*start* 15259 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 10 Aug 92 20:14:16 PDT (Monday) Subject: Life 8.I From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- The following has been gathered from the Whiteboard News at MicroSoft robkp@microsoft.com ************************** Fast News Forum: When the percussionist for the Space Coast Philharmonic's all-woman performance quit at the last minute, the Florida group fill in with a man. The dressed him in a robe, powdered his mustache and ordered him to "maintain a low profile." No one noticed. Satan's Arch Drive in Prescott, Arizona, was renamed Arch Drive after homeowners complained the name was scaring away potential buyers. Police arrested a 17-year-old boy in Waskom, Texas, when the automatic locks sealed him into a van he was trying to steal. ************************** From: Dan Morrow Subject: Today's Top Ten - 5/4/92 TOP TEN WAYS TO SPEND THE EXTRA HOUR OF DAYLIGHT SAVINGS 10. Twenty three-minute eggs. 9. Write 'Police Academy' sequels 7 through 15. 8. A wagonload of microwave waffles. 7. Tell your family you love them. (#7 has been brought to you by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.) 6. Try on every pair of pants in your closet as you yell out the window, "They fit!" 5. Whittle. 4. Memorize lyrics to "American Pie". 3. Call Time/LIFE. Hit on Judy the Operator. 2. Train your monkey to ride one of those little tricycles. 1. Shampoo, rinse, repeat. Shampoo, rinse, repeat. Shampoo, rinse, repeat. ************************** Fairview Heights, Illinois: Police in Fairview Heights, got a big break in their investigation into a burglary and safecracking ring earlier this week when they spotted 2 men rolling a safe across the highway in the city's business districts. The pair was charged with breaking into a nearby restaurant and police expect to make more arrests in a string of burglaries that have plagued the area for months--including one that involved a stolen tow truck used to haul the safe away from an Arby's restaurant. ************************** Troy, Illinois: You may not be able fight City Hall, but you can get their attention if you have a 65-ton crane. "We were just sitting there when we heard this rumbling noise, then the building started shaking so we jumped up and ran out," office manager Joan Eberhart said. "Next thing we knew, part of the wall was lying on Bud's floor." A crane driver accidentally backed into the building Monday while trying to demolish another building. The crane's boom knocked a gaping hole in the front wall of the city administrator Bud Klaustermeier's office. "This is not a good way to start off this week," Klaustermeier said. "We certainly do have an open door policy now," City Clerk Mary Chasteen joked Tuesday. No one was hurt in the accident in the town 20 miles east of St. Louis. Klaustermeier is sharing quarters with the mayor while engineers inspect the building for structural damage and repairs are made. The crane driver "was just being careless and wasn't watching the guy he was supposed to be watching," said Scott Bailey, site supervisor for AALCO Wrecking Company. ************************** From: Joseph Harper Subject: WhiteBoard News Los Angeles, California: The bride's wedding dress was stolen. The groom's tux was looted. And the photographer and limousine service canceled at the last minute after rioting hit south central Los Angeles. But Victoria LeMelle and Roger Compton walked down the aisle Saturday in a church fragrant with carnations, white roses and the smell of smoke from the fires that nearly ruined their nuptials. "I'm happy anyway," the new Mrs. Compton, a 28-year-old bus driver, said Sunday. "We just decided we weren't going to let a bunch of ignorant people get in our way. May the 2nd was our day, and nobody was going to stop us." ========== Kansas City, Missouri: Edwin Newman, the retired newsman and now crusader for clear, simple English, tried to enlist help in Kansas City for his campaign to stamp out pompous, inflated language. He urged an audience to correct people's grammar and write to companies that advertise with nonsense. Newman, who has written two books on English usage, decried such repetitive terms as "pre-planning, self- confessed, co-equal and successfully thwarted." "This language is deplorable," said Newman, blaming its prevalence on chatty broadcasters, bad songwriters, computers, politicians, slick advertisers and corporations. "Are we really better off when libraries are learning resource centers?" he asked. "Is it safer to drive on roads that once had crash barriers but now have impact attenuators?" ---------------------------------------------------- From some stuff Bob Cherry's collected over the years: ************************** Capabilities of C Programmers ============================= NOVICE: -- puts ``include stdio.h'' in his code - but is not sure why, -- has heard of pointers---but has never seen one. USER: -- has had a bad experience with pointers, -- knows the difference between ' and ". KNOWLEDGEABLE: -- uses: if (a==b) c=1; else c = 0; -- uses pointers - but only in place of arrays, -- loves writing code on VMS. EXPERT: -- uses: c = (a==b) ? 1 : 0; -- uses pointers comfortably, -- is jazzed when he finds a compiler bug because he found it, -- has figured out what && and || are for, -- refuses to write C code on VMS. HACKER: -- uses: c = a==b; -- writes code which use pointers to functions, -- writes macros instead of simple functions, -- uses bitwise operators because they are like assembler, -- writes simple code with ``cat '' and compiles it with ``!cc'', -- uses argv and argc. GURU: -- avoids bitwise operators due to portability, -- is annoyed with compiler bugs, -- writes code portable enough to port from VMS but doesn't relish the thought, -- can answer most C questions after a little thought. WIZARD: -- writes compilers with ``cat '' (and they work!), -- reads device driver source with breakfast, -- can tell what question you are about to ask - and answer it, -- is on a first-name basis with Dennis, Bill, and Ken. Wade Guthrie ************************** (HC3: I've since been told this was written by Dave Barry.) To succeed in a business or organization, it is sometimes helpful to know what your job is, and whether it involves any duties. Ask around among your coworkers. "Hi," you should say. "I'm a new employee. What is the name of my job?" If they answer "long range planner" or "lieutenant governor," you are free to lounge around and do crossword puzzles until retirement. Most other jobs, however, will involve some work. There are two major kinds of work in modern organizations: 1. Taking phone messages for people who are in meetings, and 2. Going to meetings. Your ultimate career strategy will be to get to a job involving primarily #2, going to meetings, as soon as possible, because that's where the prestige is. It is all very well and good to be able to take phone messages, but you are never going to get a position of power, a position where you can cost thousands of people their jobs with a single bonehead decision, unless you learn how to attend meetings. The first meeting ever held was in the Mezzanine Era. In those days, the job of humans was to slay prey, bring it home and figure out how to cook it. The problem was humans were slow and basically naked, whereas the prey had warm fur and could run like an antelope -- in fact it was an antelope, only back then nobody knew this. At last someone said, "Maybe if we just sat down and did some BRAINSTORMING we could come up with a better way to hunt our prey!" It went extremely well, plus it was much warmer sitting in a circle, so they agreed to meet again the next day, and the next. But it was pointed out that, prey-wise, the humans had not produced anything, and the race was pretty much starving. This was a serious point so the humans put it right near the top of their AGENDA! At which point some of the people in the meeting, who were primitive but not stupid, started eating plants. Thus was born modern agriculture. It could never have happened without meetings. The modern business meeting, however, might be better compared with a funeral, in the sense that you have a gathering of people who are wearing uncomfortable clothing and would rather be elsewhere. The major difference is that most funerals have a definite purpose. Also, nothing is ever really buried in a meeting. An idea may look dead, but it will always reappear at another meeting later on. If you have ever seen the movie "Night of the Living Dead" you have a rough idea of how modern meetings operate, with projects and proposals that everybody thought were killed rising constantly from their graves to stagger back into meetings to eat the brains of the living. There are two major kinds of meetings: 1. Meetings that are held for basically the same reason that Arbor Day is observed -- namely tradition. For example, a lot of managerial meetings fall into this category. You'll get used to this kind of meeting. You'd better, because this kind accounts for 83% of all meetings (based on a study in which I wrote down numbers until one of them looked about right). This type of meeting operates the way "Show and Tell" does in nursery school, with everybody getting to say something, the difference being that in nursery school kids actually have something new to say. When it's your turn, you should say you're still working on whatever it is you're supposed to be working on. This may seem dumb, since OBVIOUSLY you'd be working on whatever you're supposed to be working on, and even if you weren't, you'd claim you were, but this is the traditional thing for everyone to say. It would be a lot faster if the person running the meeting would just say, "Everybody who is still working on what he or she is supposed to be working on raise your hand!" You'd be out of there in five minutes, even allowing time for jokes. But this is not how we do it in America. My guess is, it's how they do it in Japan. 2. Meetings where there is some alleged purpose. These are trickier, because what you do depends on what the purpose is. Sometimes the purpose is harmless, like somebody wants to show slides of pie charts and give everybody a copy of a big fat report. All you have to do in this kind of meeting is sit there and have elaborate fantasies, then take the report back to your office and throw it away, unless of course you're a vice president, in which case you write the name of a subordinate in the upper right hand corner, followed by a question mark, like this: "Pat?" Then you send it to Pat and forget all about it (although it will plague Pat throughout the following weeks and months). But sometimes you go to meetings where the purpose is to get your "input" on something. This is serious, because what it means is they want to make sure that in case whatever it is turns out to be stupid or fatal, you'll get some of the blame. So you have to somehow escape from the meeting before they get around to asking you anything. One way is to set fire to your shoes. Another is to have an accomplice interrupt the meeting and announce that you have a phone call from somebody very important, such as the president of the company, or the pope. It should be either one or the other. It would sound fishy if the accomplice said, "You have a call from the president of the company. Or the pope." You should know how to take notes at a meeting. Use a yellow legal pad. At the top, write the date and underline it twice. Now wait until an important person such as your boss starts talking. When s/he does, assume an expression of rapt interest, as though the secrets of life itself were being revealed. Then draw interlocking rectangles on the legal pad. If it is an especially lengthy meeting, you may draw more elaborate doodles and a caricature of your boss. If somebody falls asleep in a meeting, have everybody else leave the room. Then collect a group of total strangers right off the street, and have them sit around the sleeping person until s/he awakens. Then have one of them say, in a very somber voice: "Terry, your plan is very, very risky. However, you've given us no choice but to try it. I only hope for your sake, that you know what you're getting yourself into." Then they should all file quietly from the room. ************************** For all those born before 1945 WE ARE SURVIVORS!!! Consider the changes we have witnessed: We were born before television, before penicillin, before polio shots, frozen foods, Xerox, plastic, contact lenses, Frisbees and 'The Pill.' We were before radar, credit cards, split atoms, laser beams, and ballpoint pens; before pantyhose, dishwashers, clothes dryers, electric blankets, air conditioners, drip-dry clothes--and before man walked on the moon. We got married first and then lived together. How quaint can you be? In our time, closets were for clothes, not for "coming out of." Bunnies were small rabbits and were not Volkswagons. Designer Jeans were scheming girls named Jean or Jeanne, and having a meaningful relationship meant getting along well with our cousins. We thought fast food was what you ate during Lent, and Outer Space was the back of the Riviera Theatre. We were before house-husbands, gay rights, computer dating, dual careers and commuter marriages. We were before day-care centers, group therapy and nursing homes. We never heard of FM radio, tape decks, elecric typewriters, artificial hearts, word processors, yogurt, and guys wearing earrings. For us, time-sharing meant togetherness--not computers or condominiums; a "chip" meant a piece of wood; hardware meant hardware; and software wasn't even a word! In 1940, "made in Japan" meant JUNK and the term "making out" referred to how you did on your exam. "MacDonalds" and instant coffee were unheard of. We hit the scene when there were 5 & 10? stores, where you bought things for five and ten cents. Sanders or Wilsons sold ice cream cones for a nickel or a dime. For one nickel you could ride a street car, make a phone call, buy a Pepsi or enough stamps to mail one letter AND two postcards. You could buy a new Chevy Coupe for $600, but who could afford one; a pity, too, because gas was 11? a gallon! In our day sigarette smoking was fashionable, GRASS was mowed, COKE was a cold drink and POT was something you cooked in. ROCK MUSIC was a Grandma's lulaby and AIDS were helpers in the Principal's office. We were certainly not before the differenc between the sexes was discovered, but we were surely before the sex change; we made do with what we had. And we were the last generation that was so dumb as to think you needed a husband to have a baby! No wonder we are so confused and there is such a generation gap today! BUT WE SURVIVED!! What better reason to celebrate? *start* 16970 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 17 Aug 92 17:07:30 PDT (Monday) Subject: Life 8.J From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- The following are from Spaf's Yucks Digests: spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene "Chief Yuckster" Spafford) ************************** From: rutgers!iqsc.com!rex (Rex Black) Subject: bad puns, anyone... From the risks digest.... > Date: 14 Jun 92 06:57:14 EDT > From: "Richard Frantz Jr." <72570.2264@compuserve.com> > Subject: Computer system refuses large deposit > > A branch bank officer told me that they had to refuse to accept > deposit of a check for $200,000 because the software, used by several > banks in the area, couldn't handle more than $99,999.99 in the deposit > field. She insisted it was a computer error even though I tried to > explain it was a specification error. > Richard Frantz Jr. Well, I think Richard should have just made _two_ $99,999.99 deposits, _then_ he could have put his TWO CENTS in! Aaauuuggghhh!!! Rex P.S. In any civilized state, such jokes are a felony. Thank the Lord I live in Texas! ************************** From: vtcs1::janlee Subject: Thought for the Day "No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats, approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less." ************************** From: rutgers!iqsc.com!rex (Rex Black) Boy, I thought California was the land of regulation-crazed politicos and let's-pass-a-law lunies. Not to be outdone in this category, Massachussetts legislature is debating a law to license and regulate PR practicioners in the Bay State. Now, no one can argue that spin doctors aren't a danger to the public health and welfare, but are the people who brought you Boston Harbor really the folks to clean up Massachussetts advertising? ************************** From: ddgarcia@sprite.Berkeley.EDU (Daniel D. Garcia) The following was sent out to all CS grad students in a posting regarding available instructional videos we could check out... *** included file begin *** From: crystal@hera.berkeley.edu (Crystal Williams) To: csdivfac@hera.Berkeley.EDU, csdivgrads@hera.Berkeley.EDU THE MACHINE THAT CHANGED THE WORLD SERIES, 1992 THE WGBH COLLECTION: FILMS FOR THE HUMANITIES & SCIENCES Giant Brains, Inventing the Future, The Paperback Computer, The Thinking Machine, The World at Your Fingertips length: 58 minutes each *** included file end *** I don't think that sentence is as associative as she thinks, i.e. (...changed the world) series ...changed the (world series) Perhaps the Cubs can find some use for this machine? ************************** Date: Tue, 14 Apr 92 00:03:34 PDT From: one of our correspondents Subject: Drug-sniffing dogs star on cards To: yucks-request By Philip J. LaVelle Copley News Service SAN DIEGO There's a new breed of San Diego All-Stars on the national trading-card scene, and we're not talking Benito Santiago in fact, we're talking about a bunch of dogs. Real ones. With names like Snag, Sinbad and Simon, these furry quadrupeds are the first-stringers in the U.S. Customs Service's war on drugs. From San Diego to Miami, these sharp-nosed pooches have sniffed out a combined $12 billion in hidden narcotics booty. And starting this month, their smiling dog faces began showing up nationwide on trading cards stuffed into Milk-Bone Dog Biscuit boxes. It's all part of a cooperative venture between the doggie treat maker and the Customs Service. "We figure it's great exposure for both Milk-Bone and for the U.S. Customs drug dogs," said Ann Smith, spokeswoman for Nabisco Foods Group, parent of Milk-Bone. "This is something Nabisco feels strongly about. They believe in the message that they give to the children," Smith said from corporate headquarters in Parsippany, N.J. The message: a simple Just Say No-style moral, is delivered in a kind of Lassie vs. the Cartel Lords plot. The front of the cards features a photo of the happy-faced, furry cops. On the back: The dog's seizure stats, a number kids can call to snare suspected smugglers (800-BE-ALERT), and the exhortation to "STOP DRUG SMUGGLING!" Customs began using about a half-dozen dogs in the early 1970s. Now there are more than 300 dogs in the service many of them rescued from the pound. "We pull 'em off of Death Row and give them a shot," Customs Service spokesman Steve Duchesne said from Washington, D.C. "Many of these are dogs that people don't want any more. However, they're basically intelligent animals that have incredibly keen senses." Duchesne said the dogs go through a 12-week training program. The graduates are "highly trained, effective officers," he said. Those that flunk are put into private homes, and not returned to the pound. Of 24 dogs featured nationally, seven are from the San Diego County-Imperial County region. Snag, a 4-year-old Labrador retriever based in San Diego, wagged his tail into history on Oct. 4, 1990, when he sniffed out 8,705 pounds of Colombian cocaine hidden in a propane gas tanker stopped at the Otay Mesa border crossing. That load worth nearly $784 million was the largest border seizure in U.S. history. Other San Diego star dogs include Sinbad (Labrador retriever mix, $38.9 million in career seizures); Blow (Labrador mix, $17.3 million); Simon (golden retriever, $82.5 million); Tia (Labrador, $48.1 million); Tom (Labrador, $40.3 million); and Benny (golden retriever, $20 million). The trading card program began 18 months ago in Dallas, where Customs dog trainers took their charges on the road to local schools for "demonstration" visits. The visits ended with trainers handing out doggie trading cards to students. Demand for the cards soon outstripped supply. Rather than end up in the doghouse of defeat, the feds began looking for corporate sponsors for their trading cards, and found a partner in Milk-Bone. Duchesne said Milk-Bone was the only dog food manufacturer to take up the service's call for help. ************************** From: smith@canon.co.uk (Mark Smith) Subject: No rights in England phil@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Phil Howard KA9WGN) writes: > So what is the advice to those who would travel to London? Wait six months and go to EuroDisneyland instead. I understand that La Rue Main will actually be considered American soil and therefore you will be free to enjoy your vacation armed to the teeth. In fact, EuroDisneyland will be exactly like "old" Europe, but much better run. Consider just a few differences: feature Europe EuroDisneyland ---------- castles old, run-down new, very clean museums boring, musty lots of holograms and lasers toilets dire, holes in the floor spotless, gleaming food greasy, smells funny have it your way locals difficult, foreign fresh-faced, eager to please guides tempermental, hard to understand michel mouse! language weird, like in WW2 films universal dudes ---------- There's just no contest. Book now and avoid the rush. disney uber alles ************************** From: jonesr2@rpi.edu Subject: Quotes from a true Noble man. Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny A collection of quotes from Professor Ralph Noble, a professor of psychology here at RPI. Specifically, these were taken from his Psychology of Motivation class, Fall semester 1991. --- "They've got drive-by shootings in Philadelphia now. Where they park to reload, I don't know." "If I could go through the dorms and shoot people, exam pressures would be put into perspective." "As you approach 4.0, study time approaches infinity." "In the spirit of today, when I'm handing out the exams, we're going to further examine the totally suffering individual." "The only sense I can make out of having kids is it's a good way to become a grandparent." "Look at this [dollar bill], for those of you who haven't seen [one] before." "If money stopped buying things, I'd lose interest in it." "I've been in the academic world a long time...I can sleep with my eyes open, which is an important skill for those of you considering jobs in middle and upper management." "She's human...well, she's a lawyer, but reasonably human." "We're going to assume a few things about reality. One, it exists. That's not a necessary assumption, but I find it comforting." "There are a lot of reasons to skydive. It does take your mind off your problems." "There was some brilliant work done with rats, which makes it scientific." "There are two universes: for males, and for females." "In the US, males are a minority and should be treated and protected as such." "Most divorces are just a four-year-long date with a little bookkeeping." "Let's assume the semester's over, so dying is a bad thing." "A college professor is someone smart enough to get a Ph.D., but too crazy to make a living." "There's a large amount of evidence saying that the man's point of view is largely irrelevant." "Sean Connery is the sexiest man alive? Was I on the list?" "You watch a talk show recently? They're doing one next month on a normal, happy heterosexual couple, assuming they can find one." ************************** From: landman%xpoint@uunet.UU.NET (Howard Landman) Subject: Gibson's Agrippa To: eniac I just saw a description of William Gibson's latest work, Agrippa, which is billed as a "read-once" novel. It comes on a floppy disk, encrypted, and the decryption program erases the text after it has been displayed on the screen. (Presumably there must be some sort of copy-protection as well?) It is packaged with a set of etchings which, if I understood correctly, are printed in a light-sensitive manner so that they decay with exposure to light. In short, the whole work is designed as far as possible to be usable once or a few times and then self-destruct. It comes in two versions: the "cheap" version is $450 and the "fancy" version (comes with metal box) is $1500. I think I'll wait until I can get it at a used book store. :-) ************************** From: Joel B Levin Subject: People with disabilities (mental division) NPR did a story yesterday about how people with mental disabilities of various sorts are being rehabilitated at Lotus. They brought manufacturing of software packages in house and staffed it, with the help of the Greater Boston Rehabilitation Services, with people with, among other things, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and severe learning disabilities (those with severe mental illness were recovering). It sounded like a good program, helping a lot of people who previously couldn't work or who lost their jobs because of illness get back on their feet. They did quote the woman from GBRS as saying that one of her jobs was to make sure people with compatible problems worked together. It's not a good idea to place a person who hears voices next to a person who mumbles. [Lily Tomlin suggested some years ago that NY City ought to pair up all the street people who mumbled to themselves so they'd look like they were having conversations.... --spaf] ************************** From: Christopher Subject: second-hand news I'm cataloging an incompluete run (on microfilm, ugh) of the Charleston, S.C. CITY GAZETTE for 1787-1797, and just noticed that they've passed on to subscribers a notice they found in the London papers that the Scots have passed an ordinance forbidding clergymen to wear wigs, on the grounds that the persons from who the hair came might be in Hell. ************************** From: rose@wagner.cbs.umn.edu (Rozalie Enriquez) Subject: A desperate situation Newsgroups: rec.humor Hello Everyone, I have this problem, and I was wondering if someone out there could help me... 2 weeks ago I met a great guy with whom I was instantly enamored. 1 week ago we moved in together, absolutely sure that this relationship was the real thing. Since then, however, I've noticed some subtle but strange habits that he has. For instance, every night at 9 he puts 5 Billy Idol CDs into the disc changer, cranks the volume and sets it on random play. Then for the next 2 hours he terrorizes my pet Iguana Clyde, chasing him around with a wooden baseball bat between his legs, screaming: "TASTES GREAT!!!! LESS FILLING!!!!" Now, call me old fashioned, but I believe it is detrimental for a young, energetic iguana to be forced to develop a conditioned fear of Billy Idol. Obvoiusly this situation is creating some strain on our relationship as my favorite baseball bat is getting pretty nicked up on the furniture. I'm still absolutely crazy about him, and need your advice: Do you think buying an alumnium baseball bat would solve the problem and strengthen our relationship? signed, owner of a frightened lizard. ************************** From: rad Subject: i have to share this.... ...this is what happens when a junior co-author learns how to be a wiseguy from the senior co-author.... jeff offutt and i are finishing the last revision of a paper after suffering through a series of particularly petulant and incompetent reviews from one of the referees... ...in the acknowledgements jeff says "We would like to thank the referees for significantly contributing to the quality of this paper, particularly referee #1 for clearly expressing many inaccuracies and misunderstandings..." ************************** From: artk@Congruent.COM (Arthur Kreitman) Subject: Lines of working code Newsgroups: misc.jobs.misc >(Lee Whitney) writes: > 1. There are no older people in software development. > > Where do programmers go when they turn 35? When I was introduced to > the teams for some major products on the market, the average age > seemed to be less than 30. Beyond that, there seemed to few 'older' > people at most other positions in the companies too. I am somewhat > concerned that after 10 years in this industry I will magically > disappear. It has to do with the number of lines of code you're born with. Everyone is born with a certain number of working lines of code. After you write that last one, you can NEVER write another line of code that works. Some are born with more, some with less. But the number is fixed at birth. You can't buy, steal, or borrow any. By 35 or so, most people have run out of working lines of code. ************************** From: mark Subject: yucks submission... You may not believe the following story (which is true), but I think you will all get a kick out of it anyways... Two of my aunts were driving up here from West Virginia this past weekend to visit my family... Anyways, they got lost somewheres in New Jersey so they stopped for directions. They pulled into a McDonalds, and happened to notice a big "Welcome to Gotham City" banner on the wall (you know -- as an advertisment for the Batman movies..) Well, I guess you can all imagine what happens next. Ok. One of my aunts ask's the cashier girl for directions back to the interstate (or something like that) and mentioned that they know they are in "Gotham City" but cannot find it on the map. (Sounds kindof hard to believe, huh) The girl at the register starts cracking up, along with everyone that had overheard my aunt talking. She got a bit ticked off, and asked to see the manager (she still thinks she is in Gotham). The manager comes out and listens to my aunts story. He breaks a smile, and decides to play along (my kindof guy). So he tells my aunt that "well, you could take I98, but a truck carrying kryptonite just fell over, and it was causing a curiosity gridlock." By this time, I'm told everyone in McDonalds was rolling around on the floor trying to stop from laughing their drinks out of their noses. So anyways my aunts finally realized that they were not in Gotham city, and the manager gave them directions back onto the highway. A couple hours later, they were getting tired and it was getting late so they decided to stop in at a hotel, so they pulled into a Hotel 6. Next my aunt starts thinking about some radio announcer's offer that if you mention his name and the radio station (something like "Bob from WLkP send me"), you will get a $20 discount for the room at any Hotel 8.. They go into the hotel and request the rooms and told the person at the desk that "Bob soandso send me from WlKP. Do we get $20 off our rooms?" The person at the desk told them "Why yes, you would get a $20 discount had you gone to a Hotel 8. However this is a Hotel 6!" [Well, he did say they were from West Virginia.... --spaf] ************************** *start* 11578 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 24 Aug 92 17:30:45 PDT (Monday) Subject: Life 8.K From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- The following are was sifted out of eunet.jokes: ************************** Sifted by: nickless@antares.mcs.anl ----- From: nroworth@nl.oracle.com (Nick Roworth) Subject: A New Newsgroup A new newsgroup appeared the other day soc.libraries.talk shouldn't this be soc.libraries.whisper ? ************************** Sifted by: Russell R. Lear ----- Subject: Saddam, recession, Bush From: zucker@uni2a.unige.ch seen on a bumper sticker in La Jolla, Ca : Saddam Hussein has got a job. Have you ? ************************** Sifted by: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig) ----- From: f88-som@nada.kth.se (Sead Omerov) Wasn't it in Sweden that someone robbed a bank and got away with some $10'000 ? I heard the police are still looking for the motive. ----- From: f88-som@nada.kth.se (Sead Omerov) In a bus during peak hours: -"Excuse me, sir, do you work for FBI ?" -"No, I don't." -"Do you work for CIA ?" -"No." -"Do you know karate ?" -"No, I don't." -"You're standing on my foot !" ************************** Sifted by: yee@atlas.arc.nasa.gov ----- From: sav@nanette.sni.de (Dr.Savory) Subject: Re: Traveller's Tales (funny signs from around the world) Seen in a german student hostel: For safety reasons, it is forbidden to be drunk alone! To encourage chastity if you have visitors after 10pm there must be at all times at least three persons present at least two of whom must be of the same sex! ----- From: gertje@vub.UUCP (Gert Dewit) In a bar: "Sir, you forgot to pay" "That's normal, I'm drinking to forget" A professor at the uni: "If the students in the back row would be so quiet as the ones in the middle who are reading, then the ones in front would be able to sleep." In a restaurant: "Waiter",says a client,"this soup tastes like beer." The waiter who takes a step backward answers : "And now?" ************************** Sifted by: Mark T. Phillips ----- From: f88-som@nada.kth.se (Sead Omerov) Subject: Crooks A car ran into a pick-pocketer, hit him and drove away. A witness said: -"I looked at the license plate, but I couldn't see the number because he was driving too fast." The pick-pocketer, who had been carried to the pavement by people passing by, groaned a little and said: -"In my pocket...you'll find his wallet...you have the number there..." They say you could read the following in a Romanian newspaper during Caucaescu's era: "The burglar broke into a warehouse by throwing a brick through a shop-window. The police are now trying to find out where he got that brick from." ************************** Sifted by: Sara L.R. Thompson ----- From:P. Berlich (berlich@vxcern.cern.ch) Captain Picard: To baldly go, where no man has gone before! ----- From: epiec@sun.pcl.ac.uk (Antonio Michael) "I wish there was a knob on my TV to turn up intelligence." "There's one called brightness but it doesn't seem to work" ************************** Sifted by: SUE NG ----- Why is your nose in the middle of your face? Because its the scenter. vidar.eidissen@stud.hsn.no | (W. Churchill/W.C. Fields) ************************** Sifted by: Ed Lopes ----- From: bcockburn@acorn.co.uk (Bruce Cockburn) Organization: Acorn Computers Ltd, Cambridge, England One day a journalist, hard-up for a story, was sitting on an Australian beach. As he gazed pensively out to sea, he saw a young woman thrashing about in the water. Upon further observation, he saw a shark circling her. His adrenalin pumping, he wondered what he could do to save her. Then a well built young man, who was jogging along the beach, suddenly dashed into the sea, karate chopped the shark, killing it, and helped the young woman swim to the beach. The excited journalist, seeing a fantastic story, ran up to the young man and said, "That was the most courageous thing I've ever seen in my life. I'm going to let the world know about this. You'll be famous. I can see it now, !" The young man turned to the journalist and said, "But I'm British." The journalist replied, without losing enthusiasm, "Oh, that doesn't matter." The next day, the headlines read, . ************************** Sifted by: Richard W Rodway ----- From: lahaye@reg.triumf.ca (GABIN, RAYMOND) Subject: war joke One day during WW2 Hitler and Goering are driving incognito through the German countryside. Suddenly a pig crosses the road in front of the car, and is killed in the collision. Hitler: ' Go to the farmer , and tell him that we killed his pig. But don't tell him that I am here.' Goering: ' Jahwol, mein Furher!', and he goes. An hour goes bye, and still Goering isn't back. Two hours, Three hours, and still no sign of Goering. Finally, after four hours, a drunken Goering returns to the car, his arms filled with bread, sausages and bottles of wine. Hitler: ' But I told you not to tell him that I was here!' Goering: ' I did not, mein Furher. All I said was " Heil Hitler, the pig, he is dead!", and he gave me all these.' ----- From: jjb@fermi.wustl.edu (James J. Beatty) Subject: Bill Gates for Prez! Since wealth seems to be a qualification for the Presidency this year, why not draft Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates? He offers many advantages over the current crop of candidates: - Made his billions faster than Perot. - Is richer than Perot. - Is smarter than any of the candidates. - Politically aligned with net.folks. - Defines and supports standards. (and sells them!) - Would convert DoD from Ada to Microsoft Basic. We've missed the deadline for a few states, so there's no time to lose. ----- .sig for comptec90012@camins.camosun.bc.ca 'I don't have time for an algorithm, I've gotta get this god damn code written!' ----- From: APUCORLE@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU Subject: Programmers Q: What language do all programmers know? A: Profanity. ************************** Sifted by: Jim Davidson ----- From: terjeve@ifi.uio.no (Terje Vernly) There are a mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer in a room. They are asked to prove or disprove the statement "all odd numbers are prime". The mathematician says: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, so by induction, all odd numbers are prime. The physicist says: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is experimental error, 11 is prime... The engineer says: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, 11 is prime... The lawyer says: 3 is prime, ... 5 is prime, ... 7 is prime, ... Do we have more odd numbers ? I recall that as The lawyer says: 3 is prime, this sets a precedent. Therefore all odd numbers are prime. However, there wasn't a lawyer in the room ... ----- Q. What is written on the bottom of an Irish swimming pool? A. No Smoking Please! ----- lion@dat1hb.north.de (Daniel Tietze) writes: There was a young woman --- tut, tut! So you think that you're in for some smut? Some five line crescendo Of lewd innuendo? Well you're wrong --- this is anything but! ... John Woods ************************** Sifted by: Philip A. Fleischmann ----- From: Sead Omerov -"A bottle of wine, please." -"Red or white?" -"It doesn't matter. It's for my uncle, and he's blind." They were walking through a park when they saw two parrots in a tree - one red and one green. One of them climbs up that tree and gets down with the red parrot in his hand. -"And the green one?", the other one asked. -"Nuthead, can't you see he isn't ripe yet?" -"Does you hausband ever talk to himself when he's alone?", the doctor asked the Woman. -"I don't know doc, I've never been together with him when he's alone." ----- He- do you think women prefer conceited men to the other kind? She- what other kind? ----- From rec.humor.funny: >The secretary general of the UN decided to have a report-writing contest for the various Western ambassadors. The subject was to be arbitrary, and the titles of the report should reflect something of the character of the representative nation. >The Secretary General decided on the topic: elephants. A coupls of days later, he received the various reports. The titles were as follows: >France: "Elephants -- a love story." >England: "Elephants and their effect on the British Empire." >USA: "How to build the biggest, bestest, fastest and most expensive elephant!" >Canada: "Elephants: a federal or provincial matter?" From: adam@concour.cs.concordia.ca (Adam Steele) 11 Feb 92 Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec And (courtesy of my Nog SO): Norway: "Norway and the Norwegians". From: elgaard@diku.dk (Niels Elgaard Larsen) 11 Feb 92 Department of Computer Science, U of Copenhagen Denmark: Elephant prepared in 1000 different ways From: jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala) 12 Feb 92 Helsinki University of Technology, Finland Finland: "The opinions about Finland and Finns among Elephants" From: m91der@tdb.uu.se (Daniel Eriksson) Dept. of Scientific Computing, Uppsala Univ. Sweden: "Is an elephant deductible?" (To understand that you need to know that Sweden has the highest tax-pressure in the world.) -- From: adam@concour.cs.concordia.ca (Adam Steele) Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec Some more: Germany: "The History of the Elephant in 13 Volumes." Japan: "A Collapsible Elephant That Will Fold Up and Fit in the Boot of Your Toyota." Former USSR: "The Role of the Elephant in the Greater Glory of the Socialist Worker." -- From: garp@isy.liu.se (Johan Garpendahl) Dept of EE, University of Linkoping Swedens embassador called back home for advice and caused a major political debate between the prime minister and the leader of the opposition. The opposition claimes that there where more elephants in Sweden when they where in power. The prime minister and the minister of elephants claim that the current decrease in elephants was caused by the incompetence of the previous government, that is, the current opposition. The opposition says that the parties in the government betrayed people when promised more elephants during the elections. The government replies that the elephant situation caused by the previous government is much worse than they ever expected, so some of the things they promised during the elections will have to wait. Etc etc. You've all heard this story before, haven't you? -- From: kiss@disuns2.epfl.ch (Blaise Kiss) 13 Feb 92 Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne Switerland : The possibilyties are the following, the people are asked to vote on which is best next sunday. 1) The price of elephants. 2) Proposal for transferring elephants by railroad through the alps 3) Where to invest your elephant 4) Study on the possibility of selling elephant milk to India Former URSS : Improving family relationships beween Mother Elephants and her kids Russia : Elephant meat distribution plan Kowait : Using elephants for pumping oil and water Italy : The elephant connection South Africa : Classifying elephants Yugoslavia : Whom do elephants belong to ? Spain : Bulls and Elephants, no big deal (OLE!) From: groot@idca.tds.philips.nl (Henk de Groot) Disclaimer: This opinion is mine alone Germany: "Der Ueber Elephant" The Netherlands: "How to point at the bad Elephants of the world" *start* 16214 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 31 Aug 92 16:43:35 PDT (Monday) Subject: Life 8.L From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- Sifted out from Victor Schwartz's mailing list: ************************** Dave Barry on Legal Age for Driving: In most states you can get a driver's license when you're 16 years old, which made a lot of sense to me when I was 16 years old but now seems insane. ************************** Dave Barry on "Looks that were popular years ago" You look back at your high school yearbook or, heaven help you, your mother's yearbook, and you see the Looks that were popular years ago, and you wonder how the human race managed to reproduce. ************************** Dave Barry on Parents in a New Light As we started having children of our own, we began to see our parents in a new light, to realize that they were not, really, so different from us, and that only they could provide us with something very precious, something that had been missing from our lives: reliable babysitting. ************************** (From a Question & Answer column in today's San Jose Mercury News:) Q: When Davey Allison rolled his race car 11 times, was that a record? A: No. In 1962, Curtis Turner at Atlanta International Raceway cartwheeled and rolled his car 13 times. He hurt his little finger. ************************** (Nancy Twomey's contribution to the Tandem Humor DL:) In a discussion of politics and the term limitations issue heard on the radio this morning, the following comment was made: Politicians are like Diapers, they need to be changed regularly AND for much the same reasons. ************************** Tokyo (AP) - A major Japanese tire maker has stopped making automobile tires with a tread pattern that resembles the Arabic word for Allah after receiving protests from Muslims. Akira Mikami, spokesman for the Tokyo-based Yokohama Rubber Co., said that in Islamic countries his company will replace the tires free of charge. The company also apologized for its lack of knowledge of Islam. Mikami said the tread was designed by computer to maximize driving safety and was not meant to blaspheme Allah. ************************** From pasteur!agate!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio I just realized why Clinton visited Tandem yesterday rather than Sun or HP which would have brought larger crowds. He thought Tandem would be a friendlier crowd when he heard they were a "fault tolerant" company. ************************** (A variation of Mark Smith's contribution to the Tandem Humor DL:) Question: Why did the dumb fail driving test? Answer: (S)he opened the door to let the clutch out. ************************** (From the "Selling It" column of the June 1992 Consumer Reports magazine:) "A Dim Understanding" Durell International of Paducah, Ky., recently advertised a $29.95 solar- powered car battery charger. "Let the sun's natural rays charge your battery 24 hours a day," the ad urged. Hmmm. Maybe the device works best in the land of the midnight sun. ************************** (From the "News of the Weird" column in today's San Jose Mercury News:) In April, Velma Ann Wantlin, 28, was given a citation by police in Houma, La., for improper use of the 911 (emergency) line after she called to report that her husband was preventing her from watching the season finale of "Knots Landing." ************************** (From a recent "News of the Weird" column in the San Jose Mercury News:) In July, New Orleans police arrested Donald Simmons, 53, and Cheryl Collins, 38, for breaking into parking meters, after videotaping the couple's crime. The police said the two would walk along a street and passionately embrace every few yards but that that was a ruse. In reality, there was a parking meter between them, and Simmons would open it with a key and slip the money to Collins, who would put it into a bag under her skirt - all in about 12 seconds time. ************************** (From today's "News of the Weird" in the San Jose Mercury News:) Ed Stevens, public school superintendent in Duncanville, Texas, resigned in July after a Dallas TV station filmed him visiting several adult bookstores and theaters during work hours. Stevens said he went to those places (some of which he visited for several hours at a time) purely to investigate allegations that some of his colleagues were there. ---------------------------------------------------- From the following are from Lindsay Cleveland's newsgroup, dsc.cuties: ************************** Contributed by: ihuxi!ixn5c!ihldt!ll1!sb1!burl!mhuxv!mhuxi!mhuxj!mhuxt!eagle!harpo!decvax!ittvax!neiman Name: Dan Neiman Tell me why the stars do shine, Tell me why the ivy twines, Tell me what makes skies so blue, And I'll tell you why I love you. Nuclear fusion makes stars to shine, Tropisms make the ivy twine, Raleigh scattering make skies so blue, Testicular hormones are why I love you. From Isaac Asimov's Joke book. The first verse is rhetorical, the second is from an MIT student. ************************** Contributed by: ihuxi!ixn5c!ihldt!ll1!sb1!burl!mhuxv!mhuxi!cbosgd!npois!npoiv!harpo!decvax!utzoo!watmath!rtris An agency doing some research into juvenile delinquency decided to phone a "representative" number of households around 10:00 PM and ask if the parents knew where their children were. Well, at around half the numbers they called, they got kids on the phone who hadn't the foggiest clue where their parents were! (Honest!) Ralph. ************************** How long will it be before there is no quietness anywhere, no escape from the rumble and the crash, the clank and the screech which seem to be the inevitable accompaniment of technology? Whatever man does or produces, noise seems to be an unavoidable by-product. Perhaps he can, as he now tends to believe, do anything. But he cannot do it quietly. -- Joseph Wood Krutch ************************** Contributed by: E.G. Baldwin wegdcb!gcegb SOUR JAPES? Puns are never appreciated By the so-called intelligentsia; When you make a pun in their presence They consider you a form of dementia. I've decided to dismiss their sneering, For after all is said and done, The reason they scorn we "pundits"---- They're incapable of creating one. --Peter Lind Hayes, WSJ, 10/10/83 ************************** When Bismark was Prussian Ambassador at the Court of Alexander II in the early 1860's, he looked out of a window in the Peterhof Palace and saw a sentry on duty in the middle of the lawn. He asked the Czar why the man was there. The Czar asked his aide-de-camp. The aide-de-camp did not know. The commanding general was summoned. "General, why is that soldier stationed in that isolated place?" asked the Czar. "I beg leave to inform your Majesty that it is in accordance with ancient custom." "What is the origin of the custom?" put in Bismark. "I do not recollect at present," answered the general. "Investigate and report the result," ordered Alexander. The investigation took three days. They found that the sentry was posted there by an order put on the books eighty years before! Records showed that one morning in the spring of 1780, Catherine the Great, who ruled Russia at the time, looked on that lawn and saw the first flower thrusting above the frozen soil. She ordered a sentry to be posted to prevent anyone from picking the flower. And in 1860 there was still a sentry on the lawn -- a memorial to habit, custom, or just everyone's saying, "But we've always done it just that way." ************************** Contributed by: ihuxi!ixn5c!ihldt!ihtnt!rkj Name: R. K. Janka After the dust had settled from the Israeli drive through Lebannon in which about 90 Syrian jets were shot down compared to zero Israeli planes downed, the Syrian defense minister went to Moscow. He requested a new shipment of missles, to which the Soviet defense minister asked, "What is wrong with the missles we sent you?" The Syrian replied, "Those were all surface-to-air missles. We need surface-to-plane missles." ************************** Contributed by: ihuxi!ixn5c!ihldt!ll1!sb1!sb6!lhs1 Cohen's Law: There is no bottom to worse. Crenna's Law of Political Accountability: If you are the first to know about something bad, you are going to be held responsible for acting on it, regardless of your formal duties. Gomme's Laws: (1) A backscratcher will always find new itches. (2) Time accelerates. (3) The weather at home improves as soon as you go away. Gunter's Airborne Discoveries: (1) When you are served a meal aboard an aircraft, the aircraft will encounter turbulence. (2) The strength of the turbulence is directly proportional to the temperature of you coffee. Hale Mail Rule, The: When you are ready to reply to a letter, you will lack at least one of the following: (a) A pen or pencil or typewriter. (b) Stationery. (c) Postage stamp. (d) The letter you are answering. Hawkeye's Conclusion: It's not easy to play the clown when you've got to run the whole circus. Hempstone's Question: If you have to travel on the Titanic, why not go first class? Hewett's Observation: The rudeness of a bureaucrat is inversely proportional to his or her position in the governmental hierachy and to the number of peers similarly engaged. Hitchcock's Staple Principle: The stapler runs out of staples only while you are trying to staple something. Hoffer's Discovery: The grand act of a dying institution is to issue a newly revised, enlarged edition of the policies and procedures manual. Immutability, Three Rules of: (1) If a tarpaulin can flap, it will. (2) If a small boy can get dirty, he will. (3) If a teenager can go out, he will. McEwan's Rule of Relative Importance: When traveling with a herd of elephants, don't be the first to lie down and rest. Miller's Slogan: Lose a few, lose a few. Mix's Law: There is nothing more permanent than a temporary building. There is nothing more permanent than a temporaty tax. Udall's Fourth Law: Any change or reform you make is going to have consequences you don't like. Uncle Ed's Rule of Thumb: Never use your thumb for a rule. You'll either hit it with a hammmer or get a splinter in it. Larry Sikes ..!ll1!sb1!lhs ************************** Contributed by akgua!edb From: McCall's, June, 1983 Title: Thin People Don't Author: Barbara Florio Graham I read every diet I can get my hands on. I even follow their suggestions. But eventually, inevitably, I always get fat again. Now, at last, I've found The Answer. After living for almost 14 years with a man who never gains an ounce no matter what I serve him, I've found out what it is that keeps him thin: He thinks differently. The real difference between fat and thin people is that thin people: avoid eating popcorn in the movies because it gets their hands greasy; split a large combination pizza with three friends; think Oreo cookies are for kids; nibble cashews one at a time; think that doughnuts are indigestible; read books they have to hold with both hands; become so absorbed in a weekend project they forget to have lunch; fill the candy dish on their desks with paper clips; counteract the midafternoon slump with a nap instead of a cinnamon Danish; exchange the deep-fryer they received for Christmas for a clock-radio; lose their appetites when they're depressed; think chocolate Easter bunnies are for kids; prefer "The Joy of Sex" to "The Joy of Cooking"; save leftovers that are too skimpy to use for another meal in order to make interesting soups; throw out stale potato chips; will eat only Swiss or Dutch chocolate, which cannot be found except in a special store; think it's too much trouble to stop at a special store just to buy chocolate; don't celebrate with a hot-fudge sundae every time they lose a pound; warm up after skiing with black coffee instead of hot chocolate and whipped cream; try all the salads at the buffet, leaving room for only one dessert; find iced tea more refreshing than an ice-cream soda; get into such interesting conversations at cocktail parties that they never quite work their way over to the hors-d'oeuvre table; have no compulsion to keep the candy dish symmetrical by reducing the jelly beans to an equal number of each color; think that topping brownies with ice cream makes too rich a dessert; bring four cookies into the TV room instead of a box; think banana splits are for kids. ************************** ---------------------------------------------------- From rec.arts.startrek.current: From: MBS116@psuvm.psu.edu (Michael B. Smith) Subject: Top Ten Picard List The TOP TEN Favorite Activities of Capt. Jean-Luc Picard...enjoy ---------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Ticking off Romulan commanders during tense confrontations in the Neutral Zone by asking "Are those Bugle Boy jeans you're wearing?" 2. telling crewmembers in menacing, Dirty Harry voice, "Go ahead, Make it so" 1. putting banana peels on the transporter pads just before an away team beams back up ************************** From: bernie.wong@canrem.com (bernie wong) Q: How many people in TNG does it take to screw a lightbulb? A: Nine. A light blub in the bridge dies. Riker : GEORDI--WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?! Picard: Someone remove the lightbulb. Conference! In the Conference room. Troi : (putting her hand on the dead bulb) I feel... pain. Worf : The bulb is useless now, Captain. Let me dispose of it. (unholsters phaser and adjusts it to "OBLITERATE" setting) Data : (thinking about what Worf said) Captain, if I were to become non-functional like this bulb, would I receive a regular burial or would I be disposed of like... Picard: Shut up, Data. Hold your fire, Mr. Worf. Where is Mr. LaForge? Geordi: (stepping into the room) Here, Captain. I'm afraid we're out of light bulbs. Who needs light anyway? With my VISOR, I can clearly see despite the absence of visible light. Bev : I can surgically remove everyone's eyes and outfit us all with VISORs... Wes : No way, Mom. Wait! I got it! I'll build us a positronic krigga-wave-condensing incandescent light generator! Riker : Excellent, Wes. BTW, WHAT THE HELL are you doing in this meeting? This is for senior officers only! Worf, put Ensign Crusher in the brig! Worf : (To Wes, grinning) You will walk or I will carry you! Bev : You're not touching my son! Everyone lurches. Outside, two Borg ships begin attacking the Enterprise. Everyone rushes to the bridge. Q suddenly appears on the bridge. Picard: Q! End this! Q : Temper temper, mon capitan. Can't you humans take a joke? (snaps fingers--Borg ships disappear) Picard: I didn't mean the Borg ships--I meant the light bulb! Q : Oh. Sorry (snaps fingers again--bulb is restored). Until next time! (flash of light--Q disappears) Picard: (hands restored bulb to Wes) prepare to screw light bulb. Wes : Aye, Captain (holds bulb in position over bulb socket) Picard: Engage! *start* 19525 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 10 Sep 92 11:26:25 PDT (Thursday) Subject: Life 8.M From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- From Jose's sifting of rec.humor: ************************** Johnny Carson: He's so fat, he can be his own running mate. ************************** From: igokhale@bonnie.ics.uci.edu (Ishaan M. Gokhale) Subject: Taxes I realize I'm a couple of days late for a posting of this nature, but, better late than never. I got these quotes from Sam Levenson's book, "You Don't Have to Be in `Who's Who' to Know What's What". Enjoy: "It is true that nothing is certain except death and taxes. Sometimes I wish they came in that order." "What we should have fought for was representation without taxation." "No wonder newborn babies cry. They've got nothing to eat, no clothes, and already owe the government about $2000." "The government really doesn't care about how you get the money so long as you report it honestly." "It takes more brains to make out the income tax return that it takes to make the income." "If you owe $50, you're a piker; If you owe $50,000 you're a businessman; If you owe $50,000,000 you're a tycoon; If you owe $50,000,000,000 you're the government." "Every new administration promises to eliminate financial wastefulness, no matter how much it costs." ************************** I just saw Helen Keller's dog crossing the road last night! There was just a little traffic (3-4 cars each direction in my vicinity), and this dog ran across the road. It managed to get through the two or three cars on my side, and there were but two oncoming cars. The first passed the dog, and I could see Rover speed up trying to get by in front of the second. But our canine friend wasn't quite fast enough to make it, and the car got there slightly before he did. So he just plowed into the side of the car. Naturally, since the car was going 40-45 mph, this imparted a nonzero angular momentum to Rover. He spun around about five times, fell down, got up and ran into the adjoining field, and just stood there for a few seconds. Then he shook his head a few times, looked around for the good-for- nothing who had sucker-punched him, and trotted off, apparently unconcerned. Man, if Rover had been just a few steps faster, the car would have broadsided him, and then there's have been an entirely different story to tell. ---------------------------------------------------- Siftings by Alan Nicoll ************************** When storm door/newspaper/feed the hungry/etc solicitors call, my friend listens to their entire spiel (sometimes they'll go on for close to 5 minutes before they wind down if you don't interrupt them). Then, he says "Oh, I'm sorry. I think I missed something, could you repeat that?" THEY hang up on HIM. ************************** One of the people I work with has a phone number that is 1 digit off of a local pizza home-delivery number. He has gotten real tired of the late-night pizza calls. I suggested he try the following: Ted: Hello. Caller: Yes, I'd like to order a pizza. Ted: (With price list in hand, proceed to take the order and tell the correct price.) Then, call Pizza Doodle and repeat the correct order and give the correct price and wait 10 minutes. Then, call back the customer: Ted: Hello, did you just order a pizza. Caller: Yes. Ted: We just got a call from the police department about the driver we sent with your pizza. I want to stress that he is not dangerous under normal circumstances. Would you please just delay him until the police arrive? Thanks (click). ************************** How Long Have You Been Teaching? 1. Do you declare "no cuts" when a shopper squeezes ahead of you in a checkout line? 2. Do you move your dinner partner's glass away from the edge of the table? 3. Do you ask if anyone needs to go to the bathroom as you enter a theater with a group of friends? 4. Do you hand a tissue to anyone who sneezes? 5. Do you refer to "snack time" as "happy hour"? 6. Do you ask guests if they have remembered their scarves and mittens as they leave your home? 7. Do you say "I like the way you did that" to the mechanic who repairs your car? 8. Do you ask "Are you sure you did your best?" to the mechanic who fails to repair your car? 9. Do you sing the "Alphabet Song" to yourself as you look up a number in the phone book? 10. Do you say everything twice? I mean, do you repeat everything? 11. Do you fold your spouse's fingers over the coins as you hand him/her the money at a tollbooth? 12. Do you ask a quiet person at a party if he has something to share with the group? If you answered yes to more than two of the above items, you are hooked on teaching. If you answered yes to more than half of them, you're probably beginning to think about retirement. If you answered yes to more than ten, you'll always be a teacher, retired or not! ************************** Actually, Radio Shack never sells their mailing list, not even to the other subsidiaries (McDuff, et al.) It is the largest private mailing list in the country (maybe even the Uniworse.) One of the big cheeses once told me they had turned down an offer for over $30 Mil. Why help the competition? ObAnecdote: Once, back in my Shack days as a manager I got to my store a bit after scheduled opening time to find a small gathering of potential customers buzzing around the door. Seems I might have had a little too much fun the night before and wasn't feeling very jovial. I could here the grumbling as I approached. My tie was still in my hand so I quickly stuck it in my back pocket. I walked up to the door as some old bag was laying it on about her opinion of me, the company, and anything else she could free associate with us. As I said, I was in no mood so I walk up and say: "You mean this jerk is late again? He never opens on time. I'm going to the store on Kempwood (about a mile and a half away, you wouldn't believe the Shack density in Houston) and never shopping here again." With this I turned and headed for my car, hoping I hadn't been recognized. The other folks agreed with me and left as well, the old lady bitching steadily. As soon as they were all gone I went on in and called my friend at the other store and warned him of the eminent assault. We got quite a kick out of the whole deal when he told me how the lady ranted about the delinquent manager, but praised the nice young man who had suggested the other store! It's funny how people seem to forget that those who work in service oriented fields are just normal folk too. ************************** It's funny how people seem to forget that those who work in service oriented fields are just normal folk too. Plane of the future questionare: Q: Would you like smoking or non-smoking? A: Smoking Q: Would you like children or no children seats? A: No children Q: Would you like regular or extra wide seats? A: Extra-wide Q: Would you like regular or extra wide spacing? A: Extra-wide Q: Would you like aisle, window or center seats? A: Aisle Q: Would you like to bring on extra-big carry-on luggage? A: Yes Reservationist: That will come to a total of $zzzzz.zz ; here is your bill: Bill: $ yyy.yy Basic Fare * x.xx smoking * x.xx no children seats * x.xx extra wide seats * x.xx extra wide spacing * x.xx aisle seats * x.xx extra-big carry-on luggage ------- $ zzzz.zz Total Customer: Why should I have to pay that much? I absolutely have to have these to be comfortable to fly R: That is our policy Sir/Madam, everybody wants extras but no one is willing to pay for it. C: I want to change my choices. R: Fine Sir/Madam, that will be xxx.xx extra dollars to change please! C: Never mind I will pay it. R: Fine. I am sorry Sir/Madam, that class of seat has been booked; there is only one such seat per plane of that class. Thank you for NOT flying with us. ---------------------------------------------------- Stuff Jim Davidson sifted out of rec.humor: ************************** "The things that come To those who wait, Are the things left Behind by those who got there first" -Steven Tyler (Aerosmith) ************************** PROFESSORS I HAVE KNOWN ----------------------- (You know who you are.) 1. The Heisenberg Has four offices. If you try to find her in any one office, she will be in a different one (p=1). 2. The Vampire Guaranteed to be in the office between 1 am and 4am. 3. The Schizo Visit this one in the morning and it's sweetness and light. Visit in the afternoon and you'd better wear leather britches. 4. The Pack Rat Has documents left over from the previous tenant. The professor may or may not be in--look under the piles of unread journals and theses. 5. The Consultant Consults for IBM, drives a gold 600SEL Mercedes, and sometimes stops by to teach a class. 6. The Delegator Has a super-efficient secretary who prepares the class notes, authors publications, finds funding, and knows more about quantum physics than the professor. 7. The Relic Looks like a walking corpse. While lecturing, experiences 30 second pauses caused by the occasional microstroke. 8. The Robot Reads the lecture from a stack of yellowed ancient transparencies. Don't ask this one a question--any diversion from the norm causes utter confusion and mayhem. 9. The Foreigner This is a Chinese grad student who has total mastery of thermodynamics--in Chinese. 10. The Comedian This one is utterly hilarious and keeps the class in stitches--loads of fun, but you tend to forget what subject is being taught--until the 8-page, comprehensive final exam. 11. The Prima Donna Is the only person in the world who understands toenail bacterial growth in the lemur of Madagascar (and the only person who wants to). Enjoys humiliating the occasional student dumb enough to ask a question. 12. The Atavist Never left the sixties. Tends to dress in tie-dyed shirts, dirty jeans, and sandals (even in winter). Usually teaches sociology and talks like there are a few synapses misfiring. 13. The Casanova A male professor who considers the classroom to be a personal harem. Tends to look like a greasy lounge lizard and gives new meaning to "grading on curves". 14. The Delilah Female counterpart to the "Casanova." Delights in wearing seductive clothing and Eau-de-Bordello perfume to drive the freshmen boys out of their minds. Pretends to be unattached, but has a boyfriend who looks like ArnoldSchwartzenegger. 15. The Jerry Lewis Reminds you of the "Nutty Professor". When he remembers where and when his class is taught, he arrives in a smudged and smoking lab coat and smelling of sulfur. Believes in experimenting but not in the scientific method. 16. The Kook Is researching the effect of brainwaves on the motion of electrons. Has heard every possible objection from saner colleagues and so has an answer for everything. Sounds every bit as plausible as the guy who thinks he's Napoleon. 17. The Vacuum Tube Has a pet theory that depends on circa 1940 technology. Tries to cloak the theory in modern terms so there's some possibility you'll buy it. ************************** Subject: Dumb Men Jokes Why are all dumb blond jokes one liners? So men can understand them. What is the difference between Government Bonds and men? Government Bonds mature. What's a man's idea of helping with the housework? Lifting his legs so that you can vacuum. Why is psychoanalysis a lot quicker for men than for women? When it's time to go back to his childhood, he's already there. How do men define a "50/50" relationship? We cook/they eat; we clean/they dirty; we iron/they wrinkle. What's the best way to force a man to do sit ups? Put the remote control between his toes. How do men exercise on the beach? By sucking in their stomachs every time they see a bikini. Why is it good that there are female astronauts? When the crew gets lost in space, at least the woman will ask for directions. ************************** Denis Beauregard posts the lame old joke about Canada coming from the Spanish "Aca-nada". Nah, the way Canada got it's name was like this: Sven and Toivo, two famous explorers, were out exploring, when they suddenly realized that they were off the edge of their map... they were in a completely unexplored area. They yelled and whooped it up, poured a few beers over each others heads, and got totally drunk celebrating. Finally, Sven said, "Hey, we gotta come up with a name for this place, eh?". So they thought and though, but they couldn't come up with anything good. Finally, they put the letters A-Z on some stones, put them in Toivo's backpack, and took turns drawing them. Sven drew the first stone: "I got a C, eh!". Then Toivo drew a stone: "I got an N, eh!" Then Sven drew another stone: "I got a D, eh!" After that, they needed a name for the large area of land to the south. Historians note that Sven and Toivo were so drunk at the time, that all they could come up with was "Unexplored Southern Area" (USA). ************************** Living on Earth is expensive, V I N C E Y U but it includes a free trip round the sun. ************************** Gary O'Connor (crgoc@uk extn:2245) Any simple problem can be made insoluble if enough meetings are held to discuss it. ************************** GENUINE EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS SENT TO THE COUNCIL ================================================= I wish to complain that my father hurt his ankle very badly when he put his foot in the hole in his back passage. Will you please send someone to mend our broken path. Yesterday my wife tripped on it and is now pregnant. Our kitchen floor is very damp, we have two children and would like a third, s will you please send someone to do something about it. Would you please send a man to repair my spout. I am an old age pensioner and need it straight away. I awoke this morning and found my water boiling. This is to let you know that our lavatory seat is broken and we cannot get BBC2. Could you please send someone to fix our bath tap. My wife got her toe stuck in it and it was very uncomfortable for us. When I applied for a rebate you said that you would have to take something off. Now that you have taken it off, I have been told that you should have put some on. So will you please take off what you took off and put on what you should have put on when you took it off. ************************** From: ilana@kiowa.scd.ucar.edu (Ilana Stern) In article , speers@opus.mcds.com (Daniel E. Speers) writes: > On my way back to New Jersey from Cape Cod, Mass. I saw this > sign: > > I-95 > Westerly > > It was in R.I. on an on ramp. Like, if you go this way, you'd > be going in a westerly direction. Thanks RI! Actually, this sign was meant to confuse meteorologists. Although most dictionaries and common usage use the word "westerly" to mean *towards* the west, meteorological usage dictates that "westerly" means *from* the west. The Wallace and Hobbs (not to be confused with Calvin and Hobbes) introductory meteorology textbook adds the footnote, "The student who wishes to avoid confusion is advised not to consult the dictionary for meanings of westerly, easterly, and so forth." The moral of the story is: never ask a meteorologist for directions. ---------------------------------------------------- Stuff Peter Yee sifted out of rec.humor yee@atlas.arc.nasa.gov ************************** From: Subject: Re: Stupid road signs (was: Stupid Instructions) A personal favorite on 880 south in Hayward (California): A Street Downtown ************************** From: Subject: Re: Stupid road signs (was: Stupid Instructions) Years ago I was going to Big Bend park from Precedio, Texas. The highway goes nowhere else for about 100 miles. about 30 or so miles out of town was a sigh reading "STEEP GRADE 75 MILES AHEAD" "TRAILERS NOT RECOMMENDED" It certainly was true!! However I thought it would have been better if it had been posted where you turned onto the highway, not out there requiring anyone with a trailer to waste many miles. ************************** From: bchurch@oucsace.cs.ohiou.edu (Robert Church) Subject: Re: Stupid Instructions As you approach the bridge from Pensacola to Gulf Breeze there is a sign warning of a $25 fine for running out of gas on the bridge. ************************** From: epiec@sun.pcl.ac.uk (Antonio Michael) Subject: Re: Crooks A man, one cold, dark night, was on his way home from the pub. He'd had a few jars, but was not totally paralitic. On his journey, he realised that he was late, and his wife was going to be very upset if he didn't return home soon. So he decides to take a shortcut though the graveyard. As he is walking through the pitch black graveyard, stumbling his way through, he hears a tap tap tapping in the distance. Naturally, he begins to get scared. The more he walked, the louder the noise became. Tap Tap Tap. He was now shaking in his boots. TAP TAP TAP. Suddenly, he turns around and sees an old bearded man holding a hammer and chisel, tapping away at a gravestone. Feeling slightly relieved, yet angry, he turns to the man and shouts, "You GIT! You nearly scared the life out of me, what the hell do you think you're doing?!". The old man slowly turns his head around, stares him deep in the eyes and says, "They - spelt - my - name - wrong..." ************************** From: z_maraiajj@ccsvax.sfasu.edu When you die, you should have your brain donated to science. I hear they're trying to come up with the perfect vacuum. ************************** ---------------------------------------------------- Stuff Robert Coleman sifted out of rec.humor: ************************** Wasn't it in Sweden that someone robbed a bank and got away with some $10'000 ? I heard the police are still looking for the motive. David asked Cohen if he'd give him his daughters hand. -"Would you marry my daughter even if she was poor ?", her father asked. -"Of cuorse I would", David hopefully replied. -"Then I don't even want to discuss it. We don't want any nutheads of your kind in our family." ************************** (Don't get me wrong, I'm a Democrat myself, but, as Dave Barry says, they have the leadership skills of celery.) Heard on VH-1's Stand-Up Spotlight tonight: "If the Democrats had to form a firing squad, they'd get in a circle." ************************** From: BACS Data Communications Group An extremely irate nun storms out of a doctor's office without paying. "What was that all about?" the nurse asks the dr. "I told her she was pregnant." "Really??" "No, but it sure cured her hiccups!" *start* 15590 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 17 Sep 92 13:08:34 PDT (Thursday) Subject: Life 8.N From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- From Curt Fey Do you know why they bury farmers only 6 inches deep? Answer: So that they still can get a handout. Do you know why they bury lawers 50 feet deep? Answer: Deep down they are really nice guys. ---------------------------------------------------- From comp.sys.ibm.pc.games: garygm@leland.stanford.edu Gary Brainin |"...the right to be let alone-the most comprehensive of rights and the right | |most valued by civilized men." Olmstead v. U.S. (Brandeis, J., dissenting)| ************************** From: rdippold@cancun.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold) The government has just completed work on a faulty missile; nicknamed "Civil Servant", it won't work and they can't fire it. ---------------------------------------------------- Sifted from rec.humor: ************************** I never thought the mails were that slow until I got a postcard from Cairo, and there were only two pyramids in the picture. ************************** From: che238n@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au Subject: DEEPER thought The Law of Inverse Visibility The immediate visibility of an object is inversely proportional to the importance of finding it. ************************** From: markw@cltr.uq.oz.au (Mark White) Subject: Re: NEEDED: C to Cobol converter >Hey, > I am in dire need of a C to Cobol converter. Please HELP!!! Hey, now that IS funny........ :) ************************** From: andy@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Andrew Hackard) Subject: FUNSIES: Antonymous Collectives Many people have in the past posted lists of collective nouns, both real and fake, appropriate and humorous. I'd like to try something different -- a list of the LEAST appropriate (but, ideally, still humorous) collective nouns. A quick primer: Collective nouns are nouns used to describe groups of objects, e.g. a school of fish, a pod of whales, a flock of geese. The terminology sometimes ranges to the odd end of the spectrum, and this has led multiple people to invent new collective nouns, from the automotive (a ring of Saturns) to the mathematical (a group of abstract algebras) to the silly (a school of marms). Examples of what I'm shooting for here: -- a battalion of pacifists -- a congregation of atheists -- a steady stream of cataracts ************************** Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please. -- Mark Twain ************************** From: syspb@smartstar.com (Paul) Subject: Knock Knock Knock knock Who's there? Catch Catch who? Gesundheit Knock knock Who's there Tank Tank who? You're welcome Knock knock Who's there? Joe Joe who? Joe Mama Knock knock Who's there? Banana Banana who? Knock knock Who's there Banana Banana who? Knock knock Who's there Orange Orange who? Orange you glad I didn't say banana? ---------------------------------------------------- Stuff Sarah Elkins sorted out of rec.humor: ************************** From: dlf@aber.ac.uk (David Fenerty) This is supposed to have happened in the election before last: a Conservative candidate was doing a door-to-door canvass to get votes since the date for the general election had been announced and it was campaign time. At one house, he noticed that the man who answered the door was wearing a very smart suit. "Are you a businessman, sir?" asked the politician. "Yes" replied the man. "Well, under a Conservative government, your business will prosper" declared the politician, "what line of business are you in?" "I'm an undertaker" replied the man. Apologies in advance if, in truth, this is stolen from a film or something. Dave the Scouser. ************************** From: nsf@hpuerca.atl.hp.com (Neil Ferguson) Subject: Re: License Plate List Update (May 4) Some I saw in California: YTINASN (Read it backwards) NYUK 3X (Three Stooges, "Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.") ************************** From: fer@cernvax.cern.ch (Ferry de Jong) "An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys" "VMS is a text-only adventure game. If you win you can use unix." -- Bill Davidsen "Our computers don't run on electricity but on magic smoke, when the smoke leaves the computer, it stops working." "The reason that God was able to create the world in seven days is that he didn't have to worry about the existing configuration" -- Enzo Torresi "If we can't fix it, it isn't broken." -- a lab manager "It is not possible to both understand and appreciate Intel CPUs." -- D. Wolfskill "Don't you just hate rhetorical questions?" -- Charlie Gibbs "It's just a matter of time before we're late." -- Michael Walsh ************************** jsavage@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu "Their superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons" -- Aliens taking over the world on The Simpsons ************************** > + * "Suspense is not knowing what you're up ~ > + Randy Wong * against and not knowing what you can do ~ > + apple!fico!rbw@fico.uucp * do about it; Terror is knowing what ~ > + c/o Fair, Isaac and Company * you're up against and not knowing what ~ > + 120 North Redwood Drive * you can do about it; Horror is knowing ~ > + San Rafael, CA 94903-1996 * what you're up against and knowing you ~ > + * can't do anything about it." - Me ~ ************************** From: rice@bullet.ecf.toronto.edu (RICE GEORGE MATTHEW) Subject: Re: Running Jokes Request Ok this family of tomatoes go for a jog early one saturday morning. Now they're all enjoying themselves and keeping pace except for Billy. He's a lazy slob who keeps falling behind the pack. After numerous urgings from his father, the rest of the family can't take anymore of his slowness. So Billy's father jogs back to him and says 'Catch up!!' ************************** Gary Heston SCI Systems, Inc. gary@sci34hub.sci.com site admin The Chariman of the Board and the CFO speak for SCI. I'm neither. "Always remember, that someone, somewhere, is making a product that will make your product obselete." Georges Doriot, founder of American R & D. ************************** [ Stolen from _InfoWorld_, Robert X. Cringely's column ] Announced today was a new operating system for the PC. It is called "DOS/Perot". When you boot it, it displays a message on the screen saying it's thinking of running. It then scans the hard drive, looking for competing OS's. If any competing OS's are found, it quits immediately. ************************** My sister told me about this one, I don't know the source: A bunch of viruses have been spreading lately, here's the latest rundown: The Clinton Virus: plays sax music late at night The Gore Virus: complains about the music The Bush Virus: has been quite active in foreign countries, but hasn't appeared domestically The Quayle Virous: infectcts dictionary files Recently a lot of users got excited about the rumors of a Perot AntiVirus, but it turns out it was just a demo and isn't planned for actual release. ************************** From: stud7b43@bmerh72.bnr.ca (Steve Keppel-Jones) Subject: Re: Net Malapropisms I'm uphauled! This display of ignorance is just the kind of thing that anyone with a social conscious is ashamed of. Education today is clearly willfully inadequate, and has been since time in memorial. People are always ready to blame things on an escaped goat, but for all intensive purposes, it's a doggy-dog world. Complaints about the school system are all for not. And the problem seems to be increasing expidentially! These are the sort of people that could start a new, clear war, and you can just forget about a seize-fire then. Some may say that the decline of education is just an old wise tale, but they're too one-track mined. If you don't believe me, look at the warning on an AutoShade someday. It says that the shade must be removed before driving the car. Supposably people can't figure this out for themselves! Maybe the warning is just for those with a stigmatism. Or maybe it's to protect the manufacturer from the statue of limitations. The under-line meaning of all this is clear, but don't take a fence: this is just my too cents worth. Anyway, it's a mute point. ---------------------------------------------------- Michael Rutkaus' siftings from rec.humor ************************** Overheard at the Barcelona Olympics... Q- Are you a pole-vaulter? A- No I'm a German, but how did you know my first name? ************************** Oxymorons: Here in Canada one of our favorites is "American Intellegence" Hmmm? Oh, I get it! Hey, that's not nice! Well, here in America we always get uncontrollable giggles from "Canadian Money." ************************** My late grandmother once asked my father whether he'd had the "sock observers" checked in his car. ************************** Dept of Physics, Michigan Technological University: With your one remaining eye, please do NOT look back into the laser ************************** According to an AP story in the Midland Reporter-Telegram Thursday, some new bilingual signs were installed near the customs area in an airport in New Mexico. `Violators will be fined' was written in Spanish as `Violadores seran finados', which unfortunately can come across as `Rapists will be deceased'! ************************** How does Michael Jackson pick his nose? He looks through a catalogue in the plastic surgeon's office. ************************** What does a Danish pig say? NORSK, NORSK. ************************** 668: the neighbor of the beast ************************** Why are all dumb blonde jokes one liners? So men can understand them. ************************** Names of Bands Mean Root and the Standard Deviations Koh-I-Noor and the Rapidographs (one of them was an Industrial Designer) ************************** REEEEALLY Deep Thoughts by Steven W. Handey I think it would be a lot of fun to go around throwing spot remover on dogs and seeing them disappear. Yes, I think that would be really funny. If I ever get a chance to go to Mars, I'll send you a postcard with a picture of the entire planet Earth. On the back it would way, "Wish you were here." Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a house on a one-way dead-end road. That way, no one could come visit and if they did they couldn't leave... I thought it would be funny to hook up the accelerator pedal in my car to my brake lights. Then, when I hit the gas, people behind me stop. I went to the hardware store to buy some batteries, but they weren't included. I don't think I'll go back there again. It doesn't matter what temperature the room is, it's always room temperature. Every so often, I like to go to the window, look up, and smile for a satellite picture. ************************** TIPPING On a vending machine in this building: DO NOT TIP THIS MACHINE Personally, I don't always tip waiters; I _never_ tip vending machines. ************************** These three guys are out fishing, and when they get back to their truck, they see it's surrounded by three bears: "OK guys, I figure the only way to get to the truck is to really piss these bears off. Then they'll leave and we can go home. So, Ed, you take the one on the left, the little cub with the broken leg, and I'll take the one in the middle, the little cub with one eye and a hurt paw, and Joe, you take the one on the right, the huge silvertip mama grizzly bear with blood-encrusted claws, the big teeth, and froth around the mouth" "Hey, man wait a sec, I'm supposed to get this monster pissed off, and you guys get the cubs ? That's not fair!" "Now, now, Joe. We all have our bears to cross." ---------------------------------------------------- Sifted by: glenn@curie.ces.cwru.edu (Glenn Crocker) ************************** From: jennyb@triton.unm.edu (Jenny Ballmann) In Bernalillo, NM, there is a sign for the local police organization: +----------------------+ | Sandoval County --> | | Sheriff's Posse | +----------------------+ And for a long time, there was one mounted beside it: +----------------------+ | Pigs for Sale --> | +----------------------+ ************************** From: ops@vax.oxford.ac.uk ONIONS AND THE THEORY OF LIFE It is a little known fact that onions are the only Earth lifeform designed for both survival in space and for re-entry. The roots splay out from a central point, providing a very firm attachment for a lump of clay to act as a heat shield during re-entry (NASA have obviously overlooked this method of attachment for the tiles on the Space shuttle, and have had great difficulties as a result). The main body is a multi-layer structure, well adapted for survival in space. As the water evaporates from the outer layers, they shrink, forming a vapour-resistent seal over the inner layers. This also helps to protect the inner layers during re-entry. The stem, of course, provides guidance and orientation during the commencement of re-entry It is because this is so little known that few people realise that life on Earth is, in fact, descended from onions. This is also why, in spite of the numerous meteortrails to be seen every night, few people ever find a metoerite. They are looking for the Wrong thing. If you should happen to find a slightly charred onion on your roof, treat it with respect. It is probably a visitor from another planet. ************************** From: Kenneth B. Phelps Software Engineering Glossary of Product Terminology -- or -- The world of computer terms as seen from a Marketing point of view ALL NEW .................... The software is not compatible with previous versions ADVANCED DESIGN ............ Upper management doesn't understand it BREAKTHROUGH ............... It nearly booted on the first try NEW ........................ Different colours from previous version DESIGN SIMPLICITY .......... Developed on a shoe string budget EXCLUSIVE .................. We're the only ones who have the documentation FIELD TESTED ............... Manufacturing doesn't have a test system FOOLPROOF OPERATION ........ All parameters are hard coded FUTURISTIC ................. It will only run on the next generation super-computer HIGH ACCURACY .............. All the directories compare IT'S HERE AT LAST .......... We've released a 26 week project in 48 weeks MAINTENANCE FREE ........... Impossible to fix MEETS QUALITY STANDARDS .... It compiles without errors PERFORMANCE PROVEN ......... Works through Beta Test REVOLUTIONARY .............. Disk drives go round and round SATISFACTION GUARANTEED .... We'll send you another copy if it fails STOCK ITEM ................. We shipped it once before, and we can do it again, probably UNMATCHED .................. Almost as good as the competition UNPRECEDENTED PERFORMANCE .. Nothing ever ran this slow before YEARS OF DEVELOPMENT ....... We finally got one to work *start* 16282 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 21 Sep 92 17:13:15 PDT (Monday) Subject: Life 8.O From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- The following is selections from a joke mailing list run by: gunter@tartarus.uwa.edu.au (Gunter Ahrendt) ************************** A blonde was driving down the highway to Disneyland when she saw a sign that said "DISNEYLAND LEFT". After thinking for a minute, she said to herself "oh well !" and turned around an drove home. ************************** Some more blond jokes: Q: If a blonde and a brunette are tossed off a building, who hits the ground first? A: The brunette. The blonde has to stop to ask for directions. Q: Why did the blonde scale the glass wall? A: To see what was on the other side. ************************** Steve Wrights? In Vegas, I got into a long argument with the man at the roulette wheel over what I considered to be an odd number. Even snakes are afraid of snakes. I put hardwood floors on top of wall-to-wall carpet. two babies were born on the same day at the same hospital. They lay there and looked at each other. Their families came and took them away. Eighty years later, by a bizarre coincidence, they lay in the same hospital, on their deathbeds, next to each other. One of them looked at the other and said, "So. What did you think?" ************************** What's a man's idea of helping with the housework? Lifting his legs so that you can vacuum. Why is psychoanalysis a lot quicker for men than for women? When it's time to go back to his childhood, he's already there. What's the best way to force a man to do sit ups? Put the remote control between his toes. How do men exercise on the beach? By sucking in their stomachs every time they see a bikini. Why is it good that there are female astronauts? When the crew gets lost in space, at least the woman will ask for directions. ************************** Submitted by: Doug Dickey Subject: Physical Laws. For all you physicists--What happens when a body is immersed in warm water? The phone rings. ************************** One says: "Now my grandfather, he knew the exact day of the year that he was going to die. It was the right year too. Not only that, but he knew what time he would die that day, and he was right about that too." The other guy is impressed: "Wow, that's incredible. How did he know all of that ?" "Oh" sighed the first, "a judge told him." ************************** Engineering students are baffled by the fact that often the girls with the most streamlined shape offer the most resistance. ************************** If Satan ever loses his hair, there will be hell toupee. What if... there were no hypothetical situations? ************************** A friend of mine, while waiting for his airplane, saw a pilot walk by carrying his bag. On a sticker on the bag, in large letters, was the word "CAUTION." Leaning closer, my friend read, "To make the little houses get smaller, pull back on the stick." ************************** "Not to be or to be, that the question is" Yoda and Shakespeare ************************** A notice in an Australian police station: "Help the Police -- Beat yourself up." When will the the Australian police force become sucessful? When it catches more criminals than it employs. ************************** 19 Feet Broken in Pole Vault -- WICHITA EAGLE-BEACON, Kan. 6/21/81 New Jersey to be moved -- Johnstown, Pa. TRIBUNE-DEMOCRAT 7/25/81 If strike isn't settled quickly, it may last a while -- Baltimore SUN 6/13/81 The Salt Lake City Track Club's All-Women's 10,000-meter race is scheduled Saturday at 8 a.m. at Sugarhouse Park. The entry fee is $4 with shirt or $1 without. [The Salt Lake Tribune 8/27/81] Navy Finds Dead Pilots Flying With Hangovers [The Washington Post 9/18/81] Half of U.S. High Schools Require Some Study for Graduation [Los Angeles Times 8/10/81] Local Charity Group Helps Disable Man [The Clayton (Georgia) News Daily 9/14/81] White House Kills Fund Raiser After Complaints About Tactics Newsday 3/19/81 SHUTTLE PASSES TEST; A WORKER IS KILLED The New York Times 3/20/81 Defendant's speech ends in long sentence Minneapolis Tribune 2/25/81 ************************** I called the census bureau to see why they hadn't sent me a form, and they said that I was too nondescript to influence the demographics one way or another. I listen to the police band on my CB radio. Once I dialed 911 and dedicated a crime to my girlfriend. The original Mickey Mouse cartoon was in Mouse, with English subtitles. No matter how much the passengers eat, the weight of the plane stays the same. ************************** Early Table Manners A Christian and philosopher and educator, Erasmus of Rotterdam, the greatest classical scholar of the northern Humanist of Renaissance, determined that manners was the best instilled at an early age. Here are some samples from the three century best seller, _On Civility in Children_ (c.1530): "Turn away when spitting lest your saliva fall on someone. If anything purulent falls on the ground, it should be trodden upon, lest it nauseate someone." "To lick greasy fingers or to wipe them on your coat is impolite. It is better to use the table cloth or the serviette." "Some people put their hands in the dishes the moment they have sat down. Wolves do that." "You should not offer your handkerchief to anyone unless it has been freshly washed. Nor is it seemly, after wiping your nose, to spread out your handkerchief and peer into it as if pearl and rubies might have fallen out of your head." "If you cannot swallow a piece of food, turn around discreetly and throw it somewhere." "Retain the wind by compressing the belly." "Do not be afraid of vomiting if you must; for it is not vomiting but holding the vomit in your throat that is foul." "Do not move back and forth on your chair. Whoever does that gives the impression of constantly breaking or trying to break wind." ************************** For many years molecular biologists have been mystified by the fact that very little of an organism's DNA seems to serve any useful function. I have solved the mystery. The reason why only 30% of human DNA performs any useful function is that the rest of it is comments. ************************** Confusious say: Secretary who confuse food processor with word processor, mince words. ************************** * do you think sheep know when you're pulling the wool over their eyes? * at the last supper, what do you think the waiter said when asked what the year of the wine was? * people in glass houses shouldn't take showers. * how many dogs, that got hit by cars, do you think were suicides? ************************** Another anecdote which accurately illustrates the poor state of computer security is the US case of a computer hacker hauled into court for accessing a corporate computer. ... His lawyers argued that, when he contacted the system, the logon screen said "Welcome to XYZ Corporation. Please log in." As there was no signpost saying "Trespassers will be prosecuted," the judge ruled that his action was not unlawful. (Computer Weekly, 21.8.92, p30) ---------------------------------------------------- The following is selections from a joke mailing list run by: quail!knodel@saqqara.cis.ohio-state.edu (Jeffrey H. Knodel) ************************** From: MCGARRAH%CITADEL2.BITNET@ncsuvm.cc.ncsu.edu Subject: If the brain's a computer, what's the operating system? "I just found out that the brain is like a computer. If that's true, then there really aren't any stupid people. Just people running DOS." ************************** From: Vern Chibber Subject: Stupid things: While you are changing a tire on the side of a road, anybody ever pull up and say: Have a flat? What are you supposed to say? Naw! I just rotate my tires every 2000 miles no matter where I am. ************************** From: Doug Dickey Two hydrogen atoms were walking down the street. One said to the other, "I lost an electron." The other asked, "Are you sure?" The first answered, "I'm positive." (Dawn Ansello, Beverly, Mass.) ************************** Submitted by: str@owlnet.rice.edu (Suzanne Tatin Rupert) Subject: Blonds of the world retaliate! Why are all dumb blond jokes one liners? So men can understand them. ************************** Submitted by: APUCORLE@idbsu.idbsu.edu Author: Jay Leno Subject: Presidential Campaign ______ Morris the Cat is running for President. The hard part is figuring out whether he's a Republican or a Democrat. He doesn't think of anyone but himself, so he could be a Republican. However, he stays out all night, so he could be a Democrat! ************************** Submitted by: Grady W Chism Subject: Stange but true. [A pow-wow with the bow-wow -Don King] ______ A person of Hispanic background was playing with their dog in the park. An interested bystander watched with amazement and finally came over and asked the question "How long did it take you to teach your dog Spanish?" ************************** Submitted by: Ury Segal Subject: Bumper Sticker ______ Bumper Sticker on Mini-minor: This is my dreams car I dream it's a Jaguar ************************** Submitted by: APUCORLE@idbsu.idbsu.edu Author: Dennis Miller Subject: Guys and Dolls ______ Did you hear about the latest revival of "Guys and Dolls"? It's a politically correct version called "Loathsome Oppressors and Women of Vision and Strength." ************************** Submitted by: APUCORLE@idbsu.idbsu.edu Subject: Natural-Born ______ Swiped from Reader's Digest: An eighth-grade teacher was leading a discussion on the qualifications for being President of the United States. After the teacher commented that a person must be a natural-born citizen, one of the students raised her hand. "Does that mean that if you were born by Caesarean section that you can't be President?" ************************** Submitted by: grenus@ecn.purdue.edu (Karen M Grenus) Author: Lee Sunderlin (her beau) Subject: looking for Rudolf Seiler ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ______ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ > You might pass this phone conversation on to the joke list. It was an > actual conversation my old roommate had recently in Switzerland. > > Frau. S: Rudolf Seiler? > > Jeff: Seiler? No, not at this number. > > Frau S: Rudolf Seiler? I'd like to talk with Rudolf Seiler? > > Jeff: No, there's nobody here with that name. > > Frau S: I'm looking for Rudolf Seiler. > > Jeff: There is nobody with that name in the Ott group. > > Frau S: It's me. I'm his mother. > > Jeff: Yes, well, you have the wrong number. > > Frau S: I'm calling 377-2858. > > Jeff: Ah, yes! You DO have the wrong number! > > Frau S: No! He wrote it down himself! > > Jeff: No...no...this is 2245. > > Frau S: (confused noises) > > Jeff: I mean, this is 377-2245. > > Frau S: But I'm calling 377-2858. > > Jeff: And that is not MY number... > > Frau S: Of course not. It's Rudolf's number. He wrote it down himself. ************************** Author: randy@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Randy Feldman) Subject: Have I been wasting money on stamps?? Printed on the back of the return envelope for my credit card payment: "Don't forget to put a stamp on this envelope. UNDER THE NEW POSTAL REGULATIONS, MAIL WITHOUT A POSTAGE STAMP WILL NOT BE DELIVERED." ************************** Author: 6310550@LMSC5.IS.LMSC.LOCKHEED.COM Subject: cute things they say Swiped from: misc.kids ______ Somebody had toliet papered the neighbors tree. When Melissa saw this she said, "Oh how nice. Somebody put toilet paper up in the trees for the birds to wipe with!" ---------------------------------------------------- The following is selections from a joke mailing list run by: Victor Schwartz ************************** Dave Barry - The Story of America The story of America is the story of individuals - the Henry Fords, the John DeLoreans, the Speedy Alka-Seltzers, the Don Corleones - who started out alone, with little more than a dream and a willingness to work toward it, and ended up running large organizations and eventually either dying or getting indicted. ************************** Dave Barry on your husband's midlife crisis If your husband is exhibiting signs of a midlife crisis, at first you should try to humor him. If he wants to buy a ludicrously impractical sports car, tell him you think it's a terrific idea. If he wants to wear "younger" clothes, help him pick them out. If he wants to start seeing other women, shoot him in the head. ************************** (Jorge Serpa contributed the following item, which seems particularly timely in light of recent hurricane disasters:) Unclear on the concept: The Met Office is now using fax machines to give local authorities early warning of severe weather. The Hampshire emergency planning office said: "Rather than having to rely on telephones, for instance, where lines are at risk in bad weather, we are encouraging the wider use of fax machines." {News courtesy of the Reading Evening Post} ************************** (Contributed by Keith Stobie to the Tandem Humor DL, from a collection supplied by Lois Watson at HP:) Last night I was in the mood to see something silly and idiotic on TV. So I put the cat there. ************************** (Contributed by Keith Stobie to the Tandem Humor DL, from a collection supplied by Lois Watson at HP:) I've found a sure way to relieve office stress: Step 1: take a deep breath Step 2: count to 10. Step 3: set the boss's wastebasket on fire. ************************** (The following story, produced by the New York Times, and printed in the "Animal Science" column in today's San Jose Mercury News, brings to mind 2 other items seen in previous "Thought for the Day" mailers: a) (Someone's law:) "Eat a live frog, first thing in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you for the rest of the day." b) (Dave Barry's infamous line:) "I'm not making this up!" COWS FED POT SCRUBBERS FATTEN FASTER Researchers have found that by inserting a plastic pot scrubber in to the first stomach, or rumen, of a cow, they can satisfy its need for roughage. This could save ranchers up to $50 per cow without jeopardizing the animal's health. A cow's diet is normally about 10 percent to 15 percent fiber, most of it hay, which is very low in calories. To fatten cattle, the farmer must feed them as much corn as possible. But substantially reducing fiber in the herd's diet makes the cattle lose their appetites and stop gaining weight because their stomachs are not being stimulated by roughage. The researches found that a cow could do well on the lower-fiber, high-corn diet if the cow had a pot scrubber in its stomach. Apparently the coarseness of the scrubber and the bacteria that build up on its large surface area act like dietary fiber in the digestive process. The pot scrubbers are inserted without surgery, simply by wrapping them in digestible tape and placing them on the back of the cow's tongue. Once swallowed, the tape is digested and the pot scrubber remains in the cow's rumen for life. The word about this low-cost substitute for fiber, based on an article published by Dr. Steven Loerch of Ohio State University last year in The Journal of Animal Science, has spread quickly among ranchers. Loerch said he had already received many calls from bewildered butchers who have found the pot scrubbers in the guts of slaughtered cattle. *start* 16489 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 29 Sep 92 11:00:27 PDT (Tuesday) Subject: Life 8.P From: cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- From rec.humor.funny: ************************** From: decot@hposl20.cup.hp.com (Dave Decot) Subject: Occult of Personality They started selling these expensive new cards for predicting the future. They're called PEROT CARDS. You deal them out in front of you, and as you look at each one of them, you see what you want to see. The cards are all blank. ************************** From: J.KISER6@genie.com (==> J. David) Subject: Bumper Stickers __________________________________ *IF GOD HAD MEANT FOR US TO VOTE * * HE'D HAVE GIVEN US CANDIDATES * __________________________________ ************************** From: IOR@slacvm.slac.stanford.edu (Thomas Hyer) Subject: who's who, and why BAKER FOR PRESIDENT "Eliminate the middleman" ************************** From: jlee@smylex.UUCP (Jeff Lee) Subject: Gore Predicts America's Downfall >From an Associated Press report: [Bill Clinton's running mate Albert] Gore [Jr.], a 16-year veteran of Congress, pledged to take on the assignment with "great relish and enthusiasm." He asked voters skeptical of their promise of change to remember that every Communist government in Eastern Europe had fallen in 100 days. "Now it's our turn here in the United States of America," Gore said. ************************** From: 94FC@williams.edu (Fluffhead) Boris Yeltsin came upon a crowd of students around a bonfire. He noticed that they were burning books and asked, "What are these books which you are burning?" They replied, "These are our Marxist-Leninist textbooks. We have no use for them now." Yeltsin replied, "Don't burn them. Send them to American students. They will buy them." thanks to Fred Schwarz of the Christian Anti-Communist Crusade for the joke. ************************** From: bateman@nsslsun.nssl.uoknor.edu (Monte Bateman) Subject: New OS for PC [ Stolen from _InfoWorld_, Robert X. Cringely's column ] Announced today was a new operating system for the PC. It is called "DOS/Perot". When you boot it, it displays a message on the screen saying it's thinking of running. It then scans the hard drive, looking for competing OS's. If any competing OS's are found, it quits immediately. ************************** From: APUCORLE@idbsu.idbsu.edu Subject: Ross Perot Ross Perot was accused of forcing his employees to sign loyalty oaths. Too bad he never had to sign one. - Jay Leno ************************** From: APUCORLE@idbsu.idbsu.edu Cuba used to have a great rowing team, but all the really good rowers ended up on the US team. - Jay Leno ************************** From: J.CUNNINGHAM@genie.com (The Dog) Subject: Bush (George) jokes There was a line in George's speach where he said I raised taxes 1 time and I lived to regret it. Bill Clinton did it 132 times and loved every minute. # I thought he was going to add: And it's the same way on adultry. ************************** From: major.panix.com!dos@panix.com (Dave O'Shea) Watching the democratic party in a presidential contest is like watching a washing machine with a defective bearing: It starts up smoothly enough, but soon, it begins to wobble and shake, jumping violently from place to place, until it tears itself to pieces, spewing dirty laundry all over the room. ************************** From: amunn@umd5.umd.edu (Alan Munn) Overheard in a restaurant: A supercomputer is a computer 1 order of magnitude less powerful than is needed to solve the problems we have right now. ************************** From: fsars@acad3.alaska.edu (Allen R Sparks) Subject: Wishful Thinking I heard this on the Tonight Show with Johny Carson sometime last week. It was told by Orson Beam, who BTW, collaberated with Mel Brooks in creating the old TV show "Get Smart". 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 said, "I want a million bucks a week, tax free." The genie granted the wish The Brit said, "I want to be a member of the peerage." The genie made him a Lord. The Iraqi said, "My neighbor has a goat. I want it KILLED." ************************** From: axon@synoptics.com (Alan Chamberlain) Subject: construction site joke back when i was working as a roofer, i was supposed to attach some galvanized sheet metal flashing with some long galvanized screws. i asked my foreman to hand me a screwdriver, and was surprised when he handed me a hammer. "no," i said, "i need a screwdriver." "here you go," he said, proferring again the hammer. "no," i protested, "i want that long, skinny thing with the handle at one end and the flat blade at the other." "*oh*," he said. "you want the screw *remover*!" ************************** From: darwoon@sfu.ca (Rob Dar-Woon) A Sunday school teacher was telling her class about Noah and his adventures in the arc. "So do you think Noah did a lot of fishing?", she asked the class. "How could he," said one bright girl, "with only two worms?" - From our local Transit information flyer - ************************** From: MFCMEACH@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu (Jo Meachem) Subject: Ture Story (smirk!) Ture story, true story...what's the difference? My sister is married to a Frenchman, and they live in France. At a party to introduce her to the neighborhood, someone asked her: "Do you Americans tell jokes about ethnic groups...like our Belgian jokes?" My sister replied, "Yes, but they are more likely to be Polish jokes." "But, why?" queried the puzzled neighbor. "They aren't stupid, like the Belgians!" ************************** From: toma@romulus.cray.com (Thomas Arneberg) Subject: Jokes from Reagan's speech: Thomas Jefferson Reagan speech 8/17/92, referring to Bill Clinton (with veiled reference to Lloyd Bentson's comment to Dan Quayle during the 1988 VP debate; also after joking about his (Reagan's) advanced age): All right. Listen to me. This fellow they've nominated claims he's the new Thomas Jefferson. Well, let me tell you something. I knew Thomas Jefferson. He was a friend of mine. And, governor, you're no Thomas Jefferson. Subject: joke from Reagan's speech: inhaling From: toma@romulus.cray.com (Thomas Arneberg) Reagan speech 8/17/92 at Republican National Convention: When we see all that rhetorical smoke billowing out from the Democrats, ladies and gentlemen, I'd follow the example of their nominee: Don't inhale. ************************** From: dowling@hubcap.clemson.edu (william a dowling) Subject: NFL and Moving Super Bowl My father made this remark to me last week when I was home: "You have to feel for the NFL for moving the Super Bowl from racist Phoenix Arizona (for not allowing a Martin Luther King Holiday) to non-racist L.A ************************** From: mha@baka.ithaca.ny.us (Mark Anbinder) Subject: To wait or not to wait Forwarded to me by a friend at Cornell University. "Observe that for the programmer, as for the chef, the urgency of the patron may govern the scheduled completion of the task, but it cannot govern the actual completion. An omelette, promised in two minutes, may appear to be progressing nicely. But when it has not set in two minutes, the customer has two choices -- wait or eat it raw. Software customers have had the same choices." -- Frederick P. Brooks, Jr, _The Mythical Man-Month_ ************************** From: als@bohra.cpg.oz.au (Anthony Shipman) [From the paper today] The airline business has always had a rich sense of humour, and one purportedly true story doing the rounds at the moment upholds the tradition. It concerns a stormy flight aboard a Boeing aircraft; an off-duty airline stewardess is sitting next to a man in the grip of serious white-knuckle fever as he watches, through his porthole, the aircraft's wing bending and bouncing in the tempest. The stewardess tries to reassure him; she works in the industry and flies all the time, she tells him. There is nothing to worry about; the pilots have everything under control. "Madam," he replies, "I am a Boeing engineer and we did not design this aircraft to do what it is doing." ************************** Subject: How to get around arrogant executives This happened to me at work early last year (at a different company). I was working at one of those very-very-big-corporations-of-america, and we had recently been inflicted with a new division head. As had all division heads before him, this one said that he "wanted to get to know everyone personally," and was going to "meet everyone one-on-one." As all executives say this -- and none ever follow through -- I never gave it any thought. And sure enough, the division head never met anyone. However, some months later, I needed to speak with the division head's secretary, who was also the secretary for the rest of the division. She was in the division head's office, and was clearly just shooting the breeze with the DH. I poked my head in and said (in a heavily ironic tone of voice), "I hate to drag you away from your obviously very important business, but I need your help for a second." She smiled and nodded, and headed out to her desk. As I stood at her desk, waiting for her to get my form (or whatever it was that I needed), the DH lumbered out of his office and said to me in what he clearly thought was an ironic tone of voice, "I could fire you for that, you know!" (Ho ho ho.) I fixed him with a look and stated, "You can't fire me; you don't even know my name." His mouth clamped shut, he turned, and headed back into his office. I got my form and left. Less than a month later, the DH was transferred to another division. ************************** From: voros@physics.monash.edu.au The recent business of Heavy Boots (TM) was being discussed by my Engies the other day when I arrived to take them for a class. (I tutor a couple of freshman Engineer classes in Physics for the University.) Anyway, they were arguing about this, and decided they'd ask me what the situation was. I talked about gravity and how all matter/energy gravitates, etc. The Sun gravitates and all the stars, etc etc. I had to also explain that, contrary to what some of them thought, gravity acts even when there is no air (!!); that the Moon has gravity despite having no atmosphere. This took some convincing(!), but I clinched it with the experiment with the hammer and feather -- *they* weren't wearing Heavy Boots, and yet still fell. I then proceeded to discuss the nature of scientific theories, testing hypotheses, keeping an open mind but remaining sceptical, the usual stuff. I tend to get very animated when I talk Physics, and raise my voice, gesticulate, pace, and generally carry on. After some 20 minutes of this talk about Science (TM) and Scientific Method (TM), I finished up with something like "So that is how Science is done. Formulate theories, test them and believe them only when and how far they predict experimental results. ... Now, any questions?" One girl up the back raises her hand, "Yes, I have one. You got very worked up over this -- are you a Scorpio?" Oi veh! joe ps Of course I'm not a Scorpio!! I have a very balanced approach to these things -- I'm a *Libra*. ************************** From: jim@galileo.ifa.hawaii.edu (Kevin Jim) Subject: Hurricane Humor The U.S. has only three hurricane warning centers - Coral Gables, FL, Guam, and Honolulu, HI (recently completed). All three have faced Category 4 hurricanes in the past month. Which only goes to show: If you build it, they will come! ************************** From: dhyatt@leland.stanford.edu Subject: History of the United States J. Walter Thompson, a huge ad agency, has a test for all wannabe copywriters. They print it every few years as a full page ad in many major newspapers. They call the campaign "Write if you want work." My response to the question, "Write the history of the United States in 100 words or less": Creation. Evolution. Civilization. Exploration. Colonization. Taxation. Representation? Declaration. Revolution. Celebration. Constitutionalization. Election. Inauguration. Succession. Institutionalization. Conflagration. Migration. Plantation. Expansion. Destination Manifestation. Annexation. Secession. Rebellion. Abolition. Emancipation Proclamation. Assassination. Reconstruction. Industrialization. Assassination. Invention. Transportation. Urbanization. Exploitation. Stratification. Assassination. Unionization. Protection. Regulation. Suffrage Extension. Balkanization. Destruction. League of Nations. Prohibition. Immigration. Depression. Socialization. Construction. Isolation. Deterioration. Penetration. Fission-n-Fusion. Annihilation. Radiation. Polarization. Militarization. Partition. Persecution. Automation. Failed Invasion. Assassination. Investigation. Division. Demonstration. Mind Alteration. Space Exploration. Bra Incineration. Obfuscation. Resignation. Elation. Stupification. Abortion. Stagflation. Gas Station. Computerization. Communication. Deregulation. Pollution. Deforestation. Kinder, Gentler Nation. Reunification. Reconciliation. Verification. Recession. Demarcation. Obliteration. Glorification. Education? copyright 1992 david hyatt -- don't rip it off if you're taking the same test! ************************** From: zoo@cygnus.com (david d `zoo' zuhn) I was on the interviewer side of a job interview for the first time a few days ago, and in preparation I asked many people for help and advice. I received a set of sample questions from a best friend in a previous life. All credit or blame for the following truly belong to Brian R. Smith (brsmith@cs.umn.edu), and is reproduced here by permission: "How do you work in a team situation when all the other team members are fools and idiots?" "Have you ever beaten or killed a co-worker?" "Give me a rough estimate of the maximum dollar amount that you've stolen from each of your previous employers." "Do you object to bullwhips in the workplace?" "Emacs or vi?" "You have a large network of Suns being used by secretaries for word processing in FrameMaker. Which GNU packages would you install for your own entertainment, and how would you justify them later?" "You see a wounded puppy bleeding and whimpering on the side of the road while you're running to work to fix a downed computer that tens of users are waiting for. Do you let the puppy die?" "Why not?" "How much of your workday would you waste by reading news?" "Recite the GNU Manifesto." "How many clients (30% diskless, 60% dataless, 10% /var/spool/mail only) can a Sun 600MP server serve simultaneously, and what relation does this have to angels and pinheads?" ************************** From: eab@voa3.voa.gov (E. Allen Brown) In the early '70s, Columbia Gas of Maryland adopted the slogan "Gas Speaks for Itself." Columbia Gas bought advertising in the form of billboards all over the area. One of the billboards was in Cumberland, Maryland. It was a double billboard with the Columbia Gas ad on the left. Their competition, Potomac Edison Electric bought the right billboard panel for their ad. So people driving through the area saw something like: |----------------------------------| |------------------------------------| | | | | | GAS | | | | SPEAKS FOR ITSELF | | BOOM!!! | | | | | | | | | | Columbia Gas | | Potomac Edison | | of Maryland | | Electric | |__________________________________| |____________________________________| Remember, in those days, energy was cheap and competition was fierce...but I still chuckle when I think of it. *start* 15026 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 5 Oct 92 17:02:38 PDT (Monday) Subject: Life 8.Q From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- The following are from dsc.cuties which I think is maintained by lindsay@dscatl.UUCP (Lindsay Cleveland) ************************** Contributed by: ihuxi!ixn5c!ihldt!ll1!sb1!sb6!lhs1 Lazlo's Chinese Relativity Axiom: No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats- approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less. Larry Sikes ..!ll1!sb1!lhs ************************** Contributed by: avsdT!wcl Heard from a canadian friend: I eats me peas with honey, I've done it all me life. It makes the peas taste funny, But it keeps 'em on the knife. ************************** Contributed by: ihnss!knudsen If Darwin's Theory isn't wrong, But almost proven true, How come the ape in "Donkey Kong" Is smarter'n me and you? ************************** Contributed by: sdccsu3!ix222 There is no realizable power that man cannot, in time, fashion the tools to attain, nor any power so secure that the naked ape will not abuse it. So it is written in the genetic cards -- only physics and war hold him in check. And also the wife who wants him home by five, of course. Encyclopadia Apocryphia, 1990 ed. from an article on the blink bomb ************************** Contributed by: burl!lda Continued from the Book of Lists 2, are the worlds worst puns: 14. A hen stopped right in the middle of the highway. She wanted to lay it on the line. 15. The husband of a talkative wife sighed, "I've given that woman the best ears of my life." 16. "It's raining cats and dogs," one man remarked. "I know," said another. "I just stepped into a poodle." ************************** Contributed by: wegdcb!gcegb GUILT BY ASSOCIATION "I've been married and divorced three times," the young man lamented. "I can't hold a job for more than six months at a time, and I'm in debt up to my ears. Dad, tell me, where did you and Mom go wrong?" --Edward Stevenson, WSJ, 9/19/83. ************************** Contributed by: eagle!karn Rinaldo's Laws As I will be leaving the Washington area in early May, I thought it appropriate to share the wisdom that I have accumulated thus far. These truths have come not as a vision but by observation over time. Accordingly, I have synthesized the following laws: First Law. Choreography is its own reward. Some things are done only for the sake of form. Don't fight it by looking for substance in everything. Do it long enough and you'll find enjoyment in an elephant dance. Second Law. He who does the work shapes it. As applied to computers, he who writes the code rules (the Codin' rule). In meetings, he who writes the minutes determines the outcome. Third Law. The less the knowledge, the more jealously it is preserved. Societies with only a few precious facts make their people memorize them and pledge to faithfully abide by them. In contrast, highly developed disciplines quit worrying about losing knowledge (unless the computer crashes and there is no backup). Fourth Law. Excellence increases demands. Critics gather to spot tinier flaws as work nears perfection. Promptness invites impatience. In correspondence, the faster you answer a letter, the faster your correspondent will answer giving you something with a shorter deadline. This reaches a fever pitch with electronic mail. Fifth Law. Skills diminish professionalism. Engineers who admit to drafting skills are vulnerable to assignment of drafting work, just to help out. Similarly, female professionals should hide any clerical skills lest they be asked to pinch hit for one of the secretaries in the event of illness. Sixth Law. What separates the competent from the incompetent is the ability to cover up mistakes. Many successful sales demonstrations have been made with defective products in the hands of competent persons who avoid demonstrating the features which don't work. Beautiful Xerox copies can be made from originals riddled with correction fluid. Recovery from some grievous errors can be attained by simply announcing, "No problem. We'll just put it back in the word processor!" The computer software profession seems to be the exception; who else is so blatant as to have a term such as "debugging" to let the world know that they need extra time funded by the customer to correct their own errors. Seventh Law. Silence is not acquiescence. Contrary to what you may have heard, silence of those present is not necessarily consent, even the reluctant variety. They simply may sit in stunned silence and figure ways of sabotaging the plan after they regain their composure. Eighth Law. Quick-reaction and slow-reaction facilities rotate. Once people discover that there is a quick-reaction facility (QRF), they will try to get all their work done there, bogging it down in work and leaving the slow-reaction facility (SRF) nothing to do, thus becoming the faster of the two. Ninth Law. Complexity attracts brilliance. The KISS (keep it simple, stupid) principle is no fun and certainly not a professional approach. If you want brilliant people to do work for you make it complex and demanding. The true professional will spend 20 hours at the computer writing a one-time-use program that will replace 10 hours of clerical work. Anyway, 20 hours at professional rates pays more than 10 hours at clerical rates. Also, it's more intellectually rewarding. The greatest achievement is to use one's finest professional talents to accomplish something that didn't need to be done. Tenth Law. Bad guys are replaced. Did you ever rejoice over the departure of someone that you couldn't get along with only to find that a replica has shown up? When you are trying to make a U-turn and you have someone tailgating you, have you pulled off on a sidestreet, then into an alley only to find that two other cars are right behind you? ************************** Contributed by: emory!jfp ELECTRONIC GRAINS The Vegetable Computer was invented in 1842 by Charles Cab- bage, regarded by many as the father of the field. Cabbage called his computer the Agricultural Engine. Modern versions consist of rose and rose of integrated carrots connected to a flower supply by a maize of wires. Input is from pea switches, yard weeder and tell-he's-ripe. A hayseed vine printer may be used to generate hard coffee, while a veget- able display unit supports interactive composting. Main memory consists of interleaved beet-addressable magnetic corn. Secondary store consists of plough discs and grape drives. All peripherals are daisy chained. A later version of the Agricultural Engine was known as the AR-16 (after Agricultural Revolution). It was based on the sack discipline, first perfected by the Barrow Combine, and sprouted a high-swede paper tape reaper for the first lime. Early computers consumed large amounts of power. Many required their own electric spud-station to seed them and had to overcome the problem of providing adequate lentila- tion. Such problems caused many a furrowed brow in the pas- ture and we cannot expect to avoid harrowing days ahead. However, the many fertile minds that constitute the rate- of-the-cart computer technology cannot fail to produce the harvest of the future, particulary with the bloom of very large scale irrigation. Artificial pollination techniques grafted on to parallel earthworks will soon be producing computers proudly proclaiming "I think, therefore I yam". All chokes aside, we can look beyond the melon-cauli thymes through the winnow of the ears till the salad days ahead. Lettuce advance to the world of two marrows. To those reac- tionaries who would turn back the docks we say, "hoe! hoe! hoe!". Herb and Russel Sprout, Rice Presidents, Assocn. for Cultivating Machinery ----------------- John Pedersen. {sb1,akgua}!emory!jfp Emory University, Atlanta. ************************** Contributed by: utcsstat!laura To understand this joke you have to understand about The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which I will call the CBC from now on. The CBC is the national radio station. You can find it if you are near Canada because it is the station with people reading poetry, playing classical music, and (if you are lucky) presenting the Royal Canadian Air Farce or (even better) Frantic Times -- 2 comedy shows. If you ever do get to hear CBC radio, you will notice one thing. All the announcers sound the same. There is a definite CBC radio voice, and I know people who were not allowed to talk on CBC radio until they had mastered the art of sounding 'right'. The next thing to remember is that real Canadians do not sound like CBC radio announcers. There are a lot of regional differences in pronunciation. Okay, this is background. Now we need a Canadian group to pick on. I am going to pick on the Newfies, because I have a lot of friends in Newfoundland. ******** begin joke ************ There was this Newfie who was unemployed, because times were tough in Newfoundland. He decided that he would move to Toronto to see if he could get a job there. When he got there, after looking for work, he found that people did not understand him. No matter how hard he tried people kept saying "What's that you're saying? I don't understand you at all!". After days of this, he decided that he was going to have to lose some of his Newfie-isms or he would never get a job. So he went to CBC radio and enrolled in the course to make you sound like a CBC radio announcer. It was hard work, but after many months, he had finally mastered the particular detached, snobbish voice that was required. In fact, he did such a good job that CBC hired him and gave him his own time slot to read short exerpts from Robertson Davies' Fifth Business. Of course, the Newfie was pleased. After receiving his first pay check, he decided to buy some food. So he went to a store. He asked the owner for a pound of bacon, a dozen eggs, a loaf of bread, and some milk. "You must be a Newfie," exclaimed the shop owner. The Newfie was crestfallen. "How did you know?" he asked. "Because this is a hardware store!" laura creighton utzoo!utcsstat!laura ************************** Contributed by: clyde!lda Editorial Written by Art Buchwald Appeared in the Greensboro Daily News, summer 1983 In foreign policy, one F16 is worth a thousand words One of the problems with everyone's foreign policy these days is that countries have decided to send more and more expensive messages to each other. In bygone years, an ambassador delivered a message to a foreign government in a leather briefcase. The foreign secretary would then call in the ambassador and hand him his government's reply. It was all neat and tidy and a very cheap way of keeping in touch with each other. But now the prices have gone sky high. This is how governments are communicating with each other: The President calls in his secretary of state: "I want to send a message to the Soviet Union that they better stay out of Central America. Give the El Salvador government $5 million in arms." "Yes, sir." A few days later the President calls the secretary, "Have we had a reply to our message to the Soviets?" "It just came in. The Soviets have delivered 50 MIGs to Cuba, as well as new ground-to-air missiles." "Get off a tough message to Cuba right away. Send a squadron of Huey helicopter gunships to Honduras, and make sure they know we're going to give Guatemala anything they ask for. Sign my name to them so they know we mean business." "Right, sir. By the way we just got a message from France. They're supporting the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua by selling them 100 Mirages. What is our reply?" "Give the government of Trinidad two submarines and a missile cruiser to inform the French we disapprove of the sale." A few days later the President is being briefed by his National Security Adviser, "Libya is protesting our vote in the United Nations on Israel and has sent us a message by supplying the PLO with Russian-made heavy artillery." "What kind of reply do you suggest we send?" "We could give Sudan 200 U.S.-made tanks. I think that would be loud and clear." "I don't think it's strong enough. Why don't we send 100 F16s to Egypt?" "Then we would have to give 100 F18s to Israel." "Let's do it. That would also be a message to Iran. I've been wanting to send them one for some time." "The Secretary has reported that he got nowhere with the Russian Ambassador on Poland." "We're going to have to send the Russians another message. Have the Defense Secretary arrange to place 1,000 cruise missiles in West Germany." "Is that in response to their message of putting 100 SS-20s in the Warsaw Pact countries?" "I hope they read it that way. We must get through to them that we mean business." "What about developing new chemical warfare weapons that would destroy the world? They might get that message." "It's worth a try. Tell the Pentagon boys to get on it right away and leak it to the press. Anything else?" "Did you want to send a message to the People's Republic of China by giving Taiwan a new shipment of planes?" "We better hold off on that for the moment, as China might get the wrong message that we don't need them in the cold war with Russia." "That seems to do it for today. I'll get these messages off right away. Oh, one thing, sir. Our ambassador in Moscow has just sent a cable that he needs a Cadillac limousine, because the small car we gave him is giving a message to the Russian people that capitalism doesn't work." "I didn't know we had an ambassador in Moscow?" "We don't use him. But we keep him there just in case you may want to deliver a message to the Kremlin." "Why would I want to do that when there are so many easier ways of communicating with the Soviets?" *start* 17838 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 12 Oct 92 17:24:31 PDT (Monday) Subject: Life 8.R From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- The following are selections from Brad's one liner file: From Brad: "Here is a set of samplings from the one-liner file. When processing submissions, if I see a short joke that is good but doesn't quite merit a posting of its own, I put it in the one-liner file. I haven't posted the results for quite some time, so some of these are pretty old." ************************** Subject: Auto repair scandals From: stevo@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov (Steve Groom) A short letter to the editor published in the Saturday, June 20 1992 edition of the Los Angeles Times: I didn't get burned on my last auto repair bill. I got Seared. ************************** From: CORSON.BERTON@west-la.va.gov Submitted by: Berton Corson 5280397@mcimail.com Diner: Waiter! There's a footprint in my breakfast. Waiter: Well, I don't see what the problem is. You ordered an omelet and told me to step on it! ************************** Subject: Perot Pullout From: IRVINMJ@wsuvm1.csc.wsu.edu (Michael J. Irvin, WSU, 509/335-0437) Subject: Perot Pullout Source: Overheard at a Rotary Club meeting. Now that Perot has withdrawn from the presidential race, he's being called The Yellow Ross of Texas. ************************** From: ag3l+@andrew.cmu.edu (Arun K. Gupta) Subject: Regarding meetings... `Committee' was the spelling decided upon by the first komiti. ************************** From: sinteur@ooc.uva.nl (John Sinteur) Subject: USSR This is third or fourth hand, so I cannot tell you the source. It appears some British newspaper ran a contest to come up with a new name for the USSR. One of the better entries was UFFR: Union of Fewer and Fewer Republics. ************************** Subject: Post holiday diet joke From: kiisaka@csi.uottawa.ca (Ken Iisaka) My friend, Duncan Bailey said: People are so worried about what they eat between Christmas and the New Year, but they really should be worried about what they eat between the New Year and Christmas. ************************** From: kmoore@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Kyle E Moore) Subject: New Ahnuld Movie This IS an original, by the bye... Apparently Arnold Schwarzenegger's next movie is going to be about the lives of the world's great composers. The movie has Steven Seagal set to play Beethoven, Jean-Claude Van Damme will be Mozart, and when Arnie got wind of the project, he said... "I'll be Bach" ************************** From: whos@ddsw1.mcs.com (Ben Feen) Subject: Grapes of Wrath Russian Style During a hard period in Soviet history, the government showed _The_Grapes_Of_ _Wrath_ to the citizens, in an effort to show how much worse the United States was. All the citizens saw was that even the poorest Americans owned cars. ************************** From: PJB4288@ritvax.isc.rit.edu (HELLION WHEELS) Subject: A Star Trek joke What do you get when you cross a Klingon with a politician? Someone in Washington who might actually get something done! ************************** From: catbyte.b11.ingr.com!medin@watmath (Dave Medin) Subject: One liners The recent post brought this to mind, from the backstage men's room at the Seattle Opera House: Q: How tall is a union stagehand A: Don't know. I've never seen one standing up... ************************** From: neidorff@makore.uicc.com (Bob Neidorff) Subject: New Light Bulb Joke? I don't know if this is new, but I think it is. How many home owners does it take to change a light bulb? One, but it takes two weekends and four trips to the hardware store. ************************** From: A.Raman@massey.ac.nz (Anand) Subject: A complete story My sister told me this one a long time ago. In a literature class, the students were given an assignment to write a short story involving all the important ingredients - Nobility, Emotion, Sex, Religion and Mystery. One student allegedly handed in the following story: "My god!" cried the duchess. "I'm pregnant. Who did it?" ************************** From: smith@ctron.com (Larry Smith) Subject: And the winnah is... This is from WGIR this morning - a unidentified caller mentioned he had taken his own "unofficial" poll this morning by counting those election signs people set up in their yards at primary time. He figures the winner will be "For Sale". ************************** Subject: Disaster Areas From: hagerman@rx7.ece.cmu.edu (John Hagerman) I wonder, are the San Francisco Giants moving to Florida to avoid the danger of earthquakes? ************************** From: eliot@dg-rtp.dg.com (Topher Eliot) Subject: optimism A headline in on a magazine at the supermarket read How to become an optimist in two weeks It was only after a moment that I realized that in response, I had muttered "I don't know. That sounds pretty optimistic to me." ************************** From: jmurphy@DaVinci.soe.uoguelph.ca (Jim Murphy) Subject: office one-liner, definition of stress Some office one-liners from various anonymous sources collected over the past 5 years or so: If I want your opinion, I'll ask you to fill out the necessary form. People with narrow mind usually have broad tongues. While money can't buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own form of misery. I like your approach, now let's see your departure. ************************** From: billd@infmx.UUCP (William Daul) Subject: Ultimate RISC Machine To Be Announced I will be building the ultimate RISC machine. I have reduced the instruction set to only two instructions: ON OFF ************************** From: bpaley@shearson.com (Brad Paley) Subject: occult, black humor (original) I've started an apocrophal story about the validity of palm reading: A friend of a friend was horrified to find out, at the age of twenty-five, that his life line was extremely short. When he tried to lengthen it (with his trusty Victorinox) he bled to death. ************************** Subject: Michaelangelo virus (smirk) From: rlb7h@rlbsun.ee.virginia.edu (Robert L. Blackburn) Heard on NPR's Morning Edition on Friday, March 6, concerning the Michaelangelo computer virus: Michaelangelo .... the rogue program, which conforms to the IBM standard, ... IBM has a standard for viruses? ************************** From: pvsury@drl.mobil.com (P. V. R. Suryanarayana) Subject: Joke "In a Russian tragedy, everybody dies. In a Russian comedy, everybody dies too. But they die happy" (Source: Barry Farber, quoted in the Journal of Petroleum Technology) -Suri ---------------------------------------------------- More stuff from rec.humor.funny: ************************** From: ingram@u.washington.edu (Doug Ingram) Heard this during a Seattle Mariners broadcast: Dave Niehaus: Texas Ranger catcher John Russell...he's got a degree in Mathematics from the University of Oklahoma. Kevin Cremins: That means he can figure out average yards per carry. ************************** From: frank@rover.bsd.uchicago.edu (FRANK BORGER) Excerpts from the Federal Register as originally presented in the American Association of Physicists in Medicine Newsletter. 17 January 1992, Bureaucratic Grasp of the Situation Profound Statement #1 The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in a Federal Register notice denying a petition, stated "Detachment of any of the four wheels adversely affects vehicle stability..." 17 January 1992, Bureaucratic Grasp of the Situation Profound Statement #2 A National Transportation Safety Board official, investigating a lost engine incident involving a Boeing 737, which is designed to safely shed a mal- functioning engine, stated "But we do know that this engine was not designed to fall off under normal circumstances." ************************** From: bscott@isis.cs.du.edu (Ben Scott) This just in - FCC official Craig Shergold has announced new regulations to add a fee to phone lines used for telecommunication, including bulletin boards and public network services. Critics say he is still bitter from a childhood experience during which he was buried underneath several tons of get-well cards, largely due to the well-meaning efforts of computer users all over the world, and this has sparked his current crackdown. Everyone reading this message would be affected by a tax on modem lines! It's vital that we make ourselves heard, and stop this FCC ruling. Please, forward this message to as many bulletin boards and services as you can, and encourage everyone you know to sign petitions against this plan. Send them to Mr. Shergold at the FCC in Washington, DC. (United Wire Services, July 2002) ************************** From: hampton@ais.org (Kevin Podsiadlik) Have you heard about the latest dance? It's a very simple step called the Hokey Perot-key. It goes like this: You toss your hat in You pull your hat out You toss your hat in And you waffle all about ************************** From: WEHR%EEDVAX.decnet@srlvx1.srl.ford.com (EEDVAX::WEHR) My family and I live in Romeo, a small village about 30 miles north of Detroit. My wife would rather me describe its location to new acquaintances without mentioning Detroit, however. Not that she doesn't like the city; it's just that it's reputation has been responsible for some strange looks. Anyway, during a recent camping trip, we were experiencing the usual difficulties in getting our campfire going. Suddeny, my wife popped up with, "See? Sure proof we're not from Detroit: we don't know *how* to start a fire!" ************************** From: ark@research.att.com Q: What do you call the day after two days of rain in New Jersey? A: Monday. [for the rest of the world: weekend rain in New Jersey has been so reliable this summer that it is starting to make the national news; people who own businesses at places like Atlantic City are furious] ************************** From: stewart@dao.nrc.ca (Robyn Stewart--Library) We three females took a few of the guys along shopping a couple weeks ago. After an afternoon of watching women discuss imperceptible (to them) differences in colour, and waiting outside fitting rooms, the guys came up with this: "I think I'll write the 'women-in-a-mall' search program sometime." "How does that work?" "It first does a linear search through the entire set, then, unsatisfied with a negative result, it goes back and checks random items to see if it missed something." ************************** From: jcarlin@pnet51.orb.mn.org (Joe Carlin) While picking up some financial aid forms at one of the Universities here in the Twin Cities, I came across a pamphet discussing different loan programs, which also included advertisements for different banks in the area. One of the much more humorous ones was one for Twin City Federal, which was titled "Get a Degree without the Third Degree", followed by a bogus student loan application which looks something like this: 1st HUMONGOUS BANK Student Loan Application Name (if any) ______________________________________ Middle Last First Address ____________________________________________ Last 34 address ____________________________________ Sex: __ Male __ Female __ Not Sure Are you an illegal alien? __ Ja __ Si __ Oui __ Da Annual income $ _____________________________________________________________ (if over $3,000, where did you get the nerve to beg us for a loan?) Astrological sign _____________________ (Stop here if you're a Leo or Taurus) Grandmother's maiden name ________ Her World War II service record? _________ Last book you read: __ The Joy of Saxaphone __ Mad __ Manhattan telephone directory Your favorite number from 17 to 39: _______ (this will be the interest on your loan, if you're lucky enough to get one from us) Are you now on the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted" list? __ Yes __ No In 7,000 words or more, discuss the International Monetary Fund and its ramifications related to the Chicago White Sox infield and Victorian matters ___________________________________________________________________ (use back side, if needed) If you miss a payment on your loan, what is your preferred method of torture? __ The Rack __ Iron Maiden __ A night with Lawrence Welk * Do you like to fill our forms? (We have more when you complete this one) __ Yes __ Goodbye Do you secretly like your father's Oldsmobile? __ Yes __ Maybe a little Do you sleep in __ Pajamas? __ Underwear? __ Nude? State your college major. (Must be one of these to qualify for student loan) __ Swine diseases __ Harpsichord tuning __ History of chewing gum Do you still believe in __ Santa Claus? __ Easter Bunny? __ Professional wrestling? Are you willing to be polygraphed, scrutinized, notarized, and steroid tested to obtain a loan from us? __ Absolutely __ Positively __ You betcha __ Of course __ Certainly __ Sure __ No problem If all of the above is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, sign here in the presence of 12 witnesses (preferrably Supreme Court Justices and Nobel Prize winners) ________________________________________________ _________________________ Signature Date -------------------------------- * Quite horrible, considering he's dead ************************** From: Mateo.Burtch@eng.sun.com (M. Burtch--Specialist in Courier Font) Subject: And In The U.S., They're Forced To Buy Retail I hadn't thought to send this in, but it's getting wide distribution anyway, so somebody must like it. Either that, or technical writers just don't get out enough. Original. Mateo Burtch (elvis@sun.com) Sun Microsystems ------------ The Society for Technical Communication (STC) released its annual Report on the Status of Technical Writers today. This report, issued by the STC's Writers' Committee on Technical Scribes, monitors the civil and human rights of technical writers throughout the world and documents abuses against them. It also includes a handy quick-reference guide to basic Fortran compiler options. Overall, the report noted that the situation for technical writers the world over is "precarious, and, in many cases, is worsening rapidly. In particular, writers in the Third World routinely live in poverty and squalor." (The report noted that this may apply to other people in the Third World as well.) The report concludes: To the twin I-beams of Democracy and Freedom one may add those of Technical Accuracy and Good Visual Layout. But these too are threatened by mankind's age-old nemeses: Bigotry . . . Hatred . . . Right Justification. If the human race is not only to survive, but to prosper in the heart and in the mind and in the soul, technical writers must practice their ageless craft unencumbered by fear, privation, or schedules. Some of the highlights of the Committee's report include: o Worldwide deaths involving courier font have increased 9% over the past two years. o Canada recently passed legislation making the passive voice the national language. o In China's remote Dimsum province, oxen are used in place of technical writers, with no apparent loss of readability. o In North Korea, police departments no longer use electric cattle prods to torture dissidents, replacing them instead with extremely slow and finicky daisy wheel printers. o The Frame Technology Corporation now touts its product as "disposable." o Torture of technical writers by roving gangs of hooligans known as "editors" is rampant in Northern Ireland, where sectarian violence between different spellers of "filesystem" runs out of control. One particularly gruesome form of punishment is "chopping": holding a writer down and then cutting the dangly thing off his cedilla. o A similar practice is "stet-ing," the continual removal and replacement of chunks of text, leaving the writer dazed and confused. (Or more dazed and confused, to be exact.) o A worldwide shortage of #2 pencils has left many technical writers in poorer countries unable to take notes or doodle during meetings--forcing them to pay attention or end the meeting by flinging live poisonous insects at the other attendees. o The Baath Socialist party of Syria has introduced the use of cuneiform stone tablets, which jam PostScript printers. What can you do? Lots. Send a letter to the head of government of one of the cited countries; include a diagram with mixed fonts and at least one incorrect cross-reference. Show them you mean business. Or write to the UN High Commissioner on the Status of Technical Writers, stating that you are categorically opposed to the use of mustard gas during staff meetings and that you're still having problems figuring out which way the darn CD is supposed to go in. Or you can have a fundraising party, inviting all your technical writer friends and promising them that if they give a donation to Save the Tech Writers you'll cancel the performance art you had scheduled for the evening. A copy of the report is available from the Copy Center and from your local samadzat. --Mateo Burtch (c) 1992 Mateo Burtch Yes, you can forward this; just keep my name attached to it or I'll publicly link you with Ron Reagan. *start* 18492 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 19 Oct 92 15:52:41 PDT (Monday) Subject: Life 8.S From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- The following are selections I've saved from a mailing list run by: bostic@okeeffe.cs.berkeley.edu (Keith Bostic) ************************** The animal that coils in a circle is the serpent; that's why so many cults and myths of the serpent exist, because it's hard to represent the return of the sun by the coiling of a hippopotamus. -- Pete Hartman ************************** >From: mgm2_ss@troi.cc.rochester.edu (Malcolm Mead) Why did the chicken cross the road? Because the Western Eurocentric Male dominated human-race entered its world, removed its culture and religated it to a life of domestic subservience in which it was forced to perform such tasks as crossing the road (which is symbolic of humanity's rape of the natural world) for the sole purpose of entertaining it's oppressors. However, the fowl would no longer stand for such injustice, and refusing the derogatory title of "chicken", is rebelling against a system that has forced it to take part in such things as contemplating whether it preceded its own child, the egg. As such it needed to carry it's message to other suffering fowl, who all happened to be on the other side of the road. ************************** From: sam@inavex.neoaci.msk.su (Konstantin V. Samotescul) Russian Mi-17 helicopters for sale We are offering for sale two Mi-17 helicopters (one-new,other-used). Price 4,000,000 US$ for both. Spare parts, maintenance programe will be provided. If you should have any questions, please feel free to contact us at your convenience. International Aviation Industry Exchange, Moscow, Russia. Konstantin Samoteskul. Phone(voice/fax): (095)361-6473 E-mail: sam@inavex.neoaci.msk.su ************************** From: Patrick Tufts roommate from hell - servant of satan My friend Alma stopped by last weekend. Her car was making a horrible racket, so I took a look. The heat shield had serious rust and transmission fluid was making a hasty exit, stage down. I noticed some odd writing in the dust on the hood as I closed it. Alma said "That's my roommate trying to put a spell on me. Pretty pathetic, isn't it?" She had earlier told me that this was the THIRD "psycho satan worshipping roommate (and boyfriend)" that she had had. When I asked her how they were getting along, she replied "the lease has seven weeks left." Moral: wash your car regularly so it doesn't invite easy cursing. Words to live by. ************************** Extracted from some personal mail: That was then and this is now. I work on applications on the Mac these days. I learned the lesson a long time ago but it took awhile to sink in. Dan was working at SGI and I was working at Fortune Systems and our mother came out to visit. How to you explain a device driver for a communications coprocessor board to your mother even if it was SNA, BISYNC X25 compatible and transparent to the Unix file system calls. So I gave her a demo of vi and she said, "that's very good, Chris." Dan took her over to SGI and she was landing F15's on a carrier deck at night. Needless to say, mom always liked Dan best and I eventually decided to hightail it to applications. ************************** From: Neil.Groundwater@Central.Sun.COM (Neil Groundwater) [from the Colorado Springs Gazette] "In Philadelphia, how many airport workers does it take to change a light bulb? The answer, we kid you not, is three. According to civil-service rules at the Philadelphia International Airport, changing a light bulb requires a building mechanic to remove the light panel, an electrician to change the bulb, and a janitor to sweep up after them. Privatized airports, anyone?" ************************** News of the Weird, 25 July 1992 Japan Efficiency Headquarters, an "entertainment business company" in Chiba, Japan, rents "family members" out to senior citizens who would like to enjoy the benefits of a close-knit family from time to time. Typically, a husband, wife and child are requested, and have been trained by the company to engage in family-type activities as if everyone in the room were related. The typical cost for three hours is $1,100. Ring magazine reported that boxer Daniel Caruso, moments before the bell to begin his New York City Golden Gloves fight in January, tried to psyche himself up by using the method employed by former champion Marvin Hagler -- pounding his gloves into his face. Caruso broke his own nose, forcing cancellation of the fight. Researchers at Merck, Sharp & Dohme pharmaceutical house, seeking a powerful blood coagulant, are studying a "provocative and interesting" new substance: vampire-bat saliva. Preliminary research on rabbits showed the saliva to be several times more effective than the next best substance. In April, the daily Nashville Tennessean newspaper disclosed that Domino's pizza dealers in the area had a policy of refusing to deliver pizzas to certain predominantly black neighborhoods. As the weekly Nashville Scene newspaper reported two weeks later, the Tennessean, itself, has a policy of discouraging home delivery subscriptions of the paper to the very same areas. In May, Peru billed the United States for $20,000, which it says were the costs incurred while cleaning up the remains of a U.S. Air Force Plane that crashed in the country and for medical bills for the injured crew. The aircraft, a U.S. drug surveillance plane that was unarmed, was shot down by Peruvian air force fighter jets. One crewman was killed and four were wounded. Researchers in Connecticut, writing in the February Hospital and Community Psychiatry, reported that patients in psychiatric wards who constantly watched MTV suffered psychological deterioration. Signs of deterioration were increased hallucinations, belligerence and hostility toward staff (especially female staff). When MTV was banned, patients' frequency of aggressiveness was reduced. ************************** More News of the Weird: * A Michigan boating agency official, after examining all accidents in the state over the last 15 years, concluded recently that the most dangerous activity for boaters is falling overboard. [Canoe, May 1992] * Channel 5 in Nashville, Tenn., held a "Mission: Bermuda Triangle" trivia contest in May offering viewers a chance to win a seven-day vacation in Florida. The contest had to be restarted after the "hundreds" of initial entries disappeared from the station. (The manager suspects a cleaning-crew mistake.) [The Tennessean, 5-30-92] * James Sinclair, who had sued the Los Angeles Police Department in an excessive-force case, shot his lawyer, Michael Friedman, to death in June. The Associated Press said witnesses to the shooting quoted Sinclair as saying, "Attorneys have ruined the world," "Attorneys have done enough damage to the people," and "Now is the day of justice." [L. A. Times, 6-2-92; Washington Post- AP, 6-3-92] * Peace activist Kwazi Nkrumah, angered by a series of unfavorable articles by local newspaper editor Bruce Anderson in Santa Rosa, Calif., confronted Anderson in May and slugged him. [[Santa Maria Times, May92]] Least Competent Person * Janie A. Coleman was arrested in Columbia, Mo., in January after being accused of trying to pass counterfeit $5 bills in the purchase of perfume. The bills were merely photocopied fronts and backs of bills, taped together. [Missourian, 2-2-92] ************************** From: wisner@privateidaho.EBay.Sun.COM (Bill Wisner) Big Wad O' NOTW Sam F. Stewart, 17, was arrested for burglary in Waskom, Texas, in April, after he had broken into a van housed in a residential garage and then inadvertently activated the electric locks while trying to start the car. As he hit various controls in an attempt to get out of the car, he awoke the owners. Stewart was still trapped inside the car when police arrived. Sheriff Bill Wiester announced in Moses Lake, Wash., in March that he had arrested a man sitting in a car bobbing his head and who thus looked like he was doing drugs. On closer inspection, however, no drugs were found; the man had a straw in his mouth and was blowing bubbles into a fishbowl he was holding in his lap, aerating the water for his pet piranha. Among the information that came to light in April as a result of Atlanta's new government officials' financial disclosure law was the existence of the city's not-well-known Board of Astrology. The Associated Press could find no records of the board at City Hall but concluded after interviewing its three smoked-out members that the board administers tests to, and licenses, prospective astrologers. ************************** From: Joe Wiggins In the news... LATEST NEGATIVE CASH-FLOW ROBBERY A man held up a Circle K store in Waco, Texas, on Nov. 29 after first diverting the clerk's attention by putting a $20 bill on the counter and asking for change. When the robber pulled a gun and demanded the entire contents of the cash register, the clerk put everything in a bag and handed it to the robber - all $15. The robber left the $20 bill on the counter as he fled. UNDER ARREST Arthur Gloria, 20, was arrested at a police station in Chicago as he was leaving, after having taken the written test to qualify for becoming a police officer. He had driven a stolen car to the exam and parked it illegally outside the station. LEAST COMPETENT PEOPLE Huntington Beach, Calif., police Lt. Patrick Gidea reported in November that officers conducting an undercover drug purchase sting continued to make arrests of eager would-be customers even after large orange "police" signs were placed in the area. Said Gildea, "We actually had people coming up and getting in line (to buy cocaine) when we had people (under arrest and handcuffed lying) on the gound." LEAST COMPETENT PERSON Michael Stohr, 26, was arrested for counterfeiting in Madison, Wis., in September after clerks at a printing supply store tipped off federal investigators about a man who had been browsing around. Clerks said the man lingered in the store holding dollar bills up to a color chart and finally placing an order for a particular shade of green ink. ANONYMOUS TIP Prison escapee James Sanders was captured by federal agents at his home in Stinnett, Texas, in January after 17 years on the lam, during which he had established a new life, married and fathered a daughter. Agents were tipped off when Sanders, out of curiosity, telephoned the FBI to ask whether they were still pursuing James Sanders. ************************** News of the weird A newspaper reported in June that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's executive fleet of cars averages only 6.2 miles per gallon, less than one-fourth the federally mandated average of 27.5. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in June on the local "Silent Meeting club," consisting of several people who gather at various spots around town and make it a point not to speak to each other. Founder John Hudak said his inspiration was his observation that people often feel obligated to talk when they really have nothing to say, such as at parties. ************************** From: Mateo.Burtch@Eng.Sun.COM (M. Burtch. Aloha.) The Harpo's Index Rank of first three numbers among the positive integers: 1,2,3 Chance of being hit by lightning while playing "Pictionary" with Efram Zimbalist, Jr: 1 in 7,304,302,082 Number of brain cells killed off, on average, by a glass of beer: 35,000 By "Geraldo": 750,000 Likelihood of an intelligent conversation with someone with a Megadeath bumpersticker: 0 in 1,000,000 Number of death-row inmates at the Allenwood Federal Prison who commit suicide rather than listen to Whitney Houston during the appeals process: 76 Leona Helmsley's new name: 206643981 Rank of France in its own mind: 1 Copyright 1992 Mateo Burtch. ************************** In the late 1870s, George Selden, a lawyer/inventor specializing in patents, heard about the development of the automobile in Europe. He realized that it was a product of the future, and "set his mind to working out the precise legal definition and wording of a patent that would give him the sole right to license and charge royalties on future automobile developments in America." Some twenty years later, with the auto industry beginning to show signs of life, he set up a partnership with a few wealthy Wall Street sharks and began asserting his "rights" with automakers. To his surprise, even the five biggest car manufacturers agreed to pay him royalties rather than go to court. By 1903, this royalty-paying alliance of carmakers had officially become the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers (ALAM). Henry Ford, then a fledgling automaker, applied for membership ... and was refused. His reaction: "Let them try to put me out of business!" He took out ads telling his dealers that "the Selden patent does not cover any practicable machine", and dared Selden's group to take him to court. They did. Ford and the ALAM battled it out for six years. Then in 1909, a Federal judge determined that Selden's patent was valid; Selden and his allies legally owned ALL rights to the car. Immediately, carmakers that had held off on joining the ALAM - including the newly formed General Motors - fell into line to pay royalties. The ALAM magnanimously offered to settle cheaply with Ford, but Henry fought on. "There will be no let up in this legal fight", he announced angrily. Finally, on January 9, 1911, a Federal Court of Appeals ruled in Ford's favor. Selden and his cronies were forced to give up; the ALAM was never heard from again. -- from Uncle John's Second Bathroom Reader - St Martin's Press 1989. ************************** From: donn@BSDI.COM (Donn Seeley) Calvin's going to be really pissed when he hears about this... [There were 18 more sites named Hobbes than were named Calvin! -- Donn] From: SRI NISC Domain Survery -- July 1992 Network Information Systems Center July 1992 SRI International Internet Domain Survey The Domain Survey attempts to discover every host on the Internet by doing a complete search of the Domain Name System. The latest results gathered during late July 1992 are listed. For more information see RFC 1296; for detailed data see the pub/zone directory on ftp.nisc.sri.com. This survey was done using the census program developed at the University of California Santa Cruz; see technical report UCSC-CRL-92-34 available on host ftp.cse.ucsc.edu in pub/csl. -- Mark K. Lottor Hosts: 992,000 [890,000 hosts in Apr 1992] Domains: 16,300 [approximately] Host Distribution by Top-Level Domain Name 326630 edu 21021 se 2902 kr 943 br 74 hu 277551 com 19192 fr 2803 il 789 mx 50 int 62584 gov 17188 ch 2733 dk 633 pl 43 ee 48639 au 15757 jp 2410 hk 624 ie 14 yu 43907 de 15718 fi 2118 tw 616 gr 8 tn 38929 ca 14354 no 2073 za 569 cs 6 in 37776 uk 7044 net 1831 nz 400 is 5 ve 33161 mil 6489 at 1532 be 201 us 5 aq 25896 org 5147 it 1318 pt 165 cl 2 ar 21105 nl 3603 es 949 sg 80 lu 1 th Top 50 Host Names 508 venus 377 gw 303 eagle 263 fred 240 mac12 471 pluto 360 mercury 301 mac5 262 sirius 240 mac11 438 mars 355 iris 296 gauss 262 mac8 236 alpha 421 cisco 351 pc2 292 pc3 262 hermes 235 mac13 408 pc1 337 mac3 284 mac6 259 mac9 234 mac14 407 jupiter 334 orion 275 hobbes 257 calvin 231 phoenix 405 zeus 320 mac4 274 mac10 254 pc4 231 mozart 405 mac1 310 newton 271 mac7 253 apollo 231 mac15 383 mac2 310 neptune 266 thor 248 athena 227 earth 381 saturn 306 charon 263 merlin 243 titan 226 mac16 ************************** From: mash@mips.com (John Mashey) 3) The main reason is to get more address sapce (conveniently). There are not a *huge* number of these things; however, the ones that are there are *extremely* important to the people who use them, as they are things like: 1) Scientific codes "Goody; we expand our FORTRAN arrays by factor of 10" 2) Some ECAD programs "Goody, we can still simulate the R11000 after all" 3) Some MCAD programs "Great, we can simulate the 199x automobile in one piece." 4) Video& animation "Great, let's get put Terminator 6 in memory for editing" 5) Financial "Good, we can finally put the financial model of the US in memory and grep around in it at speed." 6) DBMS "Good, we can map 4 whole 1GB SCSI disks into memory at once", i.e., disks that fit in a desktop box. 7) CASE "Thank goodness, there's still space for the new EMACS" :-) ************************** From: M.Apps@rea0805.wins.icl.co.uk Who said C programmers didn't have a sense of humour - get yer giggle tackle around this lot. I'll be recovering from a bout of sidesplitting in a few moments... These are some of the error messages produced by Apple's MPW C compiler. These are all real. "String literal too long (I let you have 512 characters, that's 3 more than ANSI said I should)" "You can't modify a constant, float upstream, win an arguement with the IRS, or satisfy this compiler" "Can't cast a void type to type void (because the ANSI spec. says so, that's why)" "we already did this function" "Call me paranoid but finding `/*' inside this comment makes me suspicious" *start* 15451 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 26 Oct 92 17:07:55 PST (Monday) Subject: Life 8.T From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- how much for the presidency? From: bowe@osf.org I heard this on NPR (National Public Radio) this morning. It was in a story about Al Gore's visit to a new Democratic campaign headquarters in Boston. It was the former local office for Ross Perot's supporters. While killing some time, Joe Kennedy 2nd (my US congressman) said something like this (paraphrasing - I forget the exact wording): Some people thought Perot would spend $100 million of his own money to buy the presidency. My grandmother (102-year-old Rose Kennedy, monther of JFK, Teddy, etc.) told me 'your grandfather only spent $10 million.' Just to be clear, he soon afterwards said "It was a joke, gang, a joke." Was it? - john bowe ---------------------------------------------------- Stuff Brian Gordon sifted out of rec.humor: Brian.Gordon@eng.sun.com ************************** From: johnson@sleipnir.mnesouth.corp.mot.com ("Johnson") I always liked "Pass With Care." I keep looking for the ones that say "Pass Without Care." ************************** From: crystal@glia.biostr.washington.edu (Crystal) How about the signs in hospital parking lots: PATIENT PARKING What about those who are IMPATIENT??? Crystal ************************** From: lc1r+@andrew.cmu.edu (Lori Cole) Sign in Clinton campaign headquarters: QUAYLE IS A BOZOE ************************** From: sparker@gmuvax.gmu.edu While living in Southern New Jersey, we drove past a drug store that had a sign out front proclaiming..... "OPEN 25 HOURS" ************************** ---------------------------------------------------- Stuff Nola Mae McBain sifted out of rec.humor: ************************** DESCRIBTION (sic) OF PERSONS WITH NAMES ALTERED BY ONE LETTER: >> >> LITTLE BOA PEEP - shepherdess who absentmindedly ate her own >> flock. >> JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACHE - Wall Street baroquer. >> MOOSES - Hebrew prophet who parted the Maine woods. >> PERRY MASSON - television lawyer who will solve no case before >> its time. >> EVICTOR HUGO - French landlord and author, "Lease Miserables" >> XEROXES - Persian photocopy king. >> ERICH MARINA REMARQUE - author, "All Quiet On The Waterfront." > ************************** ejhupper@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (Eric Huppertz) Q: How many Vulcans does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: Two. One to screw in the bulb, and one to say, "I fail to see the humor in this." ************************** jv@irus.rri.uwo.ca (Jeffrey Verhagen) writes The personal computer market is about the same size as the total potato chip market. Next year it will be about half the size of the pet food market and is fast approaching the total worldwide sales of pantyhose -- James Finke, Pres., Commodore Int'l Ltd.(1982) ************************** wilkin@uqvax.cc.uq.oz.au Here in Brisbane (Queensland, Australia), we recently had a number of escapes from a new prison, which happens to be situated next to a major highway. One morning (after several escapes) an official Main Roads Department sign appeared on the highway stating +---------------+ | Caution | | Prisoners | | Crossing | +---------------+ Obviously, some caring person (or persons) at Main Roads decided that the poor prisoners were in danger having to cross the busy highway and decided to erect the sign for their safty. Unfortunately, the powers that be did not share this (these) persons' point of view and the sign was promply remove and an official investigation launched! ************************** cowieson@brandonu.ca Skydiving bumper snickers: "SKYDIVERS ARE GOOD TO THE LAST DROP" ************************** ---------------------------------------------------- Stuff Tony Podrasky (tonyp@cnvxla.convex.com) sifted out of rec.humor: ************************** From: richs@microsoft.com (Rick Schaut) In article crystal@glia.biostr.washington.edu (Crystal) writes: >How about the signs in hospital parking lots: > PATIENT PARKING >What about those who are IMPATIENT??? I've always thought "OUT PATIENT" parking was for people who were out of patience. Or is "INPATIENT" parking merely a misspelling? BTW, as one drives west on 124th Street just entering Kirkland, there's a business sign on the left-hand side of the road which states: Factory Direct 15 Years ************************** From: patch@sequent.com (Pat Chewning) My favorite on a narrow winding mountain road in Colorado: "Please do not overestimate the width of the road" ************************** From: peterk@polari.online.com >Saw one on my vacation that I liked. Sort of an oxymoron: > > > +-------------+ > | SHARP | > | CURVES | > +-------------+ ************************** From: jtkrauss@phoenix.princeton.edu (Jeffrey T. Krauss) On my trip from Princeton, NJ to Boston, MA last weekend, I saw a sign that said: White Plains No White Plains Next Right Hmm...I wonder what happens if you take that right...do you end up in a world where things are both there and not there? Transparant maybe? ************************** From: medic@milton.u.washington.edu (Travis Lauricella) Quite often, I've seen: ^ / \ / \ / \ /CAUTION\ / \ / NO WARNING\ \ SIGNS / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / v ************************** From: dave@medicus.com (Dave Truckenmiller) My favorite is the Interstate Signs through Berkeley. While travelling North, one can glance at a single sign post that states: | /-----\ | WEST | | 580 | \ / \ / | /-----\ | EAST | | 80 | \ / \ / | | | | ************************** From: saal@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (samuel.saal) Marion Trozzolo, the inventor of Teflon, died July 1. According to the newspaper obit, he had allegedly been arrested for a variety of crimes, but none would stick. ************************** From: andy@cbnewsh.cb.att.com (andy.russo) Subject: Perot Says Noe There was an old man named Perot, An awesome political foe, He talked with reporters, Got lots of supporters, And then said "Hey, I gotta go." ************************** From: darsie@eecs.ucdavis.edu (Richard Darsie) A billionaire from Texas named Ross His hat in the ring he did toss While some were excited, Lots more were afrighted At the prospect of Ross for a boss. ************************** Now that the Perot campaign is over, there are sure to be some books written on the subject. Here are some suggested, albeit not necessarily original, titles: 1) Gone with the Whim 2) Principia Mythologica 3) Bridge over the River Why 4) Bellow the Salt 5) Veni, Vidi, Mickey 6) South Dallas Sortie 7) The Emperor Wears No Hose 8) Field of Seems 9) Interview with a Vamper 10) Two No-beef Platties, Special Ross, Let Us Please Pick a Bumpkin on a Scarcely Sneezed Run 11) Third Potties in American History 12) The Capitolist [sic] Manifesto David Hudson ************************** From: johnson@sleipnir.mnesouth.corp.mot.com ("Johnson") Subject: Re: Parrot Talk I knew a guy with two parrots. The first one I heard kept making sort of grunting noises, like he was trying to bush his sushi. I asked what it was, and was told that was his dog imitation. "What kind of dog do you have?" I asked, since the sound was nothing like any dog I'd ever heard. "I don't," he told me. "He's imitating the neighbor's dog." Sure enough, it sounded exactly like a dog barking *outside*, muffled by the walls. His second parrot lived in his "game room", where he had all his computers and video games. Until you've experienced it yourself, you have no idea how difficult it is to play such a game with the bird making video game sounds which are in no way related to the game you're playing. ************************** Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -- A. C. Clarke Any sufficiently undocumented code is indistinguishable from magic. -- Some frustrated kernel hacker. ************************** "A leopard never changes his stripes" -- Al Gore, candidate for vice-president [I GUESS HE'S THE DEMOCRAT VERSION OF QUAYLE] ************************** From: campagna@cousins.RICH.nt.com (Mark Campagna) Q: How many drummers does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: Zero, they now have a synthesizer to do that! ************************** From: prem@prem.lbl.gov (Shirdi R. Prem) Here is some WW.II humour, which I remember reading in a book I saw at the British Library in Bangalore, India. --- On a street corner in London, @1942: A gentleman walked up to a soldier and asked, "Pardon me, sir, which side is the War Ministry on ?" "Ours, I hope." --- One of the RAF trainee pilots was on a session on a flying boat. As they completed their flight, his supervisor approached the runway on land. The trainee was quiet for a while, and as they lined up for the final approach, he blurted out, "Er... sir, aren't we on a flying boat.....". The instructor quietly aborted the landing, turned to starboard and made a clean approach and landed on the water. He quietly unfastened his seatbelt, got out of his seat, walked up to the door and said "Good. I was just testing your presence of mind." He had hardly finished saying that, when he opened the door and stepped straight out into the water. --- At an RAF air-show, the Lancaster bomber made his first pass all four engines roaring. As the cheers and waves died down, he shut off one engine and made another pass. Again with only two engines, and finally a low pass with just one engine. "Oooh", said a young girl, "That must be hard!!" "Aaah, that's nothing" said her boyfriend, "Next time, he'll just do it on his windshield wipers...." --- In the jungles in the far-east, mosquitoes were a terrible problem. But one Commanding Officer used to sleep without his shirt in the open. The new chaps asked one of their more experienced seniors, "Doesn't he get bitten by those mosquitoes ??" The chap answered, "Well, the C.O. has a bottle of whiskey before turning in. So, until 3 AM or so, he is too full to bother about the mosquitoes. By that time, the mosquitoes are too full to bother him!" ************************** ---------------------------------------------------- Stuff Dani Zweig (dani@netcom.com) sifted out of rec.humor: ************************** From: vaps0de@prism.gatech.EDU (Dustin Emhart) Subject: Re: Bumper Stickers I passed a car on the freeway the other day sporting one that read "My Child is on Academic Probation at ... Elementary School." ************************** ---------------------------------------------------- Stuff Russell Lear sifted out of rec.humor: ************************** From: "curtis repen" At work here all our Unix servers are named after planets. My co-worker recieved a message this morning "Cannot find "Earth"". I feel like that some Mondays, myself. I was a bit more worried when I received the message "'Earth' Going down in 5 min. please log out"." ************************** From: guyh@hpubvwa.nsr.hp.com (Guy Hyde) Reading ( with enjoyment ) Life 3.5 and Life 6.C reminded me of a true ( yet humorous ) story told by my brother while in college -- The rules at this particular university were such that if the professor were not present in the classroom by 15 minutes past the hour, the class was considered a "walk" and the students were free to leave -- with no penalties for missing a class. The rooms were equipped with the type wall clocks which "jumped" ahead each minute, in a very noticable fashion. As it were, these clocks were also not of the most sophisticated construction. Some enterprising student discovered that if one were to hit the clock with chalkboard erasers, it would cause the clock to "jump" ahead 1 minute. So, it became almost daily practice for these students to take target practice at the clock ( as it would have it, this particular professor was not the most punctual, and the students considered him severely "absent-minded"). A few well aimed erasers, and lo, 15 minutes were passed, and class dismissed itself. Well, when the day for the next exam rolled around, the professor strolled into the room, passed out the exams, and told them "You have 1 hour to complete". The professor then proceeded to collect the erasers from around the room, gleefully took aim at the clock. When he had successfully "jumped" the clock forward 1 hour, he closed the class and collected the exam papers. Life does teach some lessons the hard way. ************************** ---------------------------------------------------- From stuff Cheryl Ann Pence sifted out of rec.humor: ************************** waist-line impaired. Or Gravitationally Challenged. ************************** Sender: dlf@aber.ac.uk (David Leslie Fenerty) I was once talking to a none-too-bright friend of mine about the Commonwalth Games, to be staged in Edinburgh, about to be boycotted by some countries because of Britain's stand on apartheid. "It's a shame America isn't going in for these Games" he commented, "I reckon Russia will clean up now" I asked him "Don't you know what countries are involved in the Commonwealth Games?" "Sure I do" he replied "It's all of the countries in the Common Market isn't it?" ************************** From: advax@reg.triumf.ca (A.Daviel) +--------------------------------+ | * WEIGHT LOSS CLINIC * | +--------------------------------+ ENTRANCE EXIT __________________ __________ | ________________ | | ________ | || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || O || || O || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || *start* 13404 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 2 Nov 92 16:14:54 PST (Monday) Subject: Life 8.U From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- From: spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene "Chief Yuckster" Spafford) -------------------------- From: Joe Wiggins Subject: Should these researchers get a life? Excerpted from a Harper's Index excerpt in the September '92 issue of Funny Times: > Days it would take to exhaust H. Ross Perot's fortune if it were used to pay the INTEREST on the federal deficit: 5.7. > Number of countries that have issued at least one Elvis Presley postage stamp: 13. > Bonus the Chinese government pays selected scholars and scientists each month to discourage emigration: $20. > Number of subscribers to Surfer Magazine who live in Saudi Arabia: 2. > Years it would take a Nike worker in Indonesia to earn Michael Jordan's endorsement fee: 44,492. -------------------------- From: vsh@etnibsd.uucp (Steve Harris) Checked in to my hotel at a recent Usenix conference, opened the bedside drawer, found a copy of K&R -- said it had been left by the Gideons. -------------------------- From: jfw@ksr.com (John F. Woods) Moved by Clinton [description of dull Clinton stump speech] I didn't hear anything that touched me, moved me, made me want to vote for Bill Clinton what could he have said that would have moved you? "Hey, you in the back; there's a chair up front if you want it." -------------------------- From: kludge@grissom.larc.nasa.gov (Scott Dorsey) UHF Televsion Antennas useful for anything? In article chrisc@ramrod.lmt.mn.org (Chris Cox) writes: >I've heard rumours that some people use them for receiving UHF television >transmissions... I've tried doing this, but I have been having real trouble. While I am using an antenna installed in 1965, I continue to get 1992 programs. Also, the programs seem to be extremely stupid, no matter what I do. I found a control on the TV marked "brightness" and turned it up, but the intelligence level didn't improve any. I am not sure what to do about this. -------------------------- From: landman%xpoint@uunet.UU.NET (Howard Landman) computer files >I notice that lots of things >get filed. Isn't this kind of abrasion going to lead to data loss? >Wouldn't sanding be a `kinder, gentler' way to stow it? Dear Litow, In Germany, many companies have an apprenticeship program in which the new apprentice spends a year or more doing nothing but filing. They beleive that this is the only way for people to really get a feel for the shaping of data. Actually, they may do some drilling and routing as well after a few months, but the basic point is that there is no substitute for this kind of tactile experience with live information. Later, when they are allowed to program, they will have a gut feel for how manipulate it in the most effective manner. Sanding is not used nearly as often, principally due to lower performance and the difficulty of making truly straight cuts. There's no point teaching people stuff that they're never going to use. I hope this clears up any confusion you might have had, -------------------------- From: Patrick Tufts nuh-nuh-nuh-Nitro! Got a question for the American Gladiatiors? Ask A Gladiator 10203 Santa Monica Bvd. Los Angeles, CA --Pat "which goes better with fish, bovine steroids or human growth hormone?" -------------------------- From: Mike Spitzer Subject: Its out! BTW, Did you hear about the Texas Cowboy? He bought a dachshund because someone told him to "get a long little doggy". -------------------------- From: APUCORLE@idbsu.idbsu.edu Amnesia International We care. We care about people. Deeply. Vaguely. Many parts of the world are not very nice. We want to help. Help us find out which parts they are. Or whatever. You know. AMNESIA INTERNATIONAL PO Box either 207, or 702, or 027, That Big Town With The Exhibition Centre And all The Tunnels, Can't Remember the New Name of the County But It Used To Be Called Rutland Or Something. Anyway, You Can't Miss It. -------------------------- From: al@escom.com (Al Donaldson) Plain Talk about Pie-Charts Here's the top-ten graphics Ross Perot didn't show you: 10. bar chart showing the number of squirrels hit by cars by year since 1980 9. pie chart showing breakout of different kinds of graphics he used, 41% pie charts, 38% bar charts, 12% tables, 9% other. 8. pie chart showing consumption of pies since 1900. 7. bar chart showing his height in inches by year 6. pie chart showing how many times he used the word "deficit" in each of the three 10-minute segments of the show. 5. bar chart showing the decline in the number of volunteers each time he changed his mind about running.. 4. bar chart showing how many Really Serious Mistakes (TM) General Motors has made each year since he left. 3. pie chart comparing the quality of a haircut with cost, since the Republicans took over the White House. 2. table showing the size of his ears in inches each year since they fluoridized his drinking water, and the Number One Graphics Ole Ross Didn't Show You: 1. bar chart showing how many $$billions$$ he had in the bank for each of the past five presidencies. -------------------------- From: wisner@privateidaho.EBay.Sun.COM (Bill Wisner) Subject: NOTW A newspaper reported in June that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's executive fleet of cars averages only 6.2 miles per gallon, less than one-fourth the federally mandated average of 27.5. A Noblesville, Inv., judge agreed to move his courtroom one June night to a van outside the Deer Creek Music Center so that rowdy Grateful Dead concert fans could be processed immediately upon their arrest for drugs possession and other crimes, rather than having to wait overnight. A questionnaire that White County (Ark.) welfare officials required each single mother to complete as a condition of receiving benefits called for the following information: when and where she first had sexual intercourse with the child's father; how often, when and where after that first time; parties attended with the father; names of any motels, bars or other places she went with the father; names of all other men with whom she had sexual intercourse while seeing the father; and the regularity and starting date of her menstrual periods before the pregnancy. Use of the form was discontinued after the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette brought it to the attention of state officials. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in June on the local "Silent Meeting club," consisting of several people who gather at various spots around town and make it a point not to speak to each other. Founder John Hudak said his inspiration was his observation that people often feel obligated to talk when they really have nothing to say, such as at parties. Shawn O'Neill, 42, was arrested in Escondido, Calif., in March and charged with robbing Hussar's Jewelers. He had already been convicted of robbing it twice in January and was awaiting sentencing. A 29-year-old New Westminster, B.C., man was charged with DUI in June after he rear-ended a van carrying several police officers who travel around the community urging people not to drink and drive. San Antonio police, trying to piece together the circumstances of the death of a 40-year-old man in July, released to the newspapers the following clues: In a closet in his apartment were numerous bars of six different brands of soap; bizarre messages were taped to various objects in the home; eight TV sets were placed in a semicircle; 40 half-dollars were found in the man's stomach. Billy J. Sexton, serving 75 years in prison in Oklahome for killing his first wife (and charged with killing his second wife), filed a $60 million lawsuit against officials at a parole board hearing recently for subjecting him to cruel and unusual punishment that caused him "mental trauma." He is objecting to parole officials forcing him to view photographs of his first wife's mutilated body. -------------------------- From: Mike O'Brien Cooking shows Local cable access being what it is (and isn't), especially in a large metro area like Los Angeles, and esPECially in a highly gerrymandered cable area like mine, which includes a corridor from downtown out to the ocean, down through dead-broke, gang-ridden Venice and into super-rich Marina del Rey... what was I saying? Oh yeah, local access. We have a lot of it. Things being as they are, (did I say that before?) lots of people think they can cook. I watch some of these when my medicine kicks in and I can't get out of my chair. THE FRAGILE GOURMET Maybe she was big-league once, I don't know. Now she's about nine years older than dirt and can't weigh more than 85 pounds. Her print dresses do things to the CCD elements in the studio cameras and the scan lines don't help any; she's hard to look at straight. But boy can she cook! I've gotten recipes I'm convinced are proprietary secrets from various restaurants, which she remembers but has forgotten the origins of. Trouble is, this only works about half the time. The other half of the time she zaps, thinks she's at home, and wanders off the set to go change the sheets or something. Since the crew's all gone out for coffee, this leads to about ten or twenty minutes of bare set. A real Zen experience, especially if she's left something on the stove. The sprinklers went off once, and that was a hoot until the camera shorted out. THE FERTILE GOURMET This lady has between six and nine kids - I've never gotten an exact count - and this has to be one of the most valuable shows on TV. She demonstrates how to cook for a whole huge bunch of family, every day, on a budget, while keeping half the family from assassinating the other half with anything that comes to hand. She brings all the kids to the set for every show. I think she has to. Unfortunately this very valuable show was cancelled after every single piece of studio equipment had to be replaced three times due to a buildup of saliva and Smurfs. THE FARMER GOURMET This guy looks like Steven King's take on Mr. Green Jeans. I think he's a truck farmer with a messiah complex. He wheels in this grocery cart loaded with dirt-covered vegetables, and proceeds to cook...something, I don't know what, it's different every time. You can watch what he's doing, but the problem is that while he starts talking about the cooking, he wanders, the way people do, until after about five minutes it's all about the New Christy Institute and the Trilabial Commission and a whole bunch of people and nations that don't really correspond to any reality with which I'm familiar. That's on Tuesdays. On Wednesdays he deals with meat dishes, and those are much more pointed and direct, but I've never managed to watch that one much past the point where he leads in the goat. If anyone else ever actually watched this it wouldn't be on long, I don't think. I think there are some more of these on, but I have to go take some more medicine now. -------------------------- From: mmalervy@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (Michael J. Malervy) poltically correct pizzas After months of exhausting research, I have concluded that the politically correct UCSD student would only get a pizza at Pizza Hut. Further, this student would not put any toppings on his pizza. Let's look at why other pizzas are politically incorrect. Dominos is obviously the most politically incorrect. Their owner, Pat Maynahan, is pro-life. Additionally, Dominos uses the politically incorrect automobile to transport their pizza to their customers. This is unacceptable to the politically correct crowd. Next, we have Little Ceasars. Little Ceasars harkens back to the Roman Empire, where the ceasars ruled. Little Caesars is therefore Eurocentric, and politically incorrect. Round Table, whose mane brings to mind England in the Middle Ages, is also Eurocentric. Plus, the Round Table on campus is the home of the Bulls-eye Tavern, a place which has raised the ire of the New Indicator. Therefore, Round Table is politically incorrect. This leaves Pizza Hut. What is a hut? It is a small structure used by people living in the Third World. Pizza Hut is not Eurocentric, does not take a stand against abortion, and has not made the New Indicator angry. Therefore, Pizza Hut is politically correct. But what kind of pizza is politically correct at Pizza Hut? Any pizza without pepperoni, sausage, ground beef, ham, or any other topping that would be considered meat. After all, it is politically incorrect to eat meat. It is cruel and inhumane to kill another fellow creature to satisfy one's taste for meat. All the other toppings at Pizza Hut are also politically incorrect. After all, how can you eat green pepopers or mushrooms or extra cheese when there are people starving? The politically correct student would therefore order a regular cheese pizza at Pizza Hut in order to avoid any of the guilt that might arise from enjoying a politically incorrect pizza. *start* 15495 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 9 Nov 92 13:12:53 PST (Monday) Subject: Life 8.V From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- From rec.humor: From: ss1@kepler.unh.edu (The Rink) If an animal does something, we call it instinct; if we do the same thing for the same reason, we call it intelligence. (Will Cuppy) -------------------------- From: 00BWANDERSON@leo.bsuvc.bsu.edu (i palindrome i) At the Mad Anthonys Gold Tournement in Ft. Wayne, Dan Quayle was asked what his handicap is. "Jay Leno," he replied. And they say Dan's not on the ball... Found in the Huntington Herald Press (yes, Huntington, IN, Danny-boy's hometown!) -------------------------- From: jamesr@uts.amdahl.com (Jim Richard) Why did the Mafia kill Einstein? He knew too much. -------------------------- From: martin@parst1.paradigm.CO.ZA (Martin Walker) The signal to noise ratio on this group seems to have been particularly bad recently, so this may help to redress the balance slightly : -- The average girl would rather have beauty than brains because she knows the average man can see much better than he can think. -- Little girl: "Why does your grandmother read her bible so much?" Little boy: "I guess she must be cramming for her finals." -- MacDougil was standing outside the church after his fifth daughter's wedding ceremony when a reporter came up to him and asked, "MacDougil, this is your fifth daughter's wedding - you must be avery proud man." "Och aye, I'm proud, but the confetti's is just getting a wee bit gritty." ---------------------------------------------------- From comp.sys.ibm.pc.games From: bayliss@skat.usc.edu (T.Drew Bayliss) The choice is very simple: Life, Death, or Los Angeles. ---------------------------------------------------- Humor from Fredgate@fquest.FidoNet.Org - How do you get your place to spin like this? - Five billion people and still no date. - I'm donating my body to science fiction. - Has the world gone mad or is this the post office? - Being weird isn't enough. - Why can't I attract men like crazy instead of attract crazy men? - When I was young, all I wanted was to be ruler of the universe. Now that isn't enough. (Alex P. Keaton) - Now let's all repeat the non-conformist oath... - All undetectable errors will be treated as if no error occured. (IBM) - Wise men talk because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something. (Plato) - Let him that would move the world, first move himself. (Socrates) - Our desires multiply so much faster than our ability to satisfy them. (Scott Peck) - The difference between stumbling blocks and stepping stones is the way one uses them. - I like you but I wouldn't like to see you working with sub-atomic particles. - Find the hidden faces on this button and you win a free straitjacket! ---------------------------------------------------- Stuff chai@cs.uiuc.edu (Ian Chai) has forwarded to me: -------------------------- From: Glenn Chappell That reminds me of a similar anecdote I heard about the movie "Return of the Jedi": In order to make the various alien languages in the Star Wars movies sound realistic, they made them up from real languages, grabbing a syllable here and a syllable there, mixing them up enough that the result wouldn't be intelligible to anyone, but would sound as if it were really a language. Well, evidently, in one case they didn't mix them up enough. When the movie "Return of the Jedi" was shown in some tribal village somewhere in Africa(?), the crowd suddenly erupted in laughter during a battle scene. When the matter was investigated, it was found that when some sort of alien was supposed to be shouting commands to his subordinates, what he actually said, in the local language, was "Hello. How are you? It's not over here; it's over there." -------------------------- In 76 B.C., [Julius Caesar] set sail for the island of Rhodes in order to study oratory further under the best Greek teachers. On the way, he was captured by pirates who held him for ransom. They demanded something like $100,000 in [1966] money. While the money was being scraped up by friends and relatives, Caesar charmed his captors (he charmed everyone). They apparently had a pleasant time together and in the course of friendly conversation, the pirates asked Caesar what he would do once he was free. Caesar said calmly that he would return with a fleet, capture and execute those who were now holding him for ransom. The pirates laughed at the joke. Nevertheless, when Caesar's ransom arrived and he was set free, he proceede to collect ships, return, capture the pirates, and have them executed -- as he had promised. The gay young aristocrat was no one to trifle with. - Isaac Asimov The Roman Empire 1966 Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston -------------------------- Excerpted from UPI SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio (UPI) -- Normalee Stuart bet one of her friends she could get away with registering her cat as a voter. She won her bet. It's not clear whether Morris Feline Stuart is a Demo-cat, a Fat Cat or a Republican -- or even a fan of Ross Purr-O -- but Morris is now a registered voter in Cuyahoga County, the (Cleveland) Plain Dealer reported Monday. Stuart (the woman, not the cat) said she registered Morris to prove there are few, if any, safeguards against voter fraud in the county. She got the idea when a a neighbor had told her of receiving a voter registration card addressed to a woman who had been dead for 12 years. Ohio law does not require people -- or cats -- to identify themselves when registering to vote. In fact, state law, which doesn't even require identification from people when voting, allows mail-in registration. And that's how Morris became one of the electorate. ---------------------------------------------------- sifted out of rec.humor by Curtis R. McKelvey ************************** From: jm0i@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (JOSEPH ALOYSIUS MCVEIGH) "A survey by the Milken Institute for Job and Capital Formation, founded by now-jailed Michael Milken who earned $550 million in 1987, concludes that high executive pay is the main cause of U.S. job losses." [After all, Michael Milken lost *his* job because of extra income.] ************************** * The stock market always does what it has to do to make the most people * * feel the most pain. - Martin Zweig * ---------------------------------------------------- sifted out of rec.humor by Brian Gordon -------------------------- From: dan@resonex.com (Dan Kell) Sign at city limits of Cabool, MO. Cabool: Home of 1869 happy people and 1 old sore head. -------------------------- From: darmstro@acs.ucalgary.ca (Debby Armstrong) 1. Combatting Stupidity. 2. You Can Do Housework Too. 4. How to Fill an Ice Tray. 7. Wonderful Laundry Techniques (formerly called "Don't Wash My Silks"). 8. Parenting - No, It Does Not End With Conception. 9. Get a Life - Learn to Cook. 13. You - The Weaker Sex. 14. Reasons to Give Flowers. 17. Garbage - Getting It To the Curb. 21. The Weekend and Sports are Not Synonymous. 24. The Remote Control - Overcoming Your Dependency. 25. Romanticism - Other Ideas Besides Sex. 26. Helpful Postural Hints for Couch Potatoes. 27. Mothers-In-Law - They are People Too. 28. How Not To Act Younger Than Your Children. 30. Male Bonding - Leave Your Friends at Home. -------------------------- From: 880126b@dragon.acadiau.ca (Chris Butler) Subject: Re: Mandatory Courses For Men Ah, but to be complete, you must include the other side of the story: (I didn't write these, but I'd like to thank the person who did...) SEMINARS FOR WOMEN 1. Combatting the Impulse to Nag 2. You Can Change the Oil Too 21. Payday and Shopping Are Not Synonymous 22. How to Go Fishing With Your Mate and Not Catch Pneumonia 31. The Attainable Goal - Catching a Ball Before It Stops Moving -------------------------- From: kdq@quest.UUCP (Kevin D. Quitt) Subject: Re: stupid criminal tricks In Orange County today, a bank robber was captured moments after leaving the bank when an officer who had just received a description of the man spotted him waiting for a bus. The officer went up to the man and asked him if he was the guy who had just robbed the bank; the man answered "Yes, but I don't want to talk about it". A police spokesman admitted that if the bus hadn't been three minutes late, the guy would probably have gotten away. (From today's LA TIMES) -------------------------- From: cmj@acsu.buffalo.edu (christophe m johnson) Subject: Re: Sometimes fact is funnier than fiction! Well, here is another incidence of fact being funnier than fiction. We all are supposed to believe that the secret service is extremely efficient, and that they protect the life of the president etc. extremely well, right? Well look at this article: SEATTLE (UPI) -- Democratic presidential nominee Gov. Bill Clinton's departure from downtown Seattle was held up Thursday when U.S. Secret Service agents locked the keys inside the lead car of his motorcade. Agents and Seattle Police officers tried to get into the vehicle but their efforts proved fruitless. After about 10 minutes, a parking attendant for the Westin Hotel slipped a ``slim jim'' into the door and opened the car in seconds. Clinton was in Seattle to give a campaign speech. After the brief holdup, he continued on to Eugene, Ore., and California. ---------------------------------------------------- Stuff collected by: watts@lams.msd.lmsc.lockheed.com (Robyn M Watts) -------------------------- From record@force.decnet.lockheed.com Anyone who uses electronic mail can appreciate this. A couple of guys on InterNet have collected examples of malapropism (humorous misspelling of words). These are phrases that are heard often in conversation, but when they appear in print, they take on a whole new meaning. Here are some examples: for all intensive purposes since time in memorial it's a doggy-dog world a set of chester drawers an old wise tale a sieze-fire an escape goat too one-track mined a new, clear war under-line meaning a mute point low and behold don't take a fence has a stigmatism just my too cents worth all for not statue of limitations a partial of land a social conscious willfully inadequate I'm uphauled increases expidentially a sledge and reindeer supposably Just as soon as this list was posted, someone on the network wrote this: I'm uphauled! This display of ignorance is just the kind of thing that anyone with a social conscious is ashamed of. Education today is clearly willfully inadequate, and has been since time in memorial. People are always ready to blame things on an escape goat, but for all intensive purposes, it's a doggy-dog world. Complaints about the school system are all for not. And the problem seems to be increasing expidentially. These are the sort of people that could start a new, clear war, and you can just forget about a seize-fire then. Some may say that the decline of education is just an old wise tale, but they're too one-track mined. If you don't believe me, look at the warning on an AutoShade someday. It says that the shade must be removed before driving the car. Supposably people can't figure this out for themselves. Maybe the warning is just for those with a stigmatism. Or maybe it's to protect the manufacturer from the statue of limitations. The under-line meaning of all this is clear, but don't take a fence; this is just my too cents worth. Anyway it's a mute point. ---------------------------------------------------- From: alt.best.of.internet -------------------------- From: ssc@nwu.edu (Steven Chung) Subject: Re: Republican campaign ad suggestion Sender: usenet@news.acns.nwu.edu (Usenet on news.acns) >From alt.politics.*--why can't real commercials be this funny? (Well, the tank ad was close.) In article <1992Oct13.180409.26369@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov> mulac@daystrom.lerc.nasa.gov (Richard Mulac) writes: # Here's my idea for a winning campaign ad for Bush (assuming # Schwarzenegger goes along). Republicans may feel free to use this if they # wish. {:^) # # # # # DUM DUM DUM DUM ... duh duh ... DUM DUM DUM DUM ... duh duh ... # # # # # # # # # # TERMINATOR 3 : ELECTION DAY # # # # # # # # Los Angeles, California # Monday, November 2, 1992 # # Sarah Conner sits in her apartment watching TV. Suddenly, a T800 cyborg # (Arnold) smashes through the door. # # Sarah: "Why are you here! I thought we saved the future when you destroyed # the T1000 terminator?" # # Arnold: "Ve took car of zat problemo. Der is anuder tret on de horizen!" # # Sarah: "Not again! What is it this time?" # # Arnold: "Tomorrow de humans in der ignorance vill elect Bill Klinton as da # President of de United States. He vill bring dem double digit inflation, # double digit unemployment, and double digit interest rates. De US economy # vill be devestated. Foolish humans! Did you not learn anyding vrom de # Carter years? History repeats itself." # # Sarah: "Isn't there anything we can do?" # # Arnold: "Dat ist why I have been zent back through time vrom de year 1995. # I hab brought proof ov de economic turmoil to come in hopes dat ve can # change da future. Ve must hurry and get dis information to de public # bevore the election tomorrow!" # # Cut to sequence of quick clips from Monday night's newscasts. # # Final shot of Sarah in election booth on Tuesday casting her vote for Bush. # # Sarah: "Hasta La Vista, Bill!" # # THE END? # -------------------------- From: mkelly@bronte.helios.nd.edu (michael kelly) Ross Perot is a Ferengi?! In an effort to bring this group back in line... Article: 10753 of rec.arts.startrek.misc From: tjw@vms.cis.pitt.edu (TJ Wood) Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.misc Subject: Re: Perot a Ferengi? lbrother@zia.aoc.nrao.edu (Larry Brothers) writes: > Think about it: > 1) He has big ears. > 2) He is short. > 3) He is a 'businessman'. > Yes, folks, it's true: Ross Perot is a Ferengi! No, no, my boy! Ya got that Backwards. All Frerengi are decended from ROSS PEROT! Ya, see Ross left Earth in 2006 on one of the Pioneer space probes. It passed through a worm hole and he found himself on a planet with women who looked just like him. He converted them to his style of economics and the rest, as they say is history! > Maybe this will teach those little weasels a lesson. Naaa. I understand that Bill Clinton thinks that LOST IN SPACE was better than Star Trek. Terry + Mike Kelly, Notre Dame Department of Physics + ---------------------------------------------------- From: mushroom@netcom.com (Robert Mudry) Newsgroups: ba.market.computers Subject: Xerox 860 IPS's for sale.. Hi.. a friend of mine is trying to unload a couple of Xerox 860 IPS's.. Both have monitors and dual 8" drives. A printer is also included. These puppies were built like TANKS and still work really well.. as a matter of a fact, in case of nuclear war, this is what the cockroaches will be using to compute on, I'm sure.. There are also about 100 eight inch disks, with the OS, etc.. $300.00 OBO for the lot.. *start* 15534 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 18 Nov 92 15:22:59 PST (Wednesday) Subject: Life 9.1 From: cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- Selections from: "The Canonical List of Bill Clinton Jokes" by bobk@gibdo.engr.washington.edu (Bob) This was posted to rec.humor This file contains jokes about Bill Clinton that I have saved from Usenet (rec.humor, rec.humor.funny, alt.sex, alt.tasteless.jokes, Netwit, alt.politics.elections) over the past nine months or so. Some of these are kinda lame and I don't even understand a lot of them, but there are also a few decent ones in here. Since it looks like Clinton will be the President for the next four years, I thought I would continue collecting Bill Clinton jokes and humor for a while as kind of a humor-oriented historical record. Please send me any Bill Clinton humor that you know of or that you hear from friends, comedians, talk-show monologues, radio, etc. There might be quite a few on election day and immediately following, so keep an ear out. Also, I'd like any humorous quotes by Bill Clinton or about him, such as the "I didn't inhale" quote or Perot's line about Arkansas being irrelevant. Send Bill Clinton humor to: bobk@gibdo.engr.washington.edu The Canonical List of Bill Clinton Jokes ======================================== Late Night With David Letterman's suggested Clinton campaign slogan: "We don't have a clue, but we don't have a Quayle." == Bob Kerrey, when asked about Bill Clinton evading the draft: "Do I care if he evaded the draft? Well, a part of me does." [Bob Kerrey lost an arm in Vietnam.] == Q: How can you tell Bill Clinton apart from a cow? A: By the wise look in the eyes. == From an Associated Press report: Gore, a 16-year veteran of Congress, pledged to take on the assignment with "great relish and enthusiasm." He asked voters skeptical of their promise of change to remember that every Communist government in Eastern Europe had fallen in 100 days. "Now it's our turn here in the United States of America," Gore said. == "One thing's for sure about Clinton... -- He sure doesn't neglect domestic affairs!" == From a Mike Royko column: Gov. Clinton, after that blond bimbo got up on TV and said you had been her lover boy for years, you and your wife went on TV and your wife was affectionate, supportive and calm. Would you care to share with millions of American men how the heck you managed to talk your way out of that pickle? == Q: How many Bill Clintons does it take to change a lightbulb? A: Three -- One to promise he'll do it better than anyone else and one to obscure the issues. A: None -- He'll only promise "change." == George Bush: "Change, change, change... That's all we'll have in our pockets if Bill Clinton is elected president." == Heard on MTV News: "Bill's brother who who owns a band, Politics, will be playing at the inauguration if Bill Clinton gets elected. Bill's brother will bring down the house just like Bill Clinton will bring down the country." == BILL CLINTON STATUE COMMITTEE 1040 Bufoo Street Little Rock, AR 72205 Dear Friend, We have the distinguished honor of being on the committee for raising five million dollars for placing a statue of Bill Clinton in the Hall of Fame in Washington D.C. This committee was in a quandary as to where to place the statue. It was not wise to place it beside the statue of George Washington, who never told a lie, nor beside Senator Joe McCarthy, who never told the truth, since Bill Clinton could never tell the difference. We finally decided to place it beside the statue of Christopher Columbus, the greatest Democrat of all. He left not knowing where he was going, did not know where he was, returned not knowing where he had been, and did it all on borrowed money. Over 5,000 years ago, Moses said to the children of Israel, "Pick up your shovels, mount your asses and camels, and I will lead you to the Promised Land!" Nearly 5,000 years later, Roosevelt said, "Lay down your shovels, sit on your asses, and light up a Camel, this IS the Promised Land!" Now, Bill Clinton is going to steal your shovels, kick your asses, raise the price of Camels, and mortgage the Promised Land. If you are one of the fortunate few who has anything left after taxes, we expect a generous contribution to this worthwhile project. Fraternally, The Bill Clinton Statue Committee == Q: How can you tell when Bill Clinton is lying? A: Only a Bill Clinton supporter is too dumb to know the answer to this one. == A man was walking along when he spotted a small boy busily constructing something. He approached the boy and was shocked to see him playing with cow manure! For lack of anything better to say, he asked, "Little boy, what ARE you doing?" The boy replied, "I am making George Bush, Mister." Now thoroughly taken aback, the man asked, "Why are you making George Bush? Why not make, er, Bill Clinton?" The boy answered, "Oh no Mister, I can't make Bill Clinton." "But why not?" asked the man. The boy replied "Well, Mister, there isn't enough bullshit here to make Bill Clinton." == TRUE STORY A friend told me he saw this on F-Troop last night: The Captain, the Chief, and an Inspector General were discussing the Chief's breaking of a Treaty. The following was the dialog: Inspector General: But Chief, how could you break the treaty? You smoked the peace pipe with us! Chief: Ah, yes. But, I didn't inhale! HELLO! Sound familiar everybody? Not only can't Clinton tell the truth, but he plagiarizes his lies! == Reagan speech 8/17/92, referring to Bill Clinton (with veiled reference to Lloyd Bentson's comment to Dan Quayle during the 1988 VP debate; also after joking about his (Reagan's) advanced age): All right. Listen to me. This fellow they've nominated claims he's the new Thomas Jefferson. Well, let me tell you something. I knew Thomas Jefferson. He was a friend of mine. And, governor, you're no Thomas Jefferson. Reagan speech 8/17/92 at Republican National Convention: When we see all that rhetorical smoke billowing out from the Democrats, ladies and gentlemen, I'd follow the example of their nominee: Don't inhale. == Bill Clinton justifies his proposed increases in government spending by dividing it into investment spending and consumption spending: GNP = C + I + Government Investment + Government Consumption He claims that goverment investment is productive and is worth running a deficit for. The question is whether the government can really make that many investments that are better than private sector investments. People are scared that under Bill Clinton and the Democrats, we will instead get: GNP = C + Pork Barrel + White Elephants + Bureaucracy + Inefficiency + Uncontrolled Costs + Politically Correct Spending + Outrageous Boondoggles + $500 Billion Bank Bailouts + Favors to Lobbyists + More Favors to Big-Voting-Bloc Special Interests + Even More Favors to Big-Money Campaign Contributors Most people don't think that politicians, government bureaucrats and academic economists would know an efficient investment from a hole in the wall. They think that politicians would end up calling everything they like, including increases in their own salaries, a form of investment. == DLC STUDIOS Presents SLICK WILLIE One Man's Story Of Saying Whatever It Takes To Get Elected He'll do to America what he did to Arkansas. He won't inhale. He won't take us to war... because he wouldn't go himself. Hillary Clinton as "Tammy Wynette" Gennifer Flower as "The Bimbo" Ted Kennedy as "His Chaperone" Mario Cuomo as "The Godfather" Don't Miss the Sequel: GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS! DLC Studios presents BILL CLINTON as "SLICK WILLIE" in a BLOODWORTH-THOMASON production Executive Producer: RON BROWN Directed By: JAMES CARVILLE Screenplay by: GEORGE MCGOVERN Based on the Book By: GLORIA STEINEM Music by: SISTER SOULJAH Performed by: ICE-T Featuring: JESSE JACKSON as "THE RAPPER" AL GORE as "THE TREE HUGGER" PAUL TSONGAS as "ELMER FUDD" JERRY BROWN as "GOVERNOR MOONBEAM" Special Apperances by: JIMMY CARTER WALTER MONDALE MICHAEL DUKAKIS ARSENIO HALL THE HIPPIES THE YIPPIES HISPANIC LESBIANS AGAINST RACISM COMMITTEE TO SAVE THE GAY WHALES ACT UP EARTH FIRST! UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS ROTC UNIT Soundtrack Available On Rated R: Ridiculous TIME-WONDER TAXPAYER BEWARE Records and Tapes Taken from a cartoon in The Washington Times. In the cartoon, it does appear as one of those movie posters that they release for a movie. == George Bush: "When Bill Clinton blows his taxophone, America will be singing the blues." == I just realized why Clinton visited Tandem yesterday rather than Sun or HP which would have brought larger crowds. He thought Tandem would be a friendlier crowd when he heard they were a "fault tolerant" company. == Reporter: Governor Clinton, what damage do you think has been done to your campaign by your wife's comment the other day about how "Hitler was really a great guy" ? Clinton: (Mixture of sadness and anger, but articulate as always.) Hilary and myself are shocked, outraged, and deeply saddened by this terrible misunderstanding. The media hype is way out of proportion. You guys should know us by now--we would never say anything like that. And though she did say a few things about Germany she certainly didn't mean anything offensive by her remarks, which I might add have been willfully and shame- fully taken out of context and distorted. There is nothing in my life, or Hilary's life, which can be construed as deroguerotory toward the German people. We honor them. Some of our best friends are Germans. My own grandmother was one-quarter German. And it certainly isn't true that Germans are excluded from our country club. In my eleven years as Governor of Arkansas I was responsible for hiring more German-Americans than my three predecessors combined. We have some pie charts which we'll pass around for all you boys so you have the whole story. Once the American people know all the facts they'll understand just how ridiculous this is. Part of this just naturally comes from being the frontrunner, although I never thought of myself that way or wanted to be called that. You boys just keep taking your best shots. The American people have seen the worst of me and they aren't turned off by what we stand for. But this latest outrage is just too much. You boys ought to be ashamed. Sleaze for soundbites, trash for cash, that's what this is. We have good reason to believe the audio tapes were doctored. We're not even sure if that's Hilary's voice. You guys ought to have checked this out better before launching a major attack on my wife. The whole story was phony to begin with. In fact, our sources suggest that this is is just the latest manifestation of the viscious smear campaign orchestrated by the white house, who have declared many times that they will do whatever it takes to win this election. And that's part of the reason that we're so outraged about this--the very gall of the whole thing. The only nazis you find in America these days are people like David Duke, who of course is a Republican, not a Democrat. But I certainly don't mean to imply that George Bush has any Nazi skeletons in his closet. As I told Hilary just this morning, "Two wrongs don't make a right." It also comes as no surprise that Governor Brown has jumped on the bandwagon and has repeated these ridiculous charges every chance he gets. It is clearly in Governor Brown's interest to do whatever he can to turn the discussion away from his "flat tax" proposal which would spell disaster for the people of this nation. And former Senator Tsongas, although he tried to claim he was above such things, has also chimed in with a few comments of his own and he maintains he isn't even running any more. Unlike Senator Tsongas and Governor Brown, I've always tried to focus on issues, and God knows we've tried to avoid misleading or negative campaigning of any kind. (Turning up the heat, getting more dramatic.) The millions of citizens of this great country who are out of work or scared of losing their jobs or their health insurance know what I stand for. People are genuinely disillutioned with the way things are in Washington, and this kind of sideshow just reinforces their disgust. People have been let down, they've been shafted by Washington. They want to know whether they have a vehicle for their resentment. I have always run my campaigns as a change agent. I'm as much of an outsider as anybody. I ran the first ad against the congressional pay raise! Certainly this is a sad commentary on the manipulation of the media, and the people, by evil forces who oppose our candidacy. Here we are trying to bring everyone together in this country so that we can work for the future, and once again viscious lies are spread about us and guerilla tactics are used against us. Besides, I thought you guys were supposed to be on my side. It is just plain cowardice to keep bringing this up and attacking my wife instead of raising honest issues like the need for more submarines, my support for a middle class tax cut, the way Senator Tsongas wants to break the backs of poor honest retired folks by slashing their social security payments, how opposed I am to raising the gas tax, or the way Jerry's flat tax would cripple the nation. Maybe Hilary should have just stayed home in Arkansas and baked some cookies. -- Nervous in New England == I heard Bill Clinton was Grand Marshal of a stock car race during the Labor Day weekend. A politician strikes me as an excellent choice to preside over an event where people drive in circles at high speed. == Ya know, I kinda hope that Clinton does get elected... It will be the first time in a long while that I'll have been able to *really* enjoy political humor... Bill Clinton has been advised by doctors to save his voice and not speak a single word for the next couple days. Guess this means he'll have to contradict himself in mime... == Send Bill Clinton humor to: bobk@gibdo.engr.washington.edu *start* 14291 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 23 Nov 92 15:03:08 PST (Monday) Subject: Life 9.2 From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- The following is stuff Leif Bennett collected through the mid 80's from internal Xerox mailing lists. -------------------------- From: RGutierrez.ES Quote of the Day "Men argue, nature acts." Voltaire -------------------------- From: JimDay.Pasa SOLUTION (Yodar & the drummer) YODAR & THE DRUMMER The homes in ancient Lankhmar were built very close together, for space within the walled city was at a premium. The young son of Hakim, one of Yodar's neighbors, had been given a toy drum by his aunt, and the boy insisted on beating the drum incessantly. Hakim was very hard of hearing and didn't mind the noise. Finally, Yodar's wife begged him to ask Hakim to take the drum away from the boy. "There is no need," said Yodar, "I have already taken care of the matter without offending Hakim or the lad. The drum will soon be silent." What had Yodar done to silence the drum? ---- From: Ozarka.ES Yodar gave the kid a knife and asked him if he knew what was inside the drum. -------------------------- From: Smebye.ES Need Garbage Collection Algorithm I can see it now . . . Ol' Rifkin wakes up early one morning and hears the garbage truck banging away. He jumps out of bed and goes running out with the garbage can as the truck is about to pull away. "Am I too late?" Rifkin asks. "No," replies the driver. "Jump in!" (With apologies to Diller, Youngman, Dangerfield, and thousands of other comics who have used this line a lot better than I have.) -------------------------- From: Jef Poskanzer Face. An excerpt from THE PIRATES OF ROSINANTE, by Alexis A. Gilliland. Admiral Kogo of the Imperial Japanese Navy has just phoned Prime Minister Ito to inform him of how Japan has been outsmarted by the small asteroidal nation of Rosinante: ---- "How unfortunate," the Prime Minister said at last. "We seem to have lost a little face. A small and insignificant amount of face. The least measurable quantity of face. We shall have to break diplomatic relations with Rosinante, of course." "Of course," Kogo agreed. He wondered if Ito would resign. "I may have to resign," the Prime Minister said. "Rest assured, however, that I shall praise your wisdom, sagacity, and profoundly excellent judgment to my successor." The Prime Minister coughed. "In the most glowing terms," he added, as he slammed down the receiver. "Well," Kogo said, looking at the receiver. "You didn't have to be nasty." ---- Some questions: - What units is face measured in? - Does face obey any symmetry laws? For instance, is face conserved? - "The least measurable quantity of face" implies that face is quantized. What shall we call its fundamental particle? The nip-on, perhaps? - Is there such a thing as anti-face? - Is there any application for anti-face in the Strategic Defense Inititive? Yours in speculation, -------------------------- From: Russell Lear Reprinted from World Press Review (who reprinted it from the Financial Post of Toronto. WPR had permission, I don't). To help you sort your way through your junk mail, here is a lexicon of favorite openers from the trade - with translations. I don't know how you can pass up this opportunity. Our motivational psychologists guaranteed us a high rate of return with this opening. Besides, it worked when I was selling vegatable slicers door-to-door. Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Very true. We can show you the ninety-nine-year-old man who owns the lifetime named in this mailing. And should he pass away in the next cold snap, we will start again with his 104 year-old brother. You have been specially selected. Our computer says you are more than twelve years old and live in an urban center of at least 10,000. Send no money. Just give us that credit-card authorization and we're off to the races. If you don't like the product simply return it after your free inspection. You'll hate it - who really needs a gold-plated executive shock absorber from a 1947 Mack truck? But we're gambling you will be too weak to jam it back into our specially designed non-reusable packing case. Wouldn't you lie to be rich? We sure would, so we have cooked up this wonderful little mail-order business. Send for your free gift. And one of our salesmen will bring it along before noon - accompanied by a three-hour presentation. Your name has been referred We bought it from a man who assures us that his names have a 7 per cent probability of buying. I am writing you on an urgent matter. Frankly this quarter looks like a troglodyte's breakfast and we've got the presses working overtime. We got your name from the Edsel owners' list. You may already be a winner. The odds are good that you are already a loser. But what kind of sell is that? Postage and handling extra. We do not expect to make much on the product and we will only beak even on postage, but our handling cost does include some depreciation on the building and a tiny percentage of the last sales conference. Our operation is nonprofit. But we did not design it that way and we are counting on people like you to pull us out of the hole. You may never get a chance like this again. At least not until we repeat this offer in thirty days. Act now at this low price. Please, please act now. The response has been so poor that we are going to have to knock a couple more dollars off the mail-order price next month. Our bottom line needs help Here is how you will benefit. And since you are benefiting you will not mind if we make a buck or two. Special bonus offer. We sincerely hope you have forgotten all those things we tried to sell in our previous mailing because now that we have a hot new line we are offering those bow-tie calculators as bonus incentives. What can you lose? Well, a little time, perhaps a few dollars, not much else. Besides, we will get your name on a lot of lists and you will never worry about an empty malbox. -------------------------- [I thought I already had this, but I couldn't find it.] From: Steve Tom The Parable of the Two Programmers Reprinted without proper authorization from ACM Software Engineering Notes, Jan 1985 The Parable of the Two Programmers Neil W. Rickert Once upon a time, unbeknown to each other, the "Automated Accounting Applications Association" and the "Consolidated Computerized Captial Corporation" decided that they needed the identical program to perform a certain service. Automated hired a programmer-analyst, Alan, to solve their problem. Meanwhile Consolidated decided to ask a newly hired entry-level programmer, Charles, to tackle the job, to see if he was as good as he pretended. Alan, having had experience in difficult programming projects, decided to use the PQR structured deisgn methodology. With this in mind he asked his department manager to assign another three programmers as a programming team. Then the team went to work, churning our preliminary reports and problem analyses. Back at Consolidated, Charles spent some time thinking about the problem. His fellow employees noticed that Charles often sat with his feet on the desk, drinking coffee. He was occasionally seen at his computer terminal, but his office mate could tell from the rythmic striking of keys that he was actually playing Space Invaders. By now, the team at Automated was starting to write code. The programmers were spending about half their time writing and compiling code, and the rest of their time in conference, discussing the interfaces between the various modules. His office mate noticed that Charles had finally given up on Space Invaders. Instead he now divided his time between drinking coffee with his feet on the table, and scribbling on little scraps of paper. His scribbling didn't seem to be Tic Tac Toe, but it didn't exactly make much sense, either. Two months have gone by. The team at Automated finally releases an implementation timetable. In another two months they will have a test version of the program. Then a two month period of testing and enhancing should yield a completed version. The manager of Charles has by now [become] tired of seeing him goof off. He decides to confront him. But as he walks into Charles's office, he is surprised to see Charles busy entering code at his terminal. He decides to postpone the confrontation, so makes some small talk then leaves. However, he begins to keep a closer watch on Charles, so that when the opportunity presents itself he can confront him. Not looking forward to an unpleasant conversation, he is pleased to notice that Charles seems to be busy most of the time. He has even been seen to delay his lunch, and to stay after work two or three days a week. At the end of three months, Charles announces he has completed the project. He submits a 500 line program. The program appears to be clearly written, and when tested it does everything required in the specificatins. In fact it even has a few additinal convenience features which might significantly imporve the useability of the program. The program is put into test, and, except for one quickly corrected oversight, performs well. The team at Automated has by now completed two of the four major modules required for their program. These modules are now undergoing testing while the other modules are completed. After another three weeks, Alan announces that the preliminary version is ready one week ahead of schedule. He supplies a list of the deficiencies that he expects to correct. The program is placed under test. The users find a number of bugs and deficiencies, other than those listed. As Alan explains, this is no surprise. After all this is a preliminary versin in which bugs were expected. After about two more months, the team has completed its production version of the program. It consists of about 2,500 lines of code. When tested it seems to satisfy most of the original specifications. It has omitted on or two features, and is very fussy about the format of its input data. However the company decides to install the program. They can always train their data-entry staff to enter data in the strict format required. The program is handed over to some maintenance programmers to eventually incorporate the missing features. SEQUEL: At first Charles's supervisor was impressed. But as he read through the source code, he realized that the project was really much simpler than he had originally thought. It now seemed apparent that this was not much of a challenge even for a beginning programmer. Charles did produce about 5 lines of code per day. This is perhaps a little above average. However, considering the simplicity of the program, it was nothing exceptional. Also his supervisor remembered his two months of goofing off. At his next salary review Charles was given a raise which was about half the inflation over the period. He was not given a promotion. After about a year he became discouraged and left Consolidated. At Automated, Alan was complimented for completing his project on schedule. His supervisor looked over the program. With a few minutes of thumbing through he saw that the company standards about structured programming were being observed. He quickly gave up attempting to read the program however; it seemed quite incomprehensible. He realized by now that the project was really much more complex that he had originally assumed, and he congratulated Alan again on his achievement. The team had produced over 3 lines of code per programmer per day. This was about average, but, considering the complexity of the problem, could be considered to be exceptional. Alan was given a hefty pay raise, and promoted to Systems Analyst as a reward for his achievement. -------------------------- From: Jef Poskanzer The official computer of the -MXCII olympics. A new IC, the Floating-Point Roman-Numeral Arithmetic Processor Unit (FPRNAPU) is a monolithic MOS/LSIV device that can replace at least XLV scribes working in III shifts. Featuring XII-digit precision, it offers several interface options. You program the device's output either for clay tablets or for papyrus rolls with automatic vertical scrolling an optional interface is available for driving a heavy-duty impact printer for marble documents. You can configure the III-column outputs for Doric, Ionian, or Corinthian characters. The IC's standard interface handles a standard floppy discus. The exponent field of the floating-point format takes advantage of a new compact structure called quad extended decimal (QED). The mantissa uses the ad hoc rounding standard (ie, IEEE). Overflow errors caused by the Vesuvius function are automatically corrected by the Pompeii algorithm. The part's allowed rise and fall times are quite long see Gibbon for details. All parts undergo burn-in at the firm's Nero facility. Hannibal handles all environmental and stress tests in the field. Infant mortality is limited to the first born of each process batch, all parts are tested to MIL-STD-SPQR except those destined for Gaul. You use the internal VIII-bit modus-operandi register to select operating-mode options and to enter Latin commands. To use the IC as a slave processor, you can specify automatic chaining operations. The FPRNAPU's internal state is reported in the status-quo register. Samples are available off-the-shelf -- Et Tu Electronics has agreed to take a stab at IInd-sourcing the device. Users should beware, however, as OEM quantities won't be available until the Ides of March. The processor is priced at $XIV.XCV (M). For further information, call the company any time except during July and August. Ancient Micro Devices CMI Thompson Pl Sunnyvale, CA CCCVI+CDL Phone tribute-free (DCCC) DXXXVIII-LXXXIV-L. *start* 15701 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 30 Nov 92 17:21:19 PST (Monday) Subject: Life 9.3 From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- The following is something Shikha Ghosh sifted out of rec.humor -------------------------- From: bruceh@hpspdla.spd.HP.COM (Bruce Hayek): Personally, if I had my own business it would be: MISERY LOVES CO. ---------------------------------------------------- From Bob Coleman's sifting of rec.humor What do Kinney Shoe Stores and the U.S. Post Office have in common? 50,000 loafers! -------------------------- Ludwig Boltzmann, who spent much of his life studying statistical mechanics, died in 1906, by his own hand. Paul Ehrenfest, carrying on the work, died similarly in 1933. Now it is our turn to study statistical mechanics. Perhaps it will be wise to approach the subject cautiously. -- David L. Goodstein [ _States of Matter_ ] -------------------------- But in physics I soon learned to scent out the paths that led to the depths, and to disregard everything else, all the many things that clutter up the mind, and divert it from the essential. The hitch in this was, of course, the fact that one had to cram all this stuff into one's mind for the examination, whether one liked it or not. -- Albert Einstein ---------------------------------------------------- From Philip A. Fleischmann's siftings of rec.humor -------------------------- From: jmarlan@titan.nmt.edu (Jon Marlan) Organization: New Mexico Tech A few semesters ago I noticed a sign on campus that was pretty funny. Someone had tampered with a "ROAD CLOSED" sign so that it read "TOAD CLOSET." I can imagine what some of our foreign students thought about that one. -------------------------- From: thf2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Ted Frank) Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations When I lived on the West Bank in New Orleans (which was on the east side of the Mississippi River), local residents were disgruntled about the plan to put in tollbooths over the one bridge that allowed people to cross over into downtown New Orleans. It would be a one-way toll to enter the city. One resident felt the tollbooth plan was particularly unfair. "The city *always* discriminates against West Bankers. Why can't they put the tolls on the other side of the bridge?" ---------------------------------------------------- From Ellen Spertus' sifting of rec.humor -------------------------- From: walrus@bessel.umd.edu (Grig Larson) This is an example of a great harmless practical joke for sci majors: Inflate as many balloons as you can <500+ works best>. Dip them in liquid nitrogen. They should shrink down to almost non-inflated size. Take all these balloons and hurredly toss them in someone's room, sans liqNitro. I forgot where I heard this, but someone told me it is great to watch the room from a distance as the balloons swell up and take over the room. ---------------------------------------------------- From Kent Williams' sifting of rec.humor -------------------------- Non-Reciprocal Laws of Expectations: Negative expectations yield negative results. Positive expectations yield negative results. Keep in mind always the two constant Laws of Frisbee: 1) The most powerful force in the world is that of a disc straining to land under a car, just out of reach (this force is technically termed "car suck"). 2) Never precede any manoeuvre by a comment more predictive than "Watch this!" "It is bad luck to be superstitious." -- Andrew W. Mathis -------------------------- Q: What do you get when you cross a dog with a giraffe? A: A creature which barks at planes. -------------------------- There was an engineer working at a defense contractor, and for twenty years he had been going through the same security gate. The sign above the gate said "These articles forbidden inside: Radios, TVs, Recording Equipment". One day he walked through, but as he was passing the guard, his beeper went off. The guard said, "What was that?" The engineer replied, "Only my beeper." The guard then asked him if it the beeper was a radio. The common answer in this situation would have been no, but the engineer, being a stickler for the truth replied yes. The guard then confiscated the beeper above all the protests of the engineer. So the engineer walked a few paces onward, pulled out a pen, unscrewed the cap of it, and spoke in a low voice into the end of it, "They've taken my radio." He got in alot of trouble. -------------------------- A wealthy American died. In his will, he left considerable sums of money to three friends, an Englishman, A Welshman, and an Irishman if they would leave $10 in his coffin. The Englishman was the first to arrive at the wake, and promptly placed a $10 bill in the coffin. The Welshman arrived second. He borrowed $10 from the Englishman and placed it in the coffin. The Irishman arrived last. He wrote a check for $30, placed it in the coffin, and took the two $10 bills. Three days later, the check was cashed. Seems the undertaker was a Scot. ---------------------------------------------------- From Tom Henning's sifting of rec.humor -------------------------- From uranus!parc!bionet!agate!ames!haven.umd.edu!uunet!mcsun!uknet!newcastle.ac.uk!newton!n1zk6 Lada Jokes ========== How many man do you need to build a lada ? Two. One folding, one glueing. What do you call a Lada that starts first time ? A novelty. What do you call a Lada that overtakes you ? A mirage. What to you call a Lada with brakes ? Customised. Guy #1 : I was lucky yesterday, I won second prize in a lottery ! Guy #2 : Lucky you! What did you win ? Guy #1 : A Lada Guy #2 : Oh yeah, what was the first prize ? Guy #1 : A basket of assorted fruits. -------------------------- She was telling her friend about an accident she recently had: -"First I ran into the sidewalk as I smashed some motorcycles, and then I hit a tree so my car turned around and ended up in the middle of the street. After that I hit a truck that, luckily, was slowly moving in my direction, my car bounced when we collided and I flew up in a shop window. And, at that moment I completely lost control of my car..." -------------------------- The same Irishman got thirsty rushing downstairs, so he went to a bar. After sitting down, he ordered 18 beers. The bartender got shocked and ask if he was serious, he replied proudly, 'The sign at the door says UNDER 18 NOT ALLOWED'.... ---------------------------------------------------- From Christopher Neufeld's sifting or rec.humor neufeld@helios.physics.utoronto:ca And it happened that two hunters were tramping through the forest, hunting, because that's what hunters do. They had tramped for quite a while, when suddenly they saw a deer (no relation to Bambi) and shot it (they were hunting, remember.) So the two hunters grabbed a hind leg each, and started dragging the corpse through the woods. It was slow going, of course, since the antlers kept getting caught on trees and bushes and shrubs. Finally, they came to a clearing, and met a third hunter (hunting.) The third hunter saw their predicament, and said, "Gosh, why don't you fellows grab the deer by the antlers and drag it like that? Should be easier..." The two hunters saw the wisdom in the third hunter's words, and immediately followed his advice. Two hours later, the first hunter looked at the second hunter and said, "You know, that guy was right, this is much easier!" "Yeah," replied the other, "but we keep getting farther and farther away from the jeep..." -------------------------- The best thing to teach your parrot to say is, "Here kitty-kitty-kitty, here kitty-kitty-kitty." -------------------------- Saw one yesterday, "NO PARKING IN MIDDLE OF STREET" Is this really a problem? -------------------------- Alaska's legislature could have dealt with marijuana recriminalization two years ago by amending the state's constitution. Why didn't they? It would have required them to pass a joint resolution. -------------------------- From: cvessey@upei.ca (Chris R. Vessey) Here's one from a Discover magazine of Long Long Ago . . . it was designed for people who complain about the length of your humourous answering machine messages. ANSWERING MACHINE. SPEAK. I have found this works effectively when read in a somewhat Klingon-sounding voice. -------------------------- From: joec@fid.morgan.com (Joe Collins) True story. I go into a Burger King with a friend of mine and he says to me: "Follow my lead and then order me a Cheeseburger and a coke." "But first say a hamburger". We go up to the counter and I order for myself. I then say, "Frank what will you have?" He says loudly: HGJHSGDJHGSD ALKKJSKWI KLLKQOIiwe, (pure gibberish, very loudly) I say to the attendant, "Okay, he'll have a coke and a hamburger." At which Frank grabs my arm and screams: ZXIn Michigan if more than 10 deer are hit in a certain area a Deer Crossing >sign must be put up. I've always wondered how deer know to cross between those signs. -------------------------- From: seksie@cs.montana.edu (Robin Winslett) My favorite is a common sign in Montana: ---------- | Snow | | * | | Route | ---------- Since when does the snow need it's own roads?? -------------------------- From: aij@sactoh0.sac.ca.us (Andrew I. Jones) Here's the message I made... Note, tone of voice can be either deeply sinister or overly happy. [sinister organ music] "Hello, you have reached the [last name] residence." "You now have two choices. Number one, you may leave a message." [angelic "Hallelujah!"] "Or number two, suffer eternal damnation." [horrid death scream] "You decide." *BEEP* -------------------------- Marc Loon Conversation: a voice competition between two people in which the one taking a breath is called the listener. -------------------------- From: jimh@pacdata.uucp (Jim Harkins) Re: stupid criminal tricks Another guy put a bag over his head and robbed a video store. He had correctly cut out 2 holes for his eyes but they didn't have any trouble finding him. He'd used a clear plastic bag..... ---------------------------------------------------- From Bob Cherry: While in high school I took physics and chemistry and had the tough luck to receive the same teacher for both classes. She was a relatively nice woman, but a stickler when giving us homework and on test. The one thing she always said was, ĒI donšt care if you discover a new law to the universe, you are required to show all your work on test and homework problems in order to get full credit. Even if your answers are right, you have to show me how you got them.Ē Well, I didnšt always show my work because a lot of it I guessed at and she always took half of my score off for not doing so. This went on for an entire semester until I finally found a way to get her back. In the back of the physics room were bulletin boards where she posted some of the common laws for physics and chemistry. On one of the boards was Avigadross number which was written as 6.023 x 10 to the 23rd. I took a small piece of paper, wrote a note on it and tacked it next to the message on the bulliten board. The next day she announced in class that she would only be taking 5 points off of test and homework papers from now on if they didnšt show all work. The note I had posted worked. If your wondering what it said -- Nice work Avigadross, but you didnšt show your work --- D+. -------------------------- From Bob Cherry (from a friend of his): A few years ago, I was visiting in Connecticut and decided to take a tour of the Hartford Museum of Modern Art. While there I saw a number of eye catching photos, sculptures, paintings and the like, but only one thing caught my minds eye -- a T-shirt in the gift shop. What it said made me think and many times I go back and look at the list on my T-shirt just to give me a new perspective or to find the perfect answer to one of lifešs little mysteries. When I wear the shirt, people stop me and ask to read it. They tell me its great and they ask where they can get one. Such information I refuse to divulge because I have something so unique and I donšt want to share it, but I will share the words that often give me the answers I need. ABUSE OF POWER IS NO SURPRISE ACTION CAUSES MORE TROUBLE THAN THOUGHT ALL THINGS ARE DELICATELY INTERCONNECTED AN ELITE IS INEVITABLE AWFUL PUNISHMENT AWAITS REALLY BAD PEOPLE BEING HAPPY IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANYTHING ELSE BOREDOM MAKES YOU DO CRAZY THINGS CHANGE IS VALUABLE WHEN THE OPPRESSED BECOME TYRANTS CHILDREN ARE THE CRUELEST OF ALL CHILDREN ARE THE HOPE OF THE FUTURE CONFUSING YOURSELF IS A WAY OF STAYING HONEST IF YOU LIVE SIMPLY THERE IS NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT IT IS MANS FATE TO OUTSMART HIMSELF IT IS BETTER TO BE NAIVE THAN JADED IT IS CRUCIAL TO HAVE AN ACTIVE FANTASY LIFE JUST BELIEVING IN SOMETHING CAN MAKE IT HAPPEN LACK OF CHARISMA CAN BE FATAL MONEY CREATES TASTE MOTHERS SHOULDNšT MAKE TOO MANY SACRIFICES NOTHING UPSETS THE BALANCE BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL PEOPLE ARE BORING UNLESS THEY ARE EXTREMISTS PEOPLE WHO GO CRAZY ARE TOO SENSITIVE PUSH YOURSELF TO THE LIMITS AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE RAISE BOYS AND GIRLS THE SAME ROMANTIC LOVE WAS CREATED TO MANIPULATE WOMEN SALVATION CANšT BE BOUGHT OR SOLD SELFISHNESS IS THE MOST BASIC MOTIVATION SELFLESSNESS IS THE HIGHEST ACHIEVEMENT SLIPPING INTO MADNESS IS GOOD FOR THE SAKE OF COMPARISON SLOPPY THINKING GETS WORSE OVER TIME SOMETIMES SCIENCE ADVANCES FURTHER THAN IT SHOULD THE MORE YOU KNOW THE BETTER OFF YOU ARE THE WORLD OPERATES ACCORDING TO DISCOVERABLE LAWS THERE ARE TOO FEW IMMUTABLE TRUTHS TODAY THERE IS NOTHING EXCEPT WHAT YOU CAN SENSE TIMIDITY IS LAUGHABLE TRUE FREEDOM IS FRIGHTFUL WISHING THINGS AWAY IS NOT EFFECTIVE YOU ARE GUILELESS IN YOUR DREAMS YOU ARE THE PAST PRESENT AND FUTURE YOUR ACTIONS ARE POINTLESS IF NO ONE NOTICES *start* 15754 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 7 Dec 92 16:12:34 PST (Monday) Subject: Life 9.4 From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- From: Kevin Paul Goldman A radio station near me used to have a monthly "You are an Idiot" award. One such winner was a guy who broke into a dog kennel to steal money and assorted stuff. Unfortunately for him he broke into a security dog-training kennel, a mere few days after a class of dobermans and german shepards had graduated. Needless to say he was apprehended by over 15 dogs, and although not seriously hurt, he was shaken ( The owners found him the next morning restrained by 15+ dogs and called the police ). It was later found out that the man couldn't read which is why he didn't realize what he was breaking into. ---------------------------------------------------- From James R Davidson <* Hardware has physical parts that wear out, but can be replaced with identical or improved parts; the physical environment seldom changes. Software parts do not wear out, but often need replacement with greatly improved parts for changing environmental requirements.> Yes--reminds me of another definition of the difference: If you use a piece of hardware long enough, eventually it will stop working. If you use a piece of software long enough, eventually it will start working. ---------------------------------------------------- From: gilmour@stein.u.washington.edu i was on 45th and brooklyn and this bum is standing right in my way as i'm walking along.. he says to me 'all i need is 32c so i can catch the bus' and i put my hands in my pockets to look for change and tell him i don't have any change. 'can you just help me out?' he says. 'don't you have anything?' and i say i don't have anything. and then he pulls the gun out of his pocket just enough for me to see it and says 'all i need is five bucks.' i hand him the ten from my wallet (all the money i had on me) and start to walk off and he says 'hey!' and hands me five one dollar bills. the world is a strange place. ---------------------------------------------------- From: "Thomas Q.M. Nhan" We preserve our freedoms using four boxes: soap, ballot, jury, and cartridge. ---------------------------------------------------- From Netwit, a mailing list run by Jeff Knodel knodel@cis.ohio-state.edu -------------------------- Submitted by: jmn@crown.berkeley.edu (J. Mark Noworolski) Heard on Rush Limbaugh this morning: Marion Barry promised to clean up the city of crack cocaine.... as soon as he has enough money to buy it all. (For those who don't know- Marion Barry just finished serving a sentence for crack cocaine posession. He was the mayor of Washington(?) before the bust, and has recently been re-elected for office). -------------------------- From: Two guys are sitting at a bar talking politics when one asks the other what he thinks Clinton should do with the abortion bill. He replies "I think he should pay the damn thing." -------------------------- From: koustubh@comet.msd.measurex.com (Koustubh Jha) Clinton's Simplified 1040 form The following flyer was doing the rounds at my office a couple of days after Clinton got elected... Clinton's Simplified 1040 Form ------------------------------ Dept of the Treasury - Internal Revenue Service 1040 U.S. Individual Income Tax 1993 Return Your Social Security Number - - Part 1. INCOME 1. How much money did you make last year? -----> _____ 2. Send it in. --------------------------------> _____ 3. If you have any questions or comments, please write them in the box provided -------------> [] -------------------------- From: APUCORLE@idbsu.idbsu.edu Paper Shredder Swiped from an old Reader's Digest: The new employee stood before the paper shredder looking confused. "Need some help?" a secretary, walking by, asked. "Yes," he replied, "how does this thing work?" "Simple," she said, taking the fat report from his hand and feeding it into the shredder. "Thanks, but where do the copies come out?" -------------------------- Submitted by: jns@inoms.bellcore.com (Jesse N. Schell) Someone once asked me if there was any real difference between engineers, scientists, and managers in today's high tech companies. Although the differences are often subtle to an outsider, you can tell one from another simply by the questions they ask. Engineering: "How will this work?" Science: "Why will this work?" Management: "When will this work?" And in today's technological environment, this is often followed by: Liberal Arts: "Do you want fries with that?" -------------------------- Submitted by: Rob Knauerhase Bill Clinton has been advised by doctors to save his voice and not speak a single word for the next couple days. Guess this means he'll have to contradict himself in mime... Submitted by: naveen@Autodesk.COM (Naveen Chandra) Did you know the new radio telescope searching for intelligent life did receive its first message. "If you have a touch tone radio telescope please press 1 Now." -------------------------- Submitted by: coleman@kirkland.East.Sun.COM (Rob Coleman) "Nishiki Okimoto died yesterday. He was one of the primary engineers who worked on the original VCR. His funeral service will be at 12:00... 12:00... 12:00... 12:00..." -- Dennis Miller (from memory) "Anyone know how I can get my VCR to start blinking "1:00" now that Daylight Savings Time is here?" -- Unknown -------------------------- From: Ed.Green@sunpix.East.Sun.COM (Ed Green - Pixel Cruncher) College correspondance Your (send money) note reminds me of an ASCII joke I read a long time ago (perhaps before ASCII). I don't remember it exactly, but this is close: Dear Dad, $chool i$ really great. I am making lot$ of friend$ and $tudying very hard. With all my $tuff, I $imply can't think of anything I need, $o if you would like, you can ju$t $end me a card, a$ I would love to hear from you. Love, Your $on. Dear Son, I kNOw that astroNOmy, ecoNOmics, and oceaNOgraphy are eNOugh for to keep even an hoNOr student busy. Do NOt forget that the pursuit of kNOwledge is a NOble task, and you can never study eNOugh. Love, Dad ---------------------------------------------------- The following are selections taken from: "Charley Jones's Famous Laugh Book" It was published in 1944 -------------------------- Quartermaster's Segeant: "Well - speak up there, how do you want your uniform, too big, or too small?" -------------------------- Our idea of an optimist is of the man who took the marriage vows at the ripe old age of 87 and started house hunting for a nice place close to a school. -------------------------- The foreman reported that the jury was unable to agree upon a verdict. The jude reproved them, saying that the cases was a very clear one and one upon which an early verdict should be reached. Then he remanded them to the jury room for further deliberations. "And if you don't reach a decision before evening," the judge added, "I'll have 12 suppers sent in to you." "May it please your honor," spoke up the foreman, "but I suggest that you make it 11 suppers and a bale of hay." -------------------------- Sign at entrance to country home: "Watch out! Our dog is awkfully careless since meat rationing." -------------------------- The new minister was talking to the oldest inhabitant. "I 97 years old, sir, and I haven't an enemy in the world," said the aged one. "That is a beautiful thought," said the clergyman approvingly. "Yes sir," was the answer. "I'm thankful to say that I've outlived them all." -------------------------- Visitor at asylum: "Do you have to keep the women inmates separated from the men?" Attendant: "Sure. The people here ain't so crazy as you think." -------------------------- The train came to a sudden grinding stop. "What has happened, Conductor?" asked a nervous passenger. "Nothing much, we just ran over a cow." "Was it on the track?" "No," replied the disgusted conductor. "We chased it into the barn." -------------------------- "I just got out of prison this morning." a travelor told a man on the train. "It's going to be tough, facing old friends." "I can sympathise with you," commiserated the other. "I'm just getting home from the State Legislature." -------------------------- Drunk in a telephone booth: "Number hell - I want my peanuts." ---------------------------------------------------- Sent a message to almanac@oes.orst.edu with just the text "SEND QUOTE" And got the following: "So you see, the only truth proof of what you are is in the way you hear the truth." - Lemmy Kilmeister "If you don't laugh at all, you've missed the point. If you only laugh, you've missed your chance from illumination." - Robert Anton Wilson "It is probably true that the UNIX operating system has extensive documentation since most things are written down somewhere." - McGilton and Morgan "I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters." - Solomon Short "Why should my liberty be restricted by another man's conscience?" I Corinthians, 10:29 "You enemy is never a villain in his own eyes. Keep this in mind, it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not, you can kill him without hate--and quickly." - Lazarus Long "Sun Microsystems: Where we DESIGN the Star Fighters that defend the frontier against Xur and the Ko-dan Armada." - Steven C. Neighorn "An unsupervised teenager with a modem is as dangerous as an unsupervised teenager with a gun." - Gail Thackeray, Arizona Ass. State Attorney "Maybe Computer Science should be in the College of Theology." - R. S. Barton "The victor will always judge the defeated, and always find him guilty." - Goering, during the Nuremberg Trials "The Democrats say you aren't worried about the $2.8 trillion national debt they've created." - Lee Atwater "A man who cannot reason is a fool, a man who will not reason is a bigot, and a man who dare not reason is a slave." - William Drummond "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 "1984 has past, forget about Big Brother. Welcome to the 90's where the government's your mother!" - Scatterbrain ---------------------------------------------------- From following is from dsc.cuties run by: lindsay%dscatl.UUCP@mathcs.emory.edu (Lindsay Cleveland) -------------------------- Creative minds always have been known to survive any kind of bad training. -- Anna Freud -------------------------- A man about to speak the truth should keep one foot in the stirrup. -- Old Mongolian Saying -------------------------- Have you ever notices...Those who complain about the way the ball bounces are often the ones who dropped it! -- Bill Kirby -------------------------- Often the laws of the nation or the state may allow some action which honor would forbid. Mark Twain once owned a publishing house. At one point, late in his life, it faced bankrupcy. Twain knew that he could declare bankruptcy and escape the payment of much of his debt. But he decided that to do so would not be the honorable thing to do. So, at the age of 64, he began a lecture tour which he anticipated would continue for four years after which time he estimated that he would be able to pay off the debt his failed business had incurred. In speaking about this course of action, Twain said: "Honor is a harder master than the law." -- Gregory A. Megill -------------------------- Sometime when you feel age creeping up on you, just remember Harry Wright of New Lexington, Ohio. Although he was 101 years old on March 27, 1984, he still attended his lodge meetings walking up the stairs to the second floor, attended Church and Sunday School every week, and made tape-recordings for the benefit of shut-ins 30 years his junior! -------------------------- Contributed by wegdcb!gcegb GOPHER BROKE If you're worried by earthquakes and nuclear war, As well as by traffic and crime, Consider how worry-free gophers are, Though living on burrowed time. --Richard Armour, WSJ 11/7/83. -------------------------- Contributed by: wegdcb!gcegb EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER "Don't worry, Mrs. Caruthers," the banker assured a customer who was concerned with the ever-increasing computerization of her financial affairs. We here at Tenth National still provide plenty of chances for human error." --Edward Stevenson, WSJ, 9/29/83 ---------------------------------------------------- Selections from a mailing list run by Victor Schwartz -------------------------- (From a recent "Non Sequitur" comic strip) The scene is the office of the State Slogan Committee of a State with Low Self-Esteem. (Can you think of any?) The committee members are carefully considering the Finalists' entries in the State Slogan Contest They are: 1. "Sorry, but you have to go through here to get to Iowa." 2. "The state where people left to become famous." 3. "We're Nebraska-ish." -------------------------- A distributed system is one in which the failure of a computer you didn't even know existed can render your own computer unusable. -- Leslie Lamport, CACM, June 1992 -------------------------- (From "Prophets in the Dark: How Xerox Reinvented Itself and Beat Back the Japanese," by David T. Kearns and David A. Nadler. The narrator is David Kearns, ex-CEO of Xerox.) ... many of the great ideas are not precipitated by the customer. While the customer knows what he wants, he doesn't always know what's possible. And that first dawned on me in my earliest days in business. When I was new at IBM, working in sales and taking a management training program in Sleepy Hollow, New York, I came back to my room grumbling about the lack of speed and reliability of the tape drives, and wondered why the engineers couldn't do something about it. My roommate stared at me with a look of total exasperation. "Boy, you guys in sales are all the same," he said. "You remind me of the farmer in 1850. If you asked him what he wanted, he would say he wanted a horse that was half as big and ate half as many oats and was twice as strong. And there would be no discussion of a tractor. -------------------------- (From Douglas Adams' new book: "Mostly Harmless: The Fifth Book in the Increasingly Inaccurately Named Hitchikers Trilogy") (Regarding) the speed of light and the difficulties involved in trying to exceed it. You can't. Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws. The Hingefreel people of Arkintoofle Minor did try to build spaceships that were powered by bad news but they didn't work particularly well and were so extremely unwelcome whenever they arrived anywhere that there wasn't really any point in being there. *start* 15417 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 14 Dec 92 17:17:12 PST (Monday) Subject: Life 9.5 From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- From: Harold J. Shinsato: My Russian roommate told me this one. He called it an anecdote. Nikita Krushchev went to visit a pig farm in the Ukrain. Pictures were taken, and the editors of Pravda were having trouble making the caption for the picture. They could not say "Nikita visits pigs in the Ukrain" as that would be degrading. After an extended period of discussion, they finally chose this neutral caption. Krushchev - third from the left ---------------------------------------------------- From: geiser@roadrunner.pictel.com (Wayne Geiser) "I'm tired of all this nonsense about beauty being only skin-deep. That's deep enough. What do you want, an adorable pancreas?" - Jean Kerr. ---------------------------------------------------- Stuff Ed Lopes sifted out of rec.humor: -------------------------- From: worth@acuson.com (Douglas Worth) Seen at a gas station on I-5 somewhere between L.A. and Tahoe Kids with Gas eat Free -------------------------- Some David Letterman's old "Top 10" lists: Top 10 Signs You've Hired a Bad Campaign Manager - February 26, 1992 10. His first day on the job he begins drafting your concession speech. 9. Show's up at rallies wearing "I'm with stupid" T-shirt. 8. Encourages crowds to give you a "Heil Hitler" salute. 7. He has a spy infiltrate Jerry Brown's headquarters. 6. Only photo opportunity he arranges is you in a hot tub with hookers. 5. Campaign song is "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." 4. Under "past employment" on his resume you see the word "Dukakis." 3. He signs that "Hey Vern" guy to do your commercials. 2. You find yourself doing a lot of campaigning in Canada. Top 10 Signs the Company You Work for Is Going Under - February 28, 1992 10. They start paying everyone in sea shells. 9. The Dairy Queen on the corner is threatening a hostile takeover. 8. When you say, "See you tomorrow," the watchman laughs uncontrollably. 7. The chairman walks by your desk and says, "Hey, Hey! Easy on the staples!" 6. The initials of your company are "G.M." 5. Conference room has been turned into chinchilla farm. 3. Conversations at the water cooler are mainly with yourself. 2. Your boss casually asks you if you know anything about starting fires. 1. You get a lot of memos in Japanese. ---------------------------------------------------- Stuff sifted from rec.humor by Sarah Elkins: -------------------------- From: Scott.Anderson@f31.n282.z1.tdkt.kksys.com (Scott Anderson) A new scientific study has revieled that nearly 1/3 of all people who choke to death on their food choke on the very first bite. A later study has actually shown that ALL people who choke on their food choke on thier very last bite. ---------------------------------------------------- Stuff sifted from rec.humor by Richard W Rodway: -------------------------- From: mike@leah.prc.utexas.edu (Michael Kline) (In the voice of a thug) "Uh, hello, Mike and Brian aren't here right now. They've been kidnapped! So at the beep, leave your name, your number, your message, and ten thousand dollars in a brown paper bag!" ---------------------------------------------------- Stuff sifted from rec.humor by James R Davidson: -------------------------- Ob pun o' the day is: Old Egyptian tourists never die - they just go senile. -------------------------- Misfortune, n.: The kind of fortune that never misses. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" -------------------------- Sender: news@gumby.dsd.trw.com A few years ago, someone on rec.humor demonstrated an easy way to generate a palindrome of essentially arbitrary length. It's sort of cheating, though :-) The idea is to write some sort of story where an alien appears. Then say The alien began to speak in a strange tongue. Follow that with all the previous characters in reverse order, surrounded by quotes. -------------------------- There's also the Armenian radio versions of these jokes (Background: Armenian radio jokes have long been popular in the old USSR. The premise is that the Armenian radio stations will answer any question put to it) Can Communism be established in the USA? Yes, but who needs it exported? Can Communism be established in France? Yes, but it would be a shame. Can Communism be established in the Soviet Union? Yes, but haven't those poor people suffered enough already? -------------------------- In article <1992Sep4.171522.1@orca.alaska.edu>, sxjwg@orca.alaska.edu writes: > Anyone heard of any "politically correct" phrases during this election. > > I have two for you. > > Some hospitals call a patient that dies on the operating table: > > NEGATIVE PATIENT OUTCOME > > The Pentagon called the Army operation by airborne troops: > > A PRE-DAWN VERTICAL INSERTION > > A book by the name DOUBLE SPEAK is supposed full of this stuff. Don't know the > author's name though. Author's name is William Lutz (English Dept., Rutgers). I think he has more than one book out. Here are some more of his: CHILDREN: When children are bossy they "exhibit leadership charisma." When they misbehave they "engage in negative attention-getting." Reading is "interacting with print." SOCIAL SCIENCE: The elderly are "the chronologically gifted." Retirement homes are "senior congregate living communities for the [yep] chronologically gifted." Retirement homes in California are "disengagement communities." My favorites are: "revenue enhancement" (tax increase) "career offender cartel" (mafia organization) Flipping a coin is interacting with a digital decision generator. > Sort of reminds me of a George Carlin HBO special Shell-Shock becomes "Post Traumatic Disorder Syndrome" Mental/Physical Retardation becomes "Being Differently Abled" A manhole cover becomes a "Personhole cover"... A ladies' man is a "person's person"... "I'm not Handicapped! I'm HANDICAPABLE!!!" And the non-handicapped are now TABšs: ĒTemporarily Able BodiedĒ ---------------------------------------------------- From rec.humor: From: swongta@csws13.ic.sunysb.edu Subject: Coup Leader's Handbook The scene: Moscow. The time: mid-August. A group of high-level officials meet in a smoke-filled room. YANEYEV: Gentlemen, is agreed that we must throw out Gorbachev. But how? KRYUCHKOV: Is no problem, comrade. I have instruction manual! Is "KGB Guide to Overthrowing Soviet Government, Revised Edition, 1963. 'Available fine bookstores everwhere. 50 rubles. In this fact-filled new edition, KGB experts describe how anyone...'" PAVLOV: Skip to good part, comrade. KRYUCHKOV: Here it is. 'Five steps to a successful coup. 1. Arrest leader and announce that he is ill. 2. Seize TV and radio stations to suppress news. 3. Crush opposition.' YANEYEV: What about democratically elected officials? FAX machine? Foreign correspondants? World opinion? Foreign aid? General strikes? KRYUCHKOV: No, is nothing here about that. PAVLOV: Must not be important, then. YANEYEV: No, I suppose not. ---------------------------------------------------- Keith Hendrickson sifted the following gems out of rec.humor: -------------------------- From: gordon@sneaky.lonestar.org (Gordon Burditt) Then there was the woman who wrote a scathing letter to Radio Shack Customer Service in the mid-70's, with loud disapproval of the use of the brains of aborted fetuses in their new product, the TRS-80 Model I. (I think Zilog would be rather to surprised to learn that this is what Z-80 CPUs are made of.) -------------------------- From: hansm@madmats.esd.sgi.com (Madhsudan Hans) The mens' room (in one of the student halls at my old school) was undergoing a paint-job. So, there were signs all over that read "WET PAINT". Underneath one of these signs, someone had scribbled: "THIS IS NOT AN INSTRUCTION!" -------------------------- From: tracer@majestix.cs.uoregon:edu Heard on an old episode of Benson, I believe: Why did the priest cross himself? To get to the [pointing skyward] Other Side! -------------------------- From: terjej@blazer.edb.tih.no On popular demand, here are more russian jokes... Far away on the Siberian tundra, there is a simple tribal people known as the tsjuks. They have won much fame for their somehow simple, yet correct view of the world... Two tjsuks are sitting by the river, talking about life in general. The the first one says: - Igor, do you want me to tell a joke? Igor answers: - Is it a political or non-political joke? - A non-political. - Then you can tell it, says Igor, because if it had been a political joke and somebody had overheard us, they might have deported us somewhere far away from civilisation! ------- Here's the first few of my horrible finnish jokes, stolen, gleaned and copied from unreferred sources... My favorite Finns are Pekka and Toivonen, known to have been living from say, 1900 and somewhere... Pekka and Toivonen fought in the Winter war, of course. For those historyless, that was when the finns held the Red forces back in -41. Well, one evening their captain called for them to HQ. - Pekka and Toivonen, I have a nice job for you two. I want you to go into no-mans-land, and to kill as many commies as you can, and bring back their scalps as proof. In reward, you will get 100 finnish mark for every scalp! Pekka and Toivonen took this offer eagerly, and off into the snowy night they went. After having walked for several hours without finding any enemy, they put up their tent and fell asleep. Morning comes. Toivonen wakes, stretches, and goes out for a pee. Outside the tent, he is stunned by the immediate presence of an entire Red Army company, which have surrounded them during the night. Turns Toivonen, and shouts happily into the tent: - Pekka, Pekka, we are RICH! They survive. But dont ask me how... Some weeks later, the two sides are trenched deep, and the front is not budging at all. So the captain promises two weeks of R & R to the first soldier who can give him a russian machinegun! Next day, Pekka comes to the captian with a Geryiatnov heavy machinegun. The captain is very happy, of course, but wonders how Pekka could perform such a daring quest. - Well, says Pekka, I happened to talk to this russian soldier who also wanted two weeks of rest and recreation... Later in the war, Pekka and Toivonen is on yet another R & R, in Helsinki. It had been a hard weekend, and the two comrades-in-arms had slept fitfully for no less than 24 hours. During this much-needed sleep, the russians had bombed Helsinki, yet without waking any of these two. Pekka wakes up, shivering like a dog from the alcohol in his blood, and looks out through the window - where he discovers the ruins after the attack. He turns, whitefaced, to Toivonen who is awakening: - Toivonen, Toivonen, we can't pay for this one! The winter war ended, in spite of the daring finns, and the war went on. Among other events, Mussolini, leader of the gutsy italian forces, decided to have a little war in Greece. But he failed miserably in his effort to defeat the greek partisans. After a few mmonths of futile fighting, the Finnish president gets an irate phonecall from Mussolini. Mussolini: Mr. President, are we at war? Finnish Prez: No, the finnish people have no feude with the Italians. Mussolini: then why are finnish troops fighting our brave soldiers in Greece? Finnish Prez: Oh, you must be misinformed, as far as I know there is only two finnish volunteers named Pekka and Toivonen who has elected to fight with the Greek forces. Mussolini: THAT IS EXACTLY THE TROOPS I AM SPEAKING OF!!! ---------------------------------------------------- Nola Mae McBain sifted the following gems out of rec.humor -------------------------- Three statisticians are out rabbit-hunting. Suddenly one of them points and yells "Over there! Over there!" The first statistician shoots, but low, under the rabbit. The second one shoots high, over the rabbit's head. And the third one yells "We got him!!" -------------------------- terjej@edb.tih.no (Terje Johansen,o90b Two years ago, in Norway, a man making moonshine at home, accidentally blowed up his home. The insurance company refused to pay as the damage was caused by illegal activity, but after the lawyer argumented that moonshining in Norway must be regarded as a common home industry - the naked truth in Norway - the company repaid about 70 percent of the loss. With reality this weird, who needs fantasy worlds? -------------------------- There was this gorilla who lived in the jungles of Africa, who happened to be a carpenter by trade. Anyway, one day he arrived at work to find a particular tool missing from his toolbag. He searched for it high and low, but wasn't able to find it anywhere. So he set off into the jungle to ask anyone if they had seen his missing tool. The first animal he met was Mr. elephant. "Hello Mr. Elephant", he said, "I'm Mr. gorilla and I'm a carpenter by trade. I've lost one of my tools. I don't suppose you've seen it anywhere. It is about a foot long and has 4 points." "No. No. Can't say I've seen anything like that", said Mr. elephant. "But I'll let you know if I do". So Mr. gorilla continued on his way. The next animal he met was Mr. monkey ........ (continued as above for Mr. deer, Mr. hippo etc. etc.) Finally, beginning to feel very frustrated he turned to go home. Suddenly, out of the trees jumped an animal that Mr. gorilla had never seen before. After recovering from his initial fright, he said. "Hi, aarr I haven't met you before, My name is Mr. gorilla and I'm a carpenter by trade. I've lost one of my tools and I was wondering if anyone has seen it. It is about a foot long and has 4 points. I don't suppose you've seen it anywhere?" "As a matter of fact I have", said the black cat-like animal, "In fact I've eaten it." "You've WHAT !!!!"said Mr. gorilla. "I've eaten it, you see I'm a four point tool eater Jaguar!!" (4.2 litre Jaguar) ---------------------------------------------------- Stuff Ellen Spertus was able to sift out of a meg of eunet.jokes: ellens@ai.mit.edu (Ellen Spertus) -------------------------- From: tculver@mahler.helios.nd.edu (timothy culver) Subject: Low-level science joke Two helium atoms are walking down the street. He #1: Oh no, I think I just lost an electron! He #2: Are you sure? He #1: Yeah, I'm positive. -------------------------- From: "peter skotnyk" Q: What do you call someone who speaks three languages? A: Trilingual Q: What do you call someone who speaks two languages? A: Bilingual Q: What do you call someone who speaks one language? A: American -------------------------- From: bzs@ussr.std.com (Barry Shein) The nun asks the class what they want to be when they grow and goes around the room. She gets the usual answers, a doctor, a fireman, etc. Then she gets to little Nancy: Nancy: When I grow up I would like to be a prostitute. Nun: A *WHAT*!? Nancy: a PROSTITUTE. The nun sinks into her chair, visibly shaken, and mutters ``what a relief, I thought she said a protestant!'' *start* 16044 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 4 Jan 93 17:27:00 PST (Monday) Subject: Life 9.6 From: cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- "Life By the Yard is Hard, Life By the Inch is a Cinch, so Easy Does It, One Day at A Time" ---------------------------------------------------- The November 30th issue of _AutoWeek_ details the risks of using radar to prevent bus accidents. Greyhound has developed a system called VORAD to warn a bus driver if there is a car hidden off his right or if he's following too closely. The problem is the system sends a radar signal 10 times a second. An _AutoWeek_ reader and bus driver reports that more than once he's been passed by a car moving at speeds in excess of the speed limit and watched their radar detector light go off. Unfortunately the speeder usually pulls in front of the nearest large target (you can guess what) and *slams on the brakes* to fool the non-existent Smokey. And, of course, busses go a lot better than they stop... I find it funny that a system designed to prevent accidents could potentially cause accidents by encouraging other drivers to make unsafe maneuvers. ---------------------------------------------------- From firearms mailing list *Remember, gun control is a steady hand.* * Scott Connor scottso@panix.com * ---------------------------------------------------- Philip A. Fleischmann sifted the following gems out of rec.humor -------------------------- "To understand recursion, you must first understand recursion." -- Unknown -------------------------- From: whedon@netcom.com (Bill Whedon) How did the chicken cross the road? She turned state's evidence. Why did the chicken cross the road? It was part of a plea-bargain. -------------------------- From: Robyn_Clark@mindlink.bc.ca (Robyn Clark) Flugg's Law - When you need to knock on wood is when you realize the world is composed of aluminum and vinyl. Angus' Exchange Axiom - When travelling overseas, the exchange rate improves the day after you have purchased foreign currency. Murphy's Monetary Maxim - Inflation is never having it so good and parting with it so fast. -------------------------- From: bevans@mta.ca Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall Humpty Dumpty had a great fall All the kings horses and all the kings men Formed an adhoc committee to study the situation. ---------------------------------------------------- Cheryl Ann Pence sifted the following gems out of rec.humor -------------------------- Sender: usenet@nntp.hut.fi (Usenet pseudouser id) > "Driver Carries No Cash > 2 Kids in College" -------------------------- From: cnk@rgm.com (Claims No Knowledge) Q: What do you call the shock absorbers inside a Yugo? A: Passengers. ---------------------------------------------------- Thomas Q.M. Nhan forwarded from a humor room at washington.edu -------------------------- I've heard of death referred to as: Negative patient-care outcome I thought death was: metabolically challenged I've seen one not too long ago as: "Patient was found to be incompatable with life." Kind of absolving the hospital of responsibility, I guess, eh? -------------------------- "Hell is an endless church service without God. Heaven is God without the church service." -------------------------- From an ASUW Governance Committee manual: The manual has a page devoted to the subject: "How to deal with the media." The final piece of advice tells committee members to "Never try and take on the media." It offers the following explanation as to why: "Taking on the media is like mud wrestling with a pig. You both get dirty, but the pig likes it." Note: ASUW is the acronym from Association of Students of Univ. of Washington ---------------------------------------------------- Stuff from Ian Chai spectre@uiuc.edu -------------------------- In light of President Milan Panic of Yugoslavia surviving an attempt by hardliners led by Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic to remove him by a no-confidence vote, in the "world briefs" section of today's Daily Illini newspaper is the headline: PANIC STILL REIGNS IN YUGOSLAVIA -------------------------- In October 22's Far Eastern Economic Review, there was a title: POLITICALLY CHALLENGED No, it wasn't PC talk for someone who is an incompetent politician... it was about someone being challenged politically! -------------------------- A jew married a black woman. They had a family. One day the child came up to his mother and said, "Mom, I'm confused. Have I been discriminated against for 200 years, or 2,000 years?!?" ---------------------------------------------------- The following are selections I've pulled from Keith Bostic's mailing list: bostic@vangogh.cs.berkeley.edu -------------------------- GOOD NEWS FOR GALILEO YJGI VATICAN CITY, REUTER - AFTER 359 YEARS, THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH HAS OFFICIALLY ADMITTED THAT IT WAS WRONG TO HAVE CONDEMNED THE REVOLUTIONARY ITALIAN SCIENTIST GALILEO FOR ASSERTING THAT THE EARTH ORBITS THE SUN. POPE JOHN PAUL ON DEFINITIVELY CLOSED THE BOOK ON THE AFFAIR, ONE OF HISTORY'S MOST NOTORIOUS CONFLICTS BETWEEN FAITH AND SCIENCE. THE PONTIFF REHABILITATED GALILEO BY ACCEPTING THE RESULTS OF A COMMISSION HE SET UP TO STUDY THE CASE. THE COMMISSION ACKNOWLEDGED THAT THE INQUISITORS WHO HAD CONDEMNED GALILEO IN 1633 HAD MADE A "SUBJECTIVE ERROR OF JUDGEMENT". -------------------------- FOZZIE BEAR BEATS CLINTON IN AUSTRALIA YJKU SYDNEY, REUTER - FORGET BILL CLINTON - SOME DAYTIME TELEVISION VIEWERS IN AUSTRALIA PREFER FOZZIE BEAR. COVERAGE OF THE U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION ON AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION TELEVISION WAS INTERRUPTED BY THE CHILDREN'S SERIES SESAME STREET. AS U.S. PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH WAS CONCEDING DEFEAT IN TEXAS, FOZZIE BEAR AND A MOTLEY CREW OF OTHER MUPPET CHARACTERS WERE SINGING WITH GUEST HARRY BELAFONTE ON THE NETWORK. A NEWS EXECUTIVE SAID VIEWERS HAD TELEPHONED AND COMPLAINED THE COVERAGE WAS TOO BORING AND DEMANDED THE SCHEDULED SESAME STREET BE RETURNED. ---------------------------------------------------- The following are selections taken from a mailing list run by Victor Schwartz -------------------------- (Contributed by Keith Stobie to the Tandem Humor DL, from a collection supplied by Lois Watson at HP:) Love is like a roller coaster: when it's good you don't want to get off, and when it isn't ... you can't wait to throw up. -------------------------- (From Douglas Adams' new book: "Mostly Harmless: The Fifth Book in the Increasingly Inaccurately Named Hitchikers Trilogy") The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair. -------------------------- (From "Dave Barry does Japan") Too many chiefs, not enough Native Americans, that's what's wrong with this country. We all want to manage. We all want to attend meetings and develop concepts. We look down on jobs that involve any physical activity more rigourous than faxing. Nobody in this country knows how to DO anything anymore. There was a time when avaerage Americans could get together and, in one afternoon, build an entire barn. Yes! A barn! Can you imagine average Americans doing that today? Not a chance! They'd spend weeks debating the membership and organizational structure of the Barn Architect Selection Committee, whose members would then get into a lengthy squabble over the design of the logo to appear on their letterhead. Ultimately this issue would become a bitter and drawn-out dispute, be taken to court, and the peple involved would start complaining of depression and anxiety, and psychologists would announce that these people were victims of a new disease called Barn Committee Logo Dispute Distress Syndrome, or BCLDDS, which would become the subject of one-hour shows by Phil Donahue and Sally Jessy Raphael, after which MILLIONS of Americans would realize tht they, too, were suffering from BCLDDS, and they'd form support groups with Hot Line numbers and twelve-step programs. That's what we modern Americans do. Anything but actually BUILD THE DAMN BARN. Anything but actually PICK UP A DAMN HAMMER AND A DAMN PIECE OF LUMBER AND SLAP! Thanks, I needed that. ---------------------------------------------------- From dsc.cuties, which I think is run by lindsay@dscatl.uucp (Lindsay Cleveland) -------------------------- Contributed by: wegdcb!gcegb IRONY ITEM People will travel many thousands of miles to appear at a family reunion----in order to be with the same people they once left home to get away from. ---Shay Rieger, WSJ, 10/20/83 -------------------------- Contributed by: hou5a!hbb (Harlan Baude) (continued) Murphy's Laws -------------------- SATTINGER'S LAW. It works better if you plug it in. JENKINSON'S LAW. It won't work. HORNER'S FIVE-THUMB POSTULATE. Experience varies directly with equipment ruined. CHEOPS'S LAW. Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget. RULE OF ACCURACY. When working toward the solution of a problem, it always helps to know the answer. ZYMURG'S SEVENTH EXCEPTION TO MURPHY'S LAWS. When it rains, it pours. ---------------------------------------------------- From Gunter's mailing list gunter@tartarus.uwa.edu.au (Gunter Ahrendt) -------------------------- Q: What's the average term of a Washington, DC, mayor? A: 6 months to a year -------------------------- I will be building the ultimate RISC machine. I have reduced the instruction set to only two instructions: ON OFF -------------------------- q: who will lose the presidental campaign of '92? a: the american people -------------------------- ENERGIZER BUNNY ARRESTED!! Police charge him with battery!! -------------------------- In a P.O.W. camp in Germany, a German guard said to an English prisoner, "Swine!!" The Englishman acknowledged, "Smith." -------------------------- "Luke... Luke... Use the MOUSE, Luke" - Obi Wan Gates "Ummm, Trouble with grammar have I! Yes!" -Yoda- (A)bort, (R)etry, (I)nfluence with large hammer (A)bort, (R)etry, (P)retend this never happened... A day without radiation is a day without sunshine. A diplomat thinks twice before saying nothing. ---------------------------------------------------- From a mailing list run by Wayne Geiser called "On This Day" geiser@roadrunner.pictel.com -------------------------- December 20, 1992 Events today ... In 1820, Missouri imposed a $1 per year bachelor's tax on men from 21 to 50. -------------------------- "The English instinctively admire any man who has no talent and is modest about it." - James Agate. ---------------------------------------------------- The following are selections taken from: "Charley Jones's Famous Laugh Book" It was published in 1944 -------------------------- "And there, my son, you have the story of your day and the Great World War." "Yes, Daddy, but why did they need all those other sodiers?" -------------------------- At the end of the fifth round, the heavy weight staggered to his cornor in a dazed and battered condition. His manager approached him and whispered in his ears, "Say, Slugger, I've got a swell idea! Next time he hits you, hit him back." -------------------------- Customer: "Your dog seems very fond of watching you cut hair." Barber: "It ain't that; sometimes I snip off a bit of a customer's ear." -------------------------- A gentleman was much surprised when the good looking young lady greeted him by saying, "Good evening." He could not remember ever having meet her before. She evidently realized her mistake, for she apologized and explained: "Oh, I'm so sorry. When I first saw you I thought you were the father of two of my children." She walked on, while the man stared after her. She did not realize, of course, that he was unaware that she was a school teacher. -------------------------- Navy Bill had broken with his girl. After ignoring several of her letters requesting the return of her photograph, on came threatening to complain to the captain. Deciding to squelch her for all time, he borrowed all the pictures of girls available on the ship, sending them to her in a large bundle, with the following not: "Pick yours out. I've forgotten what you look like." -------------------------- Colonel: "You say you served with the Army in France?" Cook: "Yes sir. Officers' cook for two years and wounded twice." Colonel: "You're lucky, man. It's a wonder they didn't kill you." -------------------------- A charitable woman noticed a poorly dressed man standing at a street corner near her home. Taking pity on him one morning, she pressed a dollar bill into his hand as she passed, whispering "Never Despair." The next day she passed by again, and he stopped her and handed her $9. "What does this mean?" she asked. To which he replied. "It means, ma'am, that 'Never Despair' won in the third race at 8 to 1. -------------------------- I had a girl, her name was Nellie. She fell in the ocean up to her knees. (It doesn't rhyme because it wasn't deep enough where she fell in.) -------------------------- A swanky chap applied at the recruiting office to enlist. "I suppose you want a commission," said the officer. "No, thanks," was the reply. "I'm such a poor shot that I'd rather work on a straight salary." -------------------------- Dogs in Siberia are the fast in the world because the trees are so far apart. -------------------------- Reporter (to visiting Frenchman): "And what are you most ancious to see in America Duke?" The Duke: "I veesh to veesit that famous Mrs. Beach who had so many sons in the last war." -------------------------- Charitable Lday: "Here, my poor fellow, is a quarter for you. It must be terrible to be lame, but I think it must be worse to be blind." Panhandler: "You're right, Ma'am. When I was blind people was always handin' me counterfeit money." -------------------------- A bad, bad man was shot in a saloon brawl in Cripple Creek, in the old days. They buried him; then everyone stood around the filled grave expectantly, waiting for someone to say a few good words for the deceased. All tongues were silent. At last one old man, who had known the deceased longest, lifted his hand. "Friends," he said with heartfelt feeling, "Ol Jim use to shoot a mighty good hand of marbles, as a kid." -------------------------- A railroad agent in Africa had been bawled out for doing things without orders from headquarters. One day his boss recieved the following startling telegram: "Tiger on plateform eating conductor. Wire instructions." -------------------------- First Private: "Why did you salute that truck driver?" Second Rookie: "Don't be so dumb! That's no truck driver, thats General Hauling. Didn't you see the sign?" -------------------------- "Folks," said the old ministor, "the subject this evenin' is Liars. How many in the congregation has done read the 69th Chapter of Matthew?" Nearly every hand in the audience was raised. "Dat's right," said his reverence. "You is de folks I want to preach to. Dere ain't no 69th Chapter of Matthew." -------------------------- Two old maids were in an insane asylum for years, always knitting and knitting. "Gee," sighed Mayme one day, "I wish some tall, handsome man would wind his arms around me and squeeze me until I gasp." "Now you're talking sense," said Hattie. "You'll be out of here in a few days."