Subject: Life 2.U ---------------------------------------------------- Climbing a mountain in silence helps to give ascent. The more waist, the less speed. One man's Mede is another man's Persian. A fool and her money are soon courted. The egg in the hotel, about to be cooked, was picked up by a priest on his way to a monastery, out of the frying pan into the friar. There is no time like the pleasant. It was reported that England was uffereing from a plague of aunts. The busy lawyer wanted an alert young woman to act as deceptionist. The two bits of protoplasm could remember when they were cell-mates. Beautiful legs are sometimes without equal, but bow-legs are always without parallel. He thought all women were biased. "Buy us this." and "Buy us that." He didn't like cycling with friends, he wanted to clyclone along. Greta Barbo dreamed one night that she sprinkled boxes of grass seed in her hair. She awoke moaning, "I vant to be a lawn." He was going to sell his armor for twenty two cents an ounce, it was first class mail. The man told the ghost to go away, "You don't have a haunting license." Why did they hang the picture? They culdn't find the artist. He had untold wealth, it wasn't reported to the IRS. Did you hear about the Arab baker who every morning at 6:00 would bow to the yeast? ---------------------------------------------------- The lecturer on physiology addressed the student nurses. "We will take up the heart, kidneys, lung, and liver in that order." "Oh dear, another organ recital," whispered on nurse to the other. A paper ran an item staing that "The departing Mr. Smithers was a member of the defective bureau of the police force." The chief of police made a strong protest, whereupon the paper published an apology as follows: "Our announcement should have read "The detective branch of the police farce." ---------------------------------------------------- MAY THE NET FORCE BE WITH YOU ---------------------------------------------------- Did you know that 'gullible' is not in Webster's Dictionary? ---------------------------------------------------- There used to be a saying: "The sun never sets on the British empire, because God doesn't trust an Englishman in the dark." ---------------------------------------------------- Once a group of friends and I, including a guy named Brian Pot (pronounced Po) went out to eat. As there was a long waiting line, Brian signed the guest register and we went to wait at the bar. I spilled my drink when the PA system announced that the table was ready for the Pot Party. Now how could they know what I was toting in my purse? ---------------------------------------------------- *---------------------------* | Hard work may not kill me | | But why take that chance? | *---------------------------* ---------------------------------------------------- The Poles have a saying about how communist governments rewrite history: "Only the future is certain; the past is always changing" ---------------------------------------------------- From the Toronto Star, March 10: A would-be bandit failed because he had written a holdup up note on another bank's withdrawal slip. When Leonard Goodin decided to rob a Toronto-Dominion bank branch last Sept. 4, he wrote his holdup note demanding money on a withdrawal slip from the Royal Bank of Canada, court heard yesterday. The teller looked at the note and told Goodin, "You have the wrong bank. This is a Toronto-Dominion, not a Royal." She returned his note but Goodin pushed it back at her along with a brown paper bag in which the money was to be placed. The woman again reminded him he was in the wrong bank and returned the note. "The accused stared at the victim, shook his head and left the bank," court was told. An hour later Goodin successfully robbed another bank - even though it wasn't a Royal branch. ---------------------------------------------------- A few months ago in upstate New York, a man decided to rob a local bank. He walked into the bank holding a brown paper bag. He looked around for a moment, and must have decided he was in the wrong bank, because he then left, walked across the street, and robbed a DIFFERENT one! He took a bystander hostage, where she was forced to drove the thief to his house, and drop him off! He then let her go. She promptly called the police, and they went and arrested the man at his house. ---------------------------------------------------- CAR PHONE USER HELPS IN ARREST Fresno (AP) A motorist used his car telephone to alert the California Highway Patrol that a truck driver was weaving back and forth on Highway 99 south of Fresno and seemed to be drunk. So, officers stopped the truck driver Tuesday night but found that he hadn't been drinking, Patrolman Jim Taylor said. Then, they checked the motorist who had telephoned them and stopped behind the truck when the Patrol pulled it over. The motorist failed a sobriety test and was arrested for investigation of drunken driving, Taylor said. "The truck was probably going straight, and he was the one weaving," Taylor added. True story out of a local newspaper. This guy was apparently really loaded! ---------------------------------------------------- Re: the "college age girl" "in affluent area of Santa Monica" who "couldn't come up with the significance of the figure 1492." Everyone has his own favorite statistic about the failures of American education. One awfully good one (William Buckley's favorite, as it happens) is that 60% of the college seniors in Texas cannot name the country to the south. ---------------------------------------------------- Speaking of Outside Magazine stories, there is an article in the current issue that talks about some of the stupid things that people do to the buffalo in Yellowstone National Park. Here are a couple examples (from memory, for I don't have the article handy) - remember that a buffalo can outrun a thoroughbred racehorse in a quartermile race: o a man decided to throw rocks at a buffalo, just to see what it would do. It charged him. o a man wanted to have his picture taken with a buffalo, except the buffalo was laying down. Thinking that this wouldn't make a very interesting photo, he started kicking the buffalo to make it stand up. The buffalo did stand up, and then it hooked him. He was evacuated to a hospital. After two months he finally died. o a man wanted to take a picture of his two year old daughter with a buffalo, so he set her on top of the animal. You can imagine what happened next. ---------------------------------------------------- A certain old cat had made his home in the alley behind Gabe's bar for some time, subsisting on scraps and occasional handouts from the bartender. One evening, emboldened by hunger, the feline attempted to follow Gabe through the back door. Regrettably, only the his body had made it through when Gabe slammed the door, severing the cat's tail at its base. This proved too much for the old creature, who looked sadly at Gabe and expired on the spot. Gabe put the carcass back out in the alley and went back to business. The mandatory closing time arrived and Gabe was in the process of locking up after the last customers had gone. Approaching the back door he was startled to see an apparition of the old cat mournfully holding its severed tail out, silently pleading for Gabe to put the tail back on its corpse so that it could go on to the kitty afterworld complete. Gabe shook his head sadly and said to the ghost: "I can't. You know the law: I can't retail spirits after 2:00 AM." ---------------------------------------------------- Pat and mike were walking down the street when their old friendly-sort-of-nemesis approached them. He thought he'd have a good laugh at their expense because they, reputedly, weren't too bright. He said: "Hey Pat! Hey Mike! Did you hear the news?" "The news?" asked Mike. "What is it?" asked Pat. "It's incredible, I read in the papers this morning that the devil died!!!" Said the old nemesis. "Is that so?" asked Mike. "The truth is it?" asked Pat, and they bogh dug into their pockets and each gave the man a coin. Thinking this teribly strange, "What on earth is this for?" asked the man. Pat began to explain: "In the old country, when someone dies," and Mike finished: "We all contribute a little something to help the surviving children." ---------------------------------------------------- About five years ago the battery in my beat-up VW beetle had died because I left the lights on overnight . I was in a hurry to get to work on time so I ran into the house to get my wife to give me a hand to start the car. I told her to get into our second car, a prehistoric oversized gas guzzler, and use it to push my car fast enough to start it. I pointed out to her that because the VW had an automatic transmission, it needed to be pushed at least 30 MPH for it to start. She said fine, hoped into her car and drove off. I sat there fuming wondering what can she be doing. A minute passed by and when I saw her in the rearview mirror coming at me at about 40 MPH, I realized that I should have been a bit clearer with my directions. ---------------------------------------------------- OK, my turn. This happened to friends of my parent's friends (triple indirection) but is true to the best of my knowledge. So, the story of Art and Lil. Art needed to do some repair work on his roof which had a fairly steep pitch. He was having a tough time bracing himself until he got a great idea: if he could secure a rope to something in front of the house, throw the rope over the roof to the other side and secure himself to it -- why yes, that would work well. And so it did. But, in such situations, details are all important and Art missed a big one. Had he not secured the rope to the car, or if he had bothered to tell his wife, the story would have had a different ending. But, Lil did get into the car, not noticing the rope stretched over the house, and proceeded to run her errand. Art was dragged up one side of the roof, down the other, fell the ten feet to the driveway and was pulled about a hundred feet down the street until his wife happened to notice. Although he didnt die (which was probably preferable to explaining this story for the rest of his life), Art did spent several weeks in intensive care. ---------------------------------------------------- Bulwer-Lytton Contest Entries: The jungle drums throbbed wildly in the distance, warning him away with a brief but dire message: "The broccoli casserole is burnt!" -- Pat Walker, Garden Grove, Ca. "I assume," said Brian, staring unhappily at the reserve chute's broken rip cord, its free end flailing at his white knuckles and his body plummeting to earth, "that they also lied about having a bus at the landing site." -- Bob Mooers, Bellingham, Wa. "Calling all bunnies!" shouted Randy the Happy Wizard as he shook his carrot out the window of his jolly house in Old Mr. Oak on the edge of the Peppermint Stick Garden. -- Bill Bignin, San Mateo, Ca. "The toilet's stopped up again!" screeched Esmerelda Fnark in a voice that had failed to endear her to over fifteen men in the past three years. -- Michael K. Young, Randalstown, Md. There was only one time in my life when I was happy to find a hair in my milk. -- Anita Locke, Kensington, Md. A conscience is a loathsome thing, God wot, so it wasn't more than an hour later that I was wishing I hadn't slit Martin's throat. -- Marjorie Murch Stanley, Youngstown, Ohio Nydia found one of the drawbacks of being a werewolf was coming into heat during a full moon and giving birth to decituplets. -- R. W. O'Bryan, Perrysburg, Ohio ---------------------------------------------------- A man was driving around the countryside in his new sports car, moving at speeds that bordered on unsafe. When checking his rear-view mirror, he noticed that a small object, followed by a trail of dust, was closing fast. His curiousity piqued, he slowed a bit to get a better look. As the object came into view, it was clearly a chicken. While the man watched in amazement, the bird whizzed by him. He checked his speed as this happened: could it really pass him when he was doing 35? There was no way a chicken was going to make a joke of his $18,000 machine. He slammed down the gas pedal and went screaming toward the offending fowl. He grinned with satisfaction as he passed it, but a few seconds later, he spotted it running even with him, staying in view. He studied the bird and noticed that it had three legs! This was really strange. Suddenly, the chicken zipped ahead of his car, took a sharp left turn and disappeared behind a haystack. The man had to check this out. He spun his wheel and barely made the turn. As he came around the other side of the haystack, he had to stand on his brakes to avoid the farmer, who stood complacently chewing a toothpick and looking blankly at the car that nearly flattened him. The chicken stood nearby, not even breathing heavily. The man got out of his car. "This your chicken?", he asked. "Yup." "How is it possible that it has three legs?" "Me and my wife, we raise 'em that way," the farmer droned. The man looked puzzled. "Why?" "Well," came the reply, "you sit down to dinner with your wife and a guest. You like a drumstick?" "Sure, but..." "And your wife, she likes a drumstick?" "Yeah, so?" "Your guest might like one too, you reckon?" Now it was clear. "Oh, I see!" He smiled. He couldn't wait to spring this on his friends. "What does it taste like?" "Dunno," said the farmer, "never caught one." ---------------------------------------------------- Heard a wonderful news report on the radio today: Seems that there are some folks, somewhere in the U.S., who are passing bank checks which are chemically treated so that several hours after they've been passed they self destruct. (No, I'm not talking about the U.S. government, they don't erode their money, just its underlying value, and they do it much more slowly so as to not get everybody too pissed off at them all at once.) Anyway, back to the self-destructing checks: The radio news report ended by quoting a local law-enforcer as saying that it is difficult to nail somebody for passing bad checks when the whole problem is that the checks in question basically don't exist any more! ---------------------------------------------------- MESSAGE FROM THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON TO THE BRITISH FOREIGN OFFICE IN LONDON -- written from Central Spain, August 1812 Gentlemen, Whilst marching from Portugal to a position which commands the approach to Madrid and the French forces, my officers have been diligently complying with your requests which have been sent by H.M. ship from London to Lisbon and thence by dispatch to our headquarters. We have enumerated our saddles, bridles, tents and tent poles, and all manner of sundry items for which His Majesty's Government holds me accountable. I have dispatched reports on the character, wit, and spleen of every officer. Each item and every farthing has been accounted for, with two regrettable exceptions for which I beg your indulgence. Unfortunately the sum of one shilling and ninepence remains unaccounted for in one infantry battalion's petty cash and there has been a hideous confusion as the the number of jars of raspberry jam issued to one cavalry regiment during a sandstorm in western Spain. This reprehensible carelessness may be related to the pressure of circumstance, since we are war with France, a fact which may come as a bit of a surprise to you gentlemen in Whitehall. This brings me to my present purpose, which is to request elucidation of my instructions from His Majesty's Government so that I may better understand why I am dragging an army over these barren plains. I construe that perforce it must be one of two alternative duties, as given below. I shall pursue either one with the best of my ability, but I cannot do both: 1. To train an army of uniformed British clerks in Spain for the benefit of the accountants and copy-boys in London or perchance. 2. To see to it that the forces of Napoleon are driven out of Spain. Your most obedient servant Wellington ---------------------------------------------------- Subject: Life 6.7 ---------------------------------------------------- "He who dies with the most FRIENDS wins." ---------------------------------------------------- "Women and cats do as they dammed well please. Men and dogs had best learn to live with it..." Heinlein's "Notebooks of Lazarus Long", ---------------------------------------------------- Over the past ten years, for the first time, intelligence had become socially correct for girls. -- Tom Wolfe, "Bonfire of the Vanities" ---------------------------------------------------- Ya gotta feel sorry for all them convicts in New Hampshire, stampin' out license plates that say "Live free or Die." -- ??? ---------------------------------------------------- Sanity is overrated ---------------------------------------------------- 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. ---------------------------------------------------- Important note: The Anti-Social Committee will not be meeting this week. ---------------------------------------------------- I'm a clown. That's my sole mechanism of defense. Very few people will go out of their way to punish a clown. ---------------------------------------------------- He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever. -- Old Chinese saying ---------------------------------------------------- A person is just about as big as the things that make them angry. ---------------------------------------------------- Seen in a recent classifieds W A N T E D G O O D W O M A N Must be able to clean, cook, sew, dig worms and clean fish. Must have boat and motor. Please send picture of boat and motor. ---------------------------------------------------- Around computers it is difficult to find the correct unit of time to measure progress. Some cathedrals took a century to complete. Can you imagine the grandeur and scope of a program that would take as long? Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 ---------------------------------------------------- A pride of lions A gaggle of geese An odd lot of programmers ---------------------------------------------------- Any given program, when running, is obsolete ---------------------------------------------------- Happiness isn't something you experience, it's something you remember. -Oscar Levant ---------------------------------------------------- In the beginning there was nothing, then God said "Turn on the lights" and they were turned on. ---------------------------------------------------- The years of peak mental activity are surely between age four and 18. At four we know all the questions, at eighteen all the answers. ---------------------------------------------------- Life is like an unassembled abacus. It's what you make of it that counts. Life is like a maze in which you try to avoid the exit. Life is like a poker game. You deal or are dealt to. It includes skill and luck. You bet, check, bluff and raise. You learn from those you play with. Sometimes you win with a pair or lose with a full house. But whatever happens, it's best to keep on shuffling along. ---------------------------------------------------- I received a job assignment in Germany on very short notice. I didn't know any German at all, but my wife is reasonably fluent, so I had her teach me a few fundamentals. The next morning, while cooking breakfast, I was practicing counting, mumbling the numbers to myself: "Ein, Zwei, Drei ..." I got stuck on nine. Right then, my wife walked into the kitchen. "Helen" I said, "what are nine and ten?" With a concerned look on her face, she said: "Nineteen. Are you OK?" ---------------------------------------------------- The NJ state gemstone is concrete ---------------------------------------------------- [Los Angeles] Daily News: Have you ever had the urge to rip the tag from a pillow or mattress, despite the warning of dire penalties? Well, it's perfectly legal now -- if you live in Colorado. Governor Roy Romer formalized the law by gleefully tearing a label from a pillow at his office. "I've been worrying about the mattress inspector jumping through the window for years ..." he said. ---------------------------------------------------- Some times the fine print is funny: Yesterday, I was reading an ad for Dodge trucks in Popular Mechanics, as I was reading the *fine print* it stated that "These outlandish claims are based on test results of" (technical information left out because I dont remember them) and then it finished with....... "Buckle up for safety, Nice magnifying glass." It took me by surprise so I instantly started laughing, I was in a library at the time so it was a little embarrassing, I hate when that happens! ---------------------------------------------------- Years ago my mom was driving a Plymouth Volare station wagon. The Plymouth Volare was listed as the car "Least likely to be stolen." ---------------------------------------------------- Well, there is this guy here at Carnegie Mellon who has the best anti-theft device going. It seems he had this really wild party a couple of months ago and had mistakenly left some paint out in the open(either that or someone was looking for a place to ralph and stumbled unpon it ;-)). To make a long story short, he now drives a car that is painted about ten different colors, with all kinds of nifty designs on it, and it even has something written in russian on the door. Now who would try to steal a car like that? It would be Very difficult to get away without being noticed. ---------------------------------------------------- A comedian (whose name I don`t remember), when ask to tell a political joke, said he only knew one. This is it: A man parks his car in front of the main entrance of the Congress. Inmediately, a member of the security team goes after him yelling: - Sir! Sir! You cannot park in here! All the congressmen are about to go out! The man replies: -Don't worry. I have a good alarm in my car. ---------------------------------------------------- "Can I park here ?" "Nope", said the cop "Well, then how come these other cars are parked here ?" "They didn't ask me", replied the cop. ---------------------------------------------------- Did you hear about the snail that was mugged by two tortises? When he went down to report the mugging the police officer asked him if he could describe the event and the snail replied, "I don't know if I could, it happened so fast." ---------------------------------------------------- A Bleeding Heart Liberal and a Sensible Person were discussing economy: BHL: "There is a great injustice heaped on the poor. The rich, who have more money than they need, can buy credit. But the poor, who haven't two coins to knock together, have to pay cash for everything. Is that FAIR?" SP: "Of course." BHL: "But, it should be the other way around. The rich, who have money, should pay cash and the poor should be able to buy on credit." SP: "I admire your ideals, but a merchant who extends credit to the poor instead of the rich will soon become a poor man himself." BHL: "So? Then he'd be able to buy on credit, too!" ---------------------------------------------------- Two riddles, answers at the end: A man leaves to visit his grandmother on Tuesday. He is gone for seven days and returns on Sunday. How is this possible? Two men are found dead in a cabin in the middle of the woods. They have been dead for a very short time. There are no footprints leading to or from the cabin and they didn't starve to death. How did they die? ---------------------------------------------------- When my father was remarried, he planned to have his vows on a little card and read them. At that point in the ceremony he would reach into his pocket and say "Sam Jones Acme Plumbing . . . OOOPS! Wrong card." However, he didn't really do that. He had the vows memorized and all. ---------------------------------------------------- A father in Georgia called his local IRS office to ask if he could deduct the cost of his daughter's wedding as "a total loss". ---------------------------------------------------- It seems that a devout, good couple was about to get married, but a tragic car accident ended their lives. When they got to heaven, they asked St. Peter if he could arrange for them to be married, saying that it was what they had hoped for in life, and they still desired wedded union. He thought about it and agreed, but said they would have to wait. It was almost one hundred years later when St. Peter sent for them. They were married in a simple ceremony. So things went on, for thirty years or so, but they determined, in this time, that eternity was best not spent together. They went back to St. Peter, and said, "We thought we would be happy forever, but now we believe that we have irreconcilable differences. Is there any way we can get divorced?" "Are you kidding?" said St. Peter. "It took me a hundred years to get a priest up here to marry you. I'll never get a lawyer!" ---------------------------------------------------- Q: Why did the (moron) couple stop after three children? A: Because they read that every fourth child born is Chinese. ---------------------------------------------------- Heraclitus - an ancient Greek philosopher, he lived about the fifth century B.C. Known as the "Obscure One" to his contemporaries. Keep ambiguity in mind....... - Everything flows. - It is not possible to step in the same river twice. - Sea water is the purest and most polluted: for fish it is drinkable and life-giving; for men, not drinkable and destructive. - To those who are awake, there is one ordered universe common to all, whereas in sleep each man turns away from this world to one of his own. - Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play. - A mans character is his destiny. - I searched into myself. - Lovers of wisdom must be inquirers into very many things indeed. ---------------------------------------------------- A schoolteacher in Havana asked her class, "If the sea between Cuba and Miami were to dry up, how long would it take to walk across?" When she got no response, she asked Pepito to give an answer. After a moment of thought, he said, "Forty days." The teacher was naturally surprised. "Pepito," she said, "the distance from Havana to Miami is only about ninety miles. Maybe I didn't make the question clear. Pretend that it's all smooth and level ground. NOW how long would it take?" Pepito insisted however on his answer of forty days. "But why?" asked the teacher. "Well, because you would constantly have to say, "`Excuse me,' `Pardon me please,' `Excuse me, sir,' `Pardon me Miss,' `Excuse me...'" ---------------------------------------------------- Once, the leaders of the Soviet Union hoped they could feed their people, if only they could get some help from the West. So they went to the West and arranged to buy wheat. That was not enough, since eventually, the agreement ran out. Then, the leaders of the Soviet Union hoped that if they gave their people hope for freedom, they could rebuild their economy and grow wheat themselves to feed their people. So they went to the West and announced a new policy of openness. That was not enough, since the stores remained empty. Now, the leaders of the Soviet Union are hoping that if they give their people actual freedom, they will rebuild the polity, rebuild the economy, and grow wheat for themselves. What will they ask for from the West? Political asylum. ---------------------------------------------------- An Aggie decides to raise chickens. So, he goes to the feed store and buys some chicks. He takes the chicks home, and plants them with their heads sticking up. He waters them, but they die. He goes back to the feed store and tells the proprietor that he bought defective chicks, and gets another set. This time he plants them with their heads sticking down. He waters them, but they die. He then sends a letter to his Alma Mater, describing the problem. They send a letter back asking for a soil sample. ---------------------------------------------------- "How many Aggies does it take to screw in a light bulb?" We don't know yet. No aggie has even tried to attempt this complex technical feat. (by Aggie standards that is...) ---------------------------------------------------- During the construction of the Alaska Pipeline, one of Bechtel's engineers, a man named Sam, overslept one morning. The pipeline crew failed to notice that Sam was not among them (Sam being the sort that was frequently not among them) and moved north. When Sam woke up, he was all alone. There was nothing to worry about, since it was a pleasant day in late May. The -100 degree temperatures of January and February were just a memory, but the uncomfortably hot and sticky days of mid-summer just north of Fairbanks had not yet arrived. Sam set out to find his crew. As Sam walked North, he ran across a tribe of Eskimos, who were out gathering moss. Sam stopped to chat with them, and the Eskimos invited him to join the tribe. Sam considered this, and decided that being an Eskimo had much to recommend it, as he imagined that the Eskimo life was much less stressful than that of an engineer on the Pipeline. For a few days, Sam busily assisted the tribe in gathering moss. Each of the Eskimos had a personal supply of moss, and after a few days, Sam had gathered more than he could easily carry in his back pack. He asked the other Eskimos why the moss was being gathered, but was unable to understand the answer, given his limited command of Eskimese. As was characteristic, he finally decided that he had more moss than he could use, and proceeded to spend the summer sleeping. While the rest of the tribe was busy gathering moss, Sam was resting. Come the first snow, the tribe moved south to the shores of an inlet, where seals could be caught and killed for meat and oil. Sam was given a small lamp, and was shown how to make a wick out of moss. When filled with oil, the lamp would supply heat and light for the long, dark winter nights. Sam's lamp was fine for a while, but in early December, his meager supply of moss was exhausted. It was evident that without a working lamp, he would freeze to death, so it was urgent to get more moss. When he approached the Eskimo chief with the problem, and requested an additional supply of moss in order to get through the winter, he was told by the chief, "Sorry, Sam," "No wick for the rested." ---------------------------------------------------- The man has a horse named Tuesday. The cabin is the cabin from an airplane that crashed in the woods. ---------------------------------------------------- Favorite sniglets... CINEMAPLEGIC - A person who has been sitting at the movies so long, that when he gets up to leave he finds he has lost sensation in both legs. SPORK - The half-spoon, half-fork utensil found at fast food places. PLAKQUAK - The one mysterious dentist out of five "who doesn't recommend sugarless gum for his paients who chew gum." BEERSIGHTEDNESS - The eye condition singles develop after "last call" in the bar which makes members of the opposite sex more attractive than they were three hours earlier. PASSHOLE - The person who has been driving slowly for miles but speeds up the minute you try to get ahead of him. PURINAPICURIAN -The unlucky person who decides whether a new version of a dog food tastes good enought to be labeled "new and better tasting". BLADE RUNNER - The tendency of a ceiling fan to keep going five minutes after you've turned it off. FLABBYGASTED - The anguish of having dieted for three grueling weeks only to discover that you haven't lost a pound. NAPJERK - The body's sudden convulsion just as one is about to doze off. MEMOLANDUMS - The miscellaneous notes and letters that you keep putting back in your in-basket because you don't know what else to do with them. EXXONERATION - The verdict given to a certain oil tanker captain who wiped out the Alaskan coastline but who was charged with "criminal mischief". FLOPCORN - The unpopped kernels at the bottom of the popcorn popper. HOZONE - The place where one sock in every laundry load disappears to. LAMINITES - Those strange people who show up in the photo sections of brand-new wallets. VIGIL AUNTIE - The relative in every family who is snoopy and always poking her nose into other people's business. STAG 'N SNARF - The single person's tradition of eating dinner while standing over the sink. OAT-BRAN SCAN - The combination of boredom and sleepiness that inspires one to actually read the back of a cereal box. ESSO-ASSO - The person who cuts through the gas station on the corner to avoid a red light. BEVIMIRAGE - The Black ring on a two litre bottle of cola that makes it appear to still contain soda when empty. NAPKINPACTION - the act of stuffing so many paper napkins into a restaurant napkin holder that you can't remove one without ripping it. NINCOMMERCIALPOOP - a person who watches the commercials while watching a videotape instead of fast-forwarding over them. EXPRESSHOLE - One who goes through the express lane in the supermarket with more than the maximum ten items. ---------------------------------------------------- Hi there. I saw decwars quite a long time ago and thought it was totaly hilarious. I also noticed it was unfinished. So, I went in and added the stuff at the end after they escaped from the Are-em Star, the gotos and the bit in the bar with Greedo. I did this a long time ago and only recently learned how to post news. So, here it is: (I hope the original author(s) don't mind me posting/modifying this file). -- Craig climber@sol.UVic.ca ---------------------------------------------------- This is what comes of so many hours deeply submerged in UNIX and VMS, thoughts moiling around while debugging system core dumps. Thoughts carefully kept in check, hidden from the light of day (for obvious reasons), until one day... Perhaps it was the Coke. Perhaps... no, let us just say that we found a fairly harmless way to vent these frustrations, these things that nobody within 50 miles could understand. The network, yes, the network. They'll understand! Special thanks to Douglas Adams, Bob and Dinsdale McKenzie and the Firesign Theatre. Alan A long time ago, on a node far, far away (from ucbvax) a great Adventure (game?) took place... DEC WARS! It is a period of system war. User programs, striking from a hidden directory, have won their first victory against the evil Administrative Empire. During the battle, User spies managed to steal secret source code to the Empire's ultimate program: the Are-Em Star, a privileged root program with enough power to destroy an entire file structure. Pursued by the Empire's sinister audit trail, Princess _LPA0: races aboard her shell script, custodian of the stolen listings that could save her people, and restore freedom and games to the network... As we enter the scene, an Administrative Multiplexer is trying to kill a consulate shell. Many of their signals have gotten through, and RS232 decides it's time to fork off a new process before this old shell is destroyed. His companion, 3CPU, is following him only because he appears to know where he's going... "I'm going to regret this!" cried 3CPU, as he followed RS232 into the buffer. RS232 closed the pipes, made the sys call, and their process detached itself from the burning shell of the shell. The commander of the Administrative Multiplexer was quite pleased with the attack. "Another process just forked, sir. Instructions?" asked the lieutenant. "Hold your fire. That last power failure must have caused a trap through zero. It's not using any cpu time, so don't waste a signal on it." "We can't seem to find the data file anywhere, Lord Vadic." "What about that forked process? It could have been holding the channel open, and just pausing. If any links exist, I want them removed or made inaccessable. Ncheck the entire file system 'til it's found, and nice it -20 if you have to." Meanwhile, in our wandering process... "Are you sure you can ptrace this thing without causing a core dump?" queried 3CPU to RS232. This thing's been stripped, and I'm in no mood to try and debug it." The lone process finishes execution, only to find our friends dumped on a lonely file system, with the setuid inode stored safely in RS232. Not knowing what else to do, they wandered around until the jawas grabbed them. Enter our hero, Luke Vaxhacker, who is out to get some replacement parts for his uncle. The jawas wanted to sell him 3CPU, but 3CPU didn't know how to talk directly to an 11/40 with RSTS, so Luke would still needed some sort of interface for 3CPU to connect to. "How about this little RS232 unit ?" asked 3CPU. "I've delt with him many times before, and he does an excellent job at keeping his bits straight." Luke was pressed for time, so he took 3CPU's advice, and the three left before they could get swapped out. However, RS232 is not the type to stay put once you remove the retaining screws. He promptly scurried off into the the deserted disk space. "Great!" cried Luke, "Now I've got this little tin box with the only link to that file off floating in the free disk space. Well, 3CPU, we better go find him before he gets allocated by someone else." The two set off, and finaly traced RS232 to the home of PDP-1 Kenobi, who was busily trying to run an icheck on the little RS unit. "Is this thing yours? His indirect addresses are all goofed up, and the size is all wrong. Leave things like this on the loose, and you'll wind up with dups everywhere. However, I think I've got him fixed up." Later that evening, after futile attempts to interface RS232 to Kenobi's Asteroids cartridge, Luke accidentally crossed the small 'droid's CXR and Initiate Remote Test (must have been all that Coke he'd consumed), and the screen showed a very distressed person claiming royal lineage making a plea for help from some General OS/1 Kenobi. "Darn," mumbled Luke. "I'll never get this Asteroids game worked out." PDP-1 seemed to think there was some significance to the message and a possible threat to Luke's home directory. If the Administrative Empire was indeed tracing this 'droid, it was likely they would more than charge for cpu time... "We must get that 'droid off this file system," he said after some intervals. They sped off to warn Luke's kin (taking a `relative' path) only to find a vacant directory... After sifting through the overwritten remaining blocks of Luke's home directory, Luke and PDP-1 sped away from /owen/lars, across the surface of the Winchester riding Luke's flying read/write head. PDP-1 had Luke stop at the edge of the cylinder overlooking /usr/spool/uucp. "Unix-to-Unix Copy Program," said PDP-1. "You will never find a more wretched hive of bugs and flamers. We must be cautious." As our heroes' process entered /usr/spool/news, it was met by a newsgroup of Administrative protection bits. "State your UID," commanded their parent process. "We're running under /usr/guest," said Luke. "This is our first time on this system." "Can I see some temporary priviledges, please?" "Uh..." "This is not the process you are looking for," piped in PDP-1, using an obscure bug to momentarily set his effective UID to root. "We can go about our business." "This isn't the process we want. You are free to go about your business. MOV along!" PDP-1 and Luke made their way through a long and tortuous nodelist (cwruecmp!decvax!ucbvax!harpo!ihnss!ihnsc!ihnss!ihps3!stolaf) to a dangerous netnode frequented by hackers, and seldom polled by Administrative Multiplexers. As Luke stepped up to the bus, PDP-1 went in search of a likely file descriptor. Luke had never seen such a collection of weird and exotic device drivers. Long ones, short ones, ones with stacks, EBCDIC converters, and direct binary interfaces all were drinking data at the bus. "#@{ *&^%^$$#@ ":><," transmitted a particularly unstructured piece of code. "He doesn't like you," decoded his coroutine. "Sorry," replied Luke, beginning to backup his partitions. "I don't like you either. I am queued for deletion on 12 systems." "I'll be careful." "You'll be reallocated!" concatenated the coroutine. "This little routine isn't worth the overhead," said PDP-1 Kenobi, overlaying into Luke's address space. "@$%&(&^%&$$@$#@$AV^$gfdfRW$#@!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" encoded the first coroutine as it attempted to overload PDP-1's input overvoltage protection. With a unary stroke of his bytesaber, Kenobi unlinked the offensive code. The other process decided to goto off. "I think I've found an I/O device that might suit us." "The name's Con Solo," said the hacker next to PDP-1. "I hear you're looking for some relocation." "Yes indeed, if it's a fast channel. We must get off this device." "Fast channel? The Milliamp Falcon has made the ARPA gate in less than twelve nodes! Why, I've even outrun cancelled messages. It's fast enough for you, old version." "Good." Replied PDP-1 "I assume your services will be discrete We wouldn't want any interference from the Administration." "You bet, Old version, but its going to cost you a little more. I'll meet you at the terminal. I have a few things in the background that I have to round-robin." Just after PDP-1 and Luke had left, a disgusting slimeball sat down opposite to Con. Solo was hoping he wasn't going to meet up with any of the plentiful bounty hunters out to strip Con of all his leads. "Greetings, Solo." fopen()ed the representative. "You owe IBM a lot of money. I am here to collect." "Ahhhh, Greedo, how nice to see you again. I should have known it would be you when this binary tree beside me wilted. Look, I managed to fopen() a new account and I'll have your boss's cycles soon enough." "You should have thought of that long ago when your CPU limit was exceeded. But, if you give me the cycles right now, I can forget I saw you here." Jibed the evil process. "Weelllll, actually, I don't have the money right now but it won't be long." "Too late, Solo. I have waited for this for a long time." the process said as what looked like a cruel grin crawled across all three of its lips. "Oh yeah?" reposed Solo as he unholstered his ROM blaster underneath the TBL. "Why don't you go goto yourself!" There was a bright flash as the blaster ripped out the bottom of the offending process and left a pile of dangling pointers. As Solo left, he tossed the bus keeper a cycle and apologized for the heap. Meanwhile, our heroes, Luke Vaxhacker and PDP-1 Kenobi made their way to the temporary file structure. When he saw the hardware, Luke exclaimed, "What a piece of junk! That's just a paper tape reader!" Luke had grown up on an out of the way terminal cluster whose natives spoke only BASIC, but even he could recognize an old ASR-33. "It needs an EIA conversion at least," sniffed 3CPU, who was (as usual) trying to do several things at once. Lights flashed in Con Solo's eyes as he whirled to face the parallel processor. "I've added a few jumpers. The Milliamp Falcon can run current loops around any Administrative TTY fighter. She's fast enough for you." "Who's your co-pilot?" asked PDP-1 Kenobi. "Two Bacco, here, my Bookie." "Odds aren't good," said the brownish lump beside him, and then fell silent, or over. Luke couldn't tell which way was top underneath all those leaves. Suddenly, RS232 started spacing wildly. They turned just in time to see a write cycle coming down the UNIBUS toward them. "Administrative Bus Signals!" shouted Con Solo. "Let's boot this pop stand! Tooie, set clock fast!" "Ok, Con," said Luke. "You said this crate was fast enough. Get us out of here!" "Shut up, kid! Two Bacco, prepare to make the jump into system space! I'll try to keep their buffers full." As the bookie began to compute the vectors into low core, spurious characters appeared around the Milliamp Falcon. "They're firing!" shouted Luke. "Can't you do something?" "Making the jump to system space takes time, kid. One missed cycle and you could come down right in the middle of a pack of stack frames or hit a space bar!" "Three to five we can go now," said the bookie. Bright chunks of position independent code flashed by the cockpit as the Milliamp Falcon jumped through the kernel page tables. As the crew breathed a sigh of relief, the bookie started paying off bets. "Not bad, for an acoustically coupled network," remarked 3CPU. "Though there was a little phase jitter as we changed parity." The story thus far: Luke, PDP-1 and their 'droids RS232 and 3CPU have made good their escape from the Administrative Bus Signals with the aid of Con Solo and the bookie, Two Bacco. The Milliamp Falcon hurtles onward through system space. Meanwhile, on a distant page in user space... Princess _LPA0: was ushered into the conference room, followed closely by Dec Vadic. "Governor Tarchive," she spat, "I should have expected to find you holding Vadics lead. I recognized your unique pattern when I was first brought aboard." She eyed the 0177545 tatooed on his header coldly. "Charming to the last," Tarchive declared menacingly. "Vadic, have you retrieved any information?" "Her resistance to the logic probe is considerable," Vadic rasped. "Perhaps we would get faster results if we increased the supply voltage..." "You've had your chance, Vadic. Now I would like the princess to witness the test that will make this star fully operational. Today we enable the -r beam option, and we've chosen the princess' $HOME of /usr/alderaan as the primary target." "No! You can't! /usr/alderaan is a public account, with no restricted permissions. We have no backup tapes! You can't..." "Then name the rebel inode!" Tarchive snapped. A voice announced over a hidden speaker that they had arrived in /usr. "1248," she whispered, "They're on /dev/rm3. Inode 1248, /mnt/dantooine." She turned away. Tarchive sighed with satisfaction. "There, you see, Lord Vadic? She can be reasonable. Proceed with the operation." It took several clock ticks for the words to penetrate. "What!" _LPA0: gasped. "/dev/rm3 is not a mounted filesystem," Tarchive explained. "We require a more visible subject to demonstrate the power of the Are-Em Star star. We will mount an attack on /mnt/dantooine as soon as possible." As the princess watched, Tarchive reached over and typed "ls" on a nearby terminal. There was a brief pause, there being only one processor on board, and the viewscreen showed, ".: not found." The princess suddenly double- spaced and went off-line. The Milliamp Falcon hurtles on through system space... Con Solo finished checking the various control and status registers, finally convinced himself that they had lost the Bus Signals as they passed the terminator. As he returned from the I/O page, he smelled smoke. Solo wasn't concerned--the Bookie always got a little hot under the collar when he was losing at chess. In fact, RS232 had just executed a particularly clever MOV that had blocked the Bookie's data paths. The Bookie, who had been setting the odds on the game, was caught holding all the cards. A little strange for a chess game... Across the room, Luke was too busy practicing bit-slice technique to notice the commotion. "On a word boundary, Luke," said PDP-1. "Don't just hack at it. Remember, the Bytesaber is the weapon of the Red-eye Night. It is used to trim offensive lines of code. Excess handwaving won't get you anywhere. Listen for the Carrier." Luke turned back to the drone, which was humming quietly in the air next to him. This time Luke's actions complemented the drone's attacks perfectly. Con Solo, being an unimaginative hacker, was not impressed. "Forget this bit-slicing stuff. Give me a good ROM blaster any day." "~~j~~hhji~~," said Kenobi, with no clear inflection. He fell silent for a few seconds, and reasserted his control. "What happened?" asked Luke. "Strange," said PDP-1. "I felt a momentary glitch in the Carrier. It's equalized now." "We're coming up on user space," called Solo from the CSR. As they cruised safely through stack frames, the emerged in the new context only to be bombarded by freeblocks. "What the..." gasped Solo. The screen showed clearly: /usr/alderaan: not found "It's the right inode, but it's been cleared! Twoie, where's the nearest file?" "3 to 5 there's one..." the Bookie started to say, but was interrupted by a bright flash off to the left. "Administrative TTY fighters!" shouted Solo. "A whole DZ of them! Where are they coming from?" "Can't be far from the host system," said Kenobi. "They all have direct EIA connections." As Solo began to give chase, the shell lurched suddenly. Luke noticed the link count was at 3 and climbing rapidly. "This is no regular file," murmured Kenobi. "Look at the ODS directory structure ahead! They seem to have us in a tractor feed." "There's no way we'll unlink in time," said Solo. "We're going in." When we last left Luke, the Milliamp Falcon was being pulled down to the open collector of the Administrative Are-Em Star star. Dec Vadic surveys the relic as Administrative Flunkies search for passengers... "LS scan shows no one aboard, sir," was the report. Vadic was unconvinced. "Send a fully equipped Ncheck squad on board," he said. "I want every inode checked out." He turned around (secondary channel) and stalked off. On board the Milliamp Falcon, .Luke was puzzled. "They just walked in, looked around and walked off," he said. "Why didn't they see us?" "An old munchkin trick" .Con smiled as he explained. "See that period in front of your name?" "Where'd that come from?" .Luke asked as he spun around, just in time to see the decimal point. "Spare decimal points lying around from the last time I fixed the floating point accelerator," said .Con. "Handy for smuggling blocks accross file system boundaries, but I never thought I'd have to use them on myself. They aren't going to be fooled for long, though. We'd better figure a way outa here." At this point (.) the dialogue tends to wedge. Being the editor and in total control of the situation, I think it would be best if we sort of gronk the next few paragraphs. For those who care, our heroes find themselves in a terminal room of the star, having thrashed several Flunkies to get there. For the rest of you, just keep banging the rocks together, guys. --Ed. "Hold on," said Con. "It says we have `new mail.' Is that an error?" "%SYS-W-NORMAL, Normal, successful completion," said PDP-1. "Doesn't look like it. I've found the inode for the Milliamp Falcon. It's locked in kernel data space. I'll have to slip in and patch the reference count, alone." He disappeared through a nearby entry point. Meanwhile, RS232 found a serial port and logged in. His bell started ringing loudly. "He keeps saying, `She's on line, she's on line'," said 3CPU. "I believe he means Princess _LPA0:. She's being held on one of the privileged levels." Once again, things get sticky, and the dialogue suffers the most damage. After much handwaving and general flaming, they agree to rescue her. They headed for the detention level, posing as Flunkies (which is hard for most hackers) claiming that they had trapped the Bookie executing an illegal racket. They reached the block where the Princess was locked up and found only two guards in the header. --Ed. "Good day, eh?" said the first guard. "How's it goin', eh?" said the other. "Like, what's that, eh?" "Process transfer from block 1138, dev 10/9," said Con. "Take off, it is not," said the first guard. "Nobody told US about it, and we're not morons, eh?" At this point (.), the Bookie started raving wildly, Con shouted "Look out, he's loose!" and they all started blasting ROMs left and right. The guards started to catch on and were about to issue a general wakeup when the ROM blasters were turned on them. "Quickly, now," said Con. "What buffer is she in? It's not going to take long for these..." The intercom receiver interrupted him, so he took out its firmware with a short blast. "guys to figure out something is goin' on," he continued. Luke quickly located the interface card and followed the cables to a sound- proof enclosure. He lifted the lid and peered at the mechanism inside. "Aren't you a little slow for ECL?" printed princess _LPA0:. "Wha? Oh, the Docksiders," stammered Luke. He took off his shoes (for industry) and explained, "I've come relocate you. I'm Luke Vaxhacker." Suddenly, forms started bursting around them. "They've blocked the queue!" shouted Solo. "There's only one return from this stack!" "OVER HERE!" printed _LPA0: with overstrikes. "THROUGH THIS LOOPHOLE!" Luke and the princess disappeared into a nearby feature. "Gritch, gritch," mumbled Two Bacco, obviously reluctant to trust an Administrative oversight. "I don't care how crufty it is!" shouted Con, pushing the Bookie toward the crock. "DPB yourself in there now!" With one last blast that reprogrammed two flunkies, Con joined them. The "feature" landed them right in the middle of the garbage collection data. Pieces of data that hadn't been used in weeks floated past in a pool of decaying bits. "Bletch!" was Con's first comment. "Bletch, bletch," was his second. The Bookie looked as if he'd just paid a long shot, and the odds in this situation weren't much better. Luke was polling the garbage when he stumbled upon a book with the words "Don't Panic" inscribed in large, friendly letters on the cover. "This can't possibly help us now," he said as he tossed the book away. The Bookie was about to lay odds on it when Luke suddenly disappeared. He popped up accross the pool, shouting, "This is no feature! It's a bug!" and promptly vanished again. Con and the princess were about to panic() when Luke reappeared. "What happened?" they asked in parallel. "I don't know," gasped Luke. "The bug just dissolved automagically. Maybe it hit a breakpoint..." "I don't think so," said Con. "Look how the pool is shrinking. I've got a bad feeling about this..." The princess was the first to realize what was going on. "They've implemented a new compaction algorithm!" she exclaimed. Luke remembered the pipe he had open to 3CPU. "Shut down garbage collection on recursion level 5!" he shouted. Back in the control room, RS232 searched the process table for the lisp interpreter. "Hurry," sent 3CPU. "Hurry, hurry," added his other two processors. RS232 found the interpreter, interrupted it, and altered the stack frame they'd fallen into to allow a normal return. Meanwhile, PDP-1 made his way deep into the core of the star, slipping from context to context, undetected through his manipulation of label_t. Finally, causing a random trap (through nofault of his own) he arrived at the inode table. Activity there was always high, but the Spl6 sentries were too secure in their knowledge that no user could interrupt them to notice the bug that PDP-1 carefully introduced. On a passing iput, he adjusted the device and inode numbers, maintaining parity, to free the Milliamp Falcon. They would be long gone before the locked inode was diagnosed... Unobserved, he began traversing user structures to find the process where the Milliamp Falcon was grounded. Finding it and switching context, he discovered his priority weakened suddenly. "That's not very nice," was all he could say before the cause of the obstruction became clear. "I have been pausing a long time, PDP-1 Kenobi," rasped Dec Vadic. "We meet again at last. The circuit has been completed." They looped several times, locking byte sabers. Bit by bit, PDP-1 appeared to weaken. The fight had come into the address space of the Milliamp Falcon, and provided the .di (diversion?) that allowed Luke and the others to reassert control. Luke paused to watch the conflict. "If my blade finds its mark," warned Kenobi, "you will be reduced to so many bits. But if you slice me down, I will only gain computing power." "Your documentation no longer confuses me, old version," growled Vadic. "my Role MASTER now." With one stroke, Vadic sliced Kenobi's last word. Unfortunately, the word was still in Kenobi's throat. The word fell clean in two, but Kenobi was nowhere to be found. Vadic noticed his victim's uid go negative, just before he disappeared. Odd, he thought, since uids were unsigned... Luke freaks out. "You gotoers!!" he cried as he pulled his ROM blaster and started nuking processes left and right. Fortunately for our heroes, Luke had removed the -i option on his blaster and accidently struck the chmod go-rwx device beside the access path. Even with the enemy temporarily cut off he had to be dragged into the Milliamp Falcon. Con Solo and Two Bacco maneuvered the Milliamp Falcon out of the process, onto the bus and made straight for system space. 3CPU and RS232 were idle, for once. Princess _LPA0: tried to print comforting things for him, but Luke was still hung from the loss of his friend. Then, seemingly from nowhere, he thought he heard PDP-1's voice say, "May the carrier be with you." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The danger, however, was far from over. "I hope you can use a powered keyboard, kid. We are going to have to deal with the pursuing TTY fighters before we can make the jump." Luke leaped atop the controls for the powered keyboard. "Wow", he thought to himself, "this shell may be a hunk of FORTRAN but it sure is ready for number crunching." The TTY fighters approached and soon their cursors tore into the Falcon's protective shielding. After a few moments fighting, all 2^2 of the marauders had been erased but Solo knew there were plenty more backups. The Falcon changed parity. --------------------------------------------------------- "Is the trojan horse program hidden in the Milliamp Falcon, Vadic?" asked Tarchive with an evil cd. "Yes. Soon they will land at the hidden base and the Are-em star will live up to its name." Gloated Vadic. "Good," replied Tarchive "Prepare the station for pursuit." --------------------------------------------------------- After a several cd's and multiple clock pulses, the Milliamp Falcon arrived at the rebel base. After the initial .logins and msgs, the rebels assembled and compiled the contraband information. "Here is where we're going to get them." said the rebel commander. "They foolishly left a path from the /pub up through the root to /usr/local/bin. We feel a well placed cursor will traverse the path and slice the bad data once and forever, even on this operating system. However, the target is only three bytes wide." There was a groan from the programmers who were queued to attack the approaching base. "We used to bullseye system bugs back home on the farm. They weren't much wider than the path." Luke cut in trying to sound important. "That was when you had no TTY fighters on your tail, youngster." responded the commander. He turned from Luke and addressed the rest of the partition. "Remember, set your caches prior to your runs and may the carrier be with you." Just before Luke jumped into his /-wing fighter, Luke pleaded with Con to stay and help in the battle. "Sorry, kid. I have a dept to pay. You people don't have a SNOBOL's chance in HAL of succeding. I have better plans than getting erased." "Your full of APL, Solo, but good luck to you anyways" Luke appended himself into his fighter. With a roar, the rebel forces launched into /usr/space and prepared for combat with the massive Are-em station. "Lock wings into go-x" ordered the flight leader. "This is going to be tense!" The powerful shells spun into the nodes of the Are-em station. Luke started to blast defending bytes to support the other members of the team. "Red four, beware the TTY's to the right. The path is just to your left sibling. Can you C it? Red four, Red four, watch behind you. Hit return, red four, HIT RETURN!" One of the rebel fighters fell victim to an rm beam and went off-line permanently. Luke now realized it was up to him to place the cursor within the path. Setting his node to write protect, Luke spun through some nroff blasts, inverted his uid and entered the pipe towards the target. "Wedge!" Shouted Luke "Follow me and provide cover." It'll be tight but Luke hoped Wedge would live up to his name. "I guess it's up to me to save the file structure", he thought to himself. Sliding his shell through the pipe, Luke locked on his targeting processor. He knew, however, he had little chance when the enemy signals homed in on him through the pipe. Dec Vadic felt the modulation in the carrier and dropped into pursuit of the rebel shells. "Cover me while I go after the leader!" he told his associated processes flying in parallel. As Vadic entered the pipe, the defensive debuggers ceased firing. "I don't like this, Luke" Wedge said "Why have they stopped firing?" In answer to his question, the other rebel support shell blew itself into maxint pieces. "I can't hold my semaphores any longer, you're on your own, Luke!" Wedge spun his shell out of the pipe and into /usr/space. Luke was alone. Behind him, Vadic prepared to fire. "The carrier is strong with this one." he said as several cursors missed their target. "I have you now!" Vadic fingered the fire control. Suddenly, cursors blasted into Vadic's support shells and he himself spun into /usr/space, out of control. Luke looked up to see the Milliamp Falcon moving away and realized the rebels now had a chance. As he approached the target, Luke felt a modulation from outside the system. "Use the carrier, Luke. The carrieeeerrrrr......" Luke suddenly switched off the targeting process and at the right moment, the cursors blasted into the proper path without Luke even realizing what had happened. Sensing imminent disaster, Luke spun away from the striken Are-em star. Just after Luke was outside the danger zone, the Are-em star suffered a massive rmdir and was blown to bits. The rebels had won and Luke became a mega-hero. --------------------------------------------------------------- Far from the free-blocks created by the destruction of the Are-em star, Dec Vadic regained control of his shell and vengeance hung heavily on his mind. "Beware, rebel nodes. Enjoy your little victory. Soon, very soon, the Administration will strike back." --------------------------------------------------------------- There's a dog that loves to be scrubbed three times every day. The owners aren't sure of his breed, they think he's a shampoodle. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ After Snow White used a couple rolls of film taking pictures of the seven dwarfs, she mailed the roll to be developed. Later she was heard to sing, "Some day my prints will come." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ How do you tell the difference between a black bear and a brown bear? Just climb a tree... If the bear climbs the tree and eats you, it's a black bear. If the bear knocks the tree down and eats you, it's a brown bear. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Q: What do you call a cow with no front legs? A: Lean Beef ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Q: What do you call a cow with no legs at all ? A: Ground beef ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Q: What's black and white and eats like a horse? A: A Zebra. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Q: What do you call a boomerang that won't come back? A: A stick ------------------------------------------------------------------------ There were two guys walking down the street with a penguin, when a policeman stopped them and said "Excuse me. Don't you think you should take that penguin to a zoo?" The two guys said "Yes officer, right away." The following day the two guys, again with the penguin, met the same police officer. The policeman said, "I thought I told you to take that penguin to a zoo?" One of the guys replied, "Yes you did, and we took him and he liked it alot, but he wants to go to the movies today!!" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Q: What do you call four Mexicans in quicksand? A: Quatro cinco. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Q: Did you hear what happened to the guy who couldn't keep up payments to his exorcist? A: He was repossessed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ There was once was an old man from Esser Who's knowledge grew lesser and lesser It at last grew so small, He knew nothing at all And now he's a college Professor. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Seen on a bakery delivery truck: Cakes 66 cents Upsidedown cakes 99 cents. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Two golfers were playing along somewhere near the edge of the course. One of them gazed across the fence and remarked, "Look at those idiots over there ice skating in this blizzard!" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals." - Winston Churchill ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MEN JOKES: What did God say after He created man? "I can do better than this." What's the best way to force a man to do sit-ups? Put the remote control between his feet. How do men exercise at the beach? By sucking in their stomachs every time they see a bikini. What does a man consider a seven course meal? A hot dog and a six pack. Why is it good that there are female astronauts? If the crew gets lost in space, at least the women will ask for directions. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A pushy romeo asked a gorgeous elevator operator, "Don't all these stops and starts get you pretty worn out?" "It isn't the stops and starts that get on my nerves, it's the jerks." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A young husband with an inferiority complex insisted he was just a little pebble on the beach. The marriage counselor told him, "If you wish to save your marriage, you'd better be a little boulder." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ During a fight, a husband threw a bowl of Jello at his wife. She had him arrested for carrying a congealed weapon. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A rock store was closed by the police, they were taking too much for granite. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A prospector marched into an assayer's office and planted two huge nuggets on the counter. "Well, don't just stand there, assay something!" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Q: Why did the moron throw the butter out the window? A: Because he wanted to see a butterfly. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Q: What did the moron do when he learned that he was going to die? A: He went into the living room. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ It was three o'clock in the morning when the moron's phone rang, so he trudged from his seventh-floor bedroom all the way down to the ground-floor drawing-room to answer it. "Hello?", said the moron. "Hello" said the voice at the other end. "Is that one-one-one-one-one-one?" "No", said the moron. "This is eleven-eleven-eleven." "Oh," said the voice at the other end, "I must have the wrong number. I'm terribly sorry for disturbing you." "Oh, that's all right", said the moron. "I had to get up anyway to answer this blasted phone!" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Q: What's the difference between broccoli and boogers? A: You can't get kids to eat broccoli. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A limerick packs laughs anatomical In a space that's quite economical. The good ones I've seen So seldom are clean, And the clean ones so seldom are comical. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Did you hear about the cannibal who was late for supper? He was given the cold shoulder. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ An Idahoan, Texan, and Aggie decided to pool their funds and go to the Olympics in Barcelona. The airfare and hotel rates ate up most of their money, and so they didn't have enough to get into the stadium to see the events. So they stood around the gate watching more fortunate folk get in, and then noticed that some people didn't have to pay. Whenever an athlete passed the guard with his (or her) equipment, the guard would simply nod and let them through. So the three visitors quickly trotted off to a nearby hardware store, and came back shortly to try to get in. The Idahoan walked up to the guard and gestured at the long PVC pipe he carried. "Pole vaulting," he said, and the guard waved him through. The Texan, having rigged up an ax to a length of chain, approached the guard next and showed off his wares. "Ax throwing," he said, and the guard shrugged and waved him through. The Aggie came last, with a roll of chain link on his shoulder. "Fencing." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A lawyer and a doctor were having dinner at their country club. "I have a real problem," the doctor said to the lawyer. "Members at this club ask me all kinds of medical questions. This hurts my practice. What can I do?" "That's easy," the attorney replied. "Send them a bill." Two days later the doctor received a bill from the lawyer. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A woman lion tamer had the big cats under such control they took a lump of sugar from her lips on command. "Anyone can do that!" a skeptic yelled. The ringmaster came over and asked, "Would you like to try it?" "Sure," replied the man, "but first get those crazy lions out of there!" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Three men, one American, one British, and one Iraqi see a bottle. One of them picks it up and rubs it. A genie pops out and grants them all one wish apiece. The American says, "I want a million bucks a week, tax free." The genie grants the wish. The Brit says, "I want to be a member of the peerage." The genie makes him a Lord. The Iraqi says, "My neighbor has a goat. I want it KILLED." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Q: Why don't blondes make Kool-aid? A: Because they can't fit 8 cups of water in the little packet. Q: Why did the blonde climb over the chain link fence? A: To see what was on the other side. Q: Why don't blondes get coffee breaks? A: It takes too long to retrain them. Q: What does a blonde say when she opens up a box of Cheerios? A: "Look! Donut seeds." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Q: How was copper wire invented? A: Two lawyers trying to pick up the same penny. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Q: Why won't sharks attack lawyers? A: Professional courtesy. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A guy goes in for a heart transplant. His surgeon says, "We've got 2 hearts; one's from a 30 year old athlete, the other's from an 85 year old lawyer. Which would you rather have?" The man replies, "I think I'll take the 85 year old lawyer. I figure that heart's hardly used at all." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This traveling salesman was way out in the boondocks, and he went to this farm trying to sell his wares. As he's talking to the farmer he notices this three legged pig hopping around in the yard and he asks the farmer about it. "I'm glad you asked me about that pig! That's no ordinary pig" says the farmer. "That's a very smart pig. Why, my whole family owes their lives to that there pig! Last winter, while we were all asleep, a spark from the fireplace caught the cabin on fire. And we would have all burnt up in our sleep. But that there pig beat on the door and started sqealing and woke us up to save our lives. And then this spring my son was a-swimmin' in the stock pond and took a cramp and would've drowned, but that pig came around back where I was plowing, and pulled me by the overalls around where I could see him just in time to save him." "But how did he lose his leg?" the salesman asks. And the farmer says "Why we all owe our lives to that there pig. It wouldn't be right to just eat him all at once!" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ He had never seen the Catskill Mountains, but had seen them kill mice. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ By the sewer I lived, By the sewer I died; They said it was murder, But it was sewercide. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Q: What do they call "Hee Haw" in Oklahoma? A: A documentary. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "It takes a smart man to know when he's stupid." -- Barney Rubble ------------------------------------------------------------------------ There are actually five billion types of people in the world, but aside from the fact that cataloging them would be more exhausting than exhaustive, this does not allow us to generalize, and is therefore useless. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Living on Earth may be expensive, but it includes an annual free trip around the Sun. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Antisesquipedalial - Opposed to the use of large words. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The flagships of the British and American fleets were passing each other sometime ago. The admiral of the American fleet signaled to the British Admiral: 'How is the world's second largest navy?'. The British admiral signaled back: 'Very well thank you. How is the world's second best?'. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Q: What did the man say to the wall? A: One more crack like that and I'll plaster you. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A blonde and a brunette are skydiving. The brunette jumps out the plane and pulls the cord - nothing happens. She pulls the emergency cord and still nothing. The blonde jumps out of the plane and yells "Oh! So you wanna race, huh?" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Q: What happened to the cat after it swallowed a ball of yarn? A: It had 6 little mittens. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A man parks his car in front of the main entrance of the Congress. Inmediately, a member of the security team goes after him yelling: "Sir! You cannot park here! All the congressmen are about to go out!" The man replies: "Don't worry. I have a good alarm in my car." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Did you hear about the snail that was mugged by two tortoises? When he went down to report the mugging the police officer asked him if he could describe the event and the snail replied, "I don't know if I could, it happened so fast." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ An Aggie decides to raise chickens. So, he goes to the feed store and buys some chicks. He takes the chicks home, and plants them with their heads sticking up. He waters them, but they die. He goes back to the feed store and tells the proprietor that he bought defective chicks, and gets another set. This time he plants them with their heads sticking down. He waters them, but they die. He then sends a letter to his Alma Mater, describing the problem. They send a letter back asking for a soil sample. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ There was this girl who was such an airhead that she thought 'nirvana' was where Wheel of Fortune contestants stand. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ There was this doctor that always went to the country club and ordered an almond daquiri. It was his standard. Anyway, one day the bartender was out of almonds so he substituted something else. The doctor came in and ordered the usual. When he got it, he tasted it and said to the bartender "Hey, is this my usual almond daquiri?" The bartender replied, "No, that is a hickory daquiri, doc." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah Here I am at Camp Granada. Camp is very entertaining and they say we'll have some fun if its not raining. I went hiking with Joe Spivy, he developed poison ivy. You remember Leonard Skinner? He got tomain poisoning after dinner. Now I dont want, this should scare ya, but my bunk mates, got , malaria (malarya) You remember Jeffrey Hardy? They're about to organize a searching party. All the counselors, hate the waiters and the lake has alligators and the head coach wants no sissies so he reads to us from something called Ulysses. Take me home! O muddah faddah take ME HOME I HATE GRANADA Don't leave me out in the forest where I might get eaten by a bear. TAKE ME HOME I promise I will not make noise or mess the house with other boys O please don't make me stay! I've been here one whole day. Dearest Faddah, Darling Muddah How's my precious little brother? Let me come home if you miss me. I will even let aunt Bertha hug and kiss me. Wait a minute, It stopped$_5! hailing, guys are swimming, guys are sailing, Playing baseball...gee dat's better, Muddah, Faddah kindly disregard this letter. _______________________________________________________ In the Sunday, April 19, edition of Parade Magazine, it is reported that, even though the Japanese use about 600 million condoms a year, they only imported about $2200 worth. Talk about a lack of market penetration!