Date: 1 Dec 90 16:10:54 PST (Saturday)
Subject: Life 6.R
The gems in this issue were forwarded to me by
Gene Spafford [spaf@cs.purdue.edu]
----------------------------------------------------
Originally-from: Andy Koenig @ Bell Labs
They just sent out announcements for the conference on massively
parallel systems.
I got 600 of them.
----------------------------------------------------
Congratulations are in order for Tom Reid.
He says he just found out he is the winner of the 1994 Psychic of the
Year award.
----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 13 Oct 90 09:07:18 -0400
From: RIch Epstein [@VM.CC.PURDUE.EDU:REPSTEIN@GWUVM]
To: Spaf for Yucks [spaf]
Subject: Stealth Semantics
A political cartoon in the Washinton Post showed a confused
driver passing a large campaign billboard which read:
--------------------------------------------
| T H R O W T H E B U M S O U T ! |
| Re-elect Congressman Rottweiler! |
--------------------------------------------
|| ||
|| ||
- Rich Epstein, inside the Beltway, but
I wish I weren't
----------------------------------------------------
Representative Tim Moore sponsored a resolution in the Texas House of
Representatives in Austin, Texas calling on the House to commend
Albert de Salvo 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.
----------------------------------------------------
From islenet!bob Fri Sep 28 03:11:34 1984
From: bob@islenet.UUCP (Robert P. Cunningham)
Newsgroups: net.followup,net.wanted
Subject: Re: Car for Sale. (secret of net.general revealed)
Date: 28 Sep 84 07:11:34 GMT
Organization: Hawaii Institute of Geophysics
[begin lampoon mode]
Seeing the articles in net.general for apartments to let in
Mississippi and '67 Plymouths for sale in Chicago I used to wonder:
Why would people advertise such things worldwide?
No more. I've put 2+2 together, thanks to an obscure federal government
census report. I now know the secret behind such postings.
The "Place of Work" report, compiled from 1980 federal census survey data,
describes the way people travel to their jobs in the U.S. It's meant to
used by government agencies for transportation planning.
I found much mundane information about the state & city where I live.
E.g., the state of Hawaii has 412,307 workers, of which various percentages
travel to work via various means of transportation.
However...
Thirty-three people working in Honolulu reported that they rode to their jobs
in a subway, elevated train or by railroad. Rather strange, since as far
as I know, Honolulu has never had a subway or elevated train...and the
railroads went out of business in the 1920's.
Could this mean that there is a secret rail transportation system, known only
to those 33 people?
Eight people living outside the state reported that it took them an average
of 28.4 minutes to commute to their jobs via bus vs. the 36.8 minutes it
took the 32,984 workers who live in the state to get to their jobs via bus.
The state of Hawaii is completely isolated in the middle of the Pacific
Ocean. I refuse to believe those eight people live on the ocean. Does
this mean that these eight people have access to a bus capable of making
quick overseas trips?
It gets even more interesting...
Exactly 204 people who live OUTSIDE the state WALK to work. Presumably by
walking on water.
And - according to the report - there are MORE THAN 1,000 people who live
outside the state and travel to work by car.
I'd thought the out-of-state car license plates I saw in Honolulu were
simply the same plates that those cars had before being brought over here by
ship. According to the federal report, I was wrong. Some of those drivers
obviously commute daily.
Then, the other day, the proof. I saw a '67 Plymouth with Illinois license
plates on the Lunalilo Freeway. Note that despite its Hawaiian name, the
freeway is part of the federal "Interstate Highway" system!
Pulling up beside the car, I yelled over to the driver, "Did you actually
drive that car all the way to Hawaii?"
His answer was "Right. Sure!" He laughed and drove away, and I didn't
have a chance to ask him if he got the car through an advertisement in
net.general.
However, there's little doubt left in my mind. The evidence is plain:
those old cars advertised worldwide because they are capable of
fast, WORLDWIDE travel!
In order to fully uncover the secret of net.general, I intend to buy the
very next '67 Plymouth advertised there for sale in Illinois, and learn
the secret of rapid intercontinental travel. Who knows, some day I
may be able to commute from that apartment in Mississippi!
--
Bob Cunningham ..{dual,ihnp4,vortex}!islenet!bob
Honolulu, Hawaii
----------------------------------------------------
From LAGLENN@UNCVX1.BITNET:
As many of you know, I am taking a class here at UNC on Personality.
One of the tests to determine personality in our book was so incredibly
useful and interesting, I just had to share it.
Answer each of the following items "true" or "false"
1. I salivate at the sight of mittens.
2. If I go into the street, I'm apt to be bitten by a horse.
3. Some people never look at me.
4. Spinach makes me feel alone.
5. My sex life is A-okay.
6. When I look down from a high spot, I want to spit.
7. I like to kill mosquitoes.
8. Cousins are not to be trusted.
9. It makes me embarrassed to fall down.
10. I get nauseous from too much roller skating.
11. I think most people would cry to gain a point.
12. I cannot read or write.
13. I am bored by thoughts of death.
14. I become homicidal when people try to reason with me.
15. I would enjoy the work of a chicken flicker.
16. I am never startled by a fish.
17. My mother's uncle was a good man.
18. I don't like it when somebody is rotten.
19. People who break the law are wise guys.
20. I have never gone to pieces over the weekend.
21. I think beavers work too hard.
22. I use shoe polish to excess.
23. God is love.
24. I like mannish children.
25. I have always been diturbed by the sight of Lincoln's ears.
26. I always let people get ahead of me at swimming pools.
27. Most of the time I go to sleep without saying goodbye.
28. I am not afraid of picking up door knobs.
29. I believe I smell as good as most people.
30. Frantic screams make me nervous.
31. It's hard for me to say the right thing when I find myself in a room
full of mice.
32. I would never tell my nickname in a crisis.
33. A wide necktie is a sign of disease.
34. As a child I was deprived of licorice.
35. I would never shake hands with a gardener.
36. My eyes are always cold.
This is "The North Dakota Null Hyupothesis Brain Inventory" by
Art Buchwald.
The author lost the answer key, but if any of you out there have
really good insights into your personality as a result of this test,
it's time to be committed.
----------------------------------------------------
From: JMGREULICH@miavx1.UUCP (JEFF GREULICH)
Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny
Subject: I was going how fast???
Message-ID: [S1a7.20ba@looking.on.ca]
Date: 14 Oct 90 10:30:04 GMT
The following message was written by a couple of guys at the University of
Dayton. Unfortunately, they don't have access to News. But it would be a
pity if this wasn't shared with with world. (their permission was given, of
course)
-------------------------------------
Recently I have been pestered with a series of deeply scientific
questions...All evolving out of the age old question.....
If you're driving at the speed of Light and you turn your headlights
on..What happens?
These were quickly followed by
If you're driving at the speed of light and.....
...Turn your radio on....What station do you get?
...Hit an on coming freight train....
...Stick your head out the window....
...Turn on the windshield washer jets....
...Honk your horn....
...Downshift into first....
These are all facinating (and deeply disturbed) questions. But let
us assume that you get a car that can travel the speed of light and you begin
to unravel these age old mysteries...WHEN SUDDENLY...You are faced with an even
more dreadful question
If you're driving at the speed of light and get pulled over by
an Oakwood Taxi-cop....What kind of fine are you gonna pay???
And believe me you are gonna pay....He ain't gonna buy the line..
"669,600,000 mph!! That's impossible, my car shimmies at 500,000,000 mph!"
And he ain't gonna take the excuse that you didn't realize how fast you
were going......."Didn't you notice the Blue Shift ,son."
After doing some research (No, I did not recently get a ticket) I found
that the fair city of Oakwood charges $1 for every 1 mph over the speed limit
So if you were pulled over for doing 669,600,000 in a 35 zone you would
be charged
$669,599,965 + a $33 court fee = $669,599,998
This does not include such subsequent fines as reckless operation,
not wearing a seat belt, and DWI (Let's face it if you stopped for an Oakwood
cop while doing light speed , you'd have to be drunk. Oakwood is roughly 2
miles across....You'd be out of his jurisiction in 0.00001 Seconds)
A couple of other stats concerning a car capable of light speed. You'd
flip the odometer in .537 seconds and need to change the oil every .053
seconds. I don't even want to get into the amount of gas it would use and at
the current gas prices maybe a ticket isn't your first concern.
But just think....you'll be able to answer all those complicated
questions....Be the first to own a light-speed car.....Honest, it was only
driven on Sundays by a little old lady who had to get to Epsion Indi and back.
--Jason
[SEIFERJC@UDAVXB.OCA.UDAYTON.EDU]
Continuing along the line of Jason's scientific inquiry, what
happens when you are going light speed in reverse and...
...turn on your headlights...
...look in the rear-view mirror...
...just barely avoid a car doing light speed the other direction...
...honk the horn...
...have to parallel park...
...shift into first...
Which also brings up the question...could you get away with looking in the
rear-view mirror, or would you have to turn around?
--BastarMa
[VOGTTIMJ@UDAVXB.OCA.UDAYTON.EDU]
----------------------------------------------------
Subject: English poem
Multi-national personnel at North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters
near Paris found English to be an easy language ... until they tried to
pronounce it. To help them discard an array of accents, the verses below
were devised. After trying them, a Frenchman said he'd prefer six months at
hard labor to reading six lines aloud. Try them yourself.
ENGLISH IS TOUGH STUFF
======================
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!
-- Author Unknown
Back to my Life Humor Page
Back to my humor page
Back to my home page