Date: 23 Jun 90 15:42:14 PDT (Saturday)
Subject: Life 6.F
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I have a sign that should be in every retail store...
Prices subject to change according to customers attitude
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There is a Martin Mull joke about finding a wonderful book
tittled "GIRL to GRAB", and then discovering it was volume 6 of the
encyclopedia.
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Dave Ten Eyck of Anniston, Ala., was injured recently after he attempted
to replace a tubelike fuse in his Chevy pickup with a .22-caliber rifle
bullet (used because it was a perfect fit). However, when electricity
heated the bullet, it went off and shot Ten Eyck in the knee.
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Charles Erickson, 65, won $95,000 in a La Crosse, Wis., trial in March
because a 6-inch clamp was left inside his body after a lung operation.
Erickson said he had not planned to sue, but then Lutheran Hospital sent
him a bill for the subsequent operation, which was soley to remove the clamp.
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I heard that Edward (father of the H-bomb) Teller volunteered to go on
national television and eat as much plutonium as Ralph Nader will eat
pure caffiene.
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Using the resources of the wholly fictional Galloping Poll Service,
"Computer Systems News" has come up with a list of useless pieces of data:
1. 56.7 percent of all high-technology industry investors believe what
a company's accountants tell them about the state of the business'
financial health.
2. 75.2 percent of all high-technology industry investors believe what
"The Wall Street Journal" tells them about the state of the business'
financial health.
3. 80.1 percent of all high-technology industry investors believe in
the Easter Bunny.
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A horrible law suit:
]From the Chicago Tribune, 6/8/90.
"NAPLES, Italy(AP)--...the claim [for damages] involves an accident in March
involving a medium-sized Regata and a tiny Panda car...The young man claimed
he and his girlfriend were engaged in amorous activity in their car when the
large car hit it from behind. The impact momentarily made them lose control,
resulting in pregnancy...The suit demands compensation for the cost of
repairing the Panda and the cost of the wedding the couple decided to have
after discovering the woman was pregnant."
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When asked by the prosecutor why the defendant shot the
other guy (the alleged assailant) six times in **self-defense**,
he replied;
" I ran out of bullets, Sir."
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Has anybody read the warning message printed on the back of those
little foldy-uppy cardboard thingys that you put in you windshield
to keep the car from getting too hot when setting in the sun? On
mine, it says
"Warning: Do not drive your car with the sunscreen in place.
Remove sunscreen before starting engine."
No wonder I have been having so many wrecks lately!
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They had a vax that would hang at random times. The DEC people
were out once or twice a month, but couldn't get it to replicate
the problem: by the time the found the problem, they'd replaced
almost every board! Turned out that there was a pretty small
piece of metallic gum-wrapper inside the cabinet, that was blown
about by the fans until it shorted a (random) pair of pins, bringing
the machine down. Of course, when they turned the machine off and
opened the doors, the wrapper settled on the floor out of sight...
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From inveterate contributor Jim Day (JimDay:PASA)
Los Angeles Times, May 11:
If aliens from outer space landed in Los Angeles they'd probably go
unnoticed, no matter how bizarre their appearance. Their main problem
would be finding a place to park. That could explain why a parking lot
in northeast Los Angeles has spaces marked ALIEN 27, ALIEN 28, etc.
Even odder is the fact that the lot is at a city animal shelter. Has
Los Angeles been invaded by poodles from Procyon IV? Actually, the
parking spots have been rented by employees of the TV show Alien Nation,
which has a production office across the street. Or is that what THEY
want us to think?
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1. The Data Entry "Test" - Years ago I had a temporary assignment
at a financial management firm that had an ongoing "help wanted" ad
in the local paper. Each night seven or eight applicants showed up
to take a "test" consisting of c. two hours of entering data into
computers. You guessed it - these "tests" were how almost all of
the company's data input was done!
2. The Eternal "Evaluation" - A friend of mine worked at a low
budget film company that seemed to have a new photocopier almost
every month. Actually, they did. The owner would apparently
contact a supplier, say he was interested in buying or leasing
a copier, but wanted a free evaluation period first. Apparently
Los Angeles had enough willing vendors to sustain a perpetual
evaluation if you are willing to change copiers every month or so.
( Supposedly, a large, Silicon Valley software company once used a
variation of this technique to originally get almost all of their
PC equipment gratis. Don't know if it included any saxophones....)
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A priest died and went to heaven. When he got to the gate, he found
a N.Y. city taxi cab driver in front of him.
"My son, what did you do on earth?", St. Peter asked the cab driver.
"I was a cab driver in New York City", he replied.
"Then welcome to your reward", said St. Peter.
The gate swung wide to reveal a lavish mansion with deluxe swimming
pool, clear blue skies, choice food, and lots of babes and dudes having
a blast. The cab driver let out a whoop and sprung in rejoicing!
"Well! My reward will really be something to behold", the priest
thought to himself.
So he walked up to St. Peter, who asked what he'd done on earth.
"Well your Emminence, I was a priest -- and my sermons were so good
that no one ever fell asleep!", he replied.
"Then welcome to your reward", said St. Peter.
The gate swung open to reveal a dull grey cottage underneath overcast
skies. The cottage was in need of a new coat of paint and the bushes
were overgrown and sorely in need of pruning. And there was no one to
be seen!
"Hey, how come the cab driver got such great digs and I get this dump
instead?", the flabbergasted priest asked.
"Well, my son, no one ever fell asleep during your sermons, that's true.
But when they got into that cab driver's taxi, wow, did they pray!",
said the saint.
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A man owned a museum, and he lived up above it. The museum was full of all the
priceless what-not you expect to find in a museum. Well, one day, a would-be
burglar hid in a suit of armor until late at night when everyone was gone and
the owner went to bed. As the crook made his way to the jewels, the clanking
and jingling of the armor he was still wearing woke the owner up. When Mr.
Owner clicked the light on, the crook, decided to play ghost, and raised his
arms and screamed "yaaaaaaaah!" The owner wasn't exactly fooled. I think he
pushed the crook over on his back, where he lay like a june bug until the
cops showed.
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A man was on trial for the robbery of another man's house. The defendant had
decided to defend himself without the help of an attourney. He had the man
whose house and been robbed on the stand, and was grilling him. The defendant
asked something like "And just what were you doing the night of the 17th when I
was robbing your house?" I think the judge threw the case out when he stopped
laughing.
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John Smith was locking up his martial arts academy, still in his robe
and black belt. A mugger approached him from behind, pulled a knife and
demanded money. The mugger is reported in serious, but improving
condition in the local hospital.
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This reminds me of a story I heard on KPWR in Los Angeles.
It seems this guy was trying to rob a Ready Teller cash machine at a bank.
He couldn't figure out how to get to the money, so he decided to tear off
the front of the machine by tying a rope to it and attaching the other end
to his car. He hit the gas, the Ready Teller machine didn't give, and the
guy's rear bumper ripped clean off. He got scared because of the commotion
he had caused and drove off.....leaving his bumber, with license plate
attached, behind. The plate was promptly traced and he was apprehended
shortly thereafter.
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Heard about a guy who wanted to rob an automatic teller machine. Only
thing was this guy didn't believe that they were really machines. He truly
believed that there was a *little person* in the *big box*! Instead of using
his card, he put a 'Give me all your money, or I will shoot you' type note in
the ATM. When he didn't get any money, he shot it.
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We had a case in Stockholm where a pub was broken into and several bottles of
spirits removed allong with all the chips from the roulette table.
The thieves were caught the next day when they came back and tried to cash the
chips in. ( The policeman handling the arrest said that this was pretty common
in Stockholm).
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Japan's Got Us Beat
in the Service Department, Too
by Hilary Hinds Kitasei
My husband and I bought one souvenir the last time we were in Tokyo --
a Sony compact disk player. The transaction took seven minutes at the
Odakyu Department Store, including time to find the right department
and to wait while the salesman filled out a second charge slip after
misspelling my husband's name on the first.
My in-laws, who were our hosts in the outlying city of Sagamihara, were
eager to see their son's purchase, so he opened the box for them to see
the next morning. But when he tried to demonstrate the player, it
wouldn't work. We peered inside. It had no innards! My husband used the
time until the Odakyu would open at 10:00 to practice for the rare
opportunity in that country to wax indignant. But at a minute to 10:00
he was pre-empted by the store ringing us.
My mother-in-law took the call, and had to hold the receiver away from
her ear against the barrage of Japanese honorifics. Odakyu's vice
president was on his way over with a new disk player.
A taxi pulled up 50 minutes later and spilled out the vice president
and a junior employee who was laden with packages and a clipboard. In
the entrance hall, the two men bowed vigorously.
The younger man was still bobbing as he read from a log that recorded
the progress of their efforts to rectify their mistake, beginning at
4:32 p.m. the day before, when the salesclerk alerted the store's
security guards to stop my husband at the door. When that didn't work,
the clerk turned to his supervisor, who turned to his supervisor, until
a SWAT team leading all the way to the vice president was in place to
work on the only clues, a name and an American Express card number.
Remembering that the customer had asked him about using the disk player
in the U.S., the clerk called 32 hotels in and around Tokyo to ask if a
Mr. Kitasei was registered. When that turned up nothing, the Odakyu
commandeered a staff member to stay until 9:00 p.m. to call American
Express headquarters in New York. American Express gave him our New
York telephone number. It was after 11 when he reached my parents, who
were staying at our apartment. My mother gave him my in-laws' telephone
number.
The younger man looked up from his clipboard and gave us, in addition
to the new $280 disk player, a set of towels, a box of cakes, and a
Chopin disk. Three minutes after this exhausted pair had arrived, they
were climbing back into the waiting cab. The vice president suddenly
dashed back. He had forgotten to apologize for my husband having to
wait while the salesman had rewritten the charge slip, but he hoped we
understood that it had been the young man's first day.
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Originally from the San Jose Mercury news, "News of the Weird".
(a) Portsmouth, R.I. Police charged Gregory Rosa, 25, with a string of
vending machine robberies in January when he (1) fled from police
inexplicably when they spotted him loitering around a vending machine
and (2) later tried to post his $400 bail in coins.
(b) Karen Lee Joachimmi, 20, was arrested in Lake City, Florida for
robbery of a Howard Johnson's motel. She was armed with only an
electric chain saw, which was not plugged in.
(c) The Ann Abort News crime column reported that a man walked into
a Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan at 7:50am, flashed a gun and
demanded cash. The clerk turned him down because he said he
couldn't open the cash register without a food order. When the man
ordered onion rings, the clerk said they weren't available for
breakfast. The man, frustrated, walked away.
And it gets better:
(d) David Posman, 33, was arrested recently in Providence, R.I, after
allegedly knocking out an armored car driver and stealing the closest
four bags of money. It turned out they contained $800 in PENNIES,
weighed 30 pounds each, and slowed him to a stagger during his
getaway so that police officers easily jumped him from behind.
(e) The Belgium news agency Belga reported in November that a man
suspected of robbing a jewelry store in Liege said he couldn't have
done it *because he was busy breaking into a school at the same time.*
Police then arrested him for breaking into the school.
(f) Drug-possession defendant Christopher so-and-so, on trial in March
in Pontiac, Michigan, said he had been searched without a warrant.
The prosecutor said the officer didn't need a warrant because a
"bulge" in Christopher's jacket could have been a gun. Nonsense,
said Christopher, who happened to be wearing the same jacket that
day in court. He handed it over so the judge could see it. The
judge discovered a packet of cocaine in the pocket and laughed so
hard he required a five-minute recess to compose himself.
(g) Atlanta Braves pitcher John Smoltz gave himself five-inch-long
welts in March when he tried to iron his polo shirt while wearing it.
"I've ironed that way five or six times," he said, "and never had
it happen."
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