*start* 16600 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 27 Sep 89 14:46:48 PDT (Wednesday) Subject: Life 5.9 From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- Two men were walking along the river side. One of them started talking about his family. First one " Yesterday a small dust fell into my wife's eye, So I had to spend $150 to remove ". Second one " Oh, but that's not a big thing. Did you know about my wife, a mink coat fell into her eyes(sight), I had to spend $5000. ---------------------------------------------------- An outsider's view of Xerox reorgs: I am working on my ReorganizeXerox routine to help you folks perform your annual organizational reshuffling. It is deeply recursive. Some alpha users have complained of excessive overhead, but they are ignoring the fact that the routine spawns subprocesses at an exponentially increasing rate, so this really is a feature, not a bug. (Admittedly, there is one procedure, ConductXeroxMarathonMeeting, which never returns. This will not be fixed in the next release.) The routine also requires an extremely sophisticated random number generator. ---------------------------------------------------- "Whether you think you can or can't, you're right." - Henry Ford ---------------------------------------------------- A bachelor is a person who believes in life, liberty, and the happiness of pursuit. ---------------------------------------------------- Did you hear that Time Inc. will offer a new electronic magazine service - the FAX of Life :-) ---------------------------------------------------- Why should you bury your stockbroker? Because deep down he's a good guy. ---------------------------------------------------- Woolite soaks fabrics - and consumers (From Consumer Reports) After finishing a bottle of "Woolite" detergent, a Tennessee reader opened a new bottle. When she inadvertently tried to screw the new cap onto the old bottle, she found that it didn't fit. Further investigation revealed that the new cap was noticeably bigger. The instructions for hand-washing were similar on both bottles: for hand-washing, one capful in cool or cold water. ---------------------------------------------------- One trick we used to do in my school days was call up a number that we knew to be a pay phone. When someone answered, we'd say "I'm hungary, give me some dimes. A quarter, if you have one. C'mon, no one's made a call on me in days, and I'm starved!", etc. People would be taken aback at first, but generally they'd catch on, and we'd share a laugh. Once, someone even called some friends over: "Hey, c'mere, this phone wants to be fed." ---------------------------------------------------- My friend had a Chevrolet "Caprice Classic" that had the following warning on the driver's side sun-visor: "Do not attempt to modify the Catalytic Converter in any way as damage may be caused to the Catalytic Converter and nearby property." *NEARBY PROPERTY?* We had visions of this thing being nuclear or something... "Stand back, Louie... I'm gonna disengage the Catalytic Converter. Better get behind that brick wall." ---------------------------------------------------- While discussing future [DEC] training needs for our office, My boss was asked by the DEC representative [sales] where he "thought he stood" as far as overall knowledge, i.e, would he consider himself at the "general user" level, the "programmer level", etc.... his response: "....I'm at the level right now where I'm both dangerous AND stupid.." ---------------------------------------------------- The approaching second millenium (C.E.) nicely illustrates the demographic effect of massacre. In the first year C.E. there were about ten million Jews. There are still about ten million Jews. In the first year C.E. there were about ten million Chinese. There are now about a billion Chinese. ---------------------------------------------------- Comments on the future evolution of languages: There are consistent trends in the past evolution of languages, and in all likelihood they will continue to change in the same fashion in the future. In 200 years, spoken French will have only one sound, a vowel. All consonants and gaps between words and sentences will disappear, leaving only an extended "Eauuuuuuuuuuuu..." Meaning will be inferred from facial expression. Written French will stay exactly the same. These consonants will not be entirely forgotten; they will migrate to Czechoslovakia, which will by that time have no use for vowels. In 200 years, the English vocabulary will be the union of all other vocabularies, but the spelling will be original. Similarly, the Japanese alphabet will be the union of all other alphabets in the world. The Cyrillic alphabet will eventually be the same as the Latin alphabet, only backwards. A mirror will suffice for translating Russian into Polish. Finally, in 200 years, entire books in Germany will be one word. Plus a verb at the end, of course. ---------------------------------------------------- When I was in the drafting department at Bell Labs, a co-worker used to do some odd things while waiting for a batch job to plot. (The good old days) He would take some cleaning fluid (commonly used by draftsmen) and put it into a small bottle. He would trap a housefly in his hands, without crushing it, put it into the bottle. The cleaning fluid had ether in it and would put the fly to sleep. Then, he would take a hair, about 5 inches long and tie it to one of the fly's legs. Next, he would take a small strip of light-weight paper and attach it to the other end of the hair. On the paper, he would write an advertisement such as: "Eat at White's Tavern." (A local public establishment, not above question about cleanliness.) When the fly awoke, it would fly around, very slowly, but the paper would stream behind, very similar to the advertising banners carried by old crop-dusters! It was a very amusing sight. Disclaimer:Kids, this is only to be done by trained individuals, do not try this at home. ---------------------------------------------------- Excerpted from "It Takes Special Training to Tell They Aren't Federal Bureaucrats" in _The Wall Street Journal_, Wednesday, 19 July 1989 You probably suspected it all along, but here's confirmation: A lot of dummies commute to the nation's capital. Because of crawling rush-hour traffic around Washington, commuters from Virginia often are driven to use faster-moving car-pool lanes on their state's highways. But not all adhere to the three-person-per-vehicle minimum for the lanes. And some scofflaws try to avoid detection by hauling make-believe passengers: mannequins, blow-up dolls, and dummies. ... When [Officer Angela Logan] pulled the driver [of a suspicious car] over, he approached the officer's car, trying, unsuccessfully, to prevent her from trekking to his. In the back seat, she found two mannequin heads, one without a body. She then summoned two other troopers to the scene so they could ``witness that it in fact happened.'' ... Since dummies can be used as evidence, drivers who are hauled into court find it hard to beat the rap. One tried to argue that his wife, being an artist, used the mannequins for her work. The judge didn't buy it. Some troopers are getting keener at detection. ``We have some people who have been doing this for some time,'' Sgt. Redden [of the Virginia State Police] says of his colleagues. ``They'll take some dummies aside and look them eyeball-to-eyeball.'' ---------------------------------------------------- I knew it was going to be a bad day when, on opening the door to the travel agency, I saw the same guy who used to work at the Ford place. He bounded from behind his desk and came to the door to shake my hand, a most unusual behavior for a travel agent. "Good morning! May I sell you a Hawaiian vacation?" he asked. "No, thanks, I just need an airline ticket from Boston to Baltimore," I said. "I need to go on Thursday." "I have just the thing for you," he said. "First class, change only once in Denver. Dynamite seats on these airplanes, yes sir!" "No, I just need a coach ticket. And isn't there a direct flight from Boston to Baltimore without stops?" "I like a man who does his homework," he said. "You'd be amazed how many people just come in and ask about all the flights they can find. Will you be trading in another ticket?" I was beginning to get irritated. "I don't have a ticket now. That's why I'm here. What flights are there to Baltimore on Thursday morning?" "If I could get you a departure time you liked, would you buy a ticket _today_?" You could see that he was hungry. "Here's a flight at 10:30." "No, I need to be there by ten. Is there something around 8:00?" "You are a skillful bargainer," he countered. "I'll have to ask my manager." He disappeared for a few minutes. "My manager says he can give you an 8:30 departure, no earlier. Of course, you'll want to buy flight insurance and our special carry-on bag..." I got up and headed for the door. Surely there's another travel agent somewhere. Maybe Japan Air Lines flies to Baltimore. Or Lufthansa. As I left, I could hear him calling, "You know, these flights to Baltimore are very rare...Consumer Reports rated Baltimore very highly...We may not be able to get any more of these tickets..." ---------------------------------------------------- The University of Oklahoma Department of Recruiting Norman, Oklahoma % Founded 1900 % Football since 1940 % Basketball since 1952 % Academics beginning 2014 The University of Oklahoma is pleased to announce the following commitments of high school football players for the 1989 recruiting season: WAYFROY P. JACKSON: 6'6", 190, WIDE RECEIVER Hottest prospect from Alabama in the last 10 years...Loves music...Will demand a mini-cassette player in his helmet...Holds the record for the number of "You knows" during an interview (62 in one minute)...Wayfroy can print his complete name. CLETIS QUENTIOUS JENKINS: 6'2", 190, RUNNING BACK Set state scoring record out of Melrose High, Charlotte, NC...Also led the state in burglaries, but has only six convictions...Has been clocked in the 40 at 4.2 seconds with a 25" TV under his arm. ROOSEVELT "DUDE" DANZELL: 6'1", 185, RUNNING BACK Home town, West Memphis, Ark...Has processed hair and imitates Billy Dee Williams fairly well...Before he signs a letter of intent, he wants OU to change uniform colors to chartreuse and pink...Lists church preference as "Red Brick." WOODROW LEE WASHINGTON: 6'8", 275, TACKLE Third generation welfare family...At 19, he is the oldest of 14 children...Mother indicates Woodrow and child #9, Leotis, may have the same father...Has manslaughter trial pending but feels confident of being found innocent...Says, "The bum say somethin' bad 'bout my momma"...On OU entrance form, lists IQ as 20-20. WILLIE "NIGHT TRAIN" SMITH: 6'4", 175, QUARTERBACK Born on an Amtrak train near Chicago...Birth certificate indicates he's now 26-years old...Thinks the "N" on Nebraska's helmet stands for "Nowledge," but still meets OU academic requirements...Insists on wearing jersey #12...It matches his score on SAT. TYRONE "PYTHON" PEEPLES: 6'10", 180, WIDE RECEIVER Home town Cuero, Texas...Has pending paternity suit, but hopes none of the other five will file charges...Tyrone has already signed six letters of intent, but also willing to sign with OU...Likes white women and Cadillacs...Thinks Taco Bell is the Mexican phone company. ABDUL ABA ALI: 6'8", 245, GUARD Played high school ball at Houston Yates under name of Leroy Jones...Thinks Sherlock Holmes is a housing project in Jackson, Miss...Does not know the meaning of the word "fear"...Does not know the meaning of a lot of other words, either. ---------------------------------------------------- news of the weird The U.S. Air Force announced that an MX missile accidentally dropped seven inches in its silo in Wyoming last June. The cause was faulty glue. Repairs will cost $4,780,000 -- or $683,000 per inch. A February report from Finland's Health Ministry, concerned about declining population and a high incidence of stress among workers recommended that people should take "sex holidays" from work. The proposal was immediately endorsed by a Lutheran church official in Finland. In February the Environmental Protection Agency inspector general told a congressional committee that its toxic waste cleanup program is so badly managed that the agency hired contractors as telephone receptionists for $30 an hour. In Prague, a 506 pound man identified as Zbynek M., aged fifty-two, was sentenced to twelve years in prison for stealing $120,000 worth of food. Marlene T. Sipes, a Columbia S.C. lawyer, was suspended for a year in March by the state supreme court on charges that she pocketed $1,819 in 1986 from her daughter's Girl Scout troop cookie fund. A Jones, Okla., man who was snooping around his estranged wife's house one night in March got stuck in the chimney and was not rescued until 10:30 the next morning. He had inhaled so much soot that he could not speak when he tried to thank rescuers. A month earlier in Clayton, Mo., Creston Nance, twenty-seven, was found hanging upside down in a ventilation duct at a store he was allegedly trying to burglarize. American Express filed a lawsuit in Baltimore to recover the $6,700 debt that Michael Gianakos ran up at the Club Pussycat. Gianakos invoked a principle of law that a contract for illegal services (in this case, prostitution) is not enforceable. (Club Pussycat denied the allegation.) Former Vice President Spiro Agnew, a California resident, recently filed for a state tax refund. He says the bribes he took while governor of Maryland in the sixties (which he had to pay back to the state) weren't really his money to begin with so he shouldn't have to pay tax on them. A court in Stockholm recently ruled that a twenty-one year old man in Ystad was temporarily insane when he beat his parents to death and was therefore free to inherit their $160,000 estate. Chicago public defender Ralph Malanga was sentenced to a week in jail in January for contempt of court for wearing green sneakers to a trial. Ending four years of litigation, the U.S. Court of Appeals in California upheld a trial court's award of $8,000 to an airline coach passenger from a first-class passenger (a Presbyterian church deacon) who had roughed her up in 1985 when she wouldn't let him break in front of her to use the first-class lavatory John J. Cottle, twenty-nine, was sentenced to six and a half years in prison for a 1988 burglary in Allentown, Pa. The main evidence against him was a set of photographs he took of himself, posing with the stolen goods, hours after the burglary, and which police found in his apartment. In May, police near Coconut Creek, Fla., were able to apprehend two burglary suspects they were chasing at 5 a.m. toward the Sawgrass Expressway when the suspects stopped to pay the toll at an unattended booth. After Richard Herdon was arrested for bank robbery in New York City, one officer described him as "the least successful bank robber we've ever had." Herdon is accused of attempting twenty-five bank robberies over a forty-four day period but grossing only $12,000 in seven successes. Said one sergeant, "He just didn't come across stern enough." Jose Martins was convicted in Ontario of counterfeiting U.S. and Canadian dollars. He was discovered when he failed to make payments on the new Canon color copier he has purchased. When the machine was repossessed, the company found samples of Martin's work inside. Doctors at King's College Hospital in London reported that Baby, a two year old collie-Doberman, was apparently responsible for detecting a malignant tumor on her owner's thigh. She ignored moles and other marks on the body but spent several minutes each day sniffing the tumor, attempting twice to bite it off. After several weeks, the owner finally sought medical advice. A recent study noted in The Journal of the American Medical Association reported that, of two groups that entered a San Francisco hospital with equally bad heart problems, the group that enjoyed prayer support from others had fewer complications. *start* 15544 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 4 Oct 89 13:59:04 PDT (Wednesday) Subject: Life 5.A From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- Stupidity is the basic building block of the universe. -- Frank Zappa ---------------------------------------------------- "How did the poet Mayakovsky die?" "Suicide." "What were his last words?" "Don't shoot, comrades!" ---------------------------------------------------- Did you know that minors are on strike in USSR ? I wonder when the adults will go on strike ? ---------------------------------------------------- [Seen in the 'Daily Telegraph' (London) 18th or 19th July 1989, and known to be going round the House of Lords (UK Upper House).] Q: What did the Romanian people light their houses with before they used candles? A: Electricity. ---------------------------------------------------- Top Ten Secrets Felix Bloch Revealed to the Soviets (Late Night With David Letterman, 26 July 1989) 10. The stealth bomber can be knocked out of the sky with an ordinary garden hose. 9. So-called "secret sauce" nothing but catsup and mayonnaise mixed together. 8. Take the Reds and two runs over the Padres. 7. The Joker didn't die at the end of _Batman_. 6. Tom Brokaw's American Express number: 360-9950-4425 (expires 4/91). 5. 101 guaranteed, sure-fire pickup lines. 4. The true identity of the San Diego Chicken. 3. Try lemon juice on those stubborn grass stains. 2. Helen Hayes goes nuts when you blow on the back of her neck. 1. Dan Quayle is just pretending to be a dumb guy. ---------------------------------------------------- Dan Quayle had a trip planned to Beijing, but was worried because of the turmoil at that end. His security adviser however informed him that it was pretty safe for D.Q. as, "They are only harassing intellectuals." ---------------------------------------------------- Somebody once said of Canada, "Canada could have had the culture of France, the entrepreneurial spirit of the United States, and the British tradition of tolerance; instead it got the culture of the United States, the entrepreneurial spirit of Britain, and the French tradition of tolerance..." ---------------------------------------------------- Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them, they translate it into their own language, and fortwith it means something completely different. --Goethe ---------------------------------------------------- BTW, did you know that in France they have a special agency that has to authorize the name given to any child born there? Foreign names (esp japanese/chinese ones) are often nixed (on the grounds that they are too different), and names such as the above are also subject to "annulment". The parents must then come up with a new name for their kids. It raises my liberal hackles, but, if you think of the torture of having to grow up with one of those names . . . ---------------------------------------------------- What's made of metal, glass, and rubber, and comes in 50,000 parts? A Lebanese used car. ---------------------------------------------------- An Australian farmer is sitting on a stone near his farm, all in blood and crying. His neighbor is passing by. "What's wrong?" the neighbor asks. "I bought a new boomerang," the crying guy answered. "So, why are you crying?" the neighbor asks again. "I cannot throw away the old one..." ---------------------------------------------------- When my daughter was living in Vienna, Austria we sent her a package and was upset that it took two months to get there. It turns out that it went to Australia first. ---------------------------------------------------- There was a letter to the editor in Unix World recently. A subscriber in Switzerland was complaining that he had recieved his first issue about 6 months late and quite torn up. Appearently it had gone to Swaziland first! ---------------------------------------------------- A woman was visiting Mainland China on vacation and her eye was caught by a peculiar medallion with some Chinese characters on it. She thought it looked nice, and so bought it. For several years se wore it as a good luck charm, and it was quite a converation piece. One day, she attended a dinner with some visitor's from China. On kept glancing at her, and then looking away discreetly. Curious, she approached him and asked why. "It is the medallion that you wear." "Oh, yes, it is nice isn't it? I picked it up on vacation." Then she realized that the man she was speaking to was Chinese. "I've always wondered what it says. Could you translate it for me?" "Oh, I couldn't," he said. "Please?" "I do not think you would be appreciative." She asked again, and he relented. "It says: 'Licensed prostitute, city of Shanghai.'" ---------------------------------------------------- A reportedly true story heard on Q107 yesterday: A man was driving from his home up to Thunder Bay, Ontario to visit friends. While there, he was involved in a collision with another car, but the other driver left the scene of the accident. He reported it to the police, who looked into it, and told him the next day that the car that hit him was a stolen vehicle. The man was able to drive his pickup truck home, only to find when he got home that, lo and behold, his car was stolen! Sure enough, the car that hit him several hundred miles from home was his own. I'd just like to see if his insurance agent breaks down laughing or crying. ---------------------------------------------------- [From an article in the SD Union, Aug 7th, 1989] Astronomers are predicting that the biggest meteor shower of the year will take place this Friday night/Saturday morning. There should be over 50 meteors an hour. Viewing will be best after 1 A.M. The meteors will appear to be coming out of the northeastern portion of the sky, near the constellation Perseus. And just after sunset on Wednesday, there will be a total lunar eclipse, at least in the San Diego area. The moon will rise at 7:33 PM, at which time I presume the eclipse starts. The eclipse will begin to end at 8:56 PM, and the moon will be full again at 9:56. But getting back to meteors... millions of tons' worth of meteors enter the Earth's atmosphere every years. Almost all of them are the size of a grain of sand, and vaporize completely in a fraction of a second. But then they condense back into solids. As they drift downward, water vapor condenses around them to form raindrops. So if you were to put out a bucket and catch rainwater, then run a magnet through it, you'd wind up with metallic particles from these meteors. ---------------------------------------------------- Taken from _Quakers Are Funny!_ by Chuck Fager, Kimo Press, 1987: One World War II Quaker conscientious objector had been a professional wrestler. Once when he and some other inmates of the Coshocton CPS camp in Ohio made a trip into town, they were hassled about their pacifism by some local youths, who insisted that only force could change the German's views. In response, the ex-wrestler took off his coat, challenged one of the local boys to a match, and promptly threw the townie across the room. He then asked the youth, "*Now* do you believe that force won't change people's views?" "Heck no!" the local boy hollered back. "That's exactly my point," said the CO, who put on his coat and left. ---------------------------------------------------- This guy, John George, and a colleauge wrote a book on phony quotations ("They Never Said It: A Book Of Fake Quotes"). A lot of the quotations that we think are genuine were in fact never uttered by the alleged speaker. So anyway, your job is to read each quotation and decide whether it's phony. I'll even give you a hint -- about a third are real. [From an article in San Diego Union, 7/17/89, p. E-3] "I have not yet begun to fight." John Paul Jones "The capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them." Vladimir Ilyitch Lenin "You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time." Abraham Lincoln "I shall return." Gen. Douglas MacArthur "The only good Indian is a dead Indian." Gen. Philip Sheridan "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." Mark Twain "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Jean Francois Arouet Voltaire "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." Alexander Pope "Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door." Ralph Waldo Emerson "Anybody who hates children and dogs can't be all bad." W.C. Fields "In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes." Benjamin Franklin "That government is best which governs least." Thomas Jefferson "In the strict sense of the term, a true democracy has never existed, and never will exist." Jean Jacques Rousseau --------------------------- All of the quotations are false, except for the ones by MacArthur, Pope, Franklin, and Rousseau. ---------------------------------------------------- About a month ago, I asked for real life headlines from such magazine as Weekly World News (well, "real life" is a subjective term, here). Anyway, I promised to summarize the results I received, so here dey be... From: willey@arrakis.NEVADA.EDU RUSSIA CLONES 600 HITLERS! [Weekly World News] TELEVANGELISTS ARE ALIEN BEINGS [Sun] REAL LIFE "SHOP OF HORRORS" [Weekly World News] (woman eaten by plant) SURGEON READY FOR HUMAN HEAD TRANSPLANT [News Extra] TEENAGER "CURED" BY ATTEMPTED SUICIDE [San Diego Tribune] MAN WEDS 20 WOMEN IN ONE YEAR [National Examiner] DOLLS IN THE SLAMMER [Sun] THE CHICKEN THAT ATE CHERNOBYL [Sun] MOM TRADES TWINS FOR LOTTERY TICKET [National Examiner] TWO-TOED E.T. CHILDREN [Sun] KHOMEINI HOOKED ON "HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL" [Weekly World News] HER SON IS A WEREWOLF [News Extra] FORMER NUN JILTS HUSBAND FOR LESBIAN LOVER [Sydney Dailey Mirror] PREACHER GOES TO HELL AND BACK [Weekly World News] DOCTOR FREEZES DEAD FIANCEE [News Extra] WORLD'S FATTEST MAN BREAKS SCALE [Flint Journal] QUADRIPLEGIC SHOT WIFE WITH TEETH [Pensacola Florida News Journal] SPACE ALIEN CURES TEEN'S ACNE [Sun] FERGIE'S BABY IS UFO TARGET [Weekly World News] BODYBUILDER EXPLODES [Sun] FAN SWALLOWS REMOTE [Sun] (man swallowed remote control and changes channels by hiccuping) TAMMY FAYE'S DEVIL DOG [Weekly World News] HITLER WAS A WOMAN! [Weekly World News] EARTH IS A GIANT EGG [Sun] WOMAN MARRIES SPACE GOD [National Examiner] PINT-SIZED FALWELL SUSPENDED [Newsday] BABY ADOPTED BY ANTS [Sun] RAVIOLI WORKER ROLLS IN DOUGH [New York Times] COLONEL QADDAFI HOOKED ON THREE STOOGES [Weekly World News] WALKING CATFISH EATS FARMER [National Examiner] SOUTH RAVAGED BY WEREWOLVES [National Examiner] DOOMED CANNIBALS ATE AIDS VICTIM [Weekly World News] FACTORY WORKER THINKS HE'S DIED AND GONE TO HELL [Son] ALIENS WROTE THE CONSTITUTION [Sun] TRANSVESTITE CHESS CHAMP [National Examiner] WIFE TAKES LIFE WHEN LATE WITH LUNCH [San Francisco Chronicle] CANNIBAL SINGING SENSATION [Weekly World News] ROACHES TAKE OVER NEW YORK CITY BUS [Boston Globe] PLUMBER GOES DOWN THE TOILET [Sun] NURSE SAVES DYING ALIEN ABOARD UFO [Sun] From: pbe@hplb.hpl.hp.com "No. 67 bus found on far side of moon" and a week later... "No. 67 bus mysteriously vanishes from far side of moon" [ All from The Sunday Sport ] From: gt2868a%prism@gatech.edu "Cabbage-patch Dolls are being possessed by the Devil" From: stogner@cs.unc.edu "Pope Arrested in Pizza Case" [ Durham (N.C.) Morning Herald -- a "real" newspaper -- the arrestee was James Pope ] "Chinese Protest Mushrooms" [ Columbia Journalism Review, the publishers of "Squad Help Dog Bite Victim" ] From: bob@datran2.UUCP Regarding tabloid headlines, don't miss Arnold Sawislak's terrific novel, "DWARF RAPES NUN; FLEES IN UFO" I've just finished reading William Kotzwinkle's novel, THE MIDNIGHT EXAMINER ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Tabloid headlines include: UFO CAPTAIN STABS PEDESTRIAN WITH SWORD OF LIGHT ---------------------------------------------------- A Jewish couple have a Son who is a bit troublesome: at age five he starts in school, and pretty soon, his parents get to hear that things aren't going well. After a couple of months, they are asked to "take him out of school", since he is not setting a good example to the other Jewish children. Things go from bad to worse: after only a month in reform school he's thrown out again, and even the state correction center can't deal with him. Eventually, in desparation, the parents take him to the only place left: a local Catholic school. The don't hear anything concerning his performance, no reports of trouble, but their curiosity is really aroused when he comes home at the end of the semester with a report card showing three B's and the rest A's. Things continue in the same vein, and at the end of the second semester, he's running straight A's, and by the end of the school year, his performance has been so good that he is head of the class list. His mother taks him aside and asks: "What's going on? We send you to your own people, and they throw you out. The reform school can't deal with you, and even the state correction center wasn't enough. But now, with these Catholics, you're getting the best grades ever." "Well momma," says the boy "I wasn't too bothered by those other places, but the first thing I see when I go into that Catholic school is a Jewish kid nailed to a cross. I know when to back down...." ---------------------------------------------------- From the July issue of /Harper's Magazine/. ---------- /From a memorandum circulated to members of a search committee at the University of California. The committee was created to recommend a new dean of the College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences./ To: Fellow Members, Dean's Search Committee From: Ad Hoc Committee on Referee Rhetoric, Leo Braudy, Chair Due to some confusion in interpreting the comments included in candidates' letters of reference, we have put together a glossary of terminological translation that we hope will help your deliberations. bridge builder: likes to compromise charismatic: no interest in any opinion but his own; gives frequent print and television interviews committed to the university: appears at every cocktail party consults with faculty: indecisive doesn't suffer fools gladly: rude and abrasive intensely interested in graduate education: hates teaching intensely interested in undergraduate education: has ceased to do her own scholarly work internationally known: likes to go to or run conferences listens well: has no ideas of his own mover and shaker: doesn't care what anybody else thinks; favors steamroller tactics remarkably intelligent: listens without yawning when I describe my latest article straightforward: blunt and insensitive very solid in his field: no administrative experience visionary: can't handle paperwork ---------------------------------------------------- *start* 14505 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 10 Oct 89 17:03:20 PDT (Tuesday) Subject: Life 5.B From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- Then there are weird answering machine messages. I used to have people calling me up every week to check out the latest one. My favorite was: (Done in a vampire voice) ``Thankyou for calling the Transylvanian Embassy. No vampires are available to take you call, so at the sound of the tone, leave you name, telephone number, and blood type. We'll get back to you as soon as we can.'' This sparked a whole bunch of embassy messages. One of them nearly got me in trouble with the FBI. It went: ``Thankyou for calling Soviet Embassy. No KGB.. er, no diplomats are available to answer your call, so at sound of capitalist tone, leave name, telephone number, and short description of secrets you wish to sell.'' And for the science-fiction fans: ``Thankyou for calling Starfleet Command. No Starships are in the quadrant at this time, so at the sound of the subspace tone, tell us your name, the planet you are calling from, and how many Klingons are attacking.'' ---------------------------------------------------- I had a few friends who had answering machines. When their recorded voice was done and the beep had sounded, I would say back to the machine in the best "telephone-answering-machine-voice": "Hello, I'm sorry I can't talk to your answering machine right now, but if you'd care to answer you phone once in a while I would call you more often. Thank you...BEEEEP!" ---------------------------------------------------- A friend of mine had an answering machine that came on and merely said- "This is an intelligence tests. Ready. Begin. " It usually threw people for a loop the first time they called, and solicited an occassionally clever response. There were a few people that never did figure it out. ---------------------------------------------------- "My friend has an answering machine on his car phone. The message says" "Hi. I can't come to the phone because I'm home right now, but if you leave a message I'll call you when I'm out." ---------------------------------------------------- My favorites from _No Hang-Ups_ by John Carfi & Cliff Carle (CCC Publications, 20306 Tau Pl., Chatsworth CA 91311 (c) 1984. ISBN 0- 918259-00-2: (Rod Serling imitation): "You're dazed, bewildered, trapped in a world without time, where sound collides with color and shadows explode. You see a signpost up ahead-- this is no ordinary telephone answering device... you have reached `The Twilight Phone.' BEEP --- Hi. This is < >. I can't answer the phone now because I'm over at 's house. Me and five other guys are helping him replace a lightbulb. BEEP --- Hello. This is < >. And now, a joke for the deaf: ........... ................................................................. .................................................... BEEP --- Hi. This is < >. Please leave your name and number-- But first, a short algebra quiz: How much is 5Q + 5Q? (pause while caller thinks: "10Q") You're welcome! BEEP ---------------------------------------------------- Bad Picard imitation: Assume standard orbit, Mr. LaForge. Sensor readings, Lieutenant. Bad Worf imitation: Scanning, Captain. Strange...no life-forms. Bad Picard imitation: Recommendations, Mr. Data. Bad Data imitation: Intriguing, Captain. Perhaps we should simply leave a message. ---------------------------------------------------- My answering machine recording goes like this: The first thing you hear is very loud music. In the background, you can hear me say: "hello... (pause, more loud music) HELLO!!..." "HANG ON A MINUTE, I'M GOING TO TURN THE MUSIC DOWN!!" a short pause while I walk over to the stereo and turn it down. When I come back... "You know, I'm kind of busy anyway, so why don't you just leave a message after the beep" BEEEEEEP! BTW, only true friends and people who want money tend to leave a message. The rest get so confused that they hang up. ---------------------------------------------------- For a while there, before she regained her senses, my sister was married to a Georgia redneck. When they bought an answering machine, it befell upon me (the only one in the family with any mechanical abilities) to record their message for them. Since I didn't like the redneck in question, I thought I would leave a message he'd be *sure* to want to change. In my deepest, roughest southern drawl I said: "You have reached Redneck Central. Wish you damn Yankees would call when we's home! But seein's how you didn't, just leave yore name 'n' number, and we'll talk about ya before we call!" This sort of backfired, though; the redneck in question *liked* it! ---------------------------------------------------- I am told that MIT used to have a phone system which would play the following message when someone called an unused extension: "Hello, you have reached an imaginary number. Please rotate your phone by 90 degrees and try again. Thank you." ---------------------------------------------------- A company where I used to work had two lines coming into the computer room. One was for employee use and the other was for the computer. It was hooked to a modem which in turn was connected to a telephone (in case we had to manually dial a remote site). The number for that line was unlisted, and was used for outgoing calls only, but occassionally someone would call *in* on that line. So we took to answering that phone by saying, "I'm sorry, but you have the wrong number." ---------------------------------------------------- The most unusual phone call I ever made was about 15 years ago. I had just walked in the door of the house and heard the D.J. announce a 'be-the-tenth- caller-and-win-a-$5.00-gift-certificate-to-Pizza-Hut' contest. I grabbed the phone and dialed the number automatically. Voice: "RING -- click -- Hi! Congratulations! You're the ninth caller!" Me: "All right!" -- (Wait a minute -- he said 'tenth' on the radio...) Voice: "You've just won yourself the latest album from the Brothers Johnson! Can I get your name and address, and we'll mail it right out to you!" Me: "...but...OK, that's John [...] Thanks." Voice: "Bye!" I had called MY radio station, but my sister had HER radio station playing. I was kind of mad...I wanted the Pizza Hut Gift Certificate more. ---------------------------------------------------- NEW YORK (AP) -- Seventy-two percent of Americans who believe in Heaven rate their chances of going there as good to excellent, but many say their friends' chances are considerably worse, according to a new poll. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- A San Francisco man -- wearing a full uniform and carrying a handgun -- impersonated a state fish and game warden for three months, checking licenses, issuing citations and confiscating fish, officials say. Brian Anthony Young told The Examiner that he posed as a game warden out of "boredom and drugs." He said he inspected more than 200 fishermen, boats, restaurants and stores. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- At an Oklahoma rally for Republican Senator Don Nickles, Reagan urged his listeners to support the re-election of Don Rickles. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- New Delhi, India (AP) -- Police kept 3,000 residents of a southern Indian village indoors Sunday and put up roadblocks to enforce a government ban on nude worship of a Hindu deity. The commission that banned the festival was set up after a confrontation a year ago between opponents of nude worship and the naked devotees. Members of the pro-modesty faction tried to clothe the worshippers, but were instead stripped by the devotees. Several policemen and some journalists were also stripped, which contributed to a state-wide protest. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The "Metropolitan Indians" of Italy produced parodies of posters and graffiti in an attempt to expose the reality behind the empty sloganizing of the Communists and the Italian Left parties. Examples from 1972 include: "LONG LIVE SACRIFICE", "BOSSES' POWER", "MORE WORK, LESS PAY", and "ALL POWER TO THE DROMEDARIAT." ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Representative Tim Moor sponsored a resolution in the Texas House of Representatives in Austin, Texas calling on the House to commend Albert de Salve for his unselfish service to "his country, his state and his community." The resolution stated that "this compassionate gentleman's dedication and devotion to his work has enabled the weak and the lonely throughout the nation to achieve and maintain a new degree of concern for their future. He has been officially recognized by the state of Massachusetts for his noted activities and unconventional techniques involving population control and applied psychology." The resolutiobn was passed unanimously. Representative Moore then revealed that he had only tabled the motion to show how the legislature passes bills and resolutions often without reading them or understanding what they say. Albert de Salvo was the Boston Strangler. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- When a street procession re-enacting the crucifixion (Easter, 1984) was halted by traffic in west London, a group of local youths surrounded the actor playing Jesus, cut loose his ropes, told him to run for it and said that they would cover his getaway. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the autumn of 1983 a tape recording of a telephone conversation between President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher was sent anonynmously to newspapers in various parts of the world. A covering note claimed that the tape was a recording of a crossed line on which was heard part of the two leaders' telephone conversation. In January, 1984 the story was taken up by the Sunday Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. The Sunday Times described the tape as part of a KGB propaganda war. The U.S. State Department said that the tape was evidence of "an increasingly sophisticated Russian disinformation campaign." In fact the tape was made by members of the anarchist punk rock group Crass. The tape had been produced by using parts of T.V. and radio broadcasts made by the two leaders, then overdubbed with telephone noises. ---------------------------------------------------- From the Tuesday, July 18, 1989 L.A. Times Sports Section, Morning Briefing Collum; Truth Is, You Have to See It to Believe It Were the Dean brothers as zany as their nicknames, Dizzy and Daffy? Some say they weren't, but Grantland Rice told of a time Daffy was swigging on a soda pop as a train carrying the St. Louis Cardinals entered a long tunnel. Rice said he overheard this exchange between the brothers: Daffy: "Diz, you tried any of this stuff?" Dizzy: "Just fixin' to. Why?" Daffy: "Don't! I just did, and I've gone plumb blind." ---------------------------------------------------- (This an original text that I just happen to spout spontaniously at about 3:00am the other night. Hope you like it. -- David Crist) ____________________________________________________ DAVID'S TRUTHS ABOUT WOMEN In this world, there are two sets of women: women that you would love to be with, and women that would love to be with you. THERE IS NO UNION OF THESE TWO SETS. Any woman that you become extremely attracted to will tell you that you are the best friend that a woman could ever have. Being told that you are nice is: the equivalent to her saying, "I wish that you were my brother." a curse. her way of saying that "I hope we can just be friends. Only beautiful women who are engaged or engaged to be engaged or married or your mother's best friend will think that you are a wonderful person that any woman would die for. These same women will be completely dumbfounded at the revelation that you don't go out with a hundred women a week. Much less one. When a woman says "No!" she really means "Yes!" -- except, of course, when she means "NO!" Unless you make over a million dollars a year, you must completely ignore and demean a woman to gain her affection. If you completely disregard her existence, she'll die for you. The degree of subtlety used by a woman is inversely proportional to how attracted you are to her. If you are absolutely in love with everything about her, her hints will amount to, "I really like your roommates new shoes." If you have no attraction to her what-so-ever, she will ask you to come spend a week with her in the Bahamas. A woman will confide in you that she slept with your best friend and that he treated her like dirt afterwards. She will go on-and-on for hours, until she builds up enough nerve to ask him out again. Every woman that you meet that you are instantly attracted to will be: Married, heavily dating the same guy for the 3rd year, my brother's ex-girlfriend. A "Taken" woman will tell you that you are a great-looking guy, but that looks don't matter anyway and that she'd go out with you if she wasn't already dating someone. "Taken" women are the only women capable of understanding your wonderful sense of humor, you amazing musical talent, your tremendous sensitivity, and gracious generosity. A Woman will talk to you about a certain guy that they think is a real jerk, wondering what any Woman would see in him, and then ask you to set them up. Women will absolutely drive you crazy and seemingly make no sense. Women will confuse you and make you distraught. Women are the most wonderful things in the entire world. They are the most precious element that the world could ever know. Everything from the way they look to the way they talk to the way the move, walk, sigh, gesture, dance, smile, laugh, cuddle, squeeze, tease, hug, caress, smell, taste -- is fantastic. *start* 14905 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 26 Oct 89 10:31:56 PDT (Thursday) Subject: Life 5.C From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- "What a fool believes, he sees..." ---------------------------------------------------- From G.B. Shaw: "Common sense is instinct. Enough of it is genius." ---------------------------------------------------- We are all cast in the same mould, but some are mouldier than others. You know you're growing older when you look forward to a dull evening. Afternoon: That part of the day we spend worrying about how we wasted the morning. Put your Nose to the Grindstone! -- Amalgamated Plastic Surgeons and Toolmakers, Ltd. Happiness is seeing your mother-in-law's picture on a milk carton If at first you don't succeed ... redefine success. ---------------------------------------------------- Brien's First Law: At some time in the life cycle of virtually every organization, its ability to succeed in spite of itself runs out. ---------------------------------------------------- Churchill's Commentary on Man: Man will occasionally stumble over the truth but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on. ---------------------------------------------------- The Roman Rule The one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the one who is doing it. ---------------------------------------------------- From a series of Murphy's Laws for Programmers: If the code and the comments disagree, then both are probably wrong. ---------------------------------------------------- Hind's Law # 7 (Program Complexity) Program complexity will grow until it exceeds the capabilities of the person who maintains it. ---------------------------------------------------- Keir's Conundrum: APL is a write-only language. (I can write programs in APL but I can't read any of them.) ---------------------------------------------------- Anthony's Law of Force: "Don't force it, get a larger hammer." ---------------------------------------------------- Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people. -- W. C. Fields ---------------------------------------------------- Patient: It hurts when I do this. Doctor: Don't do that ---------------------------------------------------- I saw this on a wall in Washington, D.C.: IGNORANCE IS WORST THAN HAVING AIDS ---------------------------------------------------- "Look and Feel", a bit too far? I noticed this this morning: "The shape and appearance of this package constitute a trademark of the John O. Butler Co." -- seen on a container of Dental Floss!!! ---------------------------------------------------- from Letterman 7/27... bumper sticker on stealth bomber: "if you can read this, then we wasted 50 billion dollars". ---------------------------------------------------- (a la Dave Barry) The REAL secret behind the Stealth Bomber is - don't tell anybody! - it's 17 inches long! Next time they show it on the evening news, press your head real close to the screen and you'll see that the "pilot" is actually She-Ra, Princess of Power, from the He-Man collection of action figures. (Bear in mind that this is classified information.) This tiny size will enable the Stealth to penetrate Soviet airspace. ---------------------------------------------------- "My university loves and listens to all my opinions as long as I continue to pay them $16,000 per year." ---------------------------------------------------- One day a baseball player is sitting on the bench along with the coach and a few managers. Suddenly, the coach starts saying, "Germany, Italy, Spain, Brittan." The guy looks at him and says, "Huh?" to which the coach replies.... "Europe!" ---------------------------------------------------- Now-it-can-be-told Dept.: Basketball coach Jim Valvano of North Carolina State, on his marriage: "I thought her name was Lavini and that she was Italian. It was Levine and she was Jewish. She thought because of my big nose I was Jewish. We were married for three years before we knew we had a mixed marriage." ---------------------------------------------------- IQ TEST The football team of Texas A&M took an IQ test. High point man was the Tackling Dummy. ------------------------------------------------ What's the Difference? What's the difference between a 4 year research grant and a 4 year athletic scholarship? The athletic scholarship comes with a grant of immunity. ------------------------------------------------- Mathematical Formula lim (major) = P.E. GPR-->0 -------------------------------------------------- Quote from Famous Economist: Football has as much to do with Education as Bullfighting has to Agriculture. Veblen -------------------------------------------------- Another Quote from the Great Economist: Sports makes Higher Education palatable for Students who do not belong. Veblen ---------------------------------------------------- Source: Wall Street Journal, 10 July 1989, quoting a photo caption in the New York Times, 11 May 1989: Chevrolet is turning to Walt Disney to help promote its new Lumina. Advertising will be filmed at Walt Disney World, where market tests show that Mickey and Minnie will bring believability to the product. ---------------------------------------------------- Seen in a pharmacy, source unknown... Ideas don't last long in some heads because they can't stand solitary confinement. ---------------------------------------------------- "I see computers as an engine, and that's a good term because computers are like automobiles...Computers help you an awful lot with speed but are almost useless in terms of charting direction." -- Nobel Prize Winner Arno Penzias ---------------------------------------------------- About eight years ago, in Jeff MacNelly's comic strip "Shoe", the Perfesser purchased a dedicated word processor. He was bragging to Skyler about how it would improve the quality of his writing. As they unpacked it and prepared to set it up, Skyler began to read the instructions aloud: "First also may to put greatest tab A very fine and through the around slotting." ---------------------------------------------------- Definition of a computer..... A million morons working at the speed of light. ---------------------------------------------------- Ad in the back of July 17 PC Week: Private Hi-tech Company seeks BSEE with minimum 3-5 years experience in IBM PS/2 MicroChannel Architecture. That will be pretty tough, considering that the PS/2 hasn't existed for three years. ---------------------------------------------------- Sometimes you just need to work a bit: Yesterday on WCAU radio (Philadelphia) the hourly cash call contest reached an answering machine which had a recorded message something like Hi. We're not able to come to the phone now, but if this is the cash call the amount is $1765. The machine had the right amount. The owner listened to the radio at work and recorded the corrrect amount every hour. He had been doing this for the last two months. ---------------------------------------------------- >From The Economist of July 8, page 49: Mensa, the club for "highly intelligent people", advertised a competition in a children's newspaper--closing date, June 31st. ---------------------------------------------------- The Land of The Frozen Dead What do you call a North Dakotan with a third grade education? Professor What do you call a north dakotan with a one way plane ticket to MT? smart What is the best thing coming out of North Dakota? I 94 What's the North Dakota state tree? The telephone pole. What's the North Dakota state bird? The mosquito. The only thing between North Dakota and the North Pole is a barbed-wire fence. Of course, it blew over in the last blizzard. If North Dakota were to seceede from the Union, it would be the third largest nuclear power in the world (Minot AFB, Grand Forks AFB; 300 missles, 35 bombers). North Dakota: So far from Heaven, so close to Montana. For your information, this was NOT posted from a tractor. It amazes me how many city folk confuse big tractors with combines... ---------------------------------------------------- I noticed this when reading the directions for my new office phone. "If there is any trouble, disconnect the unit from the telephone line and connect a known working phone. If the known working phone operates properly, have it repaired by one of the specified Panasonic Factory Service Centers." Talk about planned obsolescence! ---------------------------------------------------- (Repairman told me this joke last evening - since I raise Rottweilers and exotic birds, and own the "money pit" somehow it seemed appropriate.) Mrs. Peterson phoned the repairman because her dish washer quit working. Typically, he couldn't accommodate her with an "after-hours" appointment, and since she had to go to work, "I'll leave the key under the mat. Fix the dish washer, leave the bill on the counter and I'll mail you a check. By the way, I have a large Rottweiler inside; he won't bother you. I also have a large parrot, but whatever you do, DON'T TALK TO THE BIRD!" Well, sure enough the dog totally ignored the repairman, but the whole time he was there, the damned parrot cussed, yelled, screamed, and about drove him nuts. As he was ready to leave, he couldn't resist, "You stupid bird, why don't you shut up!" To which the bird replied, "Killer, SIC'EM!!!" ---------------------------------------------------- I work for a company servicing computers. This one particular customer had an old console-type machine with a print head that would ride back and forth on a spiral shaft. They also had a big bushy cat who liked to sit on the edge of the printer next to the operator....... Well....... one day we got a service call that said "Cat caught in machine, come quick!". When I arrived I saw everyone sitting around mending thier various wounds, scratches and contusions. No sight of the cat. It appears that while they were running the machine the cat was twirling his tail in his usual fashion and stuck it down into the printer at the most inopportune time and got SUCKED IN! Apparently the cat absolutely freaked out and tore/scratched the shit out of everyone who came close. They finally freed the cat and to this day he has a kinda "crook" in his tail and goes nowhere near the machine. :-) ---------------------------------------------------- I don't understand these complaints about the postal service. Time was, you could put a two-cent stamp on a letter and mail it, and it would arrive at its destination in two days. Now you put a twenty-five-cent stamp on a letter and it can take three to four weeks to arrive. Still only a penny a day! (From the letter column in Harper's Magazine, in response to an article about the US Post Office.) ---------------------------------------------------- [Paraphrased from The Reader's Digest Complete Do-It-Yourself Manual] Ever go to the hardware store and buy nails? You'll notice that common nails are measured in units called d's. The smallest common nail you'll find is a 2d nail (1" long) and the largest common nail is the 60d (6" long). For some reason, they don't have 1d common nails. The d stands for "penny." You would pronounce "2d nails" as "two penny nails." This penny rating was originally the price per 100 nails. 100 two penny nails would set you back two pennies, 100 six penny nails would cost you six pennies. Penny is abbreviated as "d" instead of "p" because it derives from "denarius," an early Roman coin. ---------------------------------------------------- Worcester, Mass. police put out unusually specific information about a May robbery suspect because he had decided to rob a tailor, Philip Smith, only after Smith had measured him completely for a new suit. ---------------------------------------------------- [Los Angeles] Daily News, August 2: At the side of a road near a highway department cabin in southen Norway, a red and white traffic sign illustrated with a specter warns drivers of an unusual hazard: ghosts crossing. The cabin, formerly used by highway watchmen, is reputed to be the site of many unexplained incidents. According to highway department spokesman Geir Hasle, "Some of our people have experienced so many strange things at the cabin that they swear there are ghosts in the area." ---------------------------------------------------- When a San Mateo County sheriff's deputy approached Barry Buchstaber, who was standing suspiciously beside a car with two broken windows, and asked for identification, Buchstaber handed the deputy the only document he had: a copy of a current arrest warrant against him for driving with a suspended license. ---------------------------------------------------- This is a true incident... This morning I went to the gas station on my way to work. As I was getting ready to leave a nice looking lady pulled up next to me in a Firebird. The pump were located on the passenger side of the car. She got out of the car and walked around to the passenger side to unlock her gas cap. I could plainly see that the tank was on the driver's side of the car. After a few seconds of looking (with a confused look on her face) she walked to the back of the car, stared then walked back to the driver's side where she noticed the tank. I couldn't help but laugh a little. She got back in her car and proceeded to turn around. Instead of pulling back into the spot she was before she went to the other side of the pump -- meaning the pump was still on the passenger side of the car. She got out again, walked around to the passenger side and looked for the tank. She looked really confused this time. She walked back around to the driver side and looked at the tank. She looked as if she wanted to say "How the hell did that get over here??" As I drove away I noticed her get back in her car and drive off. Guess she didn't need gas that bad. ---------------------------------------------------- I once saw a person in a Jaguar, which had a single tank but a gas cap on either side (to avoid the problem the previous posting mentions) drive up to a gas station and insist on the attendant filling both sides. He tried to explain that there was only one tank, but she wasn't having any of this nonsense--she made him put the nozzle in and hold it till it clicked off (which happened immediately, of course). ---------------------------------------------------- *start* 16855 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 31 Oct 89 19:41:58 PST (Tuesday) Subject: Life 5.D From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- More Steve Wright "When I woke up this morning my girlfriend asked me 'Did you sleep good?' I said 'No, I made a few mistakes.' "I was in a job interview and I opened a book and started reading. Then I said to the guy 'Let me ask you a question. If you are in a spaceship that is traveling at the speed of light, and you turn on the headlights, does anything happen?' He said 'I don't know'. I said 'I don't want your job'." Today I...........No, that wasn't me. Four years ago..............no, it was yesterday. I've writing a book. I've got the page numbers done. My friend has a baby. I'm writing down all the noises he makes so later I can ask him what he meant. I'm so tired...I was up all night trying to round off infinity. I went to a general store, but they wouldn't let me buy anything specific. I turned my air conditioner the other way around, and it got cold out. The weatherman said, "I don't understand it. It was supposed to be 80 degrees today," and I said "Oops." Last night I fell asleep in a satellite dish. My dreams were broadcast all over the world. I went fishing with a dotted line...I caught every other fish. I used to be a bartender at the Betty Ford Clinic. Do you think that when they asked George Washington for ID that he just whipped out a quarter? A friend of mine is into Voodoo Acupuncture. You don't have to go. You'll just be walking down the street, and...........ooooohhhhhh, that's much better... You know how it is when you're walking up the stairs, and you get to the top, and you think there's one more step? I'm like that all the time. I broke a mirror in my house. I'm supposed to get seven years of bad luck, but my lawyer thinks he can get me five. I like to skate on the other side of the ice ... I like to reminisce with people I don't know ... I like to fill my tub up with water, then turn the shower on and act like I'm in a submarine that's been hit ... And when I get real, real bored, I like to drive downtown and get a great parking spot, then sit in my car and count how many people ask me if I'm leaving. I got a new shadow. I had to get rid of the other one -- it wasn't doing what I was doing. The other day when I was walking through the woods, I saw a rabbit standing in front of a candle making shadows of people on a tree. My house is made out of balsa wood. When no one is home across the street, except the little kids, I out and lift my house up over my head. I tell them to stay out of my yard or I'll throw it at them. Sometimes I...No, I don't. There's a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore looking like an idiot. I used to be an airline pilot. I got fired because I kept locking the keys in the plane. They caught me on an 80 foot stepladder with a coathanger. ---------------------------------------------------- Jay was reading an article on ray-traced graphics, and turned the page to behold a glorious, full-color picture of an orchard. "My God!" exclaimed Jay, "This *must* be a photograph!" To this one of the pixels replied ... "No, I'm a Crayed dot!" ---------------------------------------------------- James Doohan walks into a bar. As he plops his ever-expanding frame upon the barstool, the bartender recognizes him and quickly rushes over to serve him. "Say, aren't you the guy who plays Kirk on Star Trek?" His reply is "No, I've portrayed Scott!" ---------------------------------------------------- Mused the hobo pretentiously, "I'm a freight-naut." ---------------------------------------------------- My roommate is just the trendiest person on earth! He's been into absolutely everything that's the "latest" and the "greatest"--and also the most heavily publicized. When Cabbage Patch dolls were a big thing, I swear, I saw at least a dozen around the house--and after they fell out of favor, there wasn't so much as a single strand of yarn hair left. He watches the Con- ventional Wisdom as if it were the stock listings. Just the other day, I came home and saw him playing with one of those new Nintendo Home Video Games, the kind that kids pester their parents to get 'till they're blue in the face. Figuring he'd blown yet another few hundred dollars on yet another chunk of planned obsolescence, I turned to him and said, "You know, I've been wondering about you; does your trendiness stem from some sort of hidden insecurity? Something I should know about?" Well, he set down his remote controller, turned to face me, and said... "No, I'm a fad nut." ---------------------------------------------------- I came across an interesting article in last Sunday's L. A. Times. According to the Times, one of the heirs to the Knott's Berry Farm (it's an amusement park in Southern California) fortune has been working with drug addicts. It seems that the latest craze among teenagers is to get high on Raid, of all things. After weeks of working with one particularly troubled youth, the Times reported that Harold Knott was finally able to help him overcome his addiction. When the boy realized that he was at last rid of his addiction, he was heard to exclaim, "I'm off Raid, Knott!" ---------------------------------------------------- New York Times, August 8, 1989, Letter to the Editor, by Ruth L. Kaplan: The other day I bought a roll of 25 cent postage stamps. I have not had a moment's peace since. For, upon unfurling this roll, I discovered that every one of the 100 stamps bears the unmistakable likeness of the American flag. To appreciate my consternation, consider what is in store for these stamps. First, I must lick the flag-- er, stamp. Then I will drop it into a dark box, wehre it may well be bruised, possibly even torn. Next, the stamp/flag will go to the Post Office, where an inexorable machine will stomp on it, defiling it with ugly lines in order to "cancel" it. "Cancel" our inviolable flag? But wait. The horrors mount. In time, the stamp will reach the addressee, who may rip it in eagerly opening the envelope. Ultimately, the flag stamp-- licked, cancelled, defaced, ripped-- will be consigned to the trash, doomed to decompose in a dump, linger in a landfill or-- shudder!-- be converted to charcoal and burned under a steak. What's a patriot to do? I wonder if the Post Office will allow me to return a rerolled roll of stamps. But even it it does, it'll just resell it, perhaps to some insensitive stamper who will lick, deface, cancel and rip those flags without a twinge of conscience. I pray (but not in school) for some official, even Presidential, guidance. Ruth L. Kaplan is a retired Federal (but not postal) employee. ---------------------------------------------------- I went to Lettuce Amuse You traffic school this weekend (one of San Diego's finest alleged that I ran a red light). A Channel 8 newscrew was in our class, filming a spot on traffic schools. It'll be broadcast on the 5 PM news on Sep. 15. From what I gather, traffic schools are news-worthy right now because in this era of Prop. 103, insurance companies want the schools banned, so that they can jack up the rates of people who got tickets. So these are the more interesting things we learned in class: o California is starting to issue a new kind of drivers license (supposedly began July '89). The new licenses look like credit cards. Your photo and signiture are digitized when you first get the license, and laser-printed onto the license. You should be able to run your license through the washer and dryer a lot more times than you can with the old licenses. If you ever lose a license, you just mail in a check to the DMV, and they send you a new license. You no longer need to stand in line and get your picture taken and sign your name again. Also, there's a magstripe on the back of the license. When a cop pulls you over, the cop takes your license, goes back to the patrol car, swipes your license through a card-reader, types in the vehicle code number that you violated, and then the computer prints out your ticket." As a side note, there is a movement to try to replace state licenses with a federal driver's license. o "You commit 2000 vehicle code infractions for every ticket that you actually receive." o The Scandanavian gov't did a study of how to reduce driver fatigue on long trips. They found that a very effective way to reduce fatigue was to chew gum the whole time while you're driving. You can't drive until you get tired, and THEN start chewing gum -- you have to chew gum the whole time. o One cop pulled over a guy for drinking and driving. He searched the guy's car, but couldn't find any open containers. He was about to give up the search, when he noticed a clear plastic tube hanging from underneath the dash. He sniffed the tube and detected alcohol. Turns out the driver had rerouted the windshield wiper hose to be under the dashboard, and had filled up the windshield wiper tank with whiskey. Every time he wanted a drink, he just put the tube in his mouth and pressed the wiper squirt button. o If you're taking the DMV written test, and they ask you a question regarding footage, and you don't know the correct answer, guess "200 feet." That's the most common footage in the Calif. Vehicle Code. o If you give the officer any lip, the officer reclassifies what had been a routine stop as an "Adam Henry stop." Adam Henry is slang for asshole. ---------------------------------------------------- >>Date: 2 Aug 89 21:01:11 GMT From: rtravsky@outlaw.uwyo.edu (Richard Travsky) Subject: Batman the Ninja It wasn't until some time after I saw Batman the second time that I realized this: Batman is a ninja. Certainly there are the obvious martial arts and other fighting abilities. But less obvious are some of the other classic ninja techniques. First of all, there is the dark suit. Batman only comes out at night, so the dark suit is camouflage, something ninjas were early pioneers of. Second, the suit is modeled after a bat, with large ears, the intent being to appear scary and menacing. Ninjas used masks of frightening aspect to gain momentary advantage from the startling effect such a mask can generate. Third, ninjas were very good with poisons, herbs, etc., being amatuer chemists in a sense. Batman used smoke bombs and gas (he gassed Vicki Vale to retrieve the film she'd taken of him). Fourth, ninjas used specialized climbing gear. The "wonderful toys" Batman used included a great deal of climbing oriented equipment. Fifth, ninjas were good spies in their own right and employed other spies; in general they dealt often in information gathering and dissemination rather than assasination. Bruce Wayne had no apparent trouble getting police files and even had his own home bugged! The list could probably be extended, but it is enough to illustrate that Batman is a ninja. An up-to-date one, with a car and computers and a plane. I've read Batman off and on since the mid sixties and been involved in martial arts off and on since the early seventies. Never saw it this way. The film is certainly a more powerful medium. Richard Travsky Computer Services University of Wyoming RTRAVSKY@UWYO.BITNET RTRAVSKY@CORRAL.UWYO.EDU<< Any other martial arts afficianados like to comment on this? ---------------------------------------------------- I am the Infantry, Queen of Battle! I sit tight, stoned out of my squach while my country's representatives meet the enemy face-to-face and will-to-will across the peace table. For two centuries I have been the weak link in our nation's defense, I am the Infantry! Follow Me? Both easy victories and well-covered-up defeats I have known. Frankly, I owe a lot to friendly historians. In the Revolution I spent most of my time slinking around out of uniform taking potshots at British troops from behind rocks. I invaded Canada, and even that was a failure. My best general went over the the British. For a while there I didn't know whether to curse or wind my watch, but the French navy pulled my chestnuts out of the fire. I took on Britain again in 1812 thinking she'd be too busy with Napoleon to notice. I invaded Canada again and got beaten again. On my way out, I cravenly put the torch to the House of Parliament and then screamed like a stuck pig when the British burned Washington. New Orleans, the only battle I won, was fought after my gallant negotiators in Paris had signed the peace treaty. Incidentally, I won it with my usual tactic of hiding behind some rocks and taking potshots at the British troops. After that I vowed to pick fights only with unusually weak, stupid, or backward peoples. The Indians fit the bill nicely. Generally speaking, I bought them off, bullied them, or got them drunk, but occasionally I had to fight it out, with a numerical superiority of only ten to one and nothing but my self-loading rifle to stand against their fierce spears and arrows. What's more, cowards that they were, they often hid behing rocks and took potshots at me. But I persevered, and in fifty-five years victory was mine (except for the Seminoles). Mexico also fit the bill. I did a lot better there than in Canada. By the way, if you're thinking of building a military tradition, I really recommend your Spanish speaking countries. In the Civil War, I fought on both sides. Toward the end I changed sides. In the North I fielded two dozen of the worst generals in the history of modern warfare, and if the British had come to the aid of the South the way I did later in South Vietnam, there'd be Customs officials on the Mason-Dixon Line right now. Once I had it won, I marched to the sea in a cowardly and wanton punitive expedition that held the record for atrocities committed against civilians for half a century, after which I won it again in the Phillipines. I went back to massacring Indians for a while, just to keep my hand in and added the Little Big Horn to my list of showy defeats. If you know what you're doing, you can make routes like that and the Alamo and Pickett's Charge into "heroic stands" or "glorious doomed fights". Anyway, I wised up after that and just surrounded Indian villages and fired into their teepees with cannon from four miles away. Then, I handily beat Spain's seventeenth century army in Cuba while my naval comrades sunk her twelfth-century fleet in Manila. Along the way I turned a major military blunder, the costly charge up the wrong side of San Juan Hill, into a famous victory. I picked up Panama at an auction and spent fifteen years pacifying the Philippines with the .45 caliber automatic, the Gatling gun, and the Krag buffalo rifle. I went into Mexico again after Pancho Villa, but they'd picked up the knack of hiding behind rocks, so I said the hell with it. I waited just as long as I decently could before getting into World War I, buy my valorous historians made my six months of fighting sound like the major event of the war. Australia, New Zealand, and Canada had ten times the troops fighting eight times as long, and you never heard of them, right? I pulled the same trick in World War II, but the Japanese forced me into it about three years early when my commander in chief left the entire Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor with a "Bomb Me" sign on it. I actually had to do some fighting, but fortuantely I've always had some pretty sharp scientists to back me up. Let me tell you, it helps to have the technological edge, whether it's Winchesters over arrows or grapeshot over musket fire. They came up with napalm, the Norden bombsight and the atom bomb, and got me off the hook. In Korea I managed to blow a sure thing when my commanders forgot that rivers like the Yalu turn into roads at 32 degrees Fahrenheit - and that China wasn't a Spanish-speaking country. Since then, I've taken on Lebanon and the Dominican Republic, and Grenada, and backed out of the Suez and Cuba. In Vietnam, I used all my tricks picking on small, primitive countries, taking potshots from the air (my scientists built fort of a flying rock to hide in), shelling villages from four miles away, pretending that mistakes like Hamburger Hill were great victories, all of it. It didn't work. I lost, and everybody knows it. I AM THE INFANTRY, QUEEN OF BATTLE. FOLLOW ME! *start* 17869 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 2 Nov 89 11:29:13 PST (Thursday) Subject: Life 5.E From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- The Jan 11, 1988 US News & World Reports was mistaken. There is (and on that date was) no such person as "Economist John Kenneth Galbraith." The tag should have been "the social activist and former economist, John Kenneth Galbraith." The last time John Kenneth Galbraith published a work on economics in a refereed publication was 1957. ---------------------------------------------------- [Los Angeles] Daily News, July 12: Don't try fixing your spaceship in your back yard, especially if you live in Fremont, California. According to a Fremont ordinance, it's illegal to repair a vehicle in a residential zone. This includes not only automobiles but also "vessels, aircraft and spacecraft." In compliance with the law, Fremont's Mayor, Gus Morrison, who helps make spacecraft for Lockheed Missiles & Space Co., has promised not to take his work home. ---------------------------------------------------- In Fairfield, California, 23 students in the American Studies class at Fairfield High made a door-to-door survey in the residential section, carrying what they described as "a possible amendment to the Constitution" ... "Unconstitutional," was one citizen's reaction after reading it. Another: "Gibberish." A third volunteered that "This would increase the sale of marijuana" and a fourth scoffed "Sounds like SDS stuff to me" ... Of the 850 Fairfield residents contacted, only 290 though the proposed amendment should become part of the Constitution and only only EIGHT PER CENT recognized that it actually WAS a verbatim copy of the First Amendment to the Constitution ... Report John Silva, who wrote an excellent piece about this incident for the Vallejo Times-Herald, adds that "one top Fairfield official refused to sign it, and his wife begged off, explaining that her husband's job forbade it." ---------------------------------------------------- Seen on a bumper-sticker in El Segundo: HE'S DEAD, JIM -- You Grap His Tricorder, I'll Get His Wallet ---------------------------------------------------- Suppose to be a true story: During a rather severe earthquake in California, Fred ran out of his house and was watching his chimney collapse when he realized that Peggy, his wife, was still in the house. Fred went back in and found Peggy standing in the bathroom with water up around her ankles. When Fred asked Peggy what she was doing, Peggy, who was used to being blamed for everything, said, "Honest to God, Fred, all I did was flush the toilet!" ---------------------------------------------------- A little boy was visiting his grandparents on their farm and became attached to one of the kittens. This kitten, having no road sense, was killed by a passing car right in front of the little boy. The grandfather buried the kitten behind the barn, and the grandmother distracted the boy by giving him cookies and milk. While the little boy was eating, the following conversation took place. "Grandma, what happened to the kitten?" "It was killed by a car. The kitten is dead." "Where does a kitten go when it dies?" "God takes the kitten to heaven." The little boy took another bite of cookie and then said, "But, Grandma, what does God want with a dead kitten?" ---------------------------------------------------- The last will: I leave: To my wife, my overdraft at the bank -- maybe she can explain it. To my banker, my soul -- he has the mortgage on it anyway. To my neighbor, my clown suit -- he'll need it if he continues to farm as he has in the past. To the ASCS, my grain bin -- I was planning to let them take it next year anyway. To the county agent, 50 bushels of corn, to see if he can hit the market -- I never could. To the junk man, all my machinery -- he's had his eye on it for years. To my undertaker, a special request -- I want six implement and fertilizer dealers for my pallbearers. They are used to carrying me. To the weatherman, rain and sleet and snow for the funeral, please -- no sense in having good weather now. To the gravedigger -- don't bother. The hole I'm in should be big enough. ---------------------------------------------------- A young man enters a rare, esoteric abbey. This abbey has the unusual requirement that each monk was allowed only 2 words each 20 years. After his first 20 years, the abbot calls him in and asks what are the 2 words he would like to utter for this 20 years. "Cold food", says the monk. After his second 20 years the old abbot calls the monk in and asks what are the 2 words he would like to utter for his second 20 years. "Hard bed" the monk says. After his third 20 years the ancient abbot calls the monk in and asks what will be his 2 words for this passed 20 years. "I quit!" says the monk. "I'm not suprised", says the abbot, "you've been complaining for 60 years!" ---------------------------------------------------- Fun with statistics: Peter Ludwig, a caver from Austria who is appalled by American driving habits, offers the following advice: The probability of being involved in a traffic accident is directly proportional to time spent on the road. Driving fast decreases one's exposure. One third of traffic accidents are caused by drunk drivers; two thirds are caused by non-drunk drivers. Therefore, the safest way to drive is drunk and VERY fast. ---------------------------------------------------- For the Yosemite scenes, Shatner went to his costume designers and said that he wanted the 23rd century equivalent of Levis. The guys told him that they couldn't make Levis, only Levi could, so they called them in to see what they could do. Well, Levi said that they hadn't changed 501s in 150 years and they didn't see any reason to do so in the next 300 years, so they gave them a bunch of 501 button fly jeans. There you have it. Levi's plans for the next 300 years. As a side note, I read this in the San Jose Mercury News. I also read there that Levi Strauss was one of the biggest users of CAD systems. Apparently they use the visualization capabilities to view different fabric patterns on their designs. Seems it is cheaper than running the fabric and making jeans. ---------------------------------------------------- (A poem by Ogden Nash) The centipede was happy quite Until a toad, in fun, Said, "Pray, which leg goes after which When you begin to run? That worked her mind to such a pitch, She lay distracted in a ditch, Considering how to run. ---------------------------------------------------- Several years ago, a major meat packer decided to run a series of radio commercials. The idea was to hold contests on radio stations in which the first 10 callers would win large supplies of sirloin steaks. So they hired a market researcher to prepare a report on how the whole thing should be run. The report contained a paragraph like so -- After careful research, we feel that an appropriate name for the contest would be "High Steaks." We believe that the majority of radio listeners are intelligent enough to understand the double entendre. The only geographical area in which we found the intellectual sophistication lacking is Memphis, TN, and there we recommend that you call the contest "Free Meat." ---------------------------------------------------- In Omaha, KQKQ pulls a practical joke of sorts on every holiday that is celebrated with picnics (4th of July, Labor day, etc.). They say that OPEC (Organization of Potato-salad Exporting Countries) is trying to force up the price of potato-salad, they also have "reports" of potato-salad shortages and roits. Listeners often call in and report things like persons selling potato-salad without a permit and people stealing potato-salad. The station also reports places that 'still' have potato-salad for $xx.xx a pound (usually a real high price $20.00). Last time the leaders of OPEC forced the annoucer of the air, then he locked them out and made a last report before they broke the door down and drug him screaming from the room. ---------------------------------------------------- I'm told that one of the Vienna newspapers ran a huge headline on 1 April 1919: Archduke Franz Ferdinand found alive. World War fought by mistake. ---------------------------------------------------- Sign from back of truck: DRIVER CARRIES NO MONEY HIS WIFE HAS IT ---------------------------------------------------- Recently I was walking through Columbia's School of International Affairs. Several of the doors had a most ingenious sign placed on them It was set up in such a way that you'd only see it when the door was closed. The sign read: DOOR CLOSED Up in Riverdale there are street signs printed entirely in uppercase helvetica that read: NO PARKING RULES WILL BE ENFORCED In a supermarket in Westchester, I once saw: THIS IS THE EXPRESS LANE. YOU ARE LIMITED TO FIFTEEN ITEMS OR LESS. THE NUMBER FIFTEEN IS NOT SUBJECT TO NEGOTIATION. While in Venice one summer, I saw street signs as follows: PER S.MARCO ---> <--- PER S.MARCO ---------------------------------------------------- These are actual signs seen across the USA: In a New York restaurant: Customers who find our waitresses uncivil ought to see the manager. On a movie theater: Children's matinee today. Adults not admitted unless with child. In a florida maternity ward: No children allowed In the offices of a loan company: Ask about our plans for owning your home. In a toy department: Five santa clauses, no waiting. On a Maine shop: Our motto is to give our customers the lowest possible prices and workmanship. On military bases: Restricted to unauthorized personel On a display of "You're my one and only" valentine cards: Now available in multi-packs. In a funeral parlor: Ask about our layaway plan In a clothing store: Bargains for men with 16 and 17 necks In a men's clothing store: 15 mens wool suits -- $10.00. They won't last an hour! On an Indiana shopping mall marquee: Archery tournament. Ears pierced. In downtown Boston: Callahan Tunnel/No End In the window of a general store: Why go elsewhere and be cheated when you can come right here? In a Maine restaurant: Open 7 days a week and weekends In a New Jersey restaurant: Open 11AM to 11PM Midnight In a Pennsylvania cemetery: Persons are prohibited from picking flowers from any but their own graves. On the grounds of a private school: No tresspassing without permission In a library: Blotter paper will no longer be available until the public stops taking it away In front of a New Hampshire car wash: If you can't read this, it's time to wash your car. ---------------------------------------------------- Not a Through Street No U-Turn BUS STOP Buses Excepted ---------------------------------------------------- Black Lady behind counter: Here's your keys sir, You'll find the car just outside the door in stall 5. me: (after walking two steps toward door and noticing something's missing) Uh. Stall 5? There no car in stall 5 her: well I'm sure it out there, look around me: In fact there are no Dk. Blue car's in your parking lot at all! her: Hmm let me have a look. (Walks to window, confirms that indeed no car in parking lot even resembles a Dk. blue Delta 98) (With-out missing a beat) Well it must have been stolen me: What! her: Yea, it's happened before. I have another car, a Delta 88 it's real nice too. me: Prob. not as nice as the other one huh? her: What makes you say that? me: Well it was'nt stolen was it. her: I don't know did you look yet? me: (about in tears by now fro laughing) Do you think it's safe to leave my car in you parking lot. her: sure we've never had a customer's car stolen ---------------------------------------------------- HOW TO KNOW YOU ARE GROWING OLDER Everything hurts, and what doesn't hurt doesn't work. The gleam in your eye is from the sun hitting your bifocals. You feel like the night before, and you haven't been anywhere. Your little black book contains only names ending in M. D. You get winded playing cards. You join a health club and don't go. You know all the answers, but nobody asks you the questions. You look forward to a dull evening. You need glasses to find your glasses. You turn out the lights for economic rather than romantic reasons. You sit in a rocking chair and can't get it going. Your knees buckle, but your belt won't. Your back goes out more than you do. You have too much room in the house and not enough in the medicine chest. You sink your teeth in a steak and they stay there. YOU WONDER WHY MORE PEOPLE DON'T USE THIS SIZE PRINT. ---------------------------------------------------- FYI.... This is an interesting list of statistics that I read in the September issue of Glamour Magazine. No flames please. 1. Most marriages occur in June. The least number of marriages occur in January. 2. If you are 18 and over, you have a 64% chance of marrying. 3. Men are 37% more likely than women to remain single -- at least until age 55. 4. If you are a professional woman, you have a 55% chance you will find love in your office. And, love that starts at work tends to last longer than romance that originates in a single's bar or health club. 5. Men and women's peak years for marrying are between 25 and 29. In second place for women: the years 20 to 24. In second place for men: 30 to 34. 6. Women have a 33% chance of marrying a younger man. This is considerably higher than ten years ago. 7. The chances of a marriage enduring forever are slim. Median duration of a marriage in the U.S. is 7 years. 8. Marriage after divorce?: Women have a 78% chance of remarrying, while men have an 83% chance. 7% of women will remarry within 1 year, 35.7% within 3 years, and 49.4% within 5 years. 9. Women whose parents are divorced have 50% more likely to divorce than women whose parents stayed together. For men, there is a 23% greater likelihood. 10. Premarital cohabitation increases the chance of divorce by 80%. Some sociologists say this means that couples who lived together may not feel as "bound" by their vows. 11. People who marry at 24 are more likely to divorce than those who marry at 34. The divorce rate is particularly high for men and women who marry in their twenties, and declines steadily thereafter. 12. Your chances of marrying someone from another race are less than 1 in 50. 13. Only 6% of divorced women collect alimony. 14. In this age of AIDS, single women between 18 and 44 are sexually more active. 15. The immune systems of married women function better than those of unmarried women thereby lowering the risk of AIDS. Happy marriages produce even healthier immune systems. 16. 85% of divorced or separated women say they are happy with their single status, while only 58% of the men are happy with theirs. 17. Women who are romance novel addicts have sex 74% more often than women who read less stimulating material. 18. American made condoms have a 12% failure rate while foreign models have a 21% rupture rate. 19. 50% of single women approve of premarital sex. 20. Only 12% of women who are able to become pregnant are using no contraception. ---------------------------------------------------- Subject: From the Book of the Jaguar Priest Folks, This following job description was found in one of the Books of Chilam Balam [1] written sometime after AD 1593 by the priests of the Classic and Postclassic Maya civilization. Obviously, the Maya priest corps had ambitious expectations for new hires, so that only truly outstanding candidates need apply. I offer this as an example to be used in recruiting Internet engineering staff and in formulating the requirements for policy-based routing. The ennumeration has been added for possible future reference. 1. To impersonate and invoke the deity 2. To offer food and drink to the idols 3. To effect the drawing of the pebbles and regulate the calendar 4. To read weather and other omens in the clouds 5. To study the night sky and interpret the appearance of the celestial bodies 6. To determine the lucky and unlucky days for various mundane activities by the casting of lots 7. To perform the numerous rituals of the cup, plate, etc. 8. To work miracles 9. To concoct medicinal herbs into ceremonial drinks 10. To predict the future 11. To announce the times for various agricultural and other activities 12. To insure adequate rainfall 13. To avert or bring to a timely end famine, drought, epidemics, plagues of ants and locusts, earthquakes 14. To distribute food to the hungry in time of need 15. To cut the honey from the hives 16. Tp determine the compensation to be placed on the crossroad altars 17. To read from the sacred scriptures the future road of the katun [calendar round] 18. To design and supervise the carving of stelae [stone monuments], the manufacture of word and clay idols, and the construction of temples 19. To construct tables of eclipses and heliacal risings of planets [such as are found in the Dresden Codex] Reference 1. Makemson, M.W. The Book of the Jaguar Priest, a translation of the Book of Chilam Balam of Tizimin, with commentary. Henry Schuman, New York, 1951, p. 141. *start* 19120 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 14 Nov 89 11:14:07 PST (Tuesday) Subject: Life 5.F From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- * Truth : the most deadly weapon ever discovered by humanity. Capable of * * destroying entire perceptual sets, cultures, and realities. Outlawed by * * all governments everywhere. Possession is normally punishable by death. * ---------------------------------------------------- If you want your spouse to listen and pay strict attention to every word you say, talk in your sleep. ---------------------------------------------------- This life is a test - it is only a test. If it had been an actual life, you would have received further instructions on where to go and what to do. ---------------------------------------------------- The mission to Mars won't be cheap - the cost is currently estimated at $400 billion ... but the benefits are enormous. For openers, we will earn, as a nation, more than 500 MILLION Frequent Flier miles! ---------------------------------------------------- Do you walk to work or carry your lunch? Is it faster to New York by train? At your house, on what side does the sun come up? N S E or W? What is heavier: A ton of feathers or a ton of bricks? ---------------------------------------------------- This being the time of year when prairie farmers have little to do but pray that it doesn't hail or snow before they can get their crop off, these farmers become prone to taking long walks around their fields. Perhaps they're inspecting their fields for signs of insects or disease, or maybe they figure that the Almighty will cause Fortune to be kinder to them if they pray with each plant individually. On one such stroll, 'round about sunset, a northern farmer passed by a slough near the edge of his land, where he chanced to hear two lady mosquitos talking, one to the other. Now the occasional moose has been known to wander down out of the forests and stray into the farmland around Prince Albert. One such moose had been unfortunate enough to wander into this particular slough. These two mosquitos were holding the poor beast fast while they debated whether to drain it on the spot or to drag it over to the other side of the slough before dining. Said the one, "The other side of the slough is MUCH more scenic and would provide a far superior setting for a fine meal such as this." Her companion replied, "I still say that if we don't eat our lovely moose here, the big mosquitos will come and take it away." ---------------------------------------------------- Three men sitting around a campfire telling stories. The conversation turns to medical miracles: First man: There's a guy who lives up the street from me who used to work in construction. One day last year his hand got run over by a bulldozer. Whatever those doctors did, it's really amazing - today he's a concert pianist. Second man: That's nothing. I knew a guy in college - laziest bum I ever knew. He was really fat and out of shape. He was trying to hitch a ride one day and got hit by a truck. Broke nearly every damn bone in his body. Somehow they put him back together better than he was before. Now he's a triathlete and he's planning to try out for the olympics. Third man: Yeah, well I knew this poor retarded kid. He couldn't do a whole lot, but someone at the dynamite factory got charitable and gave him a job as a stockboy. Anyways, he's working in the warehouse one day and gets locked in. It's dark and he can't find the door. Not being too bright, he lit a match to try and find his way. The whole place exploded. All they could find of him was a few fingers and his eyebrows. From that little bit they were able to put him back together and today that kid is the governor of Massachusetts. ---------------------------------------------------- "Hi! Do you know me? Well, many people do. But they don't always realize how smart I really am. That's why I carry the Mensa Impress Card (tm). When I was Governer of New Hampshire, battling wits with Michael Dukakis over nuclear power, everyone thought I was brilliant. But these days, when it comes to cutting taxes, increasing spending, and balancing the budget all at the same time, people sometimes question my intellect. They start confusing me with the Vice President. At those crucial moments, all I have to do is mention Mensa Impress (tm). It makes pushing a budget as easy as influence peddling!" __________________________________________ | | | | | M E N S A I M P R E S S | | | | ____ | | / \ | | 3 1 4 1 5 9 / \||/ \ 2 6 5 3 5 | | | /oo\ | | | \ \ \/ / Exp: 1/93 | | John Sununu \_||_/ IQ: 140 | |__________________________________________| The Mensa Impress Card (tm). Don't go to Washington without it. ---------------------------------------------------- In Memphis, Tennessee, it is illegal for a woman to drive a car unless there is a man either running or walking in front of it waving a red flag to warn approaching motorists and pedestrians. It is illegal to say "Oh, Boy" in Jonesboro, Georgia. Chicago law prohibits eating in a place that is on fire. According to Arkansas law, Section 4761, Pope's Digest: "No person shall be permitted under any pretext whatever, to come nearer than fifty feet of any door or window of any polling room, from the opening of the polls until the completion of the count and the certification of the returns." In Seattle, Washington, it is illegal to carry a concealed weapon that is over six feet in length. In Greene, New York, it is illegal to eat peanuts and walk backwards on the sidewalks when a concert is on. ---------------------------------------------------- Rural Route #2 Fremont, NE 68025 September 8, 1987 Honorable Secretary of Agriculture Washington D.C. Dear Sir: My friend, Ed Peterson, over at Wells, Iowa, recieved a check for $1,000.00 from the government for not raising hogs. So I want to go into the "not raising hogs" business next year. What I want to know is, in your opinion, what is the best kind of farm not to raise hogs on and what is the best breed of hogs not to raise? I want to be sure that I approach this endeavor in keeping with all governmental policies. I would prefer not to raise razorbacks, but if that is not a good breed not to raise, then I would just as gladly not raise Yorkshires or Durocs. As I see it, the hardest part of this program will be in keeping an accurate inventory of how many hogs I haven't raised. My friend, Peterson, is very joyful about the future of the business. He has been raising hogs for twenty years or so, and the best he ever made on them was $442.00 in 1968, until this year when he got your check for $1,000.00 for not raising hogs. If I get $1,000.00 for not raising 50 hogs, will I get $2,000.00 for not raising 100 hogs? I plan to operate on a small scale at first, holding myself down to about 4,000 hogs not raised, which will mean about $80,000.00 the first year. Then I can afford an airplane. Now another thing. These hogs I will not be raising will not eat 100,000 bushels of corn. I understand that you also pay farmers for not raising corn and wheat. Will I qualify for payments for not raising wheat and corn not to feed the 4,000 hogs I am not going to raise? I want to get started as soon as possible as this seems to be a good time of the year not to raise hogs and grain. Also, I am considering the "not milking cows" business, so send me any information on that too. In view of these circumstances, you understand that I will be totally unemployed and plan to file for unemployment and food stamps. Be assured you will have my vote in the coming election. Patriotically yours, Jean Partridge P.S. Would you please notify me when you plan to distribute more free cheese? ---------------------------------------------------- Dave Barry on the Conversion to Metric: Many moons ago (in metric, 14.6 megamoons) you may recall that we were all supposed to covert to the metric system from our current system of measurement, which is technically known as the "correct" or "real" system. The metric conversion was supposed to result in major economic benefits deriving from the fact that you, the consumer, would suddenly have no idea how the hell much anything cost. Take cole slaw. Under the current system, cole slaw is sold in easily understood units of measurement called "container," as in "Gimme one of them containers of cole slaw if it's fresh." In a metric supermarket, however, the deli person would say, "How much do you want? A kilometer? A hectare? Hurry up! My break starts in five liters!" You'd get all confused and wind up buying enough cole slaw to fill a wading pool, and the economy would prosper. So the metric conversion was clearly a good idea, and when the government started putting up metric highway signs (SPEED LIMIT 173 CENTIPEDES) Americans warmly responded by shooting them down. Thus the metric system did not really catch on in the States, unless you count the increasing popularity of the nine-millimeter bullet. ---------------------------------------------------- A list of New-Age/Self-Help courses: 1100 Creative Suffering 1100 Overcoming Peace of Mind 1103 Guilt Without Sex 1104 The Primal Shrug 1105 Ego Gratification Through Violence 1106 Moulding Your Child's Behaviour Through Guilt and Fear 1107 Dealing with Post-Realization Depression 1108 Whine Your Way to Alienation 1109 How to Overcome Self-Doubt Through Pretence and Ostentation 1130 "I made 100 in Real Estate" 1131 Career Oportunities in Beirut 1310 Money Can Make You Rich 1434 Bonsai Your Pet 1342 How You Can Convert Your Room Into a Garage EC-6 100 Other Uses for Vacuum Cleaners EC-7 How to Convert a Wheelchair Into a Dune Buggy H202 Creative Tooth Decay H204 Exorcism and Acne H215 Suicide and Health H220 Biofeedback and How to Stop It H302 Skate Yourself to Regularity H408 Tapdance Your Way to Social Ridicule C102 Needlecraft for Junkies C110 Making use of Navel Fluff ---------------------------------------------------- [From San Diego Union, 8-21-89, p. D2] Cyclists are Sexier ------------------- Bicycling Magazie did a survey that showed: o Eighty-four percent of its readers think about sex while cycling. o When they're thinking, often they think about other cyclists -- 68 percent of the women readers said other cyclists are more sexually attractive than non-cyclists. Sixty percent of the men agreed. o Twenty-eight percent of all respondents said they met a sex partner through cycling. And two-thirds said cycling makes them better lovers. o While a majority of of the men surveyed said they thought about sex while cycling, a majority of the women said they thought about cycling during sex. ---------------------------------------------------- In an R&D orbit, only 2 of the existing 3 parameters can be defined simultaneously. The parameters are: task, time and resources ($). 1) If one knows what the task is, and there is a time limit allowed for the completion of the task, then one cannot guess how much it will cost. 2) If the time and resources ($) are clearly defined, then it is impossible to know what part of the R&D task will be performed. 3) If you are given a clearly defined R&D goal, and a definite amount of money which has been calculated to be necessary for the completion of the task, one cannot predict if and when the goal will be reached. 4) If one is lucky enough and can accurately define all 3 parameters, then what one deals with is not in the realm of R&D. ---------------------------------------------------- Subject: DISK-O-TECH OF CANADA I HAVE COME ACROSS AN AD FOR A SOFTWARE DISCOUNT HOUSEBY THE NAME OF "DISK-O-TECH" THEY ARE FROM CANADA ,BOUCHERVILLE QUEBEC. THEY CARRY BOTH IBM AND AMIGA SOFTWARE. THEIR PRICES SEEM "TO GOOD TO BE TRUE". I CALLED THEM BY PHONE AND THEY ANSWERED MY QUESTIONS OK. BUT I STILL AM NOT SURE IF THEY ARE LIGAMENT. IF YOU HAVE HEARD OF THEM AND DONE BUSINESS WITH THEM OR KNOW OF ANYONE WHO HAS PLEASE LET ME KNOW. (Editor's note: I wonder if "DISK-O-TECH" sells ligament spelczeching software!) ---------------------------------------------------- What Are the Chances: Risks, Odds & Likelihood in Everyday Life, by Bernard Siskin, Jerome Staller, and David Rorvik. Crown Publishers; New York, NY; 1989. Hardcover; 177 pages; $16.95 Bernard Siskin is vice president of the Philadelphia office of the National Economic Research Association. Jerome Staller is president of the Center for Forensic Economic Studies in Philadelphia. Chapter 1 is "Some Long Shots." It gives the odds on some pretty unlikely events. For example, your chances of being struck by lightning in your lifetime are 1 in 600,000. Your chances of appearing on The Tonight Show are 1 in 490,000 and your chances of winning the grand prize in one of the major state lotteries is 1 in 5,200,000. Chapter 2 is "Some Good Bets." How safe is air travel? Quite safe, actually. Your chances of being killed by just falling down are six times greater than being killed in an airplane; much greater if you never fly. What are the odds that you will be alive a year from today? The average American has a 99.8 percent chance of making it through another year. How risky is overseas travel? Not very; the odds of your being killed by terrorists are 1 in 650,000. Chapter 3 is "Remember to Change Your Shorts; You Never Know When You'll Be in an Accident." Which month is the safest? In terms of fatal accidents, February is the safest and July the worst. Is it safer to be a baseball player or a boxer? Dodging fists is far safer than dodging baseballs. Is it safer to be a farmer than a big-city cop? Fans of Miami Vice may be surprised to learn that farm injuries are among the most prevalent and the most violent of any occupational group. Chapter 4 is "Marriage, Divorce, Sex, and other (Romantic) Mayhem." Where should you go if you want to marry a very young woman? In Rhode Island, women can marry at the age of 12. How likely is a woman to find romance on the job? About 55 percent, and office romances tend to last longer than those originating in singles bars or health clubs. How long will your marriage last? The median duration of marriages in the U.S. is about seven years. Chapter 5 is "Crime and Punishment." In what month are you most likely to be shot, poisoned, or strangled? Watch your step in December. Is arguing risky? About 40 percent of all murders happen during arguments. What make of car is broken into most often? Volkswagen. In which city are you most likely to be a victim of theft? Dallas. Where are you most likely to be murdered? Washington, D.C., crime capital of the country. In which room of an American home is the risk of violence the greatest? The bedroom. Chapter 6 is "Doc, What Are My Chances?" As you grow older, are you more likely or less likely to catch cold? Less likely. What's the worst time of year to have surgery? July, when hospitals bring in new interns. What are the chances that a pregnancy will result in a multiple birth? About 1 in 50. Are men who pilot jet planes more likely to give birth to girls? No, but their wives are. What are your chances of coming down with polio? Almost nil, compared with 22 percent in 1950. Chapter 7 is "Risky Business; Money, Education, Jobs, Success, Failure." In which state are you least likely to be unemployed? Massachusetts. Which spaces are you most likely to land on in a Monopoly game? Illinois Avenue and the B&O Railroad. Is it possible to get rich by hard work? About 82 percent of those worth $500,000 or more say they got rich by working hard. Are you more likely to find work as an astronomer or an astrologer? There are 13,000 astrologers and only 3,000 astronomers. Chapter 8 is "High risks; Smoking, Drugs, Alcohol." Is alcohol more dangerous for men than for women? Alcohol is more toxic to women than to men. What state has the highest per capita consumption of beer? New Hampshire. Are you more likely or less likely to smoke as you get older? The older you are, the less likely it is that you will smoke. What are the chances that a person who commits a crime will be high on drugs or alcohol? About 50 percent. Chapter 9 is "Fat Chance; Food, Diet, Weight." In which country of the world do you run the highest risk of obesity? The United States. Are the rich or the poor more likely to be overweight? The poor. Will the use of artificial sweeteners help you to lose weight? Statistics show that those using artificial sweeteners are more likely to gain weight than nonusers. Chapter 10 is "Elements of Risk; Weather, Pollution, Natural and Unnatural Disasters." What are the odds that a big quake will hit the San Francisco area in the next 25 years? About 50 percent. What are the odds that a big quake will hit Southern California in the next 25 years? About 50 percent. Hate rain? Move to Antarctica; it almost never rains there. What are the chances that your drinking water is contaminated? About 20 percent of all water supplies are contaminated by chemicals. Chapter 11 is "Head Games; Emotions, Stress, Self-Esteem, Mind, Spirit." Will having a room of your own as a teenager decrease your likelihood of mental illness later in life? Yes, it will. What are the odds that you bite your fingernails? About 1 in six; of those, about 1 in 6 also bite their toenails. What are your chances that you will have a supernatural experience? About 1 in 17 overall; 1 in 3 if you live in California. Do do-gooders have higher immunity than Scrooges? Yes, they do. Will an "only child" have lower self-esteem than a child with siblings? No. Chapter 12 is "Sporting Chance; Sports/Gambling." Will high school athletes compete in college sports as well? About half of them will. What are the odds that an offensive lineman will play four or more years in the NFL? About 50 percent. As a professional football player, are you likely to have a disabling injury? Almost all pro football players eventually suffer an injury that adversely affects their career. *start* 17351 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 16 Nov 89 17:34:19 PST (Thursday) Subject: Life 5.G From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- Of all the things I've lost I miss my mind the most ---------------------------------------------------- I'm going to sponsor a convention for honest real estate agents as soon as I can find a phone booth to hold it in. ---------------------------------------------------- IM NOT TRYING TO SOUND PRETENTIOUS I JUST FIGURED YOU MIGHT WANT TO KNOW THE REASON ªDUCK TAPEª SOUNDS STRANGE IS BECAUSE THE RIGHT NAME IS DUCT TAPE GENERALLY USED IN HEATING DUCT WORK APPLICATIONS. ----- And I thought you used it to keep your ducks lined up ! ----- I WAS REALLY KIDDING BY SPELLING IT THAT WAY, BUT I HAVE SEEN IT ADVERTISED IN HARDWARE STORE ADS AS ºDUCK º TAPE. I HAD THIS DISCUSSION WITH MY WIFE ONCE AND SHE WON WHEN SHE SAW THE AD. AND I HAVE SEEN IT MORE THAN ONCE SINCE THEN. ---------------------------------------------------- The cover story in the August 14 issue of Newsweek, "The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of" was an article about the nature and significance of dreams. The appended follow-up letter to the editor appears in the September 4 issue: "After reading your cover story, I dreamt I had a letter published in Newsweek - even though I had absolutely nothing to say." EDDIE STEINBERG Teaneck, N.J. ---------------------------------------------------- There are three possible parts to a date, of which at least two must be offered: entertainment, food, and affection. It is customary to begin a series of dates with a great deal of entertainment, a moderate amount of food, and the merest suggestion of affection. As the amount of affection increases, the entertainment can be reduced proportionately. When the affection is the entertainment, we no longer call it dating. Under no circumstances can the food be omitted. -- Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behaviour ---------------------------------------------------- A customer was bothering the waiter in a restaurant. First he asked that the airconditioning be turned up because he was too hot, then he asked it be turned down cause he was too cold and so on for about half an hour. Surprizingly, the waiter was very patient, he walked back and forth and never once got angry. So finally a second customer asked him why he didn't throw out the pest. -"Oh I don't care." said the waiter with a smile, "We don't even have an air conditioner" ---------------------------------------------------- This recollection was prompted by a recent posting on this topic in talk.bizarre: A friend went to the kitchen window to check on her two-year-old son, who was playing in the yard with some older children in the neighbourhood. She was horrified to see that they were feeding him an earthworm. She quickly opened the window and screamed at them, "Don't feed him worms! They'll make him sick!" They looked up at her with some puzzlement. "Was he sick yesterday?" ---------------------------------------------------- >From the LA Times, 8/22: When a young man ran out of gas one night in 1985 on Interstate 10 in Covina, he used the dubious method of sticking his finger into the tank to assure himself the gas was gone. The spring-loaded flap snapped shut on his hand, pinning him to the car. He had to wait an hour before a man in a pickup stopped and offered to help. The young man asked his would-be rescuer to go get him some gas while he continued to try to free his finger. As he took out his wallet to give the man some money, the Good Samaritan grabbed the wallet and sped away. With his free arm, the hapless fellow finally hailed a highway patrol car. "He was really embarrassed," says Officer Mark Roe, adding that he and his partner, Reuben Rios, "would take turns going back to our patrol car to giggle." Using a coat hanger, Roe and Rios worked for 20 minutes to loosen the finger. Finally, they called the fire department and, with the help of a lubricant, the young man was freed two hours after he got stuck. While the firefighters were working in the glow of their truck's flashing emergency lights, a car pulled up behind. When the highway patrolmen asked if he needed help, the inebriated driver replied: "No, I'm just stopping for the traffic lights." Roe and Rios swear the whole story is true. ---------------------------------------------------- A man who speaks only Spanish goes into a small clothing store, with the intention of purchasing a pair of socks. He does not know where the socks are located, however, and walks over to a sales clerk to ask for them. Unfortunately, the clerk knows only English, so the conversation progresses rather slowly. Clerk: May I help you, sir? Customer: Quiero comprar medias (I want to buy socks) Clerk: I'm sorry...I don't understand Spanish. Do you want pants? [points to pants racks] Customer: No, no. Quiero medias. Clerk: Do you want shirts? [Points at shirts.] Customer: No, no. Quiero medias. (No, no. I want socks.) [Points at feet.] Clerk: Ahh...you want socks, right? [Points at socks.] Customer: Medias, si! Eso, si, que es! (Socks, yes! That's exactly it!) [Pronounced S-O-C-K-S] Clerk: Well if you knew how to spell it, why didn't you say so, in the first place? ---------------------------------------------------- The next few are from Ben Wick's _Book_of_Losers: When Lorenzo Castelli was struck and killed by a train, the Italian railroad sued him for delaying rail schedules for 29 minutes. ---- Bandits trying to break into an office for a payroll robbery even went so far as to fire a submachine-gun burst at the lock, but still didn't manage to get inside. Finally, they gave up and fled. Police said they had been pulling at the door instead of pushing. ---- A man runs off to a nearby city in search of his wife. After a day's long search he returns to his room and requests a call girl. Imagine his surprise when he sees his wife! ---- A woman was so depressed and angry after her husband abandoned her. She jumped out of her window. She landed on her husband. Her husband died, she survived. ---- A lady golfer competing in the 1912 Shawnee Invitational for Ladies at Shawnee- on-Delaware took a glorious wack at the ball and watched as it sailed majestically into the Binniekill river. But luck was on her side. The ball remained floating, making it possible for the energetic golfer to leap into a boat and set off in hot pursuit. Each time she was within range of the ball our heroine would give an almighty swipe. She eventually connected and sent the ball up onto a small beach, 1.5 miles from where she had started. After leaping out of the bat she bagan to tackle the next hurdle - a forest lying between her ball and the hole. She finally made it in a magnificent 166 strokes for the 130-yard, par 3, 16th hole. ---- A French motorist's Citroen stalled on a railroad crossing. Unable to move the car, he fled. A freight train hit the automobile, derailed, tore up 300 feet of track, and spilled twenty box cars loaded with beer into an adjacent river. Three cranes had to be rented to remove the remains of the freight train. Rail service was disrupted for six weeks. The beer killed all the fish in the river and put local fishermen out of work for the season. And the locomotive engineer sued for two cracked ribs. The total claim against the motorist's insurance company exceeded seven million dollars. ---------------------------------------------------- subject: Helicopters can stall, too Helicopters don't fly -- they just beat the air into submission. One helicopter test pilot that I know characterizes helicopters as "a collection of spare parts flying in roughly the same direction at roughly the same time." When I worked at Lockheed, the description of a helicopter was "10,000 spare parts flying in close formation". I have always wondered how those funny machines stayed airborne :-) According to Susie Kennedy, contract airframe designer at Boeing, helicopters can't really fly. "They're so ugly the earth repels them." ---------------------------------------------------- One spill resulted in a drama so long-running that it has passed into the realm of urban myth. In the late 1960s, a poultry truck overturned and dumped more than three dozen chickens along the embankment of the southbound Hollywood Freeway at Vineland Avenue in North Hollywood. Nesting in the shrubbery at the side of the freeway, the chickens prompted complaints from motorists by wandering out on the roadway and stopping traffic. An elderly widow named Minnie Blumfield made the chickens famous when she began spending $30 a month of her Social Security check to feed the small flock. She sprinkled seed through the chain link fence, and the chickens multiplied until estimates of their numbers reached as high as 75. "They're just chickens," Blumfield said, "but I do love them." Eventually, she and a neighbor, actress Jodie Mann, persuaded Caltrans to let animal regulation crews trap the birds and truck them off to a farm in Sylmar. It took three months to catch them with baited traps Blumfield, then in her 90s, died in 1977. Some of the chickens must have evaded capture because a few still live at the edge of the freeway, according to CHP Officer Monty Keifer. "We had a chicken hunt and tried to catch them," Keifer says, "but we weren't too successful. As soon as we showed up, they took off into the bushes." Mann says the story of Minnie and her chickens is a persistent favorite; every couple of years a journalist calls her to revive it. The last call prompted Mann to dust off a screenplay she wrote about the incident a few years ago and "try to peddle it around town." Some people at a major studio, she says, are "very interested." ---------------------------------------------------- William Safire's Rules for Writers Remember to never split an infinitive. The passive voice should never be used. Do not put statements in the negative form. Verbs have to agree with their subjects. Proofread carefully to see if you words out. If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing. A writer must not shift your point of view. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction. (Remember, too, a preposition is a terrible word to end a sentence with.) Don't overuse exclamation marks!! Place pronouns as close a possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun wiht singular nouns in their writing. Always pick on the correct idiom. The adverb always follows the verb. Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; seek viable alternatives. ---------------------------------------------------- [From San Diego Union, 14-Sep-89] "The Catcher in the Rye" was banned from the Boron (Calif.) High School students reading list. The replacement: "Fahreinheit 451," a book about a future book-burning society. [From the Cuttings column of Punch, the British humor magazine.] "Sri Lanka moves to curb violence by telling forces: 'Shoot on sight.'" - Montreal Gazette "A maker of dentures who believes he is an ancient Egyptian god is running for the city council of Palo Alto, Calif. -- with a proposal to dig a tunnel to the coast that would double as a shelter for the homeless. It is more than 20 miles to the Pacific Ocean, but anything is possible for Ronald Francis Bennet, 51. 'I am Ptah,' he said. 'I am god.'" - London Evening Standard Adult Literacy Tudors Required -- We are seeking interested people to train as volunteer tudors. Volanteer tudors are encouraged to commit themselves to tudoring with an adult initialy for 12 months." - The Courier, Ballarate, Australia. ---------------------------------------------------- The specification for pipes: 1.1 All pipe is to be made of a long hole, surrounded by metal centered around the hole. 1.1.1 O.D. of pipe must exceede the I.D., otherwise the hole will be on the outside. 1.2 All pipe is to be hollow throughout the entire length. 1.2.1 All pipe is to be supplied with nothing in the hole so that water, steam, or other stuff can be put inside at a later date. 1.3 All pipe is to be of the very best quality, perfectly tubular or pipular. 2.1 All acid proof pipe is to be made from acid proof material. 3.1 All pipe is to be supplied without rust, as this can be more readily be applied at the job site. 3.2 All pipe is to be cleaned free of any covering such as mud, tar, barnacles, or any form of manure before putting up, otherwise it will make lumps under the paint. 4.1 All pipe over 500 feet long will have the words LONG PIPE clearly painted at each end so the fitter will know that it is a long pipe. 4.1.1 Pipe over two miles long must also have the words painted in the middle so the fitter will not have to walk the full length of the pipe to determine if it is a long pipe or not. 4.2 All pipe over six inches in diameter is to have the words LARGE PIPE painted on it so that the fitter will not use it for small pipe. 5.1 All pipe closers are to be open on one end. 6.1 All pipe fittings are to be made of the same stuff as the pipe. 6.2 No fittings are to be put on the pipe unless specified. If you do, straight pipe becomes crooked pipe. 6.3 Fittings come in all sorts of sizes and shapes. Be sure to specify the direction you are going when ordering. 6.4 Fittings come bolted, welded or screwed -- always use screwed. They are best. 7.1 Flanges must be used on all pipe. Flanges must have holes for bolts quite separate from the big hole in the middle. 7.2 If the flanges are to be blank or blind, the big hole in the middle must be filled with stuff. ---------------------------------------------------- Title: Single Board Nuclear Reactor Supplies Standby Power for 12 Years Now available on a full-length plug-in card for IBM PC or compatible computers, the QBX-1 add-on nuclear-reactor card provides backup power for as long as 12 years. When the card senses a power failure, explosive bolts eject moderator and control rods from the reactor's interior within 20 micro- seconds, bringing the reactor to its fully rated output of 20 kW in less than a millisecond. Over its 12-year active life, the reactor's power decreases by 25% to 15 kW. Integral heat fins provide convection cooling of the reactor's 500W power dissipation while the reactor remains in its standby condition. If your computer's fans can't furnish 400 ft^3/sec of forced air for cooling, consider buying the manufacturer's heavy-water cooling jacket and stainless-steel pump module, which fit conveniently under a desk or workbench. Latches on each side of the reactor module let you quickly exchange the radioactive core, should you need to replace it. An optional circular viewing port of lead glass lets you check the reactor's internal mechanical assemblies. To protect users from undue radiation, each reactor includes a shielding kit comprising five self-stick lead plates and 20 radiation-monitoring film badges. The lead plates mount inside your computer's enclosure and reduce the gamma rays that cause soft errors to floppy-disk and RAM data. For further protection, consider buying the manufacturer's 200-ft extension cords for keyboards and monitors. Because the reactor can supply more than enough power for your computer, you can sell excess power to your local utility company. An add-on phasing and metering kit (PMK-1) lets you connect your reactor to the local power grid. Each PMK-1 includes standard powersale contracts and Rural Electrification Board rules and regulations. Although not required in all localities, each reactor card package includes a standard 23-volume site-evacuation plan. The plan includes blank forms for you to fill in the name and address of your reactor site and then mail to the Nuclear Regulatory Com- mission. As an option, the manufacturer supplies the plan on 12 MS-DOS compatible disks in Wordstar format. User-friendly templates let you type in information so that your word processor can create a complete, printed document. Reactor prices start at $2.3 million(1). Delivery, seven years ARO. -Regus Patoff Luminescent Electronic Products Inc Box U-235, Trinity Site, NM 43210 INQUIRE DIRECT Written under a picture of the reactor board: Nuclear reactor supplies CPU power during power failure or other power emergencies. The reactor also glows in the dark (as will you), which makes it easy to find your computer. -- *start* 17174 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 27 Nov 89 15:40:00 PST (Monday) Subject: Life 5.H From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- To Live is to risk Dying ---------------------------------------------------- If a lawyer and an IRS agent were both drowning, and you could only save one of them, would you go to lunch or read the paper? ---------------------------------------------------- Q. Why did the lawyer drive his truck off a cliff? A. He wanted to test his air brakes. Q. Why did the lawyer drive his car into a tree? A. He wanted to hear its bark. Q. Why did the very lawyer drown in the kitchen sink? A. He was trying to learn tap dancing. Q: How many lawyers does it take to stop a moving bus? A: Never enough. ---------------------------------------------------- Have you heard about the lawyers word processor? No matter what font you select, everything come out in fine print. ---------------------------------------------------- BTW, 4 out of 5 doctors say that if they were stranded on a deserted island with no lawyers, they wouldn't need ANY aspirin. ---------------------------------------------------- Pete Rose is very depressed today. His lawyer informed him that his suspension is for the duration of *his* lifetime, not that of the comissioner.... ---------------------------------------------------- What do you call a girl who likes her computer more than her boyfriend? An infomaniac. ---------------------------------------------------- Why does hamburger have less energy than steak? Because hamburger is in a ground state. ---------------------------------------------------- (From the 10 September edition of the "News of the Weird" column in the San Jose Mercury News) When Lebanese police raided a print shop in West Beirut recently, they found 2,000 copies of an unauthorized Arabic edition of Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses," banned almost everywhere in the Muslim world, but which had been ordered for the private libraries of the Muslim Shiite leadership. ---------------------------------------------------- The following joke is being told by the Belgian comedian Urbanus van Anus: Yesterday I met a person who said, "Hey, did you know that since your show started on television, TV sales have doubled?" I beamed proudly, until he said, "Yes, I sold mine, too." ---------------------------------------------------- Why do fireman were red suspenders? To hold their pants up. ---------------------------------------------------- Read in the "Quoatable Quotes" section of Readers Digest: "The best kind of humor is that which makes me laugh for 5 seconds, and think for 10 minutes." ---------------------------------------------------- My brother and I took a few road trips across the Missouri-Kansas-Colorado strip over the years. Alan really liked to stop at Mcdonalds for lunch. He'd get a large Iced-Tea "to go". About fifty to eighty miles down the road, we'd pull into the next McDonalds, and go through the drive-thru. At that time, McDonalds would give free refills for iced tea. And that is what my brother would order! One time, he got seven (7) refills, starting in Lawrence, Kansas, and going all the way to Denver, for a drink he bought in Kansas City! This was during those HOT summers, and anyone who has driven I-70 across Kansas in August knows exactly what I mean! ---------------------------------------------------- I've got a friend who was tired of always getting his order screwed up at the golden arches. One day, he drove up and ordered: "1 Big Mac, cold; 1 large fries, spilled all over the bag; A strawberry shake so thick you can't suck it through a straw; and no napkins!" Attendant: "Huh?" Friend: "That's what I got last time I came here." ---------------------------------------------------- Jim Bakker was found to be sane when his first words upon entering the psychiatric ward for testing last week were: "How did I do? Do you think they bought it?" ---------------------------------------------------- As *most* women lie about their age, (including me!) I had to laugh at a dedication by an author into a novel I am reading, It was from Virginia Henley to her husband: She wrote: For my husband Arthur, When we married thirty-three years ago, we were the same age; now, however, I'm *much* younger! ---------------------------------------------------- The best I've ever heard is where there were 7 stations on a server named SnowWhite and the stations were named, you guessed it, Dopey, Grumpy, Sneezy, Bashful, Sleepy, Happy, and Doc. Imagine getting mail from someone@Dopey... ---------------------------------------------------- Well, I work as a Student Assistant in the computer center here at Dartmouth, where about 95% of the students have macs, and the dumbest question we've ever gotten had to be from a student who walked in one day with a troubled look on her face. She explained that the little lightbulb in her mac screen had burnt out, and she wanted to know where could she get a replacement bulb for it... ;-) ;-) ;-) ---------------------------------------------------- True story from Kentucky: A friend's car battery needed water. She phoned the nearest convenience store and asked, "Do you have distilled water?" The reply: "I don't know; we just got in a new bunch of videos and I haven't checked all the titles." ---------------------------------------------------- There was a king long, long ago... who had a castle built high upon a rocky bluff. One day he noticed grass growing in the courtyard, so he had one of the court's pages go out to cut it with a scythe. He found, however, that the scythe was magically turned away. Next, he assigned his knights to go out there and hack at it with their weapons--and again, they were magically turned away. [Long description of attempts to cut the growing grass.] Finally, in desperation, he turned to his court jester, asking if the jester had any ideas. The jester thought long and hard, and finally said, "I've got it!" and went out into the courtyard. The king hurried after him, but got there only in time to see all the grass dying off as the jester muttered something unintelligible. The king asked "What did you do?" and the jester replied "Everyone knows the pun is mightier than the sward." ---------------------------------------------------- PACHYDERMIC PERSONNEL PREDICTION A bold new proposal for matching high-technology people and professions Over the years, the problem of finding the right person for the right job has consumed thousands of worker-years of research and millions of dollars in funding. This is particularly true for high-technology organizations where talent is scarce and expensive. Recently, however, years of detailed study by the finest minds in the field of psychoindustrial interpersonnel optimization have resulted in the development of a simple and foolproof test to determine the best match between personality and profession. Now, at last, people can be infallibly assigned to the jobs for which they are truly best suited. The procedure is simple: Each subject is sent to Africa to hunt elephants. The subsequent elephant-hunting behavior is then categorized by comparison to the classification rules outlined below. The subject should be assigned to the general job classification that best matches the observed behavior. CLASSIFICATION GUIDLINES Mathematicians hunt elephants by going to Africa, throwing out everything that is not an elephant, and catching one of whatever is left. Experienced mathematicians will attempt to prove the existence of at least one unique elephant before proceeding to step 1 as a subordinate excercise. Professors of mathematics will prove the existence of at least one unique elephant and then leave the detection and capture of an actual elephant as an excercise for their graduate students. Computer scientists hunt elephants by excercising Algorithm A: 1. Go to Africa. 2. Start at the Cape of Good Hope. 3. Work northward in an orderly manner, traversing the continent alternately east and west. 4. During each traverse pass, a. Catch each animl seen. b. Compare each animal caught to a known elephant. c. Stop when a match is detected. Experienced computer programmers modify Algorithm A by placing a known elephant in Cairo to ensure that the algorithm will terminate. Assembly language programmers prefer to execute Algorithm A on their hands and knees. Engineers hunt elephants by going to Africa, catching gray animals at random, and stopping when any one of them weighs within plus or minus 15 percent of any previously observed elephant. Economists don't hunt elephants, but they believe that if elephants are paid enough, they will hunt themselves. Statisticians hunt the first animal they see N times and call it an elephant. Consultants don't hunt elephants, and many have never hunted anything at all, but they can be hired by the hour to advise those people who do. Operations research consultants can also measure the correlation of hat size and bullet color to the efficiency of elephant-hunting strategies, if someone else will only identify the elephants. Planners, who haven't the faintest idea what an elephant looks like or where it lives, will nonetheless plan a perfect utopia in which these hypothetical elephants are to be hunted. Of course, this utopia (with five, ten, fifteen, and twenty year horizon plans) will never be achieved. This is because all the other hunters are too damn busy already hunting or can't afford the costs of administering the best-case social delivery system of manufactured alternative Indian Palm Trees. Of course, it really doesn't matter, a federal grant paid for all those studies. Politicians don't hunt elephants, but they will share the elephants you catch with the people who voted for them. Lawyers don't hunt elephants, but they do follow the herds around arguing about who owns the droppings. Software lawyers will claim that they own an entire herd based on the look and feel of one dropping. Vice presidents of engineering, research, and development try hard to hunt elephants, but their staffs are designed to prevent it. When the vice president does get to hunt elephants, the staff will try to ensure that all possible elephants are completely prehunted before the vice president sees them. If the vice president does see a nonprehunted elephant, the staff will (1) compliment the vice president's keen eyesight and (2) enlarge itself to prevent any recurrence. Senior managers set broad elephant-hunting policy based on the assumption that elephants are just like field mice, but with deeper voices. Quality assurance inspectors ignore the elephants and look for mistakes the other hunters made when they were packing the jeep. Salespeople don't hunt elephants but spend their time selling elephants they haven't caught, for delivery two days before the season opens. Software salespeople ship the first thing they catch and write up an invoice for an elephant. Hardware salespeople catch rabbits, paint them gray, and sell them as desktop elephants. VALIDATION A validation survey was conducted about these rules. Almost all the people surveyed about these rules were valid. A few were invalid, but they expected to recover soon. Based on the survey, a statistical confidence level was determined. Ninety-five percent of the people surveyed have at least 67 percent confidence in statistics. ACKNOWLEDGMENT This study has benefited from the suggestions and observations of many people, all of whom would prefer not to be mentioned by name. ---------------------------------------------------- This story was related to me yesterday at lunch by a fellow manager, who heard it from his dad (guaranteed true...) Phenominal testimony that physics shall not be denied, with some small humor value as well. This story involves railroad cars, Denver and a fascinating gadget used in auto wrecking yards called a 'chipper'. Apparently this device is fed old auto carcasses, and it in turn produces manageable-sized 'chips' of metal. Seems that on this eventful evening, four gondola cars were filled by a chipper and headed out of Denver around dusk. Somewhere along the track, on an uphill grade, something mechanical failed on one of the cars, and the train pulled to a siding to uncouple it. The dutiful crew chocked the wheels with rocks, wood chunks, etc. and then proceeded to unhook the car. Seems no one had the slightest idea of the mass being packed in that unit, as the rocks/wood held it in place for about 6 seconds. Since the crew had not yet re-switched the tracks (they thought the rest of the train would be returning to the main line) the gondola car soon found itself back on the main trackline, heading back into Denver. The engineer sprinted to the engine and full-throttled the thing after the car. After 15 minutes, he still didn't even have a visual on it, so he abandoned the engine, flagged down the nearest car, and drove to the nearest station, from which he radioed the situation that this car was cranking toward town and no one knew exactly where it was. The station crews immediately calculated the correct combination of switches to route this car on the straightest course thru Denver, the rail yard, and out the other side, then remotely downed every crossing gate they could, followed by dispatching crews, cops and civil servants to down the rest of the crossing arms manually and staff the intersections. Several witnesses testified that the gondola car passed their locations at between 85 and 90 MPH. Whilst traversing the rail yard, the car was forced to execute a slight left-hand curve in the track on its way out of Denver. The "post mortem" revealed that the curved section of track was "stretched" and displaced 8 feet to the right by the car. Immediately upon leaving the yard, two of the fastest engines they had were dispatched, full-throttle, in hot pursuit of the errant gondola car. Since dusk had now turned into evening, no one could get a visual on the car, but it did proceed out of Denver until it hit yet another uphill grade, at which time the pendulum effect took over... The drivers of the engines (serially-coupled) suddenly saw a dark blob approaching them on the track, They quickly (?) slammed the engines into reverse, but could see after about a minute that they were not gaining any ground on this car, so they jumped from the cab. One of them, looking back at the impact, noted that, although the mass of the two engines was sufficient to stop the car, the front coupling assembly of the lead engine was obliterated, and the front engine was "lifted in place and set back down" by the impact. ---------------------------------------------------- Having just returned from a brief visit to Puerto Rico, I must report how well the mixed english/metric system has made live easier on the island. All speed limits are posted in Miles Per Hour All distances on the highway are posted in Kilometers (however short distances are posted in feet & inchs) Therefore it is normal to see the following three signs next to each other: ---------- ------------ ------------- | | | | | | | SPEED | | PONCE | | MAXIMUM | | | | | | | | LIMIT | | 55 KM | | CLEARANCE | | | | | | | | 55 | | SAN JUAN | | 12'6" | | | | | | | | MPH | | 285 KM | | | ---------- ------------ ------------- --- Just think how this must translate to one of the old common math problems assigned in school: 1) Train A (comprised of an engine, 22 box cars and a caboose) leaves San Juan at 12 noon south-bound for Ponce. Train B (comprised of an engine, 16 box cars and a caboose) leaves Ponce 15 minutes later north-bound for San Juan. There is only one stretch of double track where the trains may pass safely. This starts 100KM south of San Juan and is 2.5KM long. It is 230KM from San Juan to Ponce (from front of engine) Train A travels at 45MPH Engines are 52'6" long Box Cars are 42'8" long Cabooses are 30'4" long What is the slowest and fastest speeds at which Train B may travel to safely pass Train A? --- Or, of a slightly more topical nature: [Radio Anouncer] Hurricane Hugo is 120 KM East South East of the Island and is aproching at 18 Miles Per Hour. That means we should expect the center of the storm to pass over this area in .... er.... about .. ah... But, first a word from our sponsor. *start* 19031 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 4 Dec 89 17:25:54 PST (Monday) Subject: Life 5.I From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- The more things change, the more they stay insane ---------------------------------------------------- Showing up is 88% of life ---------------------------------------------------- Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by hitting back Piet Hein ---------------------------------------------------- There is one of those large, portable flashing signs in front of the School for the Blind in Louisville, KY with the following message: WELCOME BACK STUDENTS ---------------------------------------------------- Do you know what they call a pretty girl in South Dakota??? A tourist!! ---------------------------------------------------- Just heard these on Carson. "I know you're disappointed that Zsa Zsa only got three days, but at her age that could be a lifetime" "Zsa Zsa wanted an appology from Beverly Hills for putting her on trial". "Isn't that a lot like Exxon wanting an apology from Alaska for getting duck feathers in their oil?" Carson said of the same issue - "ZsaZsa now says that she's worried about lesbians in prison. With her acting career, she should worry more about meeting thespians in prison." ---------------------------------------------------- How did the North Dakotan break his leg raking leaves? He fell out of the tree. Did you hear about the North Dakotan who tried to commit suicide? He jumped out of the basement window. What is the North Dakotan state flower? The dandelion. What is the North Dakotan state bird? The mosquito. Two North Dakotans were shoveling snow. One said to the other, "This is too much work. Let's just burn it." "No," said the other North Dakotan, "What would we do with the ashes?" Every winter, Montana sells snow to North Dakota. They use it for landfill. A North Dakotan tried to go skiing once, but he couldn't figure out how to get his pants on over his skis. Two airplanes flying in a snowstorm. Which one is from North Dakota? A. The North Dakotan plane is the one with chains on the propellor. The North Dakota state rodeo was cancelled. Someone stole the sawhorse. Sign on a North Dakotan garbage truck: "We cater wedding receptions." A set of North Dakotan matched crystal: three peanut butter jars with the same label. One day a North Dakotan carpeted his bathroom. He liked it so much, he bought some more carpet and ran it all the way to his house. Why are there so few suicides in North Dakota? A. It's not easy jumping of a basement window. You can tell when a North Dakotan is rich-- He has two cars jacked up on the front lawn. Just before Custer went into Montana he stopped in Bismarck. He told the people, "Don't do anything until I get back." They haven't. I looked up some facts about North Dakota: Geography: "Centrally located" (middle of nowhere) Climate: "Wide temperature range" (winters bad, summers worse) Principal manufacture: Farm equipment Principal mineral resource: Sand and gravel Famous North Dakotans: Maxwell Anderson, Angie Dickinson, John Bernard Flannagan, Louis L'Amour, Peggy Lee, Eric Sevareid, Vihjalmur Stefansson, Lawrence Welk Net migration (last 5 yrs): -6,800 ---------------------------------------------------- Quoted from Sacramento Bee: Yakov Smirnoff on his communication with friends who came to America before him: "Before they left, we worked out a code that they would say the opposite of what they meant in their letters," Smirnoff recalled. "When they wrote that 'the streets are filthy and the people are rude' we thought that they meant the people were friendly and the streets were clean. Since they live in Cleveland, we later learned they had forgotten the code." ---------------------------------------------------- What's the difference between "Democracy" and "People's Democracy?" Same as between a jacket and a strait-jacket! What is the most beautiful thing in the world? Communism - without the road that leads there. What is the definition of a Communist? Someone who has read the works of Marx and Lenin. What is the definition of an anti-Communist? Someone who understands the works of Marx and Lenin. A world-famous Russian athlete defected to the US during a good-will tour. He was asked why the Russians excelled in running. The athlete answered: "We use the border for the finish line." A teacher asks his students in a Budapest school: "Why do we love the Soviet Union?" "Because," says a student, "it has liberated us!" "And why do we hate America?" "Because it has not!" Why is the communist system superior to any other system? Because it is able to cope with problems that do not exist in any other system. Why don't Russian workers oppose communism? Beats working! What are four things wrong with Soviet agriculture? Spring, summer, fall and winter. Soviet fast-food is vodka by the gulp. Did you hear about the Russian Chinese restaurant? The food is terrific but an hour after eating you are hungry for power. Why is the communist system superior to every other system? Because it has dealt with problems that do not exist in any other system! A Soviet runner is asked: "Why do you think the Russians excel in running?" "We use the border as the finish line!" ---------------------------------------------------- A young member of the German communist party went to his senior comrade with a strange request: he wanted permission from the Party to emigrate to West Germany. (It is only with the permission of the Party that people are allowed to leave East Germany. Often it is ``granted'' as a method of eliminating people with inappropriate attitudes.) ``For what reasons could you possibly want to leave the Socialist paradise, young comrade?'' ``Well, sir, I have a main reason, and a kind of side reason. The side reason is this: I know our Party has established a paradise here in the Democratic Republic, but the reason I want to leave is that I am very afraid that is will not last.'' ``Don't worry, son! It will last for ever.'' ``Well, good, sir: but that brings me to my main reason....'' ---------------------------------------------------- An American mutt and a Soviet mutt run into each other, after years of absence, so the American mutt asks the Soviet how things are with all the new changes of perestroika & glasnost. The Soviet mutt replies "Well now my leash is three feet longer, but the food is six feet further away, and I can bark all I want " ---------------------------------------------------- On yesterday's evening news, Grenady Gerasimov (sp?) the Soviet Union official spokesman said that the USSR has a new foreign policy. After the Brezhnev Doctrine, they were calling this one the "Frank Sinatra Doctrine." According to Gerasimov, Sinatra has a song "I'll Do It My Way" and that is what the Kremlin wants its satillites to do. They can run their countries their own way. ---------------------------------------------------- Gorby, being the son of an industrial worker, is generally viewed by the agricultural Soviet community as an anti-farmer person. With an eye to rectifying this unfortunate misunderstanding, he decides to go on a well- publicized tour of the Soviet farmlands. Two days later, the Pravda headline reads --- "The General Secretary with the pigs; fifth from the left"! ---------------------------------------------------- 11/10/89: TOP TEN THINGS OVERHEARD AT THE BERLIN WALL 10. I came for the political freedom -- I'm staying for the McRibs! 9. Is this the line for BATMAN? 8. So many Benettons! 7. As long as you're already in the trunk, let's go to a drive-in 6. We're coming to save you, Zsa Zsa! 5. Here in the West, we don't have to pay a lot for our muffler 4. Finally I can realize my lifelong dream of attending a taping of the PTL Club 3. Let's stay at Dave's house! 2. This out to scare the crap out of the French 1. We're going to Disney World! ---------------------------------------------------- "WILL THE LAST PERSON LEAVING EAST GERMANY PLEASE TURN OUT THE LIGHTS?" ---------------------------------------------------- The following jokes are from "No Laughing Matter" by Steven Lukes of Oxford and Itzhak Gelnoor of Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The selections are from the June 5,1989 issue of _Newsweek_ (review by George F. Will). -------------------------------- Q: What is 150 yards long and eats potatoes? A: A Moscow queue waiting to buy meat. -------------------------------- Little Boy: What will communism be like when perfected? His Father: Everyone will have what he needs. LB: But what if there is a shortage of meat? HF: There will be a sign in the butcher shop saying, "No one needs meat today." -------------------------------- Deng Xiaoping tells Gorbachev that three demands must be met before relations can improve. First, China wants 100 million tons of coal. "Agreed," says Gorbachev. And 20 new ships. "Done," says Gorbachev. And a million bicycles. "Impossible," says Gorbachev. "But why?" asks Deng. "Because," says Gorbachev, "the Poles don't make bicycles." -------------------------------- Khrushchev says to Zhou Enlai, "The difference between the Soviet Union and China is that I rose to power from the peasant class, whereas you came from the privileged Mandarin class. Zhou replies, "True. But there is this similarity. Each of us is a traitor to his class." ---------------------------------------------------- IBM: International Brotherhood of Magicians Impractical, But Marketable. In Business for Money I've Been Mugged I've Been Moved Immense Bins of Money ---------------------------------------------------- IRS: Income Reduction Service. ---------------------------------------------------- MBA = Morals Be Absent? From Molly Ivins' column in the December issue of /The Progressive/. "As part of [Harvard Business School dean John] McArthur's effort to weed out people interested only in lucre, the admissions process now includes thirteen questions and nine essays, rather than a standardized test, and takes hours to complete. To make the cut, students must answer a few questions about ethics. "For example, they are asked to explain, in the application, how they managed an ethical dilemma they have experienced. But according to Laura Gordon Fisher, the school's admissions director, many students say they have never encountered an ethical dilemma. "'It's amazing how many people admit they've never experienced a moral dilemma,' said Fisher. 'Some applicants want to know if they should fabricate one.'" ---------------------------------------------------- "The largest number of Supreme Court trials deal with motor vehicle injury claims, so anything that speeds up the process will have an impact." -- Rayan Ralph, secretary of the Law Society of B.C. (as quoted in the Fall 1989 issue of WestWorld) ---------------------------------------------------- There is a person drowning in a lake, 50 feet from shore. A Republican throws a 25 foot rope, and tells him to swim to it. A Democrat throws a 50 foot rope, then drops his end to go do another good deed. ---------------------------------------------------- Thought for the day: Prevention of Cruelty to Piranhas: A video dealer in England advertised a large discount on his systems to anyone who was brave (?) enough to snatch a coin from an aquarium filled with hungry piranha. The English equivalent of the SPCA in the United States got into the act and demanded the dealer be sure the customer's hands were cleaned so as to prevent food poisoning in any piranha that might bite a dirty hand. ---------------------------------------------------- "Liberals are willing to forgive Jane Fonda for being in Hanoi. They are, however, unwilling to forgive her for being in Barbarella." ---------------------------------------------------- An acquaintance of mine was active with the New Jersey Taxpayers Union when former Gov. Brendan Byrne was trying to start a state income tax. Byrne had given his speech, and asked for questions from the audience, and Cathy got up and asked "How much money do you guys want?" Byrne: "What?" Cathy: "You keep raising taxes and raising taxes again. When are you going to stop? You're already taking 50% of my income in taxes - what will it take to satisfy you? 60%? 80%? 90%? How much do you guys want?" Byrne: "I can't answer that kind of question." ---------------------------------------------------- If guns are outlawed, how will we shoot the liberals? ---------------------------------------------------- Q: Where in Texas is the best place to be? A: Deep in the heart(middle) - because no matter which way you're going, you're leaving. ---------------------------------------------------- Then there was the Texan who was showing a Yankee acquaintance around Austin. The Yankee pointed to a statue and asked who it represented. The Texan replied, "Why that's a Texas Ranger! This particular guy personally put down three indian uprisings, captured 73 criminals, rescued 25 lost pioneers, and helped 273 old ladies across the street. And all of this single handedly." Well, of course, the Yankee is suitably impressed, "Wow. That is something. But you know we have our local heroes up North too. For instance, you've probably heard of Paul Revere." The Texan looks pensive for a moment then says, "Sure, isn't he the guy who had to ride for help?" ---------------------------------------------------- We heard last week about a new parachute design that came out of the ME dept. at Texas A&M. It opens on impact.... ---------------------------------------------------- Thought for the day: Diet Tips from Ann Landers (These are excerpts from an old column. Apologies to those who may have seen them already, but they are timeless, and worthy of repeating.) 1. If no one sees you eat it, it has no calories. 2. If you drink a diet soda with a candy bar, they will cancel each other out. ---------------------------------------------------- In the spirit of "Diet Tips from Ann Landers", this sign was seen on the menu board at the Florentine Restaurant in Cupertino: "A waist is a terrible thing to mind ... so don't forget to splurge with dessert." ---------------------------------------------------- There were these two guys, Bill and Fred. They decided to open up a resort on an island, so they bought a small, uninhabited Hawaiian Island. Well, the first thing they built was an ice cream stand. Fred was painting the stand, while Bill worked below. Fred accidentally dropped the can of red paint on Bill's head. Bill had a very short temper, so Fred rushed down the ladder, ran to the boat and sped away. Bill found himself marooned on a dessert island ---------------------------------------------------- This came across the Chocolatelovers DL and was originally published in a recent issue of Physics Today by Gary Taubs. ********************************************************** Onward to the Dessertron The machine will be the most ambitious scientific instrument ever: a collossal doughnut-shaped accellerator so immense that all the jelly and cream in the world could not fill it. Dubbed the "Dessertron", it will create twin beams of ice cream - one vanilla, one chocolate - and will smash them together at energies of 40 trillion sprinkles (40 jimmies), one thousand times more powerful than any ice cream smasher ever made. Because matter and energy are equivalent in desserts - eternally linked by Einstein's famous equation: (extra weight) = (mass) x (speed of consumption) squared - when these beams collide they will do more than make soft yogurt. Theorists believe that scattered among the debris of the collisions will be elementary flavors and new desserts hundreds of times more fattening than any known now. "Every time we have increased energy by a factor of 1000," says high-calorie fizzicist Sherbet Glace' of Harvard (who won the 1979 Nobel Prize for proving that at temperatures above 10 to the 28th power jimmies, strawberry rhubarb and French vanilla are both aspects of the same fundamental God-like flavor) "we have discovered something new. At one sprinkle, we discovered the banana. At one thousand, we figured out that frappes, westerns, malteds and milkshakes were simply different variations of ice cream and milk. At a million, we discovered fudge and made brownies.....and were content. The next big step was another factor of 1000, and quantum crust theories were invented as well as the Little Jack Hoerner uncertainty principle. It's clear that what we need to do is study desserts at several trillion sprinkles." In July, the High Calorie Dessert Advisory Panel of the Food and Drug Administration recommended that the number one priority in research for the next two decades should be the ice cream accellerator officially named the Superconducting Super Osterizer (SSO). The mammoth blender, as they have proposed it, would be as much as 120 miles in diameter with several different speeds from puree all the way through whip. It would take twelve years to build and cost $2.2 billion, but it would also chop, dice, slice and make moist icing. Among the desserts that scientists hope the machine will find are the rasberry quark, the Higgs Sundae (which may be responsible for defining the caloric content of all fundamental desserts during spontaneous symmetry breakfasting); those desserts predicted by the theory techniflavor - which postulates that the Higgs Sundae is not a fundamental dessert but is actually a bound state of more elementary desserts; and the particles of sugarsymmetry, which include spumpkin and specan pies, banino splits and banino cream pies and several different flavors of antipastries. Ever since the SSO was proposed in July, it has become the hottest plum in science. Brighams, Carvel, Baskin-Robbins, Friendlies, LuCerne and Sealtest have already put in bids for the machine, and many more are expected. The state of Texas has promised that if the machine is built in Texas, it will pay for the tunnels and the refrigeration equipment needed to cool the ice cream down to a few degrees above absolute zero to save money on artificial preservatives. When the SSO is finished, it will assure the U.S. pre-eminence in desserts well into the 21st century, and says Carob Rumraisin, the famous Italian fizzacist and discover of intermediate vector bonbons and low-calorie cannoli, "Once this machine is built, American scientists will finally get their just desserts." *start* 16742 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 4 Dec 89 17:26:32 PST (Monday) Subject: Life 5.J From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- to quote film 89's presenter: batman would have been better if they'd thrown away the script and filmed the hype. ---------------------------------------------------- Just a semi-humorous fact: There's a Cat Mousam Rd. in southern Maine. ---------------------------------------------------- Why fire engines are red: Two plus two makes four. Three times four makes twelve. There are twelve inches in a ruler. Queen Elizabeth is a ruler. Queen Elizabeth is also a boat. Boats sail on the ocean. Fish live in the ocean. Fish have fins. The Finns fought the Russians. The Russians are red. And that's why fire engines are red, because they're Rushin' all over! ---------------------------------------------------- Pardon me, I have to catch a higher plane... ---------------------------------------------------- Q: how many bigots does it take to change a light bulb? A: why change it? they've already seen all they want to. ---------------------------------------------------- Veni, Vedi, Visa I came, I saw, I did a little shopping. ---------------------------------------------------- ...which reminds me of a T-shirt I saw a few years back -- this fellow was walking along advertising "The Doppler Effect" in bright blue letters on his chest. This didn't make sense until he passed, and on the back of his shirt was "The Doppler Effect"...in bright RED letters. ---------------------------------------------------- "Many a time I have wanted to stop talking and find out what I really believed." -- Walter Lippmann ---------------------------------------------------- In an ad for the new VW Corrado: "from 0 to what seems to be the problem officer in 8.3 seconds" ---------------------------------------------------- Thought for the day: Clothing for Cliff Dwellers: Advertised in this week's Mervyns circular: High Sierra Prairie Shirts ---------------------------------------------------- Another one from the dim past (this may be apocrypha). The floors here (as in many computer facilities) are actually "hollow", which is to say that you can pull up the floor panels and crawl around underneath the floor where the cables are. One night, a couple of guys put on miner's hardhats (the ones with the little lights), pulled up a floor panel, got in under the floor, and made their way to the spot directly beneath the word processing area. Then they pushed up a floor panel from below and emerged. That one raised a few eyebrows. ---------------------------------------------------- The following filler item appeared in the September 25 issue of /The New Yorker/. JOURNALISM AT LONG LAST COMES OF AGE [Illak Azeredo in the Ferndale (Calif.) Enterprise] Mattole Grange had its monthly meeting and, after the dinner, a slide show was presented by Jim Decker from the B.L.M. Mr. Decker attempted to point out what the B.L.M. wants to do to the mouth of the river. I really don't understand what is happening and, until I do, I don't think I had better write too much about it. ---------------------------------------------------- This, from the preregistration materials for the "Society for the Social Studies of Science" annual conference, taking place at Irvine in November: ENVIRONS About California: California is a medium-sized advanced Western capitalist country with strong political and historical ties to the United States. No visa is required at this time for American Citizens. However, if you drive into California, your car may be inspected for alien fruits or vegetables. Most of what you have heard about California is probably true. Weather: It never rains in California, except sometimes in November. ---------------------------------------------------- While traveling through Ireland I was mostly hitchiking [busses cost money] I found, on occasion, it was diffcult to get a ride [I'm talking 2 hours with a thumb out]. I figured I need to get someone to stop somehow and if they did I could get a lift from them. I couldn't get anyone to stop so I came up with a sceme that I thought would work. I had a sign with my destination emblazened in large letters. People would just pass by. So on the back of the sign I wrote a destination in the WRONG direction and held that up. Not too shortly after a car pulled up to tell me what a fool I was for being on the wrong road. I asked him where this road went and when he told me I shrugged and said I was going to be headed in that dection sooner or later showed him the other side of the sign and asked for a ride. Got my ride in less than 10 minutes, every time... ---------------------------------------------------- There are a lot of cases of dual-unitsness that show a definite lack of understanding of units conversion. Example: cereal boxes which say "16 oz (453.59 g)". Now, come on there General Mills! If you only know the ounces to two digits of precision, then you only know gras to two digits. I will accept "16 oz (450 g)", or "16.0 oz (454 g)". I recently read a manual for some device which has a range of 0.621 miles. I can guess how this was derived: someone established that it has a range of about 1 km, and when the translated the manual into English, someone else said, "Hey lets convert this into miles so those stupid Americans know what we mean!" They could have said "1/2 mile", or even "5/8 mile" and expressed the concept with the correct feeling of approximation. But, I want to try it out at 0.622 miles and see if it fails. ---------------------------------------------------- A woman (one of 17 passengers) on a recent Wideroe Airlines flight in Norway managed to persuade the pilot to land the plane (which has no lavatory) at a remote airfield halfway through the 85-minute flight so she could make an emergency restroom visit. ---------------------------------------------------- Tell 'em about the pilot who called Air Traffic Control wanting to know what time it was. The controller asked, "what airline was that request from?" Sez the pilot, "why do you want to know that?" "Well, sir, if you're American, it's 2:30. If you're United, it's 1430 hours. If you're TWA, it's 1930 Zulu. And if you're Continental, it's Thursday." ---------------------------------------------------- A number of years ago one of the GE managers was going to Beirut, long before the trouble got totally out of hand there. Because there had been some hijackings, security was tight, and they were hand searching passengers in the days before metal detectors. The soldier patting him down suddenly shouted something (in arabic, I guess) and pulled out his gun. Two other soldiers pointed their machine guns at him. Seems that since the airline didn't have meals he had bought a banana and stuffed it in his inside coat pocket. It took years before he found any humor in the story... ---------------------------------------------------- Told by Don Criqui on NBC morning news: After telling of Jose Canseco's recent run-in with an airline stewardess over not wanting to wear a seatbelt... "Once when Muhammed Ali was flying, the stewardess came over and asked him to fasten his seatbelt. Ali told the stewardess, "Superman don't need no seatbelt". The stewardess replied, "Champ, Superman don't need no plane". ---------------------------------------------------- A small report from the first European space flight. The first European space flight is in progress. On board of the space ship are two pigs and a Belgian. (Side note: Picking the Belgian was obvious since the French wouldn't allow a German astronaut, and the Germans wdidn't want a French one, and both the Germans and the French were against a British astronout, unless of course it was Mrs. Thatcher, but she turned the job down) During the flight the following conversation took place between ground control and the crew: Hello, this is Ground Control for Pig 1. Pig 1, are you reading me? Hello, here is pig 1 for Ground Control. Reading you loud and clear. Pig 1, how is everything? Everything under control Ground Control. No problems. Ok, pig 1. Just to check: can you repeat your instructions. Yes Ground Control, when coming in orbit, press the square button, and depress the round one. Ok pig 1, That's right. Over and out. Hello, this is Ground Control for Pig 2. Pig 2, are you reading me? Hello, here is pig 2 for Ground Control. What can I do for you. Pig 2, how is everything? Everything is going smoothly Ground Control. No problems. Pig 2, can you also repeat your instructions please. Yes Ground Control, when landing pull the red lever and push the blue one. Ok pig 2, That's right. Over and out. Hello, this is Ground Control for Belgian. Belgian, are you reading me? Hello, here is Belgian for Ground Control. Belgian, how is everything? Everything is going fine Ground Control. No problems. Belgian, please repeat your instructions. Yes Ground Control, feed the pigs twice a day, and be *&$@#& careful not to touch ANYTHING. Ok Belgian, That's right. Over and out. ---------------------------------------------------- SOUTHAMPTON, England (AP) - Boxer Tony Wilson won his fight in three rounds Thursday night after his mother climbed into the ring and hit his opponent over the head with her stiletto shoe. Opponent Steve McCarthy left the ring with blood seeping from a head wound as security officers ushered Minna Wilson away. When McCarthy refused to return, referee Adrian Morgan raised Wilson's arms in victory, declaring that McCarthy had retired. Uproar broke out among the 1,000 specators at the Guildhall in this south English port, where the British light heavyweight title eliminator fight between local boy McCarthy and Wilson was being staged. The furious crowd kicked and punched Wilson before he escaped to a dressing room, sheltered by his trainer and manager. "The first thing I saw was my mum in the ring, and then eveything went wild," said Wilson, from Wolverhampton, central England. "She has been watching my fights for years and nothing like this has happened before." Police reinforcements were sent. But no one was arrested, and no one was reported injured. ---------------------------------------------------- Some years ago a friend of mine was taking a magnetic computer tape through customs in Egypt. The customs staff on discovering the tape started to unreel it onto the floor. When my friend asked what they were looking for they told him that they were checking the film for pornographic scenes. ---------------------------------------------------- On a similar note: Many years ago (about 15), I used to work for the Infernal Revenue Service (boo!). Every Friday, some friends and I would gather in one one of the cafeterias and play our guitars during our lunch break. And -- every Friday -- when I brought my guitar case into the building, the guard would stop me and say, "What's in the guitar case?" I would look at him like he was purple and say, "Why, a guitar, of course!" And each week, he would tell me to open the case and he would search the entire case (who knows what for!), includ- ing the inside of the guitar. Well, one week, when he asked me, "What's in the guitar case?", I said -- with a perfectly straight face -- "A submachine gun." Did he search the case that time? NO! He waved me on! ---------------------------------------------------- I once went through customs from the US into Canada carrying a 2400' mag tape. The customs agent wasn't buying the $20 (or whatever) I told him it was worth (no duty on the value of the DecSystem 20 operating system on the tape, but that's another story). He got his calculator out and was figuring the square footage of the tape so he could charge me the going duty on mylar. ---------------------------------------------------- Cartoon Laws Contributed by Trevor Paquette & Lt. Justin D. Baldwin Cartoon Law I. Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of its situation. Daffy Duck steps off a cliff, expecting further pastureland. He loiters in midair, soliloquizing flippantly, until he chances to look down. At this point, the familiar principle of 32 feet per second per second takes over. Cartoon Law II. Any body in motion will tend to remain in motion until solid matter intervenes suddenly. Whether shot from a cannon or in hot pursuit on foot, cartoon characters are so absolute in their momentum that only a telephone pole or an outsize boulder retards their forward motion absolutely. Sir Isaac Newton called this sudden termination of motion the stooge's surcease. Cartoon Law III. Any body passing through solid matter will leave a perforation conforming to its perimeter. Also called the silhouette of passage, this phenomenon is the speciality of victims of directed-pressure explosions and of reckless cowards who are so eager to escape that they exit directly through the wall of a house, leaving a cookie-cutout- perfect hole. The threat of skunks or matrimony often catalyzes this reaction. Cartoon Law IV. The time required for an object to fall twenty stories is greater than or equal to the time it takes for whoever knocked it off the ledge to spiral down twenty flights to attempt to capture it unbroken. Such an object is inevitably priceless, the attempt to capture it inevitably unsuccessful. Cartoon Law V. All principles of gravity are negated by fear. Psychic forces are sufficient in most bodies for a shock to propel them directly away from the earth's surface. A spooky noise or an adversary's signature sound will induce motion upward, usually to the cradle of a chandelier, a treetop, or the crest of a flagpole. The feet of a character who is running or the wheels of a speeding auto need never touch the ground, especially when in flight. Cartoon Law VI. As speed increases, objects can be in several places at once. This is particularly true of tooth-and-claw fights, in which a character's head may be glimpsed emerging from the cloud of altercation at several places simultaneously. This effect is common as well among bodies that are spinning or being throttled. A 'wacky' character has the option of self- replication only at manic high speeds and may ricochet off walls to achieve the velocity required. Cartoon Law VII. Certain bodies can pass through solid walls painted to resemble tunnel entrances; others cannot. This trompe l'oeil inconsistency has baffled generation, but at least it is known that whoever paints an entrance on a wall's surface to trick an opponent will be unable to pursue him into this theoretical space. The painter is flattened against the wall when he attempts to follow into the painting. This is ultimately a problem of art, not of science. Cartoon Law VIII. Any violent rearrangement of feline matter is impermanent. Cartoon cats possess even more deaths than the traditional nine lives might comfortably afford. They can be decimated, spliced, splayed, accordion-pleated, spindled, or disassembled, but they cannot be destroyed. After a few moments of blinking self pity, they reinflate, elongate, snap back, or solidify. Corollary: A cat will assume the shape of its container. Cartoon Law IX. For every vengeance there is an equal and opposite revengeance. This is the one law of animated cartoon motion that also applies to the physical world at large. For that reason, we need the relief of watching it happen to a duck instead. From: paquette@cpsc.ucalgary.ca (Trevor Paquette) From: baldwin@usna.MIL (LT Justin D. Baldwin ) *start* 16112 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 4 Dec 89 17:39:58 PST (Monday) Subject: Life 5.K From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- If you always tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything. Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest. Treat people as if they are what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are capable of being. ---------------------------------------------------- A man asked for a seat on the next flight to the moon. "I'm sorry sir," said the ticket agent, "but all passenger flights have been canceled for the next few days." "How's that?" inquired the man. "Well," answered the agent, "the moon is full right now." ------------------------------------------------------------------- Father: "My boy, I never kissed a girl until I met your mother. Will you be able to say the same to your son?" Son: "Yes, Dad. But not with such a straight face." ------------------------------------------------------------------- A professor returned to class with the examination papers and requested that all the students sit down. "If you stood up, it is conceivable that you might form a circle, in which case I might be arrested for maintaining a dope ring." ------------------------------------------------------------------- Dean: "I hate to tell you this, Mr. Jones, but your son is a moron." Jones: "What?! Where is that young good-for-nothing? I'll teach him not to join a fraternity without consulting me!" ------------------------------------------------------------------- "Nothing is impossible," the professor declared with finality. "Nothing that the mind of man can conceive is impossible." "Professor," asked a small voice, "did you ever try to strike a match on a marshmallow?" ---------------------------------------------------- Two West Germans were arrested near Holland trying to smuggle LSD-treated stickers with pictures of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev. Other attempts have used pictures of Batman, Goofy and E.T. I think that choice of Goofy are especially apropos. Question to "Ask Don Garlits": Q - I'd like some advice on a 1979 Chevy Monza with a 1978 Buick V-6. The engine has 106,000 miles, leaks, burns oil, suffers from vapor lock and has trouble accelerating. How much money should I put into it... My A - Enough to tow it to the junk yard. A fat man in Selma, Ala., got a plastic bag containing 45 rocks of crack cocaine through a strip-search by hiding it "between folds of his abdominal skin." So now we have an answer to that age-old question of how do you know when you are too fat. ---------------------------------------------------- Announcement from P.A. system at Texas Stadium. " Will the parents who lost your eleven kids here at the stadium please come get them ?" "They are leading the Cowboys 14-0." ---------------------------------------------------- A wise man once said that having children is hereditary...Which is tantamount to saying: If your parents didn't have children, chances are you won't either. ---------------------------------------------------- Build a system that even a fool can use and only a fool will want to use it. ---------------------------------------------------- (The PBS "American Masters" series did a show on Mort Sahl, who had these anecdotes about Alexander Haig:) Haig offerred Sahl a Cuban cigar, whereupon Sahl wondered how an anti-communist such as Haig could be supporting Cuba by smoking their cigars. Haig replied that he preferred to think of it as burning their crops to the ground. Sahl and Haig were discussing Henry Kissinger. Sahl mentioned that, of course, Kissinger could not be the US President since he was not born in the US. Haig said, no, that's a common misconception, Kissinger was born in the US. "How did he get that accent?" asked Sahl. Haig replied, "From never listening to anybody." ---------------------------------------------------- Ran across this in rec.music.classical ... ... More recently, John Cage has written pieces for "prepared piano", which may involve attaching nuts, bolts, and other hardware to the strings, and other indignities. I heard a story (possibly apocryphal) that a horrified janitor once "cleaned up" one of his prepared pianos just before a concert. Cage came out, played one chord, screamed, and left the stage. Of course, this was indistinguishable from an actual Cage performance, so everyone clapped, and the reviewers wrote gushy praise about the groundbreaking new work.... ---------------------------------------------------- CRITICS OF THE FBI'S "LIBRARY AWARENESS PROGRAM" WERE TARGETS of background checks, according to FBI documents just released under a court order. WHAT'S NEW first reported attempts by the FBI to recruit science librarians as snitches three years ago (WN 5 Sep 86). Librarians were asked to report on the reading habits of "foreigners" and people who "behave strangely." (A Brookhaven librarian complains that all physicists behave strangely.) ---------------------------------------------------- One of my professors swears to this (probably apocryphal) story. He asked that question once during an oral exam of a physics grad student. The student thought for a few moments, then went to the chalkboard and started writing equations. The very first one was... E=mc^2 ! The professor ragged him unmercifully for assuming a nuclear-powered duck... ---------------------------------------------------- (From Jay Leno on the Tonight Show:) "Authorities are now saying that the war on drugs will be bigger than World War II. Oh, *great*... more Time-Life books." ---------------------------------------------------- >From Daniel J. Boorstin's _The_Discoverers_: A pioneer explorer of this question was the unhappy Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico (1668-1744). The son of a poor bookseller, he had a nearly fatal fall on his head at the age of seven, when doctors predicted that he might become an imbecile. I've always wondered what causes philosophers. ---------------------------------------------------- You have reached the residence of . [Cut to recording of Handel's Messiah.] Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia! [Cut to original voice.] Please leave your name and number at the tone. Hello?...Hello?...HELLO?!...... Hey, can you hear me? Listen, this is a lousy connection. Could you just leave your name and number and I'll get back to you? Hi, can I speak to Mark?...Oh, there isn't?...I'm sorry, I must have dialed the wrong number. Here's a couple of mine-- The number you have reached, Seven. Six. Seven. One. Two. Three. Four. [Use your number here.] has not been disconnected and is still in service. Please leave a message at the sound of the tone. [Theme song from Dragnet] Case 415-767-1234 [Use your number here.] began with a routine phone call. Unfortunately for the caller, the intended recipient was unable to take the call. That's where I come in. My name is Friday. I'm a cop. I began with a routine interrogation. You know, name, number, reason for calling. The answer surprised me. ---------------------------------------------------- The following is from an apartment of three women: With great sorrow and much lamentations We've abondon our dear habitation At the sound of the tone Leave your name and home phone And additional worthwhile information It certainly would help if we knew Your earning potential for two Are you fun loving and crazy Do you look like Pat Swatzy We'll get back to you if you do ---------------------------------------------------- The bachelor who complained that the women he selected would not remain his friend for more than a few weeks was told: "Your problem is that you are looking for a particular kind of woman. You ought to be looking for the kind of woman who is not particular." ---------------------------------------------------- How does the single woman get rid of roaches? She asks them for a commitment. How does the single man get rid of roaches? He looks for the perfect one. ---------------------------------------------------- ELEMENT: MAN ATOMIC WEIGHT: Accepted as 170, known to vary from 98 to 360 SYMBOL: EGO DISCOVERER: Eve. Discovered by accident one day when she had a craving for ribs OCCURANCE: Large quantities in all populated areas. Highly concentrated deposits at all sporting events and areas known as "singles bars". Exteremly low quantities can be found in any location where cleaning up is required.(See scut work. See also Women and Slave Labor) PHYSICAL PROPERTIES: 1-) Surface often covered with hair-bristly in some areas, soft in others 2-) Boils when inconvenienced, freezes when faced with Logic & Common Sense 3-) melts if treated like a God 4-) Can cause headaches and severe body aches; handle with extreme caution 5-) Specimens can be found in various states ranging from deeply sensitive to exteremly thick 6-) When pressure is applied becomes stiff and unyielding; yields only when subtlety, subterfuge, flattery are applied CHEMICAL PROPERTIES: 1-) Is repelled by concentrated quantities of precious and semi-precious metals and stones(See Jewelery Store). However, is attracted to small quantities of these when viewd worn against the skin of a woman. It is beleived woman's skin combines with the aforementioned to creat a highly magnetic attraction for this element 2-) May explode spontaneously if wallet is opened 3-) Requires copious quantities of substances known as attention, reassurance, and stroking 4-) When saturated with Alcohol will be fairly inert and will repel most other elements 5-) Is repelled by most household appliances and common household cleansers 6-) Is repelled by small children clothed in diapers, particularly those of the malodorous variety 7-) Is rendered non-functional when confronted with the items in #5 & #6 8-) Is neutral to common courtesy and fairness 9-) Is impervious to embrassment 10-) Most powerful embittering and aggravating agent known to woman USES: 1-) Can be used to assist in moving heavy objects and other heavy labor 2-) Is capable of causing vast amounts of physical pleasure 3-) Can be pleasing to the touch and other senses 4-) Can warm and comfort under certain circumstances 5-) can be used in recreational activities CAUTIONS: 1-) Extremely hazordous to the environment when allowed to function unchecked 2-) Can cause temporary insanity if a low-grade specimen is chosen. Use care when selecting specimen 3-) Highly dangerous if not handled with extreme caution. Can cause a condition known as maternity ---------------------------------------------------- "GOT A HOT ROD FORD AND A TWO DOLLAR BILL" Today we're going to explore the mysterious topic of How Guys Think, which has baffled women in general, and the editors of Cosmopolitan magazine in particular for thousands of years. The big question, of course, is: How come guys never call? After successful dates, I mean. You single women out there know what I'm talking about. You go out with a guy and you have a great time, and he seems to have a great time, and at the end of the evening he says, quote, "Can I call you?" And you--interpreting this to mean "Can I call you?"--answer: "Sure!" The instant you say this, the guy's body starts to dematerialize. Within a few seconds, you can stick a tire iron right through him and wave it around; in a few more seconds he has vanished entirely, gone into the mysterious Guy Bermuda Triangle, where whole squadrons of your dates have disappeared over the years, never to be heard from again. Eventually you start to wonder if there's something wrong with you, some kind of emotional hangup or personality defect that your dates are detecting. You start having long, searching discussions with your women friends in which you say things like: "He really seemed to like me" and "I didn't feel as though I was putting pressure on him." This is silly. There's nothing wrong with you. In fact, you should interpret the behavior of your dates as a kind of guy COMPLIMENT to you. Because when the guy asks you if he can call you, what he's really asking you, in Guy Code, is will you marry him. Yes. See, your basic guy is into a straight-ahead, bottom-line kind of thought process that does not work nearly as well with the infinitely subtle complexities of human relationships as it does with calculating how much gravel is needed to cover a given driveway. So here's what the guy is thinking: If he calls you, you'll go out again, and you'll probably have another great time, so you'll probably go out again and have ANOTHER great time, and so on until the only possible OPTION will be to get married. This is classic Guy Logic. So when you say "Sure!" in a bright and cheery voice, YOU may think you're simply indicating a willingness to go out again, but as far as HE'S concerned you're endorsing a lifetime commitment that he is quite frankly not ready to make after only one date, so he naturally decides he can never see you again. From that day forward, if he spots you on the street, he'll sprint in the opposite direction to avoid the grave risk that the two of you might meet, which would mean he'd have to ask you if you wanted to get a cup of coffee, and you might say yes, and pretty soon you'd be enjoying each other's company again, and suddenly a clergyman would appear at your table and YOU'D HAVE TO GET MARRIED....................AIEEEEEEE. (You women think this is crazy, right? Whereas you guys out there are nodding your heads.) So my advice for single women is that if you're on a date with a guy you like, and he asks whether he can call you, you should give him a nonthreatening answer, such as: "no." Or: "I guess so, but bear in mind that I'm a nun." This will make him comfortable about seeing you again, each time gaining the courage to approach you more closely, in the manner of a timid, easily startled woodland creature such as a chipmunk. In a few years, if the two of you really do have common interests and compatible personalities, you may reach the point where he'll be willing to take the Big Step, namely, eating granola directly from your hand. No matter how close you become, however, remember this rule: Do not pressure the guy to share his most sensitive innermost thoughts and feelings with you. Guys hate this, and I'll tell you why: If you were to probe inside the guy psyche, beneath that macho exterior and the endless droning about things like the 1978 World Series, you would find, deep down inside, a passionate, heartfelt interest in: the 1978 World Series. Yes. The truth is, guys don't HAVE any sensitive innermost thoughts and feelings. It's time you women knew! All these years you've been agonizing about how to make the relationship work, wondering how come he never talks to you, worrying about all the anguished emotion he must have bottled up inside, and meanwhile he's fretting about how maybe he needs longer golf spikes. I'm sorry to have to tell you this. Maybe you SHOULD become a nun. Anyway, I hope I've cleared up any lingering questions anybody might have regarding guys, as a gender. For some reason I feel compelled to end this with a personal note: Heather Campbell, if you're out there, I just want to say that I had a really nice time taking you to the Junior Prom in 1964, and I was a total jerk for never, not once, mentioning this fact to you personally. *start* 17174 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 4 Dec 89 17:51:52 PST (Monday) Subject: Life 5.L From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- A bore is someone who persists in holding his own views after we have enlightened him with ours. ---------------------------------------------------- From the Cambridge 1989 Yellow Pages phone book .. o Boring see Civil Engineers ---------------------------------------------------- Once, an engineer, a physicist and a business major all applied for the same job. The person interviewed all three, and thought all were excellent. He had to think of some way to find the best person. So he told them all to come back the next day and tell him the exact height of the building. The one who was closest would get the job. The physicist went to the top of the building, and dropped iron balls to the ground, and had his friend time the balls. He did this several time. The engineer got out a sextant, and computed ratios of a yardstick to the building, etc. The next day, the manager asks all three of them to tell how tall the building is. "75 feet, 2.8 inches" says the physicist. "76 feet, 4.1 inches" says the engineer. "75 feet, 8.4 inches" says the businessman. "My God!" said the manager, "the businessmen got it exactly correct! How did you manage that?" "Well", said the businessman, "I went down to city hall and looked up the height in the building records." ---------------------------------------------------- One of the exercises for first year students in an institute here (which will remain nameless), is to measure the height of a nearby factory's chimney stack. For years it was known among students and faculty that the correct answer was 40m; anyone who came up with a different result fixed his calculations accordingly. One day a dedicated student came up with the answer of 42m; his instructor rejected it, but the student insisted that he checked all measurements, and there was no mistake. They decided to call someone at the plant, and ask them. "Yes, it used to be 40m", an engineer at the plant told them, "but two years ago we added 2m". ---------------------------------------------------- Here's a little anecdote. One of our Software Engineering profs was sent to Tokyo (I believe) on a business trip. He was given the address of the building he was supposed to go to. Little did he know that addresses in this particular city are assigned in order of construction date. In other words, a very old building has a low address but could be anywhere on the street. This quirk kept our hero walking up and down the street for hours looking for the right building. ---------------------------------------------------- Business Week, October 9: Think you could beat any security system? Here's your chance to try. You won't go to jail if you fail -- and you could go to Tahiti if you succeed! LeeMah DataCom Security Corp. in Hayward, California sells a black box that double-checks PINs assigned to authorized users. The company says that any hacker who successfully breaks into a PC located in the Atlanta office of contest-auditor KPMG's Peat Marwick will win a trip to Tahiti or St. Martin. To win, the hacker has to retrieve a message stored on the computer's hard disk drive. The contest will last from Oct. 9-15. What's the phone number of the computer? The article doesn't say. Maybe they don't want to make it too easy. ---------------------------------------------------- "After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless." Geoffrey James, The Tao of Programming. ---------------------------------------------------- UNIX is the New Jersey of operating systems: In the beginning it was nice. Then people moved in. They built it up. Then Industry moved in. They dumped their toxic waste in it. Then the Mob took over. ---------------------------------------------------- From a conversation overheard a few days ago at the Duke University student center -- yes, this is real; I'm not clever enough to make up something like this -- a new version of the "my dog ate the homework" excuse for not getting a project done: "I told the professor that with the medication I was taking it wasn't advisable for me to drive a car, operate heavy machinery, OR FORMAT FLOPPY DISKS." ---------------------------------------------------- From Risks Digest 9.29: Date: Sat, 23 Sep 89 18:59:24 EDT From: Joe Morris (jcmorris@mitre.arpa) Subject: Computerized translation strikes again [From page R6 of the Wall Street Journal, Friday, 22 September 1989 comes yet another story of the perils of computerized translation of natural languages. The text below appeared in a sidebar to a story about the problems encountered in trying to resolve differences between European countries preparing for the 1992 amalgamation into the EC...] TOWERING BABBLE Automatic translation system proves that to err isn't just human Interpretation and translation gobble up a huge hunk of EC's central budget, so the Eurocrats have been trying to save money by using an automatic translation system. Systran is its name. Bloopers are its game. To the unconcealed delight of those whose jobs it first appeared to threaten, Systran, acquired from the U.S. Navy about 10 years ago, still has a bit to learn about French-English translation. A few howlers: * Commission President Jacques Delors asked in French whether he could address a certain committee. Systran had him asking whether he could "expose himself to the committee." * Crown Prince Jean of Luxembourg, invited to offer a royal page of prose to the computer, used the words "nous avions", which in context only meant "we had." Systran made it "us airplanes." * In one screed about farming, the writer used the phrase "les agriculteurs vis a vis de la politique agricole commune", which means "farmers, in the light of common agricultural policy..." Systran, suffering either a blown microprocessor or an uncanny flash of insight, rendered it as "farmers live to screw the common agricultural policy." [The article goes on for another nine column inches discussing non-computer related problems of translation, which are significant. In the headquarters of the Council of Ministers there are about 2000 bureaucrats, half of whom are translators.] ---------------------------------------------------- Finally, something to replace my ``is'', ``isnt'', ``and'', ``or'' macros... From: schooler@venera.isi.edu Tue Jul 25 21:19:33 1989 From: schooler@isi.edu (Eve Schooler) Just wanted to check out that you gnarly dudes are using the latest and greatest software technology fer yer rad code to make it easy for the dudes who have to read it. The hip new way to write readable C code involves the use of a few simple defines. #define like { #define man ;} #define an ; #define SayBro /* #define CheckItOut */ SayBro like, this is some rad program, so CheckItOut like a = b an c = d man SayBro , like who needs help from them compiler choads anyway? THIS is the way to write CLEAR code. I mean really! CheckItOut like SayBro this is ShellSort straight out of the white book, but in a readable form. CheckItOut man #define YoDude for( #define OK ) #define is = #define AND && #define as #define Do #define long #define some #define make #define garbage #define FAROUT shell(v, n) SayBro sort v[0]...v[n-1] into increasing order CheckItOut int v[], n; like int gap, i, j, temp; YoDude gap is n/2 an as long as gap > 0 Do some garbage an make gap /=2 OK YoDude i is gap an as long as i < n Do some garbage an make i++ OK YoDude j is i - gap an as long as j >= 0 AND v[j] > v[j+gap] Do some garbage an make j -= gap OK like temp is v[j] an v[j] is v[j+gap] an v[j+gap] is temp man FAROUT man SayBro like, B there OB square! CheckItOut [*> If I were any lazier, I'd slip into a coma! <*] ---------------------------------------------------- From the September 25, 1989 issue of Fortune, there's an article about the software monster: "How to Break the Software Logjam". They have some metrics of large projects I'll share here: Project Lines of code Labor Cost Lotus 1.2.3, Version 3.0 400k 263 my $7M development $15M testing Space Shuttle 25.6M 22,096my $1.2B 1989 Lincoln continental 83.5k 35my $1.8M Citibank Teller 780K 150 my $13.2M IBM Checkout Scanner 90K 58 my $3M ---------------------------------------------------- A recent article devoted to the *macho* side of programming made the bald and unvarnished statement: Real Programmers write in Fortran. Maybe they do now, in this decadent era of Lite beer, hand calculators and "user-friendly" software but back in the Good Old Days, when the term "software" sounded funny and Real Computers were made out of drums and vacuum tubes, Real Programmers wrote in machine code. Not Fortran. Not RATFOR. Not, even, assembly language. Machine Code. Raw, unadorned, inscrutable hexadecimal numbers. Directly. Lest a whole new generation of programmers grow up in ignorance of this glorious past, I feel duty-bound to describe, as best I can through the generation gap, how a Real Programmer wrote code. I'll call him Mel, because that was his name. I first met Mel when I went to work for Royal McBee Computer Corp., a now-defunct subsidiary of the typewriter company. The firm manufactured the LGP-30, a small, cheap (by the standards of the day) drum-memory computer, and had just started to manufacture the RPC-4000, a much-improved, bigger, better, faster -- drum-memory computer. Cores cost too much, and weren't here to stay, anyway. (That's why you haven't heard of the company, or the computer.) I had been hired to write a Fortran compiler for this new marvel and Mel was my guide to its wonders. Mel didn't approve of compilers. "If a program can't rewrite its own code," he asked, "what good is it?" Mel had written, in hexadecimal, the most popular computer program the company owned. It ran on the LGP-30 and played blackjack with potential customers at computer shows. Its effect was always dramatic. The LGP-30 booth was packed at every show, and the IBM salesmen stood around talking to each other. Whether or not this actually sold computers was a question we never discussed. Mel's job was to re-write the blackjack program for the RPC-4000. (Port? What does that mean?) The new computer had a one-plus-one addressing scheme, in which each machine instruction, in addition to the operation code and the address of the needed operand, had a second address that indicated where, on the revolving drum, the next instruction was located. In modern parlance, every single instruction was followed by a GO TO! Put *that* in Pascal's pipe and smoke it. Mel loved the RPC-4000 because he could optimize his code: that is, locate instructions on the drum so that just as one finished its job, the next would be just arriving at the "read head" and available for immediate execution. There was a program to do that job, an "optimizing assembler", but Mel refused to use it. "You never know where its going to put things", he explained, "so you'd have to use separate constants". It was a long time before I understood that remark. Since Mel knew the numerical value of every operation code, and assigned his own drum addresses, every instruction he wrote could also be considered a numerical constant. He could pick up an earlier "add" instruction, say, and multiply by it, if it had the right numeric value. His code was not easy for someone else to modify. I compared Mel's hand-optimized programs with the same code massaged by the optimizing assembler program, and Mel's always ran faster. That was because the "top-down" method of program design hadn't been invented yet, and Mel wouldn't have used it anyway. He wrote the innermost parts of his program loops first, so they would get first choice of the optimum address locations on the drum. The optimizing assembler wasn't smart enough to do it that way. Mel never wrote time-delay loops, either, even when the balky Flexowriter required a delay between output characters to work right. He just located instructions on the drum so each successive one was just *past* the read head when it was needed; the drum had to execute another complete revolution to find the next instruction. He coined an unforgettable term for this procedure. Although "optimum" is an absolute term, like "unique", it became common verbal practice to make it relative: "not quite optimum" or "less optimum" or "not very optimum". Mel called the maximum time-delay locations the "most pessimum". After he finished the blackjack program and got it to run, ("Even the initializer is optimized", he said proudly) he got a Change Request from the sales department. The program used an elegant (optimized) random number generator to shuffle the "cards" and deal from the "deck", and some of the salesmen felt it was too fair, since sometimes the customers lost. They wanted Mel to modify the program so, at the setting of a sense switch on the console, they could change the odds and let the customer win. Mel balked. He felt this was patently dishonest, which it was, and that it impinged on his personal integrity as a programmer, which it did, so he refused to do it. The Head Salesman talked to Mel, as did the Big Boss and, at the boss's urging, a few Fellow Programmers. Mel finally gave in and wrote the code, but he got the test backwards, and, when the sense switch was turned on, the program would cheat, winning every time. Mel was delighted with this, claiming his subconscious was uncontrollably ethical, and adamantly refused to fix it. After Mel had left the company for greener pa$ture$, the Big Boss asked me to look at the code and see if I could find the test and reverse it. Somewhat reluctantly, I agreed to look. Tracking Mel's code was a real adventure. I have often felt that programming is an art form, whose real value can only be appreciated by another versed in the same arcane art; there are lovely gems and brilliant coups hidden from human view and admiration, sometimes forever, by the very nature of the process. You can learn a lot about an individual just by reading through his code, even in hexadecimal. Mel was, I think, an unsung genius. Perhaps my greatest shock came when I found an innocent loop that had no test in it. No test. *None*. Common sense said it had to be a closed loop, where the program would circle, forever, endlessly. Program control passed right through it, however, and safely out the other side. It took me two weeks to figure it out. The RPC-4000 computer had a really modern facility called an index register. It allowed the programmer to write a program loop that used an indexed instruction inside; each time through, the number in the index register was added to the address of that instruction, so it would refer to the next datum in a series. He had only to increment the index register each time through. Mel never used it. Instead, he would pull the instruction into a machine register, add one to its address, and store it back. He would then execute the modified instruction right from the register. The loop was written so this additional execution time was taken into account -- just as this instruction finished, the next one was right under the drum's read head, ready to go. But the loop had no test in it. The vital clue came when I noticed the index register bit, the bit that lay between the address and the operation code in the instruction word, was turned on-- yet Mel never used the index register, leaving it zero all the time. When the light went on it nearly blinded me. He had located the data he was working on near the top of memory -- the largest locations the instructions could address -- so, after the last datum was handled, incrementing the instruction address would make it overflow. The carry would add one to the operation code, changing it to the next one in the instruction set: a jump instruction. Sure enough, the next program instruction was in address location zero, and the program went happily on its way. I haven't kept in touch with Mel, so I don't know if he ever gave in to the flood of change that has washed over programming techniques since those long-gone days. I like to think he didn't. In any event, I was impressed enough that I quit looking for the offending test, telling the Big Boss I couldn't find it. He didn't seem surprised. When I left the company, the blackjack program would still cheat if you turned on the right sense switch, and I think that's how it should be. I didn't feel comfortable hacking up the code of a Real Programmer." -- Source: usenet: utastro!nather (Ed Nather), May 21, 1983. *start* 16013 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 4 Dec 89 18:12:13 PST (Monday) Subject: Life 5.M From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- The trouble with people is not that they don't know ... ... but that they know so much that ain't so. ---------------------------------------------------- Hark, the Herald Tribune sings, Advertising wondrous things. Tom Lehrer ---------------------------------------------------- My brother went to the University of Chicago which has a terrible football team. They were in a league against intellectually third-rate colleges, and the U of C cheer was: That's all right, That's okay, You're going to work for us someday! ---------------------------------------------------- A recent memo at the Army Troop Support Agency in Fort Lee, Va., reminded personnel that, because the elevator "is unsafe and has been known to stick between floors," it should be used only "for freight and the handicapped." ---------------------------------------------------- This morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in them I'll never know!! Groucho Marx ---------------------------------------------------- "Fifty percent of all products and services used today did not exist five years ago. Ninety percent of all those that you will interact with in 10 years have not yet been developed." -Frank Ogden ---------------------------------------------------- Thought for the day: Poor Planning Department: In May, five fortunetellers from England hastily abandoned their tour of Ireland after their crystal balls were stolen. They feared that they would be unable to ascertain whether the rest of the tour would be successful. ---------------------------------------------------- My favourite this year, (seen in London). Left hand wall : Do you want to play toilet tennis (see other wall). Right hand wall : Do you want to play toilet tennis (see other wall). ---------------------------------------------------- The other day, I dropped a piece of bread and it fell butter side up. I was convinced that I'd buttered the wrong side of the bread. ---------------------------------------------------- If a cat always lands on its feet, and a buttered piece of bread always lands buttered side down, what would happen if you tied a piece of bread (buttered side up) onto a cat's back? ---------------------------------------------------- A cop pulled me over the other day and asked to see my driver's license. I showed it to him and he says, "Lady, it says here that you're supposed to wear corrective lenses." I said, "But officer, I've got contacts." He said, "Look lady, I don't care WHO you know!" ------------------------------------------------------------------- I don't mind being stopped. I understand--you speed, you get a ticket. But why do they have to take so long? I always want to get out of my car, tap on the cop's window and say, "Officer, I was obviously in a hurry!" ---------------------------------------------------- In "The Greatest Story Ever Told," John "Duke" Wayne played a cameo role as the centurion who leads Jesus to his Crucifixion and has one line to deliver: "Truly, this was the Son of God." According to a popular, but apocryphal, story, when Wayne delivered his line for the first time, director George Stevens cut the action and told Wayne: "You're referring to the Son of God here, Duke. You've got to deliver the line with a little more awe." Whereupon Wayne announced on the next take: "Aw, truly this was the Son of God." Source: {ul Hollywood Anecdotes}, written by Paul Boller and Ronald Davis ------------------------------------------------------------------- In America we really don't have a speed limit. Nobody knows what it is. Everybody drives in packs. If the lead car is going 85, by God, so be it. It's amazing when people go to work in the morning. It's like a gang in the Old West going to rob a bank: "Awright, we're a goin' inta town. We're all a gonna drive 75 miles an hour. They cain't catch us all! Move 'em out!" ---------------------------------------------------- Heard on National Public Radio on the way to work this morning: In Los Angeles over the weekend, a man was arrested for drunken driving. He called a friend to come bail him out. He then persuaded the friend to let him drive the friend's car, his own car having been impounded as evidence. They proceeded directly to a roadblock where police were administering drunken driving tests. He was re-arrested and held over the weekend for being stupid. Hadn't realized this being stupid was illegal ---------------------------------------------------- Student(before a class) : I want to drink a glass of water Teacher : If you dilute yoursef, how are you going to concentrate. ---------------------------------------------------- A biology graduate student went to Borneo to take some samples for his thesis work. He flew there, found a guide with a canoe to take him up the river to the remote site he where he would make his collections. About noon on the second day of travel up the river they began to hear drums. Being a city boy by nature, the biologist was disturbed by this. He asked the guide, "What are those drums" The guide turned to him and said "Drums OK, but VERY BAD when they stop." Well the biologist settled down a little at this, and things went reasonably well for about two weeks. Then, just as they were packing up the camp to leave, the drums suddenly stopped! This hit the biologist like a ton of bricks (to coin a phrase), and he yelled at the guide "The Drums have stopped, What happens now?" The guide crouched down, covered his head with his hands and said "Bass Solo" ---------------------------------------------------- Another researcher arrives in Borneo to gather data for his thesis. Accompanied by his trusty guide, he too seeks out a very remote locale for researching the mating behaviour of the giant rat of Sumatra. Around dusk of the first day, he's sitting by the campfire with his guide when in the distance, he hears tribal drums. They get louder. The guide announces, "I don't like the sound of those drums." The dusk turns evening. The drums get louder. The guide says, "I really don't like the sound of those drums." Evening turns to dead of night. The drums get louder and louder, until it is obvious that the drummers must be quite close. The guide says again, "I *really* don't like the sound of those drums." Suddenly the drums stop, and a voice from the darkness cries out, "Hey man, he's not our regular drummer!" ---------------------------------------------------- You may want to compile a list of Radio "one-liners" like: WKDU: More static, more of the time.... You're listening to WKDU. No one else is, but you are. This is KFJC and you are listening to our hour-long music-free commercial sweep.WQHS. 73 on your AM dial. Or, if you have an expensive radio, 730. Are your friends laughing at you? Maybe it's because you are not listening to WQHS, 730 on your AM dial, on the University of Pennsylvania campus. Or maybe it's because you're ugly. This has been xxx at KFJC reminding you that animals are your friends, but they won't pick you up at the airport. WKDU: Broadcasting with TEN MILLION microwatts of POWER! Hi. This is Swamp Thing and we say that you should listen to WQHS because... because... , well, do you REALLY have anything better to do? ---------------------------------------------------- A few Star Trek jokes: Overheard in a corridor: Crewman: "I've got a brother at Starfleet Science Academy." Crewwoman: "What's he studying?" Crewman: "Nothin'. They're studying him." The Kzinti had captured a Medusan, but since Medusans are energy beings, they had trouble deciding how to eat him. The Kzinti captain had the last word. He said they should use lots of sugar, because, "everyone knows a spoonful of sugar helps the Medusan go down." A young man was applying to join Starfleet: "Where were you born?" asked the recruiting officer. "Earth, sir." "What part?" "All of me, sir." Did you hear about the Federation weapons expert? He never forgets a phaser. Where does a ten-foot Mugato sleep? Anywhere he wants to. What do you call a ten-foot Mugato? Sir. When the Melkotians beamed Kirk, Spock, Chekov, and McCoy down to the recreation of the OK Corral, none of the officers knew how to use the old-style six-guns. You see, they came from a time when no man had guns before. Why was STAR TREK so successful? It had good Genes. What would you have if all the Star Trek fans in Switzerland got together? The Geneva Convention. Show me a man who is a good loser...and I'll show you a junior officer who is playing 3-D chess with his captian. Captain Kirk: "Since all of you crewmembers performed so inefficiently today, there'll be no liberty at Starbase Seven." Voice: "Give me liberty or give me death!" Kirk: "Who said that?" Voice: "Patrick Henry." McCoy: "Should we have a friendly game of cards?" Kirk: "No, let's play poker." Kirk was chatting with a newly commissioned ensign when a crewman approached and asked to speak to him. "Go ahead, son," Kirk said. "It's kind of confidential, captain. I'd rahter not say it in front of the ensign." "Well," said Kirk, "spell it then." Noticing medals on Balok's chest, Kirk asked, "Did you win those in combat?" "Oh, no," said Balok. "I don't believe in military service." "Did you shrink from battle?" asked Kirk. "No," shrugged Balok, "I've always been this size." When the ENTERPRISE crew beamed down to the Guardian of Forever, Dr. McCoy refused to go through. "You're all the same," he grumbled, "In one era and out the other." McCoy: "I've borrowed Mr. Scott's bagpipes." Kirk: "But you can't play them." McCoy: "While I've got them, neither can he!" Lieutenant Kyle: "Dr. McCoy, I sleep all day, stay awake all night. I'm hot all the time and can't stop dancing. And I see rings before my eyes! What's wrong with me?" McCoy: "Sounds like Saturn Day Night Fever." Dr. McCoy was impressed by the professional manner of new ENTERPRISE psychiatrist Dr. Zhrink. After a long shift, an amazed McCoy asked him, "how can you stay so fresh and cool after eight hours of listening to such terrible problems?" Dr. Zhrink shrugged. "Who listens?" McCoy: "Do you serve crabs here?" Mess officer: "We serve anybody. Sit down." Harry Mudd was arrested and chahrged with fraud for selling maps to the Fountain of Youth. When computer records were checked, it was discovered he had been arrested for the same offense in 1716, 1986, 2005, and Stardate 25.8. Harry Mudd was on trial again. "Harry," said the judge, "You're accused of throwing your wife, Stella, out of the window. This is a most serious crime." "But your honor," cried Harry, "be lenient. You've met my wife." "Yes," answered the judge with a shudder, "and I don't blame you for what you did. But don't you understand she could have LANDED on somebody?" Sarek and Amanda were dating Amanda was patiently waiting For signs of romance Soft words, a slow dance What she got was an efficiency rating What does a Romulan frog use for camouflage? A croaking device. It seems the Klingons had a diabolical to wrap all the Federation starships in silver paper. Luckily, the plan was foiled. Do you know what they call a Klingon with half a brain? Gifted! Do you know what they call a Klingon with no brain at all? Normal. What is the longest four years of a Klingon's life? Third Grade. How do you get a one-armed Klingon out of a tree? Wave to him. Why can't Klingon kids play in sandboxes? Cats keep trying to cover them up. Why did the Klingon cross the road? To conquer the other side. Scotty and Sulu had been at the K-7 saloon for three hours when suddenly in walked a strange alien being. He was eight feet tall, weighted less than a hundred pounds, and had orange skin, purple hair, and six yellow eyes. To top it all off, he was wearing a red-and-blue-striped suit. Scotty stared at him for a long while and finally rose and staggered over to the being. "Pardon me for askin', friend, bu' wha' do ye look like when Ah'm sober?" The next day, the bartender was just opening up the place when a pink elephant and a rhinoceros came strolling in. The bartender shook his head. "Sorry, boys, Scotty hasn't come in yet." Dr. McCoy finished his examination of Scotty and shook his head. "Scotty, I can't find any reason for your stomach pains. Frankly, I think it's due to drinking." "In that case, Leonard," said Scotty, "I'll come back when you're sober." Mr. Spock: "What is the formula for PI?" Chekov: "Er...apple or blueberry, sir?" Mr. Spock: "A syzygy is three heavenly bodies lined up in a row. Give me an example." Sulu: "Mudd's Women!" A visiting admiral approached Chekov's station on the ENTERPRISE. Thinking he would test the young officer, he asked, "What would you do if the weapons officer suddenly got his head blown off?" "Nothing, sir." "Why nothing?" "Because I'm the weapons officer, sir." What do you call it when two science officers are having an argument? Science Friction. Sulu: "I've just discovered that Ilia's sister is a redhead." Chekov: "But I thought Deltans don't have any hair." Sulu: "She doesn't. She just has a red head." Show me Uhura reciting verse at warpspeed...and I'll show you poetry in motion. Uhura: "Everyone on this ship thinks I'm crazy because I like paastrami on rye." McCoy: "That doesn't mean you're crazy. I like pastrami on rye, too." Uhura: "Great! You must come and see my collection!" Uhura was working at her console when she suddenly straightened up. "I think there's a sick crewmember on Deck 9," she said. As no message had been received, Kirk was baffled, but sent McCoy to check it out. Sure enough, the doctor reproted that a crewmember had, indeed, collapsed where Uhura had predicted. Impressed, Kirk turned to her. "You must be psychic, Uhura. How did you know that crewman was ill?" Uhura smiled. "I had my ailing frequencies open, sir." And let's not forget their mission... "To boldly go where Nomad has gone before...." ---------------------------------------------------- The following are lines Spock might have said followed by what was really said: This celebratory gathering occurs at my behest and I shall be lachrymose if it so befits me. Answer: It's my party and I'll cry if I want to. She chooses to purchase a terraced incline directed toward a post-life paradisiacal region. Answer: And she's buying a stairway to heaven. The leather coverings now encasing my pedal extremities have been manufactured for the specific purpose of ambulatory forward motion. Answer: These Boots Were Made For Walkin. Adieu, jaundiced vehicular pathway consisting of bricks of baked clay. Answer: Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road And we will engage in much jubilant activity until such time as the male parent chooses to repossess her vehicle of motorized transport. Answer: And we'll have fun, fun, fun till her daddy takes the T-bird away. The deity had little or nothing to do with the manufacture of minuscule viridescent seed-bearing fruits. Answer: God didn't make little green apples. Allow me the honor of portraying for you a miniaturized representation of a member of the family Ursidae of the order Carnivora. Let me be your Teddy Bear. You provide illumination for the period of time delimited by my nativity and the complete cessation of my metabolic functions. Again, nitpicky. It's "You Light Up My Life." Express deep affection towards yours truly in the manner of a hardened igneous object. Love me like a rock *start* 18189 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 1 Jan 90 19:53:37 PST (Monday) Subject: Life 5.N From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- What is the name of the President of Lebanon? But answer quickly! ---------------------------------------------------- It has been reported that National Baseball League scouts have been spotted in the Israeli occupied West Bank. Rumour has it that they are recruiting pitchers .... ---------------------------------------------------- More actual newspaper headlines: Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures Daily Sun-Post (San Clemente, CA) 1/17/77 Sneak Attack by Soviet Bloc Not Foreseen The Atlanta Journal 4/4/79 War Dims Hopes for Peace Wisconsin State Journal 12/27/65 Blue Skies Unless its Cloudy San Francisco Chronicle 5/29/?? Bankrupt Association Termed in Poor Shape Lawrence (KA) Journal-World 7/12/77 Food is Basic to Student Diet Bridgeport (CN) Post 1/18/78 ---------------------------------------------------- Weekly News: Two West Germans were arrested near Holland trying to smuggle LSD-treated stickers with pictures of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev. Other attempts have used pictures of Batman, Goofy and E.T. I think that choice of Goofy are especially apropos. Question to "Ask Don Garlits": Q - I'd like some advice on a 1979 Chevy Monza with a 1978 Buick V-6. The engine has 106,000 miles, leaks, burns oil, suffers from vapor lock and has trouble accelerating. How much money should I put into it... My A - Enough to tow it to the junk yard. A fat man in Selma, Ala., got a plastic bag containing 45 rocks of crack cocaine through a strip-search by hiding it "between folds of his abdominal skin." So now we have an answer to that age-old question of how do you know when you are too fat. ---------------------------------------------------- (From Popular Science magazine) According to Nielsen Media Research, the average household watched 49 hours and 20 minutes of TV per week last year. That's about seven hours a day, but if you work eight and sleep eight, that leaves about one hour a day left for everything else you have to do. If that makes you want to throw a brick at the TV, a company called Scientific Applied Research in Middlesex, England, will oblige you. It has an electronic brick - a soft, padded model - complete with a built-in remote control. Toss the brick, and it emits a signal to turn off the TV on impact. Clever, but you'll have to find the brick and throw it once more to reset the remote and turn on the TV. ---------------------------------------------------- (Reported in the (U.K.) Guardian recently, and relayed by Martin Hughes:) For those of you who don't read a quality paper the following extract from the weekend Guardian might be of interest: Airline competition intensifies. Eastern Airlines is offering a 50% discount on dead bodies. Directors of Funeral parlours can now claim frequent flyer bonus miles on every casket they ship. We take ghoul care of you! ---------------------------------------------------- The Providence (Rhode Island) Housing Authority switched to a wrecking ball to demolish a 10-story building recently when a half-ton of dynamite left the building with only minor damage. (A civic group had argued earlier that the building should be preserved as an example of solid construction that could be renovated for low-income housing.) ---------------------------------------------------- Here in Halifax, N.S. just last winter, 2(3?) thieves made off with a t.v. set and some other goodies by leaving the scene of the crime through the window. I guess they never looked back, the R.C.M.P. officers who arrived at the scene traced the tracks that the robbers left in the snow, right to the culprits, and a succcessful arrest was made. ---------------------------------------------------- British courier John Orchard, 19, was fined 250 pounds and banned from driving six months in August for an incident in which 50,000 hypodermic needles came loose from his motorcycle, causing 150 tire punctures and blocking two major highways. ---------------------------------------------------- From the "News of the Weird" column: Ronald McClanahan, 41, was arrested in September when he tried to rob a Columbia, Mo., gun shop with a knife. He tried to open the electronic cash register by randomly pushing buttons, but then became frustrated and tried to carry it away until the cord got caught, yanking him to the floor. When an employee approached with a shotgun, McClanahan first lay perfectly still, then bolted up, yelling, "Go ahead and shoot me," then tried to lug the cash register out again. Then he dropped it so he could flee, but when the drawer broke open, he stopped to grab some money. As he ran for the exit, gun-wielding employees blocked him. When police arrived, they had to use force to loosen his grip on the money. ---------------------------------------------------- One more from the "News of the Weird" column: Reason magazine reports that a survey of hotel bills from last year's convention of religious broadcasters revealed that 80 percent watched an X-rated movie on their hotel room's closed-circuit channel. ---------------------------------------------------- One more from the "News of the Weird" column: Researchers studying solar radiation in eight major U.S. cities recently found no significant increase despite fears about ozone-layer depletion. According to Dr. Joseph Scotto of the National Institutes of Health, the likely reason is that increased radiation is being blocked by increased smog. ---------------------------------------------------- One more from the "News of the Weird" column: Steven G. Rollins, already serving 32 years for killing a prison inmate in 1974 and charged with rape while on parole in Providence, R.I., in July, became dissatisfied with his lawyer's defense tactics and began to beat him with his fists in the courtroom, causing a concussion before he was restrained. ---------------------------------------------------- (Associated Press) OROVILLE - A recent burglary victim attending a neighborhood watch meeting spotted her television, Christmas stockings and other lost items in the home of the neighbor hosting the meeting, police said. "The clincher was that the woman putting on the neighborhood watch program was wearing the victim's dress," Oroville police Detective Art Hatley said. The victim, Nancy Miler, sat calmly through the discussion by neighbors and two Oroville police officers, Hatley said. "She kept her head about it. Then, when the meeting was over, she waited outside for the officers and told them what she had seen," he said. Detectives obtained search warrants for the home and for a locker the residents rented at a storage business. When they served the warrants Wednesday, they found about $9,000 worth of stolen property belonging to Miller and other burglary victims in both places, police said. They also found an ounce of methamphetamines. Denise and Jeffrey Lagrimas were arrested on charges of possession of stolen property and methamphetamines for sale. They were booked into Butte County Jail and released on $10,000 bail each. Miller lost the television set, dress and other items when her storage locker, at the same business where the Lagrimases had a locker, was burglarized in mid-November. ---------------------------------------------------- Here are a few general notes, courtesy of the City of San Jose Office of Environmental Management. - Each glass bottle recycled saves enough energy to light a 100 watt bulb for four hours. Nearly 1000 bottles and jars are used each year by every household in San Jose. - Recycling one copy of the San Jose Mercury News every day for a year will save 4 to 5 trees. - If Californians recycled all their bottles, aluminum cans, and paper, they would save about 150 million gallons of oil each year. - The amount of garbage that is thrown away in San Jose is 4.2 pounds per capita per day. That's like everybody throuwing away a person a month. People take up a lot less space than garbage too. ---------------------------------------------------- (From News and Oberservers, Dec 14, 1989) CHINA ANTI-PORN WAR NETS BARE BABY PICTURES Beijing - Primary school students were confused by the government's anti-porno slogan -- "Sweep the Yellow". "Yellow" usually refers to pornographic material. The report said some young pupils were told pornography was picturews of poeple not wearing clothes. Some obediently handed in their own bare-bottomed baby pictures. ---------------------------------------------------- Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh claim to have located the "Gullibility Center" of the brain, and outline an operation in which a neurosurgeon can go into the brain and lower the gullibility of a person, leaving the rest of the brain unaltered. If you believe this, then you are a very gullible person and ought to consider having the operation done. ---------------------------------------------------- Back when I was attending the University of Utah, The school newspaper ran a joke ad for a debate between Phil Donahue and Whiskers the Lamb. Over 30 people showed up. (what they were expecting, God only knows.) ---------------------------------------------------- This office has an alarm on the street door so that people in the building can tell if the street door is left open. It is quite loud enough to startle the unexpecting. I occasionally arrive here with visitors. As we open the door, the alarm goes off, so they say ``What's that alarm mean?'' I reply: ``Oh, it's just the computer doesn't know you., It's OK, it'll recognise me and then it'll know things are OK.'' About half a dozen apparently intelligent adults have believed this daft story so far. ---------------------------------------------------- Back in the days of the Mattel Cabbage Patch Kid craze it was usually very hard to get one for the kiddies. A radio station (I don't know where) announced that Mattel was going to get Cabbage Patch Kids out to the people of this particular city. The plan was that they had to go to the football field of the local university and wait. An airplane would fly overhead and the dolls would be dropped onto the field. People were supposed to hold their credit cards up so that a photographer with a telephoto lens in the airplane could get the credit card numbers and charge the price of the dolls to the recipients' accounts. People actually showed up, waving American Express cards in the breeze. Another radio station prank took place on April Fool's Day. They announced that the phone company would be cleaning the dirt out of the phone lines that afternoon. They do this, it seems, by blowing air into the wires in the switching station. The problem is that the dirt comes out of the earpiece and mouthpiece of the telephone, and could dirty the rugs or furniture in your house. Consequently, the phone company asks that the good citizens please get plastic baggies and put them over the handsets of the telephones to protect their belongings. Stores reported a run on plastic bags, and the phone company made the radio station retract the original claim. I've always felt that the retraction should have been handled this way: "The phone company would like us to tell you that our earlier message concerning the blowing of dirt out of the phone lines was incorrect. The phone company does not, repeat NOT, blow into the telephone wires to clean out the dirt. Anybody with any understanding of the way the system operates would know that they suck the dirt out." Alas, the retraction was serious and factual. What's this world coming to anyway? ---------------------------------------------------- WHAT IS A TEENAGER? Every parent who has a teenager knows it's not easy to figure them out. Here are some clues. By Bill Adler A TEENAGER IS... A person who can't remember to walk the dog but never forgets a phone number. A weight watcher who goes on a diet by giving up candy bars before breakfast. A youngster who receives his/her allowance on Monday, spends it on Tuesday, and borrows from his/her best friend on Wednesday. Someone who can hear a song by Madonna played three blocks away but not his mother calling from the next room. A whiz who can operate the latest computer without a lesson but can't make a bed. A student who will spend 12 minutes studying for her history exam and 12 hours for her driver's license. An enthusiast who has the energy to ride a bike for miles but is usually too tired to dry the dishes. A connoisseur of two kinds of fine music Loud and Very Loud. A young woman who loves the cat and tolerates her brother. A person who is always late for dinner but always on time for a Michael Jackson concert. A romantic who never falls in love more than once a week. A budding beauty who never smiles until her braces come off. A boy who can sleep until noon on any Saturday when he suspects the lawn needs mowing. An original thinker who is positive that her mother was never a teenager. ---------------------------------------------------- Someone posted a request for riddles/mysteries a while back, so I thought I'd post my own list. The rules I've played under run as follows: 1. The people trying to solve the riddle must take turns. 2. The person who asks the riddle may answer only "yes", "no", or "it doesn't matter". 3. The person whose turn it is may continue to ask questions until a "no" response is received. This means that questions must be carefully phrased (e.g., if you don't think the victim is a policeman you ask "Is the victim NOT a policeman?") 4. You may solve the riddle only if it is your turn -- don't blurt out the answer as soon as you figure it out. Of course, if the parties you go to are frequented by humans of any sort, rules 1, 3, and 4 go out the window pretty quickly, but the game is still fun. Now for the riddles. They're listed on the next page; answers are on the page following that. Enjoy! 1. A man was shot in a room containing 53 Bicycles. Why was he killed? 2. A man was found dead in the desert with a pack on his back. How did he die? 3. A man kills himself in a room containg a piece of wood. In another room is a pile of sawdust. Why did he commit suicide? 4. There is a man who lives on the 14th floor of a high-rise apartment building. Each morning he takes the elevator down to the lobby to go to work. On evenings when it's raining, he takes the elevator up to the 14th floor. However, on evenings when it's sunny, he takes the elevator to the 10th floor and walks up the four remaining flights. Why? 5. He was afraid to go home because the man with the mask was ready for him. What did he do? 1. A man was shot in a room containing 53 Bicycles. Why was he killed? He was caught cheating at cards. Bicycle is a brand of playing cards. He had an extra one -- the 53rd one -- up his sleeve. 2. A man was found dead in the desert with a pack on his back. How did he die? The pack was a parachute which failed to open. 3. A man kills himself in a room containg a piece of wood. In another room is a pile of sawdust. Why did he commit suicide? The man was a midget who worked in a circus. The piece of wood is his cane. An enemy of his shaved off part of the cane every day (hence the sawdust) so the man would think he was getting taller and would lose his livelihood. So he killed himself. 4. There is a man who lives on the 14th floor of a high-rise apartment building. Each morning he takes the elevator down to the lobby to go to work. On evenings when it's raining, he takes the elevator up to the 14th floor. However, on evenings when it's sunny, he takes the elevator to the 10th floor and walks up the four remaining flights. Why? The man was a midget (lots of midgets in these things) and he couldn't reach the 14th floor button in the elevator. That's why he would go to the tenth floor -- the highest button he could reach -- and walk from there. On rainy days he would use his umbrella to hit the 14th floor button. 5. He was afraid to go home because the man with the mask was ready for him. What did he do? He stayed on third base, of course! (home = home plate, man with mask = catcher) ---------------------------------------------------- "The enemy was repelled. But victory was not won. The war dragged on for a year and there was no decision. Gold grew scarce, and again the Government was in despair. "I easily relieved them. 'Write,' I said, 'promises on paper to be repaid in gold.' They did as I advised -- paying me (at my request) a trifle of half a million for the advice. I handled the affair -- on a merely nominal profit. I punctually met for another year every note that was pain in. But too many were presented, for the war seemed unending and entered a third year. "Then did i conceive yet another stupendous thig. 'Bid them,' said I to the Sultan, 'take the notes as money. Cease to repay. Write, not "I will on delivery of this paper pay a piece of gold," but, "this is a piece of gold."' "He did as I told him. The next day the Vizier came to me with the story of an insolent fellow to whom fifty such notes had been offered as payment for a camel for the war and who had sent back, not a camel, but another piece of paper on which was written 'This is a camel.' "'Cut off his head!' said I. "It was done, and the warning sufficed. The paper was taken and the war proceeded." from Hilaire Belloc, _The_Mercy_of_Allah_, 1922 courtesy of ECON 605 by Leigh Tesfatsion *start* 16691 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 1 Jan 90 19:58:41 PST (Monday) Subject: Life 5.P From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- I'm looking for ways to gracefully/creatively avoid giving my name and address to a computer when paying cash at Radio Shack, Service Merchandise and other stores which request it for their junk-mail lists (which they sell to others, so you get a flood of the stuff). They tell you they need the information to protect your warranty, which is a lie.) It's damned annoying, a bad precedent, and I don't care to justify the existence of yuppie staticians. [`Gracefully' means not saying "None of your #$%&*! business!"] I've used the following: 1. "Floyd Collins, Nat'l Park Service, Mammoth Cave, Kentucky 42259. 2. "It's bad enough having to sign for dynamite and machineguns; I'll be damned if I'll sign for _this_ stuff!" 3. (Softly, making Obi-Wan Kenobi's hand-gesture): "You don't need my name and address. I can go about my business." They have never refused my money! ---------------------------------------------------- I saw something on TV about a man in Colorado who came up with a solution to the junk mail problem - he uses it to feed his stove. He was shown sitting down at his Apple II to update his list of mailing lists he's gotten himself onto. He gets junk mail by the garbage bag load, and was trying for more all the time. His heating bill was just about zip. ---------------------------------------------------- Seems that Oakland will have to win the series by "de fault"! ---------------------------------------------------- I heard news about the quake this morning. Seems through some investigation, they find that the shaker made over a Million dollars worth of improvements in Oakland... ---------------------------------------------------- World Series game three: the game that brought the house down. This quake put Santa Cruz on the map. The next one will take it off... ---------------------------------------------------- This from Herb Caen's column The inhabitants of the Marina district are tired of the term "Earthquakes Victims" and ask that they by referred to as "People with earthquake." Earthquake-Americans "Motionally Disturbed" Ameriquakians Quakers ---------------------------------------------------- Roy Ogus contributes this quote from an E-mail correspondent describing what happened at work after the earthquake: "There was no significant damage here. We lost more time talking about it than picking things up." ---------------------------------------------------- (But the amazing part is that LaPorte, Indiana is my wife's home town, and the Herald-Argus is hardly the kind of newspaper to receive national attention!) "Only an earthquake can save San Francisco now. Nothing else has stopped the Oakland Athletics." Headline in the Laporte (Ind.) Herald-Argus, a day before the California earthquake. ---------------------------------------------------- God must be a Cubs Fan! The Local Oldies station has stopped playing "Shake, Rattle, and Roll," declaring that they've had quite enough of it. On a similar note, the song "Do You Know The Way To San Jose?" has been changed to "Do You Know Where San Jose WENT?" The Bay Bridge is still working: It's keeping everyone at Bay Traffic on Highway 880 is said to be moving faster now... Heard in a Chemistry lab at 5:03 PM PDT: "Don't drop that stuff, it's real powerful. ---------------------------------------------------- It's the afternoon after the earthquake, and there was already a guy in Sproul Plaza preaching that the earthquake was God's condemnation of homosexuality. Personally, I suspect it was His condemnation of professional baseball... ---------------------------------------------------- The rumor is that Pete Rose is thinking of moving to Seattle. Yes, he wants to get as far away from professional baseball as possible. (The Seattle team has had seven consecutive losing seasons.) ---------------------------------------------------- THE SALESMAN (a story) And in those days, behold, there came through the gates of the city a salesman from afar off, and it came to pass as the day went by he sold plenty. And in that city were they that were the order takers and they that spent their days in adding to the alibi sheets. Mightily were they astonished. They said one to the other, "how doth he getteth away with it?". And it came to pass that many were gathered in the back office and a soothsayer came among them. And he was one wise guy. And they spoke and questioned him saying, "How is it that this stranger accomplisheth the impossible?". Whereupon the soothsayer made answer. "He of whom you speak is one hustler. He ariseth very early in the morning and goeth forth full of pep. He complaineth not, neither doth he know despair. He is arrayed in purple and fine linin, while ye go forth with pants unpressed. "While ye gather here and say one to the other, 'Verily this is a terrible day to work', he is already abraod. And when the eleventh hour cometh, he needeth no alibis. He knoweth his line and they that would stave him off, they give him orders. Men say unto him 'nay' when he cometh in, yet when he goeth forth he hath their name on the line that is dotted. "He taketh with him the two angels 'inspiration' and 'perspiration' and worketh to beat hell. Verily I say unto you, go and do likewise." - Author Unknown ---------------------------------------------------- The following are actual signs seen across the good ol' U.S.A. At a Santa Fe gas station: We will sell gasoline to anyone in a glass container. On the wall of a Baltimore estate: Trespassers will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. --Sisters of Mercy On a long-established New Mexico dry cleaners: 38 years on the same spot. In a Los Angeles dance hall: Good clean dancing every night but Sunday. On a movie theater: Children's matinee today. Adults not admitted unless with child. In a Florida maternity ward: No children allowed. In the offices of a loan company: Ask about our plans for owning your home. In a New York medical building: Mental Health Prevention Center In a toy department: Five Santa Clauses -- No waiting! On a New York convalescent home: For the sick and tired of the Episcopal Church. At a number of military bases: Restricted to unauthorized personnel. On a display of "I love you only" valentine cards: Now available in multi-packs. On a shopping mall marquee: Archery Tournament -- Ears pierced Outside a country shop: We buy junk and sell antiques. In the window of an Oregon store: Why go elsewhere and be cheated when you can come here? In a Maine restaurant: Open 7 days a week and weekends. In a New Jersey restaurant: Open 11 AM to 11 PM midnight. In the vestry of a New England church: Will the last person to leave please see that the perpetual light is extinguished. In a Pennsylvania cemetery: Persons are prohibited from picking flowers from any but their own graves. On the grounds of a public school: No tresspassing without permission. In a library: Blotter paper will no longer be available until the public stops taking it away. Similarly, in front of a New Hampshire car wash: If you can't read this, it's time to wash your car. And apparently, somewhere in England in an open field otherwise untouched by human presence, there is a sign that says "Do not throw stones at this sign." ---------------------------------------------------- An Invasion from Mars: Get your feet up - and don't move By Dave Barry We have the flu. I don't know if this particular strain has an official name, but if it does, it must be something like "Martian Death Flu." You may have had it yourself. The main symptom is that you wish you had another setting on your electric blanket, up past "High", that said: "Electrocution." Another symptom is that you cease brushing your teeth because [a] your teeth hurt and [b] you lack the strength. Midway through the brushing process, you'd have to lie down in front of the sink to rest for a couple of hours, and rivulets of toothpaste foam would dribble sideways out of your mouth, eventually hardening into crusty little toothpaste stalagtites that would bond your head permanently to the bathroom floor, which is how the police would find you. You know the kind of flu I'm talking about. I spend a lot of time lying very still and thinking flu-related thoughts. One insight I have had is that all this time, scientists have been telling us the truth: Air really IS made up of tiny objects called "molecules." I know this because I can feel them banging against my body. There are billions and billions and billions of them, but if I concentrate, I can detect each one individually, striking my body, especially my eyeballs, at speeds upwards of 100,000 miles per hour. If I try to escape by pulling the blanket over my face, they attack my hair, which has become almost as sensitive as my teeth. There has been a mound of blankets on my wife's side of the bed for several days now, absolutely motionless except that it makes occasional efforts to spit into a Kleenex. I think it might be my wife, but the only way to tell for sure would be to prod it, which I wouldn't do even if I had the strength because if it turned out that it was my wife and she were alive and I prodded her, it would kill her. Me, I am leading a more active lifestyle. Three or four times a day, I attempt to crawl to the bathroom. Unfortunately this is a distance of nearly 15 feet, with a great many air molecules en route, so at about the halfway point I usually decide to stop and get myself into the fetal position and hope for nuclear war. Instead, I get Earnest. Earnest is our dog. She senses instantly that something is wrong, and guided by that timeless and unerring nurturing instinct that all female dogs have, she tries to lick my ears off. For my son, Robert, this is proving to be the high point of his entire life to date. He has had his pajamas on for two, maybe three days now. He has the sense of joyful independence a 5-year-old gets when he suddenly realizes that he could be operating an acetylene torch in the coat closet and neither parent would have the strength to object. He has been foraging for his own food, which means his diet consists entirely of "food" substances that are advertised only on Saturday-morning cartoon shows, substances that are the color of jukebox lights and that, for legal reasons, have their names spelled wrong, as in New Creemy Chok-'n'-Cheez Lumps o' Froot ["part of this complete breakfast"]. Crawling around, my face inches from the carpet, I sometimes encounter traces of colorful wrappers that Robert has torn from these substances and dropped on the floor, where Earnest, always on patrol, has found them and chewed them into spit-covered wads. I am reassured by this. It means they are both eating. The Martian Death Flu has not been an entirely bad thing. Since I cannot work, or move, or think, I have been able to spend more Quality Time with Robert, to come up with creative learning activities that we can enjoy and share together. Today, for example, I taught him, as my father had taught me, how to make an embarassing noise with your hands. Then we shot rubberbands at the participants on "Divorce Court." Then, just in case some parts of our brains were still alive, we watched professional bowling. Here's what televised pro bowling sounds like when you have the flu: PLAY-BY-PLAY MAN: He left the 10-pin, Bob. COLOR COMMENTATOR: Yes, Bill. He failed to knock it down. PLAY-BY-PLAY MAN: It's still standing up. COLOR COMMENTATOR: Yes. Now he must try to knock it down. PLAY-BY-PLAY MAN: You mean the 10-pin, Bob? The day just flew by. Soon it was 3:30 p.m., time to crawl back through the air molecules to the bedroom, check on my wife or whoever that is, and turn in for the night. Earnest was waiting about halfway down the hall. Look at this," the police will say when they find me. "His ears are missing." ---------------------------------------------------- These are stories and test questions accumulated by music teachers in the state of Missouri. Music Education Agnus Dei was a woman composer famous for her church music. Refrain means don't do it. A refrain in music is the part you better not try to sing. A virtuoso is a musician with real high morals. John Sebastian Bach died from 1750 to the present. 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. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling him. I guess he could not hear so good. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died from this. Henry Purcell is a well known composer few people have ever heard of. Aaron Copland is one of your most famous contemporary composers. It is unusual to be contemporary. Most composers do not live until they are dead. An opera is a song of bigly size. In the last scene of Pagliacci, Canio stabs Nedda who is the one he really loves. Pretty soon Silvio also gets stabbed, and they all live happily ever after. When a singer sings, he stirs up the air and makes it hit any passing eardrums. But if he is good, he knows how to keep it from hurting. Music sung by two people at the same time is called a duel. I know what a sextet is but I had 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. A good orchestra is always ready to play if the conductor steps on the odium. Morris dancing is a country survival from times when people were happy. Most authorities agree that music of antiquity was written long ago. Probably the most marvelous fugue was the one between the Hatfields and McCoys. My very best liked piece of music is the Bronze Lullaby. My favorite composer is Opus. A harp is a nude piano. A tuba is much larger than its name. Instruments come in many sizes, shapes and orchestras. You should always say celli when you mean there are two or more cellos. Another name for kettle drums is timpani. But I think I will just stick with the first name and learn it good. A trumpet is an instrument when it is not an elephant sound. While trombones have tubes, trumpets prefer to wear valves. The double bass is also called the bass viol, string bass, and bass fiddle. It has so many names because it is so huge. When electric currents go through them, guitars start making sounds. So would anybody. Question: What are kettle drums called? Answer: Kettle drums. Cymbals are round, metal CLANGS! A bassoon looks like nothing I have ever heard. Last month I found out how a clarinet works by taking it apart. I both found out and got in trouble. Question: Is the saxophone a brass or a woodwind instrument? Answer: Yes. The concertmaster of an orchestra is always the person who sits in the first chair of the first violins. This means that when a person is elected concertmaster, he has to hurry up and learn how to play a violin real good. For some reason, they always put a treble clef in front of every line of flute music. You just watch. I can't reach the brakes on this piano! The main trouble with a French horn is it's too tangled up. Anyone who can read all the instrument notes at the same time gets to be the conductor. Instrumentalist is a many-purposed word for many player-types. The flute is a skinny-high shape-sounded instrument. The most dangerous part about playing cymbals is near the nose. A contra-bassoon is like a bassoon, only more so. Tubas are a bit too much. Music instrument has a plural known as orchestra. I would like for you to teach me to play the cello. Would tomorrow or Friday be best? My favorite instrument is the bassoon. It is so hard to play people seldom play it. That is why I like the bassoon best. It is easy to teach anyone to play the maracas. Just grip the neck and shake him in rhythm. Just about any animal skin can be stretched over a frame to make a pleasant sound once the animal is removed. Source: Missouri School Music Newsletter, collected by Harold Dunn. *start* 16397 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 1 Jan 90 20:01:49 PST (Monday) Subject: Life 5.Q From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- What's the difference between the United States and Eastern Eupropean countries? The United States still has a communist party. ---------------------------------------------------- At recent trade talks the American representative offered to sell sophisticated American telephone technology to the soviets. American : "And in the United States, anyone can pick up any phone and dial 9-1-1. This will record the call and connect them with the police." Soviet : "In the Soviet Union we don't require that you dial anything." ---------------------------------------------------- A Russian walks into a bar and orders a beer. "That will be one ruble," says the bartender. "One ruble!" the customer protests, "last week it was only fifty kopeks!" "Well," replies the bartender, "it's fifty kopeks for the beer and fifty kopecs for the perestroika." Reluctantly, the customer gives the bartender a ruble, and is surprised when the bartender gives him back fifty kopecs and explains, "We are out of beer." ---------------------------------------------------- Following the recent events in Europe, the East-Berliner authorities intend to destroy the Wall as soon as possible. In order to let a trace of in in front of history, they want to build a commemorative monument. Several projects have been proposed by other countries : . the French offered to ship them the Eiffel Tower . the American said they would give a piece of the Bay Bridge . Honecker proposed a hefty concrete monument, about 20 feet high, 40 miles long... ---------------------------------------------------- The world famous gymnast Nadia Comenci(sp ?) was jumping over Romania- Hungary fenced border in gymanstic style. The judges were holding 10 pts. banner. ---------------------------------------------------- There's no Truth in the Light and no Light in the Truth. Pravda = Truth, and Isvestia = Light. ---------------------------------------------------- >From the New York Times, 11/7/89: Q. Do you know what prizes the communists are now offering for recruiting new party members? A. If you get one new member, you don't pay dues. Two new members, you can quit the party. And for three, you get a certificate saying you were never a member. ---------------------------------------------------- Source: TT (Swedish News Agency) Belgrad. The Jugoslavia magazine OSMICA presented in its latest issue "socialisms' six miracles", which explained "why everyone is happy in countries where socialism is practiced". The first miracle is that there is no any unemployment while at the same time no one works, the Osmica writes. And the second miracle is that no one works but everyone still gets salary. "However while everyone gets salary there is nothing to buy", the Osmica writes about the third miracle. And although there is nothing to buy, everyone still has everything that he wants to have. Osmica regards the fifth miracle to be that although everyone has all he wants, he is still unhappy. "The last miracle is that although everyone is unhappy he still votes for the communist party in election", the Yogoslavia magazine concludes. ---------------------------------------------------- TOP TEN CHANGES TO THE CZECH CONSTITUTION: 10. Shirt & Shoes no longer necessary for service at 7-11 9. Parliament to be replaced by The O'Jays 8. Meetings of the Hair Club for Men now held openly 7. Country no longer responsible for dry cleaning left after 30 days 6. In event of free elections, Presidency may not be held by guy from "Hey, Vern" commercials 5. New national anthem to be "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" 4. Official government new service to be replaced by Larry King's column 3. No law enacted without expressed written consent of major league baseball 2. Nation to be divided into Corn Czechoslovakia & Rice Czechoslovakia 1. Right to party membership now just right to party! TOP TEN WAYS IRAN IS CELEBRATING THE 10th ANNIVERSARY OF THE REVOLUTION: 10. Seaport fireworks and car bomb display 9. Double frequent flyer mileage on all hijacked planes 8. Monster truck rally on rubble of U.S. Embassy 7. Blood-of-our-Enemies chug-a-lug 6. Radio Tehran organizes wet-veil contest 5. Diet Coke sponsors 3-D execution of 1200 petty thieves 4. Shah's old palace reopened as world's largest Benetton 3. Lackluster prime-time special with a lot of clips from old shows 2. New tourism slogan: "Throw another hand on the barbie" 1. Everybody tries Bermuda shorts for the day ---------------------------------------------------- I was driving through the country, and there were some cows by the side of the road. We're all mature adults, so we've all done this: I leaned my head out of the car window, and yelled, "Moooooooooo." Like we expect that cow to be thinking, "Hey, there's a cow driving that car! How can he afford that?" ---------------------------------------------------- The Board of Trustees of (fill in University here) want to find out if the profs. really know their stuff. So they decide to ask the profs. "What's two plus two?" They go to the Math Dept. and the response is "Oh, that's easy, it's four." So they write that down and go to the Physics Dept. and the response is "Oh, it's 4.00000000 with an uncertainty of another place." Then they go to the College of Engineering and the response is "Just a minute while I get my handbook." Finally, they go to the School of Management and the Accounting Dept. and there the response is (said in a low voice) "What do you want it to be?" This one is for all you engineers out there: The Board of Trustees, not convinced by the performance in the previous joke, decides to test the profs. again. First they take a Math prof. and put him in a room. Now, the room contains a table and three metal spheres about the size of softballs. They tell him to do whatever he want with the balls and the table in one hour. After an hour, he comes out and the Trustees look in and the balls are arranges in a triangle at the center of the table. Next, they give the sme test to a physics prof. After an hour, they look in, and the balls are stacked one on top of the other in the center of the table. Finally, the give the test to an Engineering prof. After an hour, they look in and one of the balls is broken, one is missing, and he's carrying the third out in his lunchbox. ---------------------------------------------------- Andy wants a job as a signalman on the railways. He is told to meet the inspector at the signal box. The inspector puts this question to him: "What would you do if you realised that 2 trains were heading for each other on the same track?" Andy says,"I would switch the points for one of the trains." "What if the lever broke?" asked the inspector. "Then I'd dash down out of the signal box," said Andy,"and I'd use the manual lever over there." "What if that had been struck by lightning?" "Then," Andy continues,"I'd run back into the signal box and phone the next signal box." "What if the phone was engaged?" "Well in that case," persevered Andy,"I'd rush down out of the box and use the public emergency phone at the level crossing up there." "What if that was vandalised?" "Oh well then I'd run into the village and get my uncle Silas." This puzzles the inspector, so he asks, "Why would you do that?" Came the answer, "Because he's never seen a train crash." ---------------------------------------------------- Hind's Law #6: Make it possible to write programs in English and you will quickly discover that programmers do not know how to write in English. Steinbach's Rule: Never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle. ---------------------------------------------------- Ok, so I don't mind Canada's new Shiny Gold (coloured) $1 coins, but some of our government officials are having a hard time with them. They are spending hours trying to take the foil wrapper off to get at the chocolate inside! ---------------------------------------------------- One day God was idle, and he decided to check up on his favourite forms of life on Earth. After observing the Huns for a while, he visits their leadership, and offers to give them a commandment, they ask him what the commandment is, and God says "Thou shalt not kill your fellow humans", the Huns politely tell God that if they observed his commandment they would be hard pressed to find other means of earning a living and they decline. God then visits the Romans, and confers with their leadership, he offers them the commandment "Thou shalt not commit adultery", the Romans also decline, citing that they are mere mortals and that they intend to enjoy life to its fullest during their stay on Earth. God is fairly frustrated by now, and in a dejected mood approaches the Hebrews and offers them a commandment, the Hebrew leadership asks "How much will it cost ?" God replies "Why, it is absolutely free". "Then give us ten" says the Hebrew chief. ---------------------------------------------------- This Ham sandwich walks into a bar and orders a drink The bartender says "Sorry we don't serve food here" ---------------------------------------------------- A Boy Scout was walking along the waterfront one day, looking at the ships and trying to idenitfy the knots. However, he soon came across one which he couldn't identify, holding a shipping crate to the dock. He went up and peered at it, but couldn't figure it out. Finally he burst out, "What is this thing??? It looks like a random tangle to me!" And the ropes spoke: "No, I'm a freight knot!" ---------------------------------------------------- Your man Murphy applied for an engineering position at an Irish firm based in Dublin. An American applied for the same job and both applicants having the same qualifications were asked to take a test by the Department manager. Upon completion of the test both men only missed one of the questions. The manager went to Murphy and said. Manager: "Thankyou for your interest, but we've decided to give the American the job" Murphy: "And why would you be doing that? We both got 9 questions correct. This being Ireland and me being Irish I should get the job!" Manager: "We have made our decisions not on the correct answers, but on the question you missed." Murphy: "And just how would one incorrect answer be better than the other?" Manager: "Simple, the American put down on question #5, "I don't know.", You put down "Neither do I." :^) ---------------------------------------------------- Dave Barry on School Projects: A lot of children have trouble remembering instructions, which is why we parents often find out about school projects at the very last minute, usually from other parents. "Didn't you hear?" they'll say. "Each child is supposed to come in tomorrow with a model of a medieval village made entirely from typewriter parts." School projects generally contain an element of inexplicable weirdness. I think this is a form or revenge on the part of the teachers, getting even with us parents for spending our day in adult company while they're stuck in crowded rooms trying to get our children to stop writing their 5's backward. I bet they have fun at teachers' meetings, thinking up projects to inflict on us. ("I've got it! We have them make a cement volcano that erupts real ketchup!" "No, we had them do that last year.") ---------------------------------------------------- Murphy's Law and related sayings: Leakproof seals... will. Self starters... will not. If you're feeling good, don't worry, you'll get over it. All warranties expire upon payment of invoice. If you try to please everyone, no one will like it. A pipe gives a wise man time to think and a fool something to put in his mouth. There's never time to do it right, but there's always time to do it over. Everything east of the San Andreas fault will eventually plunge into the Atlantic ocean. If everything seems to be going well, then you obviously don't know what the hell is going on. ---------------------------------------------------- Why is there a "pair" of panties and "one" bra? You don't get on an airplane, you get in one. Does a car actually make a corner? Have you ever really turned a computer on? And why do they call them apartments if they are all stuck together? ---------------------------------------------------- Willie the Wino walked into Joe's Liquor Store one wet and windy November evening. "I'd like a fifth of port," he said. "Any particular brand?" said Joe. "Got any Almaden?" Willie asked. "Nope," said Joe. "Will you take Gallo instead?" "Sure," replied Willie. "Any port in a storm." ---------------------------------------------------- (Here's a philosophy I can relate to!) Rick Reynolds on PBS's "Comedy Tonight": "Eat every cookie as if it's the LAST cookie!" ---------------------------------------------------- An only-in-California Bumper Sticker: "The Weather is Here ... Wish You Were Beautiful!" ---------------------------------------------------- Bumper Sticker: UFO'S are REAL. The Air Force doesn't exist. ---------------------------------------------------- A friend of mine told me about an experience of his after getting into a serious car accident. He's a very sarcastic fellow, and when he awoke in the hospital he was a bit miffed at an orderly who was making this inane conversation while he was trying to read... "Guess that was a pretty bad accident? Huh? Guess you really got hurt bad? Huh? Guess your car is really totalled? Huh? Guess you really lost control of the car? Huh? Guess.... " My friend finally said, "No, I intentionally went off the road at 75 miles an hour, through the guiderail, over a culvert trench, ricocheted off two rocks and smacked into a tree after rolling the car over." Then the orderly finally left, and my friend took his pills and went to sleep. My friend couldn't figure out why he woke up restrained in a hospital bed in the psycho ward.... Guess they don't train orderlies in sarcasm. ---------------------------------------------------- Unanswered Questions: How can people ignore the petitioners in front of the supermarket, then complain about the sorry state of our government? How can a book print explicit instructions for manufacturing illegal drugs and get away with it because of a disclaimer about the book being for entertainment purposes only? Whatever happened to the manned Mars mission that President Bush promised us? How could a backwards nation like the Soviet Union become our main rival? Why do smokers think they have the right to litter the world with cigarette butts? Why is Tia Molly's, a Mexican restaurant, run by Chinese people? If time stopped, would we notice it? Why doesn't any businesses want to take a MINOR credit card? Does anyone NOT speed on Eastgate Mall between Genesee and Miramar Rd.? Why didn't they design compact discs to hold ninety minutes? ---------------------------------------------------- A couple sat in their living room, watching TV. The phone rang. The husband picked it up, listened for a moment, said "Yes, it certainly is!" and hung up. A few minutes later the phone rang again. Again the man answered it, listened, said "Yes, you're right, it certainly is!" and hung up. A third time this happened. His wife turned to him and asked, "What was that all about?" He replied, "Oh, some idiot is calling me up just to tell me it's a long distance from Cleveland." ---------------------------------------------------- I was driving to work this morning when all of a sudden, a little elf appeared on the seat next to me. "I'll grant you any wish you like," he said. "Why don't I get three wishes?" I asked. "Because I'm an elf, not a genie!" he said. "Ok," I said, "I'd like to have $1000 for every day of the rest of my life." The elf thought a minute, then gave me a $50. ---------------------------------------------------- *start* 14381 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 8 Jan 90 12:46:22 PST (Monday) Subject: Life 5.R From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- There's a story about Diogenes who was suppose to be looking for an honest man, who after being in the company of lawyers was asked how it was going. He replied "I've still got my lantern." More information on Diogenes: Diogenes may well have been looking for an honest man in his wanderings, but the reason he was wandering in the first place is that he had been ostracized for counterfeiting. ---------------------------------------------------- One interesting game is Twenty Questions.... the surreal version. Have someone leave the room, and tell them you'll all think up a word for twenty questions. (Yes/no answers, the usual.) When the person comes back, he has to ask questions around the circle. The TRICK is, BEFORE he comes back, everyone randomly picks what they will answer! (yes or no) There is no subject. The person gets random answers, and comes up with something no one thought of. This works best after playing normal twenty questions, and only works once. ---------------------------------------------------- You'll need to do this before the person goes on holiday. Spread some fast growing seed (like mustard or cress) on their carpet and water well. When they return from holiday they'll need to borrow a lawn-mower! ---------------------------------------------------- One thing that is fun to do is to find two pay phones (or just two different phone lines) and call a friend on one of them. When he answers start dialing his number on the other one. With call waiting he will think (and rightly so) that he is get another call but when he switches lines it will still be you talking to him. If you do this right you can keep calling him on the other line driving him crazy. I did this to someone once and it took quite a long time before he figured out what was going on. ---------------------------------------------------- "We had a doofus on our floor who was a real `sky pilot' (Jesus junkie). He was always trying to convert everybody, lecturing about sin, etc. Being a fundamentalist, he not only believed in The Rapture (where God will come and zap all the good Christians straight to Heaven and leave the riffraff), but believed that its time was near. "Early one morning we placed carefully-arranged piles of clothes on the hall floor as if their wearers had suddenly evaporated. We used dry ice and incense to make a Stephen Spielberg fog in the hall, then we blew a very loud Freon horn outside his door, threw some nonelectric flashcubes against the wall, and screamed a lot. When he came out, everybody acted stunned and yelled "What's going on? There was a big light and a noise and those guys just disappeared!! "For several minutes, we had him believing he had been left behind with us sinners!" ---------------------------------------------------- One female student of my acquaintance got so fed up with people taking her food out of the communal fridge that she put a note on her plastic lunchbox. The note read: ``WILL WHOEVER TOOK THE PATE PLEASE REPLACE IT. IT IS MY BIOLOGY EXPERIMENT.'' ---------------------------------------------------- I had a biology instructor that got fed-up with people stealing his sandwiches. Oneday, he replaced the ham in his sandwich with a preserved frog. It was the LAST of his sandwich's to be stolen. ---------------------------------------------------- On the subject of interesting signs. My family lives in Montreal, where French-speakers outnumber English-speakers. A construction team apparently was working on changing this situation while blasting near the Montreal General Hospital five years ago. By law, signs relating to personal safety must be in French, and you are allowed to put English writing on the sign if you really feel you must. A sign explaining the signals for blasting read: (paraphrased, but the numbers are as they were there) Explosion will come thirty seconds after the long blast of the horn. L'explosion suiverai deux minutes apres la longue coup du sirene. (Explosion will come two minutes after the long blast of the horn.) ---------------------------------------------------- From GSP Digest #222: ========== From: kevin@cbmvax.UUCP (Kevin Klop) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers I'm sure that there is a plethora of walking disk drive stories out there... here's Yet Another Disk Drive Goes For A Walk... I was part of an OS Enahncements group that was building a multi-CPU testing system (about 24 computers plus array processors). A large number of these 300 Meg removable disk pack drives were shared between two cpus. As part of our work, we did what are commonly called "Thrash Tests" wherein you seek back and forth between the outermost cylinder and the innermost cylinder. Remember that these are VERY quick drives, and that the heads build up an hellacious amount of momentum. There was also a night operator that was: A) Universally disliked B) Knew almost nothing about computers except how to follow a checklist. We set up a timed job to run at midnight, just about the time this operator would be starting his backups. Along comes midnight, and suddenly all the disk drives in the computer room start thrashing angrily "Chugachugachugachuga", and rocking back and forth. Eventually they started walking themselves along the floor. At the same time, on the operator's console, the screen blanks, and the following words appear, centered, on the display: I'm coming to get you. The operator quit the next day. ---------------------------------------------------- > San Francisco is said to be the only city in the nation to have ordinances > guaranteeing sunshine to the masses. I understand that in Germany, there is a law that every office must have a view of the sky, however small. So the office buildings are all long and skinny. ---------------------------------------------------- In Cupertino, California, it is illegal to count backwards audibly in hexadecimal. ---------------------------------------------------- In Israel, there's no legal way for a man named Cohen to marry a divorced woman. ---------------------------------------------------- Other anomalous laws: The good burghers of Redwood City have outlawed the frying of gravy. In Santa Clara it is forbidden to dedicate parking spaces to the patron saint of television. Prostitutes in San Francisco are not obliged to make change for bills larger than $50. The city of Mountain View proscribes calling pet fish by "names of aggressive content, e.g. "Biter", "Killer", "Sugar-Ray" " Bicycles may not be ridden without "appropriate fashion accessories" anywhere in Santa Clara County (de facto law). It is illegal to skateboard on walls "or other vertical surfaces" in Palo Alto. Wearing a sweatshirt inside-out is deemed a "threatening misdemeanor" in Half-Moon Bay. ---------------------------------------------------- one of my favorites is Bill Mauldin's 'Practical Gun Control'; three jail windows are shown. Cell #1: unhappy prisoner looking out, caption 'Burglar A, caught with loot only, sentence, 5 years (out in two)'. Cell #2: very unhappy prisoner, caption 'Burglar B, caught carrying a firearm, sentence, 10 years (no payroll)'. Cell #3: empty, caption 'Burglar C: carried firearm and used same, sentence: THE WORKS' ---------------------------------------------------- "Parking for Able Sign Customers Only. Violators will be victims of violent terrorist actions at owner's expense." ---------------------------------------------------- A guy down the hall has a wooden stake in his window with a sign that reads "BREAK GLASS IN CASE OF VAMPIRE." ---------------------------------------------------- After Apartheid -- The Solution for S Africa by Frances Kendall and Leon Louw. Country Number of Federal Budget/GNP Per Cap registered Income lobbyists. US 26,000 .22 $16,449 Switzerland 0 .10 $26,309 ---------------------------------------------------- I am growing weary of seeing chemicals with warning labels that imply that I shall die a horrible death simply by looking at the contents. A warning label should inform me of any *REAL* hazards, and of the precautions I should take when handling the reagent, and should not serve only to cover the manufacturer's derriere should some lawyer-happy numbskull decide to bathe in the product. A case in point from Fisher Scientific: CAUTION: May be harmful if inhaled. May cause irritation. Inhalation may produce irritation, coughing and acute pneumoconiosis from overwhelming exposure to dust. May cause a rapidly-developing pulmonary insufficiency, labored breathing, tachypnea and cyanosis followed by cor pulmonale and a short survival time. More frequently, after 10-25 years exposure, labored breathing, dry cough, chest pain, decreased vital capacity and diminished chest expansion may occur and progress to marked fatigue, extreme labored breathing and cyanosis, anorexia, cough with stringy mucous, pleuratic pain and incapacity to work. Death may result from cardiac failure or destruction of lung tissue with resulting anoxia. Has caused tumorigenic effects in laboratory animals. Skin contact may cause irritation and dermatitis. Eye contact may cause redness, irritation, and conjunctivitis. TARGET ORGANS AFFECTED: Eyes, skin, and mucous membranes. Provide local exhaust ventilation and/or general dilution ventilation to meet published limits. FIRST AID -- INHALATION. Remove from exposure area to fresh air immediately. If breathing has stopped, perform artificial respiration. Keep person warm and at rest. Get medical attention immediately. SKIN: Remove contaminated clothing and shoes immediately. Wash affected area with soap or mile detergent and large amounts of water (approximately 15-20 minutes). Get medical attention. EYES: Wash eyes immediately with large amounts of water, occasionally lifting upper and lower lids (approximately 15-20 minutes). Get medical attention. Yes indeed, all of this fits right on the bottle. And just what is this hazardous product? "SEA SAND, washed" God help me, I'll never go to the beach again! ---------------------------------------------------- Q How many alchemists does it take to change a light bulb? A Into what? Q How many radio astronomers does it take to change a light bulb. A None. They are not interested in that short wave stuff. Q How many doctor's does it take to change a light bulb? A1 None. They just tell it to take two asprin and come round to the surgery later. A2 None. They only sign the death certificate and phone the mortuary. A3 None. They would diagnose depression and prescribe benzo diazapines. Q How many scientists does it take to change a light bulb? A None. They use them as controls in double blind trials. Q How many surgeons does it take to change a light bulb? A None. They would wait for a suitable doner and do a filament transplant. Q How many undertakers does it take to change a light bulb? A None. They just paint them black and go on using them. Q: How many talk show hosts does it take to change a light bulb? A: Three, one to screw in the new bulb, One to ask the old one how it feels to be replaced, and one to take questions from the audience. Q: How many Communistss does it take to change a light bulb? A: One, but it takes him about 30 years to realize that the old one has burnt out. Q: How many accountants does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: None. Just assume it's changed. Q: How many Lisp programmers does it take to change a light bulb? A: Hmmm, I'm not sure, better find out.... A: Hmmm, I'm not sure, better find out.... ---------------------------------------------------- Famous sayings for a better life: The greatness of a man can nearly always be measured by his willingness to be kind. G. Young If a child lives with approval, he learns to like himself. Dorothy Law Nolte Love cures people--both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it. Dr. Karl Menninger Enthusiasm is the greatest asset in the world. It beats money and power and influence. Henry Chester Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing. Albert Schweitzer For peace of mind, resign as general manager of the universe. Larry Eisenberg No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. Eleanor Roosevelt Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go on. Andrew Jackson A dog is a dog except when he is facing you. Then he is Mr. Dog. Haitian Farmer Common sense is instinct. Enough of it is genius. George Bernard Shaw I use not only all the brains I have, but all I can borrow. Woodrow Wilson Be Yourself. Who else is better qualified? Frank J. Giblin II Isn't it strange? The same people who laugh at gypsy fortunetellers take economists seriously. Cincinnati Enquirer Be happy. It is a way of being wise. Colette Don't be so humble, you're not that great. Golda Meir If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments. Earl Wilson ---------------------------------------------------- (Extracted from TELECOM Digest V10 #5) Isn't technology wonderful? -- Phone Spots Inc. (Weston, MO) has received a patent for a device that places recorded messages in the four second interval between rings of a telephone. The company is in the early stages of developing one application, called Freephone Service, for its invention. The Freephone concept involves distinctively marked, coinless public telephones that allow anyone to make free three-minute local calls. Callers will hear short advertising messages between rings while waiting for the phone to be answered. When the called party picks up their receiver, the messages stop. Sites for the phones include airports, hotels and convention centers. Currently there are over 48,000 public pay phones in these areas. Phone Spots expects advertising revenues to support the service. *start* 12693 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 8 Jan 90 12:58:17 PST (Monday) Subject: Life 5.S From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- Steven Wright: "I was walking down the street the other day, when all of a sudden the prescription on my eyeglasses ran out!" Is my car the only one in America where someone breaks in and turns up my radio every time I park? I just got out of the hospital. I was speed reading, and I hit a book mark. Power outage at a department store yesterday, Twenty people were trapped on the escalators. I went to the museum where they had all the heads and arms from the statues that are in all the other museums. I like to skate on the other side of the ice ... I like to reminisce with people I don't know ... I like to fill my tub up with water, then turn the shower on and act like I'm in a submarine that's been hit ... And when I get real bored, I like to drive downtown and get a great parking spot, then sit in my car and count how many people ask me if I'm leaving. When I was crossing the border into Canada, they asked if I had any firearms with me. I said, `Well, what do you need?' I saw a sign "Rest Area 25 Miles". That's pretty big. Some people must be really tired. I like to go to art museums and name the untitled paintings... Boy With Pail... Kitten On Fire. I bought my brother some gift-wrap for Christmas. I took and to the Gift Wrap department and told them to wrap it, but in a different print so he would know when to stop unwrapping. I was going to tape some records onto a cassette, but I got the wires backwards. I erased the all of the records. When I returned them to my friend, he said, "Hey, these records are all blank." I filled out an apllication that said "In Case Of Emergency Notify:". I wrote "Doctor"... What's my mother going to do? Its a good thing we have gravity, or else when birds die they would stay up there...Confuse the hunters. I broke my arm trying to fold a bed... It wasn't the kind that folds. When buying clothes, I wear an extra medium. I saw a bank that said "24 Hour Banking", but I don't have that much time. When I have a kid, I want to buy a twin-stroller and put him in one side, and then walk around like this (frantically looking around while pretending to push stroller)..."You had a brother, but he was bad." I bought a self learning record to learn spanish, I turned it on and went to sleep, the record got stuck, the next day I could only studder in spanish. I went to the eye doctor and found out I needed glasses for reading. So, I got some flip-up contact lenses. I got a new shadow. I had to get rid of the other one -- it wasn't doing what I was doing. The other day when I was walking through the woods, I saw a rabbit standing in front of a candle making shadows of people on a tree. ---------------------------------------------------- These aren't Steve Wright jokes, but they might have been: i xeroxed a mirror. now i have an extra xerox machine. the sky is falling ... no, i'm tipping over backwards. yesterday i saw a chicken crossing the road. i asked it why. it told me it was none of my business. i rented a lottery ticket. i won a million dollars. but i had to give it back. i took a course in speed reading. then i got reader's digest on microfilm. by the time i got the machine set up i was done. last week i forgot how to ride a bicycle. i took lessons in bicycle riding. but i could only afford half of them. now i can ride a unicycle. i saw a want ad. "light housekeeping." they said "here, change this bulb." i said "i'll need some friends." i went to san francisco. i found someone's heart. i saw a vegetarian wearing a furry coat. so i looked closer. it was made of grass. if you tell a joke in the forest, but nobody laughs, was it a joke? the bermuda triangle got tired of warm weather. it moved to alaska. now santa claus is missing. a beautiful woman moved in next door. so i went over and returned a cup of sugar. "you didn't borrow this." "i will." the sun got confused about daylight savings. it rose twice. everything had two shadows. ---------------------------------------------------- The means determine the ends ---------------------------------------------------- If you can't change your mind, are you sure you have one? ---------------------------------------------------- Roy Ogus reports that a ski-equipment store in the financial district was held up and robbed this morning by two men wearing teller's masks! ---------------------------------------------------- Anyone who isn't confused here dosn't really know what's going on ---------------------------------------------------- "Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted." -Fred Allen ---------------------------------------------------- If you have memorized the Unix "find" command and all its options, you probably aren't getting enough fresh air and sunlight. ---------------------------------------------------- Why does it take 18 (fill in the blank) people to go to a movie? 17 and under not admitted. ---------------------------------------------------- cute license plate: BLUEDNA How about "blue jeans (genes)"? ---------------------------------------------------- You've probably seen several variations of the "smiley" in electronic messages (these tend to look better in a fixed pitch font) ... :-) :-> ;-) :-( etc. In today's mail I spotted one appropriate for the holiday season ... o<|:-}}}} ---------------------------------------------------- Q: What do you get when you cross a Mormon Missionary with a Unitarian? A: Someone knocking on your door for no apparent reason. ---------------------------------------------------- In the new film "Back to the Future Part 2," Micheal J. Fox goes so far ahead in the future that he actually sees Jim Bakker get out of jail. ---------------------------------------------------- From the 'Cape Codder' Orleans, Mass. advertisement: BIRD WATCHER'S GENERAL STORE "Cape Cod's Shop for Bird Lovers" BIRD BATH HEATER - Automatic built-in thermometer - Keeps bird bath ice free - Water attracts more birds than food - Three year guarantee - $36.95 --------------- (The photo of it looks like an oversize immersion heater, like you use in your coffee cup.) ---------------- Well, it seemed humorous to me, when it's 80 deg. outside, and I wonder why the birds don't fly south for the winter? What's next? A Sauna? ---------------------------------------------------- Try this sometime too: When they ask you your name, say "C. Ash" and you live on 1 Dollar Drive. Or, You are "Bond. James Bond." And you live on "Double Oh, Seventh Street." I, being a Star Trek fan, often do something like this: SALESMAN: (Pen in hand) And your name sir? ME: James - T. - Kirk. -> IF THEY FIGURE IT OUT AT THIS POINT, THE SALES SLIP EITHER GETS TRASHED OR COMPLETED 'FOR THE HELL OF IT'. IF NOT... SALESMAN: Address? ME: 1701 Enterprise Way. -> IF THEY *STILL* HAVEN'T FIGURED THINGS OUT, YOU'VE GOT A REAL LOSER ON YOUR HANDS AND EXTREME CAUTION SHOULD BE OBSERVED. ---------------------------------------------------- My father is a carpenter. One day the foreman took him aside and said, "Andy, on this job, we use only the best wood. See that pile of wood over there? I want you to sort it out. Put the best in a pile over here, and put the rest in a pile over there." So he sorted the wood into two piles. The workmen started building the fence, but there wasn't enough wood. So the foreman took my dad aside again and said, "Andy, on this job, we use only the best wood. See that pile of wood over there?" Pointing to the discards from the first round! "I want you to separate that wood into two piles. Put the best in a pile over here, and put the rest in a pile over there." So my father dutifully obeyed. The workmen continued building, but ran out again! Etc. So there is now a fence in Monterey that looks really good on one end, and really bad on the other. And on that job, they only used the best wood. ---------------------------------------------------- I heard this from my mother--I don't know where she heard it. A tourist is visiting New York City when his car breaks down. He jumps out and starts fiddling under the hood. About five minutes later, he hears some thumping sounds and looks around to see someone taking stuff out of his trunk! He runs around and yells, "Hey, bud, this is my car!" "OK," the man says, "You take the front and I'll take the back." ---------------------------------------------------- A boy was assigned a paper on childbirth and asked his parents "how was I born?" "Well honey.." said the slightly prudish parent "the stork brought you to us" "OH" said the boy. "Well, how did you and daddy get born?" he asked. "Oh, the stork brought us too". "Well how were grandpa and grandma born?" he persisted . "Well darling, the stork brought them too!" said the parent by now starting to squirm a little in the Lazy Boy recliner. Several days later, the boy handed in his paper to the teacher who read with confusion the opening sentence: "This report has been very difficult to write due to the fact that there hasn't been a natural childbirth in my family for three generations." ---------------------------------------------------- A recent trip to Hawaii taught Dave Barry the following important language lesson: "Aloha" is an all-purpose phrase meaning "hello", "good-bye", "I love you" and "I wish to decline the collision damage waiver." ---------------------------------------------------- A "True Item" from Dave Barry's 1989 in Review (i.e., he's not making this up!) September 20: In the Zsa Zsa Gabor Endless Media-Intensive Trial From Hell, the defendant tells the court that when officer Paul Kramer approached her, she could see a "look of pure hatred" in his eyes. Reminded that Kramer was wearing sunglasses, Miss Gabor explains: "The look of pure hatred was in his VOICE." November 3: The Federal Aviation Administration OKs smoking on flights where two or more engines have failed. December 21: A grim-faced U.S. Surgeon General announces that "tofu" turns out to be Japanese for "whale snot." ---------------------------------------------------- Did you hear about the Siamese twins who moved to England? The other one wanted to drive. ---------------------------------------------------- Q: What's a computer? A: An accountant with a personality. ---------------------------------------------------- In a completely unexpected move today, Charles Babbage, creator of the "Babbage Numerator", widely recognized to be the prototypical computer, announced that he and his heirs will be suing all makers of computer equipment, computer peripherals, computer-driven equipment (cars, microwave ovens, etc.) for royalty fees retroactive to December 1, 1880. The basis for the suit is quoted: "All computers ever produced since mine are unlicensed derivative works, and they infringe upon my copyright of presentation appearance which I placed on the Numerator." In a related news item, Ada Lovelace, Babbage's live-in girlfriend, is filing a suit against all programmers, claiming that they have unlawfully profited from her work. ---------------------------------------------------- I was doing a college computer science assignment on the Concordia University (Montreal) Cyber 625 (I think that's the number). I had finished my program, and sent the job to be printed. The other line printers were down, only one was operating. I got to the printer and saw on the queue screen that my job would be the next to be printed. The printer was busily spewing out paper, while a slightly smug looking student stood watching it. I looked at the output, and tried to imply, subtly, that there might be a problem with his program. "Boy, your program sure is producing a lot of output!" (Smiles proudly) "Yeah." "Must have taken you a long time to write a program like that." (Superior look) "Oh, not too long, a couple of hours." "You realize, of course, that it's just one line repeated over and over again, don't you?" (Me, abandoning subtlety). "Oh. ****, what do I do now?" I had to explain to him that the only way to kill a job on those printers was to bang on the window of the POD room and get them to kill it. They never seem to happy to do it. *start* 16004 00071 UU @00045 01536 ftffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff @Sender: Henry Cate III:OSBU North:Xerox Date: 23 Jan 90 10:31:41 PST (Tuesday) Subject: Life 5.T From: Cate3 To: Cate3 ---------------------------------------------------- Assuming they catch Noriega and bring him back for a conviction on the drug charges, I have the perfect community-service job for him: Opening mail for Federal judges. ---------------------------------------------------- Heard on the radio this morning : It all started when Bush anounced a million dollar award for Noriega. Now the Columbian Cartel has offered thirty million for Bush. Rumour has it that the price for Quayle has gone up to a dollar ninety five. ---------------------------------------------------- Q: Why did Noriega have to leave the Vatican Embassy? A: He ran out of money playing bingo. ---------------------------------------------------- Who's the most confused person in the world today? The Romanian ambassador to Panama. ---------------------------------------------------- The current record breaking cold snap and invasion of Panama have started a new series of Volunteer Army Ads: Scene 1: Shot of Anytown USA city streets enveloped in a Blizzard of snow with hooded figures slipping and slipping between crawling traffic. Narrator: "Why put up with this ?" Scene 2: Shot of Central Panama airport with t-shirt and bathing suit clad Panamanian people welcoming an incoming army air-transport full of troops (troops are being given Hawaiian leis etc.) Narrator: "Sign up now and you can spend Christmas in Panama. This beautiful canal zone has 80 degree temperatures, friendly people, and great scenes." Woman's soft Voice: "We'll fly you down in a luxurious wide body jet. Upon landing you'll be given food for two weeks, a flak jacket, mosquito repellent, sun-screen and five grenades." Woman's dreamy Voice: "Yes - you may even win the 1 Million dollar grand prize - just find Noriega and turn him in. Not only will you receive the $1,000,000 bounty, you'll be able to sell the T.V., movie and book rights to your story as well as collect $25,000 speaker fees." Narrator: "Sign up now! This may be a limited time offer. Certain restrictions and risks apply." ---------------------------------------------------- Heard on a local radio program...... And coming up in the news, further reports from West Germany on the historic meeting between the Mayors of West and East Berlin at a new gate in the wall, near the Brandenburg Gate. The meeting began with the two officials exchanging greetings, and then, as a gesture of good will, the Mayor of East Germany handed over the 650,000 tennis balls that they had accumulated over the last 28 years. ---------------------------------------------------- (True story) A recently emigrated Romanian was lost, and called his American host from a phone booth. The host asked him, "Where are you?" The lost man replied, "I don't know." The host told him, "Well, find a street sign." The lost Romanian left the phone booth briefly, found a sign, returned and said, "Una Vye street." (This is how you would pronounce "One Way" in Romanian.) ---------------------------------------------------- >According to "All Things Considered" last night, Visa International >will be issuing Visa debit cards in Czechslovakia and Lithuania. >Regular credit cards will be considered in the future. > >Question: What does the well dressed East European Yuppie carry? > >Answer: The Visa Red Card, of course! Well, it's about time, considering all the trouble they've had caching Czechs over there since around 1968. ---------------------------------------------------- From "Dear Abby" newspaper column- Dear Abby: I have always wanted to have my family history traced, but I can't afford to spend a lot of money to do it. Any suggestions? -Sam in Califoria Dear Sam: Yes. Run for public office. ---------------------------------------------------- Q: How many Bureaucrates does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: Two. One to tell you that all that can be is done is being done; and one to screw it into the water faucet. ---------------------------------------------------- How about: difference between a liberal democrat and a communist is the only difference between a liberal democrat and a communist is that the comunist knows what she is doing ---------------------------------------------------- Difference between a Conservative & a Liberal: A Liberal is a Conservative who has just been arrested. A Conservative is a Liberal who has just been mugged. ---------------------------------------------------- New simplified tax form: -------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | U.S Income Tax Calculation and Remittance Form Taxation Year | | (Simplified) Form #1990-1a 1989 | | | |--------------------------------------------------------------------------| | | | | | | | How much money did you make? | $_______.___ | | | | | | | |--------------------------------------------------------------------------| | | | | | | | Send it in! | $_______.___ | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------- from The New Yorker, Jan. 15, 1990 CLEAR DAYS ON THE I.R.S. SCENE [From Publication 590, Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs)] If your life expectancy or that of your spouse, is refigured annually and either of you dies, the remaining life expectancy of the one who died is reduced to zero in the year after death. ---------------------------------------------------- (From "News of the Weird") Kalvin Chambers, released from Arlington (Va.) County Jail at 12:03 p.m. on Oct. 24, allegedly tried to steal a woman's purse on the street outside the jail at 12:17 and was back behind bars by 12:40. ---------------------------------------------------- (From "News of the Weird") Baltimore police arrested Thomas Waddell, 25, in October for stealing 30 homing pigeons, valued at several hundred dollars, from a neighbor. An officer had found him walking oddly down the street because 21 of the pigeons were stuffed in his clothes. The office said, "He looked like the Michelin tire ad." ---------------------------------------------------- I say one that was posted a few years ago near our legislative building in Winnipeg. It looked something like this: +------------------+ | | | ???????? | | ?????????? | | ??? ??? | | ??? | | ??? | | ??? | | ??? | | ??? | | | | ??? | | ??? | | | | >> | | >>> | | >>>>>>>>>>>>> | | >>> | | >> | | | +------------------+ To this day, I'm still not sure I want to make that right turn...After all, even the provincial government doesn't know. ---------------------------------------------------- I like the photo of the octagonal STOP sign with, just beneath it, a "No Stopping Any Time". ---------------------------------------------------- > I saw a sign by the St. Louis Arch that said > NO PARKING BEYOND THIS POINT > The funny part about it was it was it was out in about 3ft. of water > I don't know about you but I really don't need a sign to tell me > not to park out beyond three ft. of water. And this was even a > time that the water was down at its 20yr lowest Ah, but St. Louis is a pretty old city, and that Mississippi, she moves around a bit. I grew up in St. Louis and it occurs to me that downtown starts around 5th street because 1st-4th are under water! ---------------------------------------------------- Dave Barry's Proposals to Eliminate the Budget Deficit: (These are winners of a recent contest Dave Barry held, seeking creative ways to eliminate the budget deficit.) Convert the federal budget deficit to electrical voltage - the bigger the deficit, the higher the voltage - and then run the current through our congresspersons. A $10 million Roman Numeral tax on movies! For example "Rambo IV" would cost Stallone $40 million. I'm not sure whether reducing the number of movie sequels would be a side benefit or the main benefit. The U.S. government should sell its secrets directly to the Russians and cut out the middlemen. ---------------------------------------------------- From Telecom Digest V10 #12: ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 4 Jan 90 0:31:10 CST From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: A Bad Time to Fall Asleep There were simpler times in the history of telephony, and simpler problems to deal with. During the several years I lived in the Hyde Park neighorhood on the south side of Chicago during the 1960's, my favorite neighbor was Lauri Fermi, widow of Enrico Fermi, known for his work on the Atomic Bomb. Mrs. Fermi and I lived in the same apartment building on East 56th Street, directly across the street from the Museum of Science and Industry, and we chatted and dined together frequently. In the fall of 1965, on the occassion of the twentieth anniversary of the completion and first testing of the bomb, Mrs. Fermi told a fascinating story of that summer day, twenty years earlier. Her comments were tape-recorded, and are transcribed below: "The testing was of course kept closely under wraps, you know, the government was awfully sensitive about it. All the papers were giving reports that a monster-like weapon was in the final testing stages, but some of the newspaper accounts were ridiculous. Enrico was given his orders only two days earlier as to exactly where we were to be stationed in the test zone area. Even the local people in New Mexico were told as little as possible; I think the governor and some state officials were told, and sworn to secrecy. "In Alamogordo, we checked into the hotel then drove out to where Enrico had been assigned. It was set up that the scientists were deployed over about a two hundred square mile area; we were about fifteen miles from the target. "The test was set for 4:30 AM the next morning, so we returned to the hotel and went to bed early. We got up at 3 the next morning and drove out to the location, since it took about an hour to set up the test gear Enrico would use....I suppose it was about 4:15, when a fierce rain storm developed. It lasted only five or ten minutes, but was quite a downpour, and Enrico remarked he hoped nothing would go wrong with the test because of it. "Well, the time came and went, everything was quiet, no bomb, nothing. About 4:45, Enrico decided we had better return to town and see what was what, and we drove back. He wanted to make a phone call and see if the test had been cancelled or not, and the only place open in town at that time of night was the hotel where we had stayed. There was a payphone in the lobby, and Enrico went in the booth, but he didn't get anywhere. I heard him flashing the hook and swearing softly, then he came out and said he could not get the operator. (Alamogordo had manual service at that time, just a small switchboard.) "We got in the car, and Enrico had me drive while he leaned out the window and kept looking overhead at the phone wires. He'd have me turn down one street, then turn back up another street, and finally he said pull the car over and stop. "Where we stopped was in front of a house on one of the residential streets there, but what looked odd to me was on the side of the house, there were hundreds of wires converging, coming in from a dozen telephone poles which all seemed to meet in the back yard or on the side of the house. And all these wires came down out of the sky you might say, and went in the side of the house in a big bundle. "The front porch light was burning, and when we went up on the front porch, the front door was open, but the screen door was latched from the inside. A radio was playing music very softly, and the room was rather dim with just a single light burning. A switchboard sat on one side of the room, and the signal lights on it were flashing off and on like Christmas tree lights. Over by the other corner was a sofa, and a woman was laying on the sofa, obviously sound asleep. This was right about five o'clock, I guess, or a few minutes after. "Enrico banged on the screen door a few times, then kicked it once or twice with his foot. All of a sudden, the lady woke up; she looked over at us very startled, standing at the door; she looked over at the switchboard; looked back at us; jumped up and rushed over to the board and sat down, pausing long enough to light a cigarette and she started frantically answering all the flashing signals. "We got back in the car, and drove out to where we had been before. We were there about five minutes, and the test was conducted. Everything the poets have said about the brilliance and beauty of that first explosion was true.... later, we got together with the others who had been assigned there and found out that it wasn't the rain that delayed things; it was that woman asleep; you see, the main people responsible were linked by phones through Alamogordo; they had to coordinate what they were doing and sychronize their work. All of them got the same thing on the phone we got: no answer from the operator for 45 minutes! "Really, I can't blame the lady much. The whole summer of 1945 was just horrid. When we arrived the day before, the temperature was over a hundred; the poor lady probably couldn't sleep at all that day from the heat, and still had to go to work that night exhausted. Then the rain cooled things off twenty degrees in fifteen minutes; that sofa was just too tempting for her; and probably every other night she only got two or three calls in the whole eight hour shift.... "No one ever said anything to her or the woman who owned the phone exchange there, so I suspect to this day, twenty years later, she doesn't realize she was responsible for causing the first atomic bomb explosion in the world to be delayed for a little over an hour....but as I think back now, probably someone should have told her ahead of time about that very special morning, and sworn her to secrecy until the test was completed. "When I was there in town two weeks ago for the (twentieth anniversary) reunion, just from curiosity I went past that house; it took me awhile to remember where it was. No wires anywhere like before; and I asked someone there if the phone exchange was there. He told me the 'telephone lady' had been gone for years; Bell or someone had bought it and moved it to a building in the downtown area." ===================== End of Transcription ======================= And that was Laura Fermi talking about the summer of '45 in the desert of New Mexico, in the fall of '65 at a dinner.