Date: 1 May 90
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"Football combines the two worst features of American life.
It is violence punctuated by committee meetings."
- /Men At Work: The Craft of Baseball/
by George F. Will,
quoted in the April 1 /New York Times Book Review/
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Use your Turn Signals: if I were psychic, I'd have known
not to be on the road with you in the first place.
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]"Heroine" is perhaps as peculiar a word as any in our language; the two
]first letters of it are a male, the three first a female, the four first
]a brave man, and the whole word a brave woman.
...and the first 6 letters of it are the downfall of all of the others =8^)
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The new ensign was standing his first night watch on the bridge of a
destroyer. Far out on the horizon the USS New Jersey was conducting a
night gunnery exercise. The ensign, seeing the flashes of light from
the battleship, ran excitedly up to the signal bridge and pointed out
the "Morse code" coming from the other ship.
Ensign: "What are they saying? What are they saying?"
Signalman: "Boom. Boom."
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Steven Wright on Brothers and Sisters:
"I have 2 brothers and 1 sister. My sister has 3 brothers and NO sisters."
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Q. How do lawyers practice birth control ?
A. Their personalties !
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Remember the original ST episode where Kirk finds his brother Sam dead,
just killed by these alien blobs, and is consoling his sister-in-law?
Well, just before that discovery, Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the landing
party are running around a modern-looking complex of buildings, with
several scenes filmed among those buildings, their steps, the courtyard, etc.
Well, the question is this: Those scenes were filmed a quarter mile down
the street from [what?]
ANSWER: Xerox El Segundo !
Namely, the original cluster of Xerox buildings, fronted on Aviation Blvd.
by A&E and M1.
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And famous last words: There's one from a Union general in
the civil war that may be appropriate for the #1 or #2 slot:
"Ha! They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist..."
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Tim O'Cartny took his car to the mechanic, who told him he needed a new
muffler. Tim went straight home and asked his wife to knit him one.
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"Ahhhh, Sean," said Micheal McStain, "how'd ye be comin' by that
glorious black eye, me lad?"
Sean O'Malley shook his head and replied, "'Tis the damndest thing. I
was over at Molly's house, dancin' with the lovely lass, when her father
walked in."
"An' old Master Callahan is thinkin' that dancin' is an evil thing,
cured by a black eye, is that it?"
"Na, na, Micheal. The old man's deaf, an' couldn't hear th' music."
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A friend of mine just recently pulled this trick on his 15 year old:
1) Son went to bed (Sun Apr 1st) at 9:30 (school night and all ...)
2) At 11:00pm Father resets clocks to 6:00am,
2a) Father wakes Son as usual, tells him it's time to get up.
3) Son says that it's still dark...
4) Father says that Son helped reset all the clocks for Daylight-savings
time.
5) Son grumbles, then proceeds to shower.
6) Durring Son's shower, Father resets clocks to correct time and turns
out all the lights and retires to bed.
7) Yup, you guessed it ... Son finally figures out he's been had.
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An old man and his wife were driving down the road. The man was
sitting on the left, where the driver usually sits, and his wife
was sitting on the right, where the passenger customarily sits.
As they drove along, the wife started reminiscing, saying, "You
know, we don't sit close together any more, the way we did when
we were young. We never cuddle up these days."
The man turns to her, sniffs, and says, "I ain't moved."
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]From the April 9, 1990, London (Ontario, Canada) Free Press:
A suspect in Friday's armed robbery of a CIBC bank branch in
London was still free late Sunday after bluffing his way out
of the city police holding cells, posing as someone being
held on a drunk charge. Meanwhile, a man who was held hostage
and whose car was used as a getaway vehicle [for the robbery]
was stuck with a $50 towing charge after police hauled it away
to check for evidence.
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Attendants at a service station in Eunice, Louisiana, handed more
than
$100 to a naked man who claimed to have a gun in his pocket.
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Thought this would appeal to the Canadians out there
A survey was just done regarding the Meech Lake Accord
50% of the people asked said they were opposed to it
30% of the people asked said they were for it and the rest said they prefered
the Toyota Tercel
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I once had a stupidvisor (he was *really* a jerk) that actually got ticked
whenever I got a permission on the IBM mainframe that he didn't already have
(sounds childish, doesn't it). Anyway, I decided that I was going to really
give it to him so I spent about three weeks (of my own time) and wrote a few
"simulations". I used the screen formats of the real s/w used to switch from
system to system, and added several of my own. I think I added outside links
to UCSD's systems, and so on. When I 'logged' onto these systems, I could
send messages to other systems, get directory listings and all the usual
stuff. When everything was ready, I brought up my selection screen and once
he finally saw it and asked me about it, I gave him a tour of all the systems
I got access to. This guy got sooo mad he turned red!! After he stomped out
of the room and was about to go up to the computer security department, I
couldn't hold it any longer and started busting up. Once he finally realized
that he'd been had, he settled down but I don't think he was ever the same!
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]From: cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
The current issue of Newsweek has a cover story about Prozac, a
new antidepressant. The article itself is nearly a puff piece for
the drug. It does mention that a small percentage of those taking
it can become aggressive or suicidal. It doesn't mention that
Wesbecher, the man who killed several people in Kentucky last year,
was taking Prozac, and the coroner's inquest decided that Prozac
was a significant factor in Wesbecher's actions.
Do you suppose that Newsweek is that anxious for more "if it
bleeds, it leads" stories? Yellow journalism is alive and well
at Newsweek and Time.
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"Kitty Video" idea landed on its feet
("There are 56 million cats in America and no videos for them.")
(Author: Diana White, a Boston Globe columnist, appearing in the San Jose News)
I had doubts about "Kitty Video," the first entertainment video strictly
for cats. It had to be a joke.
And if it wasn't a joke, did Killer really need a high-tech cat toy?
The tape was on sale at Killer's veterinarian's, whose staff could have
taught the ancient Egyptians a thing or two about cat worship. The
receptionist was enthusiastic about "Kitty Video." Cats love it, she said.
Video catnip, she said. I handed over $20 and brought it home.
The tape came with instructions: "How to Teach Your Cat to Watch TV."
Is this necessary, I wondered? Killer watches TV all the time.
"Most cats are not accustomed to watching television and will need some
assistance to learn this human skill," the instructions began.
"First, make sure your cat will not be distracted when watching the video.
Loud music, too many people in the room, and other animals can be disrupting
and can cause a lack of concentration on the cat's part."
I ordered my husband out of the room.
There was a warning among the instructions. "Caution: Do not leave your
cat alone while the video is playing. If the cat should leap at the screen
it could cause damage both to furnishings and to the cat."
Following the instructions, I placed Killer on my lap and started the
tape. Birds appeared, cheeping, twittering, fluttering, eating worms.
They were small birds - sparrows, larks - but they looked huge on the TV
screen, the size of 12-pound turkeys. That didn't faze Killer at all.
He was fascinated. He jumped out of my lap and sat transfixed in front
of the television for a full 20 minutes until, ignoring instructions, I
left him alone and went into the kitchen. Killer followed. He has his
priorities.
So, while "Kitty Video" may be a joke in one sense, it's a joke that works.
It amuses cats. Whose idea was it? Who would think of such a thing? I
called Lazy Cat Productions, in Stillwater, Okla., and spoke with the
producer, Jane Talkington.
She said, modestly, that she couldn't take credit for "Kitty Video" concept.
It was her cat's idea. Of course. Kitty, her cat, loves to watch wildlife
specials, but loses interest when the background music and voice-overs are
intrusive. Talkington made the rounds of local video stores asking if they
had any wildlife tapes aimed at cats. "They looked at me like I was crazy,"
she said.
So she decided to produce one. "I thought: There are 56 million cats in
America and no videos for them," said Talkington, who was a marketing major
at Oklahoma State when "Kitty Video" began to take shape. "Here was a
market waiting to be tapped."
She hired a wildlife photographer who videotaped hours of bird action in a
local sanctuary. Then they tested the tapes on cates. "They responded best
to small, quick birds, a lot of movement," Talkington said. "And they
seemed to like it best when the birds' backs were turned."
Talkington marketed the tape through cat magazines, veterinarians' offices,
pet stores and catalogs. Last Christmas it was one of the hottest selling
items in the Nieman-Marcus catalog, she said.
The financial return on "Kitty Video" has been "fabulous," Talkington said,
although she wouldn't say how fabulous. It hasn't been fabulous enough to
enable her to quit her job demonstrating computers. But she's made enough
to invest in a sequel, "Kitty Video II," a bird, mouse and maybe even
fish-filled extravaganza coming soon to a pet store or veterinarian's
office near you.
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Jerry298@austin.relay.ucm.org swears this really happened to him...
OK. Here goes. I was 17, and had mentioned to my father that I was thinking
of buying a rubber boat for use as a scuba platform. My father managed to
get me one from the F.A.A where he worked. (Dont ask, I never did).
What he brought me was one of those Air Force survival rafts that they issue
to bomber crews with up to 10 men. I could'nt wait to test it, so I called
Jason, and told him to come on over. I took the back seat out of my VW bug,
and laid the seat back down. This makes a VW bug kind of like a hatch back
without the hatch. Jason got over to my place, just as our girlfriends showed
up. They had come over to see if we wanted to go swimming. I crammed the
raft, and both girls in the back of the VW (it was really tight), and Jason
in the passenger seat up front, and took off. I got onto IH35 in Oklahoma
City to head for one of the area lakes. The windows were down and the hot
August wind was roaring through the car like a minor hurricane. My girlfrind
started complaing about the wind, and a little red tag that kept getting
tangled in her hair. I told her not to mess with the tag, but she got mad and
gave it a good hard yank, intending to throw it out the window. Can you guess
what that little red tag was for? Yep, that damned raft started to inflate
right there in the VW! It takes about 15 seconds for one of those things to
inflate, and for the first 5 seconds or so I was frozen with something of a
mixture fear, amazement, and a sense of this really cant be happening!
In the 6th second the raft started pushing my head down against the steering
wheel hard enough that I couldnt really see where I was going, and started
pushing the windows that were'nt down out of their frames, and onto the road.
By the time I got my wits back, the raft was fully inflated.
I managed to push my head up enough to see where I was going, and hopefully
avoid creaming anyone else on the road. By this time the real chaos had
started. The girls were screaming their fool heads off, Jason was laughing
like an idiot, and the Oklahoma Highway Patrolman that had been follwing me
when all this started had turned on his siren. I finally got the car to the
center median, and stopped. I got hold of the door handle to open the door
and pulled. The door shot open, and the raft exploded out of the car pushing
me ahead of it. When I got to my feet, the first thing I saw was the OHP cop
laughing so hard he had tears running down his cheeks, and having a hard time
breathing. I managed to get the deflate mechanism activated, and the raft
started to deflate. By this time the cop was breathing again, and somewhat
coherant. He came over and told me that was the funniest thing he had ever
seen. I asked if I was going to get a ticket? He said no, he just wanted to
make sure no'one got hurt. We folded the raft as best we could, and went back
to my place. The real fun was trying to convince my insurance company that
all that glass damage really was because a life raft had inflated inside the
car. They did payoff, but only after the insurance adjuster had talked to the
OHP cop. I can look back on this now and laugh. But for about 5 years after
that happened, anytime someone (Jason usually) mentioned it, all I could do
was turn red in the face.
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IMMODEST PROPOSAL #1: DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME REFORM
Richard S. Holmes RICH@suhep.phy.syr.edu
It happens every spring: crocuses, baseball (with any luck), and the switch to
Daylight Savings Time (DST).
Coming off DST is not hard. In the Fall, we set our clocks back one hour. We
all get an extra hour to sleep, and those who forget find themselves at church,
or the airport, or wherever an hour early. Embarassing, but not catastrophic.
But in the Spring we set the clocks forward, and the trouble begins. We lose
an hour of sleep. Forgetful people miss Mass, planes, breakfast, and the big
game on TV. Some are thrown into disarray for up to a full week. Annual
losses due to DST confusion have been estimated (by me) at over a million
dollars. I myself have missed a flight to Washington and a showing of The
Seven Samurai because of DST.
There is no need for such tragic waste. We can -- we should and must -- urge
our lawmakers to reform Daylight Savings Time as follows:
Setting clocks back is easy; setting them forward is difficult. Therefore, let
us keep the fall ritual as it is. However, one Sunday each Spring, let us set
our clocks not one hour forward, but TWENTY-THREE HOURS BACKWARD.
Think of all the advantages. We will not lose an hour of sleep; we will gain
(almost) a day of rest. It will be Saturday all over again. You will never
again miss Confession, or an airplane, or the Redskins game.
Naturally, if this were the whole plan, our calendars would fall behind one day
in each year. However, the second part of the Revised DST Plan deals with
this. Every four years, instead of adding a day, let us SUBTRACT THREE DAYS.
Furthermore, let these be Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, which according to
recent polls are the least popular days.
If done in February, which seems reasonable considering what a miserable month
it is, this would have the beneficial side effect of shortening the
excruciating presidential primary season by an effective four days.
The advantages of this plan are clear. Let us waste no time. With a determined
effort we can have Reformed Daylight Savings Time by Spring of next year.
Write your congressperson today!
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