This is not original, it is partly a copy of the humour page at http://www.labs.bt.com/people/cochrane/ as well as a few additions found by me and others courtesy of Joe and Trish...
There should be something for everyone here - some of it is very clever, some of it is just downright hilarious. If you have any interesting snippets then tell me via the guestbook and I'll get back to you!
The Washington Post's Style Invitational asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are some recent winners:
Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.
Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.
Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease.
Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.
Glibido: All talk and no action.
Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.
Alternate Meanings
The Washington Post recently had a contest for readers in which they were asked to supply possible alternate meanings for various words. The following were some of the winning entries ...
Abdicate--v., to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
Carcinoma--n., a valley in California, notable for its heavy smog.
Esplanade--v., to attempt an explanation while drunk.
Willy-nilly--adj., impotent.
Flabbergasted--adj., appalled over how much weight you have gained.
Negligent--adj., describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightie.
Lymph--v., to walk with a lisp.
Gargoyle--n., an olive-flavored mouthwash.
Bustard--n., a very rude Metrobus driver.
Coffee--n., a person who is coughed upon.
Flatulence--n., the emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.
Balderdash--n., a rapidly receding hairline.
Testicle--n., a humorous question on an exam.
Semantics--n., pranks conducted by young men studying for the priesthood, including such things as gluing the pages of the priest's prayer book together just before vespers.
Rectitude--n., the formal, dignified demeanor assumed by a proctologist immediately before he examines you.
Marionettes--n., residents of Washington who have been jerked around by the mayor.
Oyster--n., a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddish expressions.
Circumvent--n., the opening in the front of boxer shorts.
Frisbatarianism--n., Belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.
Warranty Card
This was actually posted very briefly on the McDonnell Douglas website by an employee. The company, of course, does not (have a sense of humor) - and made the web department take it down.
Thank you for purchasing a McDonnell Douglas military aircraft. In order to protect your new investment, please take a few moments to fill out the warranty registration card below. Answering the survey questions is not required, but the information will help us to develop new products that best meet your needs and desires. 1.[_] Mr. [_] Mrs. [_] Ms. [_] Miss [_] Lt. [_] Gen. [_] Comrade [_] Classified [_] Other First Name: ..................................................... Initial: ........ Last Name: ...................................................... Password: .............................. (max. 8 char) Code Name: ...................................................... Latitude-Longitude-Altitude: ........... ........... 2. Which model aircraft did you purchase? [_] F-14 Tomcat [_] F-15 Eagle [_] F-16 Falcon [_] F-117A Stealth [_] Classified 3.Date of purchase (Year/Month/Day): 19....... /....... /...... 4.Serial Number: ............................................... 5. Please check where this product was purchased: [_] Received as gift / aid package [_] Catalog showroom [_] Independent arms broker [_] Mail order [_] Discount store [_] Government surplus [_] Classified 6. Please check how you became aware of the McDonnell Douglas product you have just purchased: [_] Heard loud noise, looked up [_] Store display [_] Espionage [_] Recommended by friend / relative / ally [_] Political lobbying by manufacturer [_] Was attacked by one 7. Please check the three (3) factors that most influenced your decision to purchase this McDonnell Douglas product: [_] Style / appearance [_] Speed / maneuverability [_] Price / value [_] Comfort / convenience [_] Kickback / bribe [_] Recommended by salesperson [_] McDonnell Douglas reputation [_] Advanced Weapons Systems [_] Backroom politics [_] Negative experience opposing one in combat 8. Please check the location(s) where this product will be used: [_] North America [_] Iraq [_] Iraq [_] Aircraft carrier [_] Iraq [_] Europe [_] Iraq [_] Middle East (not Iraq) [_] Iraq [_] Africa [_] Iraq [_] Asia / Far East [_] Iraq [_] Misc. Third World countries [_] Iraq [_] Classified [_] Iraq 9. Please check the products that you currently own or intend to purchase in the near future: [_] Color TV [_] VCR [_] ICBM [_] Killer Satellite [_] CD Player [_] Air-to-Air Missiles [_] Space Shuttle [_] Home Computer [_] Nuclear Weapon 10. How would you describe yourself or your organization? (Check all that apply:) [_] Communist / Socialist [_] Terrorist [_] Crazed [_] Neutral [_] Democratic [_] Dictatorship [_] Corrupt [_] Primitive / Tribal 11. How did you pay for your McDonnell Douglas product? [_] Deficit spending [_] Cash [_] Suitcases of cocaine [_] Oil revenues [_] Personal check [_] Credit card [_] Ransom money [_] Traveler's check 12. Your occupation: [_] Homemaker [_] Sales / marketing [_] Revolutionary [_] Clerical [_] Mercenary [_] Tyrant [_] Middle management [_] Eccentric billionaire [_] Defense Minister / General [_] Retired [_] Student 13. To help us understand our customers' lifestyles, please indicate the interests and activities in which you and your spouse enjoy participating on a regular basis: [_] Golf [_] Boating / sailing [_] Sabotage [_] Running / jogging [_] Propaganda / disinformation [_] Destabilization / overthrow [_] Default on loans [_] Gardening [_] Crafts [_] Black market / smuggling [_] Collectibles / collections [_] Watching sports on TV [_] Wines [_] Interrogation / torture [_] Household pets [_] Crushing rebellions [_] Espionage / reconnaissance [_] Fashion clothing [_] Border disputes [_] Mutually Assured Destruction Thank you for taking the time to fill out this questionnaire. Your answers will be used in market studies that will help McDonnell Douglas serve you better in the future - as well as allowing you to receive mailings and special offers from other companies, governments, extremist groups, and mysterious consortia. As a bonus for responding to this survey, you will be registered to win a brand new F-117A in our Desert Thunder Sweepstakes! Comments or suggestions about our fighter planes? Please write to: McDONNELL DOUGLAS CORPORATION Marketing Department Military Aerospace Division
CORPORATE POLICY, OR HOW THE SH** HAPPENS
In the beginning was the Plan.
And then came the Assumptions.
And the Assumptions were without form.
And the Plan was without substance.
And darkness was upon the face of the Workers.
And the Workers spoke among themselves, saying, "This is a crock of sh**, and it stinks."
And the Workers went unto their Supervisors and said, "It is a pail of dung, and we can't live with the smell."
And the Supervisors went unto their Managers, saying, "It is a container of excrement, and it is very strong, such that none may abide by it."
And the Managers went unto their Directors, saying, "It is a vessel of fertilizer, and none may abide its strength."
And the Directors spoke among themselves, saying to one another, "It contains that which aids plant growth, and it is very strong."
And the Directors went to the Vice Presidents, saying unto them, "It promotes growth, and it is very powerful."
And the Vice Presidents went to the President, saying unto him, "This new plan will actively promote the growth and vigour of the company with very powerful effects."
And the President looked upon the Plan and saw that it was good.
And the Plan became Policy.
And that, my friends, is how Shit Happens.
Top 45 Oxymorons:
45. Act naturally
44. Found missing
43. Resident alien
42. Advanced BASIC
41. Genuine imitation
40. Airline Food
39. Good grief
38. Same difference
37. Almost exactly
36. Government organization
35. Sanitary landfill
34. Alone together
33. Legally drunk
32. Silent scream
31. Living dead
30. Small crowd
29. Business ethics
28. Soft rock
27. Butt Head
26. Military Intelligence
25. Software documentation
24. New classic
23. Sweet sorrow
22. Childproof
21. "Now, then ..."
20. Synthetic natural gas
19. Passive aggression
18. Taped live
17. Clearly misunderstood
16. Peace force
15. Extinct Life
14. Temporary tax increase
13. Computer jock
12. Plastic glasses
11. Terribly pleased
10. Computer security
9. Political science
8. Tight slacks
7. Definite maybe
6. Pretty ugly
5. Twelve-ounce pound cake
4. Diet ice cream
3. Working vacation
2. Exact estimate
1. *****************
WHAT SEX IS A COMPUTER?
A language instructor was explaining to her class that French nouns, unlike their English counterparts, are grammatically designated as masculine or feminine. Things like 'chalk' or 'pencil,' she described, would have a gender association although in English these words were neutral.
Puzzled, one student raised his hand and asked, "What gender is a computer?"
The teacher wasn't certain which it was, and so divided the class into two groups and asked them to decide if a computer should be masculine or feminine. One group was comprised of the women in the class, and the other, of men. Both groups were asked to give four reasons for their recommendation.
The group of women concluded that computers should be referred to in the masculine gender because:
The men, on the other hand, decided that computers should definitely be referred to in the feminine gender because:
10 Signs That You've Had Too Much Of The '90s:
More Signs That You've Had Too Much Of The 90's:
1. You try to enter your password on the microwave.
2. You haven't played patience with real cards in years.
3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3.
4. You e-mail your work colleague at the desk next to you to ask "Do you
fancy going down the pub?" and they reply "Yeah, give me five
minutes".
5. You chat several times a day with a stranger from South America, but you
haven't spoken to your next door neighbour yet this year.
6. You buy a computer and a week later it is out of date.
7. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends is that they do not have
e-mail addresses.
8. You consider Royal Mail painfully slow or call it "snail mail".
9. Your idea of being organised is multiple coloured post-it notes.
10. You hear most of your jokes via email instead of in person.
11. When you go home after a long day at work you still answer the phone in a
business manner.
12. When you make phonecalls from home, you accidentally insert a "9"
to get an outside line.
13. You've sat at the same desk for four years and worked for three different
companies.
14. Your company welcome sign is attached with Velcro.
15. Your CV is on a diskette in your pocket.
16. You really get excited about a 1.7% pay rise.
17. You learn about your redundancy on the 9 o'clock news.
18 Your biggest loss from a system crash is that you lose all your best jokes.
19. Your supervisor doesn't have the ability to do your job.
20. Contractors outnumber permanent staff and are more likely to get
long-service awards.
21. Board members salaries are higher than all the Third World countries annual
budgets combined.
22. It's dark when you drive to and from work, even in the summer.
23. You know exactly how many days you've got left until you retire.
24. Interviewees, despite not having the relevant knowledge or experience,
terminate the interview when told of the starting salary.
25. You see a good looking, smart person and you know it must be a visitor.
26. Free food left over from meetings is your staple diet.
27. The work experience person gets a brand-new state-of-the-art laptop with all
the features, while you have time to go for lunch while yours powers up.
28. Being sick is defined as you can't walk or you're in hospital.
29 You're already late on the assignment you just got.
30 There's no money in the budget for the five permanent staff your department
is short of, but they can afford four full-time management consultants advising
your boss's boss on strategy.
31. Your boss's favourite lines are: When you've got a few minutes.. Could you
fit this in...?...in your spare time...when you're freed up....I know you're
busy but...I have an opportunity for you
32. Holiday is something you roll over to next year.
33. Every week another brown collection envelope comes round because someone you
didn't know had started is leaving.
34. You wonder who's going to be left to put into your 'leaving' collection.
35. Your relatives and family describe your job as "works with
computers".
36. The only reason you recognise your kids is because their pictures are on
your desk.
37. You only have makeup for fluorescent lighting.
38. You read this entire list, kept nodding and smiling.
39. As you read this list, you think about forwarding it to your "mates you
send jokes to" e-mail group.
40. It crosses your mind that your jokes group may have seen this list already,
but you can't be bothered to check so you forward it anyway.
Maxims for the Internet Age
Home is where you hang your @
The e-mail of the species is more deadly than the mail
Speak softly and carry a cellular phone
Too many clicks spoil the browse
The geek shall inherit the earth
What boots up must come down
Virtual reality is its own reward
A user and his leisure time are soon parted
There's no place like http://www.home.com
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to use the Net and he won't bother you for weeks
In-flight humour
Occasionally, airline attendants make an effort to make the "in-flight safety lecture" and their other announcements a bit more entertaining. Here are some real examples :
After a real crusher of a landing in Phoenix, the Flight Attendant came on with, "Ladies and Gentlemen, please remain in your seats until Captain Crash and the Crew have brought the aircraft to a screeching halt up against the gate. And, once the tire smoke has cleared and the warning bells are silent, we'll open the door and you can pick your way through the wreckage to the terminal.
"There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there are only 4 ways out of this airplane..."
Pilot - "Folks, we have reached our cruising altitude now, so I am going to switch the seat belt sign off. Feel free to roam about as you wish, but please stay inside the plane till we land...it's a bit cold outside, and if you walk on the wings it affects the flight pattern."
As the plane landed and was coming to a stop at Washington National, a lone voice comes over the loudspeaker: "Whoa, big fella...WHOA..!"
"Should the cabin lose pressure, oxygen masks will drop from the overhead area. Please place the bag over your own mouth and nose before assisting children or adults acting like children."
And from the pilot during his welcome message: "We are pleased to have some of the best flight attendants in the industry...Unfortunately none of them are on this flight...!"
Heard on Southwest Airlines just after a very hard landing in Salt LakeCity: The flight attendant came on the intercom and said, "That was quite a bump and I know what ya'll are thinking. I'm here to tell you it wasn't the airline's fault, it wasn't the pilot's fault, it wasn't the flight attendants' fault.....it was the asphalt!"
Overheard on an American Airlines flight into Amarillo, Texas, on a particularly windy and bumpy day. During the final approach the Captain was really having to fight it. After an extremely hard landing, the Flight attendant came on the PA and announced, "Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Amarillo. Please remain in your seats with your seatbelts fastened while the Captain taxis what's left of our airplane to the gate!"
Another flight Attendant's comment on a less than perfect landing: "We ask you to please remain seated as Captain Kangaroo bounces us to the terminal."
After a particularly rough landing during thunderstorms in Memphis, a flight attendant on a Northwest flight announced: "Please take care when opening the overhead compartments because, after a landing like that, sure as hell everything has shifted."
From a Southwest Airlines employee.... "Welcome aboard Southwest Flight XXX to YYY. To operate your seatbelt, insert the metal tab into the buckle, and pull tight. It works just like every other seatbelt, and if you don't know how to operate one, you probably shouldn't be out in public unsupervised. In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will drop from the ceiling. Stop screaming, grab the mask, and pull it over your face. If you have a small child traveling with you, secure your mask before assisting with theirs. If you are traveling with two small children, decide now which one you love more.
An airline pilot wrote that on this particular flight he had hammered his ship into the runway really hard. The airline had a policy which required the first officer to stand at the door while the passengers exited, smile, and give them a "Thanks for flying XYZ airline." He said that in light of his bad landing, he had a hard time looking the passengers in the eye, thinking that someone would have a smart comment. Finally everyone had gotten off except for this little old lady walking with a cane. She said, "Sonny, mind if I ask you a question?" "Why no Ma'am," said the pilot,"what is it?" The little old lady said, "Did we land or were we shot down?"
Part of a Flight Attendant's arrival announcement: "We'd like to thank you folks for flying with us today. And, the next time you get the insane urge to go blasting through the skys in a pressurized metal tube, we hope you'll think of us here at USAirways."
Military Language
One reason the Military has trouble operating jointly is that they don't speak the same language.
For example, if you told Navy personnel to "secure a building," they would turn off the lights and lock the doors.
Army personnel would occupy the building so no one could enter.
Marines would assault the building, capture it, and defend it with suppressive fire and close combat.
The Air Force, on the other hand, would take out a three-year lease with an option to buy.
EMail from Hell
Consider the case of the Illinois man who left the snow-filled streets of Chicago for a vacation in Florida. His wife was on a business trip and was planning to meet him there the next day.
When he reached his hotel, he decided to send his wife a quick e-mail. Unable to find the scrap of paper on which he had written her e-mail address, he did his best to type it in from memory. Unfortunately, he missed one letter, and his note was directed instead to an elderly preacher's wife, whose husband had passed away only the day before. When the grieving widow checked her e-mail, she took one look at the monitor, let out a piercing scream, and fell to the floor in a dead faint.
At the sound, her family rushed into the room and saw this note on the screen:
Dearest Wife,
Just got checked in.
Everything prepared for your arrival tomorrow.Signed,
Your eternally loving husband.PS. Sure is hot down here
The Y1K Problem
Leave it to the British to get to the core of a problem!
An Article from a London Newspaper (circa 999 A.D.)
Canterbury, England. A.D. 999.
An atmosphere close to panic prevails today throughout Europe as the millennial year 1000 approaches, bringing with it the so-called "Y1K Bug," a menace which, until recently, hardly anyone had ever heard of. Prophets of doom are warning that the entire fabric of Western Civilization, based as it now is upon monastic computations, could collapse, and that there is simply not enough time left to fix the problem.
Just how did this disaster-in-the-making ever arise? Why did no one anticipate that a change from a three-digit to a four-digit year would throw into total disarray all liturgical chants and all metrical verse in which any date is mentioned? Every formulaic hymn, prayer, ceremony and incantation dealing with dated events will have to be re-written to accommodate three extra syllables. All tabular chronologies with three-space year columns, maintained for generations by scribes using carefully hand-ruled lines on vellum sheets, will now have to be converted to four-space columns, at enormous cost. In the meantime, the validity of every official event, from baptisms to burials, from confirmations to coronations, may be called into question.
"We should have seen it coming ," says Brother Cedric of St. Michael Abbey, here in Canterbury. "What worries me most is that THOUSAND contains the word THOU, which occurs in nearly all our prayers, and of course always refers to God. Using it now in the name of the year will seem almost blasphemous, and is bound to cause terrible confusion. Of course, we could always use Latin, but that might be even worse -- The Latin word for Thousand is Mille which is the same as the Latin for mile. We won't know whether we are talking about time or distance!"
Stonemasons are already reported threatening to demand a proportional pay increase for having to carve an extra numeral in all dates on tombstones, cornerstones and monuments. Together with its inevitable ripple effects, this alone could plunge the hitherto-stable medieval economy into chaos.
A conference of clerics has been called at Winchester to discuss the entire issue, but doomsayers are convinced that the matter is now one of personal survival. Many families, in expectation of the worst, are stocking up on holy water and indulgences.
Quickies
A blind man walks into a lesbian pub and finds his way up to the bar the bar. He orders a pint of lager and sits down. After 10 minutes he is annoyed that nobody has started talking to him so he decides to initiate a conversation. He turns to his left and says to the person he can hear is sitting there 'Do you want to hear this really cool blonde joke I heard the other day, you'll love it.' The lesbian next to him replies 'Before you go any further there is something that you ought to know. You are in a Lesbian pub. The landlady behind the bar is a blonde. The bouncer is a blonde. I'm a 6ft 200lb blonde with a black belt in karate. The girl on my left is a pro wrestler, she's blonde. The girl on your right is a gold medal winning weight lifter, she's blonde. Do you still want to tell your joke? 'Bugger that', said the blind man, 'I don't want to have to explain it five times'
A man in his 40's goes in for a physical. The doctor says, "I have good news and I have bad news." The man says "Give me the bad news first." The doctor says, "There is a problem with your penis, you can only have a few more erections, and then you won't have any more for the rest of your life." The man says, "what in the world is the good news?" The doctor says "We know the number of erections left is exactly 25, so you can plan your use of them accordingly." The man leaves and drives around for a couple of hours pondering his situation about how to confront his wife with the news. When he gets home he tells her "Honey, I have good news, and I have bad news." She says "Give me the good news." He says "Ican only have 25 more erections, and then I can't have anymore ever." She replies, "We can work around that, we will just make a list and only use them when it is absolutely neccesary to fulfill our desires and make the most out of each one. What in the world is the bad news?" He says, "I've already made a list of how I want to use them, you're not on it..."
A young man called John invited his mother over for dinner. During the course of the meal, his mother couldn't help but notice how handsome John's flatmate was. She had long been suspicious of a relationship between the two and this only made her more curious. Over the course of the evening while watching the two interact, she started to wonder if there was more between John and his flatmate than met the eye. Reading his mum's thoughts, John volunteered, "I know what you must be thinking, but I assure you, Simon and I are just flatmates." About a week later Simon came to John saying "Ever since your mother came to dinner I've been unable to find the gravy ladle. You don't suppose she took it, do you? Well, I doubt it, but I'll e-mail her just to be sure." said John. So he sat down at his computer and wrote: Dear Mother, I'm not saying that you 'did' take the gravy ladle from my house, I'm not saying you 'did not' take the gravy ladle, but the fact remains that it has been missing ever since you were here for dinner. Love John Several days later John recieved an e-mail from his mother which read: Dear John, I'm not saying that you 'do' sleep with Simon, and I'm not saying that you 'do not' sleep with Simon, but the fact remains that if Simon was sleeping in his own bed he would have found the gravy ladle by now. Love Mum
Apples and money
"A young man asked an old rich man how he made his money. The old guy fingered his worsted wool vest and said, "Well, son, it was 1932. The depth of the Great Depression. I was down to my last nickel. I invested that nickel in an apple. I spent the entire day polishing the apple and, at the end of the day, I sold the apple for ten cents. The next morning, I invested those ten cents in two apples. I spent the entire day polishing them and sold them at 5 pm for 20 cents. I continued this system for a month, by the end of which I'd accumulated a fortune of $1.37.
"Then my wife's father died and left us two million dollars."
Question: Why did the chicken cross the road?
KINDERGARTEN TEACHER: To get to the other side.
PLATO: For the greater good.
ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross roads.
KARL MARX: It was a historical inevitability.
TIMOTHY LEARY: Because that's the only trip the establishment would let it take.
SADDAM HUSSEIN: This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we were quite justified in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it.
RONALD REAGAN: I forget.
CAPTAIN JAMES T. KIRK: To boldly go where no chicken has gone before.
HIPPOCRATES: Because of an excess of phlegm in its pancreas.
ANDERSEN CONSULTING: Deregulation of the chicken's side of the road was threatening its dominant market position. The chicken was faced with significant challenges to create and develop the competencies required for the newly competitive market.
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.: I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question.
FOX MULDER: You saw it cross the road with your own eyes. How many more chickens have to cross the road before you believe it?
BILL CLINTON: The chicken did not cross the road. I repeat, the chicken did NOT cross the road.
MACHIAVELLI: The point is that the chicken crossed the road. Who cares why? The end of crossing the road justifies whatever motive there was.
FREUD: The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.
BILL GATES: I have just released the new Chicken Office 2000, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your chequebook.
DARWIN: Chickens, over great periods of time, have been naturally selected in such a way that they are now genetically disposed to cross roads.
EINSTEIN: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road moved beneath the chicken depends upon your frame of reference.
BUDDHA: Asking this question denies your own chicken nature.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON: The chicken did not cross the road .. it transcended it.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die. In the rain.
MICHAEL SCHUMACHER: it was an instinctive manoeuvre, the chicken obviously didn't see the road until he had already started to cross.
LUKE SKYWALKER: To look for its father.
How the angel really got on the top of the Christmas Tree:
Santa was very cross. It was Christmas Eve and NOTHING was going right.
Mrs. Claus had burned all the cookies. The elves were complaining about not getting paid for the overtime they had while making the toys.
The reindeer had been drinking all afternoon and were dead drunk.
To make matters worse, they had taken the sleigh out for a spin earlier in the day and had crashed it into a tree.
Santa was furious. "I can't believe it! I've got to deliver millions of presents all over the world in just a few hours -- all of my reindeer are drunk, the elves are on strike and I don't even have a Christmas tree! I sent that stupid Little Angel out HOURS ago to find a tree and he isn't even back yet! What am I going to do?"
Just then, the Little Angel opened the front door and stepped in from the snowy night, dragging a Christmas tree. He says "Yo, fat man! Where do you want me to stick the tree this year?"
And thus the tradition of angels atop the Christmas trees came to pass........
In the BeginningIn the beginning, there was the computer. And God entered:
C:\Let there be light!
Enter user ID
C:\God
Enter password
C:\Omniscient
Invalid password
Enter password
C:\Omnipotent
And God logged on at 12:01:00 AM, Sunday, March 1.
C:\Let there be light!
Unrecognizable command
C:\Create light
Done
C:\Run heaven and earth
And God created Day and Night.
And God saw that there were 0 errors.
And God logged off at 12:02:00 AM, Sunday, March 1.
And God logged on at 12:01:00 AM, Monday, March 2.
C:\Let there be firmament in the midst of water and light
Unrecognizable command. Try again.
C:\Create firmament
Done.
C:\Run firmament
And God divided the waters.
And God saw that there were 0 errors.
And God logged off at 12:02:00 AM, Monday, March 2.
And God logged on at 12:01:00 AM, Tuesday, March 3.
C:\Let the waters under heaven be gathered together unto one
place and let the dry land appear and...
Too many characters in specification string. Try again.
C:\Create dry_land
Done.
C:\Run firmament
And God divided the waters.
And God saw that there were 0 errors.
And God logged off at 12:02:00 AM, Tuesday, March 3.
And God logged on at 12:01:00 AM, Wednesday, March 4.
C:\Create lights in the firmament to divide the day from the night
Unspecified type. Try again.
C:\Create sun_moon_stars
Done
C:\Run sun_moon_stars
And God separated the light from the darkness. The sun ruled over the
day and the moon and stars ruled over the night.
And God saw there were 0 errors.
And God logged off at 12:02:00 AM, Wednesday, March 4.
And God logged on at 12:01:00 AM, Thursday, March 5.
C:\Create fish
Done
C:\Create fowl
Done
C:\Run fish, fowl
And God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that
creepeth wherewith the waters swarmed after its kind and every
winged fowl after its kind.
And God saw there were 0 errors.
And God logged off at 12:02:00 AM, Thursday, March 5.
And God logged on at 12:01:00 AM, Friday, March 6.
C:\Create cattle
Done
C:\Create creepy_things
Done
C:\Now let us make man in our image
Unspecified type. Try again.
C:\Create man
Done
C:\Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue and
have dominion over the fish of the sea and
over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that creepeth
upon the earth.
Too many command operands. Try again.
C:\Run multiplication
Execution terminated. 6 errors.
C:\Insert breath
Done
C:\Run multiplication
Execution terminated. 5 errors.
C:\Move man to Garden of Eden
Filename: Garden of Eden does not exist.
Abort, Retry, Ignore?
C:\Create Garden_of_Eden
Too many parameters
C:\Create Garden.edn
Done
C:\Move man to Garden.edn
Done
C:\Run multiplication
Execution terminated. 4 errors.
C:\Copy woman from man
Done
C:\Run multiplication
Execution terminated. 2 errors.
C:\Create desire
Done
C:\Run multiplication
And God saw man and woman being fruitful and multiplying in
Garden.edn
Warning: No time limit on this run. 1 errors.
C:\Create freewill
Done
C:\Run freewill
And God saw man and woman being fruitful and multiplying in
Garden.edn
Warning: No time limit on this run. 1 errors.
C:\Undo desire
Desire cannot be undone once freewill is created.
C:\Destroy freewill
Freewill is an inaccessible file and cannot be destroyed.
Enter replacement, cancel, or ask for help.
C:\Help
Desire cannot be undone once freewill is created. Freewill is an
inaccessible file and cannot be destroyed.
Enter replacement, cancel, or ask for help.
C:\Create tree_of_knowledge
And God saw man and woman being fruitful and multiplying in
Garden.edn
Warning: No time limit on this run. 1 errors.
C:\Create good, evil
Done
C:\Activate evil
And God saw he had created shame.
Warning system error in sector E95. Man and woman no longer
located in Garden.edn. 1 errors.
C:\Scan Garden.edn for man, woman
Search failed.
Abort, Retry, Ignore?
C:\Delete shame
Shame cannot be deleted once evil has been activated.
C:\Destroy freewill
Freewill is an inaccessible file and cannot be destroyed.
Enter replacement, cancel, or ask for help.
C:\Stop
Unrecognizable command. Try again
C:\Ctrl_Break
C:\Ctrl_Break
C:\Ctrl_Break
ATTENTION ALL USERS *** ATTENTION ALL USERS:
COMPUTER GOING DOWN FOR REGULAR DAY OF
MAINTENANCE AND REST IN
FIVE MINUTES. PLEASE LOG OFF.
C:\Create new world
You have exceeded allocated file space. You must destroy old files
before new ones can be created.
C:\Destroy earth
Destroy earth: Please confirm.
C:\Destroy earth confirmed
COMPUTER DOWN *** COMPUTER DOWN.
SERVICE WILL RESUME SUNDAY, MARCH 8 AT 6:00 AM. YOU
MUST SIGN OFF NOW.
And God logged off at 11:59:59 PM, Friday, March 6.
On Saturday, March 7, God rested.
On March 8, God created Macintosh.
Hellish humour
This message comes from a graduate of the Univerisity of Oklahoma Chemical Engineering Department via an acquaintance of mine who sends out a "Daily Silly" to a large group of people. It cites one of Dr.Schlambaugh's final test questions for his final exam for 1997. [Note: Dr. Schlambaugh is known for asking questions on his finals like:"Why do airplanes fly?"]
In May 1997, the Momentum, Heat, and Mass Transfer II final exam question was: "Is Hell exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with a proof."
Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law or some variant thereof. One student, however, wrote the following:
"First, we postulate that if souls exist, they must have some mass. If they do, then a mole of souls also must have a mass. So, at what rate are souls moving into hell and at what rate are souls leaving? "I think we can safely assume that once a soul gets to hell, it does not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for souls entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some religions say that if you are not a member of that religion, you will go to Hell. Since there are more than one of these religions, and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and all souls go to Hell.
"With the birth and death rates what they are, we can expect the number of souls in hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change in the volume of Hell. Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in hell to stay the same, the ratio of the mass of the souls and volume needs to stay constant. "A1) So, if Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose. "A2) Of course, if Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase in souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over. So which is it?
"If we accept the postulate given to me by Theresa Banyan during my freshman year, that 'It'll be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you," and taking into account that I still have not succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then A2) cannot be true..., thus, Hell is exothermic."
The student, Tim Graham, got the only A.
Seymore Cray
When Seymore Cray heard that Apple Computers had just bought one of his machines to design the next generation Mac, he retorted that he had just bought a Mac to help him design his next generation super computer....
How Specifications Live Forever
The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used ? Because that's the way they built them in England, and the US railroads were built by English expatriates.
Why did the English people build them like that ? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.
Why did "they" use that gauge then ? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.
Okay ! Why did the wagons use that odd wheel spacing ? Well, if they tried to use other spacing the wagons would break on some of the old, long distance roads, because that's the spacing of the old wheel ruts.
So who built these old rutted roads ? The first long distance roads in Europe were built by Imperial Rome for the benefit of their legions. The roads have been used ever since.
And the ruts ? The initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagons, were first made by Roman war chariots. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Thus, we have the answer to the original questions.
The US standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches derives from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman army war chariot. Specs and bureaucracies live forever. So, the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may be exactly right. Because the Imperial Roman chariots were made to be just wide enough to accommodate the back-ends of two horse's.
Scientists
German scientists dug 50 meters underground and discovered small pieces of copper. After studying these pieces for a long time, Germany announced that the ancient Germans 25,000 years ago had a nationwide telephone network.
Naturally, the British government was not that easily impressed. They ordered their own scientists to dig even deeper. 100 meters down, they found small pieces of glass, and they soon announced that the ancient Brits 35,000 years ago already had a nationwide fibre net.
Israeli scientists were outraged. They dug 50, 100 and 200 meters underground, but found absolutely nothing...
They concluded that the ancient Hebrews 55,000 years ago had cellular telephones.
In The Bit Beginning
In the beginning, God created the bit.
And the bit was a zero.
On the first day, he toggled the 0 to 1, and the Universe was. (In those days,
bootstrap loaders were simple, and "active low" signals didn't yet
exist.)
On the second day, God's boss wanted a demo, and tried to read the bit.
This being volatile memory, the bit reverted to a 0. And the universe wasn't.
God learned the importance of backups and memory refresh, and spent the rest of
the day (and his first all-nighter) reinstalling the universe.
On the third day, the bit cried "Oh, Lord! If you exist, give me a
sign!"
And God created rev 2.0 of the bit, even better than the original prototype.
Those in Universe Marketing immediately realised that "new and
improved" wouldn't do justice to such a grand and glorious creation. And so
it was dubbed the Most Significant Bit. Many bits followed, but only one was so
honoured.
On the fourth day, God created a simple ALU with 'add' and 'logical shift' instructions. And the original bit discovered that -- by performing a single shift instruction -- it could become the Most Significant Bit. And God realised the importance of computer security.
On the fifth day, God created the first mid-life kicker, rev 2.0 of the ALU, with wonderful features, and said "Forget that add and shift stuff. Go forth and multiply." And God saw that it was good.
On the sixth day, God got a bit overconfident, and invented pipelines, register hazards, optimising compilers, crosstalk, restartable instructions, microinterrupts, race conditions, and propagation delays. Historians have used this to convincingly argue that the sixth day must have been a Monday.
On the seventh day, an engineering change introduced Windows into the Universe, and it hasn't worked right since.
Which language is right for you?
In order to help you make a competent, uncomplicated choice concerning the competition between complex, incompatible computer compilers, we have composed this complete, compact, composite compendium comprising comparisons to compensate for the complaints and complements of their compromises. We hope you will find it comprehensible rather than compost.Courtesy Jay Carlson of the Mitre Corporation Washington DC.
TASK: Shoot yourself in the foot.
370 JCL
- You send your foot down to MIS and include a 400-page document explaining exactly how you want it to be shot. Three years later, your foot comes back deep-fried.
6502, Z80, 8080, 80286, 80x86
- You foot yourself in the shoot.
6800
- You shoot yourself in the foot.
6809
- You shoot half a bullet in your foot and the other half in someone else's foot.
68000
- You can't decide which gun and which bullet to use, so you hang yourself.
Access
- You try to point the gun at your foot, but it shoots holes in all your Borland distribution diskettes instead.
Ada
- The United States Department of Defense kidnaps you, stands you up in front of a firing squad, and tells the soldiers, "Shoot at his feet."
- A fly lands on your foot. After filling out the appropriate forms, in triplicate, you succeed in requisitioning an M-16 to deal with the fly. You then proceed to shoot your foot off. The fly survives.
APL
- GN
You hear a gunshot, and there's a hole in your foot, but you don't remember enough linear algebra to understand what the hell happened.- You shoot yourself in the foot, then spend all day figuring out how to do it in fewer characters.
Assembly
- You try to shoot yourself in the foot, only to discover you must first invent the gun, the bullet, the trigger, and your foot.
- You crash the OS and overwrite the root disk. The system administrator arrives and shoots you in the foot. After a moment of contemplation, the administrator shoots himself in the foot and then hops around the room rabidly shooting at everyone in sight.
BASIC (interpreted)
- You shoot yourself in the foot with a water pistol until your leg is waterlogged and falls off.
BASIC (compiled)
- You shoot yourself in the foot with a BB using a SCUD missile launcher.
C
- You shoot yourself in the foot and then no one else can figure out what you did.
C++
- You create a dozen instances of yourself and shoot them all in the foot. Providing emergency medical care is impossible since you can't tell which are bitwise copies and which are just pointing at the others and saying, "That's me, over there!"
COBOL
- USE HANDGUN.COLT(45), AIM AT LEG.FOOT, THEN WITH ARM.HAND.FINGER ON HANDGUN.COLT(TRIGGER) PERFORM SQUEEZE, RETURN HANDGUN.COLT TO HIP.HOLSTER.
Concurrent Euclid
- You shoot yourself in somebody else's foot.
csh
% ls
foot.c foot.h foot.o toe.c toe.o
% rm * .o
rm: .o no such file or directory
% ls
%
- After searching the manual until your foot falls asleep, you shoot the computer and switch to C.
dBase
- You buy a gun. Bullets are only available from another company and are promised to work so you buy them. Then you find out that the next version of the gun is the one that is scheduled to actually shoot bullets.
FORTH
- Foot in yourself shoot.
FORTRAN
- You shoot yourself in each toe, iteratively, until you run out of toes. You shoot the sixth bullet anyway since no exception-processing was anticipated.
HyperTalk
- Put the first bullet of gun into foot left of leg of you. Answer the result.
LISP
- You shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds...
Logo
- The turtle runs over your foot several times.
Modula-2
- You perform a shooting on what might currently be a foot with what might currently be a bullet shot by what might currently be a gun.
Motif
- You spend days writing a UIL description of your foot, the bullet, its trajectory, and the intricate scrollwork on the ivory handles of the gun. When you finally get around to pulling the trigger, the gun jams.
occam
- You shoot both your feet with several guns at once.
ORCA/C
- Byteworks keeps promising to supply good ammunition RSN!
Paradox
- Not only can you shoot yourself in the foot, your users can, too.
Pascal
- Same as Modula-2, except the bullet is not of the right type for the gun and your hand is blown off.
- You try to shoot yourself in the foot, but it tells you that your foot is the wrong type and out of range to boot!
PL/I
- After consuming all system resources including bullets, the data processing department doubles its size, acquires two new mainframes and drops the original on your foot.
Prolog (interpreted)
- Your program tries to shoot you in the foot, but you die of old age before the bullet leaves the gun.
Prolog (compiled)
- The facts are against you. You try to stop the gun from shooting you in the foot, but it replies, "No."
Revelation
- You are sure you will be able to shoot yourself in the foot, just as soon as you figure out what all those nifty little bullet-thingies are for.
Smalltalk, Actor
- After playing with the graphics for three weeks the programming manager shoots you in the head.
SNOBOL
- Grab your foot with your hand and rewrite your hand to be a bullet.
- If you succeed, shoot yourself in the left foot. If you fail, shoot yourself in the right foot.
Visual BASIC
- You really only appear to have shot yourself in the foot, but you have so much fun doing it that you won't care.
We seem to missing the object orientated languages from the many lists of foot shooting around:
Magik
- After thinking making your hand inherit behaviour from your foot would be good idea, you lose your holding abilities and drop the gun on your foot.
Eiffel
- You create a GUN object, two FOOT objects and a BULLET object. The GUN passes both the FOOT objects a reference to the BULLET. The FOOT objects increment their hole counts and forget about the BULLET. A little demon then drives a garbage truck over your feet and grabs the bullet (both of it) on the way.
Smalltalk
- You send the message shoot to gun, with selectors bullet and myFoot. A window pops up saying Gunpowder doesNotUnderstand: spark. After several fruitless hours spent browsing the methods for Trigger, FiringPin and IdealGas, you take the easy way out and create ShotFoot, a subclass of Foot with an additional instance variable bullet hole.
> GREAT THINKERS OF OUR TIME...??? <
1. Question: If you could live forever, would you and why?
Answer: =
"I would not live forever, because we should not live forever,
because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever,
but we cannot live forever,
which is why I would not live forever."
---Miss Alabama in the 1994 Miss USA contest
2. "Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the
world, I can't help but cry. I mean I'd love to be skinny like that but
not with all those flies and death and stuff."
---Mariah Carey
3. "Researchers have discovered that chocolate produces some of
the
same reactions in the brain as marijuana.
The researchers also discovered other similarities between the two, but
can't remember what they are."
---Matt Lauer on NBC's Today Show, August 22
4. "I haven't committed a crime.
What I did was fail to comply with the law."
---David Dinkins, New York City Mayor,
(answering accusations that he failed to pay his taxes)
5. "Smoking kills. If you're killed, you've lost a very important
part
of your life."
---Brooke Shields, during an interview to become spokesperson for a
federal anti-smoking campaign.
6. "I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my
body."
---Winston Bennett, Univ. of KY basketball forward
7. "Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime
rates in the country."
---Mayor Marion Barry, Washington, DC
8. "We're going to turn this team around 360 degrees."
---Jason Kidd, upon his drafting to the Dallas Mavericks
9. "I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers.
We are the president."
---Hillary Clinton (commenting on the release of subpoenaed documents)
10. "China is a big country, inhabited by many
Chinese."
---Former French President Charles De Gaulle
11. "That lowdown scoundrel deserves to be kicked to
death by a
jackass, and I'm just the one to do it."
---A Congressional Candidate in Texas
12. "It isn't pollution that's harming the environment.
It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it."
---Former U. S. Vice-President Dan Quayle
13. "Without censorship, things can get terribly confused
in the
public mind."
---General William Westmoreland
And last but not least, a parting word from Dan Quayle:
14. "I love California.
I practically grew up in
Phoenix."
These are the nominees for the Chevy Nova Award. This is given out in
honor of the GM's fiasco in trying to market this car in Central and
South America. "No va" means, of course, in Spanish, "it doesn't
go".
1. The Dairy Association's huge success with the campaign "Got
Milk?"
prompted them to expand advertising to Mexico. It was soon brought to
their attention the Spanish translation read "Are you
lactating?"
2. Coors put its slogan, "Turn It Loose," into Spanish, where it
was
read as "Suffer From Diarrhea."
3. Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an
American campaign: "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux."
4. Clairol introduced the "Mist Stick," a curling iron, into
Germany
only to find out that "mist" is slang for manure. Not too many
people had use for
the "Manure Stick."
5. When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same
packaging as in the US, with the smiling baby on the label. Later they
learned that in Africa, companies routinely put pictures on the labels
of what's inside, since many people can't read.
6. Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a
notorious porno magazine.
7. An American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish
market which promoted the Pope's visit. Instead of "I saw the
Pope" (el Papa),
the shirts read "I Saw the Potato" (la papa).
8. Pepsi's "Come Alive With the Pepsi Generation" translated
into "Pepsi
Brings Your Ancestors Back >From the Grave" in Chinese.
9. The Coca-Cola name in China was first read as "Kekoukela",
meaning
"Bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with
wax", depending on
the
dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 characters to find a phonetic
equivalent "kokou kole", translating into "happiness in the
mouth."
10. Frank Perdue's chicken slogan, "It takes a strong man to make a
tender chicken" was translated into Spanish as "it takes an aroused
man to make
a chicken affectionate."
11. When Parker Pen marketed a ball-point pen in Mexico, its ads were
supposed to have read, "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass
you."
The company thought that the word "embarazar" (to
impregnate) meant to
embarrass, so the ad read: "It won't leak in your pocket and make you
pregnant!"
12. When American Airlines wanted to advertise its new leather first
class
seats in the Mexican market, it translated its "Fly In Leather"
campaign
literally, which meant "Fly Naked" (vuela en cuero) in Spanish!