Date: 19 Apr 93 16:21:54 PDT (Monday)
Subject: Life 9.L
The following are from various random places
----------------------------------------------------
From Jim Kasprzak kasprj@rpi.edu
"Intelligence is a tool to be used towards a goal - and goals are not
always chosen intelligently." (from _Protector_ by Larry Niven)
----------------------------------------------------
From: zink@panix.com (David Zink)
While I am told that the style makes these books wonderful, they cannot be
recommended to the incurably sapient.
----------------------------------------------------
From: aek@rocket:com
Oxymoron:
DOS Prompt
----------------------------------------------------
Katriena Knights
"I don't mind being in touch with reality, as long as I don't
have to live there."
----------------------------------------------------
From: eliot@dg-rtp.dg.com (Topher Eliot)
"Ask me about my vow of silence."
----------------------------------------------------
From: meo@pencom.com
His Vacation response agent:
I will be out of the Country Of Texas until mid-afternoon
January 21, 1993.
In an emergency, you may leave a message for me at Pencom
in Austin at 1-(xxx) xxx-yyy, or call my apartment here in
Austin and leave a message with my roomie or his machine.
-Miles (if Texas secedes, I'll make the celebration!)
What constitutes an emergency? Dave Barry's defection to
El Salvador. Plagues of lawyers. Friends being eaten by
space aliens. My CDs being infested with a Barry Manilow
virus. Thawing of the entire Roadkills-R-Us frozen foods
warehouse. That's about it.
----------------------------------------------------
From: skoper@world.std.com (stan koper)
I heard the joke about "won't work, can't fire them" as:
Q: Why are government employees like a Titan missle?
A: Because they don't work, and you can't fire them.
It was told to me (I'm a Federal government employee) by a former
coworker/boss who had been employed by the USAF, as a secretary, which was
where she heard it.
----------------------------------------------------
From: MIKE HALPERIN:pittsburgh
Legend has it that football great Bronco Nagurski opened a gas station upon
retirement from the NFL. A vistor to town asked whether or not he was sucessful.
"Once someone gets gas from Bronco, they never go anyplace else",
a local told him.
"Is the service that good?" asked the vistor.
"No, not really", said the local.
"Does he have the best price?"
"About the same as everybody else"
"Then the gas must be better"
"No, its just regular gas"
"Then why does everyone keep coming back to Bronco?"
"Because when Bronco Nagurski puts your gas cap on, no one but
Bronco Nagurski can get it back off."
----------------------------------------------------
From: Mark Weiser:PARC
This article fails to mention one of the key tests of a cryptographic
algorithm: offer a reward to break it. If you offer $1,000, and widely
publicize the reward, and it remains unclaimed, then one can plausibly
claim to have invented a cryptographic algorithm worthy of encrypting
data worth up to $1,000.
Xerox PARC did this with our cryptographic hash function a few years ago.
In that case the reward was claimed, and we changed the function, offered
a new reward, and this one is unclaimed so far.
----------------------------------------------------
From the Software Entrepreneur's Mailing List:
softpub%toolz.UUCP@mathcs.emory:edu
--------------------------
It's not hard to meet expenses, they're everywhere.
todd%toolz.uucp@mathcs.emory.edu
--------------------------
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of
himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?"
--- Thomas Jefferson
Lars Petrus, Solna, Sweden - petrus@stacken.kth.se
----------------------------------------------------
From the libernet@Dartmouth.edu mailing list:
--------------------------
From: Mike Sierra [sierra@ora.com]
Absolutely Nobody, 35, was a candidate for lieutenant governor in the state of
Washington. If elected, he promised to abolish the office, which he called a
do-nothing and a drag on the taxpayers.
Before he became Nobody, the candidate was David M. Powers, a former manager of
a doughnut shop who is a customer service representative at the U-Rent outlet,
an all-purpose rental shop in north Seattle.
In December, after discussing the idea of running for office as a protest
candidate, Powers had his name changed legally, to Absolutely Nobody. It is on
his driver's license, his checks and in the yellow pages under political
candidates.
When a visitor shows up at the U-Rent store and asks for Nobody, a clerk calls
out, without blinking, "Yo, Nobody."
"Call me Ab," said Nobody, a bearded and enthusiastic politician who was the
head of Young Republicans of Oregon in 1981. He has since grown disenchanted
with both major parties.
Nobody, who was on the ballot as an independent candidate, won 6 percent of the
vote.
--------------------------
From: Daniel Lam [dyfl@kbs.citri.edu.au]
sig
In my opinion, the opinions expressed here are my personal opinions.
--------------------------
The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men
of zeal, well meaning, without understanding.
- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis
From: Patrick Diviney [diviney@u.washington.edu]
Sig
--------------------------
From: Dave Tartaglia [indy@immacc.prepnet.com]
Farming has been described as the only business where one buys at retail and
sells at wholesale.
----------------------------------------------------
From Victor Schwartz's mailing list:
--------------------------
(From a recent "Peanuts" comic strip, featuring Charlie Brown:)
Sometimes I lie awake at night and I ask, "Is it all worth it?"
Then a voice says: "Who are you talking to?"
Then another voices says: "You mean, 'To Whom are you talking?'"
No wonder I lie awake at night!
--------------------------
(From the "Selling It" column in the February 1993 issue of Consumer
Reports magazine:)
An Idaho reader sent us this Fred Meyer recipe from the back of a box of
Fred Meyer Crisp Crunch ceral, a product of Oregon-based Fred Meyer Inc.
We think we've spotted an opening for Fred in the baking-powder business.
CRISPY RAISIN COOKIES
1/2 cup Fred Meyer vegetable shortening
1/2 cup packed Fred Meyer brown sugar
1 Fred Meyer egg
1 teaspoon Fred Meyer vanilla extract
1 cup Fred Meyer all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon Fred Meyer cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon Fred Meyer salt
2-1/2 cups Fred Meyer Crisp Crunch cereal
2/3 cup Fred Meyer raisins
--------------------------
(From the Feb 15 issue of NewsWeek magazine:)
A Technical Knockout
Big Brother isn't watching, but Continental Cablevision is. During last
November's pay-per-view Holyfield-Bowe heavyweight (boxing) title bout, the
Springfield, Mass. cable TV operator aired a free T shirt ad using a new
technology: the ad appeared only on sets using illegal signal decoders.
More than 140 saps phoned in for the shirts. Continental has sent them
letters offering to settle the matter for $2,000, and has already received
several checks. Since federal law allows fines of $10,000, says
Continental VP Geoffrey Little, "we consider the settlement fee generous."
Anyone who disagrees, he says, will find himself involved in another fight
- in court.
--------------------------
Dave Barry on the "Big Bang"
Scientists are learning something that many of us have suspected for a long
time, namely that the universe is made up almost entirely of dirt. More
and more, scientists are suspecting that the Big Bang was in fact the
explosion of a small but very densely packed vacuum cleaner bag.
--------------------------
(Curt Marcus contributed this to the Tandem Humor DL:)
The Irish Cure for Sea-Sickness:
Stand under a tree.
--------------------------
Steven Wright reports spotting the following road sign:
"Next mile, 1 mile."
--------------------------
(From the "News of the Weird" column in today's San Jose Mercury News:)
Last summer, the cable television company that serves Columbia, South
Carolina, aimed a camera full-time at an aquarium to occupy a vacant
channel, which was awaiting the September start-up of the Science-Fiction
Channel. When Sci-Fi replaced the "fish channel," complaints were so
numerous that the company was forced to find another channel for the
aquarium, which now runs 14 hours per day, sharing time with the Bravo
channel.
--------------------------
More IRS Humor from Dave Barry
Those folks a the IRS have a terrific sense of humor. Down at headquarters
they often pass the time while waiting for their cattle prods to recharge
by sending hilarious tax-related jokes to each other in triplicate on IRS
Humorous Anecdote Form 1092-376 SNORT.
IRS HUMOR EXAMPLE A: "A lawyer, a doctor, and a priest were marooned on a
desert island. So we confiscated their homes."
----------------------------------------------------
From From: watts@lams.msd.lmsc.lockheed.com (Robyn M Watts)
--------------------------
From record@nebula.decnet.lockheed.com Mon Mar 8 10:39:45 1993
To: @news.dist
"If you wish to speak to an agent...."
It seems our friends at the FBI are a little busy these days.
When you call, this is what you get:
"Hello. You've reached the Feberal Bureau of Investigation.
"If you wish to claim responsibility for the bombing of the
World Trade Center, press '2' now.
"If you are demanding network television airtime for a videotape
validating your divine right to stockpile nuclear weapons,
press '3' now.
"If you are a contractor submitting a bid to convert the West Lawn
into a jogging track, please stay on the line. An operator/agent
will be with you directly."
--------------------------
From record@nebula.decnet.lockheed.com Thu Jan 14 09:32:15 1993
Time out for a chuckle :-)
A farmer had been taken several times by the local car dealer. One day,
the car dealer informed the farmer that he was coming over to purchase a
cow. The farmer priced his unit as follows:
BASIC COW $499.95
Shipping & Handling 35.75
Extra Stomach 79.25
Two-tone exterior 142.10
Produce storage compartment 126.50
Heavy duty straw chopper 189.60
Four-spigot/high-output drain system 149.20
Automatic fly swatter 88.50
Genuine cowhide upholstery 179.90
Deluxe dual horns 59.25
Automatic fertilizer attachment 339.40
4 x 4 traction drive assembly 884.16
Pre-delivery wash and comb 69.80
---------
FARMER'S SUGGESTED LIST PRICE $2,843.36
Additional dealer adjust 300.00
=========
TOTAL LIST PRICE (including options) $3,143.36
----------------------------------------------------
Stuff forwarded to me by:
From: spectre@uiuc.edu (Ian Chai)
--------------------------
I just put up in my (computer) lab a glass case with a hammer (like those you
see with fire extinguishing equipment in them).
It contains an abacus, and is labelled with a sign saying
IN CASE OF COMPUTER FAILURE, BREAK GLASS
--------------------------
I was scanning the news this morning when I saw a headline that made me
think maybe I was reading National Enquirer instead of UPI newwires:
Sun teams up with Elvis
[It was an article about Sun Microsystems' collaboration with Russian
communications company ELVIS, which is Russian for "Electronic Computer
and Information Systems."]
--------------------------
I've hung around liberals, conservatives, Christians, Muslims,
Atheists, Gays, Anti-Gays, and all sorts of other people. *Every* one
of these groups have representatives that think "Everyone else is out
to get us."
I guess I'm not paranoid -- it's just that everyone else is.
--------------------------
[The Economist, March 13]
----------
The government of Singapore is relentlessly in its effort to
create model citizens. At various times it has launched campaigns
to persuade Singaporeans to speak English, to speak Mandarin, to
have fewer children, to have more children, to flush lavatories,
not to spit and not to chew gum. Now it has spotted a new problem
that needs correcting: a disturbing number of Singaporeans are
turning up late for weddings.
Toh Weng Cheong, a government official who is heading the
punctuality drive, says: "Not being punctual impinges on the
economic sector. If you have 200 guests who are late by an hour,
that's 200 man-hours lost." (Mr Toh seems to have discounted the
possibility that the latecomers have been delayed by an
irrepressible urge to out in an extra hour at the office.) A
government colleague, Nah Juay Hng, adds: "Guests who come early
can go home early to rest, so they can be productive at work the
next day." Restaurants and hotels have agreed to support the
campaign, by offering discounts to guests who agree to wolf down
their wedding banquets within a set time.
Quite why Singaporeans, who are normally as reliable as Swiss
watch, abandon their habitual punctuality on wedding days remains
a mystery. Some maintain that guests are motivated by the fear
that if they turn up early people will think them greedy. Others
think that it is a matter of status. At Chinese wedding banquets,
the older and more important guests traditionally arrive last. But
if the government gets its way, tardiness will soon inspire scorn,
not respect.
----------------------------------------------------
From: Alan E. Nicoll:ES AE
One particualrly hot day, the Lone Ranger and Tonto pull into a bar to
cool off, parking their horses outside.
While the famous duo sit at the bar, a cowboy comes in and says
"Hey, who's silver horse is that outside?"
The lone ranger replies "That's my horse. Why?"
"Well, It's lookin' mighty warm. In fact, It looks like it'll keel
over any minute".
Quickly Tonto says to his boss, "Keemosaby, do not fear. I will
cool Silver myself. I will run in circles around him as fast as
the wind, and the breeze will cool him."
The Lone Ranger thought for a minute, "OK Tonto. If you think it will work..."
So out goes our feerless sidekick to cool the horse.
A little while later, another cowboy comes into the bar and says,
"Hey, who's silver horse is that outside?"
The lone ranger replies "That's my horse. Why?"
"Well you left your injun runnin'!"
--
Henry Cate III [cate3@netcom.com]
The Life collection maintainer, selections of humor from the internet
"The Greatest Management Principle in the World" by Michael LeBoeuf:
The things that get rewarded, get done.
Back to my Life Humor Page
Back to my humor page
Back to my home page