*start* 17989 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Date: 31 Aug 87 10:15:12 PDT (Monday) From: Cate3.PA Subject: Life 2.6 To: cc: , Cate3 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Old News? From "American Anecdotes, Original and Select," Boston 1830: Timothy Dexter, a native of Newburyport, Massachusetts, inquired of some merchants, whom he knew, how he should dispose of a few hundred dollars. Willing to hoax him, they answered, "Why, buy a cargo of warming-pans and send them to the West Indies, to be sure." He bought all the warming-pans he could find and sent them to a climate where there was every reason to suppose that ice would be far more acceptable. The warming-pans met with a rapid sale; the tops being used for strainers and the lower part for dippers, in the manufacture of molasses. With the proceeds of this profitable cargo he built a vessel; and being informed by the carpenter that wales [i.e., boards] were wanting, he called on an acquaintance and said, "My head workman sends me word that he wants wales for the vessel. What does he mean?" "Why, whale bones, to be sure," answered the man, who, like everybody else, was willing to impose on his stupidity. Whale bones were accordingly bought; but finding Boston could not furnish enough, he emptied New York and Philadelphia as well. The ship carpenters, of course, had a hearty laugh at his expense; but, by a singular turn of fortune, this blunder also was the means of increasing his wealth. It soon after became fashionable for ladies to wear stays completely lined with whalebone; and as none was to be found in the country, it brought an immense price. Thus his coffers were filled a second time by his odd speculations. ----------------------------------------------------------------- From the Sacramento Daily Union of April 20, 1861 Accidentally Shot Colonel Gray, of Petaluma, came near losing his life a few days ago, in a singular manner. A gentleman with whom he was hunting attempted to bring down a dove, but instead of doing so put the load of shot through the Colonel's hat. One shot took effect in his forehead. ----------------------------------------------------------------- From the Sacramento Daily Union of Nov 17, 1860. News What is News We find the following announcement in a St Louis paper: A party of gentlemen in Sacramento, California, have been for some time secretly experimenting in diamond making. The last mail informs us that the whole affair blew up, nearly killing J W Underwood, one of the enthusiasts. ----------------------------------------------------------------- From the Sacramento Daily Union Dec 30, 1860 The French Railway companies have made a new regulation, whereby every passenger is weighed and charged accordingly. ----------------------------------------------------------------- From the Sacramento Daily Union of November 29, 1861 Too Late - A large number of turkies [sic] went to San Francisco yesterday by the two o'clock boats. If their object in going down was to participate in the Thanksgiving festivities of that city, they would arrive "the day after the affair," and of course be sadly disappointed thereby. ----------------------------------------------------------------- From the Sacramento Daily Union of July 2, 1861 A Hen Brooding Kittens A friend informs us that he saw at the Novato ranch, Marin county, a few days since, a hen actually brooding and otherwise caring for three kittens! The gentleman upon whose premises this strange event is transpiring says the hen adopted the kittens when they were but a few days old, and that she has devoted them her undivided care for several weeks past. The young felines are now of respectable size, but they nevertheless follow the hen at her cluckings, and are regularly brooded at night beneath her wings. Petaluma Journal ----------------------------------------------------------------- From the Sacramento Daily Union of October 31, 1861 Accident in Santa Cruz At this place, August 15th, William D Farrand was shot in the thigh by the accidental discharge of his pistol while he was in the act of putting it in his pocket. The wound is severe. ----------------------------------------------------------------- From the Sacramento Daily Union for September 13, 1860 A young girl once committed suicide because her mother refused her a new bonnet. Coroner's verdict: "Death from excessive spunk." ----------------------------------------------------------------- From the Sacramento Daily Union for September 11, 1861. Climate and Surgery R C Gilchrist, who was shot by J Sharp twelve days ago, and who received a derringer ball in the right breast, and who it was supposed at the time could not live many hours, was on the street yesterday and the day before - walking several blocks at a time. To those who design to be riddled with bullets or cut to pieces with Bowie-knives, we cordially recommend our Sacramento climate and Sacramento surgery. ----------------------------------------------------------------- From the Sacramento Daily Union of September 19, 1861 Born Again The two Albino children now exhibiting in this city are represented to have been born in Monterey county, of California Indian parents. When they were exhibited here some five or six months ago they were represented to be natives of Cuba, and of Cuban parents. It is a scriptural requisition that we all be "born again;" but this being born in an entirely different and remote locality, is the exercise of a license never contemplated or provided for in scriptural times, so far as we are advised. ----------------------------------------------------------------- From the Nevada Morning Transcript of January 30, 1861 A New Way of Taking Pills A physician one night in Wisconsin being disturbed by a burglar, and having no ball or shot for his pistol, noiselessly loaded the weapon with small, hard pills, and gave the intruder a "prescription" which he thinks will go far towards curing the rascal of a very bad ailment. ----------------------------------------------------------------- From the Nevada Morning Transcript of February 15, 1861 "Heroine" is perhaps as peculiar a word as any in our language; the two first letters of it are a male, the three first a female, the four first a brave man, and the whole word a brave woman. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Observer: Tool Meanness Tools follow very interesting laws. Consider the most irritating of all, which is the tendency of tools to gather in houses where they never have to work. Let us assume, for illustrative purposes, that there is in Jones's house a door with a number of paint chips. Mr. Jones, desiring to be handy around the house, informs Mrs. Jones that he will sandpaper the chipped spots and paint them. This would seem to call for ten or fifteen minutes of work, if there was any sandpaper in Jones's house. A twenty-minute search discloses that there is not. Sandpaper, being a tool, obeys the Laws of Tools and never frequents houses where it may be put to work. In fact, all of the sandpaper in Jones's neighborhood has gathered at the Johnson's house. Which, because of an unusually splendid paint job, wil never have any paint chips on its doors. Jones goes to buy sandpaper. After telling the hardware salesperson what he wants it for, the salesperson prevails upon him to purchase a power sander. Jones goes home with an intense sense of well-being, created by the knowledge that for once in his life he has the right tool for the job. Jones is in for a shock, of course. A second law of tools requires that all tools in any given house must almost invariably be wrong for any job that may arise. Thus, arriving home and dashing to the chipped door, Jones makes a painful discovery. The power cord to the sander is eight feet long, but the nearest electrical outlet is nine feet away. This is not a simple case of bad luck for poor Jones. Not at all. It is a case of pure malice on the part of the tool. If, for example, the most remote paint chip on the door had been only eight feet from the electrical outlet, then the cord on Jones's sander would have shrunk to seven feet on the way home from the store. Enthusiam Sapped. Another trip to the hardware store results in the purchase of a 25-foot extension cord of the heavy-duty variety; that is, it has a third prong for grounding. Back home, his enthusiasm for the job gone, Jones makes the inevitable discovery. All electrical outlets within 33 feet of the paint chips have only two holes. Jones, who has been gaining wisdom about tools this afternoon, has anticipated this. He has bought a three-prong extension cord adapter. One simply plugs it into a two prong receptacle, attaches a tiny clip under a tiny screw holding the plate on the receptacle, plugs the three-prong extension cord into the adapter, and sands away. Perversity Triumphs. This at least, is what one would simply do if it were not for the perversity of the tools. Before Jones can attach the tiny grounding clip under the tiny screw holding the plate of the receptacle, however, he must unscrew the tiny screw. Jones knows immediately, without even looking, that none of the screwdrivers in his house will be small enoughto do this particular job. The law of tools forbids it. He is right, of course. The smallest screwdriver in Jones's house is so large that it seems to have been designed for dismantling steam locomotives. Actually, all of the neigborhood's tiny screwdrivers suitable for applying to tiny screws holding plates on electrical outlets are over at Smith's place across the street. They are the only size screwdriver at Smith's place, in fact, for Smith is about to start dismantling a steam locomotive. Again, this circumstance does not arrive by mere chance. Had Smith's and Jones's tasks been reversed, the big screwdrivers would have been at Smith's place and the little ones at Jones's house. What is Jones's next step? The foolhardy will advise him to loosen the screw with a knife blade. Jones probably sees this possibility; but he is becoming wise enough to know what will happen next. The sander, once put into operation, will be found to defile the air and carpet with immense quantities of dust. Jones will have to quit and go to the store for a dust catcher. On returning and resumming work, the sandpaper will break. After replacing it, a fuse will blow. While replacing the fuse, the baby will through the sander down the stairs, and so on. The best thing for Jones to do, upon learning that the smallest screwdriver he has is suitable only for large-scale work, is to abandon the chipped-door project and tackle some large-scale work. The trick in dealing with tools is always to see what tools are in the house and then find a job that can be done with them. Jones, for example, might be able to get a very good price from Smith on a steam locomotive that needs dismantling. ----------------------------------------------------------------- [From "Putt's Law and the Successful Technocrat"] FIRST LAW OF INNOVATION MANAGEMENT: Change is the status quo. SECOND LAW OF INNOVATION MANAGEMENT: Management by objectives is no better than the objectives. THIRD LAW OF INNOVATION MANAGEMENT: A manager cannot tell if he is leading an innovative mob or being chased by it. FIRST LAW OF ADVICE: The correct advice to give is the advice that is desired. SECOND LAW OF DECISION MAKING: Any decision is better than no decision. THIRD LAW OF DECISION MAKING: A decision is judged by the conviction with which it is uttered. FIFTH LAW OF DECISION MAKING: Decisions are justified by the benefits to the organization, but they are MADE by considering the benefits to the decision-makers. FIRST LAW OF COMMUNICATION: The purpose of the communication is to advance the communicator. SECOND LAW OF COMMUNICATION: The information conveyed is less important than the impression. THIRD LAW OF SURVIVAL: To protect your position, fire the fastest rising employees first. PUTTS-BROOKS LAW: Adding manpower to a late technology project only makes it later. /* my favorite */ PARALLELS TO MURPHY'S LAW: Anyone else who can be blamed should be blamed. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong faster with computers. Whenever a computer can be blamed, it should be blamed. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Dictionary of useful Research Phrases: "It has long been known..." I didn't look up the original references "A definite trend is evident..." These data are practically meaningless "Of great theoretical and practical importance..." Interesting to me "While it has not been possible to provide definite answers to these questions..." An unsuccessful experiment, but I still hope to get it published "Three of the samples were chosen for detailed study..." The results of the others didn't make any sense "Typical results are shown..." The best results are shown "These results will be shown in a subsequent report..." I might get around to this if I'm pushed "The most reliable results are those obtained by Jones..." He was my graduate assistant "It is believed that..." I think "It is generally believed that..." A couple of other guys think so, too "It is clear that much additional work will be required before a complete understanding of the phenomenon occurs..." I don't understand it "Correct within an order of magnitude..." Wrong "It is hoped that this study will stimulate further investigation in this field..." This is a lousy paper, but so are all the others on this miserable topic "A careful analysis of obtainable data..." Three pages of notes were obliterated when I knocked over a glass of beer ----------------------------------------------------------------- National Council of Teachers of English doublespeak awards for 1984. The State Department won 1st prize for replacing the word killing with "unlawful or arbitrary deprivation of life." Second prize: George Bush for equating liberals with Nicaraguan leftists. Third: Casper Weinberger for the remark he made after the American soldiers were removed from Lebanon to ships offshore: "Nothing has changed. We are not leaving Lebanon. The Marines are being deployed two or three miles to the west." Runners up: The National Transportation Safety Board for calling airplane crashes "controlled flights into terrain" in its investigation records. The Pentagon for calling peace, "permanent pre-hostility," calling combat, "violence processing," and for referring to civilian casualties in nuclear war as "collateral damage." The Pentagon was also cited for calling the October 1983 invasion of Grenada a "predawn vertical insertion." ---------------------------------------------------------------- The well-known statement of Murphy's Law--"If something can go wrong, it will"--turns out to be a corruption of its original formulation: "If there's a wrong way to do a thing, somebody will find it and do it that way." (see SCIENCE 83, Jan.-Feb.l983, p. 78) One of my favorite sourcebooks on this subject is Paul Dickson's THE OFFICIAL RULES, with its sequel THE OFFICIAL EXPLANATIONS. I quote from "Gilb's Laws of Reliability": (1) Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable. (2) Any system which depends on human reliability is unreliable. (3) The only difference between a fool and a criminal is that the fool will attack a system unpredictably and on a broader front. (4) A system tends to grow in complexity instead of simplicity, until the resulting unreliability becomes intolerable. (5) Self-checking systems tend to have a complexity in proportion to their inherent unreliability. (6) The error-detection and -correction capabilities of any system serve as a key to understanding the types of errors it cannot handle. (7) Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in contrast to detectable errors, which by definition are finite. (8) All real programs contain errors until proved otherwise which is impossible. (9) Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the probable cost of errors, or until somebody insists on getting some useful work done. ----------------------------------------------------------------- By Daniel Mintz San Jose News, 8/22/83, Business Section ** All of these were collected by a businessman named John Ehrman, a "computer professional" (whatever that is). Each one was actually said or written ingenuously. My favorites are marked by ** COINING SOME PHRASES "Things were all up in heaval." "She had a missed conception." ** "To be a leader, you have to develop a \spear de corps/." THEIR CLICHES ARE DOWN "That's just putting gravy on the cake." "That's the whole kettle of fish in a nutshell." ** "I flew it by ear." SILICON VALLEYESE "He works for that import-outport bank." "We want to create an environment automatedly." THEN THERE ARE WORDSMITHS... "How should we amateurize the cost of the equipment over its expected lifetime." "He sees things from an unusual vintige[sic] point." "Would you like a craft of house wine?" RUNNING OFF AT THE MOUTH "I'm not going to get side-tracked onto a tangent." WHEN TALKING BEARS VEGETABLES "I can't hear what you're saying because of the noise of the celery I'm chewing in my ears." "All food must be removed from this refrigerator on Friday for cleaning." UTTERLY AMAZING "That needs some thinking about; let me go away and regurgitate for a couple of hours." ** "Things are so bad right now that even positions with people in them are vacant." ** ---------------------------------------------------------------- *start* 22501 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Date: 31 Aug 87 10:15:30 PDT (Monday) From: Cate3.PA Subject: Life 2.7 To: cc: , Cate3 ----------------------------------------------------------------- "A fool and his money are soon ... Republican." ----------------------------------------------------------------- From the book "I Think Therefore I Laugh" by John Allen Paulos: ------------------------------------- Martha: What did you get for the density of the block, George? George: Well, it weighed about 17 pounds, and had a volume of about 29 cubic feet, so I guess the density is .58620689551 pounds per cubic foot. This calculator is really swell! ------------------------------------- A man, who not being certain of an item he reads in the newspaper, buys 100 copies of the paper to reassure himself of its truth. ------------------------------------- New release: Abortions are becoming so popular in some countries that the waiting time to get one is lengthening rapidly. Experts predict that at this rate there will soon be a one year wait to get an abortion. ------------------------------------- A statistician refuses to fly after reading the alarmingly high probability that there will be a bomb on any given plane. Later he finds that the probability of there being two bombs on any given flight is very low. Now whenever he flies, he always carries one bomb with him. ----------------------------------------------------------------- During the last great war, the captain of a battleship was proceeding, slowly, (with/on his vessel), through the fog. Up ahead they spot company on a collision course. Via radio, on the emergency channel, they contact the intruder. "Veer to the LEFT" shouts the captain. "No, you veer to the RIGHT" comes back the reply. "I'm a captain and I order you to veer to the LEFT" " I'm a seaman first class and I say veer to the RIGHT" came back the reply "Sailor, you don't understand, I'm captain of this battleship, with a hell of a lot of firepower and if you don't veer to the LEFT we'll open fire" "Sir, I'm in charge of this lighthouse here . . . . . . . ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fred walks into a psychiatrists office one day and says to the psychiatrist, "Doc, I don't understand what's going on with me. It's really strange, sometimes I feel like a teepee." The doctor thinks about it for a while and then urges the man to continue. So, the man continues, "And sometimes I feel like a wigwam." To which the doctor says "I wouldn't worry about it, Ferd, you're just two tents." ----------------------------------------------------------------- Bumper snicker: Save Our Trees. Stop Printing Tax Forms ! ********** Egotistical Harry was always reminding people that he played semi-pro baseball. "I was the James Bond type of player," he told his friends. "I had all sorts of tricks to confuse the opposition." "Batted .007," his wife added. ********** A friend of mine was a frequent user of a pay telephone at a popular truck stop, and was greatly inconvenienced when the phone went out of commission. Repeated requests for repair brought only promises. After several days the phone company was again contacted and told that there was no longer a rush. The phone was now working fine--except that all money was being returned upon completion of each call. A repairman arrived within the hour !! ********** BOSS to EMPLOYEE: "Great news, Haskel ! The computer says you can handle twenty percent more work !! ********** The checkout line at the hardware store was getting longer and longer as the clerk labored to get the new cash register to cooperate. At one point she wailed "Oh no, NOW what do I do ? It just rang up sixty-four thousand, five hundered seventy four dollars in sales tax on a ten-dollar sale !" Suprisingly, the customers in front of me didn't seem too upset by the delay. Some even chuckled sympathetically. It wasn't until I got near the front of the line that I saw the neatly hand-lettered sign in front of the register: WE ARE CURRENTLY DOING BATTLE WITH OUR NEW COMPUTER FOR CONTROL OF THE STORE---WE APPRECIATE YOUR PATIENCE. ********** A distraught patient phoned her doctor's office. Was it true, the woman wanted to know, that the medication the doctor had prescribed was for the rest of her life ? She was told that it was. There was a moment of silence before the woman continued, "I'm wondering, then, just how serious my condition is. This prescription is marked 'NO REFILLS'". ----------------------------------------------------------------- How many letters are there in the alphabet? -Twenty-four, because E.T. went home. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Feathers are light. The sun gives off light. Therefore, the sun gives off feathers. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Irish Moose and Cement Mixer During the Arab - Israeli war, the Israeli army ran out of beer. They dutifully ordered a new stock which arrived by land via Egypt. Anxious to check whether their beer had been poisoned, they sent a sample to the lab for analysis. Ten days later came the reply - "Congratulations, your camel is pregnant". ----------------------------------------------------------------- What do you call Santa's Helpers? Subordinate clauses...... ----------------------------------------------------------------- "I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book." --Groucho Marx 1890-1977 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Here's a little item some of you may appreciate: My daughter wrote an original short story for English class. It was about a boy who tries out a new program on his school's Apple computer. The program does nothing but display a high resolution picture of a boy's face on the screen. Eventually the kid gets hypnotized by the screen image and sound effects, gets sucked up into the disk drive, and becomes the new face on the screen. Soon, another boy walks up to the Apple... The teacher loved the story, but marked off for every occurrence of the word 'disk', which she claimed should be spelled 'disc': my daughter was furious, but the teacher is retiring this month and you can't teach an old English teacher new words... ----------------------------------------------------------------- Here's a collection of Scientific and Futuristic graffiti: Microwaves frizz your heir. Got Mole problems? Call Avagadro: 6.02 x 10­23. Reality is for people who can't face science fiction. Bumper sticker: I'd rather be teleporting. Biology grows on you. Going the speed of light is bad for your age. White dwarf seeks red giant for binary relationship. Klein bottle for rent -- inquire within. Your test tube wears combat boots! James Watt is so dense, he absorbs neutrinos. Ecology is the study of who eats whom. For a real sweet time, call C6 H12 O6. Quasars shift red Hot stars burn blue Space is warped And so are you. Time is just nature's way of keeping everything from happening all at once. Meteorologists have warm fronts. There's no future in time travel. Warning: Due to the robot shortage, some of our bartenders are human and will react unpredictably when insulted. Cloning is the sincerest form of flattery. Entropy isn't what it used to be. Kiss me twice. I'm schizophrenic. Mobius strippers never show you their back side. Invest in physics, own a piece of Dirac. Health is simply the slowest possible rate at which one can die. The reason computer chips are so small is that computers don't eat much. T-shirt in the 21st century: "Disco STILL sucks!" Wernher van Braun settled for a V-2 when he coulda had a V-8. On the wall of the women's restroom in the Enterprise: "Where no man has gone before." 186,000 mps: It isn't only a good idea; it's the law! Radioactive cats half 18 half-lives. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 10 Feb 83 WSJ reports the development of the "biobrick". Biobricks are being made in Beltsville, Md., and are 30% sewage sludge from the regional sewage-treatment plant. The principal problem seems to be overcoming a lot of bad jokes... ----------------------------------------------------------------- Supposedly G.B. Shaw once sent Winston Churchill some tickets for the first night of one of his plays. Churchill then sent Shaw a telegram to the effect: "Cannot come first night. Will come second night if you have one." Shaw promptly replied: "Here are two tickets for the second night. Bring a friend if you have one." ----------------------------------------------------------------- Definition: A manager is a person who thinks that nine women can produce a child in one month. ----------------------------------------------------------------- A man was praying to God one evening, and asked God, "God, in terms of the vastness of your power and knowledge, what does a million dollars mean to you?" God replied, "A penny." Then the man asked, "And, in terms of the vastness of your power and knowledge, what does a million years mean to you?" God replied, "A second." All excited, the man asked, "Well, then, can I borrow a penny?", to which God replied, "In a second." ----------------------------------------------------------------- " It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it." Benjamin Franklin ----------------------------------------------------------------- A true story, according to the LA Times..... Coach Frank Layden of the Utah Jazz asked forward Jeff Wilkins, "Is your bad play due to ignorance or apathy?" Wilkins replied, "I don't know and I don't care!" ----------------------------------------------------------------- Said at an atheist funeral. Here lies an atheist, all dressed up and nowhere to go. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Broadcast blooper of the week Heard on KABC radio: "This program was brought to you by the Canadian Government Office of Terrorism...er, Tourism" ----------------------------------------------------------------- On a bright spring morning, four high-school seniors decided to skip all their morning classes. They arrived at school after lunch and told the teacher a very long-winded story about the flat tire the car had gotten and all the problems they'd encountered in getting it fixed. To their inmense relief, the teacher did not seem too concerned with the story. She just smiled and said, "I'd like you to make up a test you missed this morning. Take seats apart from each other and get out your pens." When the boys were ready, the teacher said, "Each of you answer the following question: Which tire was flat? ----------------------------------------------------------------- The first expedition to Alpha Centauri had finally returned. The leader of the expedition, Captain Feghoot, was making his report to his superior. "So, Feghoot, did you find any indigenous life?" "Yes sir. Intelligent life, if fact. And what's more, they were almost completely identical to humans." "Almost? What do you mean?" "Well sir, they have one less joint in their arms." "I see. So I suppose you could say that..." "Yes sir. The natives are wristless." ----------------------------------------------------------------- This reminds me of the student who began his Middle Ages story with: "He was a dark and stormy knight...." ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Life is a Test. It is only a test. If this were your actual life you would be given better instructions." Stephen R. Donaldson's favorite piece of graffiti, as reported in BEYOND, a Science Fiction/Fantasy Newsletter, published by Book Communications Systems ----------------------------------------------------------------- He's a legend in his own mind. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Flash - New Weapon in America's Arsenal - Dubbed 'The Chicken Gun' - Senate majority leader Howard H. Baker Jr., expressed astonishment to the Senate, over recent news accounts of an Air Force "chicken gun." It seems the gun is a converted 20-foot cannon capable of hurling dead four-pound chickens at airplanes at 700 miles per hour ... The armament is used to help find ways to reduce accidents caused by jets hitting birds. "My first reaction to this story was one of bitterness," Baker told colleagues. "I wonder why a 'special classified briefing' had not been set up for members of Congress on the new chicken gun and I wondered if Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger was planning one." Baker also wondered aloud "how far along the Soviet Union is with the deployment of their 'chicken gun', and how will our Minuteman, Midgetman and Sparrow missles get along with this new weapon..." Baker went on to wonder if the Navy might be working on it's own version of 'the chicken gun', "which would be, one assumes, a 'chicken of the sea'." Baker congratulated the Air Force "on it's resourcefulness." "Despite the fact that there will no doubt be those that will be skeptical of such research, I for one, see nothing more involved than a little 'fowl' play," Baker replied... ----------------------------------------------------------------- Two cadets at an Arizona Airforce academy were bragging in their off time about what good hunters they were. Well, it seems that they decided to have a contest, and whoever won the contest would be accounted the better hunter. To make the things a little more interesting, they each put up a pint of the best whiskey they could find. There had been rumours that a lion had escaped the local zoo and was roaming around loose in the dessert that surrounded the academy. The contest was was that whoever bagged the lion and brought it back to base was the winner. The first cadet borrowed a large hunting rifle and set about hunting down the lion in the conventional manner. The second cadet, who was perhaps a bit more inventive than his counterpart, secured a training jet from the local commander, loaded the wing guns with live ammunition and headed out over the dessert in search of the lion. It wasn't long before he spotted it, and, from the safety of the plane, killed it. He took the plane down, loaded the lion's body into the copilot's seat, and headed back to base, where he promptly downed both bottles. Which just goes to show that a strafed lion is the shortest distance between two pints. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Robots: Our Steel Collar Workers. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Yes, and there's the one about the party of golfers who notice a funeral passing by on a road adjacent to the course. One golfer suggests to the others, "Why don't we pause a moment and show some respect for the dead." So they remove their caps and stand in silence as car after car goes by. Finally, one of them remarks, "There sure are a lot of cars--that person must have been well loved," and the first golfer replies, "Yes--we would have been married 25 years tomorrow." ----------------------------------------------------------------- conversation piece... From 23 Sep 83's "USA Today"...the 10 top ZIP codes by median household income... (1) Los Angeles, California 90077 $81,926 (2) Kenilworth, Illinois 60043 $79,626 (3) Westbury, New York 11568 $75,962 (4) Gladwyne, Pennsylvania 19035 $74,034 (5) Glencoe, Illinois 60022 $72,219 (6) Birmingham, Michigan 48025 $68,143 (7) Greenvale, New York 11548 $67,161 (8) Beverly Hills, California 90210 $66,583 (9) Short Hills, New Jersey 07078 $64,586 (10) Great Neck, New York 11024 $64,300 Other California entries... (15) Pasadena, California 91108 $59,556 (21) Ross, California 94957 $57,837 (35) Van Nuys, California 91436 $54,620 (36) Palos Verdes, California 90274 $53,947 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Feghoot was investigating a newly-discovered planet out Antares way, whose sole inhabitant is an enormous humanoid, three miles high and made of granite. At first, he mistook it for an immense statue left by some vanished race of giants, for it squats motionless on a yellow plain, exhibiting no outward sign of life. It has legs, but it never rises to walk on them. It has a mouth, but it never eats or speaks. It has what appears to be a perfectly functional brain, the size of a four-story condominium, but the organ lies dormant, electrochemical activity at a standstill. Yet it lives. This puzzled the hell out of Feghoot, who tried everything he can think of to get some sign of life from the behemoth - in vain. It just sat there, motionless and seemingly thoughtless, until one day, frustrated beyond endurance, Feghoot screamed, "How could evolution give legs, mouth and brain to a creature that doesn't use them?" It happens that this was the first direct question asked in the thing's presence. It rose with a thunderous rumble to its full height, scattering the clouds, thought for a second, boomed "IT COULDN'T", and squatted down again. "Migod", exclaimed Feghoot, "Of course! IT ONLY STANDS TO REASON." ----------------------------------------------------------------- It's not what you say, but the way you say it. On a blind date, the boy said to the girl: "Time stands still when I look into your eyes." The girl was very flattered. What the boy had really meant was, "You have a face that would stop a clock." ----------------------------------------------------------------- From "Machine Design" Magazine. .....Byte Bat All too often, computers aren't up when you need them, or some sort of system error costs you a lot of time and effort. Hitting a computer or terminal with anything substantial can be satisfying, but expensive. That's where the Byte Bat comes in. It is a foam rubber baseball bat, 17 in. long, that may give you a harmless but satisfying way in which to "strike back" at computers. Specially designed to serve as a frustration shunt, the Byte Bat is compatible with all computers and operating systems, making it the first universally compatible foamware. Each Byte Bat comes with a complete user's manual, one genuine "Byte Bat User Button," one multi-color poster showing the device in use, and a warning decal that advises all who approach that "This computer-friendly liveware is protected by Byte Bat." Computer users who cannot find a Byte Bat locally can order one for $12.50 postpaid by calling 800-277-3900(800-632-2122 in California) ----------------------------------------------------------------- So, there was this farmer who had a pond in back of his house but no ducks in the pond. He had always wanted ducks in the pond so one day he goes and buys a pair of tame ducks. The ducks prospered (i.e. reproduced) and, in fact, their number doubled evey year. Since the ducks were the non-migrating variety after about 9 years the farm was overun with ducks. The farmer still liked the ducks and didn't have the heart to shoot them but the density of ducks was overwhemling. After thinking it over he deciding he would give them to the city zoo. So he calls his neighbor down the road, who has a truck, and says to him "Here's two dollars, if'n you'll would take these here ducks to the zoo for me". His neighbor, who was kinda dense by the way, scratched his head and then, after a bit of thought, agreed. So off he drove with the ducks. After a few hours, the guy has not returned from the city and the farmer is getting worried that something went wrong. So he gets in this car and drives into the city only to see his neighbor's truck parked outside of the local movie theater with the neighbor sitting in the cab. So of course he asks his neighbor what is going on and he says, "Well I still had a dollar left after taking them to the zoo, so I though I would take them to the movies with the remainder". ----------------------------------------------------------------- According to a recent government publication ... A billion seconds ago Harry Truman was president. A billion minutes ago was just after the time of Christ. A billion hours ago man had not yet walked on earth. A billion dollars ago was late yesterday at the U.S. Treasury. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Do you know why the golfer wore two pairs of pants? In case he got a hole in one! ---------------------------------------------------------------- I have two sons who are at opposite poles on the military issue. Rick thinks the military exists "only to kill people" and says so at every chance he gets. Mike thinks the military is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and plans to make it his career. Needless to say, when they get together, sparks fly. A recent interchange went something like this: Rick: "'Military intelligence' is a contradiction in terms." Mike: "No more than 'civilian worker'." ------------------------------------------------------------------ A man being mugged by two thugs put up a tremendous fight! Finally, the thugs subdued him and took his wallet. Upon finding only two dollars in the wallet, the surprised thug said "Why did you put up such a fight?" To which the man promptly replied "I was afraid that you would find the $200 hidden in my shoe!" ------------------------------------------------------------------ By all rights, the first IBM personal computer fair, held in San Francisco over the weekend of Aug. 26-28, ought to have been a wildly joyful celebration honoring Philip D. Estridge, president of IBM's Entry Systems Division. Estridge, after all, is the man who brought to market the IBM PC, a product that has shattered all sales records and won over the marketplace as no other computer ever has. Yet, listen to Don Estridge, as he addressed a session of software designers and hardware vendors about the PC: "There's a question that keeps coming up, like waves on the beach: 'What do I use one for?'" ---------------------------------------------------------------- *start* 20230 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Date: 31 Aug 87 10:15:48 PDT (Monday) From: Cate3.PA Subject: Life 2.8 To: cc: , Cate3 ----------------------------------------------------------------- During the Six Day War, this division of Arabs is making its way across the burning desert sands towards Israel, when the Arab commander, bouncing along in his jeep, spots an aged Israeli on top a distant sand dune. The commander drops his binoculars and shouts orders to a foot soldier to run up ahead and kill the infidel Israeli. The soldier sprints ahead of the advancing troops, and soon disappears over the sand dune. The general stops the troops and waits to see what happens. Nothing happens. The commander sends a whole platoon of soldiers to investigate. All twelve Arabs disappear over the sand dune, never to be seen again. The now-slightly-anxious commander dispatches 3 tanks to find out just what in the heck is going on, and they disappear over the dune, too. Sweat pours down the commander's forehead as he orders his entire division to overrun the solitary Israeli behind the sand dune. But just then, the first soldier reappears on the distant sand dune and cups his hands to his lips. "Go back!" he shouts. "Go back! It's hopeless-- there's TWO of them!" ----------------------------------------------------------------- In a survey taken several years ago, all incoming freshman at MIT were asked if they expected to graduate in the top half of their class. Ninety-seven percent responded that they did. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Two drunks are stumbling along a railroad track which happens to go up a mountain. The first drunk says, "These are the lousiest steps I ever tried to climb!" The second, who is bent over, replies, "You think that's bad, wait till you try to hold the handrail!" ----------------------------------------------------------------- From the Illinois Central Magazine of February 1947 Knowing that the minister was very fond of cherry brandy, one of the church elders offered to present him with a bottle on one consideration - that the pastor acknowledge receipt of the gift in the church paper. "Gladly," responded the good man. When the church magazine came out a few days later, the elder turned at once to the "appreciation" column. There he read: "The minister extends his thanks to Elder Brown for his gift of fruit and for the spirit in which it was given." ----------------------------------------------------------------- As the White Queen pointed out to Alice, "You've got to go as fast as you possibly can just to stay in one place; to get anywhere, you got to go faster than that." ----------------------------------------------------------------- Quote for the Day -- On being Well Rounded "And every spring, a new graduating class enters the workforce. Some have a well-rounded view of operating systems, but for many there is only Unix." - Gord Campbell, InfoAge editorial, Nov 84 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: You Deserve a Break Today San Francisco (UPI)--In what legal observers are already calling a landmark decision in the case of Jackson v. California, the California Supreme Court has recognized for the first time a constitutional right to chicken done right. The high court held that under the the due process clause and the constitutional prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, Joseph Jackson, a prisoner at the California Men's Correctional Institue at Camarillo, is entitled to food "of fair average quality," or "comparable to the fare at a modest restaurant or fast-food chain." Mr. Jackson had complained of the poor quality of the prison kitchen's Coq au Vin .... ----------------------------------------------------------------- [From Forbes] When Apple IIc was introduced, the informative copy led off with a couple of asterisked sentences: "It weighs less than 8 pounds.*" "And costs less than $1,300.**" In tiny type were these fabulous "fuller explanations": *Don't asterisks make you suspicious as all get out? Well all this means is that the IIc alone weights 7.5 pounds. The power pack, monitor, an extra disk drive, a printer and several bricks will make the IIc weigh more. Our lawyers were concerned that you might not be able to figure this out for yourself. **The FTC is concerned about price fixing. You can pay more if you really want to. Or less. ----------------------------------------------------------------- From Harper's Magazine: Amount of pizza eaten each day in U.S. (acres): 75 ----------------------------------------------------------------- From Dear Abby Dec 12, 1984: Dear Readers: If You can use a few good laughs today, try these quotes: "Eighty percent of married men cheat in America. The rest cheat in Europe." -Jackie Mason "Your manuscript is both good and original. But the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good." -Samuel Johnson "A man is incomplete until he is married. After that, he is finished." -Zsa Zsa Gabor "A critic is a man who knows the way, but can't drive the car." -Kenneth Tynan "France is a country where the money falls apart but you can't tear the toilet paper." -Billy Wilder The above quotes are from the book "The Other 637 Best Things Anybody Ever Said" by Robert Byrne (published by Atheneum). It's $10.95, and worth every cent. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Found on the seal of a bag of bagels: NEW IMPROVED Made the old fashioned way ----------------------------------------------------------------- On a story about the discovery of a 20-million-year-old bear-dog den: "Den of Antiquity Uncovered" ----------------------------------------------------------------- Did you hear about the gallant lady in Peru who saved a pulled a drowning man from a lake, fell in love and got married before the Inca was dry. ----------------------------------------------------------------- RESPONDING TO A READER WHO COMPLAINED that his radio had been in a repair shop for two years, the "Action Line" reporter for an Ottawa, Canada, newspaper, \The Citizen/, claimed it had taken another area resident seven years to have a black-and-white television set repaired. According to the story, the set was stolen from the repair shop, then had to be held as evidence in the thief's trial. After it was returned to the repair shop, the shop owner died, and while his funeral was going on, thieves broke into the store and stole the set again. After being recovered by the police once more(!), the TV was returned to the original owner, who took it to another repair shop, but that business went bankrupt, and the receivers liquidating the shop's assets sold the set accidentally. After being informed of their mistake, the liquidation company bought the set back and was delivering it to its owner when it accidentally rolled onto its face and the picture tube broke. After a lengthy debate over responsibility for the accident, the liquidating firm finally agreed to pay, but by then the original manufacturer of the set had gone out of business and replacement parts were hard to find. Nevertheless, seven years after it first broke down, the set was finally repaired. However, on his way home with the TV in the trunk of his car, the owner was struck from behind by a careening pickup truck. The set was demolished. (contributed by R. J. Lemaire) ----------------------------------------------------------------- From Robert C. Cumbow's "Pardon Me Roy, and Other Groaners": A publisher was dismayed at the manuscript for Robert Louis Stevenson's "A Child's Garden of Verses." He'd contracted for a children's book, of course, but he was appalled that Stevenson had delivered a volume of poetry. "It'll never sell," said the publisher, and informed Stevenson that he was backing out of the contract. Stevenson, however, gently reminded him that he had no leg to stand on. "After all," said the author, "I never promised you a prose garden." ----------------------------------------------------------------- GET OUT YOUR 'PORTABLE HAND-HELD COMMUNICATIONS INSCRIBERS' WASHINGTON - When is a pencil not a pencil? When it's on a Pentagon shopping list - then it's a ''portable hand-held communications inscriber,'' says a Republican senator. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Not far from Rank Xerox's office in Welwyn, England, there is a town called Hitchin. On one of the commonly used routes into Hitchin, there was a junction which often confused travellers, causing them to make a wrong turn. The resulting route was nine miles longer than the correct route into Hitchin. This common mistake was sufficiently irritating that the local people waged a campaign to have a new signpost erected at the junction. After due process, the signpost was installed, and the local people showed up for the installation, holding a sort of mini-festival of celebration. The local newspaper reported the event with the following headline: "A Hitchin Sign Saves Nine" ----------------------------------------------------------------- Sign in a restaurant: "We reserve the right to serve refuse to anyone." ----------------------------------------------------------------- According to "The Australian," an airliner recently encountered severe vibration in flight. The captain decided to make an emergency landing, and switched on the seat belt sign. The vibration stopped immediately. A passenger emerged from a lavatory and explained that he had been jogging in place inside. ----------------------------------------------------------------- NOBODY EVER HAD A RAINBOW WITHOUT A LITTLE RAIN ----------------------------------------------------------------- LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (The Times of London) Dear Sir, I am firmly opposed to the spread of microchips either to the home or to the office, We have more than enough of them foisted upon us in public places. They are a disgusting Americanism, and can only result in the farmers being forced to grow smaller potatoes, which in turn will cause massive unemployment in the already severely depressed agricultural industry. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Q: What's the difference between Xerox and the Titanic? A: The Titanic had a band. ----------------------------------------------------------------- NO ZAMBODIANS, PLEASE: Judge Rules Out Prince Mongo's Costume MEMPHIS, Tenn. - A judge has ruled that a defendant can't show up for trial wearing fur, bones, goggles and pale green body paint, even if he is from the planet Zambodia. But an attorney for the man who calls himself Prince Mongo wants to make a federal case out of his client's 10-day jail sentence for contempt of court. Slug PM-Prince Mongo. New, may stand. Federal court hearing starts at 1 p.m. EDT. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Scene on the rear mud-flaps of a large truck left mud-flap right mud-flap Passing Side Suicide /| |\ / ------ ------ \ \ ------ ------ / \| |/ El Paso El Cruncho (spanish) (spanish) ----------------------------------------------------------------- There is no statute of limitations on stupidity The average nutritional value of promises is roughly zero ----------------------------------------------------------------- Re that garbage barge that can't find a home - Heard on the radio as I drove to work this AM "why don't we ship the garbage barge to Iran and "accidently" sink it off their coast." OR send that barge over, put an American flag on it and wait till THEY sink it. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Re the statistics..... The best rebuttal to this kind of statistical argument came from the redoubtable John W. Campbell: The laws of population growth tell us that approximately half the people who were ever born in the history of the world are now dead. There is therefore a 0.5 probability that this message is being read by a corpse. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Billion dollars of budget deficit =1 Gramm-Rudman 6.023 x 10 to the 23rd power alligator pears = Avocado's number 2 pints = 1 Cavort Basic unit of Laryngitis = the Hoarsepower Shortest distance between two jokes = A straight line 6 Curses = 1 Hexahex 3500 Calories = 1 Food Pound 1 Mole = 007 Secret Agents = 25 Cagey Bees 1 Dog Pound = 16 oz of Alpo 1000 beers served at a Twins game = 1 Killibrew 2.4 statute miles of surgical tubing at Yale U. = 1 I.V.League 2000 pounds of chinese soup = 1 Won Ton 10 to the minus 6th power mouthwashes = 1 Microscope Speed of a tortoise breaking the sound barrier = 1 Machturtle 8 Catfish = 1 Octo - Puss 365 Days of drinking Lo-Cal beer. = 1 Lite-year 16.5 feet in the Twilight Zone = 1 Rod Serling Force needed to accelerate 2.2lbs of cookies to 1 meter per second = 1 Fig - Newton one half large intestine = 1 Semicolon 10 to the minus 6th power Movie = 1 Microfilm 1000 pains = 1 Megahertz 1 Word = 1 Millipicture 1 Sagan = Billions & Billions 1 Angstrom: measure of computer anxiety = 1000 nail-bytes 10 to the 12th power microphones = 1 Megaphone 10 to the 6th power Bicycles = 2 megacycles The amount of beauty required launch 1 ship = 1 Millihelen Things to be aware of: The number of feet in a yard is directly proportional to the success of the barbecue. 1 Bananosecond is the amount of time between slipping on the peel and landing on the pavement. The amount of weight an evangelist carries with the almighty is measured in Billigrahams. If a can of Alpo costs $.38 in our rate of exchange, would it cost $2.50 in Dog Dollars. The rate at which a disease spreads through a corn field - the speed of Blight ----------------------------------------------------------------- Copied from the Sunday Daily Breeze- Take heart, America. Three monkey wrenches have been thrown into Japan's well-oiled economic machine. It's only a mater of time before that powerful engine of productivity begins to sputter and fail. What could cause such a sharp turnaround? High interest rates? Increased unemployment? Lower productivity? No, it's something much more economically debilitating - and permanent. Three American lawyers have become the first foreign attorneys permitted to practice law in Japan. What's more, two of them are from New York! The decline has begun. Japan has one attorney for every 10,000 residents, compared to the U.S. ratio of one attorney for every 390 residents. For every 100 attorneys trained in Japan, there are 1,000 enginerrs. In the United States, that ratio is reversed. But a law that became effective on April 1 permits foreigners to practice in Japan for the first time since 1955. Already, an additional 20 American and six British lawyers have applied for permission to open practices in Japan. If anything can slow the Japanese economy, it's the presence of American attorneys. What better way to even our balance of trade than to send Japan our costliest surplus commodity? ----------------------------------------------------------------- A chauffeur worked for a woman who took her cat with her on rides. During one trip, the driver droped her at a mall before he gasing up. The cat remained in the car, laying down on the top of the limousine's back seat. The service station's attendant often glanced at unusual passenger. Finally he asked: "Sir, is that cat someone important?" Working at a theater box-office ticket window poses many challenges in dealing with people. When a disgruntled customer at a window exclaimed, "No Tickets?" What do you mean NO TICKETS?" the women waiting on him smiled sweeting. "I'm terribly sorry, sir," she replied. "Which word didn't you understand?" A normally sweet Great Dane Psil has one quirk: she hates United Parcel Service drivers. While walk Psil one day, around the corner of a house came a UPS man. Struggling to keep hold of Psil, the owner tried to ease the situation said, "As you can see, he just loves UPS men." "Don't you feed her anything else?" he responded. One student fell into a cycle of classes, studying, working and sleeping. Didn't realize how long he had neglected writing home until he received the following note: "Dear Son, Your mother and I enjoyed your last letter. Of course, we were much younger then, and more impressionable. Love, Dad." One women is never happy when she has to wait in line, and people who try to squeeze in front are a special sore point. One day a young man at the supermarket stepped up to her just as she reached the checkout counter. "Mind if I go ahead?" he asked. "I just have this one can of dog food." "Goodness, no," she roared, "If you're that hungry, go right ahead!" ----------------------------------------------------------------- Guidelines for good writing from a recent Omni article: - Subject and verb always has to agree. - Do not use a foreign term when there is an adequate English quid pro quo. - It behooves the writer to avoid archaic expressions. - Do not use hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it effectively. - Avoid cliches like the plague. - Mixed mataphors are a pain in th eneck and should be thrown out the window. - Placing a comma between subject and predicate, is not correct. - Parenthetical words however must be enclosed in commas. - Consult a dictionary frequently to avoid mispelling. - Don't be redundant. - Don't repeat yourself or say what you have said before. - Remember to never split an infinitive. - The passive voice should not be used. - Use the apostrophe in it's proper place and omit it when its not needed. - Don't use no double negatives. - Proofread carefully to see if you have any words out. - Hopefully, you will use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them. - Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do. - Avoid colloquial stuff. - No sentence fragments. - Remember to finish what ----------------------------------------------------------------- Quite a number of years ago, the Seattle Symphony was doing Beethoven's Ninth under the baton of Milton Katims..... Now at this point, you must understand two things: (1.) There's a quite long segment in this symphony where the bass violins don't have a thing to do. Not a single note for page after page. (2.) There used to be a tavern called Dez's 400, right across the street from the Seattle Opera House, rather favored by local musicians. It had been decided that during this performance, once the bass players had played their parts in the opening of the Ninth, they were to quietly lay down their instruments and leave the stage, rather than sit on their stools looking and feeling dumb for twenty minutes. Well, once they got backstage, someone suggested that they trot across the street and quaff a few brews. After they had downed the first couple rounds, one said, "Shouldn't we be getting back? It'd be awfully embarrassing if we were late." Another, presumably the one who suggested this excursion in the first place, replied, "Oh, I anticipated we could use a little more time, so I tied a string around the last pages of the conductor's score. When he gets down to there, Milton's going to have to slow the tempo way down while he waves the baton with one hand and fumbles with the string with the other." So they had another round, and finally returned to the Opera house, a little tipsy by now. However, as they came back on stage, one look at their conductor's face told them they were in serious trouble. Katims was furious! And why not? After all... It was the bottom of the Ninth, the basses were loaded, and the score was tied. ---------------------------------------------------------------- *start* 22382 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Date: 31 Aug 87 10:16:03 PDT (Monday) From: Cate3.PA Subject: Life 2.9 To: cc: , Cate3 ----------------------------------------------------------------- The World According to Student Bloopers Richard Lederer St. Paul's School One of the fringe benefits of being an English or History teacher is receiving the occasional jewel of a student blooper in an essay. I have pasted together the following "history" of the world from certifiably genuine student bloopers collected by teachers throughout the United States, from eight grade through college level. Read carefully, and you will learn a lot. The inhabitants of Egypt were called mummies. They lived in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere, so certain areas of the dessert are cul- tivated by irritation. The Egyptians built the Pyramids in the shape of a huge triangular cube. The Pramids are a range of mountains between France and Spain. The Bible is full of interesting caricatures. In the first book of the Bible, Guinesses, Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. One of their children, Cain, asked "Am I my brother's son?" God asked Abraham to sacrifice Issac on Mount Montezuma. Jacob, son of Issac, stole his brother's birthmark. Jacob was a partiarch who brought up his twelve sons to be partiarchs, but they did not take to it. One of Jacob's sons, Joseph, gave refuse to the Israelites. Pharaoh forced the Hebrew slaves to make bread without straw. Moses led them to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients. Afterwards, Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. David was a Hebrew king skilled at playing the liar. He fougth with the Philatelists, a race of people who lived in Biblical times. Solomon, one of David's sons, had 500 wives and 500 porcupines. Without the Greeks, we wouldn't have history. The Greeks invented three kinds of columns - Corinthian, Doric and Ironic. They also had myths. A myth is a female moth. One myth says that the mother of Achilles dipped him in the River Stynx until he became intolerable. Achilles appears in "The Illiad", by Homer. Homer also wrote the "Oddity", in which Penelope was the last hardship that Ulysses endured on his journey. Actually, Homer was not written by Homer but by another man of that name. Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock. In the Olympic Games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled the biscuits, and threw the java. The reward to the victor was a coral wreath. The government of Athen was democratic because the people took the law into their own hands. There were no wars in Greece, as the mountains were so high that they couldn't climb over to see what their neighbors were doing. When they fought the Parisians, the Greeks were outnumbered because the Persians had more men. Eventually, the Ramons conquered the Geeks. History call people Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long. At Roman banquets, the guests wore garlic in their hair. Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March killed him because they thought he was going to be made king. Nero was a cruel tyrany who would torture his poor subjects by playing the fiddle to them. Then came the Middle Ages. King Alfred conquered the Dames, King Arthur lived in the Age of Shivery, King Harlod mustarded his troops before the Battle of Hastings, Joan of Arc was cannonized by George Bernard Shaw, and the victims of the Black Death grew boobs on their necks. Finally, the Magna Carta provided that no free man should be hanged twice for the same offense. In midevil times most of the people were alliterate. The greatest writer of the time was Chaucer, who wrote many poems and verse and also wrote liter- ature. Another tale tells of William Tell, who shot an arrow through an apple while standing on his son's head. The Renaissance was an age in which more individuals felt the value of their human being. Martin Luther was nailed to the church door at Wittenberg for selling papal indulgences. He died a horrible death, being excommunicated by a bull. It was the painter Donatello's interest in the female nude that made him the father of the Renaissance. It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented the Bible. Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes. Another important invention was the circulation of blood. Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper. The government of England was a limited mockery. Henry VIII found walking difficult because he had an abbess on his knee. Queen Elizabeth was the "Vir- gin Queen." As a queen she was a success. When Elizabeth exposed herself be- fore her troops, they all shouted "hurrah." Then her navy went out and defeated the Spanish Armadillo. The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespear. Shakespear never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He lived in Windsor with his merry wives, writing tragedies, comedies and errors. In one of Shakespear's famous plays, Hamlet rations out his situation by relieving himself in a long soliloquy. In another, Lady Macbeth tries to convince Mac- beth to kill the King by attacking his manhood. Romeo and Juliet are an example of a heroic couplet. Writing at the same time as Shakespear was Miquel Cervantes. He wrote "Donkey Hote". The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote "Paradise Lost." Then his wife dies and he wrote "Paradise Regained." During the Renaissance America began. Christopher Columbus was a great navigator who discovered America while cursing about the Atlantic. His ships were called the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Fe. Later the Pilgrims crossed the Ocean, and the was called the Pilgrim's Progress. When they landed at Plymouth Rock, they were greeted by Indians, who came down the hill rolling their was hoops before them. The Indian squabs carried porposies on their back. Many of the Indian heroes were killed, along with their cabooses, which proved very fatal to them. The winter of 1620 was a hard one for the settlers. Many people died and many babies were born. Captain John Smith was responsible for all this. One of the causes of the Revolutionary Wars was the English put tacks in their tea. Also, the colonists would send their pacels through the post with- out stamps. During the War, Red Coats and Paul Revere was throwing balls over stone walls. The dogs were barking and the peacocks crowing. Finally, the colonists won the War and no longer had to pay for taxis. Delegates from the original thirteen states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin had gone to Boston carrying all his clothes in his pocket and a loaf of bread under each arm. He invented elec- tricity by rubbing cats backwards and declared "a horse divided against itself cannot stand." Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead. George Washington married Matha Curtis and in due time became the Father of Our Country. Them the Constitution of the United States was adopted to secure domestic hostility. Under the Constitution the people enjoyed the right to keep bare arms. Abraham Lincoln became America's greatest Precedent. Lincoln's mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands. When Lincoln was President, he wore only a tall silk hat. He said, "In onion there is strength." Abraham Lincoln write the Gettysburg address while traveling from Washington to Gettysburg on the back of an envelope. He also signed the Emasculation Proclamation, and the Fourteenth Amendment gave the ex-Negroes citizenship. But the Clue Clux Clan would torcher and lynch the ex-Negroes and other innocent victims. On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theater and got shot in his seat by one of the actors in a moving picture show. The believed assinator was John Wilkes Booth, a sup- posedl insane actor. This ruined Booth's career. Meanwhile in Europe, the enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltare invented electricity and also wrote a book called "Candy". Gravity was invented by Issac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the Autumn, when the apples are flaling off the trees. Bach was the most famous composer in the world, and so was Handel. Handel was half German, half Italian and half English. He was very large. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this. France was in a very serious state. The French Revolution was accomplished before it happened. The Marseillaise was the theme song of the French Revolu- tion, and it catapulted into Napoleon. During the Napoleonic Wars, the crowned heads of Europe were trembling in their shoes. Then the Spanish gorrilas came down from the hills and nipped at Napoleon's flanks. Napoleon became ill with bladder problems and was very tense and unrestrained. He wanted an heir to inheret his power, but since Josephine was a baroness, she couldn't bear him any children. The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire is in the East and the sun sets in the West. Queen Victoria was the longest queen. She sat on a thorn for 63 years. He reclining years and finally the end of her life were exemplatory of a great personality. Her death was the final event which ended her reign. The nineteenth century was a time of many great inventions and thoughts. The invention of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to spring up. Cyrus McCormick invented the McCormick Raper, which did the work of a hundred men. Samuel Morse invented a code for telepathy. Louis Pastuer discovered a cure for rabbis. Charles Darwin was a naturailst who wrote the "Organ of the Species". Madman Curie discovered radium. And Karl Marx became one of the Marx Brothers. The First World War, cause by the assignation of the Arch-Duck by a surf, ushered in a new error in the anals of human history. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Q: What do you call a sadistic Dentist who rides a motorcycle and wears a black leather jacket? A: The Leader of the Plaque Q: Why didn't they tell jokes in Jonestown? A: The punch lines were too long. ----------------------------------------------------------------- LIVE NOW THERE'LL BE PLENTY OF TIME TO BE DEAD LATER ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL, BUT SOME MUST BE SENT TO SIBERIA. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Q: How many members of the U.S.S. Enterprise does it take to change a light bulb? A: 7. Scotty will report to Captain Kirk that the light bulb in the Engineering Section is burnt out, to which Kirk will send Bones to pronounce the bulb dead. Scotty, after checking around, notices that they have no more new light bulbs, and complains that he can't see in the dark to tend to his engines. Kirk must make an emergency stop at the next uncharted planet, Alpha Regula IV, to procure a light bulb from the natives. Kirk, Spock, Bones, Sulu, and 3 red shirt security officers beam down. The 3 security officers are promptly killed by the natives, and the rest of the landing party is captured. Meanwhile, back in orbit, Scotty notices a Klingon ship approaching and must warp out of orbit to escape detection. Bones cures the native king who is suffering from the flu, and as a reward the landing party is set free and given all of the light bulbs they can carry. Scotty cripples the Klingon ship and warps back to the planet just in time to beam up Kirk et. al. The new bulb is inserted, and the Enterprise continues with its five year mission. ----------------------------------------------------------------- My four year old and I were discussing holidays, and I asked him, "What is the day which comes after Halloween when you have turkey?" My husband quickly answered, "Election day." ----------------------------------------------------------------- After spending an evening of rather intense drinking at the local pub, a man ventured out into the cold rainy night to go home. No sooner than he had left the pub, he sipped off the road and got lost in torents of rain. He soon found himself in a graveyard and as luck would have it, he fell head-long into a freshly dug grave. In his condition, the rain and mud proved too much and he could not free himself from the grave. So, he started to yell,"HELP, I'M COLD... HELP! I'M COLD". Soon an other over indulged inebrient left the pub for his own home. As the second man started off he heard a distant "help, i'm cold" and began to follow it. Soon, it got louder,"Help! I'm Cold, Help! I'm Cold" And as he neared the cemetary the voice got ever louder,"HELP!, I'm Cold." Just as the second man nears the grave and peers over the side the First looks up and yells, "HELP!! I'M COLD!" The second man replies, "Of course your cold, you've kicked all your dirt off." ----------------------------------------------------------------- What's the difference between a chair and a toothbrush? You can't brush your teeth with a chair. What's the difference between a fish and a bicycle? They can both swim, except for the bicycle. ----------------------------------------------------------------- What would you call Santa's son if he became an elf? A subordinate Claus. What does Santa call his wife at tax time? A dependent Claus. Santa noticed that the elves weren't working as hard this year as last so he told them that the elf who made the most toys could have his beautiful daughter for one night. What did the elves call his daughter after that?An incentive Claus. ----------------------------------------------------------------- I can't believe you are the result of millions of years of evolution. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Two hobbyists get into their balloon for an excursion. After a while, the wind unexpectedly picks up, and the balloon goes out of control. The two balloonists, with great effort, manage to keep the balloon stable, upright, and away from power lines. But they are lost. With more effort, they get the balloon near the ground. While floating over a country road, they see a man walking below. One of the balloonists calls down to him: "We're lost! Can you tell us where we are?" The man thinks for a while, looks down, looks up, looks down again, stares into space for a minute, and then cries out: "You're in a balloon!" The wind picks up, and the balloon floats off. After a moment, one balloonist says to the other: "That man must be a manager." "Why?" "Three reasons. First, he took a long time to answer. Second, he was perfectly correct. Third, his answer was perfectly useless!" ----------------------------------------------------------------- SAW THIS ON THE BACK OF A VAN IN ROCHESTER; CAUTION: BLIND MAN DRIVING ON THE SIDE OF THE VAN (AFTER I PASSED IT TO CHECK OUT THE DRIVER) ROCHESTER VENETIAN BLIND CO. ----------------------------------------------------------------- A pickup with three guys in it pulls into the lumber yard. One of the guys gets out and goes into the office. "I need some four-by-two's," he says. "You must mean two-by-four's" says the clerk. The guy gets a kind of a blank stare and scratches his head. "Wait a minute," he says, "I'll go check." He goes out to the truck. The window gets rolled down, and there's an animated conversation. Finally the guy comes back in. "Yeah," he says, "I meant two-by-fours." "OK," says the clerk, "how long you want 'em?" The guy gets the blank look again. "Uh . . . I guess I better go check," he says. He goes out to the truck, again. There's another animated conversation. The guy comes back into the office. "A long time," he says, "we're building a house". ----------------------------------------------------------------- A high school teacher was giving a true/false test. He was strolling up and down the aisles surveying the students at work. He came upon one student who was flipping a coin, then writing. Teacher: What are you doing? Student: Getting the answers to the test. The teacher shook his head and walked on. A little while later, when everyone was finished with the test, the teacher noticed the student was again flipping the coin. Teacher: Now what are you doing? Student: I'm checking the answers. ----------------------------------------------------------------- In the days of the knights, a midget told his king that he, too, wanted to be a knight. Too small, said the king. But the determined midget went about the kingdom, catching highwaymen and rescuing maidens, until the news got back to the king. "All right," said the king. "I dub thee knight." Special miniature armor was hammered out for him. A galley knife was honed into a sword. But no horse little enough was found. So the king substituted a large shaggy dog. And the midget went forth again to do good. A terrible rainstorm came up. The midget rode to a nearby inn. But the innkeeper said there was no more room. The midget pointed out how little space he'd take up. The innkeeper looked him over, and his mount, too, both soaked to the skin, and finally said, "Come on in. We'll find a spot for you. I couldn't send a knight out on a dog like this." ----------------------------------------------------------------- Groucho Marx: I wouldn't want to belong to any club that would have me. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "You can neither win nor lose if you don't run the race" --Bowie. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Boosted form Reader's digest years ago - A good friend of mine was recently touring Scotland. After stopping in a local store he spied a kilt that he absolutely had to have. After haggling with the shopkeeper for an extended period of time, they arrived at a mutually agreeable price far below that which was posted. My friend then took out his velcro wallet and proceeded to open it, at which point the shopkeeper exclaimed "Ay, now therrres a good Scotch purse, it even screams when ye open it!" ----------------------------------------------------------------- From the San Jose Mercury News, Sunday 14 July 1985, page 23A, referring to arson investigations: On highly publicized cases, it's not unusual for tips to arrive from all over the country. "People call in and tell us about one individual they don't like. They say, 'He's the type who could have done it.' A couple hundred of those and you're chasing people all over the country," Bressler said. In one case, he was flooded with calls from "people back in the Midwest who knew people in California who were really weird." It wasn't the kind of tip that led anywhere, he said. "Almost all of California's really weird compared to the Midwest." ----------------------------------------------------------------- Lots of folks are forced to skimp to support a government that won't. ******************************************************************* A man doesn't become a failure until he is satisfied with being one. ******************************************************************* The advice your son rejected is now being given by him to your grandson. ******************************************************************* Working mothers are guinea pigs in a scientific experiment to show that sleep is not necessary to human life. ******************************************************************* Some people pray for more than they are willing to work for. ******************************************************************* There would be a lot more work done if we weren't living in such a clock-eyed world. ******************************************************************* One of the most common mistakes is to believe that others know more about the problem than you do. ******************************************************************* Parents often talk about the younger generations as if they didn't have anything to do with it. ----------------------------------------------------------------- The Fred Society has a little triangle out with "Fred in Car". What's the Fred Society? It's a membership of people named Fred and their friends who promote the positive image of people named Fred. Serious - it really exists! The Fred Society P.O. Box 5115 Garden Grove, Ca 92645 (714) 540-2458 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Saw this a while back: IF YOU'RE RICH, I'M SINGLE (after taking a look at the driver, I gave all my money to charity....) ------------------------------------------------------------ A deaf guy steps up to tee off on the first hole of a golf course, when a large burly guy yells "Hey You!, Nobody tees off ahead of Big Joe". Being deaf the poor guy continues to prepare for his shot, so Joe runs up thinking the deaf guy is being obstinate, and knocks the poor guy to the ground, kicks his ball away, and prepares for his own shot. After Joe has hit the ball and proceeded down the fairway after it, the deaf guy gets up brushes himself off, waits a moment, and again prepares his shot. The deaf guy then hits a bueatiful shot straight up the middle of the fairway, striking big Joe in the back of the head, and knocking him unconcious. The deaf guy then walks down the fairway rolls big Joe over and goes (This is the visual part please hold four fingers in front of your face). ----------------------------------------------------------- *start* 19689 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Date: 31 Aug 87 10:16:19 PDT (Monday) From: Cate3.PA Subject: Life 2.A To: cc: , Cate3 ----------------------------------------------------------------- There is a new play at a small theater in W. Hollywood. They have a small brochure advertising the play (The name of the play is "Circle of Will") . Where they have reproduced the reviews from several newspapers (the LA Times, the Herald Examiner etc.) The last of these reviews reads: *"FANTASTIC!"* "If I had known my life was so funny. I'd have lived longer and written this play myself." William Shakespeare ----------------------------------------------------------------- Angelo Spagnola of Fayette City, Pennyslvania, earns the dubious distinction of being named the worst avid golfer in America by GOLF DIGEST. In a playoff of the countries four worst golfers, the 31-year-old grocery store manager shoot an incredible 257 for 18 holes. He clinches the title by shooting 66 on the 17th hole. ----------------------------------------------------------------- By R. J. Heathorn (* PUNCH, May 9, 1962) A new aid to rapid--almost magical--learning has made its appearance. Indications are that if it catches on all the electronic gadgets will be so much junk. The new device is known as Built-in Orderly Organized Knowledge. The makers generally call it by its initials, BOOK. Many advantages are claimed over the old-style learning and teaching aids on which most people are brought up nowadays. It has no wires, no electric circuit to break down. No connection is needed to an electricity power point. It is made entirely without mechanical parts to go wrong or need replacement. Anyone can use BOOK, even children, and it fits comfortably into the hands. It can be conveniently used sitting in an armchair by the fire. How does this revoluntionary, unbelievably easy invention work? Basically BOOK consists only of a large number of paper sheets. These may run to hundreds where BOOK covers a lengthy programme of information. Each sheet bears a number in sequence, so that the sheets cannot be used in the wrong order. To make it even easier for the user to keep the sheets in the proper order they are held firmly in place by a special locking device called a "binding". Each sheet of paper presents the user with an information sequence in the form of symbols, which he absorbs optically for automatic registration on the brain. When one sheet has been assimilated a flick of the finger turns it over and further information is found on the other side. By using both sides of each sheet in this way a great economy is effected, thus reducing both the size and cost of BOOK. No buttons need to be pressed to move from one sheet to another, to open or close BOOK, or to start it working. BOOK may be taken up at any time and used by merely opening it. Instantly it is ready for use. Nothing has to be connected up or switched on. The user may turn at will to any sheet, going backwards or forwards as he pleases. A sheet is provided near the beginnning as a location finder for any required information sequence. A small accessory, available at trifling extra cost, is the BOOKmark. This enables the user to pick up his programme where he left off on the previous learning session. BOOKmark is versatile and may be used in any BOOK. The initial cost varies with the size and subject matter. Already a vast range of BOOKs is available, covering every conceivable subject and adjusted to different levels of aptitude. One BOOK, small enough to be held in the hands, may contain an entire learning schedule. Once purchased, BOOK requires no further upkeep cost; no batteries or wires are needed, since the motive power, thanks to an ingenious device patented by the makers, is supplied by the brain of the user. BOOKs may be stored on handy shelves and for ease of reference the programme schedule is normally indicated on the back of the binding. Altogether the Built-in Orderly Organized Knowledge seems to have great advantages with no drawbacks. We predict a big future for it. -------------------------------- A Boss' response: BOOK* does not, in spite of the claims, seem "to have great advantages with no drawbacks". Soon, it probably won't even be legal. Consider: "It can be conveniently used sitting in an armchair by the fire." Being paper, it might burn in the fire. Probably fire laws in most locations wouldn't allow its use there. Worse, such a device, which encourages close proximity of the user to fire, will be outlawed by OSHA's request. "Each sheet bears a number in sequence, so that the sheets cannot be used in the wrong order." How quaint; to think that the programmer (author) would be allowed to turn over such an important task to the user! "cannot" is clearly misuse; any user could incorrectly turn to the wrong page. A proper user interface might correct that, of course, such as requiring that each sheet be torn off to expose the next. This is a clear conflict with "The user may turn at will to any sheet, going backwards or forwards as he pleases." and "BOOKs may be stored on handy shelves and for ease of reference". The user interface obviously needs more work before such a system can be practical. "the motive power -- is supplied by the brain of the user". Clearly, the inventors have not examined recent trends. No serious person would suggest even expecting a "user" to have a brain present, much less to use it so continuously. I'd suggest the inventors return to their consoles and do a thorough associative search of various data banks, like the rest of us, and forget this nonsense. ----------------------------------------------------------------- This is related by a recent emigre from the USSR, according to a recent issue of "World Press Review": One colllld winter, a rumor went around that a certain butcher shop would have meat for sale the next day. By very early the next morning, a long queue had formed outside of the butcher shop. At 8 o'clock an official came out briefly and announced, "Well, comrades, I'm afraid there's not enough meat for everybody here. Would all of the Jews leave?" They did, and the line was shortened somewhat. At 11 o'clock the official came out again and announced, "Well, comrades, I'm afraid there's still not enough meat for all. Would all of the non-party members please leave?" They did, and the line was shortened again. At 2 o'clock, the official came out again. "There's still not enough meat for all of you! Would all those who did not defend our great country from the fascist German intruder leave?" Once again, the line was considerably shortened. At 5 o'clock, the official announcement was, "There's still not enough! Would all those who did not participate in the liberation of our people from the terrors of the Czar leave!" This included just about everybody. Finally, at 8 o'clock in the evening, the official came out again. The only people left in line wev%three half-frozen old men. He told them, "There isn't any meat." The old men moved slowly away, grumbling among themselves - "Those Jews get the best of everything!!" ----------------------------------------------------------------- I have had a remarkable variety of reactions to the following joke that was printed in the July issue of the American Airlines magazine, "American Way." "In the best of all possible worlds, a businessman would have a Chinese cook, live in an English house, make an American salary, and be married to a Japanese wife. And the absolute worst situation a man could find himself in? Eating English food, in a Japanese house, on a Chinese salary, with an American wife." A joke making the rounds of Peking officialdom ----------------------------------------------------------------- Bumper Sticker: If all else fails read the instructions (The Bible) Prepare for your FINALS Read the Bible ----------------------------------------------------------------- Another example of Fashion Victimization is this trend toward paying good money for pre-scuzzed ratty-looking garments that earlier, less fashion-conscious generations such as your mother's would have used to wipe the toilet tank. I was in a fashion store the other day, and they were selling blue jeans $55 a pair, which would not be unusual, except that these jeans had HOLES in them. On PURPOSE. They are imported from Italy, where a person is PAID to put holes in them. They are called "destroyed" jeans, and they are part of a raging international trend toward a leisure-wear "look" that was previously available only to the rural poor. The question is: Why not take the next logical step? Why not prerub dirt into shirt collars? Why not hand-paste flakes of designer dandruff onto jackets? Why not SET FIRE to the jeans, right at the factory, and simply sell, for $55 each, wallet-sized certificates stating that a pair of jeans had been hand-destroyed in the bearer's name? ridiculous, you say? You're right. Your true Fashion Victim would pay a LOT more than $55 for such a certificate. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Musical Comedy: Radio Stations WQXR-AM & -FM in NY distributed a flyer listing the following quotes from grade-school essays on classical music: Refrain means don't do it. In music it's the part you better not sing. Handel was half German, half Italian and half English. He was rather large. Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. Henry Purcell is a well-known composer few people have heard of. Aaron Copland is a contemporary composer. It is unusual to be contemporary. Most composers do not live until they are dead. Music sung by two people at the same time is called a duel. I know what a sextet is, but I'd rather not say. Caruso was at first an Italian. Then someone heard his voice and said he would go a long way. And so he came to America. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Quotable Quotes from Reader's Digest, April 1987: Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy. One thought driven home is better than three left on base. Cultivate the habit of early rising. It is unwise to keep the head long on a level with the feet. He who hesitates is sometimes saved. If the human brain were so siimple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn't. It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety. ----------------------------------------------------------------- HOW MANY LETTERS ARE THERE IN THE ALPHABET ???? Noel, noel, noel, noel ..................the angels did say..... E.T. went home. Get rid of X. There's too many unknowns in the world already! (Only one vowel left, or is that "Anly ana vawal laft" This may be stretching it a bit, but not unless you consider, as our good friends in Canada say: Good day, A! And we all know that M&Ms melt in your mouth, so it's safe to count them out. And of course, Y not. We might as well put off using U until later in the year: See U in September TWA just took off!! ----------------------------------------------------------------- Anti-trust laws should be approached with exactly that attitude ----------------------------------------------------------------- "One size fits all." Just who is this "all" person anyway, and why is he wearing my clothes? ----------------------------------------------------------------- Then Nicholl, using his own calculations, demonstrated that it was absolutely impossible to give any object at all the velocity of 12,000 yards per second. And, algebra in hand, he maintained that even if such a velocity could be attained, such a heavy projectile could never be lifted beyond the limits of the Earth's atmosphere! It would never reach even an altitude of twenty miles. And furthermore! Even if such a speed could be attained, even if it would suffice, the shell could not withstand the pressure of the gases produced by igniting 1,600,000 pounds of powder. And even if it could resist the pressure, it could not withstand the temperature, it would melt as it left the Columbiad, and a red-hot rain would fall on the heads of the foolish spectators. Barbicane did not even wince at these attacks; he simply got on with his work. -- Jules Verne, From the Earth to the Moon (1865) ----------------------------------------------------------------- PHONE COMPANY GIVES SOMETHING FOR NOTHING Dear Ann, I think I can top the person who wrote complaining about the idiocy of the phone company. Talk about garbage in, garbage out! When AT&T split with Bell, we had three phones in our house. The equipment belonged to Ma Bell and the service belonged to AT&T. After we returned all the phone equipment to Ma Bell, we received a bill for $0.00. A few weeks later, we received a check for $5 and a note thanking us. Several months later, we received another computerized bill for $0.00. We called again, got nowhere, so we sent another check for $0.00. A few weeks later we received another $5 refund with the same thank you. This went on every three months for two years. Now we are down to once a year and have given up trying to straighten this out. We just cash the $5 and forget about it. -- Linda K. R. in California ----------------------------------------------------------------- When the Ark had come to rest on Mt. Ararat, Noah said to the animals, "Go then forth, all ye creatures, and multiply." All the animals went forth, except for two snakes. Noah said to the snakes, "Did I not command you in the name of the Lord to go forth and multiply? Why then have you not obeyed?" The snakes replied, "Behold, we are adders, and cannot multiply." (Pause for substantial quantities of groaning at such an old chestnut.) Then Noah sent forth his sons from the Ark, bidding them to seek and hew a mighty tree. The sons of Noah returned, bearing with them the trunk of a great tree. Then did Noah bid his sons to strike the tree into pieces, and make therefrom a great table of wood. Noah then said unto the snakes, "Behold where my sons have made for you a table of logs, wherewith you now can multiply, being adders!" ----------------------------------------------------------------- "The law, in all its majestic equality, forbids both rich and poor to sleep in the streets, to beg for money, and to steal bread." ----------------------------------------------------------------- How you can spot a Canadian, eh? -Don McGillivray (Ottawa columnist for Southam Newspapers) How do you tell a Canadian from an American? It used to be enough to ask him to say the alphabet. When the Canadian got to the end, he'd say "zed" instead of "zee". But 18 years of Sesame Street have taught a lot of Canadian kids to say "zee," and it's starting to sound as natural as it does south of the 49th parallel. Another test used to be the word "lieutenant". Canadians pronounced it in the British was, "leftenant", while Americans say "lootenant". But American cop shows and army shows and movies have eroded that difference, too. Canadians have been adopting American spelling as well. They used to put a "u" in words like labour. The main organization in the country, the equivalent of the AFL-CIO, is still officially called the Canadian Labour Congress. But news organizations have been wiping out that distinction by adopting American spelling, mostly to make it easier to use news copy from such agencies as Associated Press without a lot of changes. So it's "Canadian Labor Congress" when the Canadian Press, the national news agency, writes about it. Some pronunciations, considered true tests of Canadians, are not as reliable as they're thought. Take the word "house" for example. When some Canadians say it, it sounds very Scottish in American ears. Visiting Americans trying to reproduce what they hear usually give the Canadian pronunciation as "hoose". The same for "out" and "about". The way some Canadians say them sounds like "oot" and "aboot" to many Americans. And when an American says "house" to a Canadian, the Canadian often hears a bit of an "ay" in it, something like "hayouse". But pronunctiaiton isn't a good test because people from different parts of Canada speak differently. A resident of the Western province of Alberta, where there has been a considerable inflow of settlers from the United States, may sound like a Montanan or a Dakotan. Then there's the ubiquitous Canadian expression "eh?" - pronounced "ay?" This is a better test because many Canadians tack it on to the end of every assertion to turn it into a question. An American will say, "Hot day!" A Canadian will say, "Hot day,eh?" meaning "It's a hot day, isn't it?" This is something deeper than spelling or pronunciation. It goes to the heart of the less-assertive Canadian character. The United States was born when Americans revolted against King George III and asserted their independence. Canada never came to a similar point of self- assertion and that little word "eh?" is their refusal even to assert that it's a hot day without inviting somebody else to verify it. One definition of a Candian is "a North American who refuses to join the revolution". Another way to tell the difference between a Canadian and an American is to invite the suspected Canuck to lunch and watch him eat. If he's really upper crust, he'll eat like an Englishman, with knife and fork held firmly in his right and left hands. He'll cut with his knife, pack the results on the back of his fork and convey the food to his mouth with the fork still in this left hand. Many an American eats with knife and fork, too, but in a different way. He takes the knife in his right hand and the fork in his left to cut up the food. Then he puts the knife down and takes the fork in the right hand to convey the food to his mouth. A common garden-variety Canadian does the job differently. He doesn't use his knife at all, except for particularly stubborn steaks and other such tough foods. Instead he takes the fork in his right hand and leaves the knife beside his plate. Then he cuts the food with the edge of the fork and feeds himself with the fork held in the same hand. But suppose all these tests are inconclusive. There's one more, rather dangerous, way to tell a Canadian from an American. Just remark to the suspect that Canadians and Americans are so much alike that it's hard to tell one from the other. If the person involved is an American, he'll probably agree. But if he's a Canadian he'll let you know, in no uncertain terms, that you're wrong. And that stubborn sense of difference is one main reason why the two countries, despite similarities, remain separate. (I'm pretty sure I agree with the last statement, but I'm not too sure if I like being called a wimp that doesn't even dare to assert that it's a hot day. (Which it is today.) And I'm tremendously relieved to know that I'm upper crust when it comes to eating. -KO) ---------------------------------------------------------------- *start* 25078 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Date: 31 Aug 87 10:16:35 PDT (Monday) From: Cate3.PA Subject: Life 2.B To: cc: , Cate3 ACTUAL ANNOUNCEMENTS TAKEN FROM CHURCH BULLETINS 1. This afternoon there will be a meeting in the South and North ends of the church. Children will be baptized at both ends. 2. Tuesday at 4:00 P.M. there will be an ice cream social. All ladies giving milk, please come early. 3. Wednesday, the ladies Liturgy Society will meet. Mrs. Johnson will sing, "Put me in My Little Bed" accompanied by the pastor. 4. Thursday at 5:00 P.M. there will be a meeting of the Little Mothers Club. All wishing to become little mothers, please see the minister in his study. 5. This being Easter Sunday, we will ask Mrs. Smith to come forward and lay an egg on the altar. 6. The service will close with "Little Drops of Water." One of the ladies will start quietly and the rest of the congregation will join in. 7. On Sunday, a special collection will be taken to defray the expenses of the new carpet. All those wishing to do something on the new carpet, please come forward and get a piece of paper at the end of the service. 8. The ladies of the church have cast off clothing of every kind and they may be seen in the church basement Friday. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fu Manchu and his daughter, Cherry Blossom, were on a tour of New England, accompanied by a young man. The trio visited a pair of water slides on a mountainside and took several rides. When the three went down a chute together, Cherry Blossom and her boyfriend were decorous, but when it was just the two of them, they embraced each other passionately. "Cherry Blossom," the young man said, "I really like it whe your father isn't with us and you hug and kiss me!" "Yes," she replied, "but I can only do that when the Fu is on the other chute." ----------------------------------------------------------------- A trainee was assigned to guard the entrance to a bivouac site, and told to use the challenge "Victor" and listen for the password, "Romeo" to allow entry. The trainee had been on watch only a short time when an officer from another company approached. "Halt" commanded the guard. "Victor." The officer didn't know the response, but he did know trainees. "No private," he said. "That's my part, I say that." The trainee, having been corrected a million times, assumed he had made another mistake. The officer then said, "Victor." The trainee responded, "Romeo," and, having heard both words, permitted the officer to pass. ----------------------------------------------------------------- A man who was involved in a serious motorcycle accident was unable to speak when he first regained counsciousness. Wishing to know how long he had been unconscious, he took a piece of paper and a pencil from the bedstand and, after writing "Date?" on it, gave it to his nurse. She handed it back to him - after she had written the word "Married" on it. ----------------------------------------------------------------- I tried a Plutonic mixed-sex living together relationship once. It turned out to be a really Mickey Mouse arrangement. ----------------------------------------------------------------- The following appeared in the Wednesday (24-Jun) New York Times, in the Metropolitan Diary, a weekly column of "human interest" stories sent in by readers: A small sign was taped to a building on West 120th Street near Amsterdam Avenue, and Ellen Shaw of Scotch Plains, N.J., noticed it as she passed by. It was a discreet advertiesement for a nearby stand run by three young entrepreneurs - two boys and a girl - who were selling iced tea, cola and cookies. Ms. Shaw ordered tea and offered the youngsters a suggestion: "You may want to make a bigger sign," she said. "That one is really not to noticeable." "I know," said one of the boys, gesturing toward one of his partners, "but that's as big as his computer makes them." He paused, thought for a moment, and slapped his forehead. "Hey, I've got it!" he exclaimed. "Maybe we could DRAW a bigger sign!" The tea, incidentally, was herbal. ----------------------------------------------------------------- [I was just listening to a radio program where an excerpt of some book was being read. The author was making some ludicrous statements about the influence of colors on human beings.] "Tests with blind-folded subjects demonstrate that color affects the unconscious." ----------------------------------------------------------------- From Dave Barry, complaining about how usless PC's are: Lately the really hot useless personal-computer program is the "spreadsheet". This is the Michael Jackson of the software world. What it does, basically, is generate large batches of numbers arranged horizontally and vertically, which is just what you need if you're a major corporation and you have to fire off daily reports to the federal government indicating how many OSHA-approved deodorant cakes you have in your employee restrooms, but a waste of time for the common person, who in his or her everyday life needs only a few smallish numbers, such as "four" [as in "I'll have four beers"]. Nevertheless, common persons, desperate to use their personal computers for *something*, have been buying spreadsheet programs by the tens of thousands. God knows what they do with them. I have a friend, Sheldon, formerly quite bright, who uses his spreadsheet program to invent imaginary baseball teams and compute their imaginary batting averages. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Several recently deceased people were standing in front of the pearly gates awaiting admission to heaven. St. Peter announced that a final short quiz was necessary prior to entering to be sure that the people learned at least a little about religion before they died. St. Peter asked a man what Easter meant to him. "Easter," replied the man, "is a very important holiday. You bake a turkey, have the family over for dinner and give thanks for the good things that you have in life." "No, no, no," said St. Peter and he sent the man to purgatory. He then asked another man what Easter was. "Easter," answered the second man, "is a wonderful time of the year when you decorate a tree, sing carols and exchange gifts!" "No, no, no" exclaimed St. Peter in desperation. "Doesn't anyone here know what Easter is?" "You," said St. Peter, pointing to a third man, "can you tell me what Easter is?" "Certainly I can" the third man answered pointedly. "Easter is when the Lord Jesus Christ is buried in a cave and after three days he arises up out of the cave." "Finally," exclaimed St. Peter, "Here is a man who truely understands what Easter is." "Yes," said the third man, "and if Jesus sees his shadow and jumps back into the cave we have 6 more weeks of winter... ***************************************************************** The Pope sent an urgent telegram to all cardinals, saying "Drop everything, come to Rome immediately!" When they all arrived he addressed their assembly, saying, "I've got some good news and some bad news. First, the good news: God called me on the phone, said the world will end next month and we'd better be ready! There was immediate screaming and confusion. Someone shouted "If THAT'S the good news, what can the bad news be?" "He was calling from Salt Lake City." ******************************************************************************* One day, these two carrots were driving down the interstate in this big black Trans Am (no 'S' on the side). At one point, they took an exit ramp much too fast, and the car rolled several times and was totaled. An ambulance took the two carrots to the local hospital. One carrot got off with just cuts and bruises, but the other carrot was in the operating room for hours. The first carrot remained in the waiting room, pacing and biting his nails. Finally the chief surgeon emerged from the operating room, pulling off his mak and rubber gloves. The carrot who was waiting ran up to him frantically. Shaking the doctor by the lapels, the carrot said, "Doc! Doc! You gotta tell me! Is my friend going to be okay?" Pulling himself loose from the carrot, the doctor replied, "Well, I've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is, your friend will live. The bad news is . . . . . . he'll be a vegetable for the rest of his life!" (ACK PHHHHHHTT!!!) ***************************************************************************** A New York tailor, devout Jew all his days, tries very hard to bring up his children in the faith. One day, his youngest son comes to him and announces that he is becoming a Roman Catholic. The tailor ponders his misfortunes, trying to understand why such a thing should happen to him. In desolation, he seeks out his rabbi and confides in him. "Rabbi," laments the tailor, "I do not understand. I have a son, a good Jewish boy, brought up in the faith. We observed, we attended, we did everything for the boy, and yet he decides to become a Catholic. How can this thing be?" "My friend," says the rabbi, "you WOULDN'T believe, but I must tell you. I, too, have a son, a good Jewish boy, brought up here in the synagogue in the faith. Yet, he also became a Catholic. Who is to know? The Almighty has his reasons. All we can do is pray to Him for answers." With that, the two of them set forth in devout prayer. Suddenly, the lights dim, the walls shake, and God's voice fills the room. "Let me tell you two, you WOULDN'T believe, but I had a son, a good Jewish boy..." ----------------------------------------------------------------- A guy was jumping up and down on a manhole cover saying "78. 78. 78. 78.". A passer-by noticed this odd behavior and asked why the person was jumping up and down on a manhole cover saying "78. 78. 78. 78.". The person replied "I'm keeping the alligators away". The passer-by retorted "There's not an alligator in a hundred miles of here!". "See" said the jumper. ----------------------------------------------------------------- I read the other day of a Tennessee town called Cosby. I think I'll move there and start a business selling brewing supplies to moonshiners. "Cosby Stills and Mash," that's what I'll call it. ----------------------------------------------------------------- We have to be careful not to put Descartes before the horse. ----------------------------------------------------------------- The boss returned from lunch in a good mood and called the whole staff in to listen to a couple of jokes he had picked up. Everybody but one girl laughed uproariously. "What's the matter?" grumbled the boss. "Haven't you got a sense of humor?" "I don't have to laugh," she said. "I'm leaving Friday." ----------------------------------------------------------------- A woman's three sons went to Texas to raise beef cattle, sheep, and hogs. They had no idea what to name their ranch so they wrote home to mother for suggestions. Name it Focus, she replied. Puzzled, they called for an explanation. Mom said Focus - where the sons raise meet. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon." ---Susan Ertz--- ----------------------------------------------------------------- From a recent "Miss Manners" (Judith Martin) column----- Dear Miss Manners: I would like to know the proper way to put toilet tissue on the roll in the bathroom. If you have printed tissue, is the print supposed to be on the top of the roll or the bottom? Gentle Reader: What in heaven's name is the matter with this society? Can't anybody figure out anything anymore without appealing to poor, overloaded experts? Miss Manners works hard, attending to the propriety of all your encounters with other peopele. When you go into the bathroom, you're on your own. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Jones and Doodah went fishing one Saturday afternoon. All of a sudden a terrible storm came up and in the midst of the storm the boat tipped over and Doodah drown. Jones was completely devestated. This was his best friend, how in the world would he break the news to Mrs. Doodah? Jones went back to the Doodah home and announced that he had returned from the trip. Mrs. Doodah was quick to notice that her husband was not with Jones. She asked where Doodah was. Jones replied; "We went fishing and guess who drown---- Doo-dah, Doo-dah" (Sing this reply to the music of Camptown Races) ******************************************************************************** A Dutch guy is standing by an outside wall of his house and is diligently scraping off the paint. His neighbor spots him and with natual Dutch curiostity asks "Hey, you're moving?" ******************************************************************************** [This is a multiple-independently-targeted joke-- insert your own characters.] Ronald Reagan, Billy Graham and Alexander Haig were on their way to a secret summit meeting when Air Force One crashed and they were all killed. Next thing they know, Billy and Alex find themselves sitting on the curb of a street paved with gold bricks. Ron is not with them. Their surroundings fit the standard description of Heaven except that, chained to each one's leg is an INCREDIBLY ugly woman. Haig says, "Somebody has screwed up; we're going to see the head man!" They go to God's office and complain loudly. God's secretary says, "God is too busy to be bothered with you guys. Go tell it to St. Peter; he's the dean of admissions." They find and confront St. Peter. He tells them, "Well, it's like this-- You turkeys just barely made it in here, and for your penance you must spend eternity with an ugly woman chained to your leg." Billy Graham says, "Hey, look, I'm a minister; I know a lot of influential people up here. Can't we make some kind of deal?" St. Peter says, "If you don't like it, you can go straight to Hell!" "Oh. Okay." Back out on the street, Billy and Alex spot Ronald Reagan. Chained to Ronnie's leg is Bo Derek. They grab Ron and say, "Hey, man, what IS this??" "Well, it's like this-- Bo Derek just barely made it in here..." ******************************************************************************** This is a true story .. really it is ..... A friend of my mother's went to Ohare Airport to pick up her son who was returning from school. Well, she got to the airport early, and having skipped lunch she was hungry so she stopped at one of those snack bars in the airport near the gates. She bought a package of 4 cookies and a cup of coffee. She walked over to one of those "stand-up" tables and opened the cookies. Well, she took out a cookie and started eating it. As she did this a man who was also at the table took one of the cookies and began eating it. Well, she gave this man an awful stare (kind of like "well who do you think you are ") and continued eating her first cookie and drinking her coffee. Then she took another cookie (after all she didn't was this strange man eating *all* of them and she did skip her lunch). Well, as she finished her cookie the man at the table gingerly took the last cookie and broke it in half leaving half of it on the wrapper. At this point (remember, no words have been exchanged between the two of them) the woman decides to get out of there before this strange man does something else. So she goes to the gate where her son is supposed to be coming in. She opened her purse to check the schedule and what did she find ...... her package of cookies ... she had put her cookies in her purse and unknowingly was eating the man's cookies !!!!! HOW EMBARRASSING ******************************************************************************** The governor of Texas was showing the president of Mexico around his huge cattle ranch one day. Not to be outdone, the president said, "I have a dirt road that goes around my ranch. I drove it one time, and it took me 4 days to go around it". The Texas governor thought a minute (as he chewed on a piece of hay), and replied, "I had a car like that once.". ******************************************************************************** The little daughter of a WASP family attends the fourth grade. One day the teacher gives an assignment to the class, she says: "I want all of you write a very short paragraph about the poorest family you have seen". The daughter of the WASP family panics, as she has never talked nor seen anyone outside of her well-to-do neighborhood. So she writes: " Last summer I have seen a poor family. They were so poor, so poor that, their maids were poor, their gardeners were poor and their chauffeurs were poor." ******************************************************************************** A WASP was driving his car at Sonoma County, where is a large mental hospital, he realizes that one of the tires of his car is flat. He stops his car, looks outside. There is nobody around. Also he realizes that the road he was riding was near the mental hospital. In short he realizes that there is no awailable cheap labor to change the flat tire. The WASP takes the spare tire out, jacks up the car, removes the tire, puts the nuts in the hub cap and while trying to get the spare tire, trips over the hub cap and all the nuts go down a nearby storm sewer. There he is, a WASP near a mental hospital, away from any cheap labor, helpless. Suddenly he hears someone yelling "Hey you! ", looks and finds that there is someone inside the mental hospitals' yard (behind the bars). The patient behind the bars says " I have been watching you for a while and saw the terrible thing happened to you, I think I can help", "How ?" asks the WASP, "Easy " says the loonie, "take one nut from each of the other three wheels and put it on the fourth wheel, then if you are careful you will make it to the nearest gas station" "You are very smart" says the WASP to the loonie and continues, "why did they locked you in ? " "They put me in because I am a loonie" the guy tells the WASP and continues "not because I am stupid". ******************************************************************************** At some point in time, a bad spell of wet weather came over a Southern state, flooding most of many counties. Since the water was about six feet deep outside (and inside) their house, one family spent its time sitting on the porch roof, watching the wreckage float by. The son happened to notice a nice straw hat as it went downstream. "My," he thought, "I'll bet the person who lost that hat is sorry now!" After the hat had floated out of sight around the corner of the house, the boy kept watching the river. Suddenly, much to his surprise, here comes the hat, floating upstream, against the current! This was obviously very strange, so the lad kept his eye on it. It floated upstream and around the other corner of the house... and came floating back down again. After a while, it came back upstream yet again, rounding the corner of the house. Finally, the boy could stand it no longer and pointed out the hat to his mother, asking her whatever could cause such a sight. His mother replied, "Oh, that's just your grandfather. He said come Hell or high water, he was going to mow the lawn today." ******************************************************************************** There are these two country farmers. One is milking this cow, the other is bulling the shoot. While the one farmer is milking, a fly zooms into the cows ear. The cow starts jumping around, shaking its head and mooing. Jed tries to steady the cow, but suddenly, it settles down. Jed looks down, and behold, the fly is in the milk pail. Jed asks Jethro "Golly, how'd that fly get down there so fast?" Jethro replies.... "IN ONE EAR AND OUT THE UDDER!" ******************************************************************************** Did you hear about the father who had two sons, one was terribly pessimistic, and the other equally optimistic? Well, one Christmas he decided to cure each one, so he went out and bought the fanciest, most exciting train set for the pessimistic boy, and, for the optimist, he got a Christmas stocking and filled it with horse manure. Christmas morning came, and after the boys had opened their gifts, the dad asked each what Santa Claus had brought him. "Well," said the pessimist, "I got a train set, but I'll probably cut myself putting the track together, and it's got an electric transformer, so I'll probably electrocute myself, and, besides, the whole thing will probably break in a week." The dad was pretty disappointed that his plan hadn't worked completely, but figured he may still have cured the optimistic boy. "What about you, son, what did you get?" The boy was jumping with anticipation: "Oh, I got a pony, only I haven't found it yet!" ******************************************************************************** Why can't a bicycle stand up by itself? Because it's too(two) tired. ******************************************************************************** Toni was a communist and very unhappy in capitalist Austria. He wanted to go over the border to Russia, where everything was supposed to be better. His friend Josef was interested too. However, they'd also heard a few stories of repressions and shortages, so they didn't know what to do. "Look," said Toni, "I've got an idea. I'll go over first. If everything's great, I'll write back a letter with blue ink. If things really are awful, and everything's censored, I'll write back a letter with green ink." Toni went over the border. After several months Josef got the following letter, written in blue ink: "Dear Josef, "Everything is just terrific. I'm doing very well. I've got a beautiful large apartment, and there's lots to eat and drink. Prices are really low and you can get whatever you want. The only thing I haven't been able to find is green ink. ******************************************************************************** Just after the end of World War 2, it was decided that the borders between Poland and Russia should be redrawn. A surveyor was out one day looking over the proposed border when he noticed a little house right smack dab on the line. Well he was unsure as to which country the house belonged to, so he decided to let the occupants choose which country they wanted to be a part of. He knocked on the door and an old man answered. "Well, old man. I'm here to tell you that you have a choice of country. Which is it, do you want to be part of Poland or Russia?" The man thought for a moment and said decisively, "Poland!" The surveyor was taken aback by the old man's vehemence and said, "Why did you choose Poland." The old man countered with, "Well, if I have to go through just one more of these Russian winters...." ******************************************************************************** #1 - A scientist is trying to determine how much each of a frog's legs contribute to the frog's ability to jump. He places a frog on a calibrated screen and claps his hands. "Frog , Jump!," he yells. The frog leaps into the air. The scientist notes where he lands in his book - with 4 legs frog jumps 20 inches. He then removes one leg and repeats the test. "Frog , Jump!," he yells as he claps his hands. The frog once again leaps into the air. Once more the scientist notes the results in his book - with 3 legs frog jumps 15 inches. The experiment is repeated until all of the frogs legs have been removed. The scientist places the frog on the test stand one last time. "Frog , Jump!," he yells and claps. There is no response. "Frog , Jump!," he yells louder. Again there is no response. After several more tries at prompting the frog, the scientist gives up with a sigh. He notes in his book - with no legs frog is deaf. ******************************************************************************** What do the modern Chinese listen to while making dinner? Wok music on a Wokman. What is their favorite song? Wok Like an Egyptian What is their favorite spiritual? Wok of Ages ---------------------------------------------------------------- *start* 09994 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Date: 31 Aug 87 10:17:00 PDT (Monday) From: Cate3.PA Subject: Life 2.C To: cc: , Cate3 Who's On First (Sketch by Bud Abbot and Lou Costello) LOU: I love baseball. When we get to St. Louis, will you tell me the guys' name on the team so when I go to see them in that St. Louis ball park I'll be able to know those fellows? BUD: All right. but you know, strange as it may seems, they give ball players nowadays very peculiar names, nick names, like "Dizzy Dean." Now on the St. Louis team we have Who's on first, What's on second, I Don't Know is on third -- LOU: That's what I want to find out. I want you to tell me the names of the fellows on the St. Louis team. BUD: I'm telling you. Who's on first, What's on second, I Don't Know is on third -- LOU: You know the fellows' names? BUD: Yes. LOU: Well, then who's playin' first. BUD: Yes LOU: I mean the fellow's name on first base. BUD: Who. LOU: The fellow playin' first base for St. Louis. BUD: Who. LOU: The guy on first base. BUD: Who is on first. LOU: Well, what are you askin' me for? BUD: I'm not asking you -- I'm telling you. WHO IS ON FIRST. LOU: I'm asking you -- who's on first? BUD: That's the man's name! LOU: That's who's name? BUD: Yes. LOU: Well, go ahead and tell me. BUD: Who. LOU: The guy on first. BUD: Who. LOU: The first baseman. BUD: Who is on first. LOU: Have you got a first baseman on first? BUD: Certainly. LOU: Then who's playing first? BUD: Absolutely. LOU: (pause) When you pay off the first baseman every month, who gets the money? BUD: Every dollar of it. And why not, the man's entitled to it. LOU: Who is? BUD: Yes. LOU: So who gets it? BUD: Why shouldn't he? Sometimes his wife comes down and collects it. LOU: Who's wife? BUD: Yes. After all the man earns it. LOU: Who does? BUD: Absolutely. LOU: Well all I'm trying to find out is what's the guys name on first base. BUD: Oh, no, no, What is on second base. LOU: I'm not asking you who's on second. BUD: Who's on first. LOU: That's what I'm trying to find out. BUD: Well, don't change the players around. LOU: I'm not changing nobody. BUD: Now, take it easy. LOU: What's the guy's name on first base? BUD: What's the guy's name on second base. LOU: I'm not askin' ya who's on second. BUD: Who's on first. LOU: I don't know. BUD: He's on third. We're not talking about him. LOU: How could I get on third base? BUD: You mentioned his name. LOU: If I mentioned the third baseman's name, who did I say is playing third? BUD: No, Who's playing first. LOU: Stay offa first, will ya? BUD: Well what do you want me to do? LOU: Now what's the guy's name on first base? BUD: What's on second. LOU: I'm not asking ya who's on second. BUD: Who's on first. LOU: I don't know. BUD: He's on third. LOU: There I go back on third again. BUD: Well, I can't change their names. LOU: Say, will you please stay on third base. BUD: Please. Now what is it you want to know. LOU: What is the fellow's name on third base. BUD: What is the fellow's name on second base. LOU: I'm not askin' ya who's on second. BUD: Who's on first. LOU: I don't know. BUD: THIRD BASE! LOU: You got an outfield? BUD: Oh, sure. LOU: St. Louis has got a good outfield? BUD: Oh, absolutely. LOU: The left fielder's name? BUD: Why. LOU: I don't know, I just thought I'd ask. BUD: Well, I just thought I'd tell you. LOU: Them tell me who's playing left field. BUD: Who's playing first. LOU: Stay out of the infield! BUD: Don't Don't mention any names out here. LOU: I want to know what's the fellow's name on left field? BUD: What is on second. LOU: I'm not askin' ya who's on second. BUD: Who is on first. LOU: I don't know. BUD & LOU: (together and calmly) Third base. LOU: And the left fielder's name? BUD: Why. LOU: Because. BUD: Oh he's Center Field. LOU: (whimpers) Center field. BUD: Yes. LOU: Wait a minute. You got a pitcher on this team. BUD: Wouldn't this be a fine team without a pitcher. LOU: I don't know. Tell me the pitcher's name. BUD: Tomorrow. LOU: You don't want to tell me today? BUD: I'm tell you, man. LOU: Then go ahead. BUD: Tomorrow. LOU: What time? BUD: What time what? LOU: What time tomorrow are you gonna tell me who's pitching? BUD: Now listen, Who is not pitching. Who is on -- LOU: I'LL BREAK YOU ARM IF YOU SAY "WHO'S ON FIRST!" BUD: Then why come up here and ask? LOU: I want to know what's the pitcher's name. BUD: What's on second. LOU: I don't know. BUD & LOU: (VERY QUICKLY) THIRD BASE!! LOU: You gotta Catcher? BUD: Yes. LOU: The Catcher's name? BUD: Today. LOU: Today. And Tomorrow's pitching. BUD: Now you've got it. LOU: That's all. St. Louis hat a couple of days on their team. BUD: Well I can't help that. LOU: You know I'm a good catcher too. BUD: I know that. LOU: I would like to play for the St. Louis team. BUD: Well I might arrange that. LOU: I would like to catch. Now I'm being a good Catcher, tomorrow's pitching on the team, and I'm catching. BUD: Yes. LOU: Tomorrow throws the ball and the guy up bunts the ball. BUD: Yes. LOU: Now when he bunts the ball -- me being a good catcher -- I want to throw the guy out a first base, so I pick up the ball and throw it to who? BUD: Now that's the first thing you've said right. LOU: I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!!!!! BUD: Well, that's all you have to do. LOU: is to throw it to first base. BUD: Yes. LOU: Now who's got it? BUD: Naturally. LOU: Who has it? BUD: Naturally. LOU: Naturally. BUD: Naturally. LOU: O.K. BUD: Now you've got it. LOU: I pick up the ball and I throw it to Naturally. BUD: No you don't you throw the ball to first base. LOU: Then who gets it? BUD: Naturally. LOU: O.K. BUD: All right. LOU: I throw the ball to Naturally. BUD: You don't you throw it to2Gto. LOU: Naturally. BUD: Well, naturally. Say it that way. LOU: That's what i said. BUD: You did not. LOU: I said I'd throw the ball to Naturally. BUD: You don't. You throw it to Who. LOU: Naturally. BUD: Yes. LOU: So I throw the ball to first base and Naturally gets it. BUD: No. You throw the ball to first base-- LOU: Then who gets it? BUD: Naturally. LOU: That's what I'm saying. BUD: You're not saying that. LOU: I throw the ball to Naturally. BUD: You throw it to Who! LOU: Naturally. BUD: Naturally. Well say it that way. LOU: THAT'S WHAT I'M SAYING! BUD: Now don't get excited. LOU: Whose gettin excited!! I throw the ball to first base-- BUD: Then Who gets it. LOU: (annoyed) HE BETTER GET IT! BUD: That's it. All right now Take it easy. LOU: Hrmmph. BUD: Hrmmph. LOU: Now I throw the ball to first base, whoever it is grabs the ball, so the guy runs to second. BUD: Uh-huh. LOU: Who picks up the ball and throws it to what. What throws it to I don't know. I don't know throws it back to tomorrow -- a triple play. BUD: Yeah. It could be. LOU: Another guy gets up and it's a long fly ball to center. Why? I don't know, he's on third, and I don't give a darn. BUD: What did you say. LOU: I said "I don't give a darn." BUD: Oh, that's our shortstop! LOU: ABBOTT! ---------------------------------------------------------------- *start* 14626 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Date: 31 Aug 87 10:17:17 PDT (Monday) From: Cate3.PA Subject: Life 2.D To: cc: cate3.pa A Dublin lawyer died in poverty and many barristers of the city sub- scribed to a fund for his funeral. The Lord Chief Justice of Orbury was asked to donate a shilling. "Only a shilling?" said the man. "Only a shilling to bury an attorney? Here's a guinea; go and bury 20 of them." ------------------------------------------------ from the august Road & Track article about driving two absurdly fast cars across europe... [we join our antagonists as they are just leaving a delay-causing border crossing and heading into northern italy] "Anxious after the delay, Gruber doesn't waste any time getting the Koenig [-modified Porsche] up to speed, and almost immediately we are blowing off Alfas, Fiats, and Lancias full of excited Italians. These people love fast cars. But they love sport too and no passing encounter goes unchallenged. Nothing serious, just two wheels into your lane as you're bearing down on them at 130-plus - to see if you're paying attention." ------------------------------------------------ "Everyone is entitled to an *informed* opinion." ------------------------------------------------ The City of Palo Alto, in its official description of parking lot standards, specifies the grade of wheelchair access ramps in terms of centimeters of rise per foot of run. A compromise, I imagine... ----------------------------------------------------------------- This last weekend I was reminded at the pace we are converting to metric. I was on I-75 in Ohio when I saw a sign that said: All signs metric next 20 miles ----------------------------------------------------------------- The most dangerous organization in America today is: a) The KKK b) The American Nazi Party c) The Delta Frequent Flyer Club ------------------------------------------------ The "Environmental Engineering News" published some rather sobering information about punishment for drunk driving convictions in other countries. In Australia, the names of drunk drivers are printed in newspapers under the caption, "He's drunk and in jail." In Malaysia the driver is jailed and, if married, the spouse is jailed. In the United Kingdom, Finland and Sweden there's an automatic jail term of one year. In Turkey, drunk drivers are driven 20 miles out of town and forced to walk back. In Bulgaria, a second drunk-driving conviction results in capital punishment. In El Salvador, your first offense is your last -- execution by firing squad. From the August Road & Track. ------------------------------------------------ 90/90 Law of Software Project Management: The first 90% of the task takes the first 90% of the time, and the remaining 10% takes the other 90%. ------------------------------------------------ Q. What's the difference between a teacher and a train? A. The teacher sez "Get that gum out of your mouth", where as the train sez "Chew, Chew ". ------------------------------------------------ One day this guy is finally fed up with a middle-class existence and decides to do something about it. He calls up his best friend, who is a mathematical genius. ``Look,'' he says, ``You are so smart. Don't you suppose you could find some way mathematically of guaranteeing winning at the race track? We could make a lot of money and retire and enjoy life.'' The mathematician ponders this a bit and walks away mumbling to him- self. A week later his friend drops by to ask the genius if he's had any success. The genius, looking a little bleary-eyed, replies, ``Well, yes, actually I do have an idea, and I'm reasonably sure that it will work, but there a number of details to be figured out. After the second week the mathematician appears at his friend's house, looking quite a bit rumpled, and announces, ``I think I've got it! I still have some of the theory to work out, but now I'm certain that I'm on the right track.'' At the end of the third week the mathematician wakes his friend by pounding on his door at 3:17 a.m. He has dark circles under his eyes. His hair hasn't been tended to for many days. He ap- pears to be wearing the same clothes as the last time. He has several pencils sticking out from behind his ears and an almost maniacal expression on his face. ``WE CAN DO IT! WE CAN DO IT!!'' he shrieks. ``I have discovered the perfect solution!! And it's so EASY!'' ``Tell me! How does it work?'' his friend excitedly asks? ``Well, it's like this...'' ``Assume that horses are spheres...'' ------------------------------------------------ At a mental hospital the staff found some of the patients were gaining weight, so they were put on a diet of a glass of Tab and one apple for lunch. After eating their light lunch, the group would start to sing to everyone else. This became known as the "Moron Tab and Apple Choir". ------------------------------------------------ Did you hear about the Iranian who made an operator-assisted telephone call to his homeland? He wanted the operator to set up a Persian-to-Persian call. ------------------------------------------------ "The reason that every major university maintains a department of mathematics is that it is cheaper to do this than to institutionalize all those people." ------------------------------------------------ One just in the San Francisco paper (note: Marin County is a ritzy area just north of San Francisco): 'Did you know that if you dial 911 in Marin County you get the BMW repair garage?' ------------------------------------------------ This one is true!!! Shortly after the 911 emergency number became available, an elderly and quite ill lady appeared in a Rochester hospital emergency room, having driven herself to the hospital and barely managing to stagger in from the parking lot. The horrified nurse said, 'Why didn't you call the 911 number and get an ambulance?' The lady said, 'My phone doesn't have an eleven.' ------------------------------------------------ It seems that Mary Poppins has moved to California. Yep, she has started a business telling people's fortunes. But, she doesn't read palms or tea leaves, she smells one's breath. That, right, the sign outside reads: Super California Mystic Expert Halitosis ------------------------------------------------ Something resembling the following appeared on a commercial birthday card with a caveman motif: I wanted to give you something special for your birthday, so I baked you the biggest and fanciest birthday cake I could. Unfortunately, it was so big and heavy that I couldn't lift it onto the cart to deliver it. I tried to construct a lever to lift it onto the cart, but it didn't work. So I made a bigger lever and tried to lift it onto the cart, but it didn't work. So, I made an even bigger lever, but try as I could I couldn't lift the cake. Fortunately, as I was doing this, my friend Nate, the biggest and strongest person I know walked by, and without any trouble at all, lifted the cake onto the cart without any help at all. Which only goes to show, "Better Nate than lever." ------------------------------------------------ Recently, Munich, Germany was having a severe problem with there dog population. It was skyrocketing beyond belief. In a matter of a couple of weeks, the population doubled and then even tripled. They had to put together a special emergency committee to solve the problem. But, the dogs continued to multiply. The dogs started to infest Munich's neighboring city's. One day, the committee got a call from a nearby mill. The man was frantic. "Please, you've got to send help! The hills are alive with the hounds of Munich!" ------------------------------------------------ In shark infested waters, a wise fish never travels without a porpose. In high school we had an interesting teacher we called tortise, cause he taught us. ------------------------------------------------ "We must finish once and for all with the neutrality of chess. We must condemn once and for all the formula 'chess for the sake of chess,' like the formula 'art for art's sake.' We must organize shock-brigades of chess-players, and begin the immediate realization of a Five-Year Plan for chess." -- Nikolai V. Krylenko, People's Commissar for Justice (of RFSFR, later of USSR), speaking at a 1932 Congress of Chess Players, as quoted p. 575 of Boris Souvarine' s "Stalin," published London, 1939 ------------------------------------------------ If Izod bought Fruit-of-the-Loom, would they make Crocodile Undees? ------------------------------------------------ I was quite surprised by a recently acquired tape, "Don't Ask" by Frank Hayes. The first verse of the title song goes something like this: The orders come down and they march us away. There's a battle outside and we join in the fray. God, it's hell when you know this could be your last day, But it's better than working for Xerox. ------------------------------------------------ `The Observer' [English national Sunday paper] reports on `the nightmare of a woman robbed of 8,750 pounds'. ------------------------------------------------ Guns don't kill people. Driving 40 in the fast lane kills people. Don't shoot me, I'll move over. Honk if you are Reloading Honk if you're reloading Cover me, I'm about to change lanes. Newest sign seen along side the road on the Xpressway: Next Exit: Gas, Food, and Ammo ------------------------------------------------ One of the speakers claims his mother told him to marry a girl from San Pete, Utah, then no matter how bad things got, you would know she had had it worst. Another speaker, the father of six kids, was asked why didn't he stop at one or two. The reply was "My wife and I don't think all the children in the world should be raised by beginers." ------------------------------------------------ "The galaxy-spanning luminous arcs reported by M. Mitchell Waldrop in Research News on 6 February have a very simple explanation. They are part of the scaffolding that was not removed when the contractor went bankrupt owing to cost overruns." "Arthur C. Clarke, Sri Lanka" ------------------------------------------------ Needless to say, I don't have two brain cells to rub together on this subject, but maybe someone else does, and I love the sound of brain cells rubbing together... ------------------------------------------------ "Great ideas are better than good ones because they both take about the same amount of time to develop and the great ideas aren't obsolete when you're done." ------------------------------------------------ SYSTEM CRASH (to the tune of "The Monster Mash") ------------ I was working in the lab, late one night When my eyes beheld an eerie sight, Some smoke from our VAX began to rise And suddenly, to my surprise... [chorus] (There was a crash) There was a system crash (A mighty crash) I heard the disk heads smash (A system crash) It came down in a flash (There was a crash) A fatal system crash The lab manager then appeared from his room, Said: "I don't want to be a prophet of doom, But we had one like this just the other day Which blew up 4 megs and the SBA" [chorus] The system had just been booted, diagnostics had all run through, When a power fluck made it all run amuck, then SCOTTY and IRVING blew too So we'd lost all our VAXes in less than one night When a VP came in and said: "hey, that's all right, I'll loan you a Venus - here's what to do When you call up Support, tell them Gordon sent you... [chorus] ------------------------------------------------ "Studies show 80 percent of all Americans know about home computers. That's higher than the percentage of Americans who know about sex." ------------------------------------------------ The following paragraph appeared in the Course Notes for [MIT course] 6.170 (Undergraduate Software Engineering course -- taken usually as a sophomore) under the section heading "Defensive Programming": The word "bug" is in many ways misleading. Bugs do not crawl unbidden into our programs. We put them there. DON'T THINK OF YOUR PROGRAM AS "HAVING BUGS;" THINK OF YOURSELF AS HAVING MADE A MISTAKE. Bugs do not breed in programs. If there are many bugs in a program, it is because the programmer has made many mistakes. You should never be proud when you track down a bug in your own program. It's like finding a cockroach in your kitchen. You should be embarrassed and upset that it was there in the first place. ------------------------------------------------ Offensive to no one west of Rt 128. Seen while driving through Silicon Valley this past Sunday. Note that this was on the back of a disreputable van driven by a bearded individual who was probably wearing sandals. "DEC measures benchmarks with a calender." ------------------------------------------------ According to a recent and unscientific national survey, smiling is something everyone should do at least 6 times a day. In an effort to increase the national average (the US ranks third among the world's superpowers in smiling), Xerox has instructed all personnel to be happy, effervescent, and most importantly, to smile. Xerox employees agree, and even feel strongly that they can not only meet but surpass the national average....except for Tubby Ackerman. But because Tubby does such a fine job of racing around parking lots with a large butterfly net retrieving floating IC chips, Xerox decided to give him a break. If you see Tubby in a parking lot he may have a sheepish grin. this is where the expression, "Service with a slightly sheepish grin," comes from. ------------------------------------------------ This recipe actually came from a recipe book: Elephant Stew Ingredients: 1 Elephant Salt and Pepper to taste 2 Rabbits (optional) 40 gal. Brown Gravy Directions: Cut elephant into bite size pieces. Cover with brown gravy. Cook over low heat about 4 weeks. This will serve 4,200 people. If more are expected the 2 rabbits may be added, but do this only if necessary as most people do not like to find hare in their stew. ACHE (Atlanta Center for Humorous Expression) ---------------------------------------------------------------- *start* 18302 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Date: 10 Sep 87 14:40:05 PDT (Thursday) From: Cate3.PA Subject: Life 2.E To: cc: , Cate3 Heard from the MacIntosh Distribution List (DL) I love Xerox technology...that is why I bought a Machintosh. ---------------------------------------------------- From an article in Datamation, 15 Aug 1987 entitled "Why Software Prototyping Works." "Abstraction helps humans make sense of very complex systems by reducing them to a simplifed form." Let's see, the last time I was in simplified form I .... ---------------------------------------------------- An avid hunter had recently undergone a conversion experience. He also had a big hunting trip to Alaska scheduled, and decided to go ahead with the trip. He was standing near a ledge halfway up a mountain, when the Lord spoke to him: "Do you really think you should be out here killing my creatures just for sport?" Well, he thought about it and decided that he must give up hunting, and to make it final he threw his rifle over the cliff he was standing by. He really felt great; his conscience was clean -- then he heard a growl. The former hunter turned around to find himself trapped between the cliff and a giant black bear. "What do I do now Lord?", he asked. Shaking with fear, he prayed, "God, please make this bear a Christian!" Suddenly, the bear knelt down and crossed himself! Then the bear said, "Bless us o Lord, for these thy gifts which we are about to receive ..." ---------------------------------------------------- Gearing up for extraterrestial friendships or, how to love almost anything: Today's mail brought an invitation to the Sixth International Conference on Entity-Relationship Approach. ---------------------------------------------------- On Saturday last, I had dinner at a local Chinese restaurant. My fortune read: "You will gain admiration from your pears." Comice? Bartlett? Canned? I don't grow or eat them,anyway. ---------------------------------------------------- And this was being passed around at Xerox: I recieved a flyer yesterday advertising a workshop on INNOVATIVE management, qualifying itself with the following quote from someone who clearly knows something about technology I don't: "It is a tragedy in our society that we have so few innovators, and so many copiers." ---------------------------------------------------- "If marriage is outlawed, only outlaws will have in-laws." ---------------------------------------------------- "Everything that can be invented has been invented." -- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. patent office, 1899 ---------------------------------------------------- When an elderly and distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is very probably right. When he says that something is impossible, he is quite possibly wrong. Clarke's Law ---------------------------------------------------- There's no sense in being precise when you don't even know what you're talking about. --- John von Neumann ---------------------------------------------------- New Freeway Signs 12 gauge and over use TRUCK ROUTE RELOADERS use right lane ---------------------------------------------------- If you have tried to pick up or drop off passengers at Los Angeles International Airport, this should be familiar to you. The white zone is for loading and unloading of guns only ... no shooting. ---------------------------------------------------- The firm hired the mathematician and put gave him his first assignment. "We need this in a hurry!!!" Three days later they still hadn't seen any results so they asked their new math whiz how he was coming. He replied" Well, i haven't found the solution yet but I've proven that one exists and it is unique." ---------------------------------------------------- Don't go away mad... Just go away! ---------------------------------------------------- I have a friend who is a pilot on a 747. I said "Hi Jack." He shot me. ---------------------------------------------------- If you can't convince them, confuse them. -- Harry S Truman ---------------------------------------------------- Why is it that we park in driveways and drive on parkways? or Why does a ship carry cargo and a truck caries shipments? Ah me... ACHE (Atlanta Center for Humorous Expression) ---------------------------------------------------- Vini, Vici, Hacki I came, I saw, I hacked ---------------------------------------------------- DAILY NEWS, September 7: One in two Californians believes that people are less honest today than they were 10 years ago, according to a statewide poll released today. What's more, many of those surveyed for the latest California poll admitted to committing dishonest acts, according to pollster Mervin Field, but Field thinks that some of those people may have been lying. ---------------------------------------------------- I recently attended a lecture by Alvy Ray Smith , of Lucasfilm/Pixar. (ever notice how VIPs want us to know their middle names?) Anyway, he was talking about the old days at New York Institute of Technology, where heavy computer animation first took place. The guy who founded NYIT (I cant remember his name) made this statement with regard to their intentions to lower computation time: "We are going to speed up time, and eventually delete it" ---------------------------------------------------- [Advertisement in /Hollywood Daily Variety/, reprinted as a filler in /The New Yorker/] If your housekeeper is deported who will clean up after the kids? - Ron Burns, Immigration Attorney ---------------------------------------------------- "Friends come & go, but enemies accumulate." ---------------------------------------------------- Column-filler from the 9/8/87 New Yorker. "CONSTABULARY NOTES FROM ALL OVER [From the Sheriff's Report in the Millerton (N.Y.) News] Deputy Cahill investigated a criminal mischief report at the Ruth Ward residence ... on June 27 at 9:21 a.m. According to deputites, Ward said that sometime during the night unknown persons put a large amount of mashed potatoes on top of her parked car." ---------------------------------------------------- Sue and Bob, a pair of tight wads, lived in the mid west, and had been married years. Bob had always want to go flying. The desire deepen each time a barn stormer flew into town to offer rides. Bob would ask, and Sue would say, "No way, ten dollars is ten dollars." The years went pay, and Bob figured he didn't have much longer, so he got Sue out to the show, explaining, it's free to watch, let's atleast watch. And once he got there the feeling become real strong. Sue and Bob started an arguement. The Pilot, between flights, overheard, listened to they problem, and said, "I'll tell you what, I'll take you up flying, and if you don't say a word the ride is on me, but if you back one sound, you pay ten dollars. So off they flew. The Pilot doing as many rolls, and dives as he could. Heading to the ground as fast as the plane could go, and pulling out of the dive at just the very last second. Not a word. Finally he admited defeat and went back the air port. "I'm surprised, why didn't you say anything?" "Well I almost said something when Sue fell out, but ten dollars is ten dollars." ---------------------------------------------------- Out in the old rest, in a dingy, two bit town, there was a bar, built of a few pieces of wood, and a couple sheets. A dog came in one hot dusty afternoon and asked for a beer. After the bartender got over his surprise, he yelled "Get out of here, we don't serve your kind." "Not till I get some rye." "Get out of here now!" "No way, I want my drink." The bartender pulled out a rifle and shot the dog in the leg. The dog limbed out, bleeding all over the place. A couple days later the door swings open, there's the dog, dress in a black vest, a big ten gallon hat, and two pearl handled pistels. "I'm looking for the man who shot my paw." ---------------------------------------------------- This is not exactly a joke, but it is about a joke and it also answers a question someone asked earlier this week. This is from the Morning Report column in the Calendar section of today's LA Times: A New York dentist wants $5 million yanked away from Johnny Carson for badmouthing the trade by comparing them to the Gestapo on an April, 1986, "Tonight Show." In papers filed recently in N. Y. Supreme Court in Manhattan, Dr. Michael Mendelson said Carson hit a nerve when he mentioned a report about flouride putting dentists out of business, adding, "I haven't been so happy about a group disbanding since the Gestapo." Mendelsohn wrote Carson: "To compare this same group of doctors to a gang of sadistic and bigoted thugs is ludicrous" and demanded a "smirk-free apology." Carson read the letter on the air, adding "Lighten up, Michael Mendelson, DDS." On second thought, I guess I would call it a joke. ---------------------------------------------------- Thought For The Day: A special towel for a special need? (From Consumer Reports magazine) A special towel for a special need? Proctor & Gamble's "Bounty Microwave" (paper towel) is one of those products that solves a problem you didn't know you had. Ever since microwave ovens caught on, people have used paper towels to cook in them. Paper towels keep foods such as bacon or sausage from making a mess of the oven interior; the towels also help keep bread and rolls from drying out or getting soggy when they're warmed. "Bounty Microwave", though it claims to be a towel for all tasks, is cagily named to make you think it's somehow special and therefore better than other brands for microwave cooking. But there's only one meaningful difference we could find between the two types of "Bounty": We paid a bit more for the microwave version. Proctor & Gamble claims that "Bounty Microwave" contains no artifical colors. In other words, it's white. In our opinion, any white paper towel should work in a microwave oven. ---------------------------------------------------- Excerpts from the front page of the San Jose Mercury News today. Sculley, Jobs plotted to take over Xerox John Sculley and Steven Jobs, giddy with enthusiasm and flush with confidence, plotted in mid-1984 for Apple Computer Inc. to take over Xerox Corp., according to a manuscript of a forthcoming book by Sculley. In scheming to acquire a company six times Apple's size, Sculley and Jobs were doing what they knew best: to think big, to defy the odds, to go for broke . . . Rather than just make marketing alliances with large companies, as they had done with GE, Sculley thought, Apple ought to actually buy other companies outright. Not small companies, as Jobs suggested. Big companies. "We're not thinking big enough," he told Jobs. "Maybe we should expand our band width (sic) and think if there's a company out there that could really help us take advantage of this technology. The obvious one to me is Xerox." The idea itself was intoxicating. Jobs and Sculley bounced the prospect off former Xerox computer scientist Bob Belleville and then took it to Al Eisenstat, Apple's in-house general counsel . . . The Xerox gamble fizzled, though, not because of Eisenstat but - in part - because of Jobs. Just as Jobs' impetuous behavior eventually cost him is place at Apple, it got the better of him during earlier talks with Xerox executives . . . . . . [Sculley] recalls saying to Jobs: "I know you don't admire Xerox as a company because it hasn't been able to commercialize its computer products very well. But let's just go in [to a meeting with Xerox executives] and listen and keep our minds as open as possible. Let's demonstrate to them that we're really mature people." Although Sculley remembers Jobs promising to "behave," he claims the chairman [Jobs] began to attack Xerox almost immediately, proclaiming, "I really shouldn't say this, but I'm going to say it. You guys don't have any idea of what you're doing." That sour moment alone may have been enought to make any Apple-Xerox marriage tricky . . . ---------------------------------------------------- I got aquainted with a young widow, observes a writer, who lived with her step-daughter in the same house. I married that widow. Shortly afterward, my father fell in love with the step-daughter and married her. My wife became the mother-in-law and also the daughter-in-law of my own father, and my wife's step-daughter is my step-mother. My father's wife has a boy, who is naturally my step-brother because he is the son of my father and of my step-mother, but because he is the son of my wife's step-daughter, my wife is the grandmother of the little boy, and I am the grandfather of my step-brother. My wife also has a boy. My step-mother is consequently the step-sister of my boy, and also his grandmother because he is the child of her step-son; and my father is the brother-in-law of my son because he has his own step-sister for a wife. I am the brother-in-law of my mother; my wife is the aunt of her own son; my son is the grandson of my father; and I am my own grandfather!!! ACHE (Atlanta Center for Humorous Expression) ---------------------------------------------------- DOES WHOEVER DIES WITH THE MOST TOYS WIN? By Lindsy Van Gelder Until my friend Richard installed his hard disk, he had regarded me as a guru; I was first on my block to own a PC back in early 1982; I had initiated Richard and other friends into the mysteries of DOS and helped them put their hardware on speaking terms with their software. But now suddenly it was Richard who was prattling on about "paths" and "trees", sneering at access times of more than a millisecond, and saying that he would rather swim in a suit of armor than go back to floppy disks. I felt digitally dowdy. "But I don't ¬need¬ 40 megabytes," I explained. "I write magazine articles, not corporate mailing lists. It takes me ¬months¬ to fill up a floppy!" Richard just kept looking superior. It was a look I was to get familiar with, as others of my former band of rapt pupils began to pluck down cash for AT closes, extended memory, EGA boards, laser printers and 2400-baud modems. And while some of them unquestionably ¬needed¬ this stuff to run their businesses, a lot of them seemed to be buying it simply because it was there. I'm thinking particularly of the friend who bought a new Mac SE with 20-megabyte hard disk to store his recipes, but there were plenty of less extreme cases. I think we have an epidemic on our hands; a culturally transmitted disease that I'll call hypertechnology. Its major symptom is a fascination with the cutting edge, even among those who are likely to get cut to shreds on it. Lest you think this is all sour grapes, listen to Dr. Harold E. Berson, a New York psychiatrist whose clientele includes many bright, successful people who are hypertechnology victims. According to Berson, they're a subgenre of the "compulsive, Type A personality. They have very high standards, and they want to function on a very high level. Computers fill all those needs--in another era, these people might have bought a new Mercedes every year. Now, they upgrade!" They are on a space-age treadmill, says Dr. Berson, because "the technology changes so fast that they'll never be satisfied. It's a losing game of one-upmanship." (I won't even go into what Dr. Berson had to say about the real meaning of Throughput Envy.) New York technical consultant Jim Kolman, who describes himself as a troubleshooter, sees entire corporations infected with hypertechnology. "Usually by the time a business comes to me, it's already been ripped off by somebody else," says Kolman. "These days vendors are selling computers on the basis of superstition, not reality. I've seen people who thought they needed a 3-megabyte AT to run WordPerfect." What irks Kolman most is the waste. "Before the industry explores one technology, it's moving on to the next. These guys don't have to build a better mousetrap; all they have to do is change the cheese." As a public service, I'm presenting here, for the first time, the Seven Warning Signs of Hypertechnology: 1. When you read about new generations of computers, do you look at your computer and see a Model T Ford? Have you ever fantasized about owning a laptop Cray? 2. Have you, on more than one occasion, had to buy a piece of hardware or software solely to support some other piece of hardware or software that didn't work? 3. Do you lust to put the records for your entire business on a machine with a chip for which no math coprocessor yet exists? 4. Do you suffer from high baud pressure? Have you bought a 2400-baud modem for the express purpose of "saving connect-time dollars," only to find that you use it mostly to chat with your friends on the CB simulator? 5. Do you feel it's reasonable to use a streaming tape unit to back up the three letters you wrote today? 6. Have you thought of installing a local area network at home so that you and your kids can play LodeRunner? 7. Do you think it would be nice to have a computer with 256 function keys? If you answered *yes* more than once, consider yourself a hypertechnology victim. Spend the weekend locked in a small room with a 128K PCjr with one disk drive, and don't come out until you find at least half a dozen worthwhile things you can do with it. You know who you are. *start* 25293 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Date: 28 Sep 87 13:27:56 PDT (Monday) From: Cate3.PA Subject: Life 2.F To: cc: , Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- Mole problems? Call Avogadro: 6.023 E23 If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate (Picture of Einstein in a police uniform with caption): 186,000 miles per second. It's not just a good idea, it's the law. ---------------------------------------------------- LOS ANGELES TIMES, September 14: According to a database maintained by Academic Guidance Services, there are 3,000 scholarships earmarked for golf caddies, newspaper carriers, glee clubbers, and band members. Juanita College in Pennsylvania gives grants to needy left-handers. Parents whose children were born on June 12, 1979 can plan ahead to apply for a scholarship to the Rochester Institute of Technology in honor of the school's 150th anniversary. Bucknell University gives grants to students who do not use alcohol, tobacco, or narcotics and don't engage in strenuous activities. A judge in Seattle uses the fines he collects from prostitutes to finance scholarships for their reformed sisters who want to return to school. ---------------------------------------------------- Excerpted from the Redwood City Times: The huge Shell Oil Co. toxic waste trial scheduled to gear up in San Bruno this fall has produced reams and reams of paper. So many, in fact, that the San Mateo County Clerk's office has partitioned off a room where two clerks do nothing but sort and file all those stacks of paper. They've named their space the "Shell Oil Control Center" and posted a sign outside: "Life is Shell, and then you die." ---------------------------------------------------- What does a proud computer call his little son? " A microchip off the old block." What happens if you cross a midget and a computer? " you get a short circut". ---------------------------------------------------- So the Pope, a Monsignor, and some young priest were hanging out in the Pope's office talking. Suddenly, through a partially closed door, they see Jesus Christ himself strolling down the hall. They look at each other aghast. The Pope strides across the office, sits down at a typewriter and starts banging away at it. Over the clatter, the Monsignor shakenly asks "Your Holiness, what are you doing?! That's Jesus himself coming down the hall!". ---------------------------------------------------- The Pope, still typing away, looks up and says testily, "I don't know about you guys, but I'm gonna look real busy." Heard about L.A. in the wake of the visit of the Bishop of Rome. Of the many entrepreneurs dogging his Holiness' footsteps, it seems that one is now selling frozen flavored holy water on a stick. Yes, popesickles. ---------------------------------------------------- A Catholic Priest and a Rabbi were chatting one day when the conversation turned to a discussion of job descriptions and promotion. "What do you have to look forward to in way of a promotion in your job?" asked the Rabbi. "Well, I'm next in line for the Monsignor's job." replied the Priest. "Yes, and then what?" asked the Rabbi. "Well, next I can become Arch-Bishop." said the Priest. "Yes, and then?" asked the Rabbi. "If I work real hard and do a good job as Arch-Bishop, it's possible for me to become a full Bishop." said the Priest. "O.K., then what?" asked the Rabbi. The Priest, begining to get a bit exasperated replied, "With some luck and real hard work, maybe I can become a Cardinal." "And then?" asked the Rabbi. The Priest is really starting to get mad now and replies, "With lots and lots of luck and some real difficult work and if I'm in the right places at the right times and play my political games just right, maybe, just maybe, I can get elected Pope." "Yes, and then what?" asked the Rabbi. "Good grief!" shouted the Priest. "What do you expect me to become, GOD?" "Well," said the Rabbi, "One of our boys made it!!!!!!!!" ---------------------------------------------------- Heard on KABC, a survey was taken at some high school on how the students felt about contraceptives being advertised on television. 66% were in favor of it. 26% were against it. 8% said that regardless of the commercial, Pres. Reagan should still send aid to them. ---------------------------------------------------- What did Senator Biden say when he first met with his staff after the New York Times broke the plagiarism scandal? "Don't worry, guys. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself!" Biden said that in regard to plagarisim charges, it wasn't anything recent. In fact, he said 'It all happened four score and seven years ago...' Biden, when asked if he was going to resign, said that 'he had not yet begun to fight.' Pat Schroeder called Joe and told him that she was thinking of entering the presidential race. His response was ' Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.' Perhaps the cruelest cut of all was when someone asked a Biden staffer why Biden was still in the race. The staffer responded that they had been unable to locate a copy of Hart's resignation speech. In the face of all this scandal, he has announced that if nominated, he will not run, and if elected, he will not serve. ---------------------------------------------------- "News that stayed News: Ten Years of Coevolution Quarterly" COONDOG MEMORY (heard in Rutledge, Missouri, about eighteen years ago) "Now, this dog is for sale, and she can not only follow a trail twice as old as the average dog can, but she's got a pretty good memory to boot. For instance, last week this old boy who lives down the road from me, and is forever stinkmouthing my hounds, brought some city fellow around to try out ol' Sis here. So I turned her out south of the house and she made two or three big swings back and forth across the edge of the woods, set back her head, bayed a couple of times, cut straight through the woods, come to a little clearing, jumped about three foot straight up in the air, run to the other side, and commenced to letting out a racket like she had something treed. We went over there with our flashlights and shone them up in the tree but couldn't catch no shine offa coon's eyes, and my neighbor sorta indicated that ol' Sis might be a little crazy, `cause she stood right to the tree and kept singing up into it. So I pulled off my coat and climbed up into the branches, and sure enough, there was a coon skeleton wedged in between a couple of branches about twenty foot up. Now as I was saying, she can follow a pretty old trail, but this fellow was still calling her crazy or touched `cause she had hopped up in the air while she was crossing the clearing, until I reminded him that the Hawkins' had a fence across there about five years back. Now, this dog is for sale." ---------------------------------------------------- Many people think that the concepts and ideas that they read about typical SF story are derived from the imagination of the writer. How do you know this? Many of the things I have read about would require an imagination that borders on mental illness. Are these writers producing autobiographies, thinly disguised as science fiction? Just in case, I present here a brief guide, to help you in the event that something you have read about actually happens to you. What to do ... 1. If you get a phone call from Mars. Speak slowly and be sure to enunciate your words properly. Limit your vocabulary to simple words. Try to determine if you are speaking to someone in a leadership capacity, or an ordinary citizen. Q. What if he or she doesn't speak English? Hang up. There's no sense in trying to learn Martian over the phone. If your Martian really had something important to say to you, he or she would have taken the trouble to learn the language before calling. 2. If you get a phone call from Jupiter? Explain to your caller, politely but firmly, that being from Jupiter, he or she is not `life as we know it'. Try to terminate the conversation as soon as possible. It will not profit you. 3. If a starship, equipped with an FTL hyperdrive lands in your backyard? First of all, do not run after your camera. You will not have any film. Be polite. Remember, if they have an FTL hyperdrive, they can probably vaporize you, should they find you to be rude. Direct them to the White House lawn, which is where they probably wanted to land, anyway. A good road map should help. 4. If you wake up in the middle of the night, and discover that your closet contains an alternate dimension? Don't go in. You almost certainly will not be able to get back, and alternate dimensions are almost never any fun. Remain calm and go back to bed. Check your closet in the morning. If it still contains an alternate dimension, nail it shut. 5. If reality disappears? Hope this one doesn't happen to you. There is not much you can do about it. It can be quite unpleasant. 6. If you meet an older version of yourself who has invented a time traveling machine, and has come from the future to meet you? Follow the books on this one. Ask about the stock market and cash in. Don't forget to invent a time traveling machine and visit your younger self before you die, or you will create a paradox. I hope this guide will be of help to you, should you find yourself confronted with any of the situations described. If anything like the above should happen to you, get out your typewriter, and crank out a story. ---------------------------------------------------- From the Echoes-Sentines [?], Somerset County, NJ, Sept. 17, 1987: GILLETTE RESIDENT IS ARRESTED AFTER SHOOTING HIS COMPUTER PASSAIC TWP. -- A Gillette man was arrested at his home last Thursday night after he fired eight bullets at his home computer, according to police. The man, Michael A. Case, 35, of 64 Summit Ave., was arrested shortly after 11 p.m., at his house, when police said they received a report that shots were fired. They arrived at the home to find a .44 Magnum automatic handgun and a shot-up IBM personal computer with a Princeton Graphics System monitor. The monitor screen was blown out by the blasts and its inner workings were visible, Lt. Donald Van Tassel said on Monday. The computer, which had bullet holes in its hardware, was hit four times while four more bullet holes were found in various areas next to the computer, Van Tassel said. "The only thing he (Case) said was that he was mad at his computer so he shot it," Van Tassel said. The handgun, which the lieutenant identified as an Israeli Arms Desert Eagle .44, has "a lot of firepower," he said. "It's a big gun." Case used hollow-point, or dum-dum, bullets, he added. Case was surprised when police arrested him because he didn't think he was breaking the law, Van Tassel said. "He couldn't understand why he couldn't shoot his own computer in his own home," Van Tassel said. Case was charged with recklessly creating a risk and using a firearm against the property of another, because the house is reportedly owned by a relative. The walls were also damaged by the shots, according to police. He was also charged with unlawful posession of a firearm without a permit, and with possession of illegal bullets, police said. In addition, Case was issued to summonses, for discharging a weapon in a restricted area and for discharging a single-projectile weapon, police said. Case spent early Friday morning in the Morris County Jail and was released later in the day on $2,500 bail, according to police. A Municipal Court appearance is scheduled for today, Sept. 17. [Strange. I just heard a speaker talking about RIFLING THROUGH FILES, rather than RIFFLING THROUGH FILES. Prophetic? PGN] ---------------------------------------------------- [The following Dave Barry column showed up on the Stanford BBoard via some circuitous route.] Nervous? Hah! NERVOUS?! Forget it! I am not the least tiny little BIT nervous about engaging in air travel these days!! Why even as I write these words, I am boldly sitting in a jet-powered commercial airplane, and I am cool as a cucumber. This is because we are on the ground at the famous Atlanta airport, which means we will all be dead from starvation long before we take off, because there are 1,450 aircraft ahead of us, including a number of biplanes still awaiting clearance to participate in World War I. Sitting next to me are two pilots whose flight was canceled. I am not making this up. They work for Eastern Airlines, one of a growing group of airlines that, as far as I can tell, do not actually own any airplanes. What they own is a large, modern and superbly maintained fleet of excuses for why your flight has been canceled. It's a real thrill to watch the gate crews for these airlines swing into action as departure time approaches: "Ladies and gentlemen," the gate agent proudly announces, "the excuse for canceling Flight 219 is now arriving on our computer screen." Right on time! The aspiring passengers cluster around and watch with nervous excitement as the gate agent frowns at the computer, then says: "Flight 219 has been canceled because of . . . (Dramatic pause) " . . . MAYONNAISE IN THE GYROSCOPE!" Ha ha! A new one! What will they think of next? The aspiring passengers, shaking their heads in wonderment at how far commercial aviation has come in just their own lifetimes, wander off to look for a working vending machine. Not that I am complaining about being stuck on the ground. No, because the aviation industry is operating under a new policy called "deregulation," under which anybody who can produce two forms of identification is allowed to operate an airline, and alarming things can happen to the occasional flight that actually becomes airborne, as evidenced by recent news reports of planes whose engines were turned off when they were not in direct personal contact with the ground; planes taking off without important mechanical parts such as wings; planes bound for Lexingoton, Ky., but landing, due to navigational error, on the Lost Continent of Atlantis; etc. But what really bothers me is the pilots. When I was a boy, all the pilots were much older than I am, but in recent years there has been a disturbing trend -- you may have noticed this -- toward pilots MY OWN AGE. I happen to be my own age, and I would never place a person such as myself in a position of responsibility. I live in constant fear that one day I'm going to get on an airplane, and there in the cockpit, wearing a uniform and frowning at the instruments, will be somebody I went to high school with, somebody like Billy Kirkwood, who once, at the Halloween Dance, on purpose, set fire to his own hair. And let's not even TALK about what happens to luggage. I'm going to have a little sticker made up: YOU CAN CHECK MY LUGGAGE WHEN YOU PRY MY COLD, DEAD FINGERS OFF THE HANDLE. Everybody feels this way. Everybody carries everything on board. You see people stuffing Barcaloungers into the overhead racks. TRUE ANECDOTE: Recently the remains of Pvt. Eddie Slovik, the only American executed for desertion during World War II, were supposed to be flown via TWA from New York, N.Y., to Detroit, Mich., so naturally they wound up in San Francisco, Calif. This really happened. Fortunately somebody managed to track Pvt. Slovik down before he earned a Frequent Flier bonus trip to the Far East. Meanwhile, here in the Atlanta airport, we are getting our Safety Lecture. "In the unlikely event that we make it as far as a body of water before we crash," the flight attendant is saying, "you can use your complimentary snack to repel sharks." Next to me, the Eastern pilots -- one of whom is, no question about it, YOUNGER than I am -- are looking at the little safety card from the barf-bag pocket, and they are LAUGHING at it. This is the truth. I ask them what is so funny, and they point to the diagram of the plane floating perkily on top of the water, like a giant inflatable pool toy, while the passengers alertly rescue themselves. "You mean the plane won't do that?" I ask. "Listen," one of them says. "This plane floats about as well as a boat flies." Finally, days later, we take off. The pilot is talking on the intercom. "Folks," he is saying, "on behalf of your entire flight crew, let me just say that I am setting fire to my hair." I hope the beverage cart gets here soon. ---------------------------------------------------- Where the Weird Things Are by Dave Barry It is time once again for our popular feature, "Animals Making the News," featuring heartwarming true stories about the wacky antics of our comical cousins in the animal kingdom, such as the fish that tried to kill the woman in Pennsylvania. We are not making this wacky antic up. Here is a direct quotation from the award-winning "Philadelphia Inquirer": "A fish, believed to be a muskellunge, knocked a 19-vear-old Bucks county woman unconscious when it leaped out of the Delaware River and struck her in the head and chest." Notice that the story says, "believed to be a muskellunge." This prompts me, once again, of a fundamental Crime-Stopper Tip: If you or someone you know is assaulted by a fish, ALWAYS TRY TO GET AN ACCURATE DESCRIPTION. The police are not going to waste their time looking for a fish "believed to be" a muskellunge, because the case would never stand up in court: Defense attorney: Mrs. Jones, are you CERTAIN that is was THIS muskellunge who attacked you? Victim: Yes, I am. Defense attorney: Well, perhaps it will interest you to learn, Mrs. Jones, that this is actually the defendant's BROTHER Maurice. (Bedlam erupts in the courtroom. The defense lawyer triumphantly slams his briefcase shut, killing Maurice.) A strikingly similiar but even more tragic incident occurred recently in Sacramento County, where a man named Elmer Searle, 80, was struck in the head by a flying dog named Chaps. We are still not making this up. According to a story in "The Sacramento Bee", which I am sure also has won many awards, Chaps was crossing the street when he was struck by a Volkswagon van, causing him to become airborne for 39 feet before striking Mr. Searle, who was knocked into a drainage ditch where he hit his head on some rocks. Mr. Searle is coming along OK, but Chaps had to be dispatched via veterinarian to the Great Mailbox Post in the Sky. This makes him a potential customer for a company in Pinellas Park, Fla., named Preservation Specialties, which will FREEZE-DRY YOUR PET. I spoke to the owner of Preservation Specialties, Jeffery R. Weber; and he said that what they do is, they put your pet into a freezer until it gets to be about 5 degrees below zero, and then they use a freeze-drying machine to remove your pet's water content, and then, viola, there is your pet, looking just like it always did, only dead. "Customers generally cry when they pick up the animal," reports Weber. "They put them in front of the fireplace, next to the bed, wherever the animal liked to be." Prices range from $350 for a cat in the lying position to $1800 for a large dog in the attack position, which not only makes a fine momento, but can be an effective crime deterrent, as was shown by a recent incident in St. Louis when Bart, a freeze-dried Doberman pinscher, apprehended Lester A. Wampus Jr., a freeze-dried burglar. No, seriously, we are just making that last incident up, although it is getting harder and harder to tell. Speaking of frozen animals, here's a Homeowner Tip: Don't throw away those dead mice! I learned this from a friend and former neighbor of mine named Libby Burger, who, whenever she caught a mouse in a trap, would put it in a plastic Glad bag and stick it in her freezer in case she needed it at some later date. We laughed at her, until one extremely cold January evening when a group of us were sitting around, wondering what to do about a thoughtless motorist who kept illegally parking his car so it almost blocked the entrance to our subdivision. Suddenly we realized two or three dozen frozen mice would be the perfect things to place in various hidden locations inside this motorist's car, such as under the seat and in the ashtry, to serve as friendly decaying reminders, come warmer weather, of the importance of respecting the the basic right of all Americans to freely ingress and egress their subdivisions. NOTE TO IMPRESSIONABLE YOUNG PEOPLE: We are not suggesting that YOU should try such a stunt. Remember that we were responsible, revenge-seeking adults who had been drinking whiskey sours. Also remember that you may need a coat hanger to unlock the car door. [from the San Jose Mercury News, September 20th, 1987] ---------------------------------------------------- A long time ago, on a node far, far away (from ucbvax)..... ********* D E C W A R S ! ! ********* From the adventures of luke vaxhacker episode n Luke had grown up on an out of the way terminal cluster whose natives only spoke BASIC, but even he could recognize an old ASR-33. "It needs and eia conversion at least," sniffed 3CPU, who was (as usual) trying to do several things at once. Lights flashed on Con Solo's eyes as he whirled to face the parallel processor. "I've added a few jumpers. The Milliamp Falcon can run current loops around any Imperial TTY Fighter. She's fast enough for you." "Who's your co-pilot?" asked PDP-1 Kenobie. "Two Bacco, here, my bookie." "Odds aren't good," said the brownish lump beside him, and then fell silent, or over. Luke couldn't tell which way was top underneath all those leaves. Suddenly, RS232 started spacing wildly. They turned just in time to see a write cycle coming down the unibus toward them. "Imperial Bus Signals!" shouted Con Solo. "Lets boot this popsicle stand! Tooie, set clock fast!" "Ok, Con," said Luke. "You said this crate was fast enough. Get us out of here!" "Shut up, kid! Two Bacco, prepare to make the jump into system space! I'll try to keep their buffers full." As the bookie began to compute the vectors into low core, spurious characters appeared around the milliamp falcon. "they're firing!" shouted Luke. "can't you do something??" "The jump into system space takes time, kid. One missed cycle and you could come down right in the middle of a pack of stack frames!" "In three to five we can go now," said the bookie. Bright chunks of position independent code flashed by the cockpit as the Milliamp Falcon jumped through the kernel page tables. As the crew breathed a sigh of relief, the bookie started paying off bets. "Not bad, for an acoustically coupled network," remarked 3CPU. "Though there was a little phase jitter as we changed parity." TO BE CONTINUED......... SOME MONTHS LATER......... Luke was feeling rather bored. 3CPU could get to be rather irritating and RS232 didn't really speak Luke's language. Suddenly, luke felt someone's eyes boring through the back of his skull. He turned slowly to see.....nothing. A quiet voice came from somewhere in front of him. "Grasshopper, the carrier is strong within you." Luke froze, which was a good thing since his legs were insisting that he run but they weren't likely to be particular about direction. Luke guessed that his odds of getting lost in the dense tree structures were pretty good. Unfortunately, the bookie wasn't available. "Yes, very strong, but the modulation is yet weak. His network interface is totally undeveloped," the voice continued. A small furry creature walked out of the woods as Luke stared on. Luke's stomach had now joined the rest of his body in loud complaints. Whatever was peering at him was certainly small and furry, but Luke was quite sure that it didn't come from Alpha Centauri. "Well, well," said the creature as it rolled its eyes at Luke. "Frobozz, y'know. morning, name's modem. what's your game? Adventure? D&D? Or are you just one of those apple-pong types that hang around the store demonstrations?" Luke closed his eyes. Perhaps if he couldn't see it, it wouldn't notice him. "H'mm," muttered the creature. "Must use a different protocol. !@@@H @@ @@($5@@@H ]­"G$ @#&@@G¬ (O% @@@@%%H(B ?" "No, no," stammered Luke. "I don't speak EBCDIC. I was sent here to become a Unix Wizard. must have the wrong address." "Right address," said the creature. "I am a Unix Wizard. Device drivers are a specialty. Or do you prefer playing with virtual memory?" Luke eyed the creature cautiously. If this was what happened to System Wizards after years of late night crashes, Luke wasn't sure he wanted anything to do with it. He felt a strange affection for the familiar microcomputers of his home. And wasn't virtual memory something you got from drinking too much coke? TO BE CONTINUED.... IF WE'RE NOT LYNCHED...... *start* 17818 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Date: 13 Oct 87 15:50:55 PDT (Tuesday) From: Cate3.PA Subject: Life 2.G To: cc: , Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- I see huggable Worf (The Klingon) dolls in the stores by Christams! ---------------------------------------------------- A man dies and is getting his tour of heaven. His guide is pointing out the various features and landmarks when the man asks, "What's that cliff?" "Oh, you don't wan to look down there. That's hell!" The man creeps up to the edge and looks over. He sees lush, green valleys, verdant farmland and trees everywhere. "This doesn't look so bad," he says. Puzzled, the guide comes over and looks down. "Dang!" he snaps, "Those Mormons have been irrigating again!" ---------------------------------------------------- On Sept. 28, a production B-1 Bomber crashed. The cause: a flock of birds. The obvious question is, why not devote some of the billions of dollars being spent on national defense to build bird farms? The Army could fence up thousands of birds in selected locations, and release them if enemy planes were detected. This would be called the "Strategic Fence Initiative". ---------------------------------------------------- The following appeared on the back page of one of Australia's more outrageous computer publications, "Computing Australia", 21st Sept 1987: ... Blame it on the computer. An unfriendly computer has been held responsible for a "potentially lethal error" involving a Mafia loan collector. A New York paper inadvertently put the `heavy' in the running for a pair of custom-fitted concrete shoes when it identified him as a "ruthless informer". According to a published retraction (and apology!), a writer on the paper had actually typed "ruthless enforcer" - but the computer system's spelling checker liked it the other way. And I thought the worst you could expect from a "computer error" was a bill for a million dollars! ---------------------------------------------------- After a long discussion about giving out phone numbers to store clerks, the following comment was made: ------------------------- Many folks have written with perfectly plausible explanations about why merchants take my phone number on a credit card charge. What these fail to address, however, is that if I'm perpetrating a fraud in the use of this credit card, I'm not about to give out a correct phone number. They make no effort to validate the phone number before I leave, so what they're doing is collecting the phone numbers of a bunch of honest people. Now then...Why are they collecting the phone numbers of a bunch of honest people? ------------------------- and: ------------------------- I once asked why you are asked for your phone number when using your charge cards. The clerk explained that theives have been caught because they stupidly put down THEIR home phone number, not the phone number of the person who "owned" the card. ---------------------------------------------------- From the Chicago Tribune via the October issue of Road & Track... "I just had a few other things to attend to and I just let them slip my mind." This from William P. Holcomb, whose job is to supervise the tracking down of Houston, Texas parking ticket scofflaws - after it was revealed that he had 375 unpaid tickets. ---------------------------------------------------- Animals in the news: LOS ANGELES TIMES, October 8: People of northwestern Montana have been advised to be on the lookout for drunken bears. Black bears and grizzlies have been congregating along the tracks of the Burlington Northern railroad tracks, where a train carrying hundreds of tons of corn derailed some time ago. The corn has fermented, and the aroma is attracting the bears. "The bears are actually intoxicated up there," said wildlife biologist Loren Hicks. And a grizzly with a hangover can be cross as a bear. One of the passengers in a Soviet spacecraft is fooling around with the equipment, and his monkeyshines may end the flight prematurely. The passenger is in fact a monkey named Yarosha -- Russian slang for village troublemaker. Evidently bored on the fifth day of a scheduled 12-day flight, Yarosha slipped out of his harness and took a tour of the spacecraft. Tass, the Soviet news agency, reported that Yarosha was having a delightful time tampering with all of the equipment within reach. Watch out, Yarosha; if you break something, they'll probably dock your flight pay. ---------------------------------------------------- Q. What do you have when you have four attorneys buried in sand up to their necks. A. Not enough sand. ---------------------------------------------------- A reply to a posting on Star Trek: The Next Generation: >2) Defrost Kelly was great - we enjoyed his cameo appearence. It was funny ­­­­­­­ To quote James Doohan (and yes, he really did say this at a con I attended several years ago): "Defrost Kelly!?! That'd be inhuman!!!" The man's name is Deforest (give or take an r), NOT "defrost"!! ---------------------------------------------------- I got a call yesterday from your typical sales rep. Actually, she wasn't so typical... TELEPHONE: RING! ME [picking up phone]: Hello? SALES REP: Hello. I represent such-and-such a company. We make products for children and -- ME: Excuse me. SALES REP: Yes? ME: I don't have any children. SALES REP: Do you have any grandchildren, then? I gave up at that point... ---------------------------------------------------- bumper sticker: MY WIFE'S OTHER CAR IS A BROOM ---------------------------------------------------- After three earthquakes and a record breaking heat wave, the climate in California this week is: SHAKE AND BAKE ---------------------------------------------------- The city of Whittier, California was founded many years ago, mainly by Quakers. There is a prominent sign composed of large, brass letters on one of the financial institutions in that community identifying it as the Quaker City Bank. The last letter of the first word fell off during an earthquake yesterday, making the sign read "Quake City Bank." ---------------------------------------------------- I was somewhat confused by yesterday's news reports about the 6.1 earthquake in the Los Angeles area. It was reported that the earthquake took place on the Whittier Fault. I thought the Whittier Fault was Richard Nixon. ---------------------------------------------------- XEROX ANNOUNCES HYPER-ETHERNET SAN FRANCISCO, CA., Jan 7, 2010 -- Xerox today announced Hyper-Ethernet, its fourth-generation local area network. In addition to its ability to transmit text, data and images, Hyper-Ethernet enables the transmission of people. "People transmission over Hyper-Ethernet," according to Michael Liddle, V.P. of Office Systems, "will greatly reduce elevator congestion and eliminate the need for video conferencing." Order taking for Hyper-Ethernet will begin next month. Installation will start in Los Angeles in the Third Quarter. In a related announcement, Wang Labs, headquartered in Hoboken, New Jersey, announced Super-Hyper Wangnet, its twelfth generation local area network. According to Freddie Wang, President of Wang Labs, "Super-Hyper Wangnet will not only transmit people over the Wangnet, but will also transmit furniture and buildings over the interconnect and utility bands. These additional capabilities of Super-Hyper Wangnet are vital to the emerging office of the future." Order taking for Super-Hyper Wangnet will begin next month. Installation has already occurred worldwide. IBM Corporation, which has been rumored to be about to announce a local area network since 1980, was not available for comment. Digital Responds to Hyper-Ethernet TEWKSBURY, MA, April 1, 2010 -- Digital Equipment announced today its new DECNet Phase XVIII Architecture. In response to recent Xerox and Wang improvements to Ethernet that provide people- and facility- transportation across inter-node links, DEC's latest DECNet provides these capabilities as well as providing for the creation of virtual facilities and even countries. These capabilities are provided by breakthroughs in communications technology that actually uses the Ether as a communications medium. Through the use of a new dedicated NANO-PDP-11/E99 gateway processor system, ETHERGATE, DECNet users can access anywhere in the Ethereal Plane. This development obsoletes teleconferencing, since meeting groups can create their own common conference rooms and cafeterias, thus resolving space, travel, and dining problems. There may be a few bugs left, as some of the dissenting DECNet Review Group members have not been seen since the last meeting held in such a virtual conference facility. This breakthrough was brought about by a team of the Distributed Systems Software and Hardware engineering teams in an effort to improve on their Tewksbury, Massachusetts, facility. In a compromise decision, Distributed Systems will maintain an ETHERGATE in TWOOO but it will connect directly to their new home somewhere in the Shire of their newly defined Middle Earth reality. Despite some difficulties, the scenery, windows, tax breaks, pool, and racquetball courts made the relocation go quite smoothly. Engineering Network topology will not change, as all forwarding will be done by the TWOOO Ethereal Plane Router residing in the crater at the former building site. Utility packages such as Ethereal Person Transfer (EPT) and Ethereal Facility Transfer (EFT) provide appropriate capabilities for casual users. Sophisticated users can create ($CREATE), access ($OPEN) and delete ($NUKE) ethereal entities transparently from high level languages using the Ethereal Management System (EMS) package and the Ethereal Access Protocol (EAP). An ETHERTRIEVE utility for easy interactive use will be available shortly. DECNet Phase XVIII follows on the success of the Phase XVI ability to access everyone's Digital Professional Wristwatch computer system. The lead to the current Phase XVII architecture, which has routing capabilities that allow direct communications with the entire Earth population's Atari home video games. Distributed Systems architects are hard at work on the next phase of DECNet that will include multi-plane existence network management (using the NIECE protocol) and galaxy level routing using 64K-bit addresses. Digital will continue to support its Gateway products into the Prime Material Plane. These products include an IBM ANA (Acronym-based Network Architecture) Gateway, the TOLKIEN product that allows control of all ring based networks, and our Mega-broad-jump-band hardware which leaps past Wang's products in the hype-weary business marketplace. ------------------------------------------------------------- STAR TREK II-3/4: The Search For Monday Night Football Spock: Captian, the Klingons are showing blitz. Spock: I see no logic in running against the Bears (or Giants). Kirk: Scotty go out for a long bomb. Scotty: Captian, I dinna have the power. Uhura: Message from SFC (Star Fleet Command), they want us to punt. Orgainins: Encrochment on the Neutral Zone, Klingons (Romulans) fifteen parsec penilty. Sulu: The New Offensive line is holding. Kirk: Mr Checkov, we are going to do the Statue of Liberity, do you know what it is? Checkov: You mean the Russian Invention. McCoy: Dammit Jim, I'm a Doctor not a Halfback. Kirk: Sulu come about on a crossing pattern. McCoy: He's down Jim. Spock: Captian thats Don Shula, I always admired his view that football is events, not just dates. Spock: Sensors show an open man Captain. Spock: Illogical, they should have blitzed instead of using of a zone. Chapel: Doctor, he's breaking thru. Spock: Jim, I am and always will be your friend, but I will not go out for another bomb. Spock: Captain, I see no reason to bother the referee's. ---------------------------------------------------- Lunch, the HP Way by Stephen Harrison and Noel Magee This is the story of a different kind. No melting CPU's, no screaming disc drives, just the kind of psychological torture that scars a man for life. I had a 9:00 meeting with my sales rep. I needed to buy an entire new series 70, the works. He said it'd take about an hour. Three hours later, we'd barely got the datacomm hardware down on paper, so he invited me downstairs for lunch. This was my first experience in an HP cafeteria. Above the service counter was a menu which began... MMU's (Main Menu Units) 0001A Burger. Includes sesame-seed bun. Must order comdiments 00110A seperatly 001 Deletes seeds. 002 Expands burger to two patties. 00020A Double cheeseburger, preconfigured. Includes cheese, bun and condiments. 001 Add-on bacon. 002 Delete second patty. 003 Replaces second patty with extra cheese. 00021A Burger Upgrade to Double Cheeseburger 001 From Single Burger. 002 From Double Burger. 003 Return credit for bun. 00220A Burger Bundle. Includes 00010A, 00210A and 00310A 001 Substitute root beer 00311A for cola 00310A. My eyes glazed over. I asked for a burger and a root beer. The waitress looked at me like I was an alien. "How would you like to order that, sir ?" "Quickly, if possible. Can't I just order a sandwich and a drink ?" "No sir. All our service is menu driven. Now what would you like ?" I scanned the menu. "How big is the 00010 burger ?" "The patty is rated at eight bites." "Well, how about the rest of it ?" "I dont have the specs on that, sir, but I think it's a bit more." "Eight bites is too small. Give me the Double Burger Upgrade." My sales rep interrupted. "No, you want the Single Burger option 002 'expands burger to two patties'. The double burger upgrade would give you two burgers. "But you could get return credit on the extra bun," the waitress chimed in, trying to be helpful, "although it isn't documented." I looked around to see if anybody was staring at me. There was a couple in line behind us. I recognized one of them, a guy who merely mowed me down in the parking lot with his cherry-red '62 Vette. He was talking to some woman who was waving her arms around and looking very excited. "What if... we marketed the bacon cheeseburger with the vegetable option and without the burger and cheese ? It'd be a BLT!" The woman charged off in the direction of the telephone, running steeplechases over tables and chairs. My waitress tried to get my attention again. "Have you decided, sir ?" "Yeah, give me the double burger- excuse me, I mean the 00020A with the option 001. I want everything on it." She put me down for the Condiment Expansion Kit, which included mayonnaise, mustard and pickles with a option to substitute relish. "Ketchup." I hated to ask. "I want ketchup on that, too." "Thats not a condiment, sir, it's a Tomato Product." My sales rep butted in again. "Thats not a supported configuration." "What now ?" I kept my voice steady. "Too juicy. The bun can't handle it." "Look. Forget the ketchup, just put some lettuce and tomatoes on it." The waitress backed away from the counter. "I'm sorry, sir, but thats not supported either, the bun can take it but the burger won't fit in the box. The sales rep defended himself. "Just not at first release." "It is being beta-tested, sir." I checked the overhead scree. Fries, number 000210A, option 110. French followed by option 120, English. "What the hell are English Fries ?" I turned to the sales rep. "Chips they call them. We sell a lot of them." I gave up. "OK, OK just give me a plain vanilla Burger Bundle." The confused the waitress profoundly. "Sir, Vanilla as an option is configured only for series 00450 Milkshakes." My sales rep chuckles. "No ma'am, he just wants a standard 00220A off the shelf. I wondered how long it had been on the shelf. I didn't ask. "Very good, sir." The waitress breathed a sigh off belief. "Your meal is now on order. Now how would you like it supported ?" "Support ?" She directed me to the green shaded area at the bottom of the menu, and I began a litany with my Sales Rep that I'll never forget. "Implementation assistance ?" "You get a waiter." "Implementation analysis ?" You tell him how hungry you are and he tells you what to eat." "Response Center Support ?" "He brings it to your table." "Extended materials ?" "You get refills." I stuffed some money at the waitress and told her to take it. She gave me my check on three sheets of green-bar paper. I studied it on my way to the table, and decided it'd pass as an emergency napkin. Table ? My Sales Rep had been bright enough to order us a table. He hadn't been bright enough to check on a delivery date. The table waiter slouching in his corner surveyed the crowded room, looked at me and said "Two weeks. But I can get you a standalone chair by the window right away." I handed him the tray. A woman rushed up to me with two small cups of chile and sauerkraut for the hot dog somebody else had ordered. The room began to grom dim, my eyesight faded... I woke up clutching the water-glass at my bedside table. It was five AM, four hours till my meeting with HP. I had had a vision, I did what it told me to do. I dialed my office, and I called in sick. *start* 19915 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Date: 19 Nov 87 14:53:59 PST (Thursday) From: Cate3.PA Subject: Life 2.H To: Cate3 --------------------------------------------------- From the November issue of Road & Track... From there's-gotta-be-a-better-way file: A man from Kokomo, Indiana drove his car to Indianapolis to pick up a truck he purchased. The problem: two vehicles, ONE driver. So, he drove his car up the road, parked and walked back to the truck. Then, he drove the car a ways past the truck.... The dealership is 63 miles from Kokomo. The story ran in the Indianapolis News. --------------------------------------------------- Reprinted from Time Mag. w/o permission: the new anti-alcoholism drive in Russia produced a home-brewed cocktail which has mostly sugar in it, and is left for days to ferment in a jar covered with a latex glove. After the glove expands & raises its fingers, the cocktail is ready for consumption. It's called: Gorbachov's Greeting --------------------------------------------------- "If you took all the economists and laid them head to toe, they would stretch around the world three times and the only thing they would not reach is a conclusion." --------------------------------------------------- Wanna know how to make a small fortune in stocks? Start with a large fortune. --------------------------------------------------- How many investment brokers does it take to change a light bulb? A: MY GOD!! IT BURNT OUT!! SELL ALL MY G.E. STOCK NOW!!!!! B: Two. One to take out the bulb and drop it, and the other to try and sell it before it crashes. --------------------------------------------------- Heard on WITR yesterday: RIT students have organized their annual community involvement volunteer project. This year's project will be to help clean up Mt. Hope Cemetary. The project has been titled "The Grateful Dead". --------------------------------------------------- Q: How do you save a drowning laywer? A: Throw him a rock. --------------------------------------------------- Person 1: Do you know how to save a drowning lawyer? Person 2: No. Person 1: GOOD! --------------------------------------------------- A rabbi, a priest, and a lawyer were all caught in a shipwreck. Naturally, there are a lot of sharks circling around. All of a sudden, one shark darts in and grabs the priest for lunch. No more priest. The rabbi starts praying frantically, but to no avail, as a shark comes in and eats him, too. Now the lawyer is really worried, as a shark is coming for him. But, miracle of miracles, the shark puts him on its back, carries him to shore, and lets him off. The lawyer, curious, waits till the shark is far enough away not to eat him, and asks, "How come you didn't eat me?" And the shark replies, "Professional Courtesy!" --------------------------------------------------- What's the difference between a bond and a bond trader? Eventually, the bond will mature. --------------------------------------------------- The following are real problem reports only the names have been changed: ---------------- Description Of Problem: Can't access any file servers. Need to get a file off of a particular file server for a presentation at tomorrow's forum. The Fix: Convinced him to do the forum without the paper. Description Of Problem: Can't seem to get his computer to boot. He's tried very hard to make it work but all the things he did last time don't seem to work now. The Fix: Big Joe slapped him around a bit. He came to his senses and apologized for all the trouble he's caused us. Description Of Problem: Little Sara has nine XXXX's that won't boot. She can't get any work done untill they're fixed. The Fix: Informed her we don't maintain XXXX's any more. Description Of Problem: A user is rather upset because she can't seem to print on RedLeader. The Fix: Reminded her that RedLeader has been moved to the warehouse. --------------------------------------------------- A streetcar in Moscow is packed with people. There are lots of signs in the bus supporting Gorbachev's anti-alcohol drive. The driver shouts "Red Square". Some people get on and off. At the next stop the driver shouts "Liquor Store". Some people get on but nobody gets off. At the next stop the driver shouts "End of the line for the Liquor Store". Everybody gets off. And so it goes with the anti-alcohol campaign in the Soviet Union. --------------------------------------------------- The History of the Development of Electricity By Dave Barry Today's scientific question is: What in the world is electricity? And where does it go after it leaves the toaster? Here is a simple experiment that will teach you an important electrical lesson: On a cool, dry day, scuff your feet along a carpet, then reach into a friend's mouth and touch one of his dental fillings. Did you notice how your friend twitched violently and cried out in pain? This teaches us that electricity can be a very powerful force, but we must never use it to hurt others unless we need to learn an important electrical lesson. It also teaches us how an electrical circuit works. When you scuffed your feet, you picked up small batches of "electrons," which are very small objects that carpet manufacturers weave into carpets so they will attract dirt. (that will cause the carpet to wear out faster so you will need to buy a new one sooner, but thats another story) The electrons travel through your blood stream and collect in your finger, where they form a spark that leaps to your friend's filling, then travels down to his feet and back into the carpet, thus completing the circuit. Amazing Electronic Fact: If you scuffed your feet long enough without touching anything, you would build up so many electrons that your finger would explode! But this is nothing to worry about unless you have carpeting. Although we modern persons tend to take our electric lights, radios, mixers, etc. for granted, hundreds of years ago people did not have any of these things, which is just as well because there was no place to plug them in. Then came along the first Electrical Pioneer, Benjamin Franklin, who flew a kite in a lightning storm and received a serious electrical shock. This proved that lightning was powered by the same force as carpets, but it also damaged Franklin's brain so badly that he started speaking in maxims, such as "a penny saved is a penny earned." (Eventually he got so bad he had to be given a job running the post office, but thats another story) After Franklin came a herd of Electrical Pioneers whose names have become part of our electrical terminology: Myron Volt, Mary Louise Amp, James Watt, Bob Transformer, etc. These pioneers conducted many important electrical exper- iments. For example, in 1780 Luigi Galvani discovered (this is the truth by the way) when he attached two different kinds of metal to the leg of a frog, an electrical current developed and the frog's leg kicked, even though it was no longer attached to the frog, which was dead anyway. Galvani's discovery led to enormous advances in the field of amphibian medicine. Today skilled veterinary surgeons can take a frog that has been seriously injured or killed, implant pieces of metal in its muscles, and watch it hop back into the pond just like a normal frog, except for the fact that it sinks like a stone. But the greatest Electrical Pioneer of them all was Thomas Edison, who was a brilliant inventor despite the fact that he had little formal training and lived in New Jersey. Edison's first major invention in 1877, was the phonograph, which could be found in thousands of American homes, where it basically sat until 1923 when the record was invented. But Edison's greatest achievement came in 1879, when he invented the electric company. Edison's design was a brilliant adaptation of the simple electric circuit: The electric company sends electricity through a wire to a customer, then immediately gets the electricity back through another wire, then (this is the brilliant part) sends it right back to the customer again. This means the electric company can sell a customer the same batch of elect- ricity thousands of times a day and never get caught, since very few customers take the time to examine their electricity closely. In fact the last year any new electricity was generated in the United States was 1937; the electric companies have merely been re-selling it ever since, which is why they have so much free time to apply for rate increases. Today, thanks to men like Edison and Franklin, and frog's like Galvani's, we receive unlimited benefits from electricity. For example, in the past decade scientists developed the laser, an electronic appliance so powerful that it can vaporize a bulldozer 2,000 yards away, yet so precise that doctors can use it to perform delicate operations on the human eye, provided they remember to change the power setting from "Vaporize Bulldozer" to "Delicate." --------------------------------------------------- ...Let us suppose that the Enterprise is doing some sort of research mission to an unknown planet. I think the Captains Log would be worth a look: Captain's Log, Stardate 54324.5: Starfleet Command has directed the Enterprise to do a preliminary exploration of planet --- in advance of a full research team. Scanners report the atmosphere to be breathable, but are recieving confusing readings with regard to life forms. I am beaming down with a landing party composed of all our chief officers except for poor Scotty. Supplement: Redshirt Riley has received a head injury, apparently while exploring under a high rock shelf. He reports only hearing a loud sound and jumping before being struck. After examination by Dr. McCoy he has been judged capable of continuing duty. Supplement: We have encountered an alien creature on this planet. While it does not itself seem menacing, a unfortunate occurance took place when it was present. Specifically, on my orders Lt. Sulu withdrew his phaser. The creature disappeared leaving a puff of smoke, immediately following which a loud noise was heard next to Sulu. Sulu fired, hitting Ens. Chekov. Oddly enough, although Sulu's weapon was set to stun, Chekov was also covered with a black powder similar to soot. Mr. Chekov has been sent back to the ship for examination and quarantine. Stardate 54326.2, Mr. Spock reporting: Tricorder readings indicate that the creature we encountered earlier is constantly moving at great speed over the surface of the planet. We have encountered the creature once again. In an attempt to slow the creature for study, I attempted to fire on it. The creature, however, appeared to move faster than the phaser beam. Regretfully, the beam struck an outcropping of rock above the Captain's head, causing it to break off and fall. Although it appears that several tons of rock fell squarely on the Captain, he was driven straight into the ground but apparently not seriously injured, though stunned. The Captain has been beamed up to Sickbay, leaving me in command of the research party. Captain's Log, Stardate 54342.1: The creature is still at large on the planet surface. While Mr. Spock continues to lead a research party I am currently at work with Mr. Scott on an Acme Pressure Cooker for our lab, for when the creature is finally apprehended. Captain's Log, stardate 54342.3. The strange occurences that have dogged the landing party since our arrival at this planet have led me to believe that the creature is in some way directly responsible for them. Mr. Chekov and I have both been declared fit for return to duty, though Dr. McCoy has entered in his medical log that he feels we should be kept under observation. Mr. Spock has constructed a device which he suspects should be able to counteract the creature's incredible speed as follows: We have placed a dish of birdseed out in the open, with several signs pointing to it. The dish is atop a cleverly concealed trap door, which will open when any weight falls on it. The creature will then travel a slide, eventually being deposited in a cage constructed of sheets of transparent aluminum. We will then be free to analyze it at our leisure. Meanwhile, I have forbidden all beaming down to the surface of the planet except on my or Mr. Spock's direct order. Captain's Log, supplemental. The plan failed. The creature was indeed lured by the birdseed, as expected. It sped to the dish, consumed the bait, and sped off without setting off the trap. Mr. Spock is as puzzled as I, and has begun tests to discover the flaw in the design. I have sent out three search parties to see if we can box the creature in, one headed by Mr. Sulu, one by Mr. Chekov, and one by Sociologist Xontel. Captain's Log, stardate 54342.8. Sociologist Xontel has been temporarily incapacitated. In pursuing the creature, he and his men somehow managed to cross the place where Mr. Spock's trap was set just as he completed the corrections to it. The trap was sprung, and all four of my men were suspended for a moment in mid-air, puzzled, just before they fell into the cage we constructed. We are now trying to release them with phasers, as the lock was inadvertently smashed by the impact from Sociologist Xontel's foot as he fell. I consider this a major setback. Mr. Spock considers it "fascinating." Captain's Log, stardate 54343.4. In an all-out attempt to stop the creature once and for all, I have had a phaser rifle beamed down from the Enterprise. The creature has behaved in an extremely cunning manner, yet I am unsure whether this is a sign of actual intelligence. Lt. Uhura has been unsuccessful in her attempts to raise Starfleet Command. Meanwhile, Mr. Scott informs me that our dilithium crystals are deteriorating at an alarming rate. He has juryrigged a system that will prevent the decay for a time, but it is imperative that we find new crystals soon. Captain's Log, supplemental. Mr. Sulu reports high energy tricorder readings from an area of the planet in which the creature has not yet been sighted. He has taken a small party, including Mr. Spock, to the high-elevation spot from which the readings emanate. I have begun to analyze the creature's movements. It seems to travel consistently over a set path. Perhaps we can corner it in a tunnel it seems to pass through frequently. Captain's Log, stardate 54344.7. Mr. Sulu has located a cache of ACME dilithium crystals atop a high cliff. Regretfully, while collecting them, the edge of the cliff broke off, and he and Mr. Spock plummetted several hundred feet to the ground below. Strangely enough, they both survived the fall with no more than raising a cloud of dust on impact, although they did pass the chunk of rock on the way down and end up completely buried. A rescue excavation has commenced, and they should be safe shortly. Captain's Log, stardate 54344.9. Mr. Spock has beamed up to the ship with them to assist Mr. Scott in their installation, as he forsees compatability problems. Back on the planet's surface, Mr. Chekov led seven men into the tunnel in an attempt to capture the creature in transit. A loud BEEP, BEEP was heard, and Chekov aimed the phaser rifle and commanded his men to spread out. I wish to state for the record that I would have acted similarly, and that Ensign Chekov should in no way be held responsible for the unfortunate circumstances arising from the unexpected appearance of an old Earth-style freight train. He has been beamed back up to the ship with minor injuries. Captain's Log, stardate 54345.1. Dr. McCoy has beamed down with a hypo containing a mixture of kyranide, tri-ox compound, Scalosian concentrate, a theragram derivative, and some other items he found in unmarked containers in Sickbay. By injecting a small amount into each member of the landing party, I hope to be able to deal with the creature on its own high speed terms. Captain's Log, supplemental. The latest experiment to deal with the strange creature has failed. As Dr. McCoy was injecting a measured dose of the compound, it abruptly appeared behind him and uttered a loud BEEP, BEEP! Dr. McCoy, understandably flustered, accidentally pressured in the entire contents of the hypo into his arm. A full security team is in pursuit of him, waiting for the effects of the drug to wear off. Captain's Log, stardate 54345.2. I have ordered the landing party transported back to the ship. The new dilithium crystals have been successfully installed. On my responsibility, the ship is preparing to engage main phasers to attack the creature, which continues on its semi-erratic course across the planet's surface. Captain's Log, supplemental. This is a warning to all other starships that may pass this way. Do not approach this planet! The illogical events occuring here are too much to overcome with simple science. If you have heard the events transcribed in the rest of this log, you will learn that this creature is nearly undefeatable. We channelled full ship's power through the phaser banks. Theoretically, the creature should have been destroyed; however, the energies were too much strain for the ACME crystals. The full force of the phasers backlashed over the Enterprise, engulfing her completely. At first, the only noticeable effect was a complete failure of all systems save emergency gravity and life support. Then a web of black lines spread through the Enterprise's superstructure. Next, the ship began breaking up, piece by piece, falling through the atmosphere to land on the surface of the planet. When the ship had collapsed entirely, my crew was left hanging in space for a short time, and finally each of us began to fall to the planet below. We have no theories on how any of us survived, but every crewmember has reported nothing more than a sense of uneasiness, followed by the realization that they were several hundred miles up in the air, a sinking sensation, and then a gradual drop: first the feet, then the body, and finally the head, usually wearing a resigned expression of perplexion. We are attempting now to communicate with the creature in the hopes that it will prove intelligent. Perhaps we can communicate our peaceful intentions to it. Mr. Spock has constructed a crude rocket launcher from the wreckage of the ship, and with this we hope to send the recorder marker up into space, where hopefully someone will find it. Captain James T. Kirk, of the United Federation of Planets, Captain of the Starship Enterprise, recording. ---------------------------------------------------- [The following item from the London /Times/ appears under the preceding headline as a filler in the October 12 issue of /The New Yorker/. Nicholas Lyell, QC, who gains a knighthood with his new job of Solicitor General, entered Parliament in 1979 as MP for Hemel Hempstead. In 1983 he became MP for Mid-Bedfordshire and in 1986 was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Health and Social Security, with special responsibility for social security. Aged 48, he is married with two sons and a daughter. He was a student at Christ Church, Oxford, was called to the bar in 1965, and went on to specialize in Commercial and Industrial Law. In 1985-86 he was chairman of the Society of Conservative Lawyers. His views on legal reform include urging curfew orders to be placed on young offenders, legalization of the sale of garden gnomes on Sundays and attempting to reform delinquents by painting their noses phosphorescent green. ---------------------------------------------------------------- *start* 18689 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Date: 19 Nov 87 15:23:25 PST (Thursday) From: Cate3.PA Subject: Life 2.I To: cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- Lenin is dying, and talking things over with Stalin, his successor. "The one worry I have", says Lenin, "is this: will the people follow you? What do you think, comrade Stalin?" "They will", says Stalin, "they surely will." "I hope so", says Lenin, "but what if they don't follow you?". "No problem", says Stalin, "then they'll follow you." ---------------------------------------------------- The secret police have discovered a man who looks exactly like Stalin. This is obviously dangerous: he could impersonate the Leader, and who knows what harm may result. Beria, the secret police chief, is reporting to Stalin, and asking for instructions. "Why, shoot him." says Stalin. "Certainly, comrade Stalin; a great idea, comrade Stalin." says Beria," but... well, I will see that this is done promptly!" "BUT?" says Stalin "But what?! Speak out your mind! You know I am always open to suggestions." "Well, I thought, if we just shaved off his moustache... he might be no problem... " says Beria. "A valuable suggestion, comrade Beria!" says Stalin. "We'll implement it. Shave him, *then* shoot him! ---------------------------------------------------- Two Russian border guards, Ivan and Vladimir, on a cold winter morning. Looking across the border, Ivan is smiling to himself, then he notices that Vladimir is also smiling. Ivan [suspiciously]: "What were you thinking about?" Vladimir: "Same thing you were thinking about, comrade." Ivan: "Then it is my duty to arrest you." ---------------------------------------------------- An elderly man stands in line for hours at a Warsaw meat store (meat is severely rationed). When the butcher comes out at the end of the day and announces that there is no meat left, the man flies into a rage. "What is this?" he shouts. "I fought against the Nazis, I worked hard all my life, I've been a loyal citizen, and now you tell me I can't even buy a piece of meat? This rotten system stinks!" Suddenly a thuggish man in a black leather coat sidles up and murmurs "Take it easy, comrade. Remember what would have happened if you had made an outburst like that only a few years ago" -- and he points an imaginary gun to this head and pulls the trigger. The old man goes home, and his wife says, "So they're out of meat again?" "It's worse than that," he replies. "They're out of bullets." ---------------------------------------------------- In 1953, Stalin dies. The politburo holds a special meeting to decide what to do about the body. Nobody will let it be buried near their home. Finally they decide: "Aha! Call Israel! Offer them ten million US dollars The Jews will do *anything* for money!". Off goes the message and the politburo waits... Finally a telegram comes: "NO THANK YOU STOP ONE RESURRECTION HERE ALREADY STOP" ---------------------------------------------------- Stalin dies and goes to hell (of course). But the devil is worried that he might take over, so he won't let him in the gates. Stalin wanders around outside the gates, looking for help, for 3 years. Finally some Hungarians killed in the 1956 uprising come by. Even they feel sorry for poor Stalin, and one of them offers to help. He tells Stalin to climb into a potato sack, and three of them carry it to the wall. They yell up at Satan: "Hey, have you got a fellow named Karl Marx in there ?" The devil says: "Yes, why ?" They toss the sack with Stalin over the wall. "Tell him to come collect the interest on his `Kapital'." ---------------------------------------------------- The Czechs announced after Sputnik that they, too, would launch a satellite. Of course it would orbit not Earth but Sputnik. ---------------------------------------------------- Stalin is dying, and summons Komrad Khruschev to his bedside. Wheezing his last few words with difficulty, Stalin tells Khruschev, "Komrad, the reins of the country are now in your hands. But before I go, I want to give you some advice." "Yes, yes, Great Leader, what is it?" says Khruschev. Reaching under his pillow, Stalin produces two envelopes marked 1 and 2. "Take these letters," he tells Khruschev. "Keep them safely - don't open them. Only if the country is in turmoil and things start going bad, open the first one. That'll give you some advice on what to do. And, even after that, if things start going REALLY bad, open the second one." And with a gasp Stalin breathed his last. Well, Khruschev succeeded him, and sure enough, within a few years things started going bad - unemployment increased, crops failed, people became restless. Nikita decided it was time to open the first letter. All it said was: "Blame everything on me!" So Khruschev launched a massive deStalinization campaign, and blamed Josef for all the excesses and purges and ills of the present system, and bought himself some time that way. But things continued on the downslide - Kennedy successfully rebuffed Soviet missiles in Cuba, unemployment increased even more, crops failed even more, the Politburo was unhappy with Khruschev's leadership and upstarts like Brezhnev and Gromyko were threatening his credibility. So finally, after much deliberation, Nikita opened the second letter. All it said was: "Write two letters." ---------------------------------------------------- "I FELT A GREAT DISTUBANCE IN THE FORCE, AS IF 500 BILLION DOLLARS CRIED OUT IN TERROR, AND SUDDENLY VANISHED."-OBI BEN BOSKY, 10/19/87 ---------------------------------------------------- Courtesy of the N. Y. Times, heard on Bob Rosefsky's Money Talks spot on KABC radio: --Sylvester Stallone will begin shooting a new movie next week, which will outdo anything hes ever done in mayhem and violence. It's called Rambo Gets a Margin Call. --The latest merger rumor has Shearson Lehman teaming up with Payne Webber. They will call the new firm Sheer Pain. --E. F. Hutton has come out with a new portfolio idea for the small investor. It's 50% in cash and 50% in canned goods. ---------------------------------------------------- What do Winnie the Pooh and John the Baptist have in common? They have the same middle name. ---------------------------------------------------- A man ahead of his time "As I look down the Invisible Path to the Future, I can see clearly before me the Footprint of the Hand of Fate." - James B. McSheehy member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors ca. 1900 ---------------------------------------------------- A man, who barely made it through the Black Monday crash, called E.F. Hutton the next day and asked, "May I speak to Mr. Spenser, my broker, please?" The operator replied, "I'm sorry. Mr Spenser is deceased. Can anyone else help you?" The man said no and hung up. Ten minutes later he called again and asked for Mr. Spenser, his broker. The operator said, "You just called a few minutes ago, didn't you? Mr. spenser has died. I'm not making this up." The man again hung up. Fifteen minutes later he called a third time and asked for Mr. Spenser. The operator was irked by this time. "I've told you twice already, Mr. Spenser is dead. He is not here! Why do you keep asking for him when I say he's dead?" The man replied, "I just like hearing it." ---------------------------------------------------- Yet more from the Program Trader Nelson article (WSJ, Oct 13, pg 39): One time, a broker typed in the wrong password (on the Bankers Trust computer), which happened to be another broker's password. "So they both had this same list of securities. I get a call from a broker saying, `I'm trying to buy XYZ and it keeps getting bid up out there.` We couldn't figure it out. Then it suddently dawned on us that (two different brokers) were working the same list." Both brokers were getting the same list of stocks to buy and sell, and were bidding against each other. ---------------------------------------------------- Q: Why do bats fly at night? A: because they are afraid to drive. Q: How do vampires stay so clean? A: they take blood baths. Q: What are ghosts favorite birds? A: Scar Crows ---------------------------------------------------- bumper snicker: "I can't be overdrawn. I still have more checks!!" ---------------------------------------------------- #1: Save the whales. #2: Collect the whole set. ---------------------------------------------------- A candidate and a voter are having a conversation outside the polling place. Voter: I would not vote for you if you were St. Peter himself. Candidate: If I were St. Peter, you would not live in my district. ---------------------------------------------------- An Englishman once defended driving on the left as the correct way as follows: Most people are right handed. Therefore, most will wear their sword on their left side, Therefore most will mount their horse from the left side (to avoid sword/horse interference) It is safer to mount a horse from the side of the road than from the middle of the road. Therefore horses will be on the left side of the road for mounting and should stay on that side for traveling. ---------------------------------------------------- Q: Why are electrons patriotic? A: Because they go to the poles and volt. ---------------------------------------------------- The Pentagon has deployed trained dolphins in the Persian Gulf to detect under water mines. They will be used for purely defensive porpoises ---------------------------------------------------- If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, what is an empty desk a sign of? 1) A clean desk is the sign of a frightened mind! 2) A clean desk is the sign of a manager at work? 3) Being terminated. 4) It usually means my mother is visiting again! 5) HAVING TOO MUCH WORK TO DO IN TOO LITTLE TIME! 6) I suppose it's a sign of someone who's following security regulations. (I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt.) 7) Actually, it a sign of visiting VIPs. ---------------------------------------------------- Stan Kelly-Bootle, in "The Devil's DP Dictionary", has already pointed out some of the hazards of truncation (or, as he would say, curtation) in daily life. But I was nonetheless surprised to discover, watching the readout in the supermarket check-out line, that I had just bought a "CHICKEN LIVE". Surprising, how passively it accepted its fate. ---------------------------------------------------- Proposed Country-Western song titles: I Wouldn't Take You to a Dog Fight Even If I Thought You Could Win My John Deere Was Breaking Your Field, While Your Dear John Was Breaking My Heart Tennis Must Be Your Racket, 'Cause Love Means Nothin' to You I've Got Red Eyes From Your White Lies and I'm Blue All the Time I Liked You Better Before I Knew You So Well I Still Miss You, Baby, But My Aim's Gettin' Better ---------------------------------------------------- Gary Hart's big mistake: He should have had Ted Kennedy drive her home that night. :-) ---------------------------------------------------- "Maybe this world is another planet's Hell." -Aldous Huxley ---------------------------------------------------- Did you hear that Ted Kennedy asked his young beautiful secretary to be his mistress? She hesitated to begin the relationship and asked Ted: "But what if I should become pregnant?" Ted said, "Don't worry, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it!!" ---------------------------------------------------- I saw this recently on a Literature Professor's door. It was on a piece of paper that looked as if it had been cut out of a student's paper. "The Odyssey portrays a very structured hierarchy of a society based on love, violence, stature, and golf." I wish I had the rest of the paper. ---------------------------------------------------- More IT'S A SMALL TOWN You know you're in a small town..... when you turn on your hair dryer and the street lights dim... Everyone knows whose credit is good, and whose wife isn't. ---------------------------------------------------- What's the difference between a dead shunk on the oard road and a dead lawyer. There are skid marks in front of the skunk ---------------------------------------------------- Bumper sticker seen on the way into work: "When God talks, even E. F. Hutton listens!" ---------------------------------------------------- Found at the end of a submission by Alexander Falk to the info-mac digest. IF YOU CAN SEE IT AND IT'S THERE - IT'S REAL IF YOU CAN SEE IT AND IT ISN'T THERE - IT'S VIRTUAL IF YOU CAN'T SEE IT AND IT'S THERE - IT'S TRANSPARENT IF YOU CAN'T SEE IT AND IT ISN'T THERE - IT'S G O N E ---------------------------------------------------- This travelling guy was once driving outside a small town and right in front of a mad peoples home (madhouse or whatever it's called) his front wheel comes off. Looking into the problem he finds that all four of the wheel's nuts have come off. `This is a fine mess' he thinks loudly `how am I ever going to get out of here'. In frustration he sits down by the side of a road to think things out. All this while there was a mad inmate who watched the whole scene from his window. After a while he calls out to the traveller asking him to approach the window. The man looks at him and decides that the last thing he can handle is a conversation with a lunatic and ignores him but eventually gives in when he persists. When he approaches the window the mad man tells him to take one nut out of each of his other wheels and use it temporarily on wheel that's come off. This way he could get to next town and buy 4 more. The traveller looks at him in disbelief, this had never occurred to him. Totally blown away by this, he applogises for his rude behaviour previously and ask him why he's in a mad house when he's has so much common sense. To this he gets the reply "I'm mad not STUPID". ---------------------------------------------------- The meek will inherit the earth--if that's OK with you. ---------------------------------------------------- "A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup and mustard." ---------------------------------------------------------------- One of the more interesting displays at the Edwards Air Force Base Air Show was the roped-off area containing no plane (?) but did contain a reusable marker bearing the caption "Stealth Fighter." It had a one-man crew (a pair of empty flight boots with a card in front of them which read "STEALTH PILOT"), and is said to capable of speeds over 100 knots and altitudes of over 1,000 feet. ---------------------------------------------------- Amazing, self powered: Check out Prime's recent ads for graphics workstations in the IEEE journals. The ad shows a PRIME colr graphics workstation with a beautiful display on its screen. unfortunately, the power switch, visible in the lower right corner of the machine is clearly in the "Off" position. ---------------------------------------------------- Here are some funny(?) phrases and constructions that my wife brought home from her class. (She is a high school English teacher.) These actually appeared in her students' homework and exams. I thought that they were funny enough to be included in rec.humor. I loved her so much that I put her on a pedal stool. When I grow up I want to be a whorse trainer. She left him because he took her for granite. In the Middle Ages Europe was swept by the Blue Bonnet plague. When you have finished the final step, Walla! you're ready to bake your cake. ---------------------------------------------------- Comments on Life Reeked With Joy > Renaissance merchants were beautiful and almost lifelike. AHA, the invention of the computer salesman!!!! > Theologically, Luthar was into reorientation mutation. Is that anything like EST(tm)? > Calvinism was the most convenient religion since the days of the ancients. "No muss, no fuss...it's PREDESTINED!" > Monks went right on seeing themselves as worms. Must have been their Diet, huh? > The last Jesuit priest died in the 19th century. Yup...and he's STILL teaching theology! > Industrialization was precipitating in England. Cough, cough... > Voting was to be done by ballad. Sort of like the Grammys... > napoleon III-IV mounted the French thrown. Geez, Martha...them Frenchies iz at it agin! An' they're doin' it to a WALTZ! > Here too was the new German: loud, bold, vulgar and full of reality. Is that what you call it? > Music reeked with reality. Must be "German reality"... > Wagner was master of music Yup, just as I expected... > France had Chekov. But was the German emperor jealous? > Germany was on one side of France and Russia was on the other Obviously, especially after what happened to Checkov!. > Presidnet Wilson arrived with 14 pointers. Of course...how can you have a net without data structures? > Communism raged among the peasants, and the civil war "team > colours" were red and white. I can hear it now: "Gimme a 'P' Gimme an 'R' Gimme an 'O' Gimme an 'L' . . . Whaddaya got? PROLETARIAN!!!!" > Germany was displaced after WWI. Didn't France get lonely? > Germany was morbidly overexcited and unbalanced. Most people are after they've been displaced! > Berlin became the decadent > capital, were all forms of sexual deprivations were practiced. Believe me, I've been there myself! > A huge anti-semantic movement arose. Well, when you've been displaced you can't always put the feeling into words, ya know? > Attractive slogans like "death to all Jews" I'd say that was "anti-semantic"! > ... a squirmish between Germany and France. Third runner-up... > Roosealini rested his > foundations on 8 million bayonets and invaded Hi Lee Salasy. Sounds like he's been readin' that Vulture fella agin! I wonder what Ingrid thought of all this... Or was that FRANKLIN Roosealini? > Germany invaded Poland Trying to make France jealous? > France invaded Belgium, What would Ann Flanders say?!? > and Russia invaded everybody. Sounds like a party to me! > The las stage is us. Heaven help us!!! ---------------------------------------------------------------- *start* 19495 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Date: 4 Dec 87 14:15:22 PST (Friday) From: Cate3.PA Subject: Life 2.J To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- Bumper sticker seen in Seattle: "Save the Safeway lobsters" ---------------------------------------------------- Did you hear that there's a group of South American Indians that worships the number zero? Is nothing sacred? ---------------------------------------------------- alan shepherd, one of the apollo astronauts, said during a press meeting: "It's a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one's safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract." ---------------------------------------------------- There was a man who, everyday, would buy a newspaper on the way to work, glance at the headline, and hand it back to the newsboy. Day after day the man would go through this routine. Finally the newsboy could not stand it and he asked the man, "Why do you always buy a paper and only look at the front page before discarding it?" The man replied, "I am only interested in the obituaries." "But they are on page 21. You never even unfold the newspaper." "Young man," he said, "the one I'm looking for will be on the front page." ---------------------------------------------------- She was only a moonshiners daughter, BUT I loved her still. ---------------------------------------------------- Freaking on other minds: A good one I have always liked for this purpose is to walk up to someone early in the morning and say, "Hi. I'm not really here. *You're* not really here. You're at home, in bed, asleep, dreaming all of this, and if you don't get up soon, you're going to be LATE." Heh heh... ---------------------------------------------------- "It would have been confusing even if Ginsburg would have made it to the Supreme Court. I can just picture one of his rulings. The votes would be 4 Yes, 4 No, and 1 Far Out." ---------------------------------------------------- On a bright, warm spring day, somewhere on Vancouver Island a certain resident of East Indian origin was shaking his rug on his front porch. A passerby saw him, couldn't help himself and blurted, "What is the problem? Can't get it started?" ---------------------------------------------------- A short story I read once claimed that when Sherlock Holmes died and went to heaven, God presented him with a mystery: Adam and Eve had disappeared! Holmes quickly identified the couple (who, it turned out, had disguised themselves to get away from the constant demands to meet curious new arrivals). When asked how he had solved the case, Holmes replied, "Elementary, my dear God. They were the only persons without navels." ---------------------------------------------------- Everything is farther away now than it used to be. It is twice as far to the corner, and they have added a hill I noticed. I have given up running for the bus; it leaves faster than it used to. And it seems to me they are making stairs steeper than in the old days. Have you noticed the smaller print they are using in the newspapers now? And there is no sense in asking people to read aloud. Everyone speaks in such a low voice I can hardly hear them. It is almost impossible to reach my shoelaces. Even people are changing. They are much younger than they used to be when I was their age. On the other hand, people my age are so much older than I am. I ran into an old clsssmate the other day, and he had aged so much I didn't even recognize him. I got to think about the poor thing while I was combing my hair this morning, and in so doing I glanced at my reflection in the mirror. You know, they don't even make mirrors like they used to either. ---------------------------------------------------- LOS ANGELES TIMES: It was, police figure, a 10 million-to-1 shot that saved the life of a federal agent in a shopping-mall shootout in Hialeah, Florida. A drug suspect had aimed at the chest of Carlos Montalvo, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and pulled the trigger. But the shot struck Montalvo's gun, lodging in the barrel. After draining excess fuel from the flooded engine of his 1946 aircraft, Douglas Youngs reached into the cockpit and started the engine. But he had forgotten to close the throttle and the plane took off without him. The errant aircraft was eventually found 65 miles away, perched in an 85 foot tree near Clifton, New York. Youngs thinks he can repair the plane, just as soon as he figures out how to get it down from the tree. ---------------------------------------------------- Take heart: the only person who always got his work done by Friday was Robinson Crusoe. ---------------------------------------------------- What do you call a computer scientist ... My ex-wife used to say (maybe she still does) that it doesn't matter what you call him. He's too involved with the computer to come anyway. ---------------------------------------------------- There was a young man shipwrecked on an island. He found a magic lamp on the shore one day, picked it up and rubbed it. A Genie appeared. However, he was not a typical Genie, he was an attorney Genie. When the Genie told the man he was also an attorney the man laughed and said, "Oh come on, Genies can't be attorneys too!" The Genie said he would prove it. He told the man to make his three wishes, but on one condition, for every wish he made, all attorneys were granted DOUBLE of what the man wished for. The man pondered the offer and decided that something was better than nothing and decided his three wishes. "My first wish is for 1 million dollars". The Genie reminded the man that he would grant the wish, but all attorneys would get double that amount. The man agreed and then made his second wish. "My second wish is for a beautiful blonde with blue eyes." Once again the Genie granted the wish and also granted all attorneys with two of the blonde eyed babe. The Genie announced that the man had one more wish and to consider his choice carefully. The man thought for a moment. Suddenly he drew the Genie's attention to a piece of driftwood lying on the beach. He told the Genie: "For my next wish, please pick up that piece of driftwood and beat me HALF to death!!!" ---------------------------------------------------- Why did the LA police remove the 911 emergency number from their cars? Because thievs would keep stealing them thinking they were Porshes. This was actually said at a Tampa police dinner in October. The city was Miami and he used 'Cubans' in place of 'thieves'. Needless to say, he was flamed very seriously when the papers reported it the next day. ---------------------------------------------------- The lawyer is standing at the gate to Heaven and St. Peter is listing his sins: 1) Defending a large corporation in a pollution suit where he knew they were guilty. 2) Defending an obviously guilty murderer because the fee was high. 3) Overcharging fees to many clients. 4) Prosecuting an innocent woman because a scapegoat was needed in a controversial case. And the list goes on for quite awhile. The lawyer objects and begins to argue his case. He admits all these things, but argues, "Wait, I've done some charity in my life also." St. Peter looks in his book and says,"Yes, I see. Once you gave a dime to a panhandler and once you gave an extra nickel to the shoeshine boy, correct?" The lawyer gets a smug look on his face and replies, "Yes." St. Peter turns to the angel next to him and says, "Give this guy 15 cents and tell him to go to hell." ---------------------------------------------------- Q. Why is it that many lawyers have broken noses? A. From chasing parked ambulances. Q. Where can you find a good lawyer? A. In the cemetary Q. What's the difference between a lawyer and a gigolo? A. A gigolo only screws one person at a time. Q. What's the difference between a lawyer and a vampire? A. A vampire only sucks blood at night. Q: How do you keep a lawyer from drowning? A: Take your foot off his head. Q: How do you get a lawyer out of a tree? A: Cut the rope. Q: What is the definition of a shame (as in "that's a shame")? A: When a busload of lawyers goes off a cliff. Q: What is the definition of a "crying shame"? A: There was an empty seat. Q: What do you call 5000 dead lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A: A good start! ---------------------------------------------------- A woman and her little girl were visitng the grave of the little girl's grandmother. On their way through the cemetary back to the car, the little girl asked, "Mommy, do they ever bury two people in the same grave?" "Of course not, dear." replied the mother, "Why would you think that?" "The tombstone back there said 'Here lies a lawyer and an honest man.'" "How can I ever thank you?" gushed a woman to Clarence Darrow, after he had solved her legal troubles. "My dear woman," Darrow replied, "ever since the Phoenicians invented money there has been only one answer to that question." Here are some good news and some bad news: The good news: A bus full of lawyers fell into a river and all of them were drown. The bad news: 4 seats were empty. ---------------------------------------------------- When a lawyer tells his clients he has a sliding fee schedule what he means is that after he bills you it's financially hard to get back on your feet. ---------------------------------------------------- It was so cold last winter that I saw a lawyer with his hands in his own pockets. ---------------------------------------------------- Q: What do you get when you cross the Godfather with a lawyer? A: An offer you can't understand ---------------------------------------------------- A man walked into a bar with his alligator and asked the bartender, "Do you serve lawyers here?". "Sure do," replied the bartender. "Good," said the man. "Give me a beer, and I'll have a lawyer for my 'gator." ---------------------------------------------------- Q: What happens when you cross a pig with a lqwyer? A: Nothing. There are some things a pig won't do. ---------------------------------------------------- I once saw a cute cartoon showing two people fighting over a cow. One was pulling the cow by the tail; the other was pulling on the horns. Underneath was a lawyer milking the cow. ---------------------------------------------------- Q: How did Noah construct the cages he needed? A: Ark-welding! ---------------------------------------------------- Two ethnics are out duck hunting. They hunt and hunt and hunt into the late hours of the evening and still have not killed one duck. Finally, ethnic #1 says to ethnic #2: "Maybe we'd do better if we threw the dog up higher." ---------------------------------------------------- Two morons, tom and jack, were sitting in a bar one day, when two fishermen walked in with 2 huge trout, one of the morons asked where the guys got the fish, and the fishermen told the morons that they go down to the bridge, one guy would hold the other by the ankles until a fish was caught. The morons figured that they could to that. After holding Tom for about 20 minutes, Jack asked Tom if he had anything, the reply was "no". About 20 more minutes passes, so Jack asked again, and again the reply was "no". Finally, Tom yelled "Pull me up!! Pull me up!!". Jack exclaimed "Ya got one?". Tom said "No! a train is comming!!" ---------------------------------------------------- Two hippies were waiting at the bus stop along with a nun with her leg in a cast. The first hippie asked "Sister, how did you break you leg?" "I slipped in the bathtub." The second hippie asked the first "What's a bathtub?" "How should I know, I'm not Catholic!" ---------------------------------------------------- Two prisoners are talking about their crimes: George: "I robbed a bank, and they gave me 20 years" Herman: "Hmm. I killed a man, and I'm here for 3 days" George: "*WHAT*??? I rob a bank and get 20 years; you kill a man and get 3 days???" Herman: "Yep.......they hang me on Wednesday" ---------------------------------------------------- After Robin Hood died, Friar Tuck decided to buy a flower shop. But just a week after opening he discovered that some of his plants were wilting because of a bad ventilation job. So he asked his best friend, George, to put new vents in for him. George fixed the problem in about an hour, and charged the friar five dollars. But another week later the friar was discouraged to find even more flowers wilting. So he asked another friend, Tom, to re-ventilate the shop. Tom worked all day on the shop's ventilation system, but alas, one more week later, Friar Tuck saw that nearly all of his beautiful greenery was now ugly brownery. So finally he called his cousin's best friend's uncle, Hugh, to install new vents. Hugh spent over 3 days on the job, carefully placing ductwork all over and putting in new blowers and filters. He charged the friar an arm and a leg, but it was worth it, because in no time at all, the flowers in the shop were again healthy and bright. Which just shows to go you, Hugh, and only Hugh, can re-vent florist friars. ---------------------------------------------------- The five rules of Socialism: 1. Don't think 2. If you do think, don't speak 3. If you think and speak, don't write 4. If you think, speak and write, don't sign 5. If you think, spead, write and sign, don't be surprised ---------------------------------------------------- Why do Soviet policemen always patrol in groups of three, as in fact they often do? One of them knows how to read, one knows how to add, while the third is there to observe the two suspected intellectuals. ---------------------------------------------------- An American who finds himself in Moscow wants to know the time. He sees a man approaching him carrying two heavy suitcases and asks the fellow if he knows the correct time. "Certainly," says the Russian, setting down the two bags and looking at his wrist. "It is 11:43 and 17 seconds. The date is Feb. 13, the moon is nearing its full phase and the atmospheric pressure stands at 992 hectopascals and is rising." The visitor is dumbfounded but manages to ask if the watch that provides all this information is Japanese. No, he is told, it is "our own, a product of Soviet Technology." "Well, that is wonderful, you are to be congratulated." "Yes," the Russian answers, straining to pick up the suitcases, "but these batteries are still a little heavy." ---------------------------------------------------- How does the Soviet Constitution differ from the American? Under the Soviet Constitution citizens are guaranteed freedom of speech, but under the United States constitution they are guaranteed freedom after speech. ---------------------------------------------------- Why is Poland just like the United States? In the United States you can't buy anything for zlotys and in Poland you can't either, while in the U.S. you can get whatever you want for dollars, just as you can in Poland. ---------------------------------------------------- Two teachers are talking in the hallway. "I hear you're teaching Ivanhoe this term in english class" "Yes, They weren't allowed to teach that book when I was in school" "Why not?" "Too much Saxon Violence" ---------------------------------------------------- Once there was a Millionaire who collected live alligators. He kept them in the pool in back of his mansion. The millionaire also had a beautiful daughter that was single. One day he decides to throw a huge party, during the party he announces: "My dear guests, I have a proposition to every man here. I will give 1 million dollars or my daughter to the man that can swim across this pool full of alligators and emerge unharmed!" As soon as he finished his last word there was the sound of a large SPLASH! There was one guy in the pool swimming with all he could, the crowd cheered him on as he kept stroking. Finally he made it to the other side unharmed. The millionaire was impressed, he said "My boy that was incredible! Fantastic! I didn't think it could be done! Well I must keep my end of the bargain, which do you want my daughter of the 1 million dollars? The guy says "Listen I don't want your money! And I don't want your daughter! I want the person who pushed me in that WATER! ---------------------------------------------------- ... as Benny Hill once said: "Did you ever notice that everyone in favour of birth control has already been born?" ---------------------------------------------------- Two little boys are walking down the street. The first one says, "I'm so proud to be Jewish. Our rabbi really knows a lot." The other one says, "Well, I'm proud to be Catholic. Our priest knows more than your rabbi." The first boy says, "Yeah but that's because everyone tells him everything." ---------------------------------------------------- A prominent Wall Street tycoon, Carmine Intervocalic, wants to hire an MIT c.s. graduate student to program the ultimate financial advisor expert system. Turns out MIT is too expensive, so instead Carmine gets an undergraduate in applied math from the University of California at Hollywood. After months of programming and millions of dollars of research, the programming is finally done, and Carmine proudly calls up his new toy. Instantly on the screen: --> BANK STREET ADVISOR: READY. ENTER COMMAND. Carmine (who learned his programming from TV movie spy thrillers) types in: --> REQUEST: BANK STREET ADVISOR, COMPUTE THE SECRET TO SUCCESS ON THE STOCK MARKET. The reply is instantaneous. Crackling on the neon green of the screen is one ominous flashing word: "WORKING" Carmine is nervous. He paces around. Nothing's happening. Waits more. Hurm. Nothing's happening. Waits still more -- nothing. To take his mind off of the wait, Carmine does some business work: Evicting widows and orphans, and so forth. Well, to make a long story short (too late already), days pass and, still, all that's on the screen is "WORKING." The program's sucking in data at a hideous rate -- but still no answer. Carmine's frazzled, and his stocks are plummeting -- he's forced to sell! sell! sell! Carmine is almost broke when finally the answer comes up: --> BANK STREET WRITER: ANSWER COMPUTED. HIT SPACE BAR. --> BUY LOW. SELL HIGH. Carmine's not amused (probably neither are you). In desperation, he types in: --> REQUEST: BANK STREET ADVISOR, I NEED FINANCIAL ADVICE -- WHAT IS THE BEST FINANCIAL ADVICE YOU CAN GIVE ME? HOW CAN I STOP WASTING MONEY? The answer's fast: --> SELL THE COMPUTER. Carmine is plucking out his hair in frenzy. But he realizes that all he has to do is phrase his requests correctly. --> REQUEST: HOW CAN I PREDICT WHICH STOCKS WILL GO UP IN VALUE? Curiously, the answer doesn't take long: --> MAKE PREDICTIONS WHILE FLOATING SUBMERGED IN FIZZY APPLE JUICE. Carmine tries it, and it works. "It works?" his advisors ask. "Yeah, it works. What, haven't you heard of in-cider trading?" *start* 15666 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Date: 7 Dec 87 14:23:53 PST (Monday) From: Cate3.PA Subject: Life 2.K To: Cate3 The following material comes from Stephen F. Cohen, Professor of Politics at Princeton University. He teaches the very popular "Soviet Politics" course here. Each year, he has a "joke" lecture in which he tells about anecdotes and jokes that come from the Soviet Union. As he put it, there's one on about every subject of Soviet life. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Cohen - Soviet Anecdotes - As told on December 1, 1987 ---------------------------------------------------------------- When all is said and done, though, the real articulation of popular opinion is the form that the Russians call the anecdote. Once there was a law against anti-Soviet anecdotes. That was no joke. Though quickly there was a joke about it: F.D.R. and Stalin met, and F.D.R. boasted that he was so popular in America that a book of jokes about him had been published. Stalin said, "That's nothing - I have 10 campfulls." ----- Nowadays, though, the anecdote is told everywhere. It's the equivalent of the "Soviet High Five". It's representative of friendship and astuteness and knowledge of common affairs. They're a commentary on Soviet life - and are made up amazingly quickly: Living in Moscow in 1977, there was a report on the short-wave radio that some Soviet musician had defected in New York. The NEXT DAY, somebody said to me, "You know what a Soviet trio is? -- A Soviet quartet returning from New York." ----- Brezhnev was thought not to be too bright. He comes to address a big Communist party meeting, and starts: "Dear Comrade Imperialists," The whole hall perked up - "what did he say??" Brezhnev tried again... "Dear Comrade Imperialists," Well, by now the hall was in pandemonium - was he trying to call them Imperialists? Then, an advisor walked over to the podium and pointed to the speech for Brezhnev. "Oh..." he muttered, and started again: "Dear Comrades, Imperialists are everywhere." ----- You might say that Soviet jokes tend to be political, because of the nature of their lives, while American jokes tend to be sexual. Does that tell us that the Russians have more political problems than we have? Probably. Does that tell us that we have more sexual problems than the Russians? Hmmm... Probably not. ----- A friend of mine once told me an anecdote, which I then told Gorfinkle over there, and Gorfinkle didn't think it was funny. The punch line of the anecdote - which had to do with life in the army - was that the Soviet privates were sent out to paint all the grass on the base green. I thought it was very funny. He didn't. I said, "Why don't you think it was funny," to which he replied, "because when I was in the army, we always painted the grass green." ----- There was a famous anecdote that the reason Brezhnev's speeches ran 6 hours is because he read not only the original, but the carbon copy. In fact, there was a report near the end of Brezhnev's life that he went down to south Russia to deliver a speech on science, and accidently gave the wrong speech - on culture - and didn't even know it until it was over. ----- A man, in 1937, as Stalin's terror was raging through Moscow, packed his bags every night before he went to sleep, in case he should have to escape. Finally, one night, sure enough. KNOCK! KNOCK! He gets up out of bed, kisses his wife, takes his bag and leaves. A few minutes late, he's back. Wife looks at him, "What happened?" "It's absolutely nothing," he replies. "Just the house on fire." ----- Stalin is addressing a large meeting. It's the bad years of the terror. He's delivering a report about enemies, when suddenly, in the back, somebody sneezes. "Comrades - who sneezed?" yells Stalin. No one answers. "Shoot the first row," he says to his body guards. "Now, who sneezed?" When no answer is given, he repeats the process over and over again, taking out row after row. Finally, with just a couple of rows back, a man raises his hand. "Comrade Stalin," he says weakly, "I sneezed." Stalin turns to him and says, "Gazunthite." ----- Late 1940's - the Soviet Union in the late half of life was claiming it had invented the world. Stalin receives a report that Soviet archaeologists have discovered the remains of what might be the mighty warrior Ghengus Khan. Stalin was excited, but was told he had to wait before the results cold be certain. Stalin cabled "Patience run out. Need report." Next day, a report comes back saying that the mummy was, indeed, Ghengus Khan. This is heralded all over the Soviet Union, and the archaeologists are given a banquet. One of their companions asks them how they were able to determine, beyond any doubt, that the mummy was indeed Ghengus Khan within such a short time. "It was simple," replied the archaeologist. "The mummy confessed." ----- It was decided to build in a Siberian town a statue of Lenin. The party boss told the monument factory to build a well-known, famous sculpture of Lenin. So the work commences - a statue of Lenin addressing the crowds will be made. Later, the party boss returns as the work is being done, and he notices that Lenin lacked a hat. "We can't have Comrade Lenin standing in the Siberian cold without a hat on him. Put one on his head." "But, Comrade- " the sculptor started. "No buts. Put a hat on him." So came the day of unveiling - and there was Lenin, a hat on his head... and another one in his hand. ----- In 1967, the Soviet Government minted a beautiful silver ruble with Lenin in a very familiar pose - arms raised above him, leading the country to revolution. But, it was clear to everybody, that if you looked at it from behind, it was clear that Lenin was pointing to 11:00, when the Vodka shops opened, and was actually saying, "Comrades, forward to the Vodka shops." It became fashionable, when one wanted to have a drink, to take out the ruble and say, "Oh my goodness, Comrades, Lenin tells me we should go." ----- When Jimmy Carter came up with the idea of the neutron bomb (to kill people but leave buildings standing), I wasn't sure what the logic was - I mean, what was the use of all these buildings if no body was around to use them. But the serious drinkers of the Soviet Union thought it was a wonderful idea. "Just think of it," they said, "a full liquor store and no lines!" ----- What is the difference between Capitalism and Socialism? Well, under Capitalism, you have the exploitation of man by man. Under Socialism, it's the other way 'round. ----- "Comrades, we have established beyond a doubt that it is possible to build socialism in one large country - like the Soviet Union. But is it possible to built it in a very small country, say, Switzerland." "Of course it is - but what have you got against the Swiss?" ----- 1950's. Khrushchev receives an urgent cable from Mao: DEAR COMRADE KHRUSHCHEV. CHINESE PEOPLE STARVING. SEND FOOD. Khrushchev cables back: DEAR COMRADE MAO. REGRET STARVING CHINESE. HAVE NO SURPLUS FOOD. TIGHTEN BELTS. To which he receives the following reply from Mao: SEND BELTS. ----- It tuns out that God is deeply depressed. He sits on a cloud and mopes. So, St. Peter calls in Freud. "Sigmond, could you have a look at God?" Freud comes back. "I'm afraid it's very serious. God is suffering delusions of grandeur - he thinks he's Stalin." ----- Brezhnev was invited to come to Poland. Tensions were strained, so Brezhnev wanted to bring a gift to the Polish comrades. "Lenin once lived in Poland," someone suggested, "why not have a picture of Lenin in Poland." So, they get a modern jewish dissident painter who had just been arrested to paint the picture. When he finished it, it showed a naked man and woman having sex. Brezhnev is enraged. "In the name of Karl Marx - who is that naked woman?!" "Well, that's Lenin's wife." "And who's that naked man?" "That's Trotsky." Brezhnev was insensed. "Where the hell's Lenin?!" To which the painter replied, "He's in Poland." ----- A man was arrested one night for running across Red Square yelling "Khrushchev is a fool! Khrushchev is a fool!" He was arrested and given 10 years - 5 for slandering the leader, and 5 for revealing a state secret. ----- Brezhnev was widely regarded as a man who couldn't walk and talk at the same time, so many anecdotes were generated about him. Often, they were about his great fondness, for some reason, of riddles - which he could never solve. One day, he was bumbling down the corridors of the Kremlin, and he bumped into Andropov. Andropov was trying to get into a position to succeed Brezhnev so he thought he would butter him up. "Who is the son of my father but not I?" asked Andropov. "Hmmm... a tough one," replied Brezhnev, "I give up." "My brother." Brezhnev was impressed. "Brilliant!" he cried, and continued down the hall. He bumps into Gorbachev. "Miky... hear this riddle: who is the son of my father but not me?" Gorbachev plays along with the old man and asks, "Who?" Brezhnev, delighted about being able to tell his riddle blurts out, "Andropov's brother!" ----- Brezhnev goes off to India and meets with Indira Ghandi. When he comes back he has a dot painted on his forehead, in the Indian tradition. Everyone asks him why he had the dot put on. "Well," he replies, "when I met with Indira, at one point during our conversation, she turned to me and said, pointing to her head, 'You know something, Brezhnev? You're missing something - right here.'" ----- Brezhnev called in all the Soviet cosmonauts, and in an effort to surpass the U.S. in the Space race, said, "Comrades, I have a plan to overtake the U.S. in Space exploration - you will land on the sun!" "But Comrade Brezhnev," they complained, "we'll burn up!" "Do you take me for a fool," he asked, "you'll land at night!" ----- At the Olympics in the Soviet Union, Brezhnev started a speech at the opening ceremonies. He began as follows: "Oh...." "Ooooo...." "Oh...." "Ooo...." "Ooohh." until one of his advisors quietly pointed out that the Olympic symbol was not a part of the speech to read. ----- Chernynko was dying from the moment he was in office. Rumors circulated that he was dying. A Soviet spokesman went on TV to dispel the rumors. "Comrade Chernynko is in good health. At exactly 7:00 each morning, he wakes up, and 7:15 he urinates, and at 7:30, he gets out of bed." ----- There were so many state funerals between 1982 and 1985 that when a guy approached Red Square for one of them, and the cops stopped him and asked if he had a pass, he replied, "Hell, I've got a season ticket!" ----- Who in the politboro supports Gorbachev? - No one, for he can walk by himself. ----- Is it true that the American capital people are on the edge of the abyss? - Yes, they are on the edge of the abyss, looking down to see how we live. ----- Brezhnev was being shown the Soviet pentagon. At the end of his tour, he noticed a red door. "What's in there?" he asked Nixon. "Oh, that's a secret," Nixon replied. "But you promised to show me everything, Dick!" whined Brezhnev. "Okay," agrees Nixon, and takes a key out of his pocket and opens the door. Inside is a red telephone. "What's that?" "It's a hot-line to Hell," replies Nixon. "No way," says Brezhnev, "I don't believe you!" "Try it," replied Nixon. Brezhnev picks up the phone, and a voice answers: "Hi! It's the Devil! This is Hell!" Brezhnev is shocked and hangs up the phone, but as he's leaving, Nixon says, "That'll be $55 for the phone call." "$55!" exclaims Brezhnev, "why so expensive - but what the hell, here." Brezhnev goes back to the Soviet Union and yells at his generals. "You idiots! You know what the Americans have? A hot-line to hell! Why don't we?" "We do," they reply, and show him a similar door with a phone. He picks it up and sure enough - "Hi! It's the Devil! This is Hell!" As he hangs up, the general says, "That will be 2 Copeks, Comrade." "Why so cheap? In America it was $55!" "That's because here it's a local call." ----- It's almost impossible to get tickets to the theater. A woman is there one night, and next to her is an empty seat. MAN NEXT TO HER: I've never seen an empty seat before - why is one there? WOMAN: It's a sad story. We ordered these tickets two years ago, and my husband just died the other day. MAN: How sad... But why didn't you give them to a relative? WOMAN: I would have, but they're all at the funeral. ----- After a round of talks, Nixon and Brezhnev drink a little vodka and get into a discussion. NIXON: I hear you have a lot of drunks in the Soviet Union. BREZHNEV: Not so! That's capitalist propaganda! NIXON: No, I'm sure of it. You have a lot of drunks! BREZHNEV:Nonsense. I'll prove it. You can go out at any hour of the night tonight, and I'll give you a machine gun. If you see any drunk you can kill him! NIXON: Ahhh! Very good... (Evil smile) That night, at 1am, Nixon decides to go out. Brezhnev phones Andropov, who is head of the KGB, and tells him to get all the drunks off the street. So Nixon and Brezhnev go cruising around Moscow, Nixon carrying the machine gun in his lap. They drive for two hours - and not a single drunk. Nixon is in the throws of despair, and they are about to head back in, when he spots one lone drunk - staggering everywhere - who has escaped the dragnet. Nixon rolls down the window and blows the guy away. Three months later, Brezhnev comes to the U.S., and after negotiating with Nixon, they have some Vodka again. BREZHNEV: Dick, I hear you Americans are a bunch of drunks. NIXON: Not true. We're hard working people. BREZHNEV: That's not what I heard. I want the same deal I gave you, machine gun and all. At 1:00. So Nixon calls the police and the FBI and tells them to get all the drunks off the road. The two of them go cruising around in a limo, Brezhnev with a machine gun on his lap. Three hours - absolutely nothing. Brezhnev was tired and says, "Okay, Dick, you win. I'm tired. Let's go home." Suddenly, as they're heading back to the White House, they see a group of 11 people walking down the street, blitzed out of their minds. Belated, Brezhnev rolls down the window and blows them all away. Headline next morning in the Washington Post: FANATIC KILLS ENTIRE STAFF OF SOVIET EMBASSY! ----- Gorbachev wakes up the morning after he has been elected the new General Secretary. He rolls up his shades and looks up at the sun. Happy at having attained his new position, he says, "Hello, Sun!" and smiles. Well, the Sun answers back! "Greetings to you, General Secretary, and glorious tidings to the wonderful members of the Central Committee of the Soviet Union." Gorbachev blinks, and rubs his eyes. Again he calls, "Hello, Sun!". Same reply. This is too much... Gorbachev calls all the members of the Central Committee and tells them all to get to Moscow to hear something fantastic. By late afternoon, they all arrive, and Gorbachev shows them up to his room and points to the sun, which is now setting. "Now watch this," he says. "Hello, Sun!" To which he hears: "Fuck you, Gorbachev! I'm in the West now!" ---------------------------------------------------------------- *start* 15805 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Date: 11 Dec 87 11:51:44 PST (Friday) From: Cate3.PA Subject: Life 2.L To: Cate3 Dorothy Parker had the most amusing witt, here's a few of em. At a party, a snobbish gentleman is trying to impress her. "I just can't bear fools" he says. To this comes an instant reply "Obviously your mother did". A reporter is pestering her at a party. Reporter: "Have you ever had your ears pierced" Dorothy Parker: "No, but I've often had them bored" It had been said that Dorothy Parker could make a pun based upon ANY word. A gentleman challanged her to make a pun using the word "horticulture"; she promptly replied: "You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think." The only "ism" Hollywood believes in is plagiarism. The two most beautiful words in the English language are "Cheque Enclosed." And of course the famous: Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses. ---------------------------------------------------- So Gorbachev (sp?) decided that now that he was on top, it was time to impress his ancient mother. He sent his private helicopter out to the small town where she lived to pick her up. He met her with a fleet of limos in Red Square. So, mama. It's good to see you here in Moscow! Come, we eat! She said nothing about the flight, and followed quietly into his limo. He took her to the best restraunt in town, where they were served by an army of waiters. The food was superb, the wine the best money could buy. She said nothing. You like the dinner? Come. We fly to my Dacha for drinks. The chopper picked them up & delivered them to the steps of a magnificent building, secluded in the outskirts of the city. Waiters in white coats were waiting, and proceeded to serve them with the best Cognac and liquor available. They sat sipping on the porch, looking out over the view. So, mama. You don't say anything. Aren't you proud of your little Miki? Haven't I done well? She turned to him and replied in a quiet voice. Miki, baby. Is wonderful time I have here. Helicopters are so grand to fly in, Food is best I have ever tasted. And this, A dacha? This is more glorious than anything I could imagine. Yes, Miki. Is wonderful. I am happy for you. But Miki, Baby. What if the communists return! ---------------------------------------------------- One Pole: Are the Russians our friends or our brothers? Second Pole: I give up. First Pole: Our brothers - you get to choose your friends. ----------- Why is Communism like flying in an aeroplane? You see the glorious horizon approaching but the longer you fly, the less the glorious horizon seems to approach, you feel sick, and you can't get out. ---------- Czech walks into police station in 1968 during the Fraternal Assistance. Czech: Hey, out there in the street, a Swiss soldier knocked me down and took my Russian watch. Desk Sergeant: Come again? Czech: Are you deaf? Out there in the street, a Swiss soldier knocked me down and took my Russian watch. Desk Sergeant: You're confused. It was a Russian soldier who knocked you down and took your Swiss watch. Czech: Well, maybe, but you said it, not me. --------- Kruschev is at a political dinner, and a young hopeful from Gosplan is giving a speech about tractor production which is going on for ever. In true Russian fashion, K. spears his steak on his fork, picks it up, and starts to nibble around it. Nina, (Mrs K), is horrified, and hisses "Nazhom, Nikita, nazhom!" ("Your knife, Nikita, use your knife!") Nikita answers, "Why, what did he say?" ---------------- Small boy: They were telling us at school about the difference between Socialism and Communism. How will we know when Socialism has been achieved, and we are in the state of true Communism. Mother: When every family has a private plane. Small buy: Wow! And what will we use ours for? Mother: I was thinking if flying down to Kiev to see if they have any butter this week. ---------------------------------------------------- Syadov walks into the Moscow health clinic and asks to see an ear-and-eye doctor. The nurse explains to him that there isn't a specialist in those two areas at the clinic, but tells him that they have an eye-doctor AND an ear, nose, and throat man. She further goes on to suggest, after seeing his rather vacant stare, that he see the ENT specialist, and, if that doesn't work, why then he can go to the opthalmologist. So a month later (Remember, the clinic is run by the Soviet bureacracy) he is shown to the doc's office. The following dialogue ensues. Doctor: So, tell me, Comrade Syadov. What seems to be the trouble? Syadov: DOC! DOC! Ya GOTTA help me! I'm going crazy! Doctor: Just calm down, and tell me your symptoms. Syadov: Well, I..OK. I...I'll try. It's like my ears and my eyeballs aren't connected to the same man. I can't see what I hear, and I can't hear what I see! At this, the doctor sighs, shakes his head, closes his notebook, and prepares for his next patient. When Syadov asks what he's doing, he explains: "Really, I'm very sorry, Comrade. But there's no known cure for Communism." ---------------------------------------------------- A man in Russia gets a ticket allowing him to buy a car. He sits down with the car dealer and picks out the basic car and then a few options. The car dealer says the car will be ready in ten years. The man wants to know if it will be ready in the morning or the afternoon. The car dealer is a bit surprised, "Why do you care? It's ten years away." "Well the plumber is coming in the morning." ---------------------------------------------------- Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt were riding in a limo, when they happened to look back and notice a huge ugly monster was chasing them. Hoping to persuade it to go away, Churchill rolled down his window and tossed out all the money he had, about 10,000 pounds. The monster picked it up, sniffed it, then tossed it aside and continued to pursue the limo. So Roosevelt opened his window, and tossed out $100,000, with a gold money clip he'd gotten from Rockefeller, and his $1500 gold watch. The monster picked up the bundle, sniffed it, sneered and continued to pursue the limo. So comrade Stalin pulled out a pen and paper, scribbled a short note, and tossed it out the window. The monster read the note and came to a screaming halt (a la buggs bunny, smoke from the heels), turned around, and ran the other way. Well of course, the other world leaders wanted to know what Comrade Stalin had written in the note. "Simple", he said. "I wrote, 'This is the road to Communism'." ---------------------------------------------------- It was really tough work being an Apostle of Jesus. Can you imagine the hours? What if you wanted a day off? So you call up Jesus and say, "Jesus, I'm sick today, running a little fever and feeling congested so I won't be able to make it to today's Sermon.......what........say that again, you say I'm cured?" ---------------------------------------------------- Carlson was charged with stealing a Mercedes Benz, and after a long trial, the jury aquitted him. Later that day Carlson came back to the judge who had presided at the hearing. "Your honor," he said, "I wanna get out a warrent for that dirty lawyer of mine." "Why ?" asked the judge. "He won your aquittal. What do you want to have him arrested for ?" "Well, your honor," replied Carlson, "I didn't have the money to pay his fee, so he went and took the car I stole." ---------------------------------------------------- "You seem to have more than the average share of intelligence for a man of your background," sneered the lawyer at a witness on the stand. "If I wasn't under oath, I'd return the compliment," replied the witness. ---------------------------------------------------- "you have known the defendant for how long ?" "Fourteen years." "Tell the court whether or not you think he is the type of man who would steal this money." "How much was it ?" ---------------------------------------------------- A mid-level executive was so frustrated at being passed over for promotion year after year, that, in frustration, he went to a brain-transplant center in the hope of raising his I.Q. 20 points. After a battery of physical and psychological tests, he was told by the center's director that he was an acceptable candidate. "That's great!" the executive said. "But I understand that this procedure can be really expensive." "Yes, sir, it can," the director replied. "An ounce of accountant's brain for example, costs one thousand dollars; an ounce of an economist's brain costs two thousand; an ounce of a corporate president's is forty-five thousand. An ounce of a Democrat's brain is seventy-five thousand dollars." "Seventy-five thousand dollars for an ounce of a Democrat's brain?? Why on earth is that?" "Do you have any idea," the director asked, "how many Democrats we would have to kill?" ---------------------------------------------------- Qualifying Examination Instructions: Read each question carefully. Answer all ques- tions. Time Limit - 4 hours. Begin immediately. 1. History Describe the history of the papacy from its origins to the present day, concentrating especially, but not exclusively, on its social, political, economic, religious, and philo- sophical impact on Europe, Asia, America, and Africa. Be brief, concise, and specific. 2. Medicine You have been provided with a razor blade, a piece of gauze, and a bottle of Scotch. Remove your appendix. Do not suture until your work has been inspected. You have fifteen minutes. 3. Public Speaking 2,500 riot-crazed aborigines are storming the classroom. Calm them. You may use any ancient language except Latin or Greek. 4. Biology Create life. Estimate the differences in subsequent human culture if this form of life had developed 500 million years earlier, with special attention to its probable effect on the English parliamentary system. Prove your thesis. 5. Music Write a piano concerto. Orchestrate and perform it with flute and drum. You will find a piano under your seat. 6. Psychology Based on your degree of knowledge of their works, evaluate the emotional stability, degree of adjustment, and repressed frustrations of each of the following: Alexander of Aphrodi- sias, Rameses II, Gregory of Nicea, Hammurabi. Support your evaluations with quotations from each man's work, making appropriate references. It is not necessary to translate. 7. Sociology Estimate the sociological problems which might accompany the end of the world. Construct an experiment to test your theory. 8. Management Science Define Management. Define Science. How do they relate? Why? Create a generalized algorithm to optimize all managerial decisions. Assuming an 1130 CPU supporting 50 terminals, each terminal to activate your algorithm; design the commun- ications interface and all necessary control programs. 9. Engineering The disassembled parts of a high-powered rifle have been placed in a box on your desk. You will also find an instruc- tion manual, printed in Swahili. In ten minutes a hungry Bengal tiger will be admitted to the room. Take whatever action you feel is appropraite. Be prepared to justify your decision. 10. Economics Develop a realistic plan for refinancing the national debt. Trace the possible effects of your plan in the following areas: Cubism, the Donatist controversy, the wave theory of light. Outline a method for preventing these effects. Criti- cize this method from all possible points of view. Point out the deficiencies in your point of view, as demonstrated in your answer to the last question. 11. Political Science There is a red telephone on the desk beside you. Start World War III. Report at length on its socio-political effects, if any. 12. Epistemology Take a position for or against truth. Prove the validity of your position. 13. Physics Explain the nature of matter. Include in your answer an evaluation of the impact of the development of mathematics on science. 14. Modern Physics: Disprove Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Construct an experiment to prove your position. 15. Philosophy Sketch the development of human thought; estimate its signi- ficance. Compare with the development of any other kind of thought. 16. Foreign Affairs: It has recently been suggested (especially after Black Monday) that only a foreign war can restore America's lost national con- sensus. Propose the ideal opponent(s) for the US in such a war, and how the conflict might be engineered so that US would seem not to be the ag- ressor in the situation. Discuss the pros and cons. 17. Art: Explain Mona Lisa's smile. 18. Juris Prudence: In Part 2 of Shakespeare's "Henry VI", Jack Cade, the leader of the populist revolt, proposes that the first order of business following a successful coup d'e'tat could be to "kill all the lawyers". In light of the present populist mood in the United States, assess the utility and any potential impact of such a policy today. 19. Religion: Assuming the Judeo-Christian moral structure, take the stand for Adam and Eve, and the eating of the forbidden fruit. Explain your position fully to a Chassidic Rabbi, and answer his arguments. An Angl- ican bishop will moderate this debate. 20. General Knowledge Describe in detail. Be objective and specific. Extra Credit Define the Universe; give three examples. ---------------------------------------------------- The art of insulting has not kept up with the advance of science. We are still using Nineteenth Century insults like "You are off your rocker" and "You have bats in your belfry." To help remedy the situation I propose the following high-tech insults: 1) You are acting like overdoped silicon. 2) I see that you weren't fully debugged before release. 3) You are the Sinclair ZX80 of human beings. 4) If brains were quarks, you wouldn't have enough to make a neutron. 5) You are shallower than the difusion layer of an integrated circuit. 6) (A male insulting female:) Your body is so under-allocated, it leaves me with a dangling pointer. 7) You are so nerdy you wouldn't pass the Turing test. 8) Your brain needs a good garbage-collection algorithm. 9) You aren't even as bright as an LED. 10) Don't bother with a CAT scan, your brain wouldn't even fill one pixel. 11) Have you had a head crash? ---------------------------------------------------- On the front page of today's Wall Street Journal: By 62% to 17%, Americans still trust President Reagan over Mr. Gorbachev to reduce tensions between the countries. ---------------------------------------------------- Los Angeles Times, November 24: Banning, Blythe and Barstow no longer qualify as "distressed" cities under federal guidelines, nor do Adelanto, Lake Elsinore, or Loma Linda. But Beverly Hills does. According to a new U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development list, Beverly Hills can apply for about $56 million a year in business development grants reserved for small cities suffering "physical and economic distress." ---------------------------------------------------- Heard on a radio station. What did the female mushroom say about the male mushroom? "He's a real fun guy [fungi]." *start* 18258 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Date: 12 Jan 88 19:39:09 PST (Tuesday) From: Cate3.PA Subject: Life 2.M To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- Excerpts from: Year in Review for 1987 -by Dave Barry January 3 -- Oral Roberts tells his followers that unless they send him $4.5 million by the end of the month, God will turn him into a hypocritical money-grubbing slimebag. 5 -- In response to growing pressure from the United States, the government of Colombia vows to track down its major drug dealers and, if necessary, remove them from the cabinet. 21 -- The Audi Corporation is forced to recall 250,000 cars after repeated incidents wherein parked Audis, apparently acting on their own, used their mobile phones to purchase stocks on margin. 28 -- In the Middle East, Syria has its name legally changed to "Jordan." A welcome calm settles over Beirut as the six remaining civilians are taken hostage. February 3 -- In the ongoing war against the federal budget deficit, Congress gives itself a pay raise. 17 -- In Colombia, police arrest Carlos Lehder for jaywalking and discover, during a routine search, that his pockets contain 1,265,000 pounds of cocaine. Lehder claims to have "no idea" how it got there. 19 -- Mario Cuomo announces that he doesn't want to be president and immediately becomes the Democratic front-runner. 23 -- Panic grips the nation as a terrorist group seizes 150,000 new, improved W-4 forms and threatens to send them to randomly selected Americans through the mail. March 21 -The IRS releases an even newer, simpler W-4 form in response to complaints from a number of taxpayers, all of whom will be audited for the rest of their lives. 27 -- In what is hailed as a major arms-race breakthrough, U.S. and Soviet arms negotiators in Geneva agree to wear matching outfits. April 3 -- In the Persian Gulf, Iranians attack the Islip garbage barge, but are driven off by courageous flies. 13 -- True Anecdote: In National League baseball action, the Atlanta Braves' Dion James hits a ball that would have been caught easily, except that in midair it strikes and kills a dove. 14 -- In Colorado, Gary Hart declares his candidacy for the presidential nomination, making the official announcement while standing in front of a dramatic backdrop of soaring mountains, towering pine trees, and four Miami Herald reporters disguised as rhododendrons. 22 -- Crack U.S. counter-intelligence agents in Moscow begin to suspect that the new U.S. Embassy in Moscow, constructed by Soviet labor, might be bugged, when one of them sneezes in the ambassador's office and six chairs say, "Gesundheit." 26 -- Jack Kemp announces that he is running for president, pledging that, if elected, he will deepen his voice. 30 -- Following a lengthy and dramatic trial, a confused New Jersey jury awards custody of a 3-month-old boy to a 6-week-old girl. May 3 -- Like a raging unquenchable forest fire, the Gary Hart story sweeps across the nation, as voters are consumed by a burning need to know more about the candidate's monetary views. Rumors abound that Hart, at various times in his career, may also have had views on a number of other issues. 4 -- The Hart story becomes so hot that issue-oriented Phil Donahue devotes a show to it, canceling the regular weekly appearance of the sex-change lesbian surrogate-mother nude-dancer ex-priests. 5 -- The Iran-Contra hearings begin with Sen. Daniel Inouye doing his hilarious two-hour impersonation of a 78 r.p.m. record being played at 33 r.p.m. 6 -- An angry Gary Hart is forced to withdraw from the race after word leaks out that The Washington Post has obtained documented evidence that he once proposed tying the prime rate to the Index of Leading Economic Indicators. 12 -- U.S. drug agents become concerned when aerial photographs reveal that several dozen Bahamian "islands" are in fact enormous piles of some kind of white powdery substance. 17 -- The U.S. Navy frigate Stark is attacked by an Iraqi jet, which, under our extremely clear Mideast policy, causes us to prepare for violent confrontation with Iran. 29 -- Nineteen-year-old German Mathias Rust, flying a single-engined Cessna airplane, manages to cross 400 miles of Soviet airspace to reach Red Square in Moscow, where he narrowly avoids colliding with a Delta Air Lines flight en route from Pittsburgh to Cleveland. 30 -- Caspar Weinberger orders 5,000 single-engine Cessna airplanes. June 2 -- True Item: In the ongoing Iran-Contra hearings, the committee learns that a country named "Brunei" contributed $10 million to help the Contras, except Fawn Hall or somebody typed a wrong number, so the money ended up in the Swiss bank account of a total stranger. This helps explain why, despite all the elaborate assistance efforts with secret codes and passwords and everything, the only actual aid ever received by the Contras was a six-month trial subscription to Guns and Ammo. 18 -- A survey of Florida residents reveals that their number one concern about the state is that "not enough people are walking around with guns." Alarmed, the state Legislature passes a law under which all citizens who are not actually on Death Row will be REQUIRED to carry revolvers. July 7 -- The central figure in the Iran-Contra hearings, Lt. Col. Oliver North, becomes an instant national folk hero when, with his eyes glistening and his voice cracking with emotion, he courageously admits, before a worldwide television audience, that he is very patriotic. 11 -- The Iran-Contra hearings reach their dramatic peak when Lt. Col. North, his eyes glistening and his voice cracking with emotion, makes a sweeping patriotic hand gesture and knocks over his bottle of Revlon Eye Glistener. 15 -- The giant Citicorp bank announces that it has agreed to forgive Mexico's $56.3 billion debt in exchange for 357.9 gazillion chickens. August 3 -- Political activist Donna Rice, in her continuing effort to avoid publicity, sells her story to ABC television. 6 -- As "Ollie-mania" continues to sweep the country, one of the most popular video-arcade games in the country is a new one called -- this is true -- "Contra." The way it works is, there are are two soldiers on the screen, and when you put in a quarter, it never gets to them. 10 -- The U.S. space probe Meanderer II, after a journey of six years and many millions of miles, passes within 400 miles of the surface of Neptune, sending back dramatic color photographs of a Delta Air Lines jet. 22 -- Rumors circulate that Gary Hart will re-enter the presidential race. Johnny Carson places his writers on Full Red Alert. 25 -- In what is hailed as a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court decides, by a 7-2 vote, that you cannot count three oranges as one item in the Express Checkout Lane "unless they are all in the same package." 27 -- Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn announces that he doesn't want to be president. Cuomo challenges him to a debate. 28 -- In the Persian Gulf, tensions mount as a U.S. gunboat engages in a scuffle with actor Sean Penn. September 2 -- In Washington, reporters notice that at some point -- possibly during a speech by Sen. Inouye, when everybody was asleep -- the ongoing Iran-Contra hearings turned into the ongoing confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork. 8 -- Researcher Shere Hite releases her scientific new book, "Men Are Scum." 12 -- In the ongoing hearings, Sen. Joseph Biden pledges to consider the Bork nomination "with total objectivity," adding: "You have that on my honor not only as a Senator, but also as the Prince of Wales." 17 -- The market-savvy McDonald's corporation, capitalizing on the popularity of the movie "Fatal Attraction," introduces a new menu item, Boiled McRabbits. 21 -- Professional football players go on strike, demanding the right to "have normal necks." Negotiations begin under the guidance of mediator Mario Cuomo. 28 -- Tensions ease in the Persian Gulf as a Delta Air Lines flight, en route from Boston to Newark, successfully lands on the U.S. carrier Avocado. October 3 -- Sen. Joseph Biden is forced to withdraw from the Democratic presidential race when it is learned that he is in fact an elderly Norwegian woman. On the Republican side, the spectacularly Rev. Pat Robertson announces his candidacy for president, buoyed by strong popularity among humor columnists. 8 -- Three hundred prominent law professors sign a petition stating that Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork has "a weenie beard." 15 -- In an effort to establish that she is not a bimbo, Jessica Hahn appears nude in Playboy magazine. We are pretty sure we must have made this item up. 25 -- The Senate Transportation Committee recommends that the federal speed limit should be raised on highways going through boring or ugly areas, so drivers can get through them quicker. "In Indiana, for instance," the committee says, "it should be 135 miles per hour." November 1 -- In the ongoing heroic effort to trim the federal budget deficit, House and Senate conferees agree not to order appetizers. 15 -- In their continuing heroic deficit-reduction efforts, House and Senate conferees agree to continue working right through their 2:30 racquetball appointment. 22 -- In ceremonies marking his retirement as secretary of defense, Caspar Weinberger is presented with a pen-and-pencil set, built by the General Dynamics Corp. for $352.4 million. 29 -- The world financial community's faith in the U.S. economy is restored as heroic House and Senate conferees hammer out a breakthrough compromise deficit-reduction measure under which $417.65 will be slashed from the $13.2 million pastry budget of the Federal Bureau of Putting Up Road Signs With Kilometers On Them. December 2 -- In a widely hailed legal decision, the judge in the bitter divorce dispute between Joan Collins and Peter Holm orders them both shot. Mikhail Gorbachev appears on "Jeopardy." 5 -- In a cost-cutting move, financially troubled Eastern Airlines announces that its domestic flights will operate without engines. "Most of them never take off anyway," explains a spokesman. 8 -- In Washington, the long-awaited U.S.-Soviet summit meeting gets off to an uncertain start as President Reagan attempts to nominate Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev to the Supreme Court. 9 -- The summit concludes on a triumphant note as, in the culmination of 10 years of negotiations between the superpowers, Gorbachev and New York Gov. Mario Cuomo sign a historic agreement under which both sides will move all of their mid- and short-range long-term strategic tactical nuclear weapons 150 feet to the left. 15 -- Under intense pressure from the U.S. to reduce the trade deficit, Japanese auto manufacturers agree to give their cars really ugly names. 18 -- Playboy magazine offers Tammy Faye Bakker a record $1.5 million if she will promise never, ever to pose nude. 27 -- Oscar C. Klaxton, an employee of the U.S. Department for Making Everybody Nervous, wins a $10,000 prize for dreaming up the concept of a deadly "hole" in an invisible "ozone layer." Copyright 1987 Knight-Ridder Newspapers ---------------------------------------------------------------- The following are excepts on a discusion about pranks: ---------------------------------------------------- This does not equal Larry's anecdote but it does give you a true example of the effective deployment of electronic countermeasures by civilians against obnoxious FM radio reception. I have a friend, whom I will call Joe, who a few years ago was a quiet electronics technician of the old school. Although too young to properly qualify as an old fart, he liked to build things with vacuum tubes. Joe is also a cellist, and a member of a large local family. He likes to practice his cello, or play the organ, for relaxation. Anyway, at the time of this anecdote, Joe had moved into an apartment in Oakland, California. He did not play the cello or organ there, out of respect for his neighbors (nowadays he owns a house, and besides, his neighbors like the music). However, in the apartment building were some Very Noisy People. They would play FM stations at all hours, loud. They acknowledged but did not act on requests to moderate the volume. Now hereabouts this sort of behavior is illegal -- the police call it a 647 violation, Disturbing The Peace, so Joe could easily have complained to the police. But his style was much quieter, and subtler, than that. He built an FM jammer, which came in later years to be passed around a lot and dubbed "the family FM jammer." (This was very much in character -- Joe was always building clever gadgets to fill a need. The family is very handy with things like that, making do -- Joe's parents grew up, of course, in the Depression.) It was a beautiful piece of work: built on a block of wood, with open-air coils, a large glowing VHF tube, and porcelain insulators. It would have been completely at home in a 1930's sci-fi movie with Bela Lugosi in a starched white smock that buttoned up on one side. The jammer used, simply enough, the 60-Hertz power line to frequency-modulate the carrier. With characteristic attention to detail, Joe had made sure that the modulation was just enough to cover the desired channel without spilling over to adjacent ones. Yes, it was assembled and aligned with all the loving care of a commercial transmitter expecting outside inspection. The procedure was simple but delightful. When the Noisy Neighbors decided to play loud FM, and this got to bothering Joe, he would warm up the jammer. Because the jammer needed precise tuning, and also because the problem had now become a sport, Joe worked the tuning dial with the fingers of a safecracker, and all the patience in the world -- I like to think, though I don't really know, that he had a cigar and a glass of port, perhaps Graham's Malvedos 1955. Presently a horrific buzz would replace the (inevitably pounding) dance beat audible through the wall, provoking vaguely audible expletives of discontent. Someone would change the station, and the music would return. It didn't bother Joe; he was patient, and he was sure of his quarry. Eventually he would find the new station and they would change it again. Sooner or later there were expletives of resignation and the receiver was turned off. To his fortune, they rarely played anything but FM (AM, of course, would have been even more manageable, but records would have required a radically different approach). All of this had the effect of translating a nuisance into good clean sport, at least for a patient cellist like Joe. Naturally, as a law-abiding citizen, not to mention a commercial licensiate of the FCC and bound by the statutes of the Communications Act of 1934 as amended, I would have been horrified and obliged to report this behavior had I not learned of it well after the fact. ---------------------------------------------------- I once had the opportunity to engage in a little ECM against TV and will relate it here. Many years (at least 2*statute¬of¬limitations) I was living in the barracks at a Navy Air base in California. The folks in the "cube" next door had a habit of watching TV late at night with the TV turned up loud. As a lowly E3, I was unable to get them to turn it down, so decided to fix it with ECM. A one transistor blocking oscillator was constructed, which had the following characteristics: 3 Pulses per Second Each pulse about 5 Watts of power for about 10 msec Each pulse swept from about 10 to 21 Mhz, with a very rich harmonic spectrum, thus blanketing the VHF TV specturm, and the TV IF. This device was placed a few feet from the offending television set, and resulted in a total disruption of vertical sync. However, much to my annoyance, the cretins next door assumed that the TV was just a little sick, and kept on watching it! Feeling frustated, and needing to catch some Z's, I then modified the oscillator to make it continuous duty and about 500 mW of power. Sneaking outside, I placed it under the window where the TV set lived, and then adjusted the frequency until the TV went dark and the sound vanished. Then I snuck back into bed. The noise, of course, was gone. The neighbors, however, suspected something, but when they found me in bed, they figured that it couldn't possibly be me causing the problem (again, not too bright, these folks). So... they trashed the TV. End of problem. However, not end of story... The barracks was located under the HF antennas of the base communications station. Next morning, the barracks was surrounded by armed guards, and everybody was made to leave (and searched by an unfriendly looking ONI (office of Naval Intelligence (sic)) agent. Remembering the antennas, some unpleasant fantasies regarding COMSEC, Court Martials, Interfering with military radio charges, etc, occurred to me. Fortunately, (those being Vietnam Days) it was a dope bust, and my oscillator wasn't found. ---------------------------------------------------- On the subject of revenge on noisy neighbors: I have one friend, whose two great passions (besides his wife) are music and medicine. He was a professional rocker for a few years, and is now a registered nurse, and is quite knowledgable about both subjects. One semester, in college, he had the misfortune to be next door to the party room for the dorm. After a month or two of trying to get them to quiet down via conventional means, he decided on a drastic plan of action. He, of course, had a top-notch music system, with excellent speakers. He also knew that there are certain tones that affect the human nervous system in nasty, awful ways. One morning, while his neighbors were sleeping off a particularly noisy party, he hooked up the speakers to a good tone generator, pointed them at the wall, and left for class. He came back an few hours later to find the partiers being violently ill. Nothing permanent, just *very* unpleasant. This happened one or two more times, and the noise problem slowly went away. Can you say Pavlovian conditioning, boys and girls? ---------------------------------------------------