, looks around carefully, then asks "What do you _want_ the answer to be?" Elementary school teacher from Columbus, Georiga, USA: 4 ***